The Responsibility of Hope (1_17-25)
“The Responsibility of Hope”
(1 Peter 1:17-25)
1. Requires Divine Fear (Prov. 19:23)
Ø Respecting God’s Glory (Prov. 24:12, 2 Cor. 5:10)
Ø Respecting Christ’s Sacrifice
2. Requires Divine Love (1 John 3:18)
Ø Based on our Eternal Equality (Eph. 4:5)
Ø Based on our Eternal Quality
Tozer wrote: In olden days men of faith were said to “walk in the fear of God” and to “serve the Lord with fear.” However intimate their communion with God, however bold their prayers, at the base of their religious life was the conception of God as awesome and dreadful. This idea of God transcendent runs through the whole Bible and gives color and tone to the character of the saints. This fear of God was more than a natural apprehension of danger; it was a nonrational dread, an acute feeling of personal insufficiency in the presence of God the Almighty. Wherever God appeared to men in Bible times the results were the same-an overwhelming sense of terror and dismay, a wrenching sensation of sinfulness and guilt. When God spoke, Abram stretched himself upon the ground to listen. When Moses saw the Lord in the burning bush, he hid his face in fear to look upon God. Isaiah’s vision of God wrung from him the cry, “Woe is me!” and the confession, I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips.
Robert Leighton wrote, “The true Christian reasons thus, I will not sin, for my Father is the just Judge; but for my frailties I will hope for mercy, for the Judge is my Father.”
The May 1987 edition of the National Geographic included a feature about the arctic wolf. Author L. David Mech described how a seven-member pack had targeted several musk-oxen calves who were guarded by 11 adults. As the wolves approached their quarry, the musk-oxen bunched in an impenetrable semicircle, their deadly hooves facing out, and the calves remained safe during a long standoff with the enemy. But then a single ox broke rank, and the herd scattered into nervous little groups. A skirmish ensued, and the adults finally fled in panic, leaving the calves to the mercy of the predators. Not a single calf survived. Paul warned the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 that after his departure wolves would come, not sparing the flock. Wolves continue to attack the church today but cannot penetrate and destroy when unity is maintained. When believers break ranks, however, they provide easy prey.
Who are we to be like that ungrateful man in the parable that Jesus told in Matt. 18?
Ian Pitt-Watson writes this concerning brotherly love: There is a natural, logical kind of loving that loves lovely things and lovely people. That’s logical. But there is another kind of loving that doesn’t look for value in what it loves, but that “creates” value in what it loves. Like Rosemary’s rag doll. When Rosemary, my youngest daughter, was three, she was given a little rag doll, which quickly became an inseparable companion. She had other toys that were intrinsically far more valuable, but none that she loved like she loved the rag doll. Soon the rag doll became more and more rag and less and less doll. It also became more and more dirty. If you tried to clean the rag doll, it became more ragged still. And if you didn’t try to clean the rag doll, it became dirtier still. The sensible thing to do was to trash the rag doll. But that was unthinkable for anyone who loved my child. If you loved Rosemary, you loved the rag doll-it was part of the package. “If anyone says, I love God yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar.” 1 John 4:20) Love me, love my rag dolls says God, including the one you see when you look in the mirror. This is the finest and greatest commandment.