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What has kept you going lately when you feel like you are running on empty? What hope have you been walking in when things seem dark or futile? What have you been most looking forward to? Has it been hope in a long weekend? Hope in some hours of silence at the end of the day, some entertainment, a long vacation, a job promotion, a presidential candidate, a spouse, a child, a grandchild? Perhaps it has been the day of retirement or a different day on the calendar.
None of these things are bad in and of themselves, but all of them are insufficient sources for the grace we need to live faithfully in a world plagued with temptations to sin and suffering. The Apostle Peter wants our hearts and eyes resolutely fixed on the appearance of Christ: “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). He wants us to stake our lives on the return of Jesus. At the most essential level, that is the mindset with which Peter wants us stepping into each day. Namely, “If Jesus does not return, my actions today will be pointless, my suffering will be meaningless, my holiness nonsense; but thanks be to God, as sure as Jesus did rise from the grave, He will return and I will enter into His glory.”
Let us take a look at Peter’s exhortation piece by piece for our own instruction, so that we, too, might set our eyes on that grace that will soon be brought to us.
First, he says, “Set your hope . . .” This phrase suggests that we have an active role to play. We are to set our hope in that grace that is to come. We are the ones doing the setting. The responsibility belongs to us. We will not accidentally attain this. This is an invitation to obedient deliberateness.
Remember that the subordinate instructions—“preparing [our] minds for action” and “being sober-minded”—are aimed at getting us to “set [our] hope” on the grace here spoken of. Christianity is not a mindless faith. Thinking does not expose fewer reasons to trust; it reveals more reasons to obediently trust.
Peter adds the adverb “fully” or in other translations, “completely,” modifying how we are to set our hope in the grace that is to be brought to us. Peter is warning against the danger of hedging, placing some of our eggs in a separate basket, just in case plan A falls through. Entrust it all to God; let Him have sway over all that concerns you. Choose to make eternal grace your treasure, your boast, your reward, your security, your life. We must choose to say with the psalmist:
Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Ps. 73:23–26)
It greatly encourages me that the future glory is here called “the grace that will be brought to you” (1 Peter 1:13). Our failures here on earth can cause us to doubt that we have reason to hope, let alone cause to deliberately set our hope on the glory that is to come.
But here we are encouraged that the rest that God is bringing to us is ours on the basis of grace. If we were to earn it, we would only with great uncertainty, if at all, set our hope on glory. But because that rest is all of grace, weak sinners can confidently set all their hope on it.
Finally, see here that everything will come to fruition on the day that Jesus returns. The posture of all saints is a posture of waiting. That day is the believer’s hope. As Paul tells the Colossians, “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4), and the Philippians:
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. (Phil. 3:20–21)
Later in this letter, the Apostle Peter wraps up with these encouraging words:
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5:10–11)
Let us examine our hope to see whether it is properly placed in the God of all grace. May we set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.