A Life of Steadfast Hope, Part 1

The point: When we do anything that irritates you, makes life difficult for you, we're not omniscient. Please, please come and help us to know where we can do better. And you'll find us very willing to be cooperative.

Martin shares a personal anecdote about a brother kindly pointing out his soft speaking, illustrating humility and willingness to repent and improve, drawing a parallel to James's teaching on human fallibility.

The reading of God's word shall cease as of this morning, but it underscores a very vital principle. I was not at all conscious that I was doing that. And when a brother called me, I didn't hand his head to him. I didn't say, I've been preaching for 45 years, who are you to criticize me?

1:01 - 1:19 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Focusing on 1 Peter 1:13, Martin clarifies that the verse contains one central imperative ('set your hope perfectly') preceded by two participles that function as prerequisites or…

An analogy of a mother giving commands to her son, John, in two different ways (parallel imperatives vs. participles preceding a central imperative) is used to explain the grammatical structure of 1 Peter 1:13 and how participles function as preparations or accompaniments.

Now lest you get discouraged, I want to use an illustration of how we can do this in our ordinary speaking. And you kids listen carefully and see if you can tell the difference between the two ways that I have a mother give some commands to her son John. It's a Monday morning. It's a Monday morning, coming up on close to time to leave for school, and mama cries upstairs to John and says, Johnny, make your bed, grab your book bag, and get out to the car in ten minutes.

15:37 - 16:11 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He explains the ancient practice of girding up loins for strenuous activity, applying this metaphor to the mind, emphasizing the need for focused mental engagement and preparation…

He describes the ancient Middle Eastern practice of girding up flowing robes for strenuous activity, making the metaphor of 'girding up the loins of your mind' immediately understandable to the original audience and illustrating the need for mental preparation.

And the first, a decisive action. Wherefore, having girded up the loins of your mind. Now, what in the world is Peter talking about? Well, if you lived in the Middle East in the first century, as these believers did, to whom that letter came, you would immediately understand what Peter was saying.

18:58 - 19:23 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He explains the ancient practice of girding up loins for strenuous activity, applying this metaphor to the mind, emphasizing the need for focused mental engagement and preparation…

The modern idiom 'roll up your sleeves and get with it' is used as a parallel to 'girding up the loins,' signifying readiness for hard work and throwing oneself into a task.

So he tells them there is to be a decisive action as a support to this dead fast hope under this figure of girding up the loins. But it not only was a vital activity to prepare the person for strenuous activity, it was also, and we find this in the scriptures, it was also a means of strengthening one for that activity. And as I tried to think of a modern parallel, the girding up of the loins would be like someone saying, now roll up your sleeves and get with it. In other words, we're really going to do some hard work here.

20:38 - 21:16 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He explains the ancient practice of girding up loins for strenuous activity, applying this metaphor to the mind, emphasizing the need for focused mental engagement and preparation…

The black elastic belts worn by Home Depot employees for back support are used as a modern parallel to the strengthening aspect of girding up the loins, illustrating physical support for strenuous activity.

Roll up your sleeves. It's a figure of speech. Get ready to throw yourself into it. Most of you have been to Home Depot at one time or another.

21:16 - 21:25 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He explains the ancient practice of girding up loins for strenuous activity, applying this metaphor to the mind, emphasizing the need for focused mental engagement and preparation…

A quotation from Matthew Henry about having a journey, race, warfare, and work to do is used to emphasize the need for mental engagement and gathering loose ends, connecting it to the 'girding up the loins of the mind'.

in this central imperative. As Matthew Henry so perceptibly wrote, you have a journey to make. You have a race to run. You have a warfare to fight.

23:41 - 23:55 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin defines spiritual sobriety as correctly evaluating reality through God's Word, contrasting it with physical drunkenness and the distractions of modern technology that…

The effect of alcohol on the brain, causing a person to be 'out of whack' and unable to perceive reality correctly, is used to illustrate the concept of spiritual non-sobriety and the distortion of reality.

But let us, since we are of the day, be sober. You see how he is using the figure of the one physical drunkenness and contrasting it with spiritual non-drunkenness. It is called sobriety. You see when too much alcohol is in the blood and goes to the brain, what happens to the brain?

26:55 - 27:19 Read in full sermon

The point: All of which are doing what? Sending impulses to your brain, to your mind. All of which are calculated to make you a spiritual scatterbrain and to take you out of the realm of reality as God defines it.

Modern technology (internet, TV, radio, etc.) is cited as an example of avenues that send impulses to the brain, calculated to make one 'spiritually scatterbrained' and take one out of God's definition of reality.

You're going to be neutralized in your effectiveness. As a warrior and a worker. Now, in a day when modern technology has multiplied the avenues to the mind, there is, this is no small issue for you and for me living at this point in human history. The printed page, personal computers with the plethora of websites and internet, goodies, TV, radio, Walkman stereos, CDs, telephone, etc., etc.

30:43 - 31:15 Read in full sermon

The point: What is the pull for so many of you young people with, quote, your music? It's that it takes you away from God's world and God's realm of reality. It's escape from those things that in your heart of heart you know are th…

A quotation from commentator Mr. Cranfield is used to apply the concept of 'girding up the loins of the mind' to contemporary church life, advocating for teaching sermons and intellectual effort over entertainment.

God and you and His law and your accountability and your relationship to Him. And surely if there's to be any progress in Christian experience and grace, there must be a determination to take seriously these two supports that Peter, by the Spirit of God, sets before us. And I want to underscore the implication of that for something very practical in this place. Listen to Mr. Cranfield,

32:05 - 32:35 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Hope is the fixing of the soul upon a divinely promised blessing of God. Hope is the fixing of the soul in faith upon a divinely promised blessing.

An extended story of a punctual, loving father who promises a gift upon his return from a business trip is used to illustrate biblical hope as desire, expectation, and joyful anticipation based on a trustworthy promise.

And in that fixation there are the elements of desire, expectation, and joyful anticipation. Now again let me illustrate. This family is blessed with a father who keeps his word. Though he's not God, and omnipotent, and can't control all events, so much as lies within his power, he is a punctual man.

35:58 - 36:25 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Hope is the fixing of the soul upon a divinely promised blessing of God. Hope is the fixing of the soul in faith upon a divinely promised blessing.

An anecdote about an English Christian surgeon known for his impeccable punctuality is shared to further emphasize the reliability of a promise, making the father's promise in the main illustration more credible.

His wife and his kids know him to be such. He's been that for years. I just read a mini biography of an English Christian surgeon who had a tremendous influence in the generation past. And his son writing that biography said he was utterly amazed at the impeccable punctuality of his father.

36:25 - 36:45 Read in full sermon

The point: Our danger is that we will grow weary of having the doctrine applied closely and powerfully to the conscience making its legitimate demands upon thought and motive and time and life and energy and want a quote a Calvinis…

David Wells's books 'No Place for Truth' and 'God in the Waste Land' are cited to underscore the danger of American evangelicalism jettisoning historic Christian doctrine, reinforcing the point about the necessity of doctrine for church vitality.

now brethren you say well that's a simple thing that's obvious we've heard it many times but I want to tell you I'm convinced not just my conviction that clinging to that reality and living in the light of it will be the life and death of churches in the next thirty to forty years David Wells has written two masterful treatises one called No Place for Truth and the other God in the Waste Land and the whole burden of those two books is that American evangelicalism has jettisoned its lifeblood in jettison its grasp upon historic Christian doctrine and in circles that some of us have been privile...

52:31 - 53:15 Read in full sermon