Be What You Are Series

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NORTH PINE BAPTIST CHURCH

Sunday 13th July 2025

1 Peter 1:13-2:3

“Be What You Are”

In the past weeks we have seen, and we will continue to see, that the letters of Peter are built on the foundation of the Gospel. What Peter will show us is that the Gospel can’t just be a message we hear and know.

The Gospel APPLIED should become a catalyst for transformation because God, through His Word, places this transformational calling on every single elected disciple who are foreigners dispersed throughout the nations.

The Gospel isn’t just knowledge to store away. It transforms, and continues to transform, our lives. This morning, as we keep understanding that transformation, our focus is on 1 Peter 1:13-2:3. In these verses there are five times when Peter uses a grammar form called an imperative

An imperative is not a command in the sense that the words are issuing an order, or setting out a rule, or making a law which we need to follow to earn our salvation.

Rather the imperative is a Word from God telling us what sort of life God expects us to have when we say we are disciples of Jesus.

Imperatives are requests, or exhortations which describe the continual actions, or life decisions, which God expects to see in His disciples.

1 Peter 1:13-2:3 has five imperatives. The first imperative is in

1 Peter 1:13-14

13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.

The imperative is set your hope on (1:13).

In this case hope is based on the reality that we will be shown grace when Jesus Christ is revealed.

The grace which reveals itself in the reality that nothing will separate us from this loving grace of Jesus.

Not trials, or doubts, or fears, or joys, or blessings, or overcoming temptation or falling into temptation.

When we see Jesus face-to-face nothing will have been prevent the grace of Jesus from being shown to us when Jesus is revealed.

Which could make us think that

… a little sin now and then isn’t going to be a big deal.

… or we could just be Sunday only Christians and less-than-Christian from Monday to Saturday.

… if nothing can separate us then we can just coast along as disciples, and not get too stressed if we drop the discipleship ball every now and then.

We could think this way. But we don’t.

Instead we look at this imperative and it leads us to obedience … specifically an obedience where we don’t conform to the evil desires we had when we lived in ignorance.

Living in ignorance is a description of our pre-Christian life.

When we set our hope on the grace of Jesus that will be revealed at His coming it causes us make sure, now, that we are not living a life belongs to our time of ignorance.

We look at out life …

… perhaps it is anger and impatience.

… or it is a harsh and judgemental character.

… perhaps we see rudeness and self-absorption.

… or aggressive and obnoxious actions.

We look at these, and so many other actions, and we say this is “ignorance-type” living.

The imperative to set our hope on the grace to be brought to us when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming is an imperative which leads to an honest assessment of when we are not being obedient. The same imperative continues to drive us to keep asking “Where else does transformation need to take place in my life?’

Let’s move on to the second imperative. We find it in 1 Peter 1:15-16

15 But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

The imperative is be holy (1:15)

When we read these words our response may be “That is impossible. How can I be holy like God is holy.”

Let’s understand that Peter is not setting a standard … “you be holy just like God is holy.”

Rather Peter is providing us with a motive … “you can be Holy, because God is holy.”

The issue of holiness comes back to the transforming power of the Gospel.

We are holy because of the work of Jesus in us.

God’s people are holy because God has made them holy.

It worked the same way in the Old Testament. Which is why Peter can quote from the Old Testament—specifically Leviticus 11:44-45.

44 I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground. 45 I am the LORD, who brought you up out of Egypt to be Your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.