Love While There’s Still Time

So, we are in 1 Peter, doing a walkthrough of 1 Peter, and we're calling this series, Dawn Is Coming. Dawn Is Coming. Why? Because God promised that dawn is coming. And we can live today in the dawn of what is coming.

We can tap into the goodness. We can tap into a hope. No matter what our trials, whatever our tribulation, whatever we face in this life, we can live with hope. This is a message not to discourage people, but to encourage people, because trials will come. Amen?

Some of you are like, yeah, trials are here, right? Trials are here. Some of you are doing good right now. But let me tell you, trials are coming. But I want you to be encouraged that you can live in hope and peace, because dawn is surely coming.

There's always the brightest, most beautiful lights come just before dawn. And what God's doing in you right now is extremely powerful. And so, He's doing something in your story. Can I encourage somebody today? He's doing something in your story.

He's doing something in your walk. He's doing something in you right now, right today. Okay? Amen. So, if you'll turn with me to 1 Peter 1, and we're going to roll through verse 13 through 25.

Verse 13 through 25. It says this, Therefore, prepare your minds for action. Prepare those minds for action. Be self-controlled. Set your hope fully, underline that, fully, on the grace to be given you when Christ Jesus is revealed.

Let me just take a step back for a minute and say, if you have your Bible with you, pull that out. If you don't have a Bible, you can go to our events on the Bible app. If you have the YouVersion Bible app, you can find Salt Church on there, and you can follow along there. The version might be a little different than what I'm reading, but you can follow along and take notes there, because we're not passing out notes right now. So, let's go back.

Verse 14. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desire you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do. For it is written, be holy because I am holy. Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.

Strangers here in reverent fear. Peter, you rhyme her. You go, boy. Right? I'm sure it wasn't in the original Greek, but it sounds cool, right?

For you know that it was not with perishable things, such as silver or gold, that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through Him you believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourself by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and enduring word of God.

For all men are like grass, and all their glory is like flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever. Can y'all give a shout for that? And this is the word that was preached for you. Father, in the name of Jesus, we ask that you would give us perspective today to see eternity in a whole new and fresh way as we face life, as we face trials, the good times and the bad times, that your Holy Spirit would encourage us and produce a work in us that will last forever.

Father, we ask this in your name. Everybody says, Amen. So, what Peter's getting at here in this scripture is growth. He has in mind spiritual growth. As he's talking through this scripture, as he's preaching, he's talking about spiritual growth.

And he starts out with this principle. He focuses first on this stuff that we talked about last week, this salvation. And then he connects it with the word, therefore. Therefore. Now, in biblical interpretation, you always look for those particular words.

Therefore. Whenever you see a therefore, you want to look and see what it's there for, right? So, he's connecting two different thoughts. Therefore. So, he's talking about, and he's talking to the people, and he says, you know, you've got this incredible salvation.

You need to put things in perspective because you have this incredible salvation. And Peter, he's not intending to coddle people, okay, with this scripture. He's not coddling people. He's giving people a calling. He's giving people a perspective.

He's giving people hope. But he's not coddling. He's giving them real truths. These are hurting Christians that are coming to him. But he's not there to say, oh, it's going to be okay.

Don't lose your salvation. Don't run away from your salvation. It's going to be okay. He actually says, it's going to be hard. And it's going to be difficult.

But you can have hope in another way. And he puts it in perspective. He says, you have this really awesome salvation. And prophets that lived before you died for this very thing. They couldn't see it.

And they would do anything just to get a taste of what you are experiencing now. And then the angels, the angels even long to know what you're experiencing. The long, to go through what you're going, to be what you are designed to be. The angels even look at these things. So he's building them up about who they are and where they are in their trials.

And then he goes, therefore. And when we hear therefore, we better open our ears and our eyes and listen to this a little bit. You know, when we read through scripture. It's very common. Paul uses therefore a whole lot.

James even threw some therefores in there. And anytime you hear the word therefore, you better look and see what it's there for. He's getting ready to give us some application. So, he starts off by, prepare your minds for action, be self-controlled. He first of all tells us we need to be mentally strong.

Be mentally strong. In fact, some versions say, gird your loins. Gird your loins. Like, that's the literal translation of that. Doesn't that sound gnarly, just to say, gird your loins?

You need to gird your loins. And it's not wearing skinny jeans with some kind of, like, sense of fashion or anything like that, you know? Like, when you think of girding your loins, you know, the clothing we wear. And that day, it was togas and robes. And they were draped down.

They were hanging down. And they needed to gird themselves. They needed to put belts on them. They needed to tie themselves together so they wouldn't trip over these long garments that they were wearing. They were to gird their loins.

So, what he's saying is, you need to hold it together. It's important for us, as believers, to be mentally strong. Mentally strong. We need to hold it together. And then he goes on and adds to that, to be self-controlled.

To be sober. To be sober-minded. Now, the first thing that comes to thought, probably for you, is not to be under the influence of alcohol. Which is certainly true. We shouldn't.

We don't want to be under the influence of alcohol. We're not sober-minded, right? We don't think correctly. We do stupid things when we're drunk. To be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Amen? We don't want that. But in a strict sense, he's not talking about being drunk with wine. He's talking about being sober in general. Being aware.

We need to be aware. And we need not to be fuzzy. Because we need to win the war in our minds. Win the war for our mental health. Now, let me just speak to mental disorders just for a minute.

Because for so long, the church has either ignored it or completely spiritualized mental disorders. They would say, if you truly honor God, if you truly have a relationship with God, you shouldn't have to deal with depression. You shouldn't have to deal with anxiety. You shouldn't have to deal with things that are mental diseases. You should put your hope in Jesus.

You should say a prayer. You should push through. And it's completely and utterly incorrect and unfair. Because we give weight and space to so many other things. For instance, I have seasonal or induced asthma.

Like if the fall comes, the spring comes, if I catch a cold, allergies happen, I have asthma. And none of you would say, if I took medicine before I walked in today, you wouldn't say, well, you just don't have a close relationship with God. You need to lean on God. You'd be like, get the medical help. Take the pill.

Take the breathing instrument and get better because you need to be able to breathe, right? You wouldn't go there, right, with anything. But we unfairly treat mental disorders, things that we can't see, such as depression or bipolarism and different things like that. We treat them as less than, and it's really unfair. If someone needs medical help, let me just say this today.

If you need medical help, if someone needs medical help, get help. There's nothing wrong with getting help. We all need help. And we all start somewhere. We're all in different places on this grid.

We're all in different places on this map. Some of us, it's harder than others. Some of us, we might be going through things that are a little bit more difficult than others. Not everyone knows your struggle like you know your struggle. I don't know what you're going through.

You don't know what I'm going through at times. We all deal with different things. But whether we have diagnosable issues or not, we all need to fight the battle for good mental health. We need to be sober-minded. We need to be self-controlled.

We need to gird up our loins. We need to keep ourselves focused because we have a battle to fight. We need to be very aware. And unfortunately, for many, it's been overlooked when we deal with mental health issues. That's why it's so important when you wake up in the morning to have a quiet time.

You hear me talk about that. To get your mind right with God first before you begin your day. To get your thoughts right, get it correct. But what do we often do? We open up our phones or we cut on the news source and we hear, Oh, Trump said this.

Biden said this. This is going on in the world. That's going on in the world. This person died. This person happened.

This thing happened. And we just go crazy, you know? We're just filling our minds with stuff. And then this advertisement happened. This tweet happened.

This and this and this and that is going on. And we start our day chaotically. And we don't have good mental health to start our day off. And we live without peace. And God intends for us to live in a way of peace.

And we sometimes invite those things into our life and cause self-induced anxiety. We invite things into our lives that create things that was never intended to be there in the first place. The life that God designed you to have. The life that God wanted you to have to give you peace. And unfortunately, the church has over-spiritualized it.

Just read your Bible and pray, you know? And if someone's really struggling, they're really struggling though. People with schizophrenia. It may be something they have to deal with their entire lives. Someone with bipolar disorder.

It might be something they have to deal with their entire lives. Now, do I believe God can heal? Absolutely. He can heal. He can do it.

I've seen him do it. I know he can do it. He can heal. But does he always do it? No.

He doesn't always do it. In fact, in most cases, people have to live with conditions their entire lives. Now, when we get to heaven one day, we won't have to worry about it. Amen? When we get to heaven, there will be no more bipolar disorder.

There will be no more schizophrenia. There will be no more depression. There will be no more anxiety in heaven. Amen? We can live with that hope, right?

We can live with that secure hope inside of us that one day when we're in heaven, we won't have to deal with those things. That's when we will be completely healed. But as for now, we need to recognize that we might have to go through some stuff. We might have to deal with some stuff. But at times, it's under-spiritualized as well.

It is. Because at ground level, everyone needs Jesus. At ground level, everyone needs the power of the blood of the Lamb. And the word of His testimony, amen? Of our testimonies, amen?

We need that. We need the blood of Jesus Christ. At ground level, everybody needs Jesus. So what I would say today is we need to constantly check the scale, just like we do when we're on a diet, when we're eating, you know, healthy, and then we start sliding away, you know, like I was last night when I was eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches too late. And candy bars too late.

We need to go to the scale and check the scale. Hey, you know, I'm in a good place. I need to go back and I need to check myself a little bit, you know? How do we do that? Well, we got to connect with people.

We got to get with others. We have a church family that can help us. We got to talk to someone. We got to constantly assess. Check in with your community.

Check in with yourself. If you are having issues, tell someone. Because we love you. We care for you. We need you in this world.

We want you to be here with us. We want you to be healthy mentally. And we want you to have the life that Jesus chose for you to have. Choose life today. If you're going through hurt, if you're going through pain, if you're going through things you don't feel like you can escape from, tell somebody.

Go to somebody. Go to somebody. Be with somebody. Tell somebody. Tell Jesus.

Come together and let's figure this thing out together. Amen? The second thing Peter tells us here is be realistically hopeful. Realistically hopeful. What does realistically hopeful mean?

1 Peter 1.13 says it like this. Set your hope fully. Don't set your hope partially. Set your hope fully because if you set your hope partially, then when the storms of life come, when the trials of life come, when something happens unexpectedly, you don't have a foundation to build upon.

And you will fall and you will trip. And those loins that you try to gird, you can't gird them because they're falling to the ground and you're tripping. You're falling and you can't keep it together. You need to put your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. So why fully?

We don't want to lose hope. And it has to be a realistic hope, okay? A realistic hope that doesn't gloss over trials but prepares you for them. You can plan for them. You can prepare your mind for them because they're coming, guys.

They're coming your way. They're there. There is a battle to be fought. There is a time to be had. But we've got to be realistic and recognize that.

But we place our hope, we anchor our hope on dawn is coming. It, in fact, is coming for sure. And we can experience dawn today by preparing our minds and being realistic. There's a great book called Good to Great by Jim Collins. A great book called Good to Great, right?

By Jim Collins. And he talks about James Stockdale. If you haven't heard of James Stockdale, he was a vice admiral that was a Vietnam prisoner and a prisoner of war. Spent seven years in a camp. Four of those years, he was in solitary confinement.

Two more of those years, he was in chains. He was bound in chains and steel bars. And then he was beaten 15 times brutally. And he talks about the people that he was with, the group that he was with. And those that were optimistic, like too optimistic, actually didn't make it.

Because here's how they thought. Their thought process was, well, we're going to be out of here by Christmas. You know, we're going to be out of here by Christmas. Watch it. Christmas is coming.

Christmas came and gone, and they were still there. We're going to be out by Easter. They thought, well, we're just going to be hopeful. We're going to be out by Easter. Watch.

We'll be gone by Easter. Easter came and gone, and it came and went. And then he says, we'll be out by Thanksgiving. We'll be out by Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving came and gone, and they were still there.

And he says, after a while, a lot of those people, as they went through year after year, month after month, year after year, they lost hope. But the people who made it, the people who actually lasted, they realized that it's going to be hard, and it might take some time. We're going to be hopeful, but we're going to be realistic. We're going to be realistic in that we're going to have to go through some trials. We're going to have to go through some pain.

We're going to have to go through some hurt. We're going to have to wear some chains for a while. We're going to have to be in solitary confinement for a while. It's coming. Dawn is coming.

We're going to be released one day, but we've got to hold on. We've got to hold on and realize that what we're going through now is a reality. We need to be realistically hopeful. He calls this the Stockdale paradox. And James Stockdale said this, You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, by the way, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

That's ripped out of the book of 1 Peter right there, y'all. Come on now. That's the real deal. That's what Peter's saying. We've got to be realistically hopeful.

We've got to anchor our hope in something outside of our current circumstances. And then he says, To be given to you when Christ Jesus is revealed. Some of you are like, When Christ Jesus is revealed, that means when he returns or when I'm in with heaven. No, that's not what that means because you have this present participle to be given to you. It means it's something that's available to you right now.

It's not something that's happening outside of you. It's something that's happening inside of you. And right now, you can tap in to that hope, that reality, that realistic hope, that the presence of God is in you and heaven is in you. Christ Jesus is being revealed in you as you walk out your trials in life. And you can be hopeful and sustain and be strengthened, and it forms your character.

It forms your character. Which leads me to my third point. We need to be intentionally formed. Intentionally formed. See, spiritual formation is the most, and it's so important, that we have to give thought to it.

We have to be intentional with it. Spiritual formation, becoming more like Christ, becoming more like Jesus, these are intentional things that we have to work on and have to put ourselves in. Places that cause us to be more like Him. Here's what 1 Peter 1, 14 and 15 says, Never again shape your lives by the desire that you follow. When you didn't know better.

Instead, shape your lives to become like the Holy One who called you. That's the Passion Translation. I love how it says that. So the goal of the Christian life is to become like Christ. And that word holy is a scary word.

Some of you are like, oh, Leon's talking about holiness again, holiness again. He was talking about that last year. He kept putting it out there and putting it out there. And we often think that's a scary word. Well, it means haughty or arrogant or whatever, because I'm better, I'm holier than thou.

But that's not what that means at all. It means that God has separated you. Haughty is not haughty, it's happy. Holy is not haughty, it's happy. It's that God is putting you in a place and separating you out from the things of this world so that you can live a happy, intentional life.

And it takes intention. Now, I worked concrete when I was one of my first jobs, 15 years old, the hardest job I've ever worked in my life, guys. If you want to get a hard job, find you a concrete, especially a concrete construction business that pours steel buildings. And we would pour yards and yards and yards of concrete. And it was just the hardest job in the world.

I loved it, but it was terribly hard. But the thing about concrete, when you pour it in, it's mud, it's rocks, it's kind of all over the place. It doesn't look like much. But what we do when we go in and we form out those floors, or we form out those pieces, or we form out those driveways if we do residential work, we form them out. We put forms in place, and then we pour the concrete, and then we float.

And we use these things called trowels. And I love, it's actually pronounced trowels, but I want to call them a trial. The trial, the trials of trials, and you would float, and you would work, and you would shape. And that's what God is doing. And when we intentionally put forms in our life, we need to build up forms.

We need to dig the ditches, build up the forms. We dig these huge ditches. We put the forms in so we could pour the footings and put everything in place. And what we need to do in the Christian life is to put those forms in place. As God is shaping us, as God is pouring out the concrete in our lives, shaping us to be more like Christ, we need to be intentional forming out our lives.

What do some of those forms look like? Well, it's like the Sabbath, when you need to take days of rest to be mentally strong, that you need rest. It's a quiet time where you set your day straight and set your day right into heavenly things, getting your mind focused on heavenly things rather than earthly things so you can live out heaven day in and day out. A scripture memorization, guys, getting into the Word of God and learning scripture, knowing scripture, and not just knowing it, not just reciting it, but let it live inside of you and develop and form you. It's tithing, it's serving, trusting God with your finances, it's serving in the church, serving people, serving in the church, and small groups, being a part of a small group, a salt group, and just being formed in His image.

Those are the forms we have to intentionally put in our lives so that we can become more like Him, intentionally formed into His image. I love how 1 Peter 1 15 says it, as obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. Blazing with holiness, illuminated by holiness. Holiness is not haughty, it's happy, it's a good thing, it's a powerful thing. We should desire to live holy lives the way that God designed us to live so that we can live out our purpose in the world.

Amen. And then we need to be reverently ambitious. Peter goes on to talk about reverence and a father and a judge. Look at 1 Peter 1 17. Since you call on a father who judges each person's work impartially, live out your time as strangers here in reverent fear.

He talks about reverence. What is reverence? What is reverence? And this thing called ambition, how does that tie together, reverent ambition? It just doesn't seem to kind of go together.

Well reverence, when we think of reverence, we think of standing on top of a mountain and looking across from the Appalachian Trail. Gans this weekend is getting dropped off at the Appalachian Trail. One of our regulars here at Salt Church, his wife is dropping him off and he's going to spend a week just walking the Appalachian Trail. Some of you say Appalachian, but no, it's Appalachian. I'm just going to call it Appalachian because I went to Appalachian State University and you got beat up if you said Appalachian, okay?

Actually, it depends on where you're from. Appalachian, Appalachian, you know, tomato, tomato, come on. It's okay. I know some of you were judging me though when I said Appalachian, okay? I'm from North Carolina.

I can say Appalachian. I can get away with it, okay? All right. But as he's walking that trail, I can just imagine. I remember moments where I would walk the mountains.

I'd walk the trails while I was in college and I'd climb up to places on these rocks and I would look out over miles and miles and miles of mountains and valleys, blue and gray and purple, purple mountains majesty. Just the beauty and awe and the sense that God created and made it all. Just the reverence. It's the fall of the snow and the moonlight in the winter. It's the change of seasons.

It's the sunrise in the morning over the ocean when you see the colors just before dawn. It's the beauty, the awe that we experience. Watching God's nature. Watching God at work. That's reverence.

And the more reverence you feel for God, the more ambitious you get to become what God wants you to be and what he wants you to do. It gives you ambition. When you think of his reverence, it gives you ambition. And he says he calls him father and judge. How can he put both father and judge together?

He's either father or he's judge. No, he's both. He's both father and he's both judge. And when children know there's a ranking, they do things quite a bit different, don't they? When they know that there's something going on, when a father's watching them, when a father's honoring them, when a father's cheering them on, they're going to act different.

And my son and daughter are always in competition, particularly my daughter. She thinks she's got to beat out her brother all the time. You know, Dad, look what I did. Her favorite term is like, Dad, can you see what I did? Look what I did, Dad.

Look what I did, Dad. Look what I'm doing, Dad. Because she wants to please me. Because she... She honors me, because she loves me, because she sees me as her father, and we have a good father, a father that watches us and cheers us on and gives us everything we need to live a glorious life for him, and he's cheering us on, we look at him, we honor him, he is our father, he is so good, but he's also a judge, and I want, at the end of my life, to be able to stand before him one day, and he say, well done, my good and faithful servant, I am so proud of you.

Enter into the father’s kingdom, enter into my kingdom, come and partake, because you were faithful with the little things that I gave you in this life, I'm going to make you faithful in many things, in many things. We have a dad, a father, Abba, which we call Abba, as Paul says, a father that, that we can go to, in endearing terms, like daddy, and he's cheering us on, we should want and need, God, I'm so glad that I'm your son, Father, I'm so glad I'm your son, and, and I want to use everything that you've given me, everything, that you've given me, to be able to please you, and worship you, and honor you, and then that leaves us wanting to love while you can. Love while there's still time. Love while there's still time. In fact, that's the title of this message, love while there's still time, and I'm ending with that rather than beginning with that, because this season's been a really tough season for many people.

Right here in this church congregation, we lost someone to suicide just a month ago, and you can always look back and have regrets, and I've lost friends, I've lost loved ones, and if only I knew, if only I could have, if only I, and we go through those process, processes, but the truth is, we need to love while we can. Verse 22 says, you already love people, now love people. Isn't that interesting how, how Peter says that? You've already loved each other, so now I want you to love one another. You already love each other, now you need to love.

What is he talking about there? He's repeating this phrase about love. In the original language, he's talking about phileo love with his brotherly love, which is the easy kind of love, the love that's easy for us to do, because we're like-minded, and we're people that get along with each other, but he says, now I want you to do something different. I want you to love people that are unlikable. I want you to love people that are hurt.

I want you to love people that are difficult. I want you to go and love somebody with this agape love, the way that God loved you before you were even designed, before you were even in this world. He thought of you in your sin, and gave his life for you. That's the way I want you to love other people. I want you to give your life for other people.

I want you to love. So we need to love while there's still time, because all men are like grass. All men are like grass. They fade away. Life is short.

Time is short. People are going through really tough times. And the question is, are we aware? Are we set? Are we available?

When the trials of life come, yes, we need to be prepared, but are we prepared to help others? There are people in our lives that God's called us to love, and I love how Matthew Henry put it, and this is in closing. You have a journey to take, a race to run, a warfare to accomplish, and a great work to do. Hope is hard. Having good health takes effort, but this is our moment.

This is the time. This is the place. This is the season. This is where you were born. This is where you were placed.

There's no other time in history but right now where you're called to be. So let's get to work. Let's get to work, guys. Let's love while we can. Let's love while there's still time.

Let's love while people are still out there hurting. Let's love when people are unlovable. Let's reach people when people are unreachable even. Let's talk to people that nobody else talks to. Let's do things for people that nobody else wants to do anything for.

That's what we're called to. Salt always makes a difference, and a little bit of salt goes a long way. Work while there's still time. You have a great work to do. With all heads bowed and all eyes closed, God, we're just asking for perspective, Lord, to be able to see, to put on the glasses of eternity.

I pray over people here in this spirit of worship, in this time together. Some of you are going through some really hard times. You're dealing with some trials that you never thought you would ever deal with in your life. If that's you today, I want you just to hold up your hand and say, Pastor, I need prayer. I need prayer.

I'm going through some stuff. Father, I pray for these hands that are raised. I pray, God, that you would just give them perspective, touch them, Holy Spirit, help them see God. Give them light of a new life that you have available to them, not just when the dawn fully comes, but that the dawn can be experienced here in their life right now. Bring hope.

Let them anchor their hope in who you are and help them walk out this life with authority and power, knowing that they can live the life that you intended them to live. The same spirit with our eyes still closed. Some of you may have never said yes to Jesus before, that you've never given your life to Jesus. It all starts there. That's where it starts.

That's the hope we really have, that we can anchor our hope. The veil, through the veil, into heaven, that’s where it lasts forever, and it starts right now. If that’s you today, if you have not given your life to Christ, would you pray this with me? Father, I believe that you are the Son of God, that you died on the cross for my sin. Today I say yes to you.

Today I ask you to come into my life. Today I ask you to come into my heart. Today I ask you to change me from the inside out. I ask you to make me new. Walk with me from this day forth.

Walk this life out with me. Make me more like you.