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Live Like Who You Are
Updated: 3 days ago
1 Peter 1:13–25 · Matt Miller · Balkan Baptist Church, Novi Sad
The wrong question
A new series everyone is watching. A habit you picked up years ago. A joke the whole office laughs at. And the question we usually ask is, “Is this technically wrong?”
It sounds like a careful question. But it may be the wrong one. The world rarely asks a Christian to stand up and deny Christ. It does not need to. It only needs to shape us, little by little, until we no longer look much different from everyone else.
A better question is: What is this fashioning me into?
Peter has a word for that shaping, and he has a better pattern for our lives. But before he tells us how to live, he reminds us who we are.
“But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.”
— 1 Peter 1:15–16
Where Peter has brought us
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:1–12.
Last week we met a village boy who sneaked into the king’s castle. He dressed the part and copied everyone’s manners, but he lived in fear of being found out and thrown out. Then he discovered the truth: he was the king’s own son.
Peter spent the first twelve verses telling scattered believers the same thing. You are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” You are “begotten again unto a lively hope.” You have an inheritance “reserved in heaven,” and you are “kept by the power of God.” You did not sneak into the castle. You belong.
Wherefore
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:13.
Now comes the hinge: “Wherefore.” Because all of that is true, here is how you live. Peter has moved from identity to responsibility, and the order matters. He does not say, Live this way and perhaps God will accept you. He says, God has called you, begotten you again, and is keeping you; wherefore, live like it.
Peter is not explaining how to become saved. He is explaining how a redeemed person should live.
Three responses
1. Gird up your mind.
2. Remember who bought you.
3. Love like you really are family.
And underneath all three is the foundation Peter lays at the end of the chapter: “the word of the Lord endureth for ever.”
1. Gird up your mind
Ready for action
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:13.
“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.” People in Peter’s day wore long, loose garments. That was fine for ordinary life, but when it was time to run, work, or fight, they gathered the garment up and tied it tight. They girded themselves.
Peter says to do that with your mind. You cannot let every thought, fear, desire, and opinion around you hang loose. The opposite of girding up your mind is whatever will be, will be. Suffering can make us think, God has forgotten me. Maybe I would be better off living like everyone else. So Peter adds, “be sober”: clear-minded, not intoxicated by fear, lust, or the mood of the culture.
A sober mind sees life through truth instead of letting circumstances rewrite truth.
Hope with somewhere to rest
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:13; 1 Peter 1:3.
Peter does not only tell us to clear our thinking. He gives our hope a place to land: “the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Christ is coming. Grace is coming. Christian hope is not, I hope everything works out somehow. It is confidence fixed on what God has promised.
Don’t let today become bigger than eternity.
What is fashioning me?
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:14.
“As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance.” Notice the order. Peter does not say, Obey so that you can become children. He says, Because you are children, be obedient children. Our obedience flows from our identity.
To be fashioned is to be shaped by a pattern. Something is always trying to shape us: the people around us, what we watch and listen to, old habits, appetites, fears, and the desire to fit in. So ask: Does this make me think more like Christ? Does it make sin seem normal and holiness strange?
The world does not have to make you deny Christ if it can simply fashion you until you no longer look like Him.
Family resemblance
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:15–16; Leviticus 11:44.
Peter gives a better pattern: “as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation.” In the King James Bible, conversation means our whole manner of life, not only our speech. Holiness touches how we speak, how we treat our family, how we handle money, how we act when no one from church is watching, and what we laugh at.
The boy in the castle is not dressing like the king’s son to fool the king. He is the king’s son. I don’t pursue holiness to get into the family. I pursue holiness because, through Christ, I am in the family.
Holiness is family resemblance.
PAUSE AND REFLECT What has been fashioning your thinking more than the Word of God lately? |
2. Remember who bought you
Whose name you carry
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:17.
“And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.” God is our Father, but that does not make our conduct unimportant. Our life here is a sojourning, a temporary stay.
This fear is not the terror of the boy hiding in the castle. Peter has spent twelve verses destroying that picture. It is reverence: taking seriously who our Father is and how we represent Him. A child carries the family name wherever he goes. Christians carry the name of Christ into the world every day.
Redeemed from an empty life
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:18.
“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers.” To be redeemed is to be set free by the payment of a price. Vain means empty, futile, without lasting value.
Christ did not only redeem us from where sin was taking us. He redeemed us from the empty life sin was giving us. Why would a redeemed person willingly put the old chains back on?
The precious blood
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:19–21.
Gold lasts for generations, yet compared to what Peter describes next, even gold is perishable. We were redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Not merely blood, but precious blood. Christ was no defective sacrifice. The innocent One gave Himself for the guilty.
And this was no emergency plan. Christ “verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.” For you. Scattered, small, and overlooked, they were not forgotten. And God “raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.”
What is your life worth? Don’t look at your bank account. Look at the price that was paid to redeem you.
The boy in the castle now learns that an enormous price was paid to bring him home. That does not make him insecure. It makes his place in the family precious. We do not live carefully because we fear Christ will unredeem us. We live carefully because we know what our redemption cost.
PAUSE AND REFLECT What are you treating casually that Christ paid so dearly to redeem? |
3. Love like you really are family
Love without pretending
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:22.
“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.” Peter has looked upward to our holy Father and backward to the price of our redemption. Now he looks sideways, to one another.
Unfeigned means genuine, without pretending. It is possible to know all the vocabulary of Christian love, “Good morning!”, “God bless you!”, “We’re praying for you!”, without actually loving anyone. Friendliness can happen in thirty seconds. Love takes time.
Do I actually love the people in my church, or have I only learned how to be friendly to them?
Fervently, and first
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:22; 1 Peter 1:14, 17.
Notice Peter’s family words: “obedient children,” “the Father,” “the brethren.” A church is not a room of customers who prefer the same service. It is a family. We come from different countries, languages, and backgrounds. We might not have chosen one another. But God has made us brethren.
Fervently means with stretching, sustained effort. Sooner or later someone will disappoint you, forget something important, or need help at an inconvenient time. That is often the moment unfeigned love becomes visible. And Peter says, “see that ye love,” make sure it happens. Sometimes love says, I’ll go first.
Let the roots grow together
Above ground, trees in a forest look separate. Beneath the surface, their roots spread through the same soil. We should not just have branches that touch on Sunday. When we eat together, serve together, hand out literature, or work on the church property, the task matters, and so does the relationship being built. You learn someone’s story, what makes them laugh, and how to pray for them. “The people at my church” become “my brothers and sisters.”
Anybody can love an ideal church. Peter tells us to love real people.
PAUSE AND REFLECT Who in your church family needs you to go first this week? |
CONCLUSION AND APPLICATION
Build on what endures
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:23–25; Isaiah 40:6–8.
What can keep us steady enough to live this way? Our emotions change. Our circumstances change. Our culture changes. Peter points to something that does not: “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”
Quoting Isaiah, he says, “all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.” Beauty, strength, money, popularity, success: even the impressive parts are temporary. “But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”
Don’t let a temporary world fashion a life that was born from an eternal Word.
So go back to the question: “Is this technically wrong?” Ask instead, “What is this fashioning me into?” If the world shapes you, you will change every time the world changes. If the Word of God shapes your thinking, your conduct, and your relationships, you have a foundation that will still be standing when the grass is gone.
Key takeaways
Peter moves from who we are to how we live: “Wherefore.”
Gird up your mind: think clearly and fix your hope on Christ’s coming.
Holiness is family resemblance, not a way into the family.
Remember the price: the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish.
Love one another without pretending, fervently, and go first.
The Word of God endures for ever; build your life on it.
This week: respond to the Word
Ask three questions. My mind: What is shaping the way I think? My conduct: What am I treating too casually? My relationships: Who needs me to go first?
Choose one concrete response for each, and write it down. Let the way you live show whose child you are.
If you have not trusted Christ
Peter says we are not redeemed with silver and gold, and not by our own good behavior either. We are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, who died for our sins and rose again. If you have never been born again, you cannot fix that by cleaning up your life first. Turn from your sin and trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. He is the Lamb without blemish, foreordained and revealed for you.
You can come to Him right where you are reading this. Tell Him you know you have sinned, that you need His forgiveness, and that you are putting your trust in Jesus, who died for you and rose again.
Your new life cannot begin with your effort. It begins with His blood and His Word.
If you belong to Christ
You are the King’s child. Think like it. Live like it. Remember what it cost. And love the rest of His family like they really are your family.
Our prayer
Father, thank You that we belong to You. Gird up our minds with Your truth and fix our hope on the coming of Jesus Christ. Make us holy, as You are holy. Thank You for the precious blood of Christ that redeemed us. Teach us to love one another fervently, and to go first. Shape us by Your Word, which endures for ever, and draw those who do not yet know You to Christ. In Jesus’ name, amen.
QUESTIONS ABOUT LIVING LIKE WHO WE ARE
1. Does Peter mean we must be holy in order to be saved?
No. Peter writes to people already born again and redeemed. Holiness is the family resemblance of God’s children, not the price of entering the family.
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:14–16; Ephesians 2:8–10
2. What does “gird up the loins of your mind” mean?
In Peter’s day people tied up their long garments to run or work. Peter calls us to gather up our thinking, remove what hinders, and be ready to live by what we know is true.
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:13; Romans 12:2
3. Why does Peter tell children of God to live “in fear”?
Not the fear of being thrown out, but reverence for a holy Father who judges without respect of persons, and a desire not to bring shame on His name.
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:17; Proverbs 9:10
4. What does “unfeigned love of the brethren” look like?
Love without pretending: making time, carrying burdens, forgiving, and taking the first step, even when it is inconvenient.
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:22; Romans 12:9–10
5. How does the Word of God keep me steady?
We were born again by the Word, and the Word endures for ever. When everything around us changes, God’s Word does not, so it is the safest foundation for our thinking and living.
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:23–25; Matthew 24:35
ABOUT THIS STUDY This study is part of our Sunday morning series through 1 Peter at Balkan Baptist Church, Novi Sad. If it encouraged you, share it with someone who needs to hear about the hope we have in Christ. |
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