Text:
1 Peter 1:13-16, "Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy.""
1 Peter 4:7, "But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers."
1 Peter 5:6-11, "Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking thom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To Him by the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen."
In these three Scriptures we're told to discipline ourselves. The KJV says, be sober, alert, things like that. The NIV says, be self-controlled. The NRSV says, be disciplined. The the first instance listen to what it says, "Prepare your mind for action, discipline yourselves." That is the first time he tells us to discipline and he tells us to discipline ourselves in our thinking of our mind. Because we are fighting against the flesh, the world and the devil. Peter is well aware that ideas have legs. Skewed thinking inevitably leads to skewed lives. I sometimes refer to it as "stinking thinking." You cannot act right if you cannot think right. So, we are told to discipline ourselves so that we can think right, because we are not suppose to be conformed to the flesh like we used to be. Instead God wants us to be holy like He is holy. In order for us to act holy, we have to first think rightly and how you think rightly, is you discipline yourself. When you come down to the altar and give your life to Jesus you don't all of a sudden think right. No, you have to discipline yourself because it has taken you a long time to develop patterns of thinking in your life. The software in your life has been programmed to think in certain patterns, and when something happens the computer kicks out a response according to how it has been programmed, because you have been thinking that way for so long. Since your thinking is a certain way, you begin to act that way. So you need to discipline yourself.
Hebrews tells us that God loves us and because He loves us He disciplines us. Paul tells us that nobody has not never loved themselves. Therefore if you love yourself, you need to discipline yourself. How you start is in your thinking. Renewing your mind is how you discipline your thinking. You get rid of all those things. You tear down those strongholds of rationality, ways of thinking, and philosophies and you replace them with the Word of God. You do that by disciplining yourself to hold captive the thoughts that come in and you bring them under the obedience of Christ. Anything that is wrong thinking (stinking thinking) contrary, fleshly kind of thinking, you hit the delete button and enter in what the Scriptures say. As we do that continually, with God's help through the Spirit, our thinking leads to right actions and we become holy.
We are initially holy, because God injecting Himself into us through Jesus Christ. This is what God says about us so we need to act like that. So now that you begin to discipline yourself to think like that, act like it. You know, now do!! Don't tell me you know and don't do, because that is really not knowing. Him that knows to do good and doesn't do it, it is wrong, it is sin. We fall short of the glory of God that way. The first thing Peter says is to discipline yourselves especially the way you think. Why? Because when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, He became number 1. Until you did that your flesh was number 1 and now has been knocked down to number 2. Your flesh doesn't like being number 2, it is use to being number 1, it is going to scream, kick and yell, because it doesn't want what you gave it (that is Jesus Christ). Discipline yourself to God's way of thining that only happens through the Word of God and through rightly dividing that Word. There are a lot of people that know a lot about the Word but it is so far off you wouldn't want to follow that. It has to be thinking that aligns itself properly with the Word of God. In Acts 17, the Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonicans because they received the Word with all readiness of mind. They were anxious to hear the Word of God and then they went home and checked to see if it was right or not. If more people would do that, there wouldn't be so many cults, and there wouldn't be so much false doctrine, and there wouldn't be so much confusion in the church today. Right thinking would put an end to that and it would put an end to a lot of wrong behavior.
1 Peter 4:7, "But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers."
You have to think right, and you have to pray right. You have to pray right. In all three of these areas grace in mentioned. It is with God's grace and our doing properly that we can become what God wants us to become. There is an element of the world here. The way the world does things. What do we do to keep from doing the things the world does? We pray properly. This is what we are told on prayer, basically we are to always pray and not faint, or not give up or lose heart. We are to pray continually. We are to pray without ceasing. We are to keep on praying, at all times, with all kinds of prayer. Even when we do not know how to pray as we ought the Holy Spirit will pray through us. We cannot pray selfish prayers because God won't hear them. Prayers that are according to His will and in the name of His Son, are the prayers that He will answer. When our thinking is right, what happens to our prayers? They get answered. A double-minded man isn't going to get anything from God. Get your thinking right, then discipline yourself in your prayer. This is what most people do for a prayer life: They go along in life until a disaster happens then it is time for them to pray. We can't have prayer in public schools, but go to war or have something happen like 9/11 or the Challenger tragedy and boy, people are going to pray. You cannot selectively pray like that. You have to have a discipline of prayer. When you get up in the morning you need to pray and give the Lord your day and as you get dressed, be sure to get dressed spiritually, put on the garment of praise, put on the armour of God; there are time we are to put on the clothes of mourning because we see the lost souls and the way society is following after the enemy. Pray right. Discipline yourself for prayers sake.
We have to have right thinking that only comes from discipline. Right praying that only comes from discipline. Many people will say it is hard to pray. If you are in love with someone is it hard to talk with them. NO! You will spend all kinds of time and money calling them. You even have to call them every day. Why do you do that? Because you are in love. If you are in love with God you would want to talk with Him, not just in an emergency, not when we have our grocery list of things that we want and need, like He is our sugar daddy up there. That is not all He is for. Prayer primarily is relational. Our Father, which art in Heaven....
Discipline for thinking. Discipline for prayer. We dealt with the flesh. We dealt with the world now let's turn to, 1Peter 5:8-9.
1 Peter 5:8-9, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world."
How can you resist steadfast in your faith? Because you are disciplined. You're disciplined because you are thinking right and you are praying right. "Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw neare to you." (James 4:7-8) Right thinking which we get from His Word and prayer is submitting to God. If we do that, then we can resist the devil. Many times I have heard people preaching or teaching about resisting the devil, but never mentioning the fact that you to submit to God or that you need to discipline yourself. It is usually those ones who say it is all on God, it's all God's grace. In all three of these areas, it has talked about the grace of God, but we have a part to play as well. And our part to play is to discipline ourselves. This discipline is for being alert. Being spiritually aware, because we are at war. Just like in this country we are at war with terrorists and terrorism. Spiritually we are at war. Many people do not want to acknowledge that and some organizations and denominations have taken our every reference to war out of their song books. No more "Onward Christian Soldiers, Marching as to War." This verse tells us to discipline ourselves and be spiritually alert and aware, why? Because there is an enemy out there and he has come to kill, steal and destroy. He wants to devour you. We need spiritual awareness. Paul said to Timothy, "God did not give you a spirit of fear, but power, love and a sound mind (or disciplined; self-control)."(2 Timothy 1:7) God will help us with that, He give that to us, but we have to ask for it and we have to apply it. It would be like going to the bank and asking for $100,000. The bank gives it to you by writing out a check. Then you take it home and put it on the dresser and it stays right there. Every now and then you might go and look at that check. Does it do you any good? NO! It does you no good there. If you were to put it back in the bank it would at least draw you interest, or you could purchase something with it. With it laying there on the dresser it does you no good. Just like asking God for things and the not putting them into use.
Here in Peter's first letter he says, discipline, discipline, discipline. There is the flesh, there is the world, and there is the devil out there. All three of those are working together, as the demonic trinity. They are working against you in overtime and in the last days it is going to be more dramatic, more vicious, and more upfront and in your face. That is why we need to be disciplined. If we are going to be effective for God think right, pray right, and be spiritually alert. Right!!!
Remember the parable of the ten virgins. What happened to five of them? They were not spiritually aware. What happened to them? They missed out on the wedding. There is going to be two at the mill. What is going to happen toone of them? He is going to get left. Why? Spiritual inattention. Be aware. Paul puts it this way, "Do not be ignorant of Satan's devices," how he operates. In Sunday School we are talking aobut how the devil operates out of deception. He is not going to come right out and say, "Hey, its me. I'm over here. I'm ready to pounce on you." No. He is slick and cunning and he waits for a particular moment. When you're tired. When you're not feeling well. When you are under stress. When you are worrying.
The commentary in the Renovere Bible says, "learning to think well as Christians will not come easily, particularly as we live within a foreign, toxic enviroment. Peter warns that without disciplined thinking and its accompanying lifestyle the surrounding world will quickly shape the church community into its foreign mold."
Peter's call to holiness can be confusing and intimidating if we mis-identify what holiness actually is. Holiness is not a set of rules and regulations, it's not wearing your hair up in a big bun, and no make-up, and no jewelry, and no pants, and no fun. One of the problems facing Christians today is that few of us have encountered a real genuine holiness. Instead we have been bombarded by what Francis DeSalles calls as "phantoms of devotion." Too often in the media, holy people have been portrayed as stiff, sexually repressed, boring lifeless, self-righteous, judgemental and deeply hypocritical. Yet to be holy really means to be transformed into the image of Christ. If we would look like Christ, we would see and know by reading the Gospels that sinners flock to Jesus, and they didn't have much use for religious people. But what has happened now the church is filled with religious people and you can't get a sinner near the door. Our yard stick for holiness has changed into a set of rules and regulations instead of relationship. Right thinking leads to right acting, but let's make sure that we are following the Teacher who actually has a clue to what the Scripture really says, and if we are going to follow anyone, let's follow Jesus. Paul even said follow me as I follow Jesus. We are all suppose to follow Him, in order to follow Him we need to read the Gospels and find out how He acted and inter-reacted with people, especially sinners. He didn't tell them they were going to hell. He didn't hold up pictures of aborted fetuses. He didn't call them queer. He reached out with compassion and He touched them and loved them in spite of themselves. Because they didn't know what they were missing, they were like sheep without a shepherd. They were like the Ethiopian eunuch trying to read the Bible. Let's discipline ourselves.
1 Peter 5:5-7 (Amplified Bible) "Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility [as the garb of a servant, so that its covering cannot possibly be stripped from you, with freedom from pride and arrogrance] toward one another. For God sets Himself against the proud(the insolent, the overbearing, the disdainful, the presumptous, the boastful)--[and He opposes, frustrates, and defeats them], but give grace (favor, blessing) to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves [demote, lower yourselves in your own estimation] under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you, casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully."
Remember when reading the epistles (the letters) read them all the way through. Get a good understanding of what is being said. Take mental pictures as you go along, if you are not very good at that get a notebook and a pencil and write down your impressions and thoughts as you are going along. Then you will se the divisions in the whole letter and what is being repeated and spoken.
"It's not enough to go through the Word of God; the Word of God must go through you. It's not enough to mark your Bible; it's how your Bible marks you!"
~ Greg Laurie