Living The Christian Life In An Unchristian World: Part 1

1 PETER 1:13-16
Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY" (NASB).

INTRODUCTION
A small boy sat in church with his mother and listened to a sermon entitled “What is a Christian?” Every time the minister asked the question, he banged his fist on the pulpit for emphasis.

The tension produced by the sermon built up in the boy and he finally whispered to his mother, “Mama, do you know? Do you know what a Christian is?”

“Yes, dear,” she replied. “Now sit still and be quiet.” Finally, as the minister was winding up the sermon, he again thundered, “What is a Christian?” and banged especially hard on the pulpit. This time it was too much for the little boy, so he jumped up and cried out, “Tell him, Mama, tell him!”

I would like to share with you on the topic: “Living the Christian Life in an unchristian World.”

As Peter wrote to the Christian Diaspora due to persecution against them, he gave them several exhortations to live the Christian life as they anticipate the return of Jesus Christ. Many Christians today are facing similar persecutions, struggles, tribulations, social, moral, and ethical problems that Peter’s contemporaries were facing. As I explained to you two Sundays ago, the recipients of this Epistle or Letter were predominantly Gentiles. For the most part, the greatest number of Christians today are Gentiles, in other words, we are not Jews by culture or ethnicity.

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Peter was urging the believers of the first century, and he is urging us in the twenty-first century to cultivate certain characteristics of the Christian life.

1. CULTIVATION OF HOPE V. 13

In the first twelve verses of 1 Peter 1, the Scripture has said much about the future: the future inheritance, future hope, and the future salvation that would be ours when Christ’s returns. In these verses, Peter deals with the practical aspects of Christian life that should be ours today. In the first twelve verses, he has emphasized the privileges of the Christian life. In the present text, he is emphasizing the responsibility that we have as Christians. As Christians, we can never be lost in dreams of the future; we must always be vigorous in the battle of the present. In this passage, Peter is teaching us how to live the Christian life as opposed to the pagan or the pluralistic way of life that we see today.

If Paul was the Apostle of faith and John the Apostle of love, Peter may well be thought of as the Apostle of hope. In this letter the Greek verb meaning “to hope” appears twice (1:13, 3:5) and the noun for hope appears three times (1:3, 21; 3:15). In verse 3, Peter says that as Christians we are born into a living hope. However, in verse 13, we are commanded to hope. Therefore, what the Word of God is commanding us is, “Be what you are!” Realize in actual experience what God has made possible by His grace. In order for us to realize this hope, the Bible presents to us three challenges.

First, Peter tells us to prepare our minds for action. Some of the translations say, gird up the loins of your mind. This is a deliberate word picture. In the Middle East, men wore long flowing robes, which hindered fast progress or strenuous action. Round the waist, they wore a broad belt or girdle; and when strenuous action was necessary, they shortened the long robe by pulling it up within the belt in order to give them the freedom of movement. The English equivalent of this is to roll up the sleeves or to take off the jacket. Since we have all kinds of fitness clubs today, we might translate it, “Take off your mental warm-up so your mind can move freely.” In other words, you have to be alert in both your mental and spiritual attitudes. This mental and spiritual alertness is in anticipation of the return of Christ. You are not to be unprepared when Christ returns. You are not to be like the five foolish virgins who did not have enough oil and when they went to buy oil, the bridegroom came. Therefore, you must never be content with flabby and unexamined faith. You must set to, think things out, and think them through. Do not take things on the face value because there are many deceivers and peddlers of the gospel of Jesus Christ today. Become like the Berean Christians, who took time to examine the Scriptures to see whether what Paul was teaching was the truth. When you come to the knowledge of the truth of Christ, nobody can take it away or rob you of the truth.

Second, Peter tells us to be sober in spirit. The Greek word, like the English can have two meanings. The word sober can mean that you must refrain from drunkenness in the literal sense of the term; and it can also mean that you must be steady in your mind (self-control). Here Peter is telling us not to become intoxicated with liquor our alcohol, and we are to exercise sobriety in conduct, speech, and judgment. Drunks have no control over themselves or their body. Peter’s expression is metaphorical in that we who are Christians are to be completely in tune with God’s plan in such that we set our hope on the future and live in light of that day. It is easy for Christians to be carried away with the latest fashion and the newest craze. Peter is telling you to maintain the essential steadiness of self-control of the person who knows what he/she believes. This means that now we may suffer unjustly at the hands of evil people, but some day Christ will return and justice will be fully established.

Third, Peter exhorts us to “Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” It is the great characteristic of every Christian that he/she lives in hope; and because he lives in hope, he/she can endure the trials of the present.

In 1965, naval aviator James B. Stockdale became one of the first American pilots to be shot down during the Vietnam War. As a prisoner of the Vietcong, he spent seven years as a P.O.W., during which he was frequently tortured in an attempt to break him and get him to denounce the U.S. involvement in the war. He was chained for days at a time with his hands above his head so that he could not even swat the mosquitoes. Today, he still cannot bend his left knee and walks with a severe limp from having his legs broken by his captors and never reset. One of the worst things done to him was that he was held in isolation away from the other American P.O.W.s and allowed to see only his guards and interrogators.

How could anyone survive seven years of such treatment? As he looks back on that time, Stockdale says that it was his hope that kept him alive. Hope of one day going home, that each day could be the day of his release. Without hope, he knew that he would die in hopelessness, as others had done. Such is the power of hope that it can keep one alive when nothing else can.

You can endure struggle, effort, and toil, if you are certain that it is leading somewhere. That is why the athlete accepts his training and the student his study. For the Christian the best is always yet to come. You and I can live with gratitude for all the mercies of the past, with resolution to meet the challenge of the present and with the certain hope that in Christ the best is yet to be.

1. CULTIVATION OF HOLINESS VV. 14-16

Jesus Christ is the Emancipator, through whom we are delivered from the bondage of sin and death, and the shackles of the devil. Jesus is the lamb without blemish and without spot. President Abraham Lincoln’s name has gone down in American history that he was the emancipator of the slaves in America. He signed and ordered the Emancipation Proclamation Order that set the slaves free. When compare with what Abraham Lincoln did for the slaves in colonial America, it pales in comparison to what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross when He paid the penalty for our sins. Lincoln emancipated a section of the American ethnicity, specifically the blacks, but Jesus died to pay for the penalty of the entire human race. And not only that, He also rose again the third day to show that He is the Victor and the Messiah. The truth, which is obscured only at grave spiritual danger, is that the crucifixion cannot be interpreted and understood except in the light of the resurrection of Christ. Through His death, Jesus emancipated the human race from our bondage to slavery, death, and Satan; but through His resurrection, He gives us a life, which is glorious and indestructible as His own. Through His triumphant resurrection, we have faith and hope in God. The deliverance, redemption, or emancipation of Jesus Christ for you and me calls for a life of holiness. This command for holiness of life is stated both negatively (v. 14) and positively (vv. 15-16).

The first is the prohibition against worldly conformity (v. 14).

Here, the Word of God is commanding us to give up completely the characteristics of our pagan way of life. This period is described as the time when you live in ignorance. As Gentiles, the primary recipients of Peter’s letter did not know much about God, the true living God. They were ignorant of the knowledge of God. Many people who make mockery of Christ and Christians are ignorant but that does not excuse them from the judgment and discipline of God. The days of ignorance are over (Acts 17:31). The pagan world was not only dominated by ignorance it was also dominated by desire (lust). Some of the things that were prevalent in the first century are making a come back today. As we read the records of the world into which Christianity came, we cannot but be appalled at the sheer lust of life within it. There was desperate poverty at the lower end of the social ladder; but at the top, we read of banquets that cost thousands of pounds. There was a woman who had eight husbands in five years; Jerome tells us that in Rome there was one woman who was married to her twenty-third husband, and she being the husband’s twenty-first wife. Both in Greece and in Rome, homosexual practices were so common that they had come to be looked on as natural. Is history repeating itself today? It was a world mastered by desire, lust, whose aim was to find newer and wilder ways of gratifying its lusts. What do we see today, when female musical artists, who are supposed to be role models for our children are kissing each other on primetime TV. What are we seeing when men and women expose themselves in nudity on TV and in magazine. What are we experiencing when teachers are compelled to teach homosexual lifestyle to their students as alternate lifestyle? What is our world coming to when women want to marry women and men want to marry men and they give it a fancy name—Gay marriage. Morally and ethically, we are not better than the people of the first century, because of human depravity. Peter is warning us to realize that we are holy people and we should always remember who we are. The pagan world of the first century was marked by futility. Its basic trouble was that it was going nowhere. If a man was to die like a dog, why should he not live like a dog? Life was a futile business with a few brief years in light of the sun and then an eternal nothingness. There was nothing for which to live and nothing for which to die. Life must always be futile when there is nothing on the other side of death.

The second is the command to be holy (vv. 15-16)

The positive command to us is “to be holy in all you do.” The word for holy is hagios, which means separateness, dedication, consecration, and different. The Temple is hagios because it has been separated, consecrated, and it is different. The opposite of holy is profane or common. The Sabbath is hagios because it is different from other days; the Christian is hagios because he is different from other men/women. The Christian is God’s man/woman by God’s choice. God has chosen you for a task in the world and for a destiny in eternity. You have been chosen for God to live in time and with Him in eternity. In this world, you must obey God’s Word and reproduce His life. There is laid on the Christian the task of being different from others who do not know God. The Bible says that if you are a Christian then, your body is the temple of God (1 Cor. 6:19-20). As the temple of God, your life should reflect holiness. Nothing profane, impure, and common should come out of your life. If you are a Christian, you must be holy because you have been converted from paganism to Christ; you have been transformed by the Holy Spirit. You must be holy because you are a child of God, who is Himself altogether holy.

The great missionary David Brainerd, who spent his brief (he died before the age of thirty) life ministering to American Indians, wrote in his journal these words: “I never got away from Jesus and Him crucified. When my people were gripped by this great evangelical doctrine of Christ and Him crucified, I had no need to give them instructions about morality. I found that one followed as the sure and inevitable fruit of the other.”

He also said this in another place: “I find my Indians begin to put on the garments of holiness and their common life begins to be sanctified even in small matters when they are possessed by the doctrine of Christ and Him crucified.”

What Brainerd was saying was this: when a Christian realizes who Christ is and what Christ has done for him so graciously, as we have been seeing, it tends to have a dramatic effect on this life, not only in salvation but in holiness.

Children take the characteristics of their parents and since our heavenly Father is holy, it makes sense that we also must be holy.