New Life in Christ

Click here for the audio message of 1 Peter 1:13-21

Last time in our study we saw that God wants us to be saved. He doesn’t force us into salvation, but He provides it for us to receive or reject. When we receive that salvation, we no longer need to fear death because of the hope that we have for eternal life through Christ.

We can rejoice in the knowledge of our salvation. Trials and troubles will come to us to prove our faith – to make us pure. It may not always be an easy journey, but we know we will have a safe arrival. God is with us and will strengthen us through those tough times.

In our Scripture this morning, Peter continues the theme we saw last week, only now he writes about the believer’s new life in Christ. Think about your own life. Many of us probably grew up in Christian homes and have always attended church. But there are probably differences in the way you act today because of your growing and maturing relationship with Christ.

When you received Christ into your life you were a new creation. You were born again. You have a new life in Christ. We are to prepare ourselves for God. We should reject the evils of the world and focus on what God wants us to do.

We are to be sober minded. We are to study the Word of God diligently and apply it in our lives. We are to live by His Word. We are to live in joy by following His Word. We are to live a Holy life because He is holy.

To be Holy or to live a Holy life is to be as much like God as we can be. Even though while we are on this earth we will never reach perfection, it is still our goal. This involves treating God with respect and reverence.

Holiness is God’s number one attribute. In the Hebrew language a word was often repeated to emphasize its meaning. We sometimes do similar things in the English language.

For example, when a child is about to do something dangerous, we might shout “No, No, No.” In Isaiah’s vision (Isaiah 6:3), he hears the angels praising God by saying “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.”

God is Holy, we should be Holy. We should be motivated to live righteously as God is righteous. Living a righteous life in a fallen world is very challenging, but we must be strong in our faith.

Peter tells his readers that God judges each according to His deeds. Everyone will experience eternal life or eternal death. God will judge all according to their deeds, but for believers not just their deeds, but their heart attitude as well.

Why did they do these deeds? Were they done to look good to others or were they done to glorify God? What was the person’s heart like? God knows our hearts. He knows what our motives are. He knows us better than we know ourselves. That is why He sends trials and troubles into our lives, to prove to us what our motives are.

Through our troubles we must remember and understand the price that Jesus paid for our salvation. We are redeemed by Him. We cannot save ourselves. He paid the ultimate price for our sins. Because of His sacrifice, we are no longer under the curse of the law.

John 3:16-17 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

The only way we can have a right relationship with this world and the people in it is if we have a right relationship with God. God loved the world and gave his Son to it for salvation. We are also to love the world, not in a material or worldly way, but in a Godly way.

We should love the world so that we too want to do whatever we can do to save it. The way we do that is going into the world and making disciples of Jesus Christ. We get our strength and our ability to do this from God.

We get this through a right relationship with God, when we are reborn through Christ. Trying to explain what it is like to be born again is a challenging thing to do. It is something you need to experience to fully understand.

It is a complete change in your life. You have a change of mind, of your heart, of your entire lifestyle. The old worldly things no longer matter like they did before. You no longer want to do the “bad” stuff you used to do.

In John chapter 3, Jesus explains the rebirth to Nicodemus. Being born again means having the Spirit of God working in your life. I don’t know how it all starts or when, but I just know it does.

Even after our rebirth, after coming to Christ for eternal life, we still live in this fallen world. We still have those fleshly desires and temptations to contend with. Those old habits are hard to break.

But the key is knowing and remembering that we are a child of God and that He is there ready to help us through our temptations and troubles. We need to rely on Him for the strength to get through whatever we are dealing with.

We must always remember to thank Him for the opportunities that He gives us and for the blessings that He provides for us. When we do indeed fail, we must return to Him and ask for forgiveness and the strength to resist that temptation in the future.

As a believer you have a new life in Christ. When we received Christ into our life, the Holy Spirit took up residence within us. That means we are attached to God for eternity. We will live with God and God lives with us for the rest of our lives. We share the life of God.

We will want to do what He wants and we must be Holy because God is Holy.

Closing Prayer

Father, we thank you being a part of our lives and for the gift of eternal life through Christ. Help us to recognize your hand in our lives each and every day. Help us to be righteous as you are righteous. Help us to be Holy as you are Holy.

Transform us each day to grow in your likeness.

AMEN.