Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the chapter that we read,
1 Peter chapter 1, and reading from our text, verse 13. Verse 13. Wherefore gird up the
loins of your mind, be sober and hope to the end, for the
grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus
Christ. 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 13. Peter had been given the charge
by the Lord that when he was converted after he'd been in
Satan's sieve, that he was to strengthen his brethren. And
that is what he seeks to do in his epistles. He is very mindful
of the trials of the brethren. He himself, knowing what it is
to be tempted by Satan, what it was to fall, he is very tender
towards the people of God that are likely to be in those same
trials. And so when he comes to exhort
them, to warn them, to point them into the right way, he's
very careful to lay a foundation first, and the Apostle Paul was
the same in his epistles as well, that he makes it very clear in
the very beginning that he believes that those that he writes to
are truly the people of God. The Lord has blessed them, he
addresses them as brethren, as chosen of God and as blessed
in the Lord Jesus Christ and he acknowledges that right at
the start. He just doesn't jump in and start
to criticize and warn and point in what they should be doing
or shouldn't be doing. He establishes first, I'm coming
before you as those that are brethren. And then he acknowledges
that they are walking in paths of trial. He says, the blessings
that you have, ye greatly rejoice in them, though now, if for a
season if need be, in heaviness through manifold temptations."
And so he acknowledges as well the trials that they're going
through. Real trials. Those things that
no doubt make many of them to really wonder, has the work really
begun? Am I really one of God's children? And so then he comes and he directs
them as to how they are to proceed. In our text it begins with the
wherefore, so it's building upon what has gone before, what he
views the brethren as being called and the trials that they're walking
through, and then gives them a way forward, gives them that
advice and direction how to proceed. And maybe there are those of
you tonight who come into the Lord's house and you think, how
can I proceed? I feel so tempted, so tried,
so full of sin, so discouraged. How shall I proceed? What shall I do? And this is
where the apostle gives the direction. So from our text is really a
turning point from what he has seen. in their path and where
they are, as to now how they are to proceed, giving them some
specific practical advice to the Lord's Tried People. So I
want to, with the Lord's help this evening, look at two points. Firstly, basing on the wherefore,
the reason the advice is given, that which we may glean a little
in the first part, of the chapter and then the practical advice
that is given to the Lord's dear people as flowing forth from
our text. Wherefore, gird up the loins
of your mind, be sober and hope to the end, for the grace that
is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Well, there are four things I
draw your attention to in the first part. The wherefore, the
reason, the advice is given. The first is this, that they
had been begotten by God. In verse 3 we read, Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according
to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope,
that's a living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. And it is because they were called,
because they were quickened into life, that he has been able to
say in verse 2 that they were elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father. We know our election by our calling. And so the apostle draws that
attention to them. You have been called. You've
been gotten by God. He has brought you to have a
real living hope in Him. It was He that did it, and it
flowed through from the Lord Jesus Christ. Your hope was founded
in Him, because Christ had died, yea, rather, risen again. An
assurance is given unto all men in that God raised Him from the
dead. Their hope had begun based on
Christ. based on what Christ had done,
that he had suffered at Calvary, that he had endured the wrath
of God, that he had made atonement for their sins, and that they
had been brought to believe that message and to believe that gospel
and to embrace it and to have a hope through that, a living
hope through the Lord Jesus Christ. We refer to that a bit later
because in the advice as well that is given, it is referring
again later to that hope and keeping alive that hope. We think
of what the apostle says in Hebrews, that we are saved by hope, but
hope that is seen is not hope for what a man seeth, why doth
he yet hope for? And so The blessing of hope,
hope is like an anchor of the soul. We think of how it was
with Bunyan in his Pilgrim's Progress, how that was what was
the help for them in giant despair, and it certainly was as going
through the rivers of Jordan, that it was hope that was to
sustain Christians. So this is the first thing that
he notices of them and it may be that some of you here this
evening need to be reminded of how the Lord first began with
you and how you first were raised up to a hope and what the Lord
Jesus Christ first was to you. Yes, there may have been many
dark clouds and there may be now over your soul, but to go
back And the Holy Spirit is the Remembrance, and we are to remember
all the way. And very often, when the Lord
blesses with spiritual blessings, He has given things that have
happened in the lives of His people as well, so that the devil
can't get in and say that was just imagined. You imagine if
the Apostle Paul saw that he was, had just given his testimony
of being brought into the third heavens and the wonderful blessing
that he'd had on the Damascus road. And people were to say,
as Festus actually did say, Paul thou art mad, much learning made
thee mad, thou art beside thyself. And Paul could have said, he said
most noble Festus I'm not mad but speak the words of soberness
and truth, but he could have said now you look at my life,
look at what I was before the Damascus Road and look at what
I was after. If that was just imagined, if
that was nothing, if that was not the Lord appearing to me,
why did my life profoundly change at that point? They are the things
that accompany salvation, the blessings that, in providence,
that are joined together with the blessings in the soul and
the blessings by grace. So with those that Peter writes
to, May it be a reminder to you as well how the Lord began with
you and how you were called and what the Lord was to you at that
point. The second thing that he brings
before them is that there are people that are kept by God through
faith. And the faith is by the Word
of God. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing
by the Word of God. He doesn't just say that they
are kept by the power of God. Verse 5. He says they are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed
at the last time. All of God's children are kept. He is the keeper of his people. We read in John 10 how that the
people of God are in the Lord's hand and in His Father's hand,
and no man is able to pluck them out of mine hand. It is a blessed
truth, the Lord keeps His people. They cannot fall, they cannot
fall away completely, they will be restored as Peter was restored,
as David was restored, but the Lord uses means. to keep them. That's why we're exhorted to
not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, that we are
to gather around the Word, that if we are to be kept, then the
Lord will use His own Word, He'll use the preaching of the Word,
to keep us in warning us in strengthening our faith and encouraging us
and bringing us back to where the Lord first began with us
so we do not turn out of the way and it is important to remember
that on the two sides of it God does keep his people but he does
use means and he uses the words You know, we're used to it all
the time, aren't we? If we go on the roads, maybe
coming here this evening, we pray for the Lord's preserving
care and keeping on the road. But the Lord uses means, and
we pay attention to the means. There's road rules, and there's
speed limits, and there's signs, and there's directions, and there's
markings on the road. We're just surrounded with things
that are all means and you to help us and to keep us safe the
traffic lights and roundabouts and all things like that and
then inside the car we've got the seatbelts and various things
as well and so we're used to the idea of means and the Lord
does use means and we're to really value the word of God and He
draws your attention to this before he later comes in our
text to speak to them in a practical way as to how they are to proceed,
how they are to be kept. The third thing that I bring
before you as what he speaks concerning them is that though
they had this good hope, they were rejoicing in what the Lord
had done for them, this salvation to be revealed in the last time,
yet they were in a season of trial. Though now for a season,
if need be, you're in heaviness through manifold temptations,
the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold.
He is telling this. He is telling it from having
been brought outside of it. But when we are walking through
it, when we are really being tempted by Satan, when we are
feeling the corruptions of the world, when we are feeling the
world pulling at us, when we feel lifeless and cold and dead
and hard, then that is not a pleasant thing.
Sometimes we wonder where the scene will end and the hymn writer
says, where is the joys, where is the sweet frames that we once
enjoyed, where is the blessedness I knew when first I saw the Lord
is gone. And those are hard times when
we walk in darkness and walk in a trial that is spoken of
here as being a fiery trial, tried with fire. And he does
speak of the blessing of after it is not to destroy but is to
try whether it is the real work of God or not. And we know from
the parable of the sower that there are those trials that come
that prove that those that heard the Word, received the Word,
were not truly the Lords. The first was those that heard
the Word and didn't understand it, and Satan took that straight
away out of their hearts. Then there were those that had
it for a while, but then with the times of persecution, times
of trial, then they were offended. And then there were those that
were choked by the cares of the world and the pleasures and things
of this life. And only the one that understood
the Word, that entered into prepared ground, brought forth fruit. It's a blessed thing to receive
the Word. But the kindness of the Lord
for His people, and it may be that some of you here have had
your prayer, Lord, show me that the work in my heart was real. Show me I'm truly a child of
God. And the Lord's answered your
prayer and put you in a fiery trial. And you thought, now I
seem to have no religion at all. It's all gone. My dear Peter
knew what it was. The Lord didn't say, Peter I
pray for thee that thou dost not deny me. He said that though
faith fail not. And so he went through that trial
and the trial is to burn up all that is not of the Lord. It takes
away what we would have rested on. And really for a person,
for the Lord to show them and say, you're worried whether you're
really one of mine, whether it's just a natural religion, I withhold
my grace for a while. You see what you are on your
own. And in that trial you see what you are on your own. And
you have no life, no grace, nothing at all. And then the Lord sustains
you through that time. so that you don't cast everything
away. You still sing, you still wait,
though it is with groans and trials and fears, and then the
Lord comes again like He did to Peter, and He blesses you
again. And then you've learned something,
that your strength is not in self, the blessings are not in
you, but in the Lord. And the Lord has kept you, and
the Lord has come to you again, and blessed you again. Those
trials won't touch the true work of God, that is safe with the
Lord in heaven. But it will burn up a lot of
our own, our own confidence, our own selves, make us less
trustful of ourselves. So Peter with the wherefore he
speaks to a people that are really being dealt with by in these
fiery trials. But then the last thing in this
first point with the wherefore is that he speaks to a people
that are partakers of the salvation spoken of by the prophets. In verse 10 we read of which
salvation the prophets have inquired diligently, who prophesied of
the grace that should come unto you. Here they are in this time,
they're able to look back over all the thousands of years of
the prophets and the prophesying of the coming of the Lord, and
he says, this what is being preached to you, this day of grace, is
fulfilling all of this time. You're not out of the way, you're
not in some strange salvation, in strange work, or a different
God. This is the same eternal God,
whose eternal thought moves on, undisturbed, who has prophesied,
who has set forth all of these things, and is still working,
still blessing, still keeping his people, who chastened his
ancient people, brought them into Babylon, brought them out
of Babylon again, raised them up from and establish them again. This is the same God. This is
the same salvation. May that be an encouraging thought
to some of you here tonight. The blessings that the Lord blesses
tonight are the same blessings as in Peter's day. The same blessings
as what David knew. Those same blessings from the
same eternal God. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
and today, and forever. Partake us with the saints, be
a wonderful thing in heaven, and I believe we will know each
other in heaven. The people of God, you'll be
able to see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and David, and those
that you've known through the scriptures, you'll know them,
you'll recognize them in heaven. The Lord's people from every
nation and from every time, one generation. We read in the end
of Psalm 22, that seed shall be accounted to him for a generation,
but it's out of every generation, all brought in. This is a one
people of God, that they may be one even as we are one. And these are the things that
Peter has chosen to highlight with those that he's written
to, to think of where they are found
in God's whole plan, and may be a thought for some
here, here I am in God's plan, that he's revealed right from
the beginning of the world as a called sinner with a hope of
heaven Yes, in fiery trials, but with the promise of the Lord's
keeping through the Word of God. I want to look then at what he
says following this. In our text, wherefore, because
this is the position you're found in, wherefore gird up the loins
of your mind, be sober and hope to the end, for the grace that
is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
He's pointing them to the coming of the Lord, when the Lord is
revealed from heaven, when we shall see Him as He is. And he's pointing them to how
to act and how to walk. Now it's not just this verse
13, I want to look at with the Lord's help, but right through
to the end of this chapter there are seven words of very clear
advice that he gives to those that he writes to those that
he has described in the first part and may it be a help to some
of us here tonight The first is to gird up the loins of the
mind. In fact there's three points
in the verse of our text, verse 13. Remember the Apostle Paul
when he writes to the Romans and in chapter 7 he speaks to
them of the conflict that he had in his members. between the law of sin and the
law of grace, or the law of his mind. And he says, the good that
I would I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do.
He says, I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is
present with me. For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man. But I see another law in my members
warring against the law of my mind. And what the Apostle Paul
knew of this conflict, so did Peter, and so he knows also of
the children of God. But when he says, O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
He then gives an answer, and he says, I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself
serve the law of God. And we know that the Lord works
in the heart and out of the abundance of the heart man speaketh. The
Lord uses the mind and he uses a people that are made willing
in the day of his power. And so the very first point that
he makes here to these scattered strangers is to gird up the loins
of your mind. Now there's a reference here
to those in Palestine that worked with long flowing robes. Well they couldn't work with
long flowing robes. They gathered those robes up
and put them in their belt. They girded up their loins so
that then they could work or run. They didn't let them just
flow every which way. And that's the idea here. The
apostles say to the people of God, don't just let your mind
just drift this way and that way and wherever it wants to
and whatever it sees, just wander off. But check it, gird it up,
saying, wait, what are you thinking about now? You stop thinking
about that. And you'll find it goes on and
on, so many things. I've known what it is to be sitting
in the Lord's house. The minister will say something
and it'll bring something to my mind and next minute I realize
I've missed 10 minutes, 15 minutes of the sermon because my mind
has gone on to this that I've been thinking about. And it's
so easy. And when you realize it, you
think, hey, what are you doing? You're missing out here. And
you gird that. You gird your mind in. You say,
you stop. You're not thinking about that
anymore. Five minutes later, you realize you're doing the
same thing again. And it's constant. Our minds are just running hither
and thither all the time. So this is what he says. You
gird up the loins of your mind. Now, even in his advice like
that, Do you not find that encouragement? As if Peter would say, I know
what you mean, and I've seen several of you, the way you reacted
when I've just mentioned about that. You know what I'm talking
about. And you say, Peter, he knows what he's talking about
too. He knows your path. And that
in itself is encouraging, isn't it? Because it can be very discouraging
when you think, how easy I'm distracted. how easy I'm carried
away. So that is the first advice that
he gives to them here and will happen again and again and again
that we see to gird it up. The second is to be sober. Of course we know in a literal
sense if someone is not sober, if they've drunk, if they've
had too much to drink, then They're not able. They're not able to
concentrate on things and to do what they normally would be
able to do. And the idea not only is in that
way, but instead of getting taken away with the light, frivolous,
empty things of this life, to actually be sober in the way that we deal
with things. We have a word in the Proverbs
and it says, Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest
thou be like him, but answer a fool according to his folly,
lest he be wise in his own conceit. And you say, well, why is there
two charges? One don't answer him and another
one do. If you answer a fool in a foolish
way, you're just going to be like him. But if he speaks foolishly
to you, and you answer him in a serious, sober way, that reproves
him, and reproves his folly. And that's how we are to act. I remember once the Lord gave
me a wonderful opening. I was working, and I was a design
draftsman. I went out into the workshop,
speaking to the chaps working there, and one of them used to
quite often bait me on the things of God. This is when I was in
my early twenties. And he said to me once, he said,
Rowling, he said, why don't you have a good time? He said, get
out and go down to the pub and really have a good time. He said,
life's short, you know. And I turned around to him and
said, Tom, I said, life is short. And the Lord opened my mouth
and I was able to speak most soberly and clearly to Him. And
on His part, He was just light, trifling, take nothing seriously. On my part, the Lord gave me
to turn that about to all seriousness. And I believe in this way, when
we live in a world that will treat everything just with the
lightness or carelessness, It is becoming us to be sober in
that way, in what we do. Gravity, seriousness, soberness. So that's the second advice that
he gives. So easy to be drawn. And again
I say to Moshein, there's times I have been drawn. into levity
and things like that in the lunchroom and then something has come up
and my conscience has said you should speak now don't let that
go and I thought how can I speak I've just been in this light
trifling frame I'm not fit to speak I'm not ready to and I
couldn't and so it doesn't fit us at all for any Christian exercise
when we are not in a sober frame. The third thing here is to hope
to the end. Now I said when we spoke of the
first points that they had been begotten again in verse 3 unto
a lively hope. That's what the Lord gave to
them right at the very beginning was a hope, a living hope. So
then he adds with his advice that they are to hope to the
end. Perhaps there's some of you this
evening and you've been very tried on this. In fact you're
beginning to not hope at all, you're beginning to give up hope,
thinking yours is a hopeless case. Well this is not, he doesn't
say to these people in the fiery trials here, just give up. Don't
hope anymore. Yours is a hopeless case." He
doesn't say that. In fact, he encourages them the
other way, to hope to the end. As if you say, I know what it
is to be tempted to give up hope and to stop hoping and not hope
to the end. But don't walk that path. Hope
to the end. What do you hope for? for the
grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus
Christ. I believe those revealings of
Christ, not just at the end, it's along the way as well. Like
the Lord appeared to dear Peter, lovest thou me more than these. The apostle Paul knew what it
was to value the grace of God. My grace is sufficient for thee. But our hope must be in God,
not in man, not in ourselves. The fourth thing is to be as
obedient children. In verse 14, as obedient children,
not fastening yourselves according to the form of lust in your ignorance. And this is tied in also with
verse 22, where, again, it's saying you have purified your
souls in obeying the truth. So, he sets them in a path of
obedience. And faith walks in that way.
You know, there's such a prevalence with us, to test everything that's
set before us, and if we don't agree with it, we don't do it.
But you know, those in the armed forces are trained, you don't
question what your officer is telling you, you do it! And your
life depends upon it, to obey. And how much more we're exhorted
as believing the Word of God, trusting in the Word of God,
having faith in the Word of God, to obey the Word of God, and
to walk in that. So he sets before them a path
of obedience. But he doesn't just say, be obedient. He says, as obedient children.
What a beautiful encouragement He just puts in that. You are
a child of God. You have a Heavenly Father and
He is the one that is kindly correcting you and directing
you. Then in the fifth place is an
exhortation, verses 15 and 16, to holiness. In all manner of
conversation, all manner of our lives, we live in a world that
is totally unholy and our own hearts are unholy and unclean
and the exhortation is to be holy and I feel I need this every
day, every day because we have such a fallen nature and so much
around that is so unholy. And so the apostle, he gives
an incentive, because it is written, Be ye holy for I am holy. Notice again he's bringing to
the Word of God. Faith is how God's people are
kept, and they're kept by faith in the Word of God. Then we have
in the sixth place that we are to pass the time of our sojourning
here in fear. Again, he is introducing the
various other things in the directions that he is actually giving them. And so he says, you are sojourning
here, you're not living here, forever, you're just passing
through here. But in verse 17 there, he says,
pass the time of your sojourning in fear. And he gives four reasons
for this. He says the first is that ye
are not redeemed with gold and silver. You're not just paid
for with something that's hard and cold cash. The second reason
is He gives that you are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. Christ suffered for you. He laid
down His life for your soul. He shed His precious blood for
your soul. And the third thing He says is
that Christ, He was foreordained for us. before the foundation
of the world, in verse 20, who verily was foreordained before
the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last
times for you. He points then that this that
they have had is not just a blessing that is just quickly come now,
but was actually appointed before the foundation of the world in
Christ. are now given to you. Christ
is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. His people are
chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. The Lord says of
His Father, Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me. And
this is to be an incentive to fear the Lord, that what the
Lord has blessed us with is eternal blessing. from eternity past
to eternity to come. And the last thing in regard
to fear is that it is through the Lord Jesus Christ that we've
been brought to believe. In verse 21, who by him do believe
in God that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory,
that your faith and hope might be in God. When we realize that
It is Christ that makes a believer and gives him his crown. What
an incentive to walk in the fear of the Lord and tenderness, knowing
that our comforts, our joys, are dependent upon the Lord giving
them to us. How easy we can lose our comforts,
how easy we can grieve the Spirit, whereby we are sealed unto the
day of redemption, and how long a time it might be until He comes
again. and blesses us again. And so
he gives the reasons why we should walk in the tender fear of God
here below. Well the last thing that he gives
them as direction is to love the brethren. And so he says
in the latter part of verse 22, or seeing you have purified your
souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love
of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure
heart fervently. John in his epistles, he gives
it as a very clear evidence of being a child of God. We know
that we have passed from death unto life in that we love the
brethren. you say well John does that mean
then it's just automatic we love the brethren and if it doesn't
come automatically then I'm not a child of God but here he implies
there are times that you've got to see that you love your brethren
there'll be those things that come in between we're exhorted
to forbear one another in love bearing and forbearing one another
in love And we are still exhorted to do those things that are given
us by grace and a blessing in our souls. And he says, watch this. By this shall all men know that
ye are my disciples indeed in that ye love one another. Sometimes
it's that which we need to really be careful of because Satan is
a separator of friends, of chief friends and he comes in and where
he can bring envy and malice and pride and jealousies then
it divides and it takes away that love. Love covereth a multitude
of sins and if we are to have that comfort and joy and peace
in the Lord it will be in the setting of the love. that the
Lord has loved us, and even so ought we to lay down our lives
for the brethren." And we notice that Peter, this is his first
epistle and the first chapter, and how he is so carefully encouraging
them on the one hand, and as to what blessings they've already
got, and then on the other hand, warning and pointing them in
real practical advice how they are to walk so that they will
be truly kept and preserved and have the joy and blessings of
the Lord to be upon them. And notice what we've said regarding
love and how he starts the very next chapter Wherefore, laying
aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies,
and all evil speakings, he still is following on this same course
and same way." Well, may this be a help to us tonight. We see this not just as Peter's
word, this is the Lord speaking unto us through Peter. This is
Peter fulfilling what the Lord gave him to do, to strengthen
the brethren. So let not Satan take that away
from any tonight. If you go from the Lord's house,
you say the word of the Lord this evening was designed, was
given to strengthen the brethren, not to weaken them, not to take
away their hope, but to send them away helped and strengthened. The Lord send help from the sanctuary
and strength out of Zion and help especially those in fiery
trials this evening. May the Lord out his blessings.
Amen.