Hello and welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. Stephen has just released a new book entitled In Pursuit of Holiness. Our behavior cannot save us, but God does expect those who follow Him to live holy lives. How can we do that?
Well, Stephen teaches you how in this brand new resource. This book is on sale right now, and I've put a link in the show notes. Get your copy of In Pursuit of Holiness Today.
Now, here's Stephen with today's message. Notice again: as obedient children do not be conformed to the former lusts, which were. yours. Don't be Conformed. Listen, when we come into the family of God by faith in Christ, we are all uniquely different.
Our relationships are different, our tastes are different. our desires from music to temperament. To wiring emotionally, but one characteristic, according to Peter, should mark us all, and that's why he categorically says, you are. to be known as Obedient. Children.
You have heard over the years illustrations that have come from that field behind our house. 30 Beautiful acres of pasture land. We've watched cows And uh Calves. A leap around that field. We've watched horses Gallop.
Well that field Doesn't belong to us, which is great because we haven't had to shovel any manure or. Mow it. But that field has been sold. And a developer is going to put homes. directly behind us.
Shouldn't you say awh or something? Thank you. I feel better now.
Well, one of the problems we do have with that field. is all of those little varmits. that make their way through it. That want to move in with us in the winter, and so typically in the fall, I gotta lay out the traps and and get prepared. I was behind this year.
And so about a month ago, I was in my study at home. One evening, my wife is in the backmaster. uh a bathroom and I heard her shriek. There's a mouse in here. I could tell by the way she screened it that she didn't want me to look up the word mice in my Greek lexicon or work on a new sermon on how to minister to mice.
She wanted no information, she wanted action.
So I jumped to it and set out a trap or two and And uh wasn't long before that mouse entered the glory of its final resting place. Wherever that is. It's interesting. I came across an article this week that that I couldn't help but share with you. It's an article that reviewed how people actually are willing to live with rodents and spiders and pests.
In fact, this article gave research and statistics about how people are going to dish out their hard-earned money and what it takes to get them to action. And I can't imagine anybody who has their job polling people on how they use exterminators, but this is the result. 24%. of adults. We'll pay an exterminator to get rid of spiders.
27% of adults will pay to have exterminators come out and kill. Ants. 56% We'll pay professional help to get rid of mice. 58%. will pay to get rid of roaches.
And 90% of adults will pay to get rid of. Cats. Yeah. Oh, I wish. No, no termites.
Termites. And I said that not to get all you cat lovers irritated all over again, although I enjoy doing that. But I did that really to tell you, what startles me as I read that is how many people are willing to live with that stuff. Half of them. Didn't respond.
Spiders, ants, roaches, mice. I guess it's okay. You're in the garage. Or maybe they just moved into the living room. It's really not a big deal.
Even one out of ten. Only Nine out of ten, I should say, were willing to move into action to get rid of termites. who will turn your foundation into mud. One out of ten are going, you know, it's okay. It's no big deal.
I found that to be an illustration. And a warning. Not for the unbeliever, but for the believer. How many Christians, how many of us will live? with something that doesn't belong.
How many of us will put up with something that invades the home of our hearts and say, you know, it's out there in the garage or. It's nearby, I'm not going to worry about it. You know, We live with spiritual Pests. spiritual Termites. Let me put the question another way.
What are we willing to tolerate? And what are we willing? to exterminate. What leads us to take action? About those things that invade.
Our lives. You know, I'm convinced that what the church needs today is not just more information. Not just more word studies. Not just more exposition. But more Application.
Where we arrive at the point where we not only declare the right beliefs, but we demonstrate the right beliefs. Behavior.
Now, as you know by now, we've been in this study in this letter from Peter, and he's writing to believers who are. surrounded By a corrupt culture where everything is tolerated, there is no pest too evil to eliminate, where anything goes, where right is wrong and wrong is right. In the first century, you need to think of culture as being synonymous with Political and economic and moral corruption. Which means that for the believer in the first century, temptation was not being offered to them behind closed doors. It was being bartered.
It was being offered. It was being sold on Main Street in broad daylight. How do you handle that kind of Culture. How do you handle relentless discouragement? Or temptation.
How do you know what to tolerate and what to exterminate? Let me put it this way: how do you stay clean? while living in a corrupt Culture. The Apostle Peter arrives. At this intersection this morning in our study, if you have your copy of the New Testament, turn once again to the letter from Peter, 1 Peter.
It's called, we just finished Peter's introduction. His comments in chapter 1 that have been loaded down, freighted with doctrinal truth.
Now we arrive at verse 13, and this is the place where New Testament Bible students. They identify this verse as a hinge. On which this letter swings. It's a hinge that changes Peter's objective from belief. to behavior.
And before we dive in, let me just kind of quickly tell you that Peter's premise is pretty simple. If the Christian is going to become clean, Become more clean if the Christian is going to stay clean, if the believer is going to live a holy life in an unholy world. The solution is not isolation. or more information. The solution includes Application.
Peter now moves us. to take action.
Now as we go through a few verses here, What I want to do is break this down into what I'm just going to simply call six steps. to staying clean. You could broaden it to mean six steps to becoming. And staying clean. This is not for the unbeliever.
I'm not suggesting you turn over a new leaf, you first must have a new life. This is for the believer. who wants to stay clean in a corrupt Culture. Six steps. Let me give you step number one.
Get a handle on your thought life. Get a handle. On your thought life. Look at verse 13. Therefore, stop.
We're going to get further than that. Be encouraged. He means, based on all the discussion of what I've just delivered to you on what to believe, now, therefore, on that basis, here's something to behave, as it were. Prepare your mind. For action.
Prepare your mind to get off your sofa. And Get into gear.
Now the verb to prepare your mind, I actually like the old King James translation of this particular text. and that that renders it gird up. The loins of your mind. It's just a great expression. In fact, it takes the reader back, and I think Peter's thinking about this, all the way back to the book of Exodus.
Where the Passover is being established among the Israelite people, they've been held in bondage in Egypt for 400 years. Following God's command through their leader Moses, each household has slain a lamb. And taken some of the blood of that lamb, and they've put it on the doorposts of their mud slave huts. And according to the command, they've cooked the lamb. And all the Israelites are told in Exodus chapter 12: eat it.
Now with your loins Girded. With shoes on your feet. and your staff in your hand. Why? Because you're about to be freed.
From your old life. Everything that you knew is going to change. You, because of your life having been spared by the blood of that innocent lamb, you're about to begin a new life. with new laws and a new future home that's flowing with milk and honey. Get ready.
to take action.
Toward your new life.
So gird up. Your loins.
Now, gird up your loins was a reference to someone in these ancient days To reach down and pull up the hem of their robe, the long shirt that men wore that still, they still wear that in the Middle East, pull it up. between your legs and tuck it into your into your belt. Restrict then the loose flowing gown. It'll make your movement easier. It'll give you the ability to run faster.
It's the idea. In fact, the the last thing a Roman soldier would do before he Ran into battle to have hand-to-hand combat would be tightening his belt. He would eliminate as much as possible That extra fabric from encumbering him as it flowed freely.
Now what Peter does here is he takes that idea. And he brings it in and makes it an analogy. to tightening up Your mind. Tighten up the loose ends of your thought processes, one New Testament scholar wrote. Gird up the lines.
Of your mind. Notice that? That word refers to your thought processing. In other words, tighten up what you allow. Into your mind.
Tighten up what you allow yourself to think upon. You have that battle of what's going into your mind. Tighten it up. You could paraphrase this. This text to read, and several commentators did.
One put it this way: tighten up the belt around your mind. Another, roll up the shirt sleeves of your mind. Another, pull your thoughts together. My father used to simplify it by simply telling us four boys the words. Use your head.
Use your head. Think. And by the way, Peter is giving us the first and most important step in doing battle. Because it is a battle that takes place. In between your ears.
In your mind. It's the battleground, isn't it? To battle them. With those thoughts that surround you and attempt to invade and infest your thinking processes because they will ultimately. In a habit.
The home of your heart, they're going to move in, and by the way, they're going to kick you out. Your testimony, that is.
So, so tighten it all up. Why? So you can fight the good fight, so that you can run your race. without being encumbered This is exactly what Paul has in mind when he exhorts the believer in Corinth to destroy every speculation and every clever suggestion that attacks the true knowledge of God. And to take every thought Captive.
to the obedience of Christ. I love Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of that text. Fit every loose. Thought. into the structure of a life shaped.
By Christ. You want to be clean in the midst of an unclean culture? Don't be loose We would say in your thinking. Because loose thinking leads to loose living. Just ask Eve.
Just ask King David. Just ask his son, King Solomon. I'll tolerate that. You know, I'll manage that sin. I'll make room for it.
It's just a couple of ants. I mean, come on, they're in the garage. What can they do? Those little thoughts. Peter is implying those little mental invaders.
must be dealt with. without mercy, without compromise. without apology. Take action. Get a handle on your thought life.
Step number two. Get a grip on your emotions. He writes further in verse 13. Therefore, prepare your mind for action. Keep sober.
In spirit.
Now, you notice the words in spirit are italicized because they aren't part of the original text, but added to provide. Clarification, most often helpful. Peter isn't talking about being sober in contrast to being drunk. or intoxicated. He's talking metaphorically about being emotionally self-controlled.
Sober, the word means to be steady, to be calm or controlled. It can even refer to someone who is carefully weighing matters at hand. You could render. Uh this um This statement to remain level-headed. Went off the road.
Now, I say that, and I want to immediately take you to the original context. Think of this. Keep in mind the first readers of this letter in the first century, they had every reason to panic. They had every reason to stay up at night. They had every reason to overreact to every news release from Rome about what the emperor had just done or what the laws of the state has just decreed.
We're now out against them. Peter says, stay sober. Don't start staggering around out of control and lose your balance. I think you could understand them to be writing people who would say. These are mind-reeling times.
These are mind-troubling times. These are mind-numbing. Times. Don't panic. Don't get carried away.
Don't come unhinged. By trouble. Don't lose your emotional stability in the face of hostile or troubling or unfair or insecure seasons or. Events. This is Spiritually applying the words of the famous Line by Kipling that came to my mind, if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you are a man, my son.
Evidence of Spiritual maturity is getting a grip on the excesses of unbridled passions. and run away. Emotions. Step number one, get a handle on your thought life. Step number two, Get a grip on your emotions.
Step number three, get focused. On the future. Verse 13, the middle part. Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Fix your hope there.
We would say it this way. Pin your hope on that. Pin your hopes there. On the coming of your Lord and Savior, Jesus. Jesus Christ.
Now, this command is actually the central verb or thought of this paragraph. In fact, if I read it a little more woodenly, you could understand this verse to read something like this: While you have girded up the loins of your minds, And while you are currently getting a grip on your emotions, Now fix your hope. on your future. With Jesus Christ. Fixing your hope, by the way, is an act of the will.
It's not an emotional response. It means to live expectantly, to live with anticipation for the coming glory of your Lord and that inheritance we have studied that just. Marvel the angels. It'll never fade away. It's being reserved for you.
That final act of salvation, the consummation of the glory of God, when you and I will be removed from even the very presence of sin. Fix your hope. On that So in a very real sense, the Christian lives in the future Tens. As if it's present. In contrast, by the way, the world of unbelievers.
Where do they live? They only live in the present terms. I mean, I gotta get it now. Here and now, I'm going to grab all I can. This is all that matters today.
I'm living for today, man. I got to get everything I can today. Not that I learn anything from yesterday, and I'm not going to think about tomorrow. Give it to me today. Constantly looking for someone or something.
To give them hope today, but for the believer, what excites us most isn't really what happened yesterday. It isn't really what's happening today, although this has been a great day thus far. A nap this afternoon will top it off. We get excited about that future. Dang.
Don't wait. One author wrote that we live in the future tense. In such a way that our present actions and decisions are governed. in light of the future. Let me illustrate it this way.
If you're married... You may well remember the day you guys proposed to your wife. To be Hopefully with fasting and prayer. that she would say yes. How many guys proposed, and your girlfriend immediately said, Yeah.
Not many. From where I'm standing, I can understand why. Yeah. How many of you like my girlfriend said something a little less exciting? Mine said, I don't know.
She did say, I don't know, because I'd broken up with her so many times and She's afraid I wasn't serious, but I was. And listen, I had a ring in my pocket. If she said no, I was $1,400 in the hole, okay, with nothing to show for it. Teasing. Everything, however, when she said yes.
began to be interpreted in light of A coming Day. Remember? I mean, you treated everything differently. I know I treated money differently. I was a senior in college and up to this point I never saved money.
If there was loose money laying around, it went immediately into food. and more food, right? All of a sudden I gotta save some. After I got engaged, Things changed. In fact, we were both in the same senior class in college.
I can remember one day I worked all day long on a man's property. And uh when it came time to pay me, cash, I asked him, look, I noticed in your shed is this table and four chairs. And if you don't mind, would you would you pay me instead of cash, would you give me that old table and those four chairs? He was dumbfounded. but thrilled.
And he gave me that. Why in the world would I work all day for an old table and four chairs that I couldn't fit in my dorm room for six months? Why? Because after graduation, I was going to need a kitchen table and four chairs where I could sit, and my bride could feed me. Those experiments.
They were delicious. I'm thinking of my future here. They were delicious. They really were, actually. You want to stay clean.
in a corrupt culture. Be careful. Don't get bogged down in the past. Learn from it. Don't stay there.
Don't become over-enamored in the present. Peter says, pin your hope. Pin your expectation. Pin your thoughts. On your future.
You see, my wife, when we got engaged, you know what she began to do. She began to carefully purchase things, and there wasn't a lot of money to go around for either one of us. purchased things and and she began to store them in that beautiful Cedar Hot chest. Hope. Chest.
I'm hoping it happened. But in light of the fact that this was her expectation, She began to plan. We do the same. We're hoping. That is, we are expectant.
Our anticipation is of Revelation 19, verse 9, that coming day when we, the bride, will experience the marriage supper of the Lamb, our bridegroom.
Now, that should affect what we do with our money and how we plan and how we spend and. How we entertain ourselves and How we discipline ourselves and what we do. for that day. How we live clean. Lives.
Preparing. For our bridegroom. I I think the Apostle John Apostle Peter at some time around the campfire to talk about this because they seem to be reading each other's. Mayo. The Spirit of God inspired them to say basically the same thing.
John said it this way: We know that when he. appears, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is and everyone who has this hope. purifies himself. See the connection. Staying clean.
Today has a lot. to say about what we're planning. to do. and where we're planning to be. Tomorrow.
So get a handle on your thought life. Get a grip on your emotions. Get focused on the future. Step number four: get rid of old habits. Verse 14.
As obedient children, Do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your Ignorance.
Now ignorance here doesn't refer to intellectual Our stupidity Or misinformation or ignorance, as in, you didn't know it was wrong, so you did it. No, Peter is referring to a kind of moral ignorance, as the New Testament does, in the willful, defiant suppression of the truth, so that you can somehow convince yourself it isn't wrong. And if you can get enough people around you shaking their heads, it's okay, you're going to feel even better about what you're doing. And if the entire culture says that isn't wrong, that's right. That isn't right, that's wrong, you're going to feel better.
That's the kind of ignorance he's referring to. Romans 1 describes it further. He says, but you, as obedient to the children Do not be conformed to... These former Lost.
Now did you see the connection? It's a foundational relationship. to getting rid of old habits. You're getting rid of former lusts. Because you're pursuing a new family.
Likeness. As obedient. Children. But as many as received him Christ. To them he gave the right to become Children.
of God. John chapter 1 verse 12. Let me ask you a question. How many of you grew up with brothers and or sisters. Wow, look at all the happy childhoods out here.
How many of you parents right now have more than one child of any age. Raise your hand.
Okay, I think you'll understand what I'm talking about. No matter how many brothers and sisters you grew up with, no matter how many children you now have, you've discovered that you are entirely different than your siblings. There may be some overlap. And your children. are entirely different.
I grew up with three brothers. But we had the same mother, the same father. We lived in the same house, we ate the same food, we went to the same church. Went to the same schools, played in the same neighborhood, even wore the same clothes as they were passed down. But were we ever?
Different. My brothers and I, we had different tastes. different personalities.
Some of them were disobedient. One of us was spiritually minded. I remember my mother giving us a traditional birthday. Uh wish Our missionary family didn't have a lot of money, although we didn't know it. You're probably the same way, you just didn't know it.
But we love this tradition where our mother would allow us to choose on our birthday our favorite dessert. And many times that was our gift. I can remember that. In fact, I remember my older brothers. choice and I remember it because I didn't like it.
Uh but he always chose German chocolate cake with extra coconut. Which I've never preferred. You know, my choice was always and your food cake. Which fit my personality. No, I'm serious.
It really was Angel Food Cake. Love, love that. Love that stuff. I remember even in music very different. My youngest brother Learn to play the trumpet.
Um My brother next to me I learned to play the guitar. I took piano lessons, which I wouldn't admit to my friends. My older brother, to the chagrin of my jealous heart, got to take. accordion lessons. What a future he had.
I was so jealous about that. We all have different character and personality traits. Children are all unique. And all different. But you know what?
If I take that. Illustration now to this text. Did you notice? That we all, though all of us are different and all of us are unique, there is one characteristic that should mark us all and it is this trait of obedience. No matter how different your children are, You expect to obedience.
No matter how different your siblings were, your parents... Demand it equally. Obedience. Listen, when we come into the family of God by faith in Christ, we are all uniquely different. Our relationships are different, our tastes are different.
Our desires From music to temperament to wiring emotionally, but one characteristic. According to Peter, should mark us all, and that's why he categorically says, you are. to be known as Obedient. Children. Well, what does obedience look like?
Well, Peter tells us first what it doesn't look like, then he'll tell us what it does. Look at what it doesn't look like. Notice again: as obedient children do not be conformed to the former lusts, which were Yours. Don't be. Conformed.
Another rare verb appears only one other time. That's Romans 12, verse 2. You probably recognize that. Don't be conformed to this world. You could paraphrase it.
Don't be squeezed into the mold of this world. Don't be fashioned by worldly fashion. Don't pattern your life after the pattern. of the world. Listen, the oldest argument you used as a kid growing up, and your kids have used it on you, about doing whatever behavior they wanted to do and typically disobeying in doing it was: mom, dad, everybody's doing it.
God doesn't care that everybody else is doing it. And neither do you as a parent. God knows what everybody else. is doing. And he, through Peter, is commanding us, he's warning us, he's encouraging us to fight against the undertow of the majority.
That will sweep us out to sea. What does that undertoe look like? But Peter describes it In in a word And the word is Lust. He calls it. Your former lusts, which by the way is incredibly encouraging, he calls them your former.
lust, which informs us they can be broken. these patterns.
Well, what are they?
Well, the word, you ransack the New Testament for lust, is sort of a categorical word that just simply describes a life of sinful desires. It could be Good things pursued selfishly, wealth, position, influence. It could be forbidden longings, uncontrolled appetites, sensual impulses. Unrighteous motivations. self-centered urges.
Hey, all that stuff drives the world. I just described the pattern of the world. This is their pattern. This is the mold. Into which they want to squeeze you.
Which, by the way, is why when somebody in the world, whether they're a believer or not, and sometimes you'll see an article about it, whenever they act so differently than everybody else, like selflessly, Everybody goes, wow, did you see that?
Well, it ought to be marked in and through our lives, shows up periodically in something that someone will do. One particular news article that ran in Chicago is. The Daily Herald talked about two newlyweds. I read it where these newlyweds lost. Oh, they're money.
Uh this couple had left a black case The size of an iPad. On the roof of their car as they sped away from the wedding reception, to head on their honeymoon. The case held all of the cash gifts they'd been collecting for weeks, and the last. Gifts came in on the wedding day. They were.
Loaded down. When they reached their destination, they realized what they'd done, it was gone. Newspapers picked up on it and ran the story, and a couple of days later, they did a follow-up. Story because evidently. An Asian young man by the name of David Yee had found that case with a business card inside.
And even though that case held in cash $12,000, And he was out of work. And as bills were mounting, he tracked this couple down and gave it back to them. When that news follow-up hit the newsstands, David Yee was offered, inundated, all kinds of jobs from all kinds of companies. Why not? Why not?
Employee theft is costing corporations billions of dollars every year. You got an honest man? Who can get away with something and he's going to do the right thing? I'm going to hire that guy, right? I should be marked by that.
I have shared with you in the past, but it came to my mind, and I want to. Give glory to our Lord. As our model here For carpenters in Nazareth, one of Their chief tasks would have been to carve plows. For several years, Jesus no doubt worked as an apprentice with his adoptive father. Sweating alongside of Joseph with planks of wood, they sanded and shaped and cut and.
Fastened. It always intrigues me, especially as Jesus came into an awareness as a young adult before beginning his ministry, especially in his 20s. He could have waited for his father to just sort of slip out of sight. Taking a quick look around. And then that plow that he was sweating over to carve just so.
Poof. There it is. But you read that briefest of biographical statement in Philippians chapter two, where he. in his humility accepted the limitations of mankind and He showed us what it meant to put in an honest day's work. I'm always struck by the fact that Justin Martyr wrote in the second century, he was a church leader in Galilee.
And he wrote the interesting statement that farming families were still using the plows Jesus had carved. After 75 years of use. Perhaps the first step in becoming clean and staying clean, distinctively so. will be for you to put in an honest day's Work. Not like the world that'll say, I'm gonna get you in that contract and I'm not gonna tell you all the details and I'm gonna do the least that I can do and still get paid.
I'm gonna do the best I can. For my Lord. Step number one, get a handle on your thought life. Step number two, get a grip on your emotions. Step number three, get focused on the future.
Step number four, get rid of old habits. Steps number five and six are for next Lord's Day, and everyone said. But don't go anywhere yet. Pack your things. Let me say a few things more.
I received a letter. At our Wisdom for the Heart Studios some time ago, it was from a young lady. It really marked me, a faithful listener. She doesn't live in this area. She wrote that every time the program comes on, she gets out her Bible and her notepad and begins to take notes.
As fast as she can. She went on in her handwritten letter to ask me a few questions related to the will of God. Doing the will of God.
So transparent. and eager. I could tell she was deeply committed. To living for Christ. She writes, and I quote, I want to do anything God tells me to do.
And I often tell the Lord, Lord, You show me. And I'll do it. I am totally. Open. to you.
What challenged me most about this letter is that it was written by a girl who is still in middle school. Middle school.
Sounds a lot like someone the Apostle Peter would be proud of.
Someone obviously focused I'm pleasing the Lord. Without wanting to be hindered by habits, runaway emotions.
Someone unwilling to tolerate For any moment Those spiritual tests. Those termites that don't belong that will eat away at the foundation of your faith. And your testimony. And your clean, distinctive walk.
So this week let's tighten up the belts. around our thinking. Let's roll up the sleeves, as it were, of our thought life. Let's get a grip on runaway. emotion and passion.
Let's get focused on that future marriage. Celebration. that should govern our thinking. Let's continue even this week. to break off old habits, It can so quickly turn into concrete.
slossed down. That was Stephen Davey, and this is Wisdom for the Heart, a production of Wisdom International. Learn more at wisdomonline dot org.
