Word of Salvation – September 2026

Life as an Exile

Sermon by Rev Jesse Gollan

Passage: 1 Peter 1:13-2:3

Introduction

Our passage this morning is amazing. It’s really practical, and I’ve been excited to share it with you all week.

It’s a really deep passage, so we’re just going to pretty much spend all of our time right in the text. Before we get into the text, though, or kind of as we get into the text, we’ve got to be reminded of what we looked at in the previous chapter. Because the first word of our passage, the first word of verse 13, says “therefore,” which means because of what has just been said. So everything that we’re going to focus on this morning is a result of what has just been said. And I don’t know about you guys, but when I’m listening to a sermon, I know I really need help to know what’s just gone beforehand. What Peter has just explained is the glory of those who are chosen by God to receive His generosity.

Peter has explained that just as Christ was raised from the dead, those who are in Christ will share in that resurrection, and we will live forever. We will live with joy and peace and contentment.

And you have to remember, Peter is writing to people who are suffering. They are people who are really aware that life is hard. And he’s saying, “Fix your eyes on Jesus.”

The Mindset of an Exile (1 Peter 1:13-21)

Preparing Our Minds for Action

Now we’re just going to get straight into our text, because of the lack of time

. Peter says in verse 13:

“Therefore, 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.” — 1 Peter 1:13

The revelation of Jesus Christ means the second coming. It is the return of Jesus to the world in glory and power and majesty. This is when He will judge everyone who is alive at the moment that He returns, and anyone and everyone who has died in the history of the world.

And it’s tempting just to keep going, but we have to slow down. Because of what God has done for us, and because of the eternal life that God has gained for us, He chose to just be generous to us.

Therefore, we need to do three things, as it says in this verse:

• First, we need to prepare our minds for action.
• Second, we need to be sober-minded.
• Third, we need to set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us.

That means that in response to what God has done for us, He wants us to do actions. It’s going to become more obvious later in the passage what He wants us to do. But we need to prepare our minds for action.

Sometimes, when you have been rescued, you just sit in the ambulance with a blanket around you, knowing that everything’s going to be okay now. But Peter is saying, because everything is okay, we need to prepare our minds for action.

Then, he says, we need to be sober-minded. That means that we need to be serious, and we need to be intentional. We need to live in a way that is not accidental, but that is deliberate.

Again, the deliberateness will unfold in the passage. But Peter is saying, in response to our salvation, and in response to everything that God has done for us, now is not the time for relaxing. Now is the time for action.

Setting Our Hope

And then he says, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. That one’s easy to skim over as well, but it’s actually really deep. People’s actions flow out of what they value.

People do what they do based on what their hope is in.

For example, historians tell us that before he was the first Roman emperor or had achieved tons of stuff with his life, Julius Caesar when he was 33 came to a statue of Alexander the Great… who hundreds of years earlier had been a great conqueror and emperor, and he collapsed to his knees and cried and cried because Alexander the Great had died at 32 years old, and Julius Caesar hadn’t managed to accomplish anything that would make him famous even though he was older than Alexander at the time of his death.

Julius Caesars life-hope was to be famous. To be remembered, and against all the odds, he succeeded. he’s one of the few names from history that most people in Australia have heard of.

Other people have different hopes that motivate and direct their lives.

Some people hope in pleasure, and they say, “I am going to run towards whatever feels good.” Others say, “I am going to put my hope in my nation.”

They say, “I really want my country, my people, to do great. I want my country to be rich, and I want it to be powerful, and I want it to be respected.” And those are just three of the great things that people put their hope in.

There are also all kinds of smaller hopes, less sort of grand things, that people put their hope in. People might put their hope in just having a peaceful life. Whatever they think will lead to peace, they will do that thing.

Some people put their hope in their own children. They say, “My life’s goal is that my children will have the easiest life that they can have.”

Others are even simpler… they just want to have the greatest wealth possible on the day that they die…

Whatever your hope is in matters, because from there your actions will flow out. But for the Christian, we are commanded in the Scriptures, right here in this passage, to respond to everything that God has done for us. In response to our salvation, and the eternal joys that He has won for us, we need to right now set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Pursuing Holiness

Then, he begins to unpack that a little bit. He says in verse 14:

“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.” — 1 Peter 1:14

And we’ll just pause there. The passions of our former ignorance. That’s a way of saying that every hope that is not in the Lord Jesus is empty. It is foolish.

Countries, they let us down all the time. Even ethnicities come and go. Julius Caesar, who’s one of the very few guys who is studied around the world, has achieved nothing in comparison to the fact that you and I, if we belong to Jesus, will be living forever in paradise.

Those people who are chasing after pleasures right now, instead of chasing after the Lord Jesus, that is foolishness. Besides the fact that those pleasures will not satisfy them, they will only make them want those pleasures more and more. The time of pleasures will come to an end.

 (Revelation 20:15) If they remain in rebellion against God, the Lord says that at the end of this age, after the judgement, everyone who is in rebellion against God will be thrown into the lake of fire that is prepared for Satan and for the demons. So this ignorance is foolishness; it’s foolishness to run after anything other than Jesus.

“But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.'” — 1 Peter 1:15-16

Peter is saying that we’ve been adopted into a new family. And therefore, we need to take on the characteristics of our new family. God is holy.

We are made in His image. To be like we are supposed to be, like we are designed to be, is to be holy like God is holy.

If there’s no hope, if we’re just going to end up in the judgement, then chase after all these foolish, frivolous pursuits that people are chasing after. But if there is hope, if God has restored us to a right relationship with Him, then we need to pursue His character.

Real Faith and Transformed Lives

Then, in verse 17, there’s an amazing thing going on here. Let me read it:

“And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.” — 1 Peter 1:17

Peter is highlighting two truths in this verse. On the one hand, God has adopted us as His children, and He has made us right with Him.

But Peter is also saying that real faith results in a transformed life. Real faith plays out in the things that you do.

Whatever your hope is in, that will inform and direct your actions. And he’s saying the Father judges impartially. If your life reveals that your hope is not in Him, but is in other frivolous, foolish things, you will not escape the judgement.

And there’s just wonderful stuff here. Let me read from verse 18:

“Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” — 1 Peter 1:18-19

Peter is saying that Jesus, perfect in every way, has paid the price for your sin. You can know that you’re right with God.

And therefore, your hope is not foolishness. If you build your life on Jesus, you will not find at the judgement that you have made a terrible mistake. You will not be cast into the lake of fire.

The precious blood of Jesus is enough.

The Enormity of God’s Love

Then, Peter keeps unpacking it in verse 20. He says:

“He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.” — 1 Peter 1:20-21

Peter is saying something amazing here. Peter is saying that before the world was created, before Adam and Eve were created, before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was created, God knew that humans would rebel against Him. He knew if He went through and created everything, the only way for us to receive the many good gifts that He had planned to give us would be for His own Son to die for you and me. Peter is saying to us, if you belong to God, if you have faith in Jesus, your faith is not in vain.

You are unbelievably loved. God knew that He would have to die for you, and He still created you and the world.

And there’s an implication there, friends. If that is the enormity of God’s love for us, that He knowingly made us knowing that He would have to die for us, then we can know and be confident that the eternity that He has planned for us is spectacular.

It is good. It is good in the fullest sense of the word.

I love Christmas time. In our family, we had a tradition where every member of the family would give every other member a little present. And for me, the best thing wasn’t receiving presents, although that was wonderful. The best thing was seeing other people who I deeply loved be delighted either from my presents or from the presents of other people.

Well, that’s kind of the way it is for God. He delights to be good to those whom He loves.

He takes pleasure in the good things that He has prepared and planned for us in eternity. Verses 22 to 25 are amazing, and I wish we could go into them. But basically, what Peter says here is you are guaranteed to live forever if you have faith in the Lord Jesus. You are guaranteed that good future that God has prepared for those who love Him.

The Life of an Exile (1 Peter 1:22-2:1)

Loving One Another Earnestly

And then in the last three verses of our passage, 1 Peter chapter 2 verses 1 to 3, we get some really practical application. And it’s really interesting and helpful to remember the context, that these are suffering people.

Before we look at these verse though, we have to look back at the end of Chapter one, which says in V22…

“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.” — 1 Peter 1:22

That’s kind of the application that Peter is driving towards. Preparing your mind for action, be sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the second coming of Jesus. Therefore, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.

Then, chapter 2, verse 1:

“So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.” — 1 Peter 2:1

These are things, in particular, that are between believers. Loving one another, and then he says, “put away malice.” If you don’t know what malice means, malice is the opposite of love. When you have malice towards someone… instead of wanting good for them, you want evil. Deceit. That’s not just lying, but that’s leading other people to believe an untrue thing. And hypocrisy. Hypocrisy comes ultimately from pride. And envy is when you look at another believer and you say, “God has been so good to them,” but instead of rejoicing for them, you feel envy. You feel unhappy that God has been good to them, and has been good to you in different ways. And all slander. Put it away.

It’s interesting that in light of people going through suffering, Peter is focused on the way that believers are treating each other. And he says you’ve got to truly, deeply love each other from a pure heart in verse 22, and then he says put away all those bad things so that in the church, the place may be like a taste of heaven.

And I think that that’s the big picture point here. God is saying that He wants the church to comfort His children; He wants the church to be a place where His children are blessed and where they are safe.

Living as Exiles

In verse 17, we are called people in exile. Exile is a fancy word, but basically, it means that we don’t belong.

I was born in Ukraine. My parents are missionaries there, but even though I lived their for the first 17 years of my life, neither I nor my parents have citizenship, or even permanent residency there. Every couple of years we had to leave the country to renew our temporary visas to grant us permission to stay in Ukraine… because in the eyes of the Ukrainian government, we didn’t belong. We were allowed to be there, but we were not the same as all the others around us.

 (Hebrews 13:14) God says in this passage and others that we are not permanent residents of this world, and we shouldn’t think about ourselves as permanent residents here. We shouldn’t act as if we are permanent residents.

We should act and think as if we are living and hoping for something completely different than those around us. They’re all going one way, and we’re going the opposite direction.

And this is important, because Christians will only act in the ways that we are called to act if we are convinced of the hope that is set before us. There’s a lot of pressure as the crowd goes in one direction and we’re going the other way.

Sometimes there’s outward persecution. But in Australia more often, it’s the fear of missing out. The fear that maybe we’re making a mistake.

Maybe we should hedge our bets a little bit, and put our hope a little bit in the things of the world and a little bit in God. That’s why it’s so important that our hope is secure. That it’s confident.

It is fully and completely in Jesus, because it affects the way that we live. And Peter is saying one of the ways that being holy, like God is holy, means that particularly with other believers—although, of course, with the world as well—we will act with goodness towards them, instead of with evil.

The Transformation Fuel of an Exile (1 Peter 1:2-3)

Longing for Spiritual Milk

And then the last two verses are meant to be an encouragement to us. It says in chapter 2, verse 2:

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” — 1 Peter 2:2-3

What Peter is saying is, to be holy like God is holy is not easy. It is hard to act with goodness towards other people instead of with evil, especially if that’s not how they have acted towards us. But he says, if God is good, and you know that God is good, if He is worthy of all of your hope, then long for the pure spiritual milk that will help you to become more and more like Jesus. Pure spiritual milk isn’t some kind of potion that Christians get, and there’s not a recipe that you can cook up in your kitchen.

Pure spiritual milk is the teaching, and the application, and the preaching, and the discipleship in the Word of God.

Peter is saying, maybe you’re struggling to be holy like God is holy. But if you know that God is good, if you know that God is worthwhile, so the way that you become more holy is by longing for the teaching and preaching and discipleship of the Word of God.

You can get it lots of ways.

Preaching in church… Bible studies, one-on-one discipleship, Alpha course, Christian books, Christian Conferences, Youtube sermons and teachings… (so long as they are good ones)… but of course the best way is just going to be to read and listen to the Bible a lot.

It’s interesting… Peter is saying that the way to become more holy… is not to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, but rather to chase after the truth which God has communicated to us with all of our hearts. The increase in Holiness will come naturally if we are desperate for the pure spiritual milk that God offers us.

Conclusion

Friends, just as we finish, let me say, there are probably people in this room who haven’t received what God has done for them. They haven’t put their hope in Him.

It might be that you’re a visitor who’s visiting us, or it might be that you’ve grown up in this church or in other churches. But you know that deep down, your hope has been in something else.

Friends, if the Holy Spirit has been moving in you this morning and you know that you want to live for Jesus, you want your hope to be in Jesus alone, please speak with me or speak with one of the elders after the service. We would be so honoured and delighted to help you, to pray for you, and to celebrate with you.

We know from Jesus’s parables that the truth goes out, and sometimes it even looks like it implants itself in someone’s life, but then the evil one comes and takes it away. We don’t want that to happen to you.

If your hope has been in something else, the evil one desperately does not want you to set your hope in Jesus. He does not want you to become a permanent citizen of heaven.

And the Bible is really clear that we need each other. So please speak with me or speak with someone else. Let’s pray.