Living Out Your Faith

 Series: 1 Peter – Hope for the Hurting

Title: Living Out Your Faith

Date: April 21, 2024

Scripture: 1 Peter 1:13-25

Intro: Today, we are continuing our sermon series on the book of 1 Peter, called, Hope for the Hurting. Please, open your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 13. Peter is writing this letter to provide hope to a people who are hurting. Peter wants his readers to know that Christ gives hope in hurtful times. Why are they hurting? They have been scattered from their home, they have been persecuted, they are maligned, and they have been rejected. In this letter Peter will remind his readers that painful trials are not the end because Christ gives hope in hurtful times.

  • 1 Peter is broken into 3 main sections:
    • Section 1 – Our Living Hope (1:1-2:12)
    • Section 2 – Our Strange Life (2:13 – 4:11)
    • Section 3 – Our Fiery Ordeal (4:12-5:14)

Today, we will start by reading 1 Peter 1:13-25. The sermon for today is called, “Living Out Your Faith.”

  • Read
  • Pray

Verses 13-16 > A Call to Action

  • In these verses we have Peter describing for us how we are to live in a world of hurt by having a proper view of our salvation.
  • Peter starts this next section of his letter by connecting it to the previous section by using, Therefore.
    • Therefore, points back to what Peter just told us about our salvation.
      • Born again to a living hope
      • We have received an amazing inheritance
      • We are protected by God’s miraculous power
  • Because of these 3 aspects of our salvation, we can live in a world of hurt.
  • Peter shows us 5 actions that we can take to live out our faith in a world of hurt.
  • A Call to Action:
    • Action 1 – Prepare your minds – To gird the loins of our mind. That is, we are to prepare our minds by renewing them. We can renew our mind by remember who we are, we are the CHOSEN. We are those who have been born again to a living hope! (Romans 12:2; Ephesians 4:23) As the chosen of God we are to think differently. (True, honorable, right, pure, lovely, good repute)
  • Action 2 – Keep sober – To be calm and collected in your spirit. Meaning that the chaos of this world doesn’t cause you to spaz out. Don’t get drunk on the chaos of this world. Keep sober! We can keep sober by remembering that we are protected by the miraculous power of God. This world can’t touch our soul.
  • Action 3 – Fix your hope – Set your gaze to the future. Yes, we will endure various trials while here on earth but they are only temporary. For a born-again believer we look ahead to an amazing inheritance. We look beyond the struggle of this life and we focus on the completion of our salvation, being glorified. One day these sin-cursed bodies will give way to a new sinless body. Fix your hope on that wonderful grace.
  • Action 4 – Don’t be conformed – Don’t allow our former manner of life to take control again. Don’t pattern your life after the lustful ways of this world: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. Instead, be an obedient child and follow your heavenly Father’s example. Pattern your life according to God and His Word.
  • Action 5 – Be Holy – This is how we are to pattern our life after our heavenly Father, we are to be holy! Why? Because He is HOLY. We are to live holy lives even in a world that brings hurt and throws various trials our direction. We are to be holy. Being holy carries the idea of being set apart and separated for a special, unique purpose.  We are set apart for the glory of God.
  • These are the actions that we can do as believers who live in a foreign place. This is not our home but we can live here and be successful in living a life of faith by doing these 5 things.
  • Peter has called us action; will we take action?

Verses 17-21 > Proper Conduct

  • In these verses we have Peter imploring his readers to live proper lives even though they live in an improper world. Peter wants those who call God their heavenly Father to have PROPER CONDUCT.
  • Peter is asking us to do that which is not natural. The natural thing to do when living in an improper world filled with violence, hate, rejection, and pain is to act the same way. Someone hurt you well, hurt them back. Someone rejected you, get even.
  • Thankfully, Peter shows us that there is a better way to live in this world of hurt, we can live God’s way. God’s way is one of PROPER CONDUCT that is based upon the foundation of His Word.
  • Even though we will face trials in this life that doesn’t give us the right to act in wrong ways. As believers we have a higher standard to follow. This standard is measured by the perfect impartial judge, God Himself. God will judge each person’s work and actions. Each person is responsible for their own actions and reactions.
  • With this in mind, Peter, tells us that we need to conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth.
    • Meaning – Live a life filled with a proper respect for God. He is your Heavenly Father as well as the righteous judge. We have respect from 2 different aspects: family and judicial.
  • Peter then explains with great beauty why we should conduct ourselves in fear while living as pilgrims on this earth.
    • Read verses 18-21
  • Why should we as born-again believers have proper conduct?
    • It is because of what we know!
  • We know that we were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold. These things are temporary, they will fade away, they will perish.
  • We know that we have been redeemed with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
    • We have been redeemed by the unblemished and spotless Lamb of God!
    • We have been redeemed by the eternal Savior
    • We have been redeemed by that which will never fade away, our redemption is eternal!
  • We know that Jesus came for our sakes!
    • This was God’s plan even before the foundation of the world
    • Through Jesus we are believers in God
  • We know that God the Father raised Jesus from the dead and gave Him glory
    • The resurrection of Jesus allows us to put our faith (trust) and hope (expectation) in God!
  • Knowing all this regarding our salvation should encourage us to have proper conduct as we live our lives.
  • As we examine our life do we have proper conduct?

Verses 22-25 > Purified Soul

  • Peter in these verses takes us a step further in understanding of being born again.  Peter has called us to action, he has reminded us of the importance of having proper conduct and now he will show us that being born again (purified soul) allows to love.
  • Obedience to the truth = Accepting the gospel message
  • Since we have accepted the gospel message and placed our faith in Christ we have been born again! Since we are born again, we have purified souls by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. (we have been made clean and pure on the inside!) Remember, an outward only change is simply legalism, we must be born again! We must be changed on the inside!
  • This change of having a purified soul leads to:
    • A sincere love of the brethren (fellow believers)
      • A sincere love = offering brotherly love without a hidden agenda. Too often in our world sincere love is lacking and when sincere love is lacking people become jaded. They are skeptical when offer sincere love because too often there are hidden agendas. Understand that this type of love (Philadelphia = brotherly love) stems from having a connection. As believers we have sincere love for others because of a common connection that we have with others: for those who aren’t born again our connection is that we are all made in the image of God and we too were once separated from God and for those who are born again believers that connect is Jesus.
  • Fervently loving one another from the heart
    • The idea is that we continually offer self-less love to each other.
    • Why? Because we have been born-again with imperishable seed! Peter tells us that this imperishable seed is the living and enduring word of God. The living and enduring word is the gospel! We can love each other fervently from a pure heart because we have been born again. We have a living hope that will endure for all eternity. Proper love comes from our living hope and not our dying physical bodies.
  • Even though we are scattered and dealing with various trials we are capable of loving others, especially those who are going through the same thing! Fellow believers aren’t the enemy, they are family. We need each other, we need the love of other believers. We need someone who will simply listen as we pour out our heart, we need someone who will put their arm around us and let us know it will be okay because they have been through it, we need someone who will care enough to love us even though we have nothing to offer in return. We need brotherly love and self-less love. We are to love others with brotherly-love and self-less love. Look around and see those who need love.
  • Has your purified soul lead you to loving fellow believers?

Recap:

  • We have been called to action
    • Let us live out our faith in a world of hurt
  • We have been reminded to have proper conduct
    • Let us not allow the trials of life keep us from living holy lives
  • We have been encouraged to love properly
    • Let us remember that our purified souls allow us to love properly.
    • May our love be sincere and fervent

Closing: God’s Word has been presented, what will you do with it? With heads bowed and eyes closed let’s take a few moments and go to God in prayer.