Our Holy Father, The Gracious Judge

In this passage before us this evening, we see Peter continuing on in His command to us to live holy lives. Previously, Peter reminded us of what motivates our holy living, that we are children of grace and as such, we are to imitate our Father in holiness.

As children of God, we stand before the command to “be holy as I am holy.” This is the everlasting command to the people of God.

This command stood before Israel at Sinai, and this command condemned Israel as they went into exile. Israel, despite her outward appearances, lacked holiness. She was content with just observing outwardly the letter of the law but missing the point.

Israel assumed that by merely following the law outwardly, they could earn a standing before God. What they missed about the law and this command to be holy is how far above them it was. How much they needed God to provide for them.

What they missed was how the law pushed them toward the need for a saviour in God. David recognised this in our Psalm this evening saying, “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation.”

Now Peter continues the same command by ensuring that our holy living, is lived by faith in what God has accomplished for us. Not our abilities.

I often assume that I can do anything. I recently watched a video of a guy base jumping. If you don’t know what base jumping is, it’s like skydiving but instead of jumping from a plane thousands of meters in the air, you jump from a building or a cliff mere hundreds of meters from the ground.

Now this video in particular was of a guy base jumping off a cliff and while falling, doing multiple flips before pulling his chute as he fell meters from the cliff face.

Jolene had a normal reaction of surprise and horror while watching this video while I watched thinking, “with a bit of practice, easy-peasy.” Jolene had an appropriate measure of fear at the thought of doing such task, while I foolishly presumed upon my abilities (which would be far insufficient).

Never before have I jumped from a plane with a pro on my back, pulling the chute for me, let alone considered even attempting to jump, flipping, off a cliff.

Lest we forget who it is that commands us to be holy, Peter reminds us of how we are to conduct our lives in our efforts to live in holiness. Often when we hear of the command, “be holy as I am holy,” we think to ourselves, “easy-peasy.”

We too often assume that we have on our own what is needed to complete the task. We foolishly presume upon our own abilities.

But Peter says to us now, “if you call upon as Father, the one who judges every person without regard to who they are, you ought to conduct you lives here on earth with fear.”

He means to temper our zeal, to bring us back to reality and remind us of the task before us if we assume that we can be holy apart from grace. Indeed, we are children of the holy God, but children by grace and grace alone.

What I want you to get from the text this evening is that we ought to take care and watch ourselves, that we should walk in holiness, as Children of God. Not in our own efforts, but through faith in God because of the great redemption He bought for us by the blood of Christ.

We will do this by looking at three headings in the text before us.

1. What the relationship requires of us

2. How this relationship came about

3. The purpose of this relationship

What the Relationship Requires of Us

Read vs 17

Do you remember as child what it was like disturbing your parents at any time? That feeling of knocking on the door to the office and just feeling how huge it all is and how important the work must be. Or waking your mum or dad at night because of a bad dream or something.

I distinctly remember that feeling as a kid. For some reason or other, I was always paralysed with some kind of fear of waking my parents at night. It was not a cowering fear that I experienced, but something else.

I knew that I could always come to them, but the distance between parent and child I think makes us pause for a moment and consider how we are coming. I think it comes from that inflated, huge image we have of our parents, that they can do ANYTHING.

Head

This is the feeling that Peter is bringing before us now when he says that we should “conduct ourselves in fear.” Peter does not mean to say that we should cower before God in fear. Instead, as Calvin defined it, “it stands in opposition to heedless security.” Peter is wanting us to consider the gap between us and the one we call our Father.

Not that He doesn’t love us. Nor is He unwilling to help us in our time of trouble, just as our earthly Fathers care for us and will provide what’s best for us because they love us. Instead, this fear is a reverent fear at who our Father is.

“And if you call Father,” is not a phrase of uncertainty, but the opposite. He has already said to us that God is our father because we are His children.

As we consider what is required of us as children, Peter provocatively intends for us to consider this relationship. “And if you call Father,” he wants us to take seriously what this now means.

The one who we call our Father, Peter goes on to say, is “the One who judges each man according to what they have done, without regard to who they are.” That is what it means to be impartial.

At the previous call to be holy as God is holy, we may be tempted to call upon God as our Father based upon our holiness.But God’s holiness far out-classes ours in magnitude. So think in such ways in foolishness.

Heart

Consider the image we get of God in all His splendour and holiness in Isaiah 6.

Read Isaiah 6:1-4

Isaiah 6:1–4 ESV

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

Pause

This is the One who we call our Father. He is holy, completely other from us. Above us in every possible way, His majesty is incomprehensible.

Furthermore, as the holy God, His judging is far deeper than anything our holiness could muster on its own. “Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.” All our efforts towards holiness, cannot solve what the real command of God is, that our very motives would be changed after the character of God.

Hands

We all tend to think that we can be holy as we ought to be. If I just make sure I read my bible twice a day and pray, then I’ll be good. As long as I don’t kill anyone, then I’m sweet.

If we are honest with ourselves, we all too often act like Israel, observing new moons and sabbaths, offering mint, dill, and cumin, but neglecting the weightier matters of the law. Neglecting the call for changed hearts and motives.

The law requires of us, far more than we could ever do. Where we say we’re good because we don’t murder, the law requires that we don’t even hate. Where we think we are fine because we don’t commit adultery, the law says that to even look in lust is to fail. And to fail even once in our lives is to cease to be perfect.

See what great a task is required of us if we set aside the Gospel of grace?

Isaiah saw this when He saw the glory of God’s holiness, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!”

Relying upon our own efforts, we stand condemned. If you call upon God as your Father, know who your Father is. If you pause at the bedside of your earthly father, how much more should you consider how great your heavenly Father is.

Heart

The relationship requires of you holiness. But it is not a holiness that we can ever bring about by our own efforts. Remember that earlier, Peter’s motivation for holiness to begin with is that you, “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Holiness is far beyond our reach by our own efforts, yet we are still required walk in the way of holiness. But the means by which we are holy and walk in holiness before the Father are not our own abilities; but the grace of Christ working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, though Jesus Christ.

Hands

What has been started in you by grace, will be brought to completion at the coming of Christ. In His greatness, our Father has supplied for our every need, including the need for holiness.

If we rely upon our ability to be holy, we shall be found to be dearly wanting. If you call upon Him as Father, who judges each man according to his works, be sure that you will be found to be perfect; by the only way possible, to be covered by the perfect blood of Christ.

How This Relationship Came About

Our heavenly Father never leaves us wallowing. Do not fret, and do not fear at the insurmountable task before you. Your Father does not command you to conduct your lives here on earth in holiness without the assurance that you will truly be found to be holy when you come before Him. The standard of holiness hasn’t shifted because we will never reach it.

Instead, God is quick to provide grace.

To Isaiah upon touching his lips with a burning coal, so as to sanctify them, it was proclaimed, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

To us, our God and our Father says the same:

Read with me vs 18-19

In Peter’s time, a slave might be set free by paying a ransom. This ransom can be any amount of money, paid in either silver or gold. And this payment secured a life of freedom for the slave here on earth. Having been freed from a life of slavery, that slave will forever live completely as a freed man. Having experienced freedom, he will not go back to the confines of his old life.

Head

In much the same way, we are to conduct our lives in such a way that keeps at the forefront of our minds, the ransom that has been paid. Why, if we have been redeemed and the ransom paid, would we want to return to the life that we have left?

A slave doesn’t return His master once freed, why should you return to the old ways of life, the futile ways, always marred by sin, that you have been freed from? Indeed, you have been set free. And in a far greater way than the slave has been.

The slave’s freedom was bought with silver and gold, things that will perish, and his freedom is as momentary as his life on this earth. But your freedom has been paid for by the blood of the eternal lamb, Jesus Christ. And your freedom is not fleeting, nor momentary. It is eternal and everlasting.

How is this to be?

Heart

This time of year, the imagery of a perfect lamb without blemish or spot is particularly easy to imagine. We are starting to see all around us fresh lambs which are the very image of innocence and perfection.

Saying that Christ was like a lamb, without blemish or spot, Peter tells us what is required of us. That we also be spotless and without blemish. But what God requires of you, God also supplies. Where we a dirty and marred by sin, Christ has cleaned us and healed us. Where we were once enslaved to futile ways, we have now been set free.

This freedom is a complete freedom. We do not now stand before God as the judge all humanity wondering if we will stack up, but confident in what Christ has done for us. For Christ had no blemish in Him, he was full of perfection and righteousness.

He had no spot nor stain of sin. When he laid down His life, He need not make redemption for Himself as well, but in His righteous life, He bought for you the complete holiness required by God.

And in His dying upon that cross, His perfections meant that any debt that was owed by you to God, has now been wiped clean, now, and forever more.

Hands

Dear sinner, through faith in Christ, you stand no longer condemned by your sin, but stand as fully justified and perfect in the sight of your heavenly Father by the blood of Christ alone.

If you already believe this this evening, you have no need to worry. Your holy, heavenly Father has supplied your every need Christ. And you can come to God and call Him your Father.

If you do not believe this, if you are sitting here trusting your own works to save you. If you hope that you can “just do enough” to appease God. Or you see no need for holiness. The debt is too great, your efforts are futile and empty, and you will be found wanting.

Your only hope, your only security for an eternal life lived in freedom is the precious blood of Christ poured out for you. He is an eternal fountain of grace for weary sinners, He does not reject any who come to Him. You too can be called a child of God.

The Purpose of this Relationship

We have seen the requirements of our relationship to God as children, and of how this relationship has come about, we now turn to the purpose of this relationship.

Read with me vs 20-21.

Head

The futile ways that we once walked in are replaced by a sure hope and foundation in God. No longer are our efforts the means to gain acceptance with God, but now through Christ’s blood, we have a present hope in the salvation of God.

This is why God ordered things the way that He did, so that your faith and hope are not in yourself but in God alone. The kindness of God is evident in His eternal purposes. Even before the foundation of the world, God knew our need to have holiness supplied. He knew the goodness of man would not last. It is for your sake that Christ was made manifest in the way that he was.

The fear that we should walk in during our time on earth, is not cowering fear, but fear that stands in awe at the power, might, kindness and graciousness of our heavenly father. The One who judges all men judges you as completely righteous and holy in Christ.

Heart

He is your heavenly Father, as your Father know that you can come to Him with your every need. You may be lacking in holiness; you may have questions and doubts about how and why He orders things the way he does. But all of these do not disqualify you from being His child. What qualifies you to be called a child of God is Christ and Christ alone.

Hands

You may feel day to day as though you lack what is required to be called a child of God. You do not love God as you ought. You do things that you know you shouldn’t do, and you don’t do the things that you should. God is no less your Father in these day-to-day ups and downs. His Fatherhood is based solely on the precious blood of Christ that covers you.

Your failures to walk in holiness have been atoned for. Your constant slipping back into the futile ways of sin you inherited as those born of the flesh have been covered by Christ’s blood. Your lack of zeal, your lack of love for God and your lack of desire to do what you know you ought to do, have all been paid for by Christ.

He has loved God perfectly for you where you can’t. He has perfectly desired to do what pleases His Father where you lack that desire. He has lived the perfect and holy life that was required of you. Now all that He has is given to you.

As surely as Christ has been raised from the dead and gone to be with the Father in heaven, so surely is every part of your salvation bound up in God’s working for you. We are called children of God by grace and grace alone so that our so that your faith and hope can be in no other than God alone. He has supplied your every need and more.

What hope for holiness do we have apart from the eternal purposes of God in Christ? What hope do we have apart from God Himself?

Read Psalm 62:5-7

Psalm 62:5–7 ESV

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.