Preached Sunday, February 17, 2013 from 1 Peter 1:17-21
Theme: Knowing the great price that was paid for our redemption, we should live our lives on earth in holy awe.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
I would like to begin by simply reading this morning’s passage. It’s from 1 Peter 1:17-21. And then, after I read it, I’d like to share briefly with you how I found myself applying it just the other day.
In this very wonderful passage, the apostle Peter writes to his beloved Christian brothers and sisters and tells them,
And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God (1 Peter 1:17-21).
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I found myself applying this passage the other day in a rather common-place way—and to a seemingly insignificant task of life. But I believe that it’s precisely in such common-place, ordinary areas of life that it is meant to be applied.
I was on my way one evening last week to shop for groceries. How much more ‘common-place’ and ‘ordinary’ can you get than that? Typically, there are two or three different grocery stores I need to visit in order to complete the grocery list; so it takes most of the evening. I don’t particularly enjoy grocery shopping. But I have learned to begin that once-a-week, Friday evening chore with prayer. As the car is warming up, I thank God that we have the money to buy groceries, that there are plenty of groceries available to be bought, and that we have a car to go get them in. And I often invite the Lord’s presence with me as I go off to shop and take care of other errands. I sure hope that doesn’t come across as if I’m trying to sound ‘super-pious’ or anything. And I certainly don’t have the presence of mind to do that every time. It’s just that I did so last Friday night. I am learning that it truly makes the seemingly-mundane chores of life much more of a pleasure to do if I turn them over to the Lord at the very start.
So, on the way out to buy groceries—the Lord and me—I started to think about the passage I was preparing to preach from today; and I began to talk with Him in prayer about it. And then, I realized—or perhaps better, He opened my eyes to see—how the things it says had much to do with what I was doing right then. You see; this passage was telling me that I’m not going to the grocery store just as any ol’ person. I am going as someone for whom everything this passage was saying is absolutely true.
And so; as I drove along, I began to identify the things this passage ways saying—one-by-one in prayer—and affirmed them back to the Lord:
— I thanked Him that I have been ‘redeemed’ from my old patterns and habits of life. And not just through silver or gold! Those, of course, are the most precious things we can imagine on earth. In some form or another, that’s what I was needing to use to buy groceries! But I have been redeemed by something far more precious than even that! I have been redeemed by nothing less than the very blood of the sinless Son of God on the cross! The value of any ‘thing’ is established by the amount that someone of competence is willing to pay for it. And as it turns out, an immeasurably high price was paid for my redemption by God Himself! My redemption must be very valuable to Him indeed! I myself must be very precious to Him!
— I also thanked Him that the Father’s work of redeeming me in Christ was something that He had foreordained for me before creation! My salvation—my redemption from my old sinful way of life—was not an afterthought in the mind of God some time after the fall. It wasn’t ‘Plan B’. It was ‘Plan A’ all along! It is something that He had planned in His sovereign purpose before I ever came into being—and, in fact, before the world ever was! My redemption truly is a part of God’s sovereign plan of the ages that will result in the eternal praise of the glory of His grace!
— I went on to thank Him that my redemption is absolutely sure and certain. I may not have looked like much to brag about on the way to the grocery store. But the fact is that I am absolutely going to be glorified in Christ; and I am absolutely going to dwell in heavenly glory forever; and I am absolutely going to enjoy an eternal share in the rich inheritance of the Son of God Himself. These things cannot fail to happen. They are guaranteed and made objectively certain by the fact that God the Father raised His Son Jesus from the dead, and has seated Him in glory at His right hand—and all as the guarantee of what would follow for me!
— Finally, I thanked Him for the fact that all that was involved in my redemption is a work of His own grace. My faith is not in me, or in any way in my own efforts to bring this glorious future to pass. That’s a good thing too; because if any part of my redemption depended on me, it would be sure to fail. Rather my faith rests confidently in what God the Father has done for me through Jesus His Son! My hope for the fulfillment of all these things rests upon no earthly power whatsoever, but in Him alone—and therefore, all the glory and praise goes to Him!
All of these things are truths affirmed to us in this morning’s passage! And I need to tell you, dear folks; it was the greatest trip to the grocery store I have ever had! By the time I got there, I was overwhelmed with a sense of reverent awe over what God has done for me! Grocery shopping—of all things!—became a holy experience to me! I walked up and down the isles with a sense of amazed ‘fear’. If that’s who I am in God’s sight, and if all of that is what God has done to redeem me to Himself, then I wanted to be as holy as He has so graciously redeemed me to be! I wanted to shop for groceries—and do everything else I do—to the glory of God!
I went up to the check-out counter to pay for my groceries; and as the young woman at the counter bagged my goods, she casually asked, “So; got something big goin’ on for the weekend?” And with all the things I had been reflecting on still whirling around in my mind, I blurted out, “I’m the pastor of a church nearby; and I get to preach on Sunday! I’ve got something big goin’ on every weekend!”
Hopefully, I didn’t startle her too much. I guess I was a little excited about what I get to share with you this morning. And what’s more, I can’t wait to go grocery shopping again!
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Let’s begin by taking a closer look morning’s passage. I would like to ask you to notice the main command it gives us. Verse 17 says, “conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear”. And unfortunately, to the modern mind, the word “fear” has a bad connotation that I really don’t believe was intended by the apostle Peter. So I’d like to explain what I believe he meant by it.
When we speak of “fear” in everyday life, we usually think of something negative—the feeling of dreadful apprehension over something that’s dangerous or harmful or unpleasant. And let’s be honest!—sometimes, such an emotion can be very appropriate! A healthy sense of “fear” at the right times can keep us out of danger or trouble. But to be continually ruled by such an emotion is not a healthy thing. You can’t really imagine that Peter would be telling his brothers and sisters in Christ to conduct their lives in a constant state of that kind of fear!
But that’s not the only meaning behind the word “fear”. The same word in the original language can also describe a deeply positive emotion that arises from the apprehension of something majestic, or powerful, or superior. It’s the kind of emotion that we experience when we realize how great and power God is; or how glorious and holy His work toward us is shown to be. I think a good way to describe that kind of fear is as ‘reverence’, or ‘reverential awe’. In fact, that’s the very direction the New International Version moves when it translates this phrase from Peter, “live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear”.
You can see this idea of “fear” in Psalm 130:4. There, the psalmist prays to God and says “If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?”—and certainly, there you see a sense of dread at the greatness of our own sins before a holy God. But he goes on to write, “But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.” God forgives our sins—but not so that we would live in dread of impending punishment. Far from it! He forgives our sins so that we would live in a state of holy, reverential “awe” of Him—a reverent “fear” that moves us to love and worship Him, and to follow His good ways for us faithfully. You can see it in another Old Testament verse—Proverbs 1:7; where it says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge . . .” That’s not speaking of a negative ‘dread’, but rather of a reverential ‘awe’. Such ‘reverential awe’ of God is the starting-point for all true wisdom.
I like an analogy that my wife often uses. She’s a great lover of the ocean. She loves the smells, and the wind, and the beauty of the crashing waves. She loves to climb up on a rock near the ocean and sit and watch, as the waves smash and thrash. She loves to stand on the shore and let the waves come up and overwhelm her feet and legs. But she’s quick to tell you that, as beautiful and as wonderful as the ocean is, it’s also very dangerous. You must not treat it with carelessness and disrespect. You don’t dare go out too far into it; because you could lose your life! You have to have a healthy respect for the ocean. And if you do maintain that healthy respect for it, you can enjoy its beauty. That—in a very faint way, I think—serves as a good analogy for the healthy, reverential fear we should show toward God our Father. We hold Him in awe. We hold His power in great respect. We tremble at His holiness. But we also love and enjoy His goodness and His beauty and His mercy. We regard Him rightly and rightly revere the glorious thing He has done for us in Christ. We can only properly enjoy Him, and live before Him as we should, when we properly “fear” Him.
Peter was urging his beloved brothers and sisters in Christ—many of whom were being persecuted for their faith—to see themselves as those who are only temporary residents on earth. They hold their true citizenship in heaven; and they have a greater and far more glorious residence awaiting them in their heavenly Father’s house. But during the short time they are on this earth—just passing through, as it were, on their way to their eternal home—they were to live all the days of their sojourn in that state of holy, reverential awe of the God who has redeemed them. They were to ‘conduct themselves throughout the time of their stay here in fear’.
I believe we should even be in this state of ‘reverential fear’ while carrying out the every-day, seemingly-mundane things of life—even grocery shopping.
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So; that’s the great command of this passage. And how do we obey it? Please look with me at the first word of verse 18—”knowing”; or as the New International Version has it, “For you know that . . .”
So much of living the Christian life, as God would have us live it, depends on our making sure we “know” the right things; and that we “know” them with the clarity and intensity that we should—that the truths of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ have sunk down deeply into our thinking and have moved down even more deeply into our hearts. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; we need very much to to “know” certain things—really “know” them! Holy living depends upon proper “knowing”!
What is it that we need to know? Peter goes on to tell us that . . .
1. WE SHOULD KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT OUR REDEMPTION (vv. 18-21).
In verse 18, he tells us that we are to conduct ourselves throughout the time of our stay here “in fear”—that is, in reverential awe—”knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers . . .” You probably already know a little of what “redemption” means. It means that something is “bought” out of something else at a price. A slave can be redeemed from his or her state of slavery, or a prisoner from the prison cell, at the price of redemption. We often call that price “a ransom”.
Peter says that we were in a condition in which “redemption” was needed—in which a “ransom” needed to be paid. We were in a state of separation from God—a state in which we were characterized by ‘aimless conduct received by tradition from our fathers’. We didn’t live as God would have us live. We judged ‘right and wrong’ on the basis of rules and regulations handed down from those who came before us—and sadly, they really didn’t know what they were doing any better than we do. We inherited a sin nature from our first father Adam; and then, we picked up all the bad habits that came from all the others who followed after him. This is the way the apostle Paul puts it:
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others (Ephesians 2:1-3).
You and I who have trusted in Jesus as our Savior need to know that we’ve been “redeemed” from all that. And particularly, you and I need to know our redemption was paid for at great cost. As Peter writes; “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (vv. 18-19).
When Peter writes about Jesus as “a lamb without blemish and without spot”, I believe he is reminding us of the Passover lamb that was commanded to be sacrificed in the days when Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt. Back then, they were commanded to slay a lamb that was “without blemish” (Exodus 12:5); and were commanded to put the blood of the lamb on the two doorposts and on the lintel of their house (v. 7). Our sinless Savior Jesus Christ was that lamb—without blemish and without spot—whose blood was shed for us.
Silver and gold are the most precious commodities we can think of on earth. But they aren’t sufficient to pay for your and my redemption. Those things—as relatively precious as they may be—are corruptible. They will rust, and fade away, and lose their value. But we have been redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ”—God’s own sinless Son, who left heavenly glory in order to take the guilt of our sins upon Himself and pay the price of our guilt in our behalf.
Like I said earlier, the true value of a thing is objectively determined by the price that someone with competence is willing to pay in order to have it. And God the Father paid for our redemption with the highest ransom price that there could possibly be—the blood of His own sinless Son. If you and I have placed our faith in the cross of His Son, then we should walk around every day of our lives in a sense of reverent awe at how highly God the Father has valued our redemption!
We should also spend our lives in reverent awe because of the fact that our redemption through Christ is something that was established before time. In verse 20, Peter writes, “He”—that is, the Lord Jesus, as a lamb without blemish and without spot—”indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you . . .”
It wasn’t that God the Father looked upon the fall of Adam, was somehow caught by surprise by how our sins separated us from Him, and now had to find some alternate means for us to have a relationship with Him. As Peter makes clear, our Lord Jesus was “foreordained before the foundation of the world” to shed His precious blood for us. Back before we ever were, and back before Adam fell, and back in fact before the worlds ever were, God “foreordained” that His Son would shed His precious blood for our redemption. This was God’s eternal plan; “manifest in these last times”—through the fulfillment of these things in the earthly ministry of Jesus and in the preaching of the apostles that He sent—”for you”.
You and I ought to walk around with a sense of constant awe! We are redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus—and our redemption was something that God planned and purposed to bring about long before the worlds ever were! We truly are products of God’s plan for the ages! We are very significant indeed! We truly matter to God!
We should also be motivated to live in a sense of reverent awe by the fact that this great work of redemption—purchased by God the Father at the high price of the blood of His own Son, and purposed by God from before the foundation of the world—is a fully-accomplished work that was confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus. Peter goes in in verse 21 to speak of further about Jesus—”who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory . . .” (v. 21a).
Do you realize that the resurrection of Jesus three days after His death on the cross, and His present glorification at the right hand of the Father, are historic events that serve as the manifest guarantee that you and I will also be raised from the dead and will also be glorified in Him? They are acts that certify to us that our redemption is fully accomplished. Jesus was, as Paul wrote, “delivered up because of our sins, and was raised because of our justification” (Romans 4:25). He said that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).
These guarantees show us that our redemption is fully accomplished! We who are in Christ are destined for glory! We ought to walk around every day in a state of joyful, reverent awe!
And one more thing. We should be in that state of reverent awe because we are—from start to finish—the objects of a work of God. Did you notice that Peter said that it is “through Him”—that is, through Jesus—that we “believe in God”? Not only is the Lord Jesus the object of our faith; He is also the Author and Finisher of it! We believe on Him because of Him! “So that”, as Peter says in verse 21, “your faith and hope are in God” (v. 21b).
Now, to be sure, we must willingly place our faith in Jesus. We definitely have a part to play in it all. But we only have any part at all to play because the Father first graciously gives us the ability to play the part we play! As the apostle Paul says elsewhere, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). Even the faith to believe is itself His gift to us. None of the glory will go to us. All the glory will go to Him. We cannot be lost to Him; because the work of our redemption—ultimately—did not depend on us. Our faith (that’s the beginning of our part), and our hope (that’s the glory that is the outcome of our faith), is all “in God”.
We should walk around in a state of reverent awe—considering that our redemption is a good work in us that God both began and will completely finish!
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Now, dear brothers and sisters in Christ; I wanted to share these things with you first. They are the things that we must absolutely “know”. The nature of our redemption, as it’s shown to us in this passage—must sink down deeply into our very being. And . . .
2. KNOWING THIS, WE SHOULD LIVE OUT OUR TIME ON EARTH IN HOLY AWE (v. 17).
Peter writes, “And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear . . .”
Our heavenly Father is a good and merciful God. He demonstrates this by the fact that He so wonderfully redeems us—at such high cost, with so great a purpose, through such great confirmation, and in so complete a way. And this means that it would be a terrible thing to be indifferent to it all; to go on living as if it weren’t true; to live a life of sinful carelessness; to behave like the unsaved people of this world—and to dare, at the same time, to present ourselves as God’s children.
Peter tells us here that the Father judges “without partiality” and “according to each one’s work”. If we lose that sense of awe, and we embrace the sinful habits and practices of this world that He redeems us from, we provoke our Father to take action to act in love toward us and discipline us. He has labored at great cost to redeem us to Himself; and He will not overlook sin in our lives just because we are His children. As James has written, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously” (James 4:5). The fact that we are His children would move Him even more to protect us for Himself and to rid us of that from which He has redeemed us!
What we need is to know the truth of the greatness of His redemptive work toward us; and to respond to it with a sense of reverential awe, and with a desire to live as the holy people He has redeemed us in Christ to be!
So, dear brothers and sisters in Christ; “conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear . . .” Rejoice greatly in our salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ; and be sojourners in awe!