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I Peter 1:13-1613 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

This is a passage on holiness, on being set apart for the sake of Christ, for the Kingdom of God, for God to use. Peter, one of the disciples of Jesus, the one who promised to follow Jesus even unto death, was quick to denounce that he had even met Jesus when Jesus had been arrested and was on trial. Peter was all-in and just like that, out of fear of being identified with a man on trial for blasphemy, Peter turned on Jesus to save himself. Thankfully, Peter was quickly restored as a Christ-follower after the Resurrection and went on to lead thousands to Christ. I wonder how often he replayed his denial in his mind and wished he could have done things differently. He had let his guard down and had let fear and uncertainty take over. So, he knows firsthand how important it is to keep you mind alert and sober, ready for action.

Now, the King James rendering of this verse says, “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind.” The phrase, “gird up the loins of your mind” is a reference to the long robes that the ancient people would wear. Their long robes were very practical. If you were hanging out at home or attending a social event, a long robe was a practical outfit, but if you were going to try to work or if you needed to defend yourself, as in a fight, you were going to need to gather the bottom of your robe and tuck it up in your belt so you wouldn’t trip over the bottom of your robe. This is the practice of “girding up your loins.” So, when Peter talked about girding up the loins of your mind, people would have made the connection to the long robes they wore and the need for prevention from tripping hazards.

Do you realize that where Satan most often trips us up is in our minds? Peter says here that we need to live on alert by making sure we are mindful of the condition of our minds. Our minds can get diverted from what is godly and righteous. Our minds can become overwhelmed by our emotions. Peter is helping us understand that vigilance in our minds is critical if we are going to escape a bad situation or stand and fight in a bad situation. Loose ends in a person’s mind can trip them up. Peter repeats himself just a few chapters later in I Peter 5:8, “ Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

Let me also mention that when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt and God was getting ready to free them, to bring them out, He instituted a meal that they were to eat. The meal was highly symbolic and pointed to their relationship with God. Most of us enjoy a good meal while sitting down. Right? You don’t get together for a big family dinner and then stand in the kitchen with your plates and try to eat it, but the Israelites were told to eat that dinner standing up. They were to eat in a state of readiness. They had to have their robes tucked up into their belts. They had to have their sandals on their feet, and they had to have their staffs in their hands. They had to be ready to escape when God gave the signal. Not having their loins girded could trip them up and jeopardize their ability to get free from their bondage.

Peter helps us understand that loose ends in our mind can become a tripping hazard and can jeopardize our escape in some situation. We cannot entertain every thought that pops into our head because there isn’t enough room in our brains for every thought, and we won’t be able to focus on the task at hand if we try to. We must not entertain some thoughts because they are completely contrary to the way of holiness that we are called to, and to dwell on them will compromise the purity of our thought life and spill into our conduct. And we need to live in a state of mental preparedness because we never know when we are going to have to run or fight.

It might seem like a little thing to have your robe tucked in your belt. Like you could reason that it wouldn’t take that long to do. If you sensed danger was lurking you could quickly pull up your robe and tuck it into your belt, probably even while taking the first steps or probably while reaching for a sword. But the point is, when an attack comes, you don’t want to lose a second. You can’t afford to. You don’t want there to be a potential to be tripped up by anything because the reality is, something small can trip you up just as effectively as something large can. In fact, it is easier to see something large and make an adjustment to avoid it, but something small could be hard to spot, could be easy to overlook, and could have just as disastrous consequences as if you tripped over a boulder.

The heading for this passage says, “Be holy.” Peter wants us to know that even a small thing can trip us up and get in the way of our holiness, so we have to stay mentally on guard. A few Sundays ago, I had a few hours to myself, and I wanted to veg out. I went to Netflix to try to find a decent movie. That can be a tall order, amen? We made a decision early in our marriage that we wouldn’t watch R-rated movies. That is a boundary for us that keeps us from seeing and hearing some stuff that we just know we don’t want to see and hear because it isn’t going to help us in our walk with Jesus and it would have potential to harm our walk and witness. Well, as I scrolled through the options, I saw a title that intrigued me. The title was, “Endless Love.” I love, love. I am a sucker for a good love story. It was a remake of the original, which I never saw, so I thought, “If it was so good the first time that they have redone it, it must be good.” I then looked at the rating and it was Rated PG-13. Well, that wasn’t R, so there was a growing possibility for me to view. Then I read the description and it said, “Partial nudity.” Don’t you love the word “partial” in front of the word, “nudity?” Like, if there is nudity, just say “nudity.” It doesn’t matter if it is 25% nudity, 50% nudity, 75% nudity, or 2% nudity. If there is nudity in a movie, it contains nudity. One of the reasons we have chosen not to see R-rated movies is because many contain nudity.

Now listen, I could have reasoned that it was in the confines of my own home, and I was mature enough to deal with a little bit of skin. I could have told myself I could fast-forward through the nudity as if watching nudity in fast-forward is better than watching it in slow motion. I could have rationalized that I was alone and no one would even know that I viewed it, but I knew that me viewing nudity didn’t fall in line with the “Be holy” command found here in I Peter 1 or in a gazillion other places in Scripture, so in my mind, even though I had already given the movie a green light with two thumbs up, after reading that description, I made a decision to gird up the loins of my mind and not allow myself to be exposed to something that had the potential to trip me up and drag me to a place I didn’t want to go and had no business going.

See, when we don’t gird our minds and we just justify a little of this or a little of that, we don’t realize we are giving the enemy an opportunity to move in on us, to start catering to our flesh. Y’all, the devil is a caterer. He will put whatever your flesh is craving on his menu. And sometimes it happens because our minds aren’t girded up and when faced with a decision, instead of being sober and vigilant we cave and compromise.

Look back at I Peter 1:14 from our main text: As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. Peter says, “There was a time when you didn’t know better. You were ignorant of the grace of God and were ignorant of the ways of Christ. You were ignorant about what holiness was. You didn’t understand that God wanted a pure, undefiled relationship with you. You did what seemed good to you, but now you know better. Now you are no longer ignorant.”

He says, “Do not conform to the evil desires you had when you didn’t know any better.” Do not conform. Pastor Kim did a great job talking about what it means to conform in this past Monday’s “Monday Night Meditations” on Facebook. She took us to Romans 12:1-2 where Paul seems to be reinforcing what Peter has said here. Look at verse 2: 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)

In response to God’s mercy, in response to His love for us, in response to the sacrifice He made when Jesus laid down His life, we don’t just take salvation from God so that we can make a reservation in Heaven and then ignore Jesus here on earth, but we take Jesus into our lives in an effort to be conformed to Him. We want to take His shape and replicate His life.

When you conform to something you assimilate it into yourself. You are changed by it. You become part of it. Paul and Peter both say, “Don’t conform to the world’s patterns. Don’t become intertwined with evil practice. Don’t become part of the world. Don’t be changed by the world. Those won’t be holy changes.” Christ came to free us from the weight of sin, but He also came to free us from the pattern of sin as a lifestyle. Sin is not an appropriate lifestyle for a believer. Being holy means, we separate ourselves from things that are unholy, and we cling to or conform to Christ. He is the mold we are to fit our lives into. We conform to Him and nothing else.

We are at a point now, where there isn’t just the need to guard against conforming to the world, but there is pressure in Christendom, in the Church, to conform to teaching that is contrary to Scripture. Many in the church are bowing to the idol of self, to self-expression and self-indulgence over Scriptural mandates and precepts. We must not conform. I suppose where we find ourselves now isn’t unlike previous times in history when people had to boldly stand for the truth, even in religious circles.

Athanasius, early bishop of Alexandria, stoutly opposed the teachings of Arius, who declared that Christ was not the eternal Son of God, but a subordinate being. Hounded through five exiles, Athanasius was finally summoned before emperor Theodosius, who demanded he cease his opposition to Arius. The emperor reproved him and asked, “Do you not realize that all the world is against you?” Athanasius quickly answered, “Then I am against all the world.”

Athanasius wasn’t going to give in and conform just because Arius was passionate about what he was teaching. Don’t be fooled by someone’s passion or their vocabulary or their apparent knowledge or the number of other people who follow them. Athanasius wasn’t going to go along to get along just because Arius had a following. Arius was teaching heresy, and Athanasius, even though it made his life more difficult, wasn’t going to conform and get on board with a lie.

The Apostle Peter warned us to be on guard against heretical teaching in the church. II Peter 2 says it so clearly: But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

When someone disregards God’s Word as truth, as absolute, they have opened the door to sanction anything they deem acceptable. I recently had a conversation with a member of the clergy and as lovingly as possible I asked how he could get around passages of Scripture that condemned the lifestyle he was living. The basic answer was that he no longer viewed the Bible as historical or as reliable and true and that passages that dealt with what I was addressing were cultural and only relevant for that time in that culture. It was obvious to me that there was no point in any further discussion.
Verse 10: 10 This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh[c] and despise authority. And verse 12 12 But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish.

There is an ongoing, progressive push on Christians to conform to patterns that give in to human thought and are in response to the flesh’s desires. It is happening in many denominations, in many religious circles. Satan not only wants to give people a license to sin, but he is trying to get the Church to sanction it. Listen, it doesn’t matter how influential the group is that might exert pressure on God’s church, if it doesn’t line up with Scripture, it isn’t holy, and we aren’t going there!

Verse 15 of our main text goes on to say: 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”[a]

Before a person becomes a born-again Christian, they are focused on the flesh and the physical world. The natural man, the pre-Jesus person, is a body-mind-spirit kind-of-person. Their mind is set on their desires. Their heart and behavior follow the lead their desires set. Now, we each are comprised of body, mind, and spirit. Even many atheists would recognize there is a spiritual component to their beings. But in the experience of a non-Christian, the emphasis is on the body. They see themselves as physical beings first.

However, when a person is born again, they are born of the Holy Spirit, and there is a shift in the way they begin to perceive what real life is about. There is an emphasis placed on their spiritual self. This person becomes a spirit-mind-body-person. The flesh no longer rules the person who is born of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit rules the spiritual man and the mind and body follow. Peter is telling us here that we are no longer governed by or ruled by the flesh, but we are ruled by the Holy Spirit so that we can be holy, like Christ.

Holiness can be tough to define. Many people have made holiness about what they don’t do which is behavior-focused. Jesus made holiness about so much more. Holiness speaks to what is in our hearts. Holiness includes a transformation of our desires. Holiness involves the submission of our wills. Living for the flesh doesn’t require any submission. You just do what you want to do when you want to do it. There is no laying down of your will. There is no sacrifice in that. If I eat a donut and it tastes good and I want another one, I just get another one. If that tastes good and I still have room, or even if I don’t, I just keep going if I want to. I can eat six donuts if I want to because I am just following my desire. You know it’s possible, right? That is a simple example of following the flesh of doing something because that’s what you want to do.

But a person who is going the way of holiness will evaluate what God’s will is for them in any given situation regardless of their desire, whether they are going to have donuts or are making plans to entertain themselves on the weekend. God’s will, will always be for our good and God’s glory, and any person who is pursuing God’s command to be holy will live to accomplish God’s will. They will nurture their spiritual life and in so doing will become more focused on being like Jesus than they will be focused on fleshly desires that could take them in the opposite direction.

If I can make this point plain and simple, Jesus didn’t die to get us out of a death sentence so that we could continue to go on doing the things that lead to death!

Picture someone convicted of selling illegal drugs. We’ll call him, Scott. The volume of drugs and the number of prior offenses, lead to a life-sentence for Scott. But out of nowhere, comes an opportunity for Scott to get out of jail if someone else comes up with a half a million dollars. Scott’s father, in love, tries to find a way to be that person. He puts his home up for sale. He has an estate sale to sell his possessions. He cashes in all of his investments and takes all the money out of his retirement. In essence, he gave everything he had, short of his life, to pull the payment together, to free his son. And when his son is free to go, free to choose a new life, free to live a productive life instead of a life of crime, what does he do? He goes right back to dealing drugs, is arrested, and loses the opportunity to ever live free again. Scott had no regard for what his freedom cost and what opportunity had been afforded him.

What does Peter go on to say here in verses 17ff after he tells us to gird up our minds, after he tells us to not conform to old patterns of living, after he tells us to be holy? 17 Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For you know (you cannot claim ignorance about this fact) that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

Y’all, God didn’t just scrape together a ransom for us. He gave His very blood to redeem us from a broken way of life. The motivation to be holy is the very blood of Jesus. Let’s not disregard the cost. Let’s not miss out on the opportunity that God has given to us for a different way of life.

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