We're going to jump into our study now and I'd like to kind of introduce the thought in terms of for the passage today with a question of have you ever hit your limit? Okay, think about that. Now I don't mean like have you ever hit your limit at the buffet, you know, when you eat till the food's up here.

I'm talking about have you ever hit your limit where you really just wanted to give up, whether it's at work. You kind of hit that do not exceed line in terms of your stress level and your patience was just given out and even physically you're just burnt. You feel like you're gassed out and all these many terms that we have, you know, your fuse is all gone and whatever it may be, have you ever come to that point?

I'm sure many of us have, you know, because we have lots of demands on our lives. What's really interesting though about the passage today as we transition from the previous passage is that regularly as we walk with God, especially even in moments when we hit our limit, he tends to call us to do more, right?

I mean if you think about it, God is a God who is infinitely greater. God is a God who is unique in the sense that he is supreme, cream of the crop, far above everything, you know, how high he goes, we just can't ever fathom. And as we continue to live with him, we just keep seeing whatever we thought was an acceptable standard, he keeps showing us more.

He reveals to us a greater level of patience, a greater level of what it means to be long suffering, right? An incredibly far surpassing measure of love. And every aspect of what you and I think perhaps, like man, that's my limit, God tends to keep showing us more. But what's interesting is he also tends to expect more of us as well.

As he calls us his own, we are going to regularly experience a challenging of the preconceived expectations and standards that we have for our lives. And sometimes, some of these expectations are going to feel really surprising, like you want me to do what? You know? Because for us, sometimes it might not seem possible, it might not even seem good in our estimation, right?

But as we walk with the Lord, because God is holy and because God is far above us, he's going to regularly challenge the value system that we practice in our lives. I don't know how you felt, but once you start making a list, you know when the Bible does one of these rapid fire commands, like do you got to do this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and then you take into context where these people were, it's kind of surprising.

To people who maybe, you know, last time I said these people were in need of encouragement, these people were in need of strength and comforting, which Apostle Peter gave. But with that hand in hand, he gave to people who were under persecution that we can't even fathom, right? He gave these people also the expectations of God.

And what I remember is Jesus teaching in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12, Jesus is the one, if you recall, he's the one who said, "To whom much is given, from him much will be required." Right? And so what we have is a transition. Today is a transition day where there is a big therefore, and you always have to pay attention to those.

Eh? Echo, echo. So what's going on here is, remember in the previous times, Apostle Peter went at length to describe, this is what you have. You have an election. You have an inheritance. It's imperishable, undefiled, unfading, reserved for you. You have the Spirit, the power of God, and he continues to go on.

And then now, here it comes. Therefore, here is the high calling of God for people who have truly experienced this. If you've really gone through the experience of receiving such great grace from God, this is the high calling God has for us. So I entitled this study, "The High Calling of Our Lord." Let's jump right in here to the first, or actually, I want to do a quick overview, okay?

So we're going to read the passage and then do a quick overview. As I was studying it more, like first reading, I made an entire outline, which I'm going to share with you, my initial outline. And then I realized, you know what, this section goes a bit longer. It actually goes up until chapter 2, verse 3.

However, if I were to cover all that, it'd be like way too long. And just as a preface, there's no way we're going to do an in-depth study of like 10 verses every hour on Friday, or Wednesday, right? So we're going to be covering certain sections and highlighting certain things.

But let's take a look at the passage together right now. It says in verse 13, and I'm reading out of the ESV today, "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.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.

Not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you. Who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God.

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. Since you have been born again, not to perishable seed, but of imperishable, to the living and abiding word of God, for all flesh is like grass and all is glory like the flowers of grass.

The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation.

If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. All right. So the section goes a little bit longer, but today we're going to be focusing on verses 13 through 21 and taking a look at some of the commandments and motivations that we have there. So as a way of outlining, please just go ahead and yell out what's the first main and I'm looking for main.

I asked for not dependent clauses, but standalone independent clauses. Okay. That has a subject predicate kind of thing. So let's identify the three that are in these verses, verse 13 through 21. Okay. What's the first one that you guys saw? Yes. Set your hope fully. Okay. Fully on the grace to come.

What's the second one? Excellent. So that one we can piece together because there is a negative command is don't do this. Okay. But that goes hand in hand, almost like the corollary to the second part of that, which is be holy. So that actually just pieces right together. Second one, you can summarize as be holy as God is holy.

And then the third one. Excellent. Conduct yourselves in fear. Okay. Conduct yourselves in fear. So we see these three commandments and the way that I would like, I asked you guys to outline a lot of times, that's the way I would outline a passage. When I see that, Oh, we're getting into a section that is didactic, meaning it's teaching you with commands.

Then I'll look at the commands and I'll say, okay, what are the main verbs here? There are other verbs. Okay. There are other commands, like command sounding things, but what are the core ones? And I'll set those three as the primary points of an outline. And then I'll notice underneath that on a tier underneath, I'll start to write down the other phrases that go in.

Does that describe a means by which how I obey that? A source by which I obey that? A motivation by which I obey that? And so that's the way that I would outline something. Okay. I know it'd be helpful if I had like a PowerPoint and stuff, but as you saw last time, I can't do multitask.

So we're just going to go with, go with the handout. Okay. All right. So anyway, I just wanted to share with you that because again, I just want to share as I go on, just little like tips on how I outline certain passages. And again, that's how I typically am able to better retain that content.

So I know this section, verse 13 through 21 has three main commands for me. These commands that I summarize as God's high calling, which is set your hope fully on the future grace, be holy as God is holy and conduct yourselves in fear. Right? And as I kind of repeated that to myself and rehearsed, I realized that is truly an incredibly high calling, especially if we were in a context where we're already suffering.

We're in a context where we felt needy, right? That would be an incredible high challenge for us. Now let's get into some of the details. The first section we have verse 13 and I'll read it again. It says, therefore preparing your minds for action and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that would be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Now I'm just going to go through these points a bit quickly just so that we get, this is the command and then ask good questions about it. The command simply is set your hope fully on the grace, right? So we have to kind of mention and we have to take note of the fact that this grace is not just a God is gracious, be thankful man, stop complaining about your suffering.

He says very specifically, set your hope on the grace that is to be revealed. It's a future grace, right? That's something that you should note here that in this time of suffering, there is a need for them to be reminded and we have to remind ourselves a lot too that the grace that we receive currently for reconciling with the Holy God, having restoration with him, beginning our relationship, we have that as a current reality, but in the full fruition of deliverance, we have that as a future hope and that future hope is incredibly vital for every Christian.

Amen. Now, if you turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 11, famous passage, we've all probably heard it before, but it's good for us to review. Hebrews chapter 11 and I'm going to read the first couple of verses, then verse 13 through 16. Okay. Remember that this is a kind of running definition here of faith.

Hebrews chapter 11 verse one says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, which is an incredibly, or is it a keyword for us and the conviction of things not seen. So by the very definitions, not simply of the command to set your hope, but by the very definition of what apostle Peter was commending the people, you have this faith that's proved ingrained in it as the idea that you are looking forward, that you are desiring to see something that currently you don't see yet.

Scroll your eyes down to verse 13. After describing the various people from Abraham down to Jacob and all these people, look at what he says. Verse 13 through 16. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth for people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

If they had been thinking of the land from which they had gone out, they would have opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared for them a city.

Quite profound for us to remember. Apostle Peter is commanding the people who currently are seeing, in terms of what they see, the situation is dire. It's crisis situation. He says, put your hope on the future grace to come. Now a description of that hope, he says fully, fully. Right?

When I think about that, now we can just make a point and be like, yeah, you just have to like really, really believe it. You know what I mean? But then here's an opportunity for us to do a heart check. Because truthfully speaking, in moments of crisis, you reach out for anything that's going to save you.

My son's learning the swimming and survival stuff, and the teachers always tell him, don't grab onto the buoy, or don't grab onto the chlorine bottle, or don't grab onto a leaf. Why? Because the natural tendency is you fall in the water and you'll grab for anything. But what happens when you grab on to that little buoy or the leaf?

You lose your precious opportunity. You lose a precious opportunity to reach out for the wall, something that's secure. Right? Yes, we might think like, oh, this isn't it, uh, and then you go over there, but not everybody has that kind of time in the water. Likewise, there is an opportunity here for us when Apostle Peter is saying, place your hope fully on the grace to come.

There is almost the same corollary, stop putting your hope elsewhere. Stop dividing, you know, in terms of an investment of our hope, we're not trying to diversify our portfolio. Right? I got to make sure, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, and then I'll be secure because I'm not banking all my eggs on one basket.

No. Apostle Peter is saying, bank fully on the grace to come. As a matter of fact, all things, all things in many ways are going to be fleeting and disappointing as you look to them. Okay. So there's the command. Set your hope fully on that future grace that will be revealed at the coming of Christ, right?

At the revelation. But I have a question for you. As we look at that passage, he says, therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you. Right? So you have these two, what I again kind of mentioned as dependent clauses.

They're tied to the idea of set your hope. My question to us is, what's the relationship here between setting your minds on the action or setting, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded? How do those things relate to setting your hope? What I'd like you guys to do is just take a moment to jot down an answer on your paper.

Okay. I'll give you guys like 30 seconds. For those of you watching at home, you should do it too. Okay. Okay. Okay. Good. I hope you guys got an opportunity to, well actually it seems like the majority of you guys are still writing. Okay. Good. So, the reason why I ask this is because if you compare the different translations, so NASB, ESP, and NIV, they kind of all, three of them, read a little bit differently.

Okay? For example, the NIV, okay, gives it to you like a bam, bam, bam, bam, bam command. So it'd be like, "Prepare your minds, keep sober, fix your hope." Right? So, it's just straight commands. So if I asked you, "Hey, list the commands," you would have just listed those two.

Okay? And the reason why they did that is because what they saw is this is just a sequence of commands that you need to do where the whole concept of having your hope is a faith exercise. Setting your hope is a faith exercise. So the main command is the setting the hope, but as you do it, there's a sequence of the commands that you need to do.

The other translation has the first couple phrases as like a participle, like, "Preparing your mind and keep being sober." And the reason why is because there's a way to look at it where it's like, "How am I supposed to do that?" You know? "I'm at my limit. I'm tired." You know?

"And you're sitting here commanding me to have hope. How do I do that?" And the main command says, "By preparing your mind." You know? "By girding up the loins of your mind and by making sure you're sober." And so what you have is a how-to by doing this. What's helpful is sometimes you look at these translations and what's helpful is just being able to kind of look up using some of these Bible study tools, like, "Is this word in the Greek a regular imperative or is it a participle?" Okay?

I know for some of you guys who really don't like English grammar, you're like, "Dude, what are we doing? It's important, okay? Grammar is really, really important." So anyway, in the Greek, those first two phrases are participles showing its dependency or connection to that set your mind. But as you think about that, there's something profound to be learned.

Okay? Meaning, yes, there is a sense in which it can be seen as a command because he is asking us to do it nonetheless. But it gives you a little bit more detail of how is this idea of setting your hope conceived in the mind of Apostle Peter as he's commanding these individuals where it's difficult for them to have hope.

Right? And he says, "By preparing your mind." In the Greek, this idea of preparing your mind, he used a very literal term. I just kind of mentioned it, "Girding the loins of your mind." And essentially, the way you should have a picture is like when you're about to get in a fight or you're about to run, what do you do?

You like get down and you tie your shoelaces, you roll up your sleeves, you know what I mean? So it's the same idiom, like roll up your sleeves. What is that saying? Get ready for action. What is he saying? Prepare. If you have hope in something, guess what? Your hope entails that you will be preparing for it.

If you are looking forward to eating a delicious steak, what do you do? Get your neck in, get your fork, get your knife in. Right? If you're truly anticipating, if you know you're going to be eating it soon, that's what you do. How does one set their hope on something?

Is they start to prepare. In their minds and in their bodies and in their lives, they start to prepare. Hope is not something you wishfully think like, "Oh man, I hope it don't rain tomorrow." That's one way to hope. But the other way to hope is, "I'm getting ready for this to come." The kind of Christian hope that we're supposed to have is a sure assurance, is a sure faith, where it's not just simple, wishful, "I guess if it happens, yay, if it doesn't, so be it" kind of hope.

The hope that we have of final deliverance, pure joy, and the elation of having Christ in our lives, to be so sure, "I've got my belt ready, shoes on, I'm ready to go." That's the way he's talking about it. And what you see is, he says, it goes hand in hand, that if you're preparing your mind in that way, it will require sobriety.

So the two terms that you should place underneath here, this relationship, I guess the relationships that I'm talking about here is, yes, I see, eh, set your hope by preparing your mind and by keeping sober. Right? As you think about keeping sober, I mean, for us, if we throw out the term, like, "Hey, you need to be sober," you know, then we're automatically thinking, like, "Yeah, don't be drunk, don't be intoxicated, have your mind clear." But you know that this is far beyond just alcohol.

Are there things that are deadening your senses? Because truthfully, when I mentioned earlier that this issue of setting hope is vitally important because, yes, everybody, not just Christians, but even the people of this world, continue to find refuge and hope, escape from suffering, in all kinds of things that make you drunk.

Are there not things like, "Oh my gosh, I had such a rough week, I'm gonna go binge on entertainment." I mean, gluttony, that too, is a problem for a lot of people, where it's just like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so stressed, I'm just gonna eat my sorrows away." People turn to different things for escape and hope.

And if you do that, how are you going to see what's needed? How are you going to make decisions to prepare? How will you have proper and sustaining, lasting hope? We have need for sobriety, we have need to be focused. And this I want to make a little bit more, I guess, applicational for us, so by way of application, when he says, "Prepare your minds and be sober," you know, there is another question that I want to add on to that, which is, "Do you really want what Apostle Peter, what Jesus, and God, is offering?" Okay, I'm gonna ask that again.

When we think about hope, and why we don't have hope in our lives, when we think about suffering and how sometimes those suffering, the experiences of suffering, feels like pits we can't get out of, and we don't have joy, I want to add another question to that. Not simply, "Are you prepared and are you sober?" But, "Do you want what the author of Scripture, what Christ, and what God wants to give you?" Because a lot of times, part of the reason why we are so distracted is because there are things that we're wanting so eagerly.

So for example, I'm just gonna use this example, it's a bit silly, just because there's this idea of, "Get ready, tie up the loose ends and gird up your mind," like somebody who's engaged in athletic competition, imagine somebody who is a boxer, pro athlete, you know how much preparation a boxer needs to have?

If you guys have ever seen the, you know, video shots of them in the locker room, the coach is in there, wrapping the stuff, the guy's in there like plastering his face with that stuff, you know, and they're getting him all ready, tying it up, lacing up his gloves and he can't even get himself ready, there's all these like three or four people getting him ready and then there's a guy who's just there for motivation, he's like, "You can do it!" You know?

But imagine he gets in there and he's just getting beat up round one, you know? And then so after round one is done, the bell rings, he sits down, the coach is in there, "What are you doing?" And he's still over there looking, he's like, "What are you looking at?" He's looking at the ring girl.

He's like, "Oh man, I lost round one, I was really trying to impress her." You know? And the coach is like, "What are you doing, man? Snap out of it, you gotta get in there and fight! You gotta get in there and look at his moves, respond to his chest movement and his arm movement and how he ducks and stuff like that." And he's sitting there like, "Hey, do you see how pretty she looks today?" Now the coach is gonna at some point or another be like, "Yeah, get in there, get in there!" But a good coach would sit in there and was like, "Do you even want to fight?

Do you want to win? If you want to flirt with a girl, just quit now and flirt with her after!" So that's what I mean is, that's like, the distraction comes, we're not sober, but that typically is revealing of, is there a desire in our heart that's outside of the big hope God is wanting to give us?

That's something important for us to consider. Now we want to move on here, and I think I just want to summarize that last section with "In the end, we kind of want to think about, again, the idea of do we want the right thing? Do we want what God is asking for?" And I just want to make a last point of how that's going to play out is, yeah, sometimes we're going to experience suffering, sometimes we're going to experience setback, and I hope we have such a setting of our hope fully on what God wants to give us, that our response could easily be, "I wasn't hoping for that anyway." Right?

That our response could easily be, "I wasn't looking forward to that that much anyhow." Rather than a devastation like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe!" Alright, moving forward to the next section. Verse 14 through 16. Let's take a look, and it says, "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy.'" The command is simple, "Be holy." And just like someone mentioned right up here, the command goes both negatively and positively.

Positively, be holy, negatively, stop being conformed to your passions and to your ignorance. Right? So, there's a couple ideas here. The command is simple, okay? But these are the hurdles that he explains you have to overcome. Some of the greater hurdles that we have to overcome are the passions, the lusts, the desires of our heart that we attach ourselves to.

The other hurdle we have to overcome is the ignorance. A life of not seeing spirituality, a life of not seeing God. Okay? But I want to ask you this question now. Alright, this is a high calling, mehet, right? If there was a high calling, this is a high calling.

But how do we obtain to this holiness? Another way to ask it, I think I put it on your packet, was in this passage, what are the grounds and the foundation of your holiness? Okay? So with this one, because it's just an observation from the text, let's just call it out.

Okay? So what do you guys see as grounds or foundations for your personal holiness? Because God is holy. Right? Let's put that in there. God's own character demands. God is so holy, his very nature demands holiness from anything around him. That's crazy, right? That's just how holy our God is.

But remember, the whole book of Leviticus, and remember our whole study through the BCC2 lesson number one, God is so, so holy, right? That there is a ramification on anything around him, especially those whom he's called. So the passages, he quotes a passage from Leviticus chapter 19, it says, "You be holy because I am holy." That's grounds number one.

Great. What's another grounds that you see in this passage? Great. That does two things. Okay? There's three blanks there, grace has given two. The second one is the calling. Okay? And the third one is the relationship as children. So yes, God has called us to obedience. God has called us to follow.

God has called us to be his possession. So there's a lot of ways to talk about this calling because it's so rich, you know? But remember, one of the things that's kind of unique about the book of 1 Peter is that there's a lot of continuity. There's a lot of running themes throughout the whole book, but also themes running through the Old Testament to the New.

God calling a people for himself and calling them to be righteous and calling them to bear his name, calling them to be his children, that's not something new in the New Testament. He's been doing that from long ago. And that calling and what God has been doing is a foundation for our holiness.

But lastly, like Grace mentioned, our relationship as his child. He says as obedient children, you need to be holy. That this relationship with our God and our connection with him demands our holiness. Good. So what we find is these motives, these foundations and basis for our holiness, and he commands that in every way our lives should be marked by holiness.

Now I have lots of other questions, and I'm just going to leave these questions for you for your own personal study, okay? I just want you to think about this. Man, what a high calling. To what degree does God expect holiness? You know? I mean when we read the passage, it says, "As he is holy." Man, what is he expecting from us?

If we ask the question, what kind of holiness is he talking about? Because God alone is perfect. He's unique. He is the epitome of everything. He is the definition of justice. He is the definition of purity. He is the standard. I mean, and he can't be expecting us to be that, can he?

Is he just talking about separation from the world? Is he just talking about sexual purity? What is he talking about? These are some good questions to ask. How is this holiness obtained? Okay? Earlier, we talked about how do we get this hope? Well, how do we get this holiness?

I thought it was hard enough to be hopeful when you're under persecution. How are we supposed to be holy to this degree and meet up to the calling of God? Lots of questions to ask. We have more questions. Yes? I have a question related to this. Peter, I'm sorry, Paul, right, I'm so distracted.

Peter is saying that he's being holy as like an outpour of who we are because God is holy. But the verse he quotes says, "You shall be holy." Right. So shall doesn't, is not must. You know, he couldn't, God could have said, "You need to be." Or, "You must be holy." But he said, "No, you will be." "You shall be." So Peter is taking that as a command to do now.

But is this a command or a promise for what we are? Ooh. That's good. Okay? Good, good. Excellent. That's really good. I mean, looking back into the context, you'll find a lot of different connections too. So that's really great. Thanks for, and if you guys had other questions, I mean, that's why the scripture is so deep, you know?

You can sit and just ask a lot of questions and you can just get deeper and deeper into the content of that passage. Okay? So those are just, you know, questions to help you keep thinking about the passage. We're going to move forward just a little bit here. Okay?

The commando is here, that as obedient children, you should not conform. Okay? So, let's hit some applications. I have three applications for us. And I'm going to run through these quite quickly just for the sake of time. The first is you should have a sense of non-conformity. You should struggle to not conform.

Because the world around you, the sin in you, is constantly trying to have you submit, yield, and conform to its desires. Right? So, you may look at this and he has this command, it's like these passions that were yours from before, stop conforming to that thing. You know? Change from that.

So, you should be able to see there's this like, okay, I'm fitting a certain kind of mold and I have this system, this natural impulse way of thinking before. Okay? And this is, I'm trying to be a little bit more detailed here because I hope you guys identify these things in your own lives as you examine yourself.

We all have ingrained habitual sins that we have been working under because it made sense to us before. Right? We have natural reactions to people hurting us. We have defense mechanisms. We have, you know, pursuit and ambition mechanisms. We have mechanisms for our arrogance and our pride and how we view ourselves.

We have lots of ways in which we naturally reacted by impulse according to our old way of thinking. But now that you know, now that you know God, you've seen God, you've received his grace, you know his plans of mercy, you've seen God's, you know, Christ's sacrifice and his redemption and his resurrection, your system of thought has to change.

So stop conforming to those things and you have to start, start conforming to the system and that of Christ, the truth of the Lord. That's number one. But number two, he says in every aspect of your conduct, you must be holy. By way of application for us, just as the hope that we set is fully encompassing, all of our hope is encompassing into the future grace, our holiness is all encompassing over our lives.

So, when he's calling and challenging us to be holy, he's not just talking about sexual morality. And he's not just talking about, "Hey, did you go to a, you know, unholy liberal church before? Make sure you go to a conservative one." No, he's talking about every facet of your life, every context of your life.

If you're two different people at like your business and then at church, if you're two different people at home versus, you know, out in public, in every facet. But lastly, even when you suffer, be holy. The fact of the matter is, I think this is an application point for us.

Sometimes I kind of ask myself this question, "Huh? Why did Apostle Peter feel the need to command the people who are suffering to be holy?" And then, I quickly realized what my tendency is, and I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people who have this tendency, which is, when you have hardship, those are the times when your mind excuses sin.

Right? When you suffer, those are the times when your excuses all of a sudden gain better weight or something. It starts to make more sense. "Oh my gosh, you can't believe, you know, what a rough day I had. I need my time. Don't bother me." You know, it's like, it's rationalized and reasonable for me to not be holy because I have every good excuse.

A lot of times, whether it's, you know, I'm counseling people who struggle with different, maybe even sexual immoral things to their temperament. Maybe it's, you know, whatever it may be. Yeah, they have their reasons. They have their excuses. But God is calling us to higher standards. God is calling us to think more deeply into the future grace, and God desires for us to be sober and for us to make sure that we are prepared.

And so earlier, in the kind of pre-discussion, I asked, "Is there any logical connection between set your hope, be holy, and then the last one, which is live in fear? Conduct yourselves in the fear of God." Right? And I think there is. In many ways, setting your hope requires you to make sure that you're practicing that faith, practicing that assurance of what's to come, and then making sure that your mind is sober and clear of all the filth of the world.

Well, guess what? You absolutely need holiness in your life. As a matter of fact, Scripture teaches us that it is, it is this, this, you know what? I'm just going to save that for a little bit later. The transition to the next part, he says here in 2 Corinthians 7, I think I have it in your passage, that we require these three things in our lives for us to come really into this perfection, that even when it comes to our holiness, it is perfected by our fear of God.

I'm going to read it for us here. It says in 2 Corinthians 7, verse 1, "Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." So he has all the concepts of the commands of 1 Peter.

Apostle Paul likewise sees we have these promises that we are hoping for. We're cleansing ourselves from the defilement, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. They feed each other. If you aren't having a sanctified spiritual mind, it's so difficult for you to have any hope. But what's more, in terms of your holiness, it won't come to fruition unless you have a clear view of God that produces reverent fear in your heart.

Let's move forward to the next section then, as we tie it all together, as we conclude on this last part. Okay? Verse 17, "And if you call on him as father who judges impartially, according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, through him are believers in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God." What's really interesting is this is one of those long run-on sentences, and typically I imagine, as an apostle Peter, as somebody who preached powerfully, you read the book of Acts and stuff, when you're doing this long run-on sentence, I imagine him getting all fiery and, you know, ramped up with passion.

But he says, "If you call on him as father and he judges impartially, according to everyone's deeds, the command is, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile." Your entire life here, conduct yourself in a way where it's marked by a reverent fear of God. Okay? And again, there are some running themes.

The motives are stuff that we've already seen. As a matter of fact, if you're, you know, kind of making your observations, some of these words you should have probably circled and said, "Hey, I've seen these before." This idea of being ransomed, this idea of perishable versus imperishable things, the preciousness of Christ's blood, the foreknowing, remember how God, he has chosen us, the foreknowledge of God and whatnot.

These are all things we've seen before. So I listed them for you. If you call him father, you have this relationship, just like with the last one. If you are his children, what's more, because God is impartial, this is added onto, allotted for us. That means, just because you're his child doesn't mean God's going to be lenient to you.

He's not being like, "Oh, my little baby." Well, God does see us as precious, but that doesn't mean he's going to compromise his justice. His judgment is going to be sure, his judgment is going to be exacting. He says, "According to each one's deeds." But what's more, in this passage he says, "The motive for you to conduct your life in fear is that you are freed from your futile, empty pattern of life.

Your motivation to live in a reverent fear of God is that you know you are redeemed with the precious, undefiled, imperishable blood of Christ, the priceless blood of the Lord. And lastly, your motive to live your life in reverent fear of God is that your hope, your faith and hope are the result of God's eternal plan to raise and glorify his son, Jesus Christ." Now, I listed those down because I want to ask an important question.

How can you explain this? This is so interesting. He says, "Live your life and conduct yourselves in reverent fear." Well, that's interesting because the motivation behind all this is the same stuff he said before. So what's interesting is the motivations that we have to hope, you know, all the blessings, imperishable inheritance and all that kind of stuff, was a motivation for our hope.

But he's now referencing them that these same motivations would be for our fear. Would you guys take about two minutes in your groups to try to explain how are these motives the same cause and grounds for both our hope and our fear? Go ahead. Okay. Looks like you guys are maybe wrapping up with some of your discussion there.

So, as we think about this, you know, we are thinking just kind of deeply of how are these motivations playing into the application that Apostle Peter is challenging these believers, you know? And you'll notice there is this balance here where you have this hoping in and this kind of endearing like, "Oh, we're going to receive the promises, the loving promises that God has for us." But on the flip side, there is this like fear that God's going to exact His judgment and He's not going to show leniency just because and show partiality, right?

But then He says, "As you apply these things, remember the same stuff. You're born, you know, by the grace of God. You're redeemed by the precious blood." And there is this kind of story I want to share with you to kind of bring those two thoughts together, so to speak.

And the story is a fake story, so let's just imagine it as like a movie, okay? Bum, bum, bum, action movie. Imagine that there is this general, okay? Four-star war veteran general who had a young daughter, precious. He adored her, loved her. But the enemies of his nation came and sent their mercenaries and kidnapped her and asked for a ransom, you know?

And the enemies wanted everything, not just a million, ten million. They wanted everything the general had, like literally everything. So the general is sitting here thinking, "This is my daughter." Of course. So he empties out his savings for retirement. He empties out his checking account. And then that's still not enough because the people who want the ransom, they're saying, "Yeah, that's a ton of money, but we want everything you got because we've got it all for you." Right?

So he's got to sell his house. He's got to sell his car. And then the general, you know, he's got men. He's got special forces. And the special forces of guys are saying, they're like, "We could just send a drone and bomb that thing," you know? And the general says, "No.

For risk of harming my daughter, we're going to pay this ransom." So they make this deal. And then the people who are the enemies bring over the girl to a little transaction spot where they're going to do the exchange. The general comes with all the money and stuff like that.

And the scene is intense. It's one of those anime where they're like, "Gah! Gah!" And then the girl finally appears from the car and she looks disheveled and distraught. And then the enemies are saying, "You have all the money." And it's like, "Just take it. Give me just the girl," you know?

And now the girl, rather than, when she's released, running over, she's just slowly dragging her feet and looking back. And then you can see her mouth over to the enemies like, "Hey, I'll call you." And you're like, "What? What's going on?" And you're surprised because rather than embracing the father, she gives him this dirty look like, "Tsss." She gets into the jeep, you know, the military jeep, and then all of a sudden she starts to mouth off at the father like, "Oh, you dirty jeep!

You couldn't pick me up in something nicer? And why did you take so long? You're the general, aren't you? Couldn't you have called somebody?" She has no idea what the father had done. She had no idea what the father just lost. Now in that moment, what you have is the complete opposite of what God expects.

Right? Because God does not want just this terrifying fear of like, "Oh my gosh, it's the general!" Because then what? That would not be the right relationship. It's the daughter and the father. But God also doesn't expect like, "Oh, thanks, Dad. That's nice of you. Could have come a little faster though." Why?

Because that's no fear. That's disrespect. Constantly diminishing the plans of the father. Like, "Couldn't you have done better?" And we tend to do that. Every time we sit and ask the question like, "Why God are you doing what you're doing?" We constantly try to question God. "What are you doing?

Don't you have better plans?" And we just cannot diminish God's authority, His precision, His strength, His sovereignty like that. Why? Because that's not fearful. It's not reverential. And we can't be the kind, like this kind of girl in the story, the fake story, who is completely thankless. Who doesn't understand and doesn't get the reality.

Look how much your father just sacrificed to pull you out. But here you are looking back. Already having made deals. Already having emotional attachments. "Maybe I'll call you back, okay?" That depicts sometimes our relationship with the world. But what God calls for is a reverential fear that's in the context of our loving relationship with our God.

But we're not so fearful. We can't run into His arm embracing Him because He saved us. Yet at the same time, we're not so disrespectful. We climb up on Him however we want. Right? There is a harmony of the grace that we receive and the fear that we exhibit towards our God.

Especially when we see, "Oh my gosh. This powerful God of the universe has sacrificed so much. Something immeasurable. Something that truly cannot be repaid. The blood of His Son." I share this all the time in my BCC class and every time that I get. For us, sometimes after we sin, we feel this incredible sense of fear.

After we sin, and then we feel a sense of guilt. And then we do things to appease our shame and guilt. That's not godly fear and that's not doing anything for your relationship with God. Because anytime we're trying to rectify guilt and shame through the means of worldly fear, where it's just a fear of like, "I feel the shame." Then it's not helping anything.

All that's doing is the same thing that the Hebrews a long time ago did when they were thinking that they would pay somehow God with animal sacrifice. Or even the Catholics who think that by their penance, they would somehow rectify the situation with their God. What that's like is saying, "I will pay for your son.

Sorry. My bad." That would be so incredibly offensive. But instead, when we have godly fear, and say, "What I'm more ashamed of is that I would disrespect you, my loving God." Right? "What I'm more afraid of is to be at odds with you, my loving Father." That's the kind of godly fear we hope to have in our lives.

And so Apostle Peter says, "In this day and age, while we have time, conduct yourselves in the fear of God. Live in this relationship with the Lord where you can run to Him, and yet you make sure that you still regard Him and revere Him." And I just want to conclude by saying, really, what I find pretty amazing about this stuff is, I'm going to be honest, when you experience hardship, some of these things really will feel like, "I don't know if I can do that." Remember, even the thing such as hope, it was placed in this passage to us like a command.

Right? It was something that's placed as God expecting and desiring for us to do this, not by way of like, "Oh, you can do this in your own power." But regularly, God is going to challenge us. What you feel and what you experience, like you can't in the power of man, God will empower us through His gospel and His grace.

Amen? Let's take a moment to pray.