First Peter 1:10, we’ll deal with these two verses quickly. “Concerning this salvation.” So the question I want you to ask as we read these two verses is, what’s the big point? It’s kind of an odd turn in the argument. What’s he doing?

Concerning this salvation [that we are now receiving and that he just described in our inheritance] the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when they predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. (1 Peter 1:10–11)

Divine Revelation to Prophets and Angels

That relates directly to your question earlier about are there divine purposes for an inspired writing that are more than the human purposes? Well, this is a clear example of yes. When Isaiah wrote, “He will be despised by men, by his wounds you have been healed.” When he wrote Isaiah 53, I think he must have just said, “Wow, when is that going to happen, and what will that look like?”

I mean, my guess is Isaiah had fifteen questions as he wrote that, that we have answers to, and he didn’t because of the way the New Testament shows the fulfillment of Isaiah 53 in Jesus. But the point here is those prophets, as they were prophesying, searched, inquired carefully, what sort of person is this in predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories?

So there’s the prophets, and now look at this. First Peter 1:12:

It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

Actually should have probably circled all that because it seems to me what you have here is here’s prophets and here’s angels and what are they both doing?

They’re both desiring to look into what’s going on in your life and in God’s work of salvation, in history with Jesus Christ. Things into which angels long to look, things into which prophets searched, this longing to look here and this searching and inquiring carefully here, what’s the point? Why did he pause to say that?

Upping the Ante of Hope

All the stuff I’ve been talking about in 1 Peter 1:1–9, prophets ached to understand more of what they were saying in terms of who it was and when it would be. And angels want to look down and know more. They can’t experience this. They’d never sinned. They said, “What are you doing down there on the earth? What is this incredible plan of salvation?” The angels are on tiptoes, longing to look into this.

And my answer to the question, what is Peter doing? He’s upping the ante of the preciousness of the foundation of our hope.

The effective verses 10, 11, and 12 that they should have on us is to make us say, “Well, if prophets were that zealously inquiring, and if angels are that zealously inquiring, we should be. We should value what we have, we should rejoice in this.” In this you rejoice, for prophets wanted to know more about it. In this you rejoice, for angels wish they could look into it. I think that’s the way it functions in the argument.

First Peter 1:13–16: “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you. Set your hope fully.”

We have not had an imperative until this point in 1 Peter. All we have is foundations, foundations, foundations for hope. Born again to a living hope, refined gold faith so that you will have the hope of being praised and honored, prophets and angels calling you to be as intensely engaged as they are in this hope, and finally he says, “So hope.” It’s a command. Hope.

Emotions Are Commanded

“Hope fully in the grace.” And just another little parentheses here, I still deal with people, not as many as I used to, who argue that you cannot command emotions. And so, they draw strange inferences from the Bible because emotions are commanded everywhere. This has a huge effect on what kind of theology you will have. If you don’t believe that emotions can be commanded because you can’t produce them like turning on a water spigot, you’ll have one theology.

If you admit I can’t turn emotions on and off like a water spigot, nevertheless they are commanded. You’ll have another theology. One is called Augustinian and the other one is called Semi-Pelagianism or Pelagianism. It doesn’t matter whether you buy any of those terms or not, but Augustine said this.

Everybody should read Augustine’s confessions, so I invite you to read it. You won’t be disappointed. It’s the longest prayer ever written in history of the world, I think. It’s all prayer. Can you write three hundred pages of prayer? And in it he says — it’s the story of his life. He was quite the lecturer. He had a concubine for what? Sixteen years? And I mean the story of Augustine’s life and conversion and ministry is phenomenal.

And he tells the story and in it, he says, “Command what you will and grant what you command.” He knew that he was being commanded to be chaste and he couldn’t do it sexually. That was the immediate context of that statement. “Command what you will.” Everybody agrees with that. “Grant what you command.” Theologies divide. And I’m suggesting that when Peter says, “Hope! Feel hope rising in your heart for the inheritance!”

You know, you can’t make that happen. You cannot obey that command by yourself. Some things you could do, if he had said, “Get up out of your chair right now.” You’d say, “Okay, got that, I can do that.” But if he says hope or love or be grateful or fear or rejoice, you know you can’t push a button and make that happen, which makes us depend on God. So this is a call for us to cry out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

Girding Up the Loins of Your Mind

Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:13–16)

Start here. “Prepare your minds for action” is a paraphrase of the literal rendering: gird up the loins of your minds. Gird up the loins of your mind.

So you’re wearing a cloak, like this, and you need to move. So you reach down and you grab the backside of the rope and you pull it up like this and create shorts. You’re now wearing Bermuda shorts or cargo shorts or whatever because it comes to about right here. And then you put a belt around to hold what you just pulled up between your legs. And now you can run before you had this big robe and you couldn’t do anything. That’s the picture.

Gird up the loins, your loins are your hips, and you’re pulling up the stuff between your legs, wrapping it around. And now you can move, you can act, you can fight, you can go. And he’s saying your mind can be so robed, its loins can be so robed, it’s just sluggish.

Ever had sluggish mind? Yes. And he said, “Come on, come on.” Which means he’s telling us two ways to set your hope fully. He knows you can’t make hope start, but he’s telling you two ways to move toward it. One gird up the loins of your minds and the other is be sober. It’s just sober. It’s a metaphor for don’t be drunk.

So, there are two things: that the mind has robes that have to be pulled up so the mind can act and be nimble and think over what I say. And then there’s drunkenness, which is a metaphor for just living in a stupor. You don’t even know. You’re not thinking clear. Everything’s hazy. You don’t know what’s going on.

This is such a beautiful justification for what we’re doing here. “Come on, come on, let’s gird up the loins of our minds in this seminar. Let’s drink lots of coffee and get the caffeine counteracting the alcohol.” And so now we’re thinking clearly we might be shaken, but we’re thinking clearly we’re seeing our hope. And if you see it clearly, he believes you’re going to feel it. You’re going to feel it.

So, two ways to set your hope fully on the Lord. Gird up the loins of your minds and be sober. Don’t be drunk. We’re people of the day, not people of the night. Get enough sleep. Don’t live entirely on caffeine. Do it God’s way. Sleep for nine hours.

I’d love to do just a little talk about body and mind, but set your hope fully having girded your mind so that you think clearly, having sobered up so that you can not see people like they’re trees walking around and hope fully in the grace, this is grace that’s coming to you. You don’t deserve it. This is grace.

So if the devil starts whispering in your ear, “You don’t measure up for the hope.” “I know that. It’s called grace. Grace is coming to me, Mr. Devil. Just get the hell out of here where you belong and leave me alone because grace is coming to me. I know I don’t deserve it, but I’m banking on it. I’m banking on grace coming to me.”

Conduct Reflecting Hope

First Peter 1:14: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.” Okay, now just get the flow here: hope, conduct.

So I’m always asking right here, what’s the relationship between those two verses? What’s the relationship between the two imperatives? Hopefully in grace it’s coming. Conduct yourselves as obedient children and don’t be conformed to your former passions. Do not be conformed. “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct” (1 Peter 1:14–15).

That’s the main imperative of 1 Peter 1:14–15, and the clue is that this hope here is the ground and the enabling power of this conduct. And you can see it in the way he links it with these passions here. “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.” Okay, so there’s ignorance of truth that he’s been unpacking in 1 Peter 1:1–12. And according to that ignorance, there are passions. Passions that flow from ignorance.

Ignorant of the inheritance. You go to the average person in Vancouver and say, “Are you going to inherit the world when you die?” They will look at you and say, “No.” Well, you’re ignorant.” You could. You could. And if they believed you, their passions would change. Would they change? Their passions would change. They’re called passions of former ignorance. And this ignorance is related to what we do with our minds here. With our minds what are we doing?

We’re finding knowledge. I want to know something that would give me hope and that hope is a new passion replacing the old passion that accorded with the ignorance when I didn’t know anything about the fact that I was going to have an inheritance kept in heaven for me. So the point is, new passions — new affections — produce new conduct. And if you try to turn it around, you don’t have Christianity anymore.

I’m a Christian Hedonist for theological reasons. I am after people’s affections, their hearts, their emotions, their feelings, because all of our behaviors come from this. There may be a few behaviors that you do by dent of willpower against your passions. Very few. Ninety-nine percent of what you do is out of the abundance of the heart. The mouth speaks and the arms move and you live.

Therefore, the number one issue in life is having new passions. Isn’t that what this says? “As obedient children,” that’s what we want to be, children of God, as obedient children, we should not be formed. Don’t be conformed to this world. Be transformed. We should not be formed, conform to passions that we’re rooted in ignorance. So we’re spending five hours together trying to banish ignorance, increase knowledge, awaken passions, new conduct. Vancouver sees and gives glory to God. That’s 1 Peter, just said it. We could all go home now.

What Christianity Is Not and Is

Now, with the summary. Hope totally replacing all the passions that drive you into sin, according to ignorance, new passions, new hopes, new joy, inexpressible, overflowing, full of glory producing holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16).

God does not come to you this morning and say, “Okay, holiness is what I want from you. All right? And here’s some things that are going to be holy. You don’t sleep with her anymore until you’re married and you’re not going to get drunk on the weekends and you’re just going to stop stealing and you’re not going to lie anymore. Okay, let’s get about it.” That’s just totally not Christianity.

He comes to you and spends twelve verses saying, “Do you see the hope that you have? Do you see the inheritance? Do you see how it’s imperishable and undefiled? Do you see how God is keeping you for it? Do you see how he is first putting you through fire in order to make it precious so that you receive glory and praise and art? Do you see that? Do you have knowledge? Now if you do, you’ve got some new passions and these old ones, these old ones right here, they’re not going to govern you anymore and therefore your conduct will be holy.”

Holiness is three steps out. Knowledge. Gird up the loins of your mind. Be sober. See the world as it really is. See eternity. See the value of the hope. Feel new passions. Do new conduct. That’s Christianity.