Summary: We live in a hog lot type of world, the longer you are in it, the less you notice it. What can we do in order to not fall into the trap of the world?

INTRODUCTION

 SLIDE #1

 Isn’t it easy 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?

 Why does it seem so much easier to live for Jesus when we are at church than when we are in the world?

 You ever tried to wear your best clothing and shoes out in the mud? Was it hard to keep them clean? Living in the world is sort of like that for us.

 The world around us not too pure. I do not want this to sound too bad but living in this world is kind of like being in a hog lot.

 When you first step into the lot you notice how much it smells, then when you are there for a while, you no longer notice the smell.

 It is difficult for the Christians to stay pure. I believe this gets more difficult as time passes because of the way society is today.

 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.

 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.

 God has called us to be different. He has called us to live our life as one who belongs to Jesus.

 We are born again to a living hope as 1 Peter 1:3 reminds us.

 It is hard to stay unstained by the world. It is hard not to fall prey to the temptations the world has to offer.

 We all hear what we should and should not do; we all know what happens when we follow the pattern of the world.

 James 1:27(ESV) 27Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

 What do you do to keep yourself pure, clean or unstained by the world? Does it happen by accident or do you have a game plan to make it happen?

 Today I want us to look to God’s Word for help with keeping ourselves clean as we live in this unclean world, how we can stay clean when we live in the hog lot.

 Let’s begin by looking at verse 13

 SLIDE # 2

 1 Peter 1:13(ESV) 13Therefore, preparing your minds for action,£ and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

 Let’s begin by understanding that…

 SLIDE #3

SERMON

If you are going to stay clean while living in the hog lot you must:

I. PREPARE TO BE MENTALLY FOCUSED. V13

 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.

 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.

 How many have decided to go on a diet, only to fail. Then later you do it again only to succeed.

 What was the difference between success and failure? Being mentally prepared for the challenge.

 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.

 In verse 13 Peter gives us three things to do.

 SLIDE #4

1. Prepare your mind for action.

 We are told first to prepare the mind for action. Some translations say we are to “gird our minds for action.

 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.

 The implication of this phrase is that we are to prepare our minds for strenuous activity. Today we would say, “roll up your sleeves”.

 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.

 We must guard what we let into our minds; we must watch our thought process.

 SLIDE #5

 2 Corinthians 10:5(ESV) 5We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

 SLIDE #6

2. Become sober-minded.

 The second thing we are told is that we are to keep sober in spirit.

 The word “sober” means to be balanced, steady, self-restrained.

 A sober spirit is on that is able to consider matters in a careful and sensible way so as to make wise decisions.

 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.

 SLIDE #7

3. Set your hope in the right place.

 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!

 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.

 If you are going to enter into an athletic competition and you have NO hope of winning, how will most people prepare? What if you have hope that you can win?

 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.

 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.

 We are called to FIX our hope COMPLETELY on the grace brought to us by Jesus.

 Let’s explore verse 14

 SLIDE #8

 1 Peter 1:14(ESV) 14As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,

 SLIDE #9

If you are going to stay clean while living in the hog lot you must:

II. ESTABLISH A NEW PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR BASED ON YOUR NEW LIFE. V14

 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.

 Verse 14 reminds us not to be conformed to the passions of our former life. How do we do that? Let’s examine 2 ways!

 SLIDE #10

1. Live in obedience.

 The obedience spoken of here is the obedience that follows conversion.

 Obedience is one of the foundations to clean living and personal holiness.

 The word CONFORM means to comply.

 We are told as OBEDIENT children, we are not to be conformed to the former lusts which were ours in our ignorance.

 Look at Romans 12:2

 SLIDE #11

 Romans 12:2(ESV) 2Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

 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.

 SLIDE #12

2. Conform to new life patterns.

 Children of God have a new pattern of life to follow.

 SLIDE #13

 2 Corinthians 5:17(ESV) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

 The old things that pass away include the old patterns of life.

 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 with a vengeance because I reverted to my previous pattern of eating.

 Now I have lost again and I am keeping it off because I have formed new patterns of behavior!

 When we go back to the old ways we will experience the same old results.

 2 Peter 2:20-22 illustrates this point.

 SLIDE #14

 2 Peter 2:20-22(ESV) 20For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”

 We will have the same problems with sin if we do not establish new patterns of life.

 If we go back to the same things we have done, we will get the same results.

 The patterns of life we were following were out of ignorance, but now we have been told and shown a better way.

 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!

 We cannot allow ourselves to be driven by worldly passions!

 Through Jesus we can overcome the sin that has entangled us. Jesus frees us from the bondage of sin!

 Let’s finish with verses 15-16

 SLIDE #15

 1 Peter 1:15-16(ESV) 15but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

 SLIDE #16

If you are going to stay clean while living in the hog lot you must:

III. STRIVE TO BE LIKE THE FATHER. V15-16

 Role models are important to us. I believe we all seek them out. When I was a child it was athletes and my father.

 Too many times we compare ourselves to other people to gage how we are doing.

 Too many times we look to the wrong people and places for our examples.

 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.

 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.

 If you are looking at other people for your example, you will be disappointed.

 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.

 We are called to be holy because GOD is holy.

 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 smoking was for you, I would then hide my dad’s cigarettes so he would not smoke them. That was the $.50 per pack days.

 We are called to be like our Heavenly Father.

 He is holy, and we are called to be holy. People will disappoint you, God will not.

 Christians are to live a holy life not matter how the rest of the world lives.

 To be holy means to be set apart.

 We are called to be perfecting holiness as we live our lives!

 SLIDE #17

 2 Corinthians 7:1(ESV) Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

CONCLUSION

 What is your game plan for staying clean as you live in the pig pen?

 Purity, holiness do not happen by accident, it happens as we develop our relationship with Jesus!

 As we discipline ourselves for Godliness, our lives will start to change!

 Do you need Jesus today, if you do not have Him, you need Him!