“Whatever is Pure” 1 Peter 1:13-16

When our children were young, they would get a gift from the Birthday Bear. The gift wasn’t much—it was box of their favorite cereal. For Laura, it was Froot Loops. Stephen liked Frosted Flakes, and Melissa liked Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

For some reason, the Birthday Bear stopped coming to the house, but he was never forgotten. When Mel was home this past summer, the subject of the Bear came up. All three of our now adult children missed the indulgent cereal that would only come through the Bear.

So, one Sunday while Mel was still home, we gathered for a family meal on a Sunday after church. After our meal, it was announced that the Birthday Bear had been remiss in bringing them their boxes of cereal and to make up for it, he brought each of them a box of their favorite cereal.

Laura gave me a handful of her Froot Loops. It had been a while since I’d had them. It was crunchy and sugary. I found myself wishing she hadn’t taken them home. One day, I bought me a box. Kim’s response: “It’s nothing but sugar.”

She’s right. The cereals we—or should I say, the Birthday Bear—gave our children was pure sugar, with some other minor ingredients to make it more palatable for moderately concerned parents.

We use the word “pure” to indicate that something is unadulterated. We hear the phrase, “10% pure gold,” and we know that whatever it is they’re selling, it’s supposedly made of nothing but gold.

Paul writes us in Philippians 4:8 that we are to think on that which is pure. But the purity he writes of is different than what we normally think of.

Background

When David wrote his psalm of repentance and sorrow after his adultery with Bathsheba, he included the verse that says, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).

Jesus tells us in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8).

Purity is an essential part of our walk with God. It is through the pure heart that we find fellowship with God. It is that purity that sets us apart for His glory and His use.

The essence of purity in this and other instances of the Bible is not being made of one element, but it represents a cleansing, a being made pure in order to be useful to God. That which is pure is figuratively free of sin, holy, set apart for God’s service.

In the sense of the two verses cited above, the pure heart both David and Jesus speak of is a heart that has consciously committed itself to think of the things above. Such a heart has set the mind on things of Christ, things of heaven, things of God.

In today’s passage, we find a description of what it means to be pure, to have a pure heart. In Peter’s letter, he writes about how God, through Christ, has made us pure through salvation. In the earlier part of 1 Peter 1, Peter writes about our salvation that is perfecting our faith which “may be proved genuine” (v. 7). It is in light of this salvation that Peter then writes the instructions we see in today’s passage.

Central Truth: As salvation purifies us, we are to work out our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).

The “working out” of our salvation mentioned in Philippians 2:12 should not be interpreted to mean that we are to earn our salvation. Salvation is a gift, given by God through Christ and confirmed by His Spirit. It is an absolute gift, and we can do nothing to earn it or to merit it. We receive this gift by faith, not by works.

The idea of “working out your salvation with fear and trembling” is more along the lines of exercising our faith, of perfecting our faith. Like a person going to a gym to work out their muscles, so are we called to work out our salvation. We develop it, increase it, strengthen it, by doing certain things. In Peter’s letter, he offers three things we can do to work out our salvation. And in doing so, we grow in purity and service for the Father.

To work out our salvation:

Make a conscious decision (13)

Peter reminds us that God’s salvation does not put our minds into neutral, but that He saves our minds, as well. Because we are created into a new person (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17), we are given a new mind, one that can relate to God and communicate with God through our restored spirit. Guided by and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, we are able to make choices in our walk with God. And that’s what Peter is writing about. To do that, Peter makes three suggestions.

First, we are to prepare our minds for action. This means we are to be alert and aware of things around us.

In sports, after every game, the coaching staff gathers to review game film of both the just completed game and look at film of the team that the coaches will go against the next week. As they study the films, they note strengths and weaknesses of both teams. Then they come up with a game plan, all before the first practice. As the team gathers together, the coaches tell the team of the game plan and then spend the rest of the week preparing for the game. The players study the films, they go through the plays put into the game and work on it until it becomes second nature to them. When the teams take the field, if the practices have been productive, the team will be able to observe the other team and know what to do, based upon the game plan.

That’s what Peter’s writing about. Prepare your mind for action is to be aware of the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses and to be ready at a moment’s notice to put the game plan into practice. In our world, the opponent is Satan. His strength is that he is a very good liar and very good at tempting us. His weakness is he can’t make us do anything; he can only suggest. Once we realize this truth, we can game plan for him. When we are tempted, we can turn to the Father and learn to resist Satan’s temptations. So, we must prepare our mind for action.

One of the ways we do this is the second part of Peter’s conscious decision. We are to be self-controlled. Self-control is one of the aspects of the fruit of the Spirit (cf. Ephesians 5:22-23). Self-control is learning to tell ourselves “no” to our will and Satan’s temptations, and to yield ourselves to God’s will.

Going back to the sports analogy. One of the tricks the other team will use is to try to get us out of our game plan. One of the ways they do that is by getting our minds off the game. Trash talking and rough play is designed to get us angry. If the opponent can get me angry so that I go off, I can be penalized and possibly kicked out of the game. By losing my self-control, I can harm the team.

The way we prepare our minds for action and practice self-control is in Peter’s third aspect of conscious decisions. We must set our hope fully on grace and Christ. When we focus on God’s grace and mercy, when we focus on Jesus’ teachings, when we focus on the Spirit’s leadership, we find ourselves much better prepared to resist the enemy and live with a pure heart.

The way we do this is we learn to live by faith. We trust that God loved us enough to save us through Christ. We trust that God has set us apart for His service, and that we are now living in Him and He is living in us. We walk in that reality, rejecting the lies of Satan that we are unworthy, that we are broken. We turn to God, and resist the devil.

By preparing our minds for action, by practicing self-control and by walking in faith and in fellowship, we find in ourselves a pure heart.

Reject the old way (14)

Peter in this verse takes us back to the old way we used to relate to the world before Christ saved us. He reminds us first that we are no longer our old selves. He uses the phrase, “As obedient children.” The phrasing should better be read as “children of obedience,” as though obedience is our parent. Because we are descended from obedience, it is part of our nature. Because it is part of our nature, it should be easier for us to walk in obedience to Christ.

Toward that end, then, we are able to walk away from the worldly way of doing things. Peter tells us we did worldly things out of ignorance. That is, we used to be worldly because we didn’t know any better. Now that we are born again and are one of God’s children, we now know better and now can know God’s will.

That’s what Romans 12:1-2 is about. The way we go about rejecting conformity to the world is to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to God. As Paul writes, it is our spiritual act of worship. We place ourselves into God’s hands, letting Christ live through us. The result is that we are able to be transformed by the Spirit, not be conformed to the world. And, as the Spirit transforms us, He reveals God’s good, pleasing and perfect will.

So, the way to no longer be conformed to the world’s old ways is to be transformed by God’s Spirit within us. No longer living in ignorance, we are made aware of God’s will and are enabled to follow that will.

Reject the old ways, for this creates in us a pure heart.

Be holy (15-16)

I think one of the hallmarks of the Christian faith is that God, by His grace and His mercy, not only forgives us of the sins we have committed against Him, but He creates us into a new creation, and, more importantly, He allows us to be born again into His family. Being a child of God enables us to work out our salvation because we take on His characteristics.

Peter points this out by reminding us that God is holy. When we say God is holy, it means that He is not of creation, He is not of the world—He is God, He is Other. This holiness lets us know that He is immune to the things of this world and so He is sinless.

Because God is holy, and because we are now His children, born into Him as the new creation, we begin to take on the traits of God the Father. Because He is holy, we can also be holy. Our holiness is found in our offering ourselves to Him as a living sacrifice, by making the conscious decision to follow His will and by recognizing the world’s way of doing things and rejecting that way in favor of God’s way.

You may be thinking, “I can’t be holy.” And you’re wrong. God has set us up to be holy. By creating us as a new creation, as His children, filling us with His Spirit that reminds us of all that Jesus taught, leading us into the truth, God enables us to be holy. God is working in us to do His will. That’s the second part of the Phillipians 2:12 charge to work out our salvation. The next verse says, “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.”

In other words, God is setting us up for success. He’s given us the game plan, He’s given us the plays. He’s even given us His talent and abilities. All we have to do is trust Him and make the decision to follow Him in faith, rejecting the feelings of failure and rejection and inadequacy that Satan throws at us.

By embracing our holiness, we find ourselves living with a pure heart.

Conclusion

It’s not easy living the Christian life. Satan is doing all he can to defeat us, to distract us, to destroy us. We are in a spiritual battle with him every waking moment.

Sometimes, we falter. Sometimes, we fail. But, returning to the sport’s analogy, just because we may get tackled for a loss doesn’t mean the game is lost. We simply need to get back up, acknowledge our sin, and get back into the game, ready to play the next play. We have the victory in Christ.

Once we embrace this truth—once we make the conscious decision to set our minds on Him, to embrace His grace and reject Satan—then we will discover a pure heart is ours.