Last week we began to look at 1 Peter 1:13-16, in the first sections of the letter Peter emphasized the ‘living hope’ and in light of that hope we are to live holy lives. Last week I put the focused on grace, for which Peter tells us to place all of our hope on.
To be holy means to be “set apart” to be “different”. A holy person is a person who is different. There something about the way they live, their lives are not like others. To the people who don’t know Christ, they might seem strange. Their focus isn’t the same, their language is different, the way they interact with others seems odd but in a good way.
For the Christian living a holy life isn’t easy, it seems everything is working against us. The world around us is trying to press you into a mold for which we not longer fit. Like trying to put a square peg in a round hole, the world has to force us to fit and it never works.
Peter understood this, because the people he was addressing were going through the same thing. So he helps them to understand by always taking them back to the cross, we see this theme repeated over and over in the New Testament. Back to the cross, back to the cross. Which is exactly what we are to do and it is key to understanding who and the why we are to live holy.
We are to be holy, we have been set apart for obedience by the spirit. True salvation always leads to obedience. We are to be serious and disciplined, self-controlled and sober minded. We are not to live ignorant of Christ. We are called to be different, called to be holy, called out of darkness, called to bring Glory to God, by bringing glory to Christ.
God who took the initiative, he did this by His incredible grace. He called us, he elected us and by doing so we have a responsibility. We are to be holy as He is Holy.
Which sets the stage for this morning’s passages:
“Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers 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 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.” ~1 Peter 1:17-21 NIV
Father v.17
I want to start this by saying something that is on my heart. I preach through books of the Bible so that you and I learn the word of God. We have Sunday schools classes and we have an Awana ministry to teach children to memorize and know the Bible. Why do we do this? It is easy for us to get caught up in reading books about the Bible, studying outlines and explanations and lose our focus along the way. We study the Bible to know God. We study to know the God of the Bible. It’s important for our focus to be on God and who he is.
I say this because it’s important to understand who we are dealing with. We are dealing with a God who has revealed Himself to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father is over all, The Son willfully submits to the Father and His will and the Holy Spirit works to bring glory to the Son, all of this happens for the overall glory of God. All three separate and unique and yet one, working together in perfect fellowship, perfect harmony, perfect love, perfect justice, perfect righteousness, perfect holiness, This God is all powerful, all knowing and is everywhere! He created all things and sustains all things! Nothing, I mean nothing exists without Him.
It is this God, this glorious God who brings us into this relationship with the Father through Christ the Son and the work of the Holy Spirit. So when this God says “Be holy, for I am holy” we need to sit up and take notice!
Peter starts by reminding us who we are talking to when we call for help, when we pray to the Father, “Since you call upon a father who judges” by doing this Peter introduces a new motivation for us, “fear”
-Fear
Peter is intentionally invoking the fear of God’s holy discipline in this passage. He is telling the reader you know on whom you call on and He is the judge of the universe and He shows no favoritism, he is totally impartial and everyone will be judged. Membership in God’s family, is a great privilege, and must never lead to presumption that disobedience will pass unnoticed or undisciplined. It is by God’s grace we are saved and we should never think that is a license to sin, just the opposite it comes with a great responsibility.
We need to understand something about this judgment. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”
2 Corinthians 5:10 NIV
We need to understand believers are judged differently than non believers. If you have trusted Christ, God has forgiven your sins and declared us righteous in His son. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. ~Romans 4:25 NIV
Each believer will appear before the judgment seat of Christ give an account of his works, and receive the appropriate rewards.
Knowing this should invoke in us a fear, a reverent fear. This fear is important, this fear is taught all through the Bible. It goes counter to what we learn in our culture, where we have “sensitivity training”. We think that a loving God could never judge or discipline believers. We like to think about fear as being in “awe” of a loving God, and we like to avoid the idea of discipline.
No this is a holy God, an immense God, His very name is righteousness and justice, He would never settle for ok, He is perfect and He wants you to be exactly what He planned you to be and will never settle for something less. So He disciplines us, He shapes us, He put people in our lives to press us, circumstances to break and molds us to be more and more like Christ.
So to have a fear of Him is healthy is not a bad thing, it is the beginning of all wisdom and knowledge. In fact we have to have it when it comes to God and in our relationship with Him. Let me illustrate this in another way how healthy fear can impact our lives. Read “Different Drug Problem”
We need to live with a healthy reverent fear of a holy God and we are to live it now!
-When? Now!
Peter again reminds us we are strangers here, exiles, and we are to live this life in “reverent fear” now. Not sometime in the future, not when we feel like it but now, in the present. We are to live knowing the Father is watching, judging our efforts and disciplining us because He loves us.
He does this because wants the very best for us. If parents who are as Jesus says evil (Matt 7:11) can know what is right for their children, how much more can God know what is best for us. Which brings us to verse 18.
You know….v.18
Peter starts the next sentence with, “For You know…” and he is going to take us back to the cross, and to the price that was paid to free us from sin. God has redeemed you out of a sinful life at a great cost. The people reading this letter understood slavery. The Roman Empire was built on the backs of slaves, some 60 million of them. This word redeemed had a special meaning to these people, they understood what a treasure it was to live free and those living in bondage longed to be free.
-You were redeemed
A slave in Roman times could purchase his freedom or his master could sell him to someone who would pay the price for his freedom. Redemption was precious to them; they understood how important it was.
Warren Weirsbe commentary says this “Peter is reminding the readers of what Christ has done. He shed his precious blood to purchase us out of the slavery of sin and set us free forever. To redeem means “to set free by paying a price.” A slave could be set free with a payment of money, but no amount of money can set a lost sinner free. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can redeem us”
We must never forget God has freed us from our sins, and he delivered us from an empty life.
-Empty Life
"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? ~Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 NIV King Solomon was the wisest man to ever live. When he became king God told him he would give him anything he asked for. Solomon asked for wisdom to rule God’s people and God answered his prayer. He wrote these words towards the end of his life and spends twelve chapters in Ecclesiastes explaining how everything in life is meaningless without God.
Peter is echoing the same sentiment in this verse. We have been handed down a life that is meaningless, because of sin and our fallen nature. We were slaves to sin, our own desires, swept away in self that would in the end amount to absolutely nothing of lasting value. The idea is we spend our entire lives chasing after the wind and in the end we die and we take nothing with us. But in Christ we have life now and for eternity. A life that is abundant, with deep meaningful relationships based not on self but on the selfless love of Christ, a life that has a purpose and a meaning, one that is rewarding and worth living.
This life in Christ wasn’t purchased by gold or silver, but by His precious blood!
Precious v.19
The word precious used here means valuable, more valuable than any money, gold or silver or anything of this world. This is something precious in the sight of God and is worth more than anything we can imagine!
-Blood of Christ
The blood of Christ that was poured out for our sin, poured out as evidence of our forgiveness and the removal of our judicial guilt before God. But it has other effects also, by the blood of Christ our consciences have been cleansed (Heb 9:14), we can enter the sanctuary of God with boldness with our worship and prayer (Heb 10:19), are cleansed from all sin (1 John 1:7), by the blood of Christ we can conquer the accuser of the brethren (Rev 12:11) and we are rescued from a sinful way of life (1 Peter 1:9)!
the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish of defect—How worthy is this Lamb? I think we can better understand this if we fast forward to Revelation and look at the worship of the Lamb by the host of heaven, as Christians we will be here in the great multitude, O’ How I want to be in that number!:
-The Lamb
Revelation 7:9-17 NIV “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures.
They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: "Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!" Then one of the elders asked me, "These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?" I answered, "Sir, you know." And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, "they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
We should never take lightly the Lamb and the shedding of His blood for our sins, for He was chosen before the foundation of the world for this one purpose. And one day we will stand before the throne, by God’s grace and worship the Lamb to the glory of God.
Chosen v.20-21
God’s eternal plan, his sovereign will and purpose centers on Jesus Christ, all of history concludes in him. God’s purpose, even before all of creation it was known that Christ would come to die for us, for your sake!
-For your sake
This incredible salvation that God has planned for us, Christ paid the price for, this marvelous act of grace in which we can confidently place all of our hope in. This is what spurs us to live lives worthy of this undeserved call, to live holy lives, blameless and not ashamed.
Christ to whom we have a relationship with the Father, we who were once dead have been made alive by the Son, we who are weak and sinful are given everything we need for forgiveness, life and godliness through the Holy Spirit.
-For God’s glory
So what are we to do with this knowledge? We are no longer ignorant to Christ and to why He came and what He did for each one of us on the cross and the cost. We are not naïve that our lives now rest in Him, all of our hope, all of our faith, everything we are. Peter puts it this way later in this letter:
“If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen. ~1 Peter 4:11 NIV
We are called to be obedient. We are called to be holy. Everything we have is owed to Jesus Christ, to who God is to be praised. Our lives should do nothing to take away from His glory, nothing away from His praise. For worthy is the Lamb of God.
Be holy, for the glory of God.
