If you could turn with me to 1 Peter 1.13. We're going to be just reading one verse. I think, well, it took me a long time to come down to this one verse. I was thinking of taking a bigger chunk of this text, and then I thought we'll just stick here.

But in 1 Corinthians, as you kind of put yourself into the mentality of the church, this is kind of a dispersed church in a way. It's the church is in Asia Minor. There's a lot of persecution and suffering going on, especially under Roman rule, but it's been heightened because of the crucifixion of Jesus.

As Christianity is starting to explode, there's been a scattering of believers. And with that, as people are immigrating into different locations, these are people who are struggling with many different temptations that come along with this. And with that is where we find ourselves in 1 Peter 1.13. It says here, "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 Jesus Christ." Now 1 Peter has been an epistle that's brought me personal problems in life. And the reason for that is because it's not commonplace for me to be persecuted or suffering like many of us here in Southern California where it's sunny and nice all the time.

This is something that we've talked about a lot. This is something that we've kind of brought over and over again to the plate, especially as Pastor Peter has gone into the book of Hebrews. And as we think about this, we've grown very familiar with this concept. Drifting, heard that a lot lately.

This idea of comfort, this idea of maybe even the brevity of our own conviction, that we might be so convicted by a truth of God at one moment and then struggle to remember whatever that was later on. Maybe many of us, even Sunday to Sunday, can leave a Sunday sermon thinking of grandiose things and then you realize, "Man, I'm hearing the same, like a similar thing again this week and yet it feels like from last week to this week, maybe there hasn't been much of a change." We've grown very familiar with this.

We've grown familiar that we have a danger of loving the things of this world, of chasing after the pleasures that it offers to us. It very much goes hand in hand with the apathy and jadedness that creeps up on our hearts. And time and time again, we feel that disconnect, the conviction of faith, the pull of this world.

Earlier on in my Christian walk, a verse I memorized and recited to myself frequently was Colossians chapter three verses one through four. We don't have this one up for you, but it's that idea of set your eyes, set your mind, fix your attention and your gaze upon the things of heaven where Christ is.

And the reason why I memorized that, not only memorized that, I actually used to write things on my arm, on my hand, because I kept forgetting what my life was about. Many of us could kind of relate to it, maybe you didn't write all over your arm like I did, but for me, it was such a struggle.

It was not only difficult, but it was frustrating for me because I wanted to remember. I wanted to know that day to day, my life is for the Lord, for his purposes, for his attentions, for his kingdom, and not my own. And in a way, it was very defeating for me.

And we can try so hard to remember, we can memorize verses, we can remain disciplined, we can write all over your arm, but maybe this is hitting kind of a chord with some of you in seeing that disconnect. And today we're going to be addressing this through chapter one, verse 13.

And we're going to be going through three points to address this. The first point is this, we're going to be looking at this command. The command is for us to fix our hope completely, to fix your attention of hope completely, wholly and totally. This is an imperative, this is an authoritative command given by God himself to us, and we'll touch on that.

Secondly, we're going to be talking about the content of whatever that hope is. So if the first one was the imperative to fix your hope completely, the second point is going to be what is that we are called to fix our attention of hope on. And that is coming grace.

We're going to fix our hope on an approaching grace at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And thirdly, then we're going to answer a final question, how do we do this? Those are our three points. So first is the imperative, fix your hope completely. This is the command to us.

And this passage in verse 13 begins with, "Therefore," in verses 1 through 12, if you even scan it there, what you're going to see is kind of the greatness of salvation. You have been given a salvation that can never be taken away from you. He calls it undefiled, unfading.

He says it's something that is going to be imperishable. He said that this is that which you have been called into, a living hope. You've been given something great. "Therefore," the command is, "fix your hope completely." As we look at commands in Scripture, the authoritative command and a demand from an authoritative God himself, as we think and look upon that, we have to remind ourselves of the importance of a command given in Scripture.

If you're a member of Berean Community Church, this is a reminder of number two on the membership covenant that you signed. There's 10 things that we sign, right? Or we look at. Well, number two, the second one is this. I confess that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, which has, and here's what I wanted to kind of highlight, ultimate authority over my life.

That means when we read Scripture, it is authoritative into our lives. That is what we sign off to as believers, that we say we surrender our will. We submit to the Lordship of Christ. We say God is our everything, and we humbly submit and obey. But if we treat it as optional on our day-to-day living, we have to spin this around again and remember it has ultimate authority over my life.

We have to think about it as if God himself speaks into us. This is the command. This is the imperative. It is not optional. The greater the weight of the person who gives the command, the greater the weight of urgency upon which we take it. The weightier it gets, the heavier it gets for us.

Think about that a bit. I bring up my kids a lot because at a young age, there's so much time and attention that needs to go on to them. I do have a four-year-old daughter named Addie and a two-year-old son named Hudson. Now as Hudson's been growing in awareness, like his brain has just been doing some crazy things lately, and his desires have begun to really show.

This is where you see human depravity at its peak. You're like, "Whoa, it's just so raw." It's not hidden. It's just there. If you don't get it, what happens? You just cry. It's just that. There it is. Ugly sin. Sinner and sinner just going at it. So Addie and Hudson, here they are.

And these days, because he's been growing this in awareness and a desire, like I can say no to my sister. Because that's been happening, what I hear a lot is a lot of shrieking. And usually it's shrieking from one side and it's shrieking from my daughter Addie. And what I hear is, "No, Hudson.

Stop Hudson. Don't touch that Hudson." And now she's getting clever, so she's trying to figure out ways to manipulate him. And so sometimes I hear in the middle of yelling, "Hudson, how about you play with this?" And things like that. And then you see the clever ways in which these things come out.

But what you see about all of these things that Addie is kind of saying to her younger brother, "These are all commands. Don't do it. Leave me alone. Don't touch me." That kind of stuff. But what's been fascinating to see is as that's been happening, Hudson has been so disrespectful to her.

It's almost humorous. You look at it and he's so condescending. You can see it in his eyes. Like, "Who are you?" There are times when she's all mad and he's just smiling. And I'm like, "Oh my goodness. That would drive me crazy." Someone did that. You're all riled up and yelling and the person's just smiling at you.

And he's really strong. He's stronger than her. So she can't do anything about it. She can't pull it out of his hands. And to the point where he will draw and lift his hands and he will even at points hit her. This is his older sister and we're teaching him respect and yeah, he gets disciplined for these things.

But what's been interesting about this, to take it one step further, is his condescending attitude towards his sister. The difference is when I come into play and I say something, it's immediate. He just listens. It has gotten to the... It's kind of funny. Like, if I know how to do it now, if I use my words in a certain way, if I bring out a certain tone, I say, "Hudson!" Like that, right?

That's exactly how I say it. "Hudson!" I'm going to put an accent on the second part. If I do that, he starts to cry. All I said was his name, but he starts to cry. But he perks up, he listens, he hears, and there's this gravitas and this weight that comes upon him where depending on the person who gives the command, it really changes in the way he reacts to it.

Now this is important. The command is a command, right? If someone tells you to do something, you're going to be like, "I'm not going to listen to you," or you're going to be like, "Oh, yes sir." God gives a command here, and God is bringing commands throughout Scripture, right?

What is your attitude before God? Honestly speaking, do you scoff? Do you hear God's word? Almighty God, when you hear His word, do you take some time to think, "Let me think about this whether I should obey it or not." When you think about what it is to obey Him, it's so clear.

Even with my kids, I know it. Parents, you know this, right? Obey the first time. You don't wait. I'm not going to count down. I say it, you obey. That's how it works. But for us, we sit there, and we contemplate, and we think, and we consider, and this is a command from Almighty God Himself into our lives.

Don't be mistaken. Every imperative given to us in Scripture ought to be taken as if spoken from His mouth. We commence, we listen, we obey because we have already surrendered ourselves to Him. And here in His command spoken through Peter, He says, "Fix your hope." That's the command. "Fix your hope." This is important for us in everyday life here in comfortable Southern California.

We're called to fix our hope. And why do we start here? I wanted to show you this next part here. Okay, it's good. So we have the bolded and the underlying part there. Fix your hope. Why do we start here and start, "Prepare your minds and keep sober," because those look kind of like commands too.

Well, I think in this instance, the ESV did a little bit better of a job of translating this, but clearly, "Fix your hope" is going to be the only imperative given in this verse, the only command. "Prepare your minds and keep sober" are actually called participles. We're going to bring in a little bit of grammar.

Participles that kind of modify what it is to fix your hope. It modifies the command. And that's why we're starting here with the command, "Fix your hope." This imperative is actually just the one word. It's just actually hope, but it has such emphasis to it that the translators had to add in a couple more words, "Fix your hope." But this understanding of hope, this biblical hope is very different than the hope that we know in life, just in everyday living.

This hope is to look forward with confidence. This hope is to live in expectation. This is the command to us that we should live in certainty of what's to come. This isn't the weak type of hope that's based upon human desire, because our desires are weak and feeble. This isn't the hope that I'm wishing for something, that I want something so bad that our hopes could be actually crushed.

This biblical hope, "Fix your hope" is different than that. While I was writing this manuscript out for this sermon, my heart was filled with hope. I'm sorry to bring this up. I know it's fresh and raw, but just got manned in Kawhi Leonard. And I really wanted him to come to the Lakers.

It was the right thing to do. But he sinned. And he went to the Clippers. But anyway, upon writing it, I was thinking about it, and I was like, "Man, this is hope." But the hope I had is so different, because this hope was not only could it be crushed, but now that I'm standing here, I'm telling you directly, my hope was crushed.

I was crushed. It was taken away from me. I don't want to talk about him anymore. But the hope that's being talked about here is confident. It's expectant. It's not based on the one who does the hoping. It's based on the one who offers us the promise of something that is certain to come into our lives.

It's hope that's based on trust and belief. And just like with commands, depending on where the command comes from, will your response flow out, right? But same thing with hope. Same thing with even trust and belief. Trust and belief grows not upon an individual's ability to trust in something, but it actually grows based upon the measure of character, integrity, faithfulness, and worthiness of the person who is there as the object.

In other words, you could think about it kind of like a trust fall. That's the thing where you do this, and someone says, "Fall, I'll catch you," and then you fall, right? If there's a seven-year-old boy that comes and says, "Fall, I'll catch you," then what happens to your trust?

It minimizes based upon what you see there, right? But as soon as you get a bigger guy, Garrett, right? Garrett, Garrett Kleiser, he's like back there, and he's just saying, "Trust me, I'll catch you," and then you're going to be like, "Oh, okay, cool, I'll fall." That's what happens with us.

Our understanding and view of a great God is what's going to cause us to both obey the command of God, but also to trust and to hope in Him. That's why the first vision statement here at our church is engaging in God-centered worship. We don't generate worship in ourselves.

Worship generates off of a vision of God, off of a clarity of a picture of who God is, and all His exaltation and worth. That's the beginning point. And this is biblical hope. Look at Him and fix your hope there. It's confident, it's expected, it's waiting for something to take place rather than simply wishing.

We're not trusting in some ordinary person, we are trusting in the eternally faithful God. This is why these are reasonable things. This command would be unreasonable. Fix your hope. How can you tell someone to hope like this? I could hope like I wanted Kawhi Leonard, but how can you tell someone to hope with this kind of confidence?

Because this is who God is. This is very reasonable. Biblical hope therefore runs contrary to the way we use hope on a day-to-day basis. And this happens because the word hope in humanity, in a way, it's polluted by sin. That's why we're very unfamiliar with this concept of hope.

Because we live in a broken world where this kind of hope is foreign. There's two things, firstly our hope is sinful. As a sinful people who are doing the hoping, our hope is tainted with our sinful desires. That's why worldly hope looks so different. And secondly, we hope in things that will fail us.

And there's nothing in this world that will be able to kind of cash in on what it promises to us. So our hope, when it's placed in God, it's never just desire, but it's expected. I'll give you one quick example in scripture. Romans chapter 4, verse 18 through 22, the story of Abraham.

It says, "In hope against hope he believed." You have to just sit there and go, "What is that?" "So that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken. So shall your descendants be. Without becoming weak in faith, he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead," since he was about 100 years old, "and the deadness of Sarah's womb.

Yet with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, he was able also to perform. Therefore it was also credit to him as righteousness." See, this is our faith.

This is our hope. In hope against hope. That first hope is the biblical hope. In hope against hope, which is kind of like the more worldly hope. In hope against hope, he believed. He trusted in the Lord fully, without wavering. Which brings us to this adverb that we see.

The adverb is, can you guys pick it up? It's completely. "Fix your hope completely." Adverb modifies the verb. If the verb was this command, "Fix your hope," it tells you how to do that, or how it ought to look. It's completely fix your hope. It changes the whole tone and dynamics of that command to us.

It's everything. Wholly, unconditionally, totally, unwavering to the end. Our hope isn't a half-hearted hope. Because this level of hope isn't based upon our ability to hope, but this level of hope is based upon who God is in our lives. If we're having trouble hoping in the things of God today, it's because our vision has been skewed.

Our eyes have been taken off of who God is and what He's like. So when we place our faith in God, it's a total surrender. This word completely is 100%. There is no reserving of any hope. You cannot say, "I will put 95% of my hope in the Lord, but 5% I hope in my finances, I hope in my career, I hope in a certain relationship, I hope in the pleasures that this world gives." Not even 1%.

Not even .001%. Not even .00001%. This is saying complete hope in God and in God alone. Because for the Christian, that is our hope. There is no other hope in this world other than God. Everything that we hope in in this world runs through who He is. And any time we take our expected hope away from Him is when we will idolize things, when we will fall into the temptations, the pleasures of this world.

It's complete surrender to Him. This brings us to our second point, which is this. What exactly are we to fix our hope on according to Peter? Where do we practice this fixing of hope completely? It's on the coming grace at Christ's return. Fix your hope on the coming grace at Christ's return.

It can't be generic. You can't leave today and think that's your application. I have to fix my hope on God. Though that's true, if you stop there, that becomes a loophole upon which sin thrives. And we'll get into this. He's saying specifically think about where your hope is fixed here.

It's on this grace that is coming that will be fully realized when Jesus returns. There is an aspect of our salvation, if you look at chapter 1 verse 13 again, when you look it's this fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

There's an aspect of our salvation where it's not fully done. Our salvation is at work and our salvation is yet to be completed. You do have to be careful a little bit with that. But this is to an audience of Christians who are suffering under persecution. And they had need to fix hope because their hope was kind of, they needed relief from a cruel and unrelenting world for them.

So for us, in a place where there's comfort, in a place where persecution feels like something we have to kind of wiggle into to say that we're being persecuted, we are still called to heed this command to fix our hope on a coming grace. And what is this coming grace?

It's the completion of our salvation when we see Jesus. We're going to go through a quick three things here in this. This idea of justification, sanctification, and glorification. Starting with justification. When we think of salvation, many times our minds go back to this prior justification. When we think of salvation, like what is salvation?

We think of the time when God saved us. So for me, it was 15 years ago before I entered into college. And before I entered into college, it was a time, I knew exactly where I was sitting, I remember clearly when God opened my eyes to the glory of the gospel.

I remember it. And so that was a time where we wouldn't just call it salvation though, we would be very specific about calling it justification. Though it wouldn't be wrong to say that was when we were saved. The idea of justification means declaration of righteousness. That is that God declares us righteous, almost like in a courtroom.

When a judge says, "You are innocent," that's you are declared innocent. It's just words that are spoken that becomes law. In 2 Timothy 1, verse 8 through 9, you're going to see this. This is always a past tense thing. It says, "Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me, his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with the holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity." Now, there are times when justification is seen as present, but the idea of justification in and of itself is a past tense thing.

And we see it here in 2 Timothy. He has saved us. He has called us. Justification was done in the past. Justification of righteousness shows that God has forgiven us of all our sins completely, totally done. We're promised heaven. We're promised a place before God. We're promised to be able to enter into his presence with confidence.

And then there's sanctification, which is the second part of salvation. And we're going to see sanctification as a present day working out of salvation. But this is also salvation. In 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18, we see this, "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." This is the process where we're in our lives right now.

We are being saved. We are being sanctified. Though we were justified in the past, there's an element of our salvation that continues to work out in the day to day. We're in the process of it, of being washed, of being purified by the Spirit. Even God's discipline is designed in sanctification.

That God's discipline is meant to bring us to repentance too. Thirdly, there's glorification. This third and final piece of salvation that needs to be addressed. That is that our salvation is not yet fully realized. It's not in completion yet until we reach glory. We see this in Romans 5, verse 9, "Much more than having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved in the future from the wrath of God through him.

For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." You look at these and you see, "We could run so quickly past the tenses." But you take a look and you're like, "Does that mean I'm not saved now?" It's because this is talking, in a sense, about glory.

To draw our attention back to 1 Peter 1, verse 13. What is this one talking about? It's talking about glorification. It says, "Fix your hope completely on the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." This grace that he's talking about is actually salvation that will be completed one day.

See all three of these, justification, sanctification, glorification, they go hand in hand. I'm going to go out on a limb and say, I think for many of us here, even though we know this theology, a lot of us are like, "Man, I know this justification, sanctification, glorification. We've been here long enough.

We've studied scripture enough to understand these three concepts." I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, glorification might be the one we give the least attention to. I think we understand it as a theology. And we'll think about it in times when we're in trouble because we just want to be done and rid with this world.

But on a day-to-day living, as long as I'm satisfied here, glory is far from our minds. Jesus' return is not urgent in our hearts. We cling to the promise of declared righteousness and justification, and we understand that we're in the process of being sanctified, but we can't forget that we're not yet complete.

We're in a process. We're going to get there. But this is that hope that's being talked about here, this hope that drives us in this. When we don't think upon glory, when we don't remember that we are still yet to be fully experiencing salvation as it was meant to be, you lose joy.

You lose expectancy of the coming reality, and we handicap ourselves in our sanctification. It's very easy to grow legalistic in our thinking because we end up practically just trying to run hard. Our view becomes so set upon how I'm doing spiritually rather than on the reality of God, who He is, yes, what He's done, but also that He is coming in Christ.

We lose an engine in our life. I forget who gave me this picture. I was trying to remember, but it was a professor. There are these things called maglev trains. I think it means magnetic levitation trains or something like that. Some of you guys, engineers, might know. I was looking at this.

It's run by magnets, and they shoot this electric current through it. Magnets if you have an elementary understanding of it, when you put opposite poles together, what happens? They pull into each other. When you put the same poles next to each other, they generally repel each other. These maglev trains, how it works is it was a newer technology at the time.

They would have this train that would sit upon these two poles, an upper and a lower pole. That's how the train would move. One would push, one would pull, and then this train would fly. But it would do it by levitating right in the middle because of the magnet.

It would just shoot. Everyone was like, "Whoa, this is so crazy. Look how fast this thing goes." This professor, he was saying this is kind of how he views justification, sanctification, and glorification. You lose any one piece of this in understanding salvation, and you will not be able to go in Christian life.

There's an aspect of justification that pushes you towards, and then there's an aspect of glory that's going to pull you towards, and then there's this understanding of sanctification where you fly right in the middle. We need to have a clear anchor in justification, but we need to also remember that we're yet an unfinished work.

Those who latch too tightly onto justification is at risk at abusing grace and living licentiously. I've been saved. Cool. Those who simply think about sanctification as at risk of getting stuck on working for salvation, that we are solely responsible for the transformation of our hearts rather than the monergistic work that salvation truly is, even in sanctification.

And those who think about glorification will end up just floating, just sitting there, biding their time, waiting for the end to come. All three are vital. I look at three quick texts. Philippians chapter three, verse nine. All three of these texts I'm going to bring up, we're not able to divide it up here, but I'll just try to kind of show you where it falls.

We're going to be seeing all three aspects in these three passages. Philippians 3, 9-11, Paul says, "And may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith." That verse nine there is justification.

He's saying, "I don't have a righteousness of my own from the law. It comes from Christ. The righteousness that comes from God, it's given to me. It has been declared upon my life. It is not something I deserve. It is not something I've earned." But look at verse 10, "That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings." This is the day to day.

This is sanctification. And then, you see, "Being conformed to his death," in verse 11, "in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." Where he is looking towards glory. That's why the passage right after this, he says things like, "Taking my eyes off of things that lie behind and going forward to things that lie ahead." This is the understanding of it, that he is moving in his Christian life.

He has seen, he remembers his past and he doesn't forget it. He remembers it and drives him. But there is a resurrection that's coming. Titus chapter 2, verse 11, "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men." That part, there it is again, justification. Grace has appeared.

It brought salvation. And then, verse 12, "Instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age." That's sanctification. That is here in the present day we are called to live godly. And then, verse 13, "Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself the people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds." And verse 13, there, "Looking for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of Jesus." That is the future thing.

Colossians chapter 3, the one I wrote all over my arm, "Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ," that is justification. You have been saved. You have been raised. You have been called a child of God. And then, "Keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth." That is sanctification. That here then, since you have been saved from this, since you have been saved from sin, he's saying, "Keep seeking those things. Keep setting your minds on those things." And then in verse 4, "When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory." There's always this aspect of glory.

In each of these passages, we see all throughout work, but in 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 13, in our passage today, which one is that? It's the glory portion. That is where he is saying, "Fix your hope." There's actually no need to fix a real hope on our justification.

It's promised to us and we have it. We have it now. Justification, it gives you confidence and assurance. But glory is yet to come. This is the command. Fix your hope completely on this grace that is on its way, that is coming. Fix your hope on everything that happens when Jesus comes.

When we get to go home, fix hope there. Think of that day when you'll be free from sin. It can't be a passing thought. We're so hard at work here, trying to live a life that is honoring and glorifying to God, but our eyes have to be fixed on coming salvation too.

We will be saved. No more sin. We're going to see our Savior face to face in a place where we will be able to worship and glorify and exalt God to our heart's content without restriction. In 1 Corinthians 13, verse 12, interestingly at the end of this understanding of love, it says, "For now we see in the mirror dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known." That there is an aspect where one day, right now, we exist in a kind of dimness. He says, "Face to face, we will see Him and we will know completely and fully." In 1 Peter, before verse 13, there is this understanding of, "Man, there's this God that is invisible to us, but we love Him and it's done with joy and expressible." Even though we live in dimness, because of the confident expectation of the fact that He's going to come and He's going to take me from this world, this broken, rotten, wicked, vile world, and even my own heart, the wickedness and sinfulness that I see in my own heart, that God will rescue me from this, that it will drive me towards eternity.

We need to keep our eyes locked on coming grace, that Jesus is going to return, and on that day, we're going to see the clear result of our sin, the recompense of it, the wrath that it deserves. We're going to see it. We're not going to be going into the theology of where we're going to be.

Are we going to be here when Jesus comes? Are we going to be coming down? We're not going to talk about that today, but what we are going to see is judgment against sin. The sin that we wrestle with today, we're going to see what it deserves. The sin that we're so tempted to take so flippantly in our sanctification sometimes.

The ones that we shrug off and say, "I'll just try better next week." We will see as revelation shows that the full recompense of it will be doled out. You know what's going to happen? We as believers, we are going to worship, and we are going to praise the Lord with all of our heart, and we are going to sit there, and we are going to fall, and we are going to praise him, and we are going to weep because of the goodness of our God who has saved us from his very own judgment.

He has forgiven us of sin, and we see what our sin deserves. He has forgiven it, and we remember Jesus, the one we follow. We see now him face to face. He has the scars that he still bears on his hands and feet. He's still, he's going to be there, and we're going to see all of it.

On that day when he returns, it's going to be glorious for us. We're going to be done again with this broken world, the ugliness that resides around. Our salvation is going to be complete. Eternal life is going to be forever with God. Everything the way it was meant to be.

Fix your hope completely on grace that is coming. Don't take your eyes off of it. Look to that day. In 1 Corinthians 16.22, I'm not sure why the NESB didn't translate it, but we'll just pull out one word, "Maranatha." It means, "Come, Lord." "Come, Lord." That is every Christian.

"Come, Lord." Revelation 22.20, "He who testifies to these things says," and this is the very end of our scripture. It closes with these words, "Yes, I'm coming quickly." And then John responds, "Amen. Come Lord Jesus." This is us. As we anticipate glory, we ought to be waking up every morning.

I know this is hard, but we ought to be waking up every morning saying, "Come, Lord." There's a missionary in the Philippines that everywhere we would go, as soon as we got to that place, he would just whisper under his breath, "Thank you, Jesus. Come, Jesus." He didn't do it for show.

This idea of come. Not when you're in the middle of finals, not when you're in financial difficulty, not when there's something difficult going on in your life in general. This is every single day, every single moment. And our sin actually helps in this. As we not only see brokenness outside in this world, we see it in our very own hearts.

And it drives us. As we see sin, and we say, "God, save us." We are still able to sing the words, "Hosanna." Don't close your eyes. Do you sense your sin? Do you sense the evil around you? Do you feel the brokenness of this world? This world that causes us to make this comfortable Southern California thing happen, which is that everything is okay.

Not just knowing it, but have we bought into it that our hearts are drawn into these things. Don't take your eyes away from your own sin. Don't take your eyes away from brokenness. Look at it. Stare at it. And then your heart just seeks out a savior. It drives us.

Don't let the world pull the wool down over your eyes. There's a war going on around us. The enemy prowls. And if you read through 1 Peter, you're going to see it. 1 Peter, by the way, is just a bunch of imperatives. A lot of commands. You know, Paul does a good job going indicative, imperative, indicative, imperative stuff.

Peter, though he has a lot of places where he just kind of takes a little bit of a respite, a lot of it is actually just imperative. So in... Did I jump ahead? I totally jumped ahead. Let's go back to that. So let's go to our third point then as we head into that.

How do we then fix our hope on the coming grace at Christ's return? Now we're going to come across those two participles I was talking about. As we think about, like, if this is the imperative, these participles help us understand how to live out the imperative. Now, I don't want to detract away your confidence in the scripture that you have, but again, I do think that the ESV did a better job of this.

In that, in this understanding of prepare your minds for actions and keep sober in spirit, I do think those are ING verbs. Preparing your minds for action, keeping sober in spirit, fix your hope. I think this is how it works. So that first one there is by preparing our minds for action.

That's how you fix your hope. Because here's the imperative, again, don't leave saying, "I need to fix my hope on Christ." You do that and you will fail this week. This tells you how to do it. Scripture will inform you as to how to do it. We can't live in the general.

We have to look and we say, "Okay, how do we do this?" By preparing our minds for action. Literally it means gird the loins of your mind. And the idea behind this is found during the time of writing, which is that they wore these long ropes and if they ever had to move hastily or quickly, which was very not honorable thing to do, unless you were in war.

And in war, what girding the loins would be, they would gather up the ropes because it's so long and they would tie it, they kind of knot it up and cinch it up at the waist a little bit here and then they pull this belt around it and tie it in place so that they wouldn't be hindered in war.

That's the understanding of this. And Peter says this here. He says, "Gird the loins of your mind. Prepare your minds in this way. Prepare for battle. Be alert. Get ready to fight." And this is how you fix your hope on the grace of Christ's return. We'll cover that again.

And secondly, it's keeping sober in spirit. How do you fix your hope? How do you heed this command? Stay sober. Be sober. Nevermore than when I came here to Berean did I hear that word, that we pray this so much, but rightly so. Be fully alert. Be fully aware.

Be in control of your thought processes. Be self-controlled in your desires. Be stable. Retain your faculties. Preach to yourself. Do not listen to yourself. When you think of self-control, self-control isn't something you just lob at places in your life. You say, "Oh, I'm starting to get a pot belly.

For the first time in my life, I'm getting a little bit of a love handle here." You look at it and go, "Man, I'm going to be more self-controlled in my eating habits." Or "We'll throw self-control at our, like, we've got to exercise." Or "We'll throw self-control like, man, I just haven't been sleeping well." That's not how self-control works for the Christian.

It is a fruit of the Spirit. That is that the Christian is a person of self-control. Therefore, in our day, everything falls under this self-control. That is what it is to be sober in spirit, that we are driving our bodies. As a pilot, we kind of drive a plane, we are driving ourselves.

Because we understand that we still reside in the flesh. But our soul, our spirit has been resurrected and we love God and we have to tell ourselves what it is that we're going to follow. You wake up and you point to yourself and you say, "Uh-uh, I'm not going to listen to you.

You're going to listen to me." That's what you tell yourself. The opposite of sober is what? Drunk. Don't be drunk. Don't live in dissipation. Another helpful way to apply things into your life is take the negative spin. If it says, "Be sober," then think, "How am I being drunk?" That's a common way you can apply scripture into your life.

What's causing in me insobriety? What's causing in me a drunkenness? Take stock of your life right now. What is causing drunkenness in your life? Where in your life are you not preparing your minds for battle? What's causing you to lose control over yourself? To not be prepared for the war that we know is raging all around us.

Here we go, 1 Peter. Here are some of the imperatives that are found in 1 Peter. In chapter 2, verse 11, it says, "Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul." It says, "Abstain from it actively." There is a war waging against the soul.

In 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 1, "Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for the lust of men, but for the will of God." It says, "Arm yourself." This is military language.

Equip yourself. Don't live the rest of the time in your life. As soon as you become a believer, until the day you die, you no longer live for the flesh. All of us, for every believer here, that's what we say. We no longer live for the flesh. So you look, where am I living for the flesh?

Stop living for it. 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 7, "The end of all things is near. Therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer." It's saying, be sober in spirit. Have sound judgment. When you judge your life, when you take stock of your life, let it be sound, not ridiculous sounding as a Christian.

As a Christian, why would I be doing that? 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 8 through 9, "Be of sober spirit. Be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour, but resistant, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world." Be sober.

Be alert. What is causing in your life today? This is what I had to ask myself this past week. Man, what's causing me drunkenness? What's causing in me this thing where I say, "Man, boy, do I really wish I didn't live in sin anymore?" You know, that kind of thing?

Rather than that, what can I do to really attack that? This is where application comes in and our closing. The command is this, to fix your hope completely on the grace that's coming. That can't be your application in and of itself, right? It's just hope. But he describes, "Prepare yourself.

Be sober." What's causing you to not be alert? What's causing you to fall into idolatry? What's causing you to love the things of this world? What's causing you to even fall into constant temptation? You feel like, "I could go up against this most of the time." But even for those moments that you know of weakness, what's causing?

What are those places in your life? And these things need to be fully banished from your life. Is it entertainment? Is it a certain relationship? Is it a pursuit of some career? Is it simply an attitude that needs to change? Here's the two applications. First, take a look at your life and see what needs to be cut out.

My recommendation to you when you do application is write it down. The reason why I recommend that is because we leave with good intentions and then we are a fleshly weak spirit. A spirit is willing, flesh is weak. It's that kind of thing. We have all these good desires and I know every Sunday we go out, we're like, "Let's go get this." Right?

But write it down. I would put it in a place where you can see. I recommend bathroom, mirror, somewhere out there. But take stock of your life and cut out things that need to be cut out. And be drastic about it. Jesus says, "If something causes you to sin, and specifically here impurity, just cut off your hand, gouge out your eye." You're like, "Oh, he doesn't really mean that.

We're all going to be like one-eyed, one-handed people." But then we go the opposite way and we go like, "Well, I'll just try my best." He's saying go the lengths necessary to get to that point. So you have to take stock of your life and seeing where is this happening, where is in sobriety happening.

And what I would say is, "Whoop, cut it out." Meaning next week if someone were to ask you, "What'd you cut out?" You're like, "Oh, I cut this out and this out." I was thinking about this and trying my best here not to sound too legalistic because we're not going to sit here and say like, "Cut out Netflix, cut out YouTube, cut out the Dodgers," you know, that kind of thing.

I'm not going to cut out my Dodgers, you know. But there are things in our lives that if it's causing it, and God is saying, "Fix your hope," as an imperative to us by doing this and this. We sit here and we think, "This is how I'm going to do it." And then you go home and we do it.

I love that song, "Trust and Obey," where there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. I love that. Trust, obey. "Okay, okay, God. I'll do it." I love it when Addy and Hudson do that. I say, "Do this," and they just do it.

I'm like, "Yeah." You know, it's good for you. Secondly, though, and this will cover all the other bases, take a look at your life and see what needs to be changed. You can't cut everything out. I understand that. We're not going to become Amish people. And it's okay to participate in entertainment and the joys that this world has, and we can worship and revel in it.

But go home and change what needs to be changed. Write those things down, make sure that you look different tomorrow, make sure that you look different on Wednesday, on Friday, on Saturday, and then on Sunday next week, make sure you look, maybe you're able to look back at the application and see, "How well did I heed God's command this week?" We have to apply.

Faith without works is dead. Don't be just a hearer but a doer. We got to do the work of this, but to close. All of this needs to be done with an understanding of the great imperative today. Make sure hope on coming grace, that Jesus died for our sins, he is at work within us, but he is yet to come.

And one day we're going to get there. And I hope, maybe perhaps, some of us can be near each other when we see Jesus for the first time. That's going to be a cool thing, right? I hope I get to see someone like your faces as you see Jesus for the first time, and just see what happens.

He's coming. We have to remember that and not live for the things of this world. Would you bow your heads with me?