About This Guide: This weekly groups guide, “Living Hope: Words of Life for Challenging Days — Eight Weeks in First Peter,” is designed as a companion to Living Hope, our Fall 2021 teaching series, fostering discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting. Join a group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
how to set your hope
Teaching Text: 1 Peter 1:13-25
Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires 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 person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 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 ancestors, 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 yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, 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 people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Set your hope on grace
Family trait of holiness
The precious blood of Jesus
What lasts in this world?
Presence
Explore these questions for discussion and action:
What gets in the way of you being in God’s presence?
Put away distraction — turn it off — what does that look like for you?
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
What you give your mind to think on, or what your mind regularly settles on, or what grabs your minds attention will shape your moments and therefore shape your days. What shapes your days through your attention will begin to shape your longings, the things that you want and the hierarchy of those wants.
Attention, desires, and love are directed:
Attention - what I set my mind on
Desires - what I want on a daily basis and then ultimately
Love - what I have come to truly want most
The grace of Jesus in the gospel leads to a certain kind of life:
Where our attention is set on a hope that will not fail
Where our character is shaped by desires for what is truly life and truly good
Where we are enmeshed in a life of deep love from the heart
Additional thoughts to discuss:
Your hope can be set by your attention:
Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. (1 Peter 1:13)
Your character is shaped by your desires:
As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires 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 person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 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 ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Peter 1:14-19)
Your love is sustained by an unending source:
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 yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, 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. (1 Peter 1:21-23)
Name and release evil desires — desires from a way of life that does not take God into account.
Love
Read these notes and discuss the questions below:
You have this deep source of love so love each other deeply and know that your source is never going to run out. Some of us are absolutely spent and deep love just feels exhausting.
Your deep source of love: John 13:1 says, “having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” “To the end” in the Greek text is eis telos, meaning, literally, that He loved them to perfection. He loved them to the uttermost. He loved them with total fullness of love. That is your source.
Who can you love in this way this week?
Ask for and follow prompts of Love. God show me how to love those around me deeply from the heart. Take the guidance you get and act on it.
Additional quotes to discuss:
This is God’s purpose: to set people aside from other uses so that they can be signposts to this new reality, this new world. The new world has in fact already come into being through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. Through that sacrificial death on the one hand and the indwelling of God’s spirit on the other hand, God has set people apart to be living signals of this new world. They are therefore to be “holy,” both in the technical sense that God has set them apart for this purpose and in the practical sense that their actual lives have been transformed. The way they behave now reflects God’s desire for his human creatures. That — however daunting and unlikely it seems — is who we are as Christians. —N.T. Wright
We see what is possible: anyone and everyone is able to live a zestful life that spills out of the stereotyped containers that a sin-inhibited society provides. Such lives fuse spontaneity and purpose and green the desiccated landscape with meaning. And we see how it is possible: by plunging into a life of faith, participating in what God initiates in each life, exploring what God is doing in each event. The [people who share the God life] are remarkable for the intensity with which they live Godward, the thoroughness in which all the details of their lives are included in God's word to them, in God's action in them. It is these persons who are conscious of participating in what God is saying and doing that are most human, most alive. These persons are evidence that none of us is required to live "at this poor dying rate" for another day, another hour. — Eugene Peterson
Pray for one another in the group.
