INTRODUCTION
„X SLIDE #1
„X How many times have you thought how easy it is to live for Jesus, to pray, to read His word, to treat others as He wants us to treat them, to live a holy life, WHEN YOU ARE IN CHURCH?
„X Why is it so much easier to live for Jesus when we are at church than when we leave this place?
„X The world around us not too pure.
„X One of the most difficult things for the Christian can be trying to stay pure. I believe this gets more difficult as time passes because of the way society is today.
„X Each year, television, movies, and commercials are putting images into our heads that we do not need. The internet is traffics a lot of stuff that can cause us problems.
„X Our society is becoming increasingly more permissive in what we consider ¡§decent¡¨, we are introducing things to children at younger ages that they are not ready to have to deal with.
„X God has called us to be different. He has called us to live our lives chosen ones who belong to Him.
„X We are born again to a living hope as 1 Peter 1:3 reminds us.
„X Remember as we study 1 Peter that this book was written to those who were being persecuted and were suffering great loss because of their faith. Peter is trying to encourage them not to leave the faith and stay strong.
„X It is hard to stay unstained by the world. It is hard not to fall prey to the temptations the world has to offer.
„X We all hear what we should and should not do; we all know what happens when we follow the pattern of the world. SLIDE # 2
„X James 1:27 says: Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
„X What do you do to keep yourself pure, clean or unstained by the world? Does it happened by accident or do you have a game plan to make it happen?
„X Today I want us to look to God¡¦s Word for help with keeping ourselves clean as we live in this unclean world.
„X Today we are going to look at how we can stay clean when we live in the pig pen.
„X Let¡¦s turn to 1 Peter 1:13-16 together today.
„X SLIDE #3
SERMON
If we are going to stay clean while living in the pig pen we must be:
I. MENTALLY FOCUSED. V13
„X Most anything in life we endeavor to do takes a certain amount of mental focus. You must be focused on the task at hand. If you are going to hit a free throw, you must be mentally focused on what you are doing.
„X Many times we struggle and fail in our efforts to stay clean or pure in this world because we are not mentally prepared to do it.
„X How many of you have decided to go on a diet, only to fail. Then later you do it again only to succeed.
„X What was the difference between success and failure? Being mentally prepared for the challenge.
„X How many times have we done things only to fail or do poorly because our head was not in it? I spend a lot of time encouraging my softball team to keep their focus.
„X In verse 13 Peter gives us three things to do. SLIDE #3 CLICK
„X We are told first to prepare the mind for action. Some translations say we are to ¡§gird our minds for action.
„X During Jesus day people would wear a long robe, if they were going to run or do any hard work, they would take the bottom part of the robe and pull it up into their belt so they could run unencumbered.
„X The implication of this phrase is that we are to prepare our minds for strenuous activity. Today we would say, ¡§roll up your sleeves¡¨.
„X The word ¡§action¡¨ implies the action we are preparing our minds for is actions that will be to our benefit if we carry them out.
„X We must guard what we let into our minds; we must watch our thought process. SLIDE #4
„X 2 Corinthians 10:5 says: We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, SLIDE #5
„X The second thing we are told is that we are to keep sober in spirit.
„X The word ¡§sober¡¨ means to be balanced, steady, self-restrained.
„X A sober spirit is on that is able to consider matters in a careful and sensible way so as to make wise decisions.
„X The verb tense of the word indicates that being sober in spirit is something that should be a habitual pattern of life. A person who is sober in spirit does not let any pursuit in life take them away form their focus on Jesus. We are called to avoid things that would result in loss of mental and spiritual self-control.
„X SLIDE #5 CLICK
„X The third thing we are encouraged to do in verse 13 is to fix our hope COMPLETELY on the grace brought to us at the revelation of Jesus!
„X This is an appeal to the will from Peter. Hope is not just a matter of emotion, but obedience to hope can change our behavior.
„X If you are going to enter into an athletic competition and you have NO hope of winning, how will most people prepare? But what if you have hope that you can win?
„X Will that hope alone get you the win? NO. The hope must be followed up with some sort of discipline to train hard. Being obedient to your hope to the point of working hard will help you win.
„X When we are dealing with sin issues, we can HOPE to overcome them, but that HOPE alone will not help us to overcome. We will have to actively rely on God, we will need to pray a lot and be self-disciplined. If we feel we have NO HOPE of overcoming a sin, we will not defeat it.
„X We are called to FIX our hope COMPLETELY on the grace brought to us by Jesus.
„X SLIDE #6
If we are going to stay clean while living in the pig pen we must:
II. HAVE A PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR THAT IS PURE. V14-15
„X The patterns of behavior that we establish will go a long way in determining if we will be able to keep ourselves clean as we live in this world.
„X The obedience spoken of here is the obedience that follows conversion.
„X SLIDE #6 CLICK. Obedience is one of the foundations to clean living and personal holiness.
„X We are told as OBEDIENT children, we are not to be conformed to the former lusts which were ours in our ignorance. SLIDE #7
„X Romans 12:2 (NASB) And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
„X This is one of the conditions we must fulfill before we can be holy in our conduct. We have to stop behaving like the world. We have to stop reacting to things like unconverted people do.
„X Children of God have a new pattern of life to follow. SLIDE #8
„X 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
„X The old things that pass away include the old patterns of life.
„X I believe that diets do not work unless they become a new pattern of living. I lost 25 pounds once. I put it back on because I reverted to my previous pattern of eating.
„X We will have the same problems with sin if we do not establish new patterns of life.
„X 2 Peter 2:20-22 deals a bit with this when speaking of the effects false teachers can have on people. READ.
„X If we go back to the same things we have done, we will get the same results.
„X The patterns of life we were following were out of ignorance, but now we have been told and shown a better way.
„X Peter tells us we are to BE holy in all of our behavior. The word ¡§BE¡¨ means ¡§to become¡¨. We are to become holy in ALL our behavior!
„X Lust is an overmastering desire. SLIDE #9 James 1:14 says: But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.
„X Through Jesus we can overcome the sin that has entangled us. Jesus frees us from the bondage of sin!
„X SLIDE #10
If we are going to stay clean while living in the pig pen we must:
III. FOLLOW THE RIGHT EXAMPLE. V15-16
„X Role models are important to us. I believe we all seek them out. When I was a child it was athletes and my father.
„X Too many times we compare ourselves to other people to gage how we are doing.
„X Too many times we look to the wrong people and places for our examples.
„X I could not have asked for a more loving father than my dad. I wanted to be like him, he is a draftsman. I did not know what it was, but if my dad did it, I wanted to. My father smoked, so I thought I would want to smoke.
„X As great a dad as I have, he is not perfect. I never smoked because he told me what would happen to me if he caught me.
„X If you are looking at other people for your example, you will be disappointed.
„X I remember having some church leaders disappoint me when I was a fairly new Christian. I had to realize they were flawed, but well meaning men.
„X We are called to be holy because GOD is holy.
„X God is not asking us to be what He is not. I was confused as to why I could not smoke if my dad did. Once I understood how bad it was, I would then hide my dad¡¦s cigarettes so he would not smoke them. That was the $.50 per pack days.
„X We are called to be like our Heavenly Father.
„X He is holy, and we are called to be holy. People will disappoint you, God will not.
„X Christians are to live a holy life not matter how the rest of the world lives.
„X To be holy means to be set apart.
„X We are called to be perfecting holiness as we live our lives! SLIDE #11
„X 2 Corinthians 7:1 Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
„X SLIDE #12
CONCLUSION
„X IF we are going to live a life that is pleasing to God we must be:
Mentally Focused
Have A Pattern of Behavior that is Pure
Follow THE Right example.
„X What is your game plan for staying clean as you live in the pig pen?
„X Purity, holiness do not happen by accident, it happens as we develop our relationship with Jesus!
„X As we discipline ourselves for Godliness, our lives will start to change!
„X Do you need Jesus today, if you do not have Him, you need Him!
