09/06/2026
We've been studying through the book of 1 Peter in our Sunday morning Bible class, and there is a lesson that I want to pull out of this. It is in the book of 1 Peter, chapter 1—chapter 1, starting in verse 13.
1 Peter 1:13 says:
“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
There's this perspective being presented here from Peter that you want to be ready for something, that there's action involved, and it is in your mind. It's an interesting way to set this up. He says, “Prepare your minds for action.”
A lot of times we think about, “Well, prepare my body for action,” right? But no—prepare your mind for action.
Why?
Well, he says, “being sober-minded.” That's being conscious of the moment. That's being aware, thinking about what is happening and what the reality of the situation around you is.
“Being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
So it's an interesting thing that he brings up here. He doesn't just say, “Set your hope on.” He says, “Set your hope fully.”
The added emphasis is there. Make sure this is a priority. Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
The reference is to salvation, to knowing, “My hope is in Jesus, and after this life, I'm going to be with Him.” That's the concept that's being presented here.
And it's, “Set your hope fully on that.” Don't divide it.
Interesting. If my hope is set fully on something, then it's not also set elsewhere, right? Set your hope fully on this—and then not also elsewhere.
The reason why I think this is significant is because I think this is where we get in trouble sometimes as Christians. We kind of get this idea that God needs to bless us in a certain way. Or maybe we've been praying about something specifically, or looking forward to some event or something that's going on, and we think, “I really hope that God just does this for me. I really hope this or that goes well.”
And then sometimes, when maybe it doesn't, the answer is no.
“Why didn't God do it the way that I wanted Him to do it?”
So, in other words, what I'm getting at is that sometimes we set our hope in areas where God hasn't really said, “I'm going to grant this to you,” or “I'm going to make this work out for you.”
The hope is fully set on the salvation aspect of it.
Because we're all going to die. Our life is temporary, and we're all going to go somewhere. Either we're going to go be with God, or we're going to go be punished for our sins. That's it. There are only two options that are out there.
Our hope is set fully on the grace that will be brought to you.
That's confident.
It is going to happen.
“Salvation is yours.”
That's a strong statement, the way he's wording this. “It will be.” It's not like, “Maybe set your hope on God, and maybe, if He is feeling good, He'll grant you salvation.”
That's Islam. That's not Christianity. Literally, nobody knows if they're going to heaven in that religion. It literally—like, that's the case. He might be having a bad day, and you don't know.
Confident in your hope, being fully set on Christ, knowing that you have salvation is something from God.
But then he says something that throws people off.
So, in verse 14, he says:
“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.”
Verse 15:
“But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.”
Verse 16: “Since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’”
Sound about right?
Well, yeah. It makes perfect sense logically.
We serve a holy God. He is holy. He is sinless. He is set apart. He's above all of this. He is not to come to sin. He's holy.
We serve a holy God, and that holy God that saves us now has an expectation: You be holy.
It makes sense, right? I mean, wouldn't you want to be like your Savior? You'd want to be holy as He is.
The quote is from the Old Testament. This is the expectation.
Notice how he said, “He who called you is holy.” Because He called you, He says, “You also be holy.”
But then he puts this caveat there: “In all your conduct.”
In all of it.
Easy Christianity thing, right?
That's right.
How are you doing with that?
“You be holy.”
Are you holy in all your conduct, like God is holy?
It's an interesting thing to think about because, on the one hand, we want to say, “Well, I feel like I'm pretty good.”
But on the other hand, when we're faced with these kinds of statements—“Be holy,” and “in all your conduct,” and “you need to be holy like God is holy”—that's the expectation.
To which then we ask the question: Are you holy in all your conduct?
How are you doing with that?
Do you struggle with being holy in all your conduct?
Is it a challenge?
Are you holy in all your conduct?
Yeah. Me too.
It's a constant battle.
We fail all the time.
Now, so then why is it a command? Is it this lofty goal that we can never attain, and we're just to constantly be beating ourselves up over it?
How do we view this?
It's clearly a command. It's clearly a desire from God. Then we should emulate Him, and it makes total logical sense.
Of course the Savior would want you to be like Him, because He's good and we aren't.
That's the idea.
Of course it makes logical sense.
So what's the problem?
The problem, to me, is the problem is I am still a human being in a world full of temptation.
Like we just talked about in our class this morning, I still live in a world where the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
That's the world I still live in, right?
That's the same letter. Chapter 5, verse 8. He says:
“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
Okay.
In other words, Satan wants to come meet you. He's going to get you. It's real.
And when I read that, when I think about what Peter's saying here in chapter 1—“Be holy in all your conduct”—well, okay. So that's the goal. That's what I want.
Yet I struggle to do that so many times.
It's like, yeah, we use all kinds of phrases to talk about this:
“I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
“I was irritated.”
However you want to couch the reason why you didn't react in a way that is godly to whatever the event was.
This is the struggle.
And it's real.
And we all struggle with it.
And yet, a good Christian—but that's the idea.
And somehow something gets lost in there, because sometimes the idea of “being a good Christian” can come across to the world like, “Oh, well, you just think you're better than them.”
So somewhere along the way, the message got mistranslated, because that isn't the point.
The point is, I'm trying to emulate that God who saved me from myself.
It's over in the book of Colossians.
In Colossians chapter 1, Paul—again, a different author—Paul is writing the same message, talking about Christ.
In Colossians chapter 1, starting in verse 15:
«“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”»
Talking about Jesus.
So he's showing us how powerful and how big Jesus is in relation to God.
He says in verse 17:
“And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent.
For in Him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.
So here he's establishing that Jesus is God.
I mean, this is one of the highest explanations of Jesus, one of the highest places we find in the New Testament.
But then he says this in verse 21:
“And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds…”
He has now reconciled you in His body of flesh by His death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him.
If indeed you continue in the faith.
Here he brings that concept in again: holy.
He's talking about you.
Jesus—here's what Jesus accomplished. Here's what He is able to do through this reconciliation, through the cross.
He's able to present you—look at the phrase—holy and blameless and above reproach.
Nobody can bring a charge against you because they don't have any am******on.
And yet we know ourselves, and there's this conflict.
Like, I struggle to try to be holy and blameless.
I blame myself.
I'm aware of my sin and my struggle.
I blame myself. I know about these things.
But notice the accomplishment.
What Paul is setting up here is what has been accomplished by Jesus.
This isn't a description of something that you have to attain.
This is a description of what Jesus has already accomplished.
He presents you holy and blameless and above reproach.
To who?
Not to yourself.
Not to the world.
It's before Him—before the Lord.
That's what really matters, because He's the Judge.
What Jesus accomplished on the cross was the ability to take your sin and put it on somebody else.
So what you are then is somebody who doesn't have sin because it's gone.
It's been taken away.
It's been placed on Jesus, and it's sacrificed on the cross.
So what He accomplished is the ability to present you now holy, blameless, and above reproach.
All right.
Peter said, “Now act like it. Now try to live that way.”
And so this is what's fascinating, and this is what Christianity offers that no other system offers—not even close.
The fact that at the start, at the beginning, when you get into Christianity, at the start, when you decide to become a Christian and get saved, you have attained the goal at the beginning.
You are not living your life trying to be good enough, trying to be holy enough, so that one day maybe you'll attain salvation.
That's every other world religion.
You have it at the start.
The command is: This is how you look to God.
Jesus presents you holy and blameless and above reproach before God.
So now you try to present yourself that way to others.
You try to live up to that.
And so the question then comes in:
Okay, but what if I can't?
What if I can't become perfect?
What if I just—I try and I fail?
But Paul also said something about himself in Philippians chapter 3, verse 12.
Here's what Paul says about himself:
“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on…”
It's what Paul said about himself regarding this concept.
Philippians chapter 3, verse 12:
“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”
That is a Scripture to live by.
That is a Scripture to memorize.
That's a Scripture to write on your mirror, on your fridge, wherever you put those things.
Pop up on your phone every day.
That's a Scripture to get because he encapsulates the concept right there:
I'm not perfect, but I press on.
I try to continue to go that direction.
I try to continue to become this way.
To make it my own.
Why?
Because Jesus Christ has made me His own.
He's already presented me that way to the Father.
That salvation—God's already looking at me as sinless, as blameless, as holy.
Jesus accomplished that.
And the command comes to me:
Okay, live like it.
And so what Paul says is, “I haven't obtained it, but guess what? I'm pressing on.”
The apostle Paul said that.
So that's the concept.
It isn't that we just feel guilty all the time because we don't live up to some standard.
The point is, we've been freed from the penalty of not living up to that standard because Jesus has already covered that.
So now we get to try to live up to a standard because we love God.
We get to try to live up to a standard because of how amazed and grateful and thankful we are for what Jesus has done for us.
And back in the Colossian reference, when Paul said, “in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him,” he says right after that—let me try this—Colossians 1:22 and now verse 23.
He says:
“If indeed you continue in the faith…”
Here's what Jesus accomplished.
He can present you holy, blameless, and above reproach before God.
That's salvation.
My sins aren't on me anymore.
There's a requirement—“if.”
And we're scared of the next words because it's like, “If I'm holy enough. If I'm good enough. If I can make myself perfect enough…”
No.
Look at it for yourself, because this needs to be memorized:
“If indeed you continue in the faith…”
Not your performance.
He takes your faith and declares you holy.
He takes your faith and declares you blameless.
He takes your faith and declares you above reproach because of what Jesus did.
That's amazing.
It's not about being perfect.
He has you covered.
So then why?
Why remain faithful to Jesus?
Jesus covered your sin. I now get to live a holy life because I want to, because I love Jesus and I want to be like Him.
It's like the little child wanting to be like his dad because he loves him.
That's what this is.
That's what Christianity is about.
Let us praise God, knowing that even though we're not perfect, we're saved, and we can try to be perfect because we love Him.
