Call to Commitment

 

The flower fades

1 Peter 1:13-25

 

The holiness of God and His people

13.  Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 

14.  as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; 

15.  but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 

16.  because it is written, "BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY." 

 “Therefore” is based on the previous verses… because Christians are involved in the theme and life that was the envy of prophets and kings. To this, the prophets dedicated their entire lives, searching and inquiring the time of Christ’s suffering and the subsequent glories. They understood that these supreme events of the ages would come to a future people. Not only holy prophets, but holy, heavenly hosts longed to study the matters of an elect people, who would receive these glories. 

 Peter’s readers were the recipients, not only those of his day, but down through the gospel ages to our day, the message has been heard and received, accompanied by the Holy Spirit from heaven. It is the good news of salvation to a sinful, condemned race, totally unworthy of its benefits. You are the ones, Peter says, who should “gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you…”

 In the apostle’s day, men of the Middle East wore loose-fitting robes. When they would embark upon some activity, perhaps a journey, they would tie their robes closely to their bodies, and shorten them under their belts, to allow freedom of movement. Girding was an act of preparation and Peter applies it to the thought-life of a believer. It must be brought under control… “girded” … to think seriously and deeply and then, be able to come to a place of confident and complete rest in the grace of God. There is no other source of hope for him and it will be brought to him in its completeness, when Jesus Christ is revealed from heaven. This is to occupy his mind. Jesus said, "Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master…” (Lk.12:35,36).

                Chosen and born again, with               resurrection life from Christ

       1.      Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,  

       2.      elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied. 

3.      Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 

4.      to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 

5.      who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 

 After an introduction of the apostle Peter and the people, to whom he is writing, I want to refer to the first verse again, simply to look at the word pilgrims.  When Jacob met the Egyptian Pharaoh, he referred to his life as a pilgrimage… he was one, who had not settled down, but was on a continual journey: “Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years.” (Gen.47:9). He had learned that lifestyle from his father, Isaac, and his grandfather, Abraham.

 In Psalms 39:12, David identified with his forefathers as a foreign sojourner: “I am a stranger with You, A sojourner, as all my fathers were.”  The writer of Hebrews referred to the Old Testament saints, using the same Greek word, translated pilgrims in Hebrews 11:13, as in Peter’s first verse: “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” Peter is writing to pilgrims and I can see no other position for a Christian in this world, than that of a pilgrim (1).

 The apostle goes to great lengths to express to these people, with temporal residency on earth, that they have a history that was initiated by God the Father in eternity. He had chosen them, from the time that He had knowledge of them. Now, of course, we must consider the fact that, due to His omniscience, there is no beginning to His foreknowledge. In the timeless eons of eternity, He knew these pilgrims and chose them for His own. The place that they occupy in Peter’s day, was the result of God’s special attention given them from before the beginning of time.