Command #1- Fixing Our Hope on This Great Salvation - May 3rd, 2026

I'm gonna have us read chapter one, verse 13 of 1 Peter, and this is the reading of the Word of God. It reads, therefore, having girded your minds for action, being sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Let's pray together. Father, help us to be a people who are appreciative of your kindness and who are overjoyed and in awe of your grace. And help us to be a people who are quick to obey. As we will be looking at the first of several commandments, I pray that you would push away all thoughts of legalism or transactional righteousness and cause us to respond appropriately to the grace you've bestowed upon us. And in the areas where we're gonna struggle through some of the concepts today, I pray for your help to not treat this as information that we already know.

The Lord that you really would inscribe these truths indelibly onto the fabric of our hearts, and in your time would you bear abundance of fruit through your word? Help us to have good ears to hear. Help us not to drift in our thinking or be consumed with outside thoughts, but help us to engage you. You are here, you are why we are here for worship. And so we pray for your help to honor you with our hearts and our ears this morning. And pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Go ahead and take your seats. Well, believe it or not, uh, I was on my high school of our city volleyball team. That was 31 years and 50 pounds ago. Um, but in my junior year before the season began, our team that year focused a lot on conditioning and strengthening.

And then we especially worked on the strengthening of our legs. So at the end of our final preseason practice, the coach had us all do wall sites. And a wall sit is where you lean against a wall in a sitting position as if you were sitting on a chair. But there is no chair. So it's a good workout for your quadriceps, and it burns. You guys, have you guys done a wall sit before? It really burns, right? So at our final preseason practice, our coach told us that if every one of us, our 14 team members, could hold the wall sit for two minutes, that we would all go out for the weekend for shaky's all you can eat pizza buffet. And that's a pretty exciting prize for a team of high school boys. So we're up for the challenge, and every single one of us would have to finish.

So if one person failed, we all failed. And so no one wanted to be the reason for our team not getting the pizza. So we all got ready, and then we all did the wall sit. At the one-minute mark, we were all still doing okay. But at about the minute and a half mark, some of us started struggling, and the struggle was visible as some of the guys started shaking. But we still had 30 more seconds to go, and 30 seconds can feel like a long time when your muscles are already burning. So you can imagine this, right? And so some guys started yelling out. One guy started rapping. I remember MC Hammer, he was rapping, MC Hammer lyrics, and we were all doing what we could to encourage the team members who were starting to visibly struggle.

And at the one minute 45 mark in unison, somehow we all started yelling, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza. And an eternity later, at the two-minute mark, the coach blew the whistle. He cheered in celebration at our accomplishment, and all 14 of us just collapsed. We had done it. All 14 of us had finished the two-minute wall sit. We had won ourselves a lunch at Shaky's Pizza Buffet, and we had done it together. And it was a fun Saturday lunch at Shakespeare it was well worth the two-minute wall sit. And the funny thing was that the pizza wasn't even good. The prize for two minutes of pain was underwhelming subpar pizza, but it was still worth it. Now, had the prize for a two-minute wall sit been a free trip to Hawaii or a flight to Europe, I'm sure we would have all succeeded even if we had to do it for three minutes.

What if the prize hypothetically had been for $5,000 for a successful wall sit, for sure we all would have found a way to persevere. Because the greater the prize, the greater the focus, more bearable the pain. If there was a billion dollar prize attached to it, all of us in this room this morning could muster the strength and the mental fortitude to do a three-minute wall sit now. If that was a reality, would you do it? Yeah, we would.

The prize would be worth it. Now, for some of you, you might be thinking, you can't buy me like that for money. I'm not cheap. I'm not gonna sell my soul. Well, then, if a three-minute wall sit could save your child or parents' life, you would find a way. The greater the prize, the greater your determination, no matter how intense the pain, you would do whatever was in your power to attain the prize. Right? Now, in 1 Peter, the Apostle Paul, right Peter writes about God ordained suffering, the burning pain, the perseverance, and then a great reward. There's a suffering, there's a perseverance through that suffering, and then a glorious reward. But for the Christian, the suffering and the perseverance and the reward are manifested in the reverse order.

Right? The prize came first. So the prize had already been given, guaranteed, and protected. Salvation had already been secured, even though it was not merited. One had simply received it by grace. And that prize is described as being infinitely more wonderful and long-lasting than even a billion dollars. All heirs of the kingdom, those who had been born again to a living hope, they would, verse four, obtain an inheritance, incorruptible, and undefiled and unfading, having been kept in heaven for you. And at least in theory, we all agree that this is worth way more than a billion dollars. A billion dollars can be squandered. A person could die before making good use of all that money, but not so with the reward of heaven.

And so we're told that this heavenly inheritance is permanent, completely devoid of any corruption or loss, and we are told that it's an absolutely unthinkably wonderful prize and inheritance, so much so that we actually don't really believe in it if we have to think through what is our reward in heaven. The scriptures actually say that it's very almost impossible to describe to mortal minds the greatness of the heavenly inheritance. So the prize is described as even being more beautiful than anything we could fathom or any human genius could even imagine. It says in 1 Corinthians 2 9, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not even entered the heart or imagination of a man, all that God has prepared for those who love him.

So that's the prize. And again, the ordering was in the reverse. The securing of this inheritance comes first, and that was the Apostle Peter's opening point. So last week we finished Apostle Peter's introduction to the epistle to the churches of Asia Minor, and in 12 very dense verses, the Apostle Peter highlighted the preciousness of salvation, the greatness of the Christian's inheritance, and the absolute security the believer has in this salvation and inheritance. So here's a summary of chapter 1, verses three to twelve, the introduction. First, holy God has elected the saint and chosen to save him. Praise God. Second, God didn't just spare the saint, he elevated him to a seat of honor and made him an error.

And that error is unimaginably great. So the salvation of our souls is a priceless thing. And the means of that salvation is the gospel of Jesus Christ that has been carefully preserved and passed down to the elect. But because they have put their faith in this Messiah, the elect of God are hated. And the hatred is a sign of blessing, not of punishment. 1 Peter 4 12. Why is this? Because the light of Christ rests upon the Christian. And what happens when the light of Christ rests upon the Christian, the darkness responds. The darkness hates the light. The darkness has always hated the light. And the natural man has always loved the darkness more than the light. John 3 19. Do you know people who are in love with their sins?

Yeah. Right? So Christians will be hated just like the world hated the Messiah. John 15, 18 to 19. And God the Father had ordained the world's hatred to be directed at the Son. It was God's will for the Messiah to suffer, 1 Peter 4 1. So believers likewise are going to be appointed to suffer according to the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. So Peter's point in saying all of this was brace yourselves. Brace yourselves. Yes, your unfathomable and priceless prize is secure, but there will be periods of trials and suffering. So here's the reward. And then the earning of the reward is going to be through suffering in the reverse. And perseverance is going to be the important middle step.

And the perseverance is going to look forward, and the encouragement is going to be to look forward. And Peter is going to now unpack. Okay. So 1 Peter 1, 3 to 12 was what we covered the last month or so. And today we arrive at Peter's very first and very important, therefore. So therefore, the word is always written with an expectation. Every therefore in the Bible is significant. So whenever you come to a therefore in the Bible, what do you ask? What is the therefore, therefore? Right? So the therefore will always connect what has just been said to an expected application. So an application of what Peter had just written in the opening verses, he gives three commandments. Actually, four if you include verse 22, but that's another thought.

So I'm just going to say three. And he gives three commandments in a military fashion. He writes like a general, commanding non-negotiable orders to his soldiers. So these commandments are very serious and very weighty. And Peter is an important figure in the church, right? His words are like the very words of Christ, right? So these three sermon commands are going to be the focus of the next three sermons. So the first command was for the Christian to fix or to set his hope completely on this future grace, verse 13, and that's going to be the for this morning. The second imperative for the Christian was to be holy, just like God is holy. You guys have seen this verse before. Be holy, as your father is holy, right?

And it lines up well because next week's Mother's Day, but we're going to have to use Father. But regardless, all right, so that's next week. Holiness would be tangible, observable, and it's going to be measurable because it's all external behavior. Not for salvation, but because of it, as a result of it. So there are commands for the Christians to be holy in behavior. And the third command for the Christian was to live their earthly lives in fear. Verse 17. Fear. The fear of God. And that's gonna be a very significant theme in the first Peter, because you conducting yourself fearing God is gonna be mentioned six more times in this book. Now, wait, aren't we supposed to draw near to the throne of grace with confidence?

I thought 1 John 1 or 1 John, it says, there is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear. So those are both jarring and interesting thoughts. So we're gonna get to those as well. So three commands, not to earn salvation, but because of salvation. Does that make sense? It's produced by the gospel. It's not so that you can earn the gospel. Alright. Fix your hope, be holy, and then fear God. So for this morning, we're gonna look at the first one. Fix our hope completely on our future inheritance. And I want to read verse 13 again. Therefore, having girded your minds for action, being sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation in Jesus Christ.

I'm gonna show it to you in a different way here. I don't know if you can see it clearly. You're gonna notice that after the therefore, there is one command and then two participles. And a participle is a verbal noun. They're usually ing words, they're not verbs. I show you this because some English translations make it look like there are three commands. Okay? The NASB in the King James reads like three commands. Gird your minds, be sober, fix your hope. But in the original language, there's actually one command and two attendant participles. You guys track in? The command is the what, and the two participles will explain the how. So you have one command, two participles, and then a duration of time.

So the sermon outline is gonna be like this. First, we're looking at the command, and that command is that yellow in the middle. Fix your hope. Okay, it's just one word in the Greek. It's three words in English, but it's one word in the Greek. And then the first how is by girding, and the second how is being sober. And then Peter writes, one day the whistle's gonna blow, or rather a trumpet will sound, and there's gonna be a shout of time. And then the spiritual walsit of the present is gonna be finished, and we all relax and get ready for the party. All right. So the command, the conditions, and then the glory is finish. So I want to begin with the command. The central command in verse 13 is the word elpisate.

Repeat after me. Elpisate. Elpisate. It's a very common word. It means hope. And usually hope is used as a noun in the Bible. Right? But here it's a it's a verb. It's commanded. It's a first and central command in this section, and that's a little harder to apply than you would actually initially think. How do you know whether you're in obedience or in disobedience to the command hope? Is it easy to apply? I'm gonna illustrate. If I were to command you, hey, hope for nice weather this week. How would you obey that command? You wouldn't know what to do with that, right? I'm sure you'd be willing to agree to obey, but you would not know what to do with that. You might try to pray, but the command was not to pray, it was to hope.

Are you guys following? If I were to command you, hope that our men's softball team wins at least one game in the upcoming tournament. How would you measure whether or not you obey? If we didn't win any games in the tournament, which is a possibility, so don't get your hopes, hopes up. Does that mean you were disobedient? Think about it. The application of this command, hope requires a little bit of unpacking because when hope it stands alone, it's very awkward because we can't apply it. So the ESV and the NIV translates El Pisate as set your hope. The NASB, the LSB reads, fix your hope. So everybody has to add a helping word. And I provided a definition for you. To fix your hope means to willfully, active, tangibly obsess without wavering on a promise.

It is the docking of a boat to a dock. It is the tying of a boat onto a dock with a tangible, visible rope. The application is not found in the boat. It's not found in the dock, it's in the tying of the rope. Are you guys thinking through the illustration? The boat is moving, the dock is secure. The hope is the rope part that we're supposed to engage in. So hope, if it isn't accompanied by action, is wishful thinking. You guys follow? It's superstition. Hope is actually an act of your will. It's not a feeling, it's not a whim. And first Peter calls it a living hope, a hope that's alive. And the Christian has been born again into this living hope. 1 Peter 1 3. Now, how much should you hope?

The underlying word says completely on the return of Christ and its result. And all the more as you start feeling the burn of the spiritual wall sit. Okay, so the command is to fix your hope completely. So here is an appropriate place to ask this question. What is your hope fixed on today? This is a command. It's a military general speaking to his soldiers, fix your hope completely. So what are you obsessing over right now? What are you actively setting your mind on? Is it a summer vacation? Is it an exciting upcoming trip? Is it a new job? A fun purchase? A spouse, a baby. Is your hope on a change of circumstance? What are you obsessed about?

How obedient are you to the military command, El Pisate? If it's not 100% completely on the return of Christ, there are adjustments that need to be made. Right? Here's another important question that's going to be very telling. Do you hope more for the return of Christ? Or do you hope more for his delay? I don't want him to come back yet. I'm afraid I'll be judged. Or I have to do this first before he comes back. But the scriptures say, fix your hope 100% on this. So not only is this a high bar, it's how do I apply this? So there are two things that directly affect the fixing of our hope, and those are the two participles, the how clauses.

The first one reads, therefore, having girded your minds for action. The first how, the first participle is to gird our minds for action. Okay. So girding was for serious engagement for serious activity. Okay, repeat after me. Serious engagement for serious activity.

So girding was usually in reference to clothing. And typically the girding of the loins. So in the New Testament times, men wore long garments of linen or wool that reached to the knees or the ankles. So when men worked in the field or when they went to war, the lower half of the garment was tucked into the belt at the waist to leave the legs free, right? Because imagine if you have a tight like garment, you can't move. If you try to work or run or fight with the lower part of the garment ungirded, your work or run might be impeded, or a fight may result in a loss.

Right? You go light. So it's our equivalent to roll up your sleeves. So when the apostle Peter writes, having girded your minds for action, it's like saying to us, roll up your sleeves of your mind. This is gonna be a universal Christian mindset. And when we say universal, what does that mean? It applies to all of us across the board. Make sense. Every Christian is to be mentally geared up for a fight. Every Christian. Every Christian is to be on high alert. Every Christian is to be trained for war. Okay, so the first major impediment to the fixing of our hope in our future inheritance is a lack of preparedness and a lack of strategy. It's an aimlessness for a Christian. It's a purposelessness for the Christian.

There has to be a strategizing to the Christian hope. Like the old adage goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So walking by faith and not by sight. You guys have heard that before, right? We walk by faith, not by sight, does not mean walking carelessly, thoughtlessly, or aimlessly, just hoping that God will sort things out. Walking by faith involves preparedness strategy and a training up. A girding up of the mind is a getting ready for a lengthy calculated battle. So what this means is first, a Christian should not be surprised if he's hated or if he suffers persecution. Amen.

And of course it's not pleasant. It does not feel good, but it should never come as a surprise. And later he's gonna say that your enemy prowls around like a roaring lion looking to devour you. So you better be aware that there's a lion there, right? Peter will say in chapter 4, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial among you which comes upon you for your testing, as though something strange were happening to you. The apostle John says the same thing.

Cain saw that Abel was righteous. You guys know this story? And that God approved of Abel. So Cain hated Abel for it, and what did Cain do? He murdered him. That's 1 John 3 12. So verse 13 says, so don't marvel, brothers, if the world hates you. So the Christian has to prepare himself to be hated. Again, it's to roll up your sleeves to gear up for a fight. He's always supposed to be prepared for a fight. Now, some people, when they hear a message like this, they're like, yeah, let's fight. Right? Yeah. Down with the people on the right. Oh, down with the people on the left. Oh, the church has to, oh, we gotta burn the abortion clinics. We got so they get it very excited about this, but the scriptures say we are supposed to fight the what kind of fight?

The good fight. Right? We're not supposed to fight a fleshly worldly fight in the name of righteousness. The Christian fight is also never supposed to be retaliatory. Make sense.

Fire with fire, let me one up you, is never supposed to be the strategy. The strategy in both 1 Peter and the rest of the scriptures is to bear up. Repeat after me. Bear up. This isn't just a strategy. But pay attention, it's actually the very earthly purpose for which the Christian has been called. The will of God for your life is not for a happy marriage, many children, success, and comfort in your old age. The call for the Christian is a bearing up. So let me read for you first Peter 3 9. Not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but giving a blessing instead. For you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.

The persecutions are on purpose for the purpose of blessing, and that's your purpose. That's in the Bible. Now, what does this mean? When we are slandered, we don't slander in return. When we are mistreated, we will pray, we will repay with kindness. When we are attacked, we respond in love. Easier said than done, right? Now, this does not mean that we don't speak out against unrighteousness or that we don't actively or even aggressively engage in fighting for Christian values. That's not what that means. There are situations that will call for Christians to literally fight. Okay? Literally fight. But bear up, it means that the Christian is trained up, prepared and girded to literally know how and when to turn the other cheek.

And that's gonna be most of the time. You guys tracking? Most of the time. Probably 90 plus percent of the circumstances, you're turning the cheek. This is radical. It seems unfair and unjust. It seems unreasonable and extreme. And this will not come naturally. But bear up, that's the strategy. Are you guys following? Whew. That's the strategy. And guess what? It's not just the Apostle Peter. Paul says the exact same thing. He's just a little bit more eloquent. At the end of the greatest treatise of the gospel message in the book of Romans, you know what Paul says to the church? Romans 12, 17 to 21. Never paying back evil for evil to anyone, respecting what is good in the sight of all men, if possible, so far as it depends on you, being at peace with all men, never taking your own revenge, beloved.

Instead, you leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. So if your enemy is hungry, what? Feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil. But read it with me. Overcome with good. Now that sounds great. But when you're slapped, you want to punch, right? You always want to outdo the other person. Again, this isn't to say that all Christians need to be pacifists. I am absolutely not a pacifist. Okay, so I want to make that clear. I am not a pacifist. But there is absolutely a time and a place where we are rightfully called to arms. If need be, I will physically fight for you, and I will physically fight alongside you.

So there is a time and a place to push changes for laws. There is a time and a place for self-defense and for the decrying of evil and putting to death certain evils. But as it says in 2 Corinthians 10, the weapons that we fight with are not the weapons of the world. Right. So for the Christian who is not regularly in the word or in prayer, which may be some of you, this is gonna sound crazy and confusing. It may sound disturbing or even ridiculous. This won't seem or feel fair, and you're gonna reject it. Some of you may have already rejected it. No. The bearing up cannot be done in the flesh. In your own strength, you can't do this. It's only done in the spirit. This burying up and this fighting with the spiritual strategy is completely counterintuitive to your flesh.

Your flesh wants eye for an eye. Slander for slander, right? You want to fight back. So if this strategy feels super radical or confusing, I'm gonna have to assume it's because there is very little time invested in the girding up of your minds through the word and through prayer. So many of our brothers here are into mixed martial arts. Alright, so here's a shout-out. One thing that I've observed is that trained fighters rarely rage. Trained fighters rarely ever lose their temper, right? In mixed martial arts, the one who gets angry and gets all worked up, those are usually typically the beginners who haven't been trained. So if you get worked up or angry, you typically end up losing a fight.

Right? But for boxers, for MMA fighters, they're trained to take punches and remain calm. Right? So a boxer, you don't want to fight with a boxer, not because he punches hard, but because he knows how to be punched hard. Right? So how does a boxer train to take punches? Anyone have a guess? He gets punched. Okay, again. So think about this. Girding our minds for action will involve God ordained training. So whether you realize this or not, the Holy Spirit may be training you at this very moment. Do you realize that the difficult people and many of the difficult circumstances that have come into our lives are deliberately placed there by sovereign God? One, to teach us to appreciate the grace of Christ more, but two, to train up our ability to love in response to being hated, to take the punch and hug in return.

He's training that up. So the Lord is thickening our spiritual skin. He's equipping us for battle. Because if you're petty in the little things relationally and circumstantially, your pettiness is gonna ruin you when the battle is big and legitimate. Are you guys following? If you're petty in the littlest of things, you can't let go in the little things. When the real bullets start flying in war, you're gonna die.

Could it be that many disappointments and difficulties that somehow keep surfacing in in your life are evidences of the love of God for you more than judgment? So perhaps the Lord is training up the girding up of your minds. Do you know what Romans says, Romans 1 says about people that have turned their hearts against God? He gives them over. He gives them what they want. Remember, boxers are trained to take punches by regularly taking punches. So as our sovereign God trains and equips us, we gird up our minds and our we fix our hope completely on his future grace, and we bear up with the future crown in mind. So I want to read first or 2 Timothy 4.8. In the future, this is Apostle Paul, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.

The boxers get a belt, the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved is appearing. So the command to fix our hope completely is applied first by the girding up of our minds for action. Amen. Second, it's applied by being sober and free of entanglement. It is applied by being sober. So therefore, having girded your minds for action and being sober in spirit. Being sober isn't too complicated a concept to unpack. What does it mean? It just simply means unhindered. Sober literally means not being under the influence of any alcohol. Would you guys agree with that definition? Getting drunk with alcohol is a foolish thing.

Agree or disagree? Please don't shake your heads. Yes, getting drunk is a foolish thing because rarely does anything good happen when a person is drunk, right? But very often, very stupid things happen when someone is drunk. Relationships get ruined when drunk people say regretful and hurtful things. People get killed when drunk drivers get behind a wheel. Lives get destroyed when people are drunk. This has always been the case. So the Christian is never to get drunk, either literally in a physical sense, or especially more so in a spiritual sense by getting entangled with the things in the world.

If you're drunk, it's evil.

Is what he says. Ephesians 5. Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. So on account of all of this evil, don't be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is, Christian. You have access to it. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit. I'm gonna park for a moment on the subject of alcohol, as there is a bigger point to be made here. Is drinking a sin? Was that a no? Oh no, it's not a sin. Is getting drunk a sin? Yes. Does getting drunk cause someone to lose his salvation? Of course not, because we're not safe on the basis of our works. We're saved by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone.

Now, in discussions about this subject, I do get very frustrated, and I want to ask the question, why are you wrestling so much with this? Why is this such a big deal? To me, it's not that complicated. So sometimes when people argue stubbornly about whether or not it's okay for Christians to drink or to gamble or to save up and buy like really luxurious things, when people are very defensive about it, when they're very passionate about it, it's actually very telling. If I were to ever ask you, how much can I flirt with other women before technically it's adultery? Or if I were to ask you, hey, how much time can I spend hanging out with different sisters of our church before technically it's inappropriate?

Or if I were to ask my mother-in-law, is it wrong for me to get dinner or watch a movie one-on-one with women who are not your daughter? We're not doing anything sinful. Every single one of you, if I was asking you those questions legitimately, you'd be very disturbed. I hope, right? You would not be disturbed by the content or the wording of my questions. And usually those words, they're carefully worded. You will be disturbed primarily by the revelation of my heart's affections towards my wife. Those questions, in and of themselves, are not the problems, but they do reflect that there's something very wrong with my relationship to my wife. Something is clearly off. So you wouldn't even know where to begin in answering my questions.

Because the problem is not in the questions. The problem is in my posture. Someone who wants to be drunk is not reasonable. So if I'm not sober, I'm not, or if I'm not, if I am intoxicated, I am going to test the limits of compromise and everything. I'm gonna be under the influence of some very dangerous and ruinous things. Many first world Christians love to flirt with the things in the world, and then ask the question well, does the Bible really say that it's a sin? Or how far can I go with this before technically I'm considered worldly and then I get judged by God? What can I do here without losing my salvation?

Sin easily entangles, and an entangled person always justifies his sin. Sin always destroys and separates. Sin always turns our affections away from God and then fixes them onto the things of this life and of this world. Right? So that's why the author of Hebrews, he says, fix your eyes on Christ in Christ alone. So, Hebrews 12. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, laying aside every weight of the sin which so easily entangles us, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising its shame and has sat down at the right hand of God.

Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you don't grow weary, fainting in heart. When we fail at girding up our minds, when we fail at being sober in spirit, you will not be able to fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Amen. You can't.

And when our affections are attached to the world, we will react and respond to people in the flesh rather than in the spirit because we're in the flesh. We're gonna fight fire with fire. We're gonna say, I'm never gonna forgive you. We're gonna be very hostile and angry and bitter. We will fight fire even if it's in the name of Christ. We'll fight fire with fire. We will be divided, we will be ungrateful, we will be worldly, we will have no joy, we will destroy our witness, and in our spiritual drunkenness, we're gonna do regretful things and make decisions that do irreparable damage. And we will give up long before that two minute mark on that spiritual wall sit is done. So in this verse, there is one command.

Right? What is it? Fix your hope completely. There are two attendant participles, two hows, having girded, being sober. May we be a people that fix our hopes completely on Christ's future grace. Amen. Lastly, soon and very soon, the coach, capital C will blow the whistle, the trumpet will sound, and then when that happens, perseverance and hope both get ended. You don't need to hope for something that you have, right? Perseverance and hope will be deemed unnecessary. Verse 13, therefore, having girded your minds for action, being sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So on the whistle, on the trumpet. The second coming of Jesus, that goal is mentioned in every single chapter of 1 Peter.

And let me show you. Obviously, it's here in verse 13. We also touched upon it previously in verse 5. In chapter 2, verse 12, it's referred to as what? The day of visitation. It's the Christian's ready defense, the reality of the Lord's return, chapter 3, verse 15. Chapter 4, verse 13, the second coming is called the what? The revelation of his glory. And then Peter closes chapter 5 with two mentions of this. One, glory that is to be revealed. And verse 4, when the chief shepherd returns, you will receive a crown. So the rallying point of each and every chapter of 1 Peter is the return of Christ. You guys understand? It's equivalent to my high school volleyball's team crying out, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza.

But of course, it's infinitely and permanently far more wonderful. Now, there were 14 of us all along the wall. Do you know why the Lord puts us in community? Because if we're left to ourselves, we will quit way long before the whistle blows. Right. We need each other. Amen. We need the church to spur one another on to love and good deeds. You can't motivate yourself with this. Satan's strategy has always been to target the struggling churchman, then to isolate him, and then to harden his heart, and then eventually try to ruin his soul. That's why church people who try to live out their faith as lone rangers, saying, I can't go to a church because it's full of hypocrites. There's abusive leaders there.

I can worship God by myself at home in front of a computer. People who are lone ranger Christians always fall out unless the Lord brings them back fully. It leads to ruin. Always. Lone rangers who believe themselves to be above the church or in not need of the church, grow hardened in their hearts. Hebrews 3 13. Do you guys see that? Sin deceives the person, and then he believes it to be right. And that's why in Hebrews chapter 10, there's an exhortation.

Not forsaking our gathering together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more as what? You see the day drawing near. 15 seconds left. This is so hard. Pizza, pizza, pizza, maranatha, maranatha, Lord, come. So the 14 members of our team succeeded in the wall sit challenge. I actually wonder how many of us would have persevered to that two minute mark had we all been tested individually in isolation. My guess is that we would not have enjoyed the subpar underwhelming pizza. Looking back, it was so wonderful doing that together, and it kept us focused on the prize, even though the prize was not that good. So to close, I'm going to give us a litmus test. How eager are you to get your inheritance?

Are you hoping more for the return of Christ or hoping more for a delay? And the command is to fix your hope completely on the return, but the application involves both the pursuit and a flight. It involves both a putting on and a putting off. It involves a girding. And it also involves an abstaining. And I'm thankful that we get to do this together. So I want to read the passage one last time. First Peter 113. Therefore, having girded your minds for action, being sober in spirit, here's the command.

The prize is secure. The call is to persevere in order to obtain the prize. And I'm so thankful we get to do that together. Let's pray together. Father, help us, especially those of us who are entangled and who are not sober. Those of us who are aimless and passive and not really not really engaged in fighting the good fight. We love you. We trust you. But we're feeling the burn and we're discouraged. So we pray, especially for the discouraged and disheartened, that you would revive by the power of your spirit, that you would instill a great reminder of the inheritance that awaits. And help us to be sensitive to see who's drifting out, who's struggling, who's shaking, and help us to have not only the boldness but the love, but the deep love to encourage them to persevere all the way till the Lord returns.

And so we thank you, Lord, for the gift of salvation. As we are seeking to live it out in fear and trembling, I pray that you would cause us to do so together well.