if you’re going to run this race of faith:
1 Peter 1:13-16

In the previous verses the Apostle Peter focused primarily on the finished works of Christ.

He focused on what the Lord had provided and acquired for the believer, giving us all that’s needed in order to live as successful believers.

  • He taught us what the Lord had done!
  • He tells us that God has provided an eternal hope;
  • God has provided an eternal inheritance;
  • God has provided eternal salvation;
  • God has provided eternal protection;
  • God has provided us with the ability to praise Him in the midst of our troubles.
  • God has done all of this for you, now Peter tells us its time for you to do something not just for God, but for yourselves. So Peter shifts the direction of his discourse to tell us what we ought to be doing.

Peter reminds us that being saved is the work of God,

but enjoying our salvation involves some work from our parts.

  • It requires some spiritual tenacity.
  • It requires some holding on and not letting go.

1 Peter 1:13 (KJV) Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

  • what is saying is “gird your minds for action.”
  • During this time the men wore long robes, and whenever they got ready to move swiftly, they had to lift the bottom of their robes in order to run.

Peter is saying if you’re going to run this race of faith:

  1. You need to train your mind.
  2. Whenever you face a storm, you’ve got to pick up a promise and run
  3. You’ve got to focus on what God is going to do, and not what you’re going through.
  4. Many of us haven’t trained our minds to think righteously when we’re in a storm.
  5. So when we get in a storm instead of saying God is with me,
  6. we ask God questions like;

a)God where were you when I needed you;

b)why did you allow this?

c)You begin to doubt the goodness of God, instead of doubting your doubt.

  1. Gird your minds for action, train your minds to think in the realm of faith and holiness.
  2. Paul said 2 Cor. 10:5 (KJV)

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God,

  1. In other words “let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.”
  1. you must also Guard Your Spirit.
  2. Peter said in verse 13, be sober (in spirit).
  3. be means //To become; to be; to come into existence; to take on a new form; to be made; to change. “Be” is a once-for-all act, a personal experience that happens all at once.
  4. sober to guard

a)Guard your spirit like the Secret Service guards the president

b)The Spirit protects the heart!

  1. Notice the order of importance: First he said train your mind, then he said guard. Why?
  2. Because the mind and the spirit operate just like your garden. Whatever you plant will definitely come up
  3. Peter tells us how to guard or keep our spirits. He says in verse 13, “be sober.”be discreet : watch.

III.CONTINUAL to have hope till the lord comes

Peter 1:13 (KJV) Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

  1. Hope to the end for the grace and salvation of God. Our hope must be kept alive.
  2. There is a dead hope .
  3. A dead hope is the hope that so many people have, the hope that they will be acceptable to God when they die.
  4. Scripture says: hope to the end for the grace and salvation of God.

a)Begin to hope now and keep on hoping to the very end. This is a living hope,

(Titus 2:11-13). “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ”

  1. dead hope sit around and does nothing for the lord
  2. they have a hope so faith
  3. living faith keeps on doing the lords work no matter what

1 Tim. 6:12 (KJV) Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.

  1. trouble come keep the faith the hoe in the lord
  2. on the mountain keep trusting the lord
    It doesn’t matter what you’re going through today:
    A. Hope your way through it
  3. just keep on RUNNING for the lord