A Life that Honors Christ

1 Peter 1:17-21

What motivates you to get up? What shapes your values, inspires your goals, and influences your choices? Motivation is the reason we do things, and everyone is motivated by something.

For example, what motivates people to perform well at work? One survey indicates that money and other material incentives are not a primary motivation. Primary motivators are:

Camaraderie and peer motivation (20%)

A desire to do a good job (17%)

Feeling encouraged and recognized (13%)

Making a real impact (10%)

Growing professionally (8%)

Other surveys offer insights into the motivations of people in other avenues of life:

One survey indicates that the most common motivation for donating to charitable causes was not generosity or personal concern but social pressure from others.

Another survey indicates a similar trend, that social pressure is a significant motivation for why people vote. The more people are asked if they will vote or believe they will be asked if they voted after the fact, the more likely they are to actually vote.

Still, another recent survey indicates the following reasons why Americans go to church:

To become closer to God (81%)

To provide their children with a moral foundation (69%)

To become a better person (68%)

For comfort in times of trouble or sorrow (66%)

They find the sermons valuable (59%)

To be part of a faith community (57%)

To continue their family’s religious traditions (37%)

They feel obligated to go (31%)

To meet new people or socialize (19%)

To please their family, spouse, or partner (16%)

Why do you work hard, donate money, vote in elections, and go to church? Some motivations are better than others – in particular because some motivations not only encourage good and better behavior but they – more than others – inspire us to keep on doing something worthwhile even when doing so becomes confusing, costly, dangerous, difficult, discouraging, or painful.

Following Christ is this way. When we believe on him, he forgives us from our sins and places us into God’s family forever. As encouraging as this may be, it may (and probably will) require us to encounter and go through some very difficult trials and seasons in life.

If your motivations for following Christ aren’t properly tuned, you’ll struggle to keep going on, backing up and even backing away from doing all that Christ commands. You’ll pause or pull back from taking your next steps in following Christ.

Young people face this potential pitfall when they profess to follow Christ but then experience the new challenges and temptations of teenage and early adult life. They back up or back away from their pursuit of Christ.

Young, early career and newly married adults face this potential pitfall when the responsibilities of family and working life weigh heavier upon them. They hit the brakes and hold back from their pursuit of Christ.

Older adults who face this potential pitfall when the failures, frustrations, and hardships of life overshadow them. So, they slow down and stop serving Christ as they once did, allowing the sorrows and sufferings of life to dampen or diminish their pursuit of Christ.

If your interest in Christ and your service and passion for him has diminished or disappeared over time, then please ask yourself this important question. What was your motivation for following him? Perhaps your motivation was not significant enough to carry you through? Perhaps you served Christ for a superficial reason such as:

A domestic motivation to carry on your family’s religious tradition

An economic motivation to receive material blessings from God

An intellectual or logical motivation to do what seemed to make the most sense

A religious motivation to earn the favor of or impress God

A selfish motivation to become a better person

A social motivation to be like, fit in, or impress your peers

While all of these motivations offer some degree of positive value, they fall short of the ultimate motivation – the motivation which will enable you to persevere through any trial, even when the other motivations lose their appeal.

A deep respect for Christ should motivate your actions and choices in life.

Conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear;

The believers to whom Peter originally wrote had followed Christ and then experience hardship and persecution as a result. In other words, there was a sense in which following Christ had caused their economic, material, and social lives to go from bad to worse.

Yes, they now enjoyed a close relationship with God and a confident hope in Christ’s coming kingdom, but their present lives were marked by painful trials which they had not previously endured. They had been forced to uproot and move away from their long-held, inherited family estates and were facing even greater dangers in the future. Later in this later, Peter will acknowledge their coming sufferings, saying, “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you.” (1 Pet 4:12).

“Conduct yourselves” is the lone action verb in this section of Peter’s letter, with every other action expanding or explaining it further somehow. It describes the actions and choices you make day by day as you make your way through this journey of life. It speaks not only about how you behave “at church,” but how you behave in general, of your habits, priorities, and routines of life – of which church is a part.

This command reminds us to take responsibility for how we live our lives. We are not helpless victims of our circumstances, but responsible human beings made in the image of God who are called and capable to respond properly – as God himself would respond – to all of our circumstances, no matter how enjoyable or excruciating they may be.

“Throughout the time of your stay here” teaches us a key concepts – that we are temporary residents of this present world. Whether we rent or own a home, out time in this world resembles spending the night at an Airbnb or hotel. Knowing this should encourage us to stop trying to find too much comfort, satisfaction, and security in this life. Whatever this world has to offer is temporary at best. Therefore, we should take the influencers and offers of this world far less seriously than we do.

We should focus our hearts and minds on fearing God instead, “in fear.” This fear does not describe the kind of fear we experience as a child who is “afraid of the dark” or “afraid of scary clowns”, etc. As Paul told Timothy, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Tim 1:7).

“In fear” refers to having a deep and profound personal respect for Christ. This is the kind of respect that children should have for their parents or the kind of respect we should have for law enforcement officers and government officials.

While we often fail to feel and show proper respect for these people, we also have a tendency to show this kind of respect to other people, instead – Hollywood personalities, social media influencers, sports stars, or certain relatives and so-called friends whom we have chosen to respect more than those we should.

This kind of fear was not some special New Testament concept or insight from Peter or even Christ himself. Peter reached back into the longstanding teaching of – you guessed it – the Old Testament (OT) for this foundational and timeless life truth.

“You shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.” (Deut 8:6)

“Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.” (Job 28:28)

“Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.” (Eccl 12:13)

To fear God is the greatest motivation which can guide a person through life for it encourages a person to persevere through any trial. To fear God is to value him so highly that you desire to hear his words, understand his words, and live according to his words for no other reason than that you know him and treasure him as your God more than you treasure anyone or anything else in the world.

If you are a genuine follower of Christ

If you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work,

Peter prefaces this command to fear God with a precondition or necessary qualification. Not everyone can fear God – only those who have become his children by faith in Christ.

“If you call on the Father” clarifies that to live a life that’s motivated by a deep, personal respect for Christ requires that you first be a person who can call God your Father. Have you truly called upon God as your Father by turning to Christ alone as your Savior?

If not, then you are what the NT calls a “son of disobedience” (Eph 2:2; Col 3:6), someone who disobeys and disregards God’s authority in your life. Therefore, you are not God’s child. If this is the case, then let me encourage you to acknowledge your lack of respect for God and your disobedience to him today.

“If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame” … for ‘whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.’” (Rom 10:9-13)

If you have believed on Christ, then you may call God your Father. Like a good father, he will care for, discipline, and protect you. Yet just because you call him your Father doesn’t mean that you should live a careless life which is irreverent or overly familiar towards him.

“Who without partiality judges according to each one’s work.” With this, Peter warns us that though God loves all his children equally, he doesn’t hold them to a different standard than nonbelievers, nor does show favoritism to some of his children and not to others.

God is not like a government official whose children receive preferential treatment at school. He expects all his children to follow Christ through any suffering with the same commitment and enthusiasm, no matter how difficult that suffering may be.

This warning reminds me of a similar, sobering warning which the writer of Hebrews gave to another group of believers who were also experiencing excruciating trials:

“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.” (Heb 12:28-29)

Believers – of all people – should exhibit a deep and profound respect for Christ that motivates them to persevere through any hardship or suffering, no matter how confusing or painful it may be. If you fall away from following Christ as you go through hardship and you never recover or return, then it’s possible – even likely – that God was never your Father at all – that you never truly turned to Christ by faith alone for real.

Speaking of such people, the apostle John – a fellow disciple of Christ with Peter – said:

“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.” (1 John 2:19)

Since you know how much it cost God to redeem you

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.

After giving us his central command to be motivated in life by a deep respect for Christ, Peter explains two reasons why we should do this. In other words, he presents two facts which should inspire us to do so.

The first fact focuses on the cost of our redemption.

The second fact focuses on the timeframe of our redemption.

Redemption is one of those “Bible” words that are hard to avoid when we talk about our lives as followers of Christ. This is one of those words which describe our salvation, the way that God has rescued us from the power and penalty of our sins.

In the OT, this word describes how God liberated the Hebrew people out from four centuries of slavery in Egypt.

In the NT, this word describes how a slave could be freed from slavery by the payment of a fixed and expensive price – similar to how prisoners may be released on bail today, only NT redemption from slavery was permanent, not temporary.

Here, Peter contrasts our redemption with the cultural, social example of being liberated from slavery by the payment of a price. In particular, the point of contrast centers on the cost of the payment which was made.

This is a fascinating illustration for Peter to use here since some – if not many – of the believers he was speaking to were still household slaves themselves. In fact, this fact leads to the climax and theme of this entire letter:

“Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps” (1 Pet 2:18-21).

So, Peter does not guarantee that becoming a child of God will rescue you from all difficult or even unjust treatment in life by other people. You could become a follower of Christ and still remain a slave. So, if becoming a child of God and a follower of Christ did not free you from unjust treatment and uncomfortable experiences, what does God’s redemption liberate us from then?

“Your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers” is the answer. It describes an aimless, empty lifestyle that has no real direction or meaningful purpose. We experience this empty lifestyle today when we make financial and professional success, athletic and intellectual achievement, material purchases, personal entertainment and gratification, social acceptance, and technological advancement our aims rather than the pursuit of God and the advancement of his kingdom.

We understand why nonbelievers live this way, but why do those of us who profess to follow Christ live this way, too? We’ve been freed from doing so. We don’t have to live this way anymore! We can now pursue God’s priorities instead, which is becoming like Christ and pointing other people to him.

We need to take our newfound freedom seriously because we’ve been freed by the sacrificial payment of an incredible price. “You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold,” meaning that the price God paid to free you from your slavery to a meaningless lifestyle was not only different but greater than any amount of money.

“You were redeemed … with the precious [priceless] blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” No value can be calculated or estimated for this price that was paid, for it was the price of the very life of God himself, the Son of God – Jesus Christ. He was perfect, innocent, and his sacrifice was priceless.

The Puritan Thomas Watson rightly observed that redemption was God’s greatest work:

“Great was the work of creation, but greater the work of redemption; it cost more to redeem us than to make us; in the one there was but the speaking of a Word, in the other the shedding of blood” (Body of Divinity, 146).

Recognizing this incredible cost that Christ paid to free us from an empty materialistic lifestyle should inspire an extraordinary degree of respect for Christ within your heart, a respect which transcends and rises above all other motivations in life.

What has any other person – relative, friend, or otherwise – ever sacrificed or spent for you that comes anywhere close to the price that Christ paid to redeem you? Which famous person, friend, or even relative has done so much for you at such a high cost?

Knowing the incredible cost of our redemption should motivate us to persevere through any suffering at any personal cost out of a deep and profound respect for Christ.

Since you know how committed God was to redeem you

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.

We should embrace a deep and supreme respect for Christ not only for the cost of our redemption but for the timeframe of his commitment to us, as well.

As one commentator explains, “The death of Christ was not … a panicked, emergency, plan-B approach. Nor was it an accident or twist of fate. [It] was planned before the cosmos appeared. Redemption … through the death of Jesus Christ was a plan made in eternity past” (Holman NT Commentary, Walls, Anders).

Christ did not pay this extraordinary price to free you from a meaningless life as a quick reaction to an unexpected problem. Long before he even created the universe and all that is in it, knew that he would pay this price and intended to do so. In other words, his sacrificial death was a predetermined choice by God to redeem you at such a cost.

That this happened “for you” is also significant, because it reveals that the death of Christ was more than an impersonal event for a large, general group of people – he intentionally planned to die for each one of us who believe on him. So, there is an individual, personal aspect to acknowledge here. He didn’t just plan all this for us, he did so for you.

What’s more, after he carried out his plan and died for your sins and mine, God “raised him from the dead and gave him glory.” So, if God gave him glory then so should you!

Also, that God would do all this for you underscores how greatly your motivation (“your faith and hope”) should be the pursuit of God above all. If God sent Christ to suffer for you at such a cost and with such long-range planning, then surely we should be motivated to persevere in following Christ at any cost and with such determination in return.

Is a supreme respect for Christ the primary motive of your life today?

As you make your way through life this week, let me encourage you to assess your motives. On your way home from school or work, ask yourself some diagnostic questions and answer them honestly. Do the same as you make choices and perform tasks. More than anything else, why did I behave the way I did or make the choice that I made?

Out a sense of duty? If so, to whom? Family, friends, community?

For personal enjoyment?

To be appreciated and recognized by others? If so, whom?

To rise to the top, to win, to succeed?

To connect with people? If so, with whom?

To feel secure?

To accumulate wealth?

Because I’m scared?

To prove something to myself or someone else? If so, to whom?

To express myself?

To survive?

To feel better?

To make a positive difference?

To have fun?

To solve a problem?

To escape from problems?

To show my respect and admiration for Christ?

Some of these motivations are better than others and some of them should be present in our lives, but if respect and admiration for Christ is not your primary, supreme motivation, then you will be at risk of slipping back to a meaningless and disillusioned way of life as the trials of life come your way. Replace your motivations with the motive of a deep respect for Christ – as Peter will help us do throughout this letter.

If God is your Father because you’ve believed on Christ alone as your God and Savior, then meditate much more than you do on the incredible cost that was paid to rescue you from such an empty life and meditate much more on how planned and deliberate God was in planning to die for you.

The more we, as followers of Christ, give focused thought to the costly and deliberate death of Christ for our sins, then we will honor Christ as God the Father himself honors him – above all things. And this respect for Christ will transform not only your affections but your actions as well, and you will live a more obedient and persevering life no matter what life throws your way.