We were made for place we have not yet been. We need to learn to use our minds to fix our hope fully on the grace that is to come. Every good thing we hope for on earth is just a blurry reflection of the glorious hope that is to come.

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I apologize for any typos, etc. I am getting this out at the last second for our churches to use, and I did not have time to edit properly.

1 Peter #6. 1 Peter 1:13.

13 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.

We will focus on just one verse this time, because it holds the key to a number of the verses that follow. Peter is going to exhort us to “be holy,” but we have to understand that being holy can only occur when we set our hopes fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The old bible-study expression still holds true: “Find out what the “therefore” is there for. In other words, to understand the next section, we need to realize that Peter is connecting it to everything that has gone before, which we will now summarize:

We Christians are strangers and aliens in this world, but we have the superb hope of a future that can never perish, spoil, or fade. That hope sustains us, even in difficult times, and we know that while the difficult times are hard, they are temporary; but our hope is eternal – when we enter it, our joy will have no limit. All of this has been delivered to us by the remarkable writings that we call the Bible, which continually reveals to us the solid core of hope, which is Jesus Christ.

Therefore – because of all that –

preparing your minds for action…

Let’s start with “preparing your minds for action.” Peter is saying: “Get ready to move. Get ready to think clearly and well. Get ready to act according your faith.” Part of idea from the Greek is also to secure anything that might get in the way. Don’t leave any loose ends. It was actually a common phrase from the ancient world, almost a slang expression about tucking your robes up into your belt so you could be ready for running, or other vigorous physical activity. Picture an action movie when the heroes finally understand what’s going on, and they commit to doing what it takes to deal with their enemies and win. Ready to roll! Shake off the dust. Roll up your sleeves. Lock and load. Let’s do this!

Peter applies this specifically to our minds, or, to our thinking. There are people who believe that to be a Christian means you have to give up thinking. The truth is, the Christian faith teaches us that our minds were created by a rational, intelligent God, and that he has given us intelligence as a gift to be used. In other words, there is a fruitful purpose in using our minds. Our faith also teaches us that God created the universe with purpose and design, and that design can be discovered and studied. In other words, it is possible and useful to study the world around us and learn what we can. Studying the world will also tell us things about God, in indirect ways. It was these two important aspects of the Christian view of the world that led to the development of modern universities, and particularly, what we call “science.”

There were centers for learning in the ancient Greek world, the Islamic world, as well as in the Buddhist, Hindu and Confucianist (Chinese) cultures. Certainly those cultures have contributed to the accumulated knowledge of the human race. However it was only in Christian culture that modern methods of study, including modern science, developed. That was because a biblical view of the world and of the human mind, and of thinking, led us to believe that we could, and should, explore our world in an orderly and methodical way. There would be no science without Christianity. That is not an opinion, it is simply a historical fact. There was no modern science anywhere else in the world, until the cultures founded by Christianity developed it and exported it. So, it is entirely appropriate to see Peter’s words here as an encouragement for Christians to be thinking people. We aren’t anti-science. And science is not anti-God. Though many atheists refuse to admit it, science depends on Christian presuppositions in order to function. Meanwhile, we Christians are supposed to use the minds that God has given us.

Now, I don’t want to misrepresent what Peter is saying. Though he is saying that Christians should use their minds in general, he also intends that we use our minds particularly to strengthen the faith of our hearts. He tells us:

and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

What does it means to be “sober minded?” Well, sober is the opposite of drunk, right? It has other connotations as well, like calm, thoughtful, and serious. In other words, we should engage in our hope with clear eyes, and clear thoughts, taking it seriously, not frivolously. Faith is a big deal. So, we should remain in control of our hopes, keeping them fixed on Jesus. We should use our minds to direct our hopes to Him.

What does that actually look like? Suppose you are single, and you really want to get married. And you think, “If I’m honest, one of my biggest hopes is to get married someday. I think I might hope for that even more than I hope for Jesus.”

First, it is good to be honest with yourself about things like that. That’s part of what it means to be sober-minded. You are thinking seriously and clearly about your deepest hopes.

But what of that fact that you hope for marriage more than you hope for the return of Jesus? Consider this possibility: What you really desire so much in marriage is exactly what you will get when Jesus returns. In other words, your hope for marriage is a kind of muddled echo of your hope for Jesus. In marriage, you want to be fully known, and loved, even as you are fully known. You want the joy of intimacy. You want the security of knowing there is a special someone, someone you is yours and someone to whom you belong fully. You want someone who always has your back, who will stand with you when the chips are down and the house is burning. Someone with whom you will share joy, fun intimacy and life.

You might not believe it, but I think that is a pretty good description of what we will have with Jesus when he returns. We don’t always realize that those sorts of desires are actually desires for Jesus. We think what we want is marriage. But our desire for marriage is actually looking beyond marriage to the relationship we were created to have with God.

I think this could be true of many other things that we deeply desire: beauty, intimacy, adventure, peace, security, rest, excitement, and even achievement. I think we desire such things because they are shadows or reflections of what a sin-free relationship with God is really like.

It’s like teenagers who want a car. The truth is, what they want is not mainly a vehicle to help them travel quickly from one place to the next. What they really want is freedom, and adventure, and independence, and to be cool, and have status, and the opportunities that come from being your own master. But try to convince a teenager that what they really want is all that other stuff, and they’ll probably say: “Nah. I just want a car.” But they don’t. They want what a car represents.

I think even adults make similar mistakes. We think we know what we want: financial security. A beautiful relationship with another person. An endless vacation. Freedom from fear and worry. Physical health. None of those things are necessarily bad, though we can pursue them in sinful ways if we aren’t careful. But none of them will truly satisfy us unless we have them in and through Jesus Christ. If we have them apart from Christ, they will always eventually end. If we have them apart from Christ, we will find a way to ruin them somehow.

Some desires, of course, are sinful, and we need to learn to recognize and reject those. But I think many of our desires are simply misplaced. We don’t realize that our desires represent a deeper reality: we were made for intimacy with God in a perfect creation, with things to do that we were created to partake in. That’s what we truly desire, even though we have a hard time realizing it.

It’s unfortunate, but sometimes it is hard to tell, with some Christians, how their hopes are any different from those of the secular people around them. They want the big house, the nice cars, the successful careers, and children they can brag about. They want leisure time and money for travel and fun. They live for the same sorts things everyone else lives for. Sure, they’re happy that the New Creation is waiting for them, but their focus is on the things of this life. They’ll think about their eternal future later, after they have gotten all they can from this present life.

There is fine line here, which why Peter tells us to use our minds well. It isn’t wrong to want your children to do well. It isn’t wrong to have leisure or fun in this life. But I believe what Peter wants us to think carefully about, is where we put our biggest hopes. If I hope more for a new house than for my eternal home, something is not right. If I am seeking intimacy with another human being more than with Jesus, I need to recognize it as an issue. Author John Eldredge puts it like this:

If I told you that your income would triple next year, and that European vacation you wanted is just around the corner, you’d be excited, hopeful. The future would look promising. It seems possible, desirable. But our ideas of heaven, while possible, aren’t all that desirable. Whatever it is we think is coming in the next season of our existence, we don’t think it is worth getting all that excited about. We make a nothing of eternity by enlarging the significance of this life and by diminishing the reality of what the next life is all about.

(John Eldredge, Desire)

C.S. Lewis wrote about this same thing. He says that we set our sights too low, going for the things we know. We are as foolish as children playing in the mud:

We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”

Scripture tells us that what is coming is far better than anything to be had on earth. The things we desire are mere poor shadows of the reality that will be ours when Jesus returns and ushers in the New Creation. It’s as if someone is offering us a gourmet meal, and we say: “No thanks, I just want McDonald’s quarter-pounder.”

Now, some of the problem is that we know what a quarter-pounder tastes like, but we have not yet tasted the gourmet meal. Peter is telling us that we should train our minds to desire the gourmet meal. There are tiny tastes of it available even now. The ache you feel after a beautiful piece of music. The excitement and satisfaction after reading a great book, or seeing an amazing movie. The inexplicable joy that hits at unpredictable moments.

So we must learn to fix our hope fully on all that we have in God, through Jesus Christ. God is eternal, and infinite. There is literally no end to the wonderful things we can have in Him and through Him. We are actually incapable of imagining anything better than what we could have when Jesus Christ returns. We need to train our minds to recognize and remember this.

When we set our hope fully on the grace that will be our when Jesus is fully revealed, it can create a longing. I believe an authentic life of following Jesus will always involve deep longing, because we were made for more than this life. Sometimes we can’t even put a name to what we want, because God’s resources for us are infinite – there might not even be words yet invented to describe what God has in store for us. But if you find yourself somehow wanting “more,” you are on the right track. Just remember to discipline your mind to recognize that the “more” we want can only be found in Jesus. We should also remember that although God offers us much in this present life, all of his promises will only truly be fulfilled when we stand face to face with him in our new bodies, inhabiting the New Creation.

When we train our minds and discipline our hope in this way, it leads to a different way of living. We will talk about that next time. But it is vital to understand that this different way of living – which Peter calls “being holy” is a result of setting our hope fully on the grace that will be ours when Jesus fully comes into His own.

We can’t really train our minds to do this without the power of the Holy Spirit working within us. So let’s ask the Lord to help us keep our hopes fixed fully on Him.