1 Peter 1:17-21 - Living with Fear and Assurance

Introduction

About a month or so after I became the senior pastor of FBC Diana, I remember a phone call I had with another pastor who was divorcing his wife. They had been married for more than two decades, but the pastor had been having an ongoing affair with a woman who worked in the church office. His wife was willing to reconcile, but he wanted to pursue his adulterous relationship. He did not admit adultery at the time, but all indicators pointed in that direction… and time has proved that the pastor and the lady in his office were indeed having an affair.

I was talking with that pastor on the phone one afternoon, and I felt that I was on shaky social ground. I was 33 years old, and he was in his mid-50s. I was the new pastor with no real relationships in the church or the community, and he was a hometown boy with lots of friends. I was coming into a church that (to my knowledge) didn’t know the first thing about church discipline or public accountability, and he seemed to have all sorts of empathy on his side (The evidence against him was only circumstantial… Lots of people get divorced… Why was I being so judgmental?).

In my brief conversation with that pastor, I pleaded with him to stay with his willing wife, and I called him to obey the command of Christ. But the pastor told me that he understood that I had to say such things… because I was a Baptist pastor… however, he felt absolutely free to do as he pleased.

I told him that, on the contrary, I believed that stuff, and that I felt an obligation to say it because the Bible commands it… I believed that he was not free to disobey the Lord Jesus Christ without consequence… and I saw it as my responsibility to warn him about what a rebellious commitment to sin might mean!

One of us on the phone that day was thinking and acting with a fear of God, and the other of us was presuming on God’s grace.

Before and since that day, I have had more than a few conversations that went something along those same heartbreaking and frustrating lines. I would point out some clear violation of Christ’s command… and a professing Christian would appeal to God’s grace and their freedom to go on in sin.

One particularly painful conversation like this ended with a man I love telling me that I should leave it alone because only he would have to answer for his decisions before God one day… I shudder to think what that day will be like.

Friends, it is true that God forgives sinners, but He does not have to.

God is not obligated to forgive anyone, and God has been quite clear about what it means to be a Christian, living under His grace… and what it means to be a self-deceived imposter, living under His condemnation.

We are going to read a passage of the Bible today that falls into the category of what many have called the “warning passages.” These are those places (especially in the NT) where the Bible warns professing Christians against neglecting the sorts of commands that we focused our attention on last Sunday.

The commands last week (1 Pet. 1:13-16) were “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (v13), and “be holy in all your conduct, since… he who called you is holy” (v15). Or as I phrased them, “confidently think and commit to act like obedient children of God.”

But what if someone who says he’s a Christian doesn’t do that?

What if someone who claims to know and believe in Christ does not aim her life toward holiness?

What if a professing “Christian” actually defies the commands of Christ and persistently and presumptuously chooses sin over holiness?

Our passage today speaks to professing Christians (just like most of us) who are in danger of driving our lives into one of two ditches on either side of the road to that glorious salvation we’ve been talking and reading about in 1 Peter.

Some of us are prone to drive toward legalism – “I must obey, or God will not love me” – and some of us are more likely to drive toward license – “I don’t have to obey, because God loves me no matter what I do.”

Both of these ditches lead sinners like us right to hell… even if we don’t think we will end up there. May God sober us as we read this passage today, and may He comfort us with the only true assurance that any sinner has.

Scripture Reading

1 Peter 1:17–21 (ESV)

17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Main Idea:

Christians ought to fear God, cling to Christ, and be assured that those who do will be raised and glorified on the last day.

Sermon

1. Fear God (v17)

Our passage this morning is deeply connected to the one we studied last Sunday. Peter has not begun a new thought here; he is carrying on with the same topic he’s already been highlighting.

In fact, for the first twelve verses of this letter, Peter comprehensively described the “salvation” that is both the present possession and the future expectation of all those who have been “born again” (1 Pet. 1:3), all who are “being guarded through faith” in Christ (v5), and all who “rejoice” now even through the midst of “trials” and who persevere to the end with genuine “faith” because of their “love” and “hope” in Christ (v6-9).

Then (in v13), Peter transitioned to begin explaining several implications of the salvation he described. Those who have it and those who long for it are:

(A) to “set” their “hope fully on the grace that will be brought to [them] at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (v13),

and (B), “as obedient children” (v14), they are to “be holy in all [their] conduct” (v15).

These are two of many implications Peter goes on to describe and explain throughout the meat of this letter, which concludes in chapter 3, verses 8-12… there (in the middle of chapter 3) Peter gives a summary of his implications and yet another warning for any professing “Christian” who would reject them.

The letter continues on for another couple of chapters after that, but this is the meat of it… this is what Peter really wants to get across to his reader. He wants them to understand that belief in Christ means something – a lot of things – in real life.

For our passage today, the implications in view are that Christians ought to fear God and cling to Christ. Our passage emphasizes both of these… but the first one to appear in order is fear.

See Peter’s rationale there in v17. “And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile…”

Like those other “warning passages” of the Bible, our text today begins with a warning for those who profess faith in Christ (i.e., they are members of churches, and they count themselves among “the elect”). And yet they are prone to hear the commands of Christ (such as, “set your hope” and “be holy”)… and they are prone to neglect them or even reject Christ’s commands.

Friends, this is what sinners naturally do, and even Christians are often still tempted to neglect or reject God’s word. But note here that Peter reminds those Christians back then (who are just like us today)… he reminds them that the God they “call… Father” is one who “judges impartially according to each one’s deeds” (v17).

We must get the point here: God is an impartial judge. He is perfectly just in all His judgments, and He cannot be swayed by circumstance or pedigree.

God is neither racist nor antiracist – He judges on the facts of the case, not for or against on the basis of ethnicity.

He is neither classist not sinfully empathetic – He does not take into consideration whether one is rich or poor, oppressed or free… He judges all things and people exactly as they are… guilty or innocent.

Now, I’m not saying that our attributes or circumstances or experiences don’t matter to God at all.

I am saying that God does not bend the arms of His justice in order to accommodate sin… just because the sinner has also been sinned against or has enjoyed some advantage.

It won’t matter who hurt you or how many times your momma prayed for you.

On the last day, our excuses and our influence will be irrelevant… the only question will be “Did we sin?” …and if the answer is “Yes,” then we are culpable, we are responsible, and we are guilty.

And this is a great comfort to those who have been deeply wronged.

If someone has betrayed you, if someone has brutalized you, if someone has deceived and taken advantage of you, then that person will stand before the bar of God’s justice without excuse or defense.

Many of us have not likely been wronged to such a degree that we are ready to celebrate this reality just yet, but some of us have been.

You may recall the prayer of the saints before God’s throne… “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge [us]…” (Rev. 6:10).

The circumstances of this life and the unbalanced scales of justice that are employed by partial and biased magistrates around the world will not prevent true and perfect justice from being meted out in the end.

But this same reality is also a terror to sinners everywhere.

I have acted defiantly against God’s laws, I have been the perpetrator of injustice, and I have deceived and taken advantage of others on more than one occasion in my life.

If God is an impartial judge, then I am exposed… I am without excuse… I rightly stand as one who is doomed to feel the full weight of God’s justice upon my own head.

Friends, it is true that those who believe and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ have been “ransomed” or “redeemed” by His “precious blood” (1 Pet. 1:18), which we will get to in just a moment. But let’s not run too quickly here from the warning… And let’s also recognize that sin or “the futile ways” of the lives we once lived is precisely what Christians have been “ransomed from” (v18).

The Bible teaches elsewhere that if we receive a “knowledge of the truth” of the gospel of Christ, but we “go on sinning deliberately” afterward, then “there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but [only] a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume [God’s] adversaries” (Heb. 10:26-27).

It is interesting to observe just how often the Bible puts trust and obedience side-by-side. In those warning passages (like the one we’re reading today), there is a great assurance that those who simply trust in the Lord Jesus Christ will most definitely enjoy the blessed promises God has made in the gospel… AND there is also a great warning that those who do not obey the Lord Jesus Christ will most definitely be excluded from those blessed promises – they will face an impartial judge who will unleash His fury and consume them.

Friends, we must never hold up our works of obedience in order to justify ourselves before God. Our so-called “righteousness” is utterly and completely lacking. Our thoughts, words, and deeds have earned us no good thing from God.

However, we must also never assume that God’s gracious salvation in Christ is a license to continue in sin. God will not deal kindly with those who drink of the “rain” of the means of grace (i.e., Scripture, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, prayer, church fellowship and accountability, etc.) and yet produce only “thorns and thistles” rather than good fruit in their lives (Heb. 6:7-8). People like this, the Bible says, are “worthless” and “cursed,” and their “end is to be burned” (Heb. 6:8).

The child who grows up in church, but persistently disobeys Christ’s commands as a young adult must learn to fear God.

The man who suppresses his sense of guilt for indulging deviant sexual pleasures must learn to fear God.

The woman who is dominated by her emotions and who demands that others in her life must submit to and accommodate her whims… she must learn to fear God.

The retiree who spends his resources on pure leisure and luxury… he must learn to fear God.

The ambitious young person who gives himself or herself only to worldly advancement and self-indulgence, forgetting the first priorities that God has designed… he or she must learn to fear God.

The professing Christian who refuses to devote himself or herself to thinking and acting like a Christian while awaiting the revelation of Jesus Christ on the last day… these must learn to fear God.

Brothers and sisters, “if” we “call on” the impartial judge of the universe as “Father,” then we ought to “conduct” ourselves with “fear” throughout the rest of our lives in this world. We must know that our God plays for keeps, and He does not take His commands lightly… so neither should we.

We should not be legalists (“I must obey, or God will not love me”)… but so too, we must not presume upon God’s grace (“I don’t have to obey, because God loves me no matter what I do”).

Which one are you more prone to be?

Remember, it is obedient children of God who walk the road of salvation, and they are the ones who avoid the ditches on both sides of the path.

2. Cling to Christ (v18-19)

Just a moment ago, I noted that the warning to obey and assurance for those who trust are often found side-by-side in the Bible… and so it is here.

Right alongside Peter’s warning that God is an impartial judge we should fear (or respect or reverence), Peter sets down the strongest argument for absolute assurance that God loves and saves sinners who simply trust in Christ.

In fact, Peter points to the “ransom” of believing sinners (by the “precious blood of Christ”) as the fountainhead of both sober “fear” and expectant “hope” (v18-19). Fearing God and clinging to Christ are both produced by looking to the cross. Let me explain: first, some theology; and then, some application.

Theology – penal substitutionary atonement

Peter’s language here is quite graphic and precise.

It is the knowledge that believers “were ransomed” by or with “the precious blood of Christ” that is to compel their obedience to Peter’s command to “conduct yourselves with fear” (v17-19)… and it is this same knowledge that stimulates “faith and hope” that God will most assuredly make good on His promises (v21).

The word “ransomed” or “redeemed” means to be released by receipt of payment.

Think of a pawnshop.

When you pawn an item of value, you can only redeem it by paying what you owe.

What is the item that was “ransomed” or “redeemed” here?

Those who are present possessors and eagerly awaiting God’s salvation in Christ.

What was the price that was payed to “ransom” them?

“not… perishable things such as silver or gold, but… the precious blood of Christ” (v18-19).

R.C. Sproul told the story of a presentation he gave to a group of academics – many were professing Christians who had left the fundamentals of Christianity far behind.

He described the sacrifice of Christ on the cross in these terms – as a ransom or a redemption – and one man in the audience shouted out, "That's primitive and obscene."

Sproul said, "You're right. And those two adjectives are especially accurate."

Obscene - all the filthiness of all the sin of all those sinners for whom Christ died was compacted and imputed to Christ.

Primitive - Certainly there is in the Bible the highest prose and the loftiest ideas, but God has so intended and revealed His plan of salvation to center on such a primitive and simple idea that even a child can understand it.

The fancy label for this doctrine is penal substitutionary atonement.

You don’t need to remember that phrase, but we must understand this concept!

If you want to discuss this more, then let’s get together after the service.

Application – obedience (ransomed to) and fear/assurance (ransomed from)

Christians are those who have been ransomed to obedience – to think and act like Christians… no longer bound by sin, no longer under God’s condemnation, and now free to lovingly obey.

Christians are those who have been ransomed “from the futile ways inherited from your fathers” (v18).

Fear – consider what price has been paid for your ransom!

What will God do with those who trample under foot the precious blood of Christ, presuming on God’s grace?

Obedience – consider the futility of your life before you began to know and follow Christ!

Where would you be if you continued that life of futility?

Assurance – consider what price God Himself has paid for your ransom!

If God did not spare His own Son in His plan to save sinners like us, then why in the world would He not give us all that we need to see the end or culmination of His salvation?

The Bible says elsewhere, "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us (A) to redeem us from all lawlessness and (B) to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works" (Titus 2:11-14).

Friends, we ought to fear God, and we ought to cling to Christ.

To step outside of Christ and approach God on our own would mean certain judgment.

But to come to God with humility and faith, believing or trusting that God’s own Son has died for me!… this is means that we now get to live in a whole new way.

This is not legalism, for we know that Christ is our only hope; but neither is this lawlessness or license, for we know that such a price has been paid that we dare not respond with anything less than full-hearted obedience.

3. Be Assured (v20-21)

With these last two verses (which form the second of the two long sentences of our passage this morning), Peter (once again) centers the Christian motivation to obey and the Christian’s confident hope… not only in the historical reality of the person and work of Christ… but on the eternal plan of God’s redeeming grace.

It was incredible this last week to hear the Vice President of the United States answer a question (in an interview) by saying, “The fundamental tenet of the Christian faith… It’s not just a set of moral principles, though it is that… I think the fundamental tenet of our faith is that the Son of God became man, He died and then He raised Himself from the dead… so much flows from that.”

On this point, I could not agree with him more… and his affirmation here fits perfectly with our passage this morning. It is indeed a historical reality that God the Son was “made manifest… for the sake of [those] who through him are believers in God” (v20-21). And it is the historic fact of Christ’s life and death and resurrection that stand as the cornerstone of our “faith and hope” (v21).

Furthermore, true faith or genuine belief in Christ includes obedience to the moral principles and commands that Christ has made known to us… those of us who believe in Christ’s death on our behalf also follow Christ as Lord in all of life.

But Peter does not stop there in grounding Christian motivation and confidence. Here, Peter reaches all the way back to “before the foundation of the world” (v20), and he implies a reach all the way forward to the world to come.

We are not given the details here, but the rest of the Bible gives us a fuller picture of the triune God (Father, Son, and Spirit), in perfect communion and love together, deciding (before the world began) to create and save a people that will (somehow, in some unimaginable way) share in God’s own glory in the end.

This is what Peter is tapping into when he says that Christ was “foreknown before the foundation of the world” (v20), and it’s also what Peter is tapping into when he said God raised Christ “from the dead” and gave Him “glory” (v21).

God the Son was already known and loved by the Father, and all three persons of the Trinity are involved in the divine plan to redeem and glorify sinners from the beginning. And those who “believe in God” (v21) will not be disappointed that they have placed their “faith and hope” in Him (v21).

Brothers and sisters, note it well! This eternal plan of redemption was “for the sake of you who through [Christ] are believers in God” (v20-21).

All that God has done in Christ was of “for the sake of you,”

thus, what a tragedy it would be to throw it all away by fearlessly presuming upon God's grace - thinking and acting in an ungodly manner.

All that God has done in Christ was of “for the sake of you,”

thus, we can and should cling to Christ, who is the ground and object of our faith… the one who died for us, the one who lives to intercede for us, and the one who will one day appear to bring us into His own glory.

All that God has done in Christ was of “for the sake of you,”

thus, we can and should rest assured that He will not fail to do all that is necessary to keep us and preserve us through the midst of whatever trials and temptations we will face.

Friends, it is no coincidence that the NT repeatedly points to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ when we read about commands to obey and promises of assurance. The historic reality of this singular event is the spring of our grateful obedience, and it is also the foundation of our assurance that our faith and hope will not be disappointed. And the Lord’s Supper is a picture and reminder of both.

The Lord’s Supper is a picture of God’s justice and a reminder that no sin will go unpunished. When we see the bread and the cup, which are symbols of Christ’s own broken body and shed blood, we learn that God never simply forgives sin without consequence. He sent His own Son to die in the place of those He forgives, and in this way, God has indeed punished the sin of those who believe… so we are motivated to give up our sin and lovingly obey all that God commands.

The Lord’s Supper is a picture of the grounding of Christian faith – we believe that God welcomes sinners to receive from the King’s table. When we see the bread and the cup, we remember that the only reason we are welcome here is because Christ was crushed under the penalty for our sin. In this way, we are removed of any notion that our own efforts or merit have now or ever will make us welcome… so we are motivated to look only to Christ and to cling to Him.

And the Lord’s Supper is a reminder that the same Jesus who died in the place of sinners was raised to life again and glorified by the God who has promised to do the same for all who repent and believe. In this way, we are able to look back on what God has already done in Christ (He has overcome death and the curse)… so we are assured that those who fear God and cling to Christ will also be raised and glorified on the last day.

So, we – who love and trust in Jesus – ought to approach God’s table this morning with both fear and assurance.