So that Your Faith and Hope are in God
Notes
Transcript
Handout
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.
Last week, Pastor Mike taught you about being Holy in a carnal world.
Peter opened this letter explaining the awesomeness of salvation, then the believers call to action.
13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
verses 17-21 are a further call to being obedient children of God.
Conduct Yourselves
Conduct Yourselves
Judgment
Judgment
As a further emphasis of obedience, Peter reminds us that God is going to impartially judge our deeds.
This can be a current or future judgement. (1 Cor 3:10-15; 1 Cor 4:3-5; 2 Cor 5:9-10, Hebrews 12:5-11)
10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. 6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” 7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Our conduct must be holy, always seeking to honor God in everything we do in thought, word and deed.
φόβος
φόβος
We are to conduct ourselves with reverence (φόβος—phobos). The root for the word phobia. (Phil 2:12)
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
This is reverence and fear built on the respect and an understanding of the powerful.
Although it may seem odd for Peter to speak of living in “fear” of one’s “Father”, he does not mean by this to be afraid or live in doubt or anxiety about one’s relationship to God. The emphasis is on reverence, awe, and an ever-present sense of utter dependency on the Lord’s power and mercy. Thus to “fear” God means to be conscious of His all-pervasive presence and of our absolute, moment-by-moment dependence on Him for light and life, keenly sensitive to our comprehensive responsibility to do all that he has commanded, fearful of offending Him, determined to obey Him and committed to loving Him.
Sam Storms
Throughout the Time of Your Exile
Throughout the Time of Your Exile
Through the time of your exile is referencing our death.
Some argue that this was referencing a physical exile, but this does not match the context of the letter. Persecution was coming to these people, but it had not arrived yet.
The word exile is the same word sojourner.
11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
So some of you may be thinking, Pastor Robby you are asking the impossible.
I would agree with you, but I am not the one saying this, this is what God is commanding us.
But......there is more to the story.
This is where Peter’s transition is amazing.
Notice what he says next
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.
You were Ransomed
You were Ransomed
Peter goes from the commands of obedience to a reminder of the greatest act of obedience.
Put I want you to understand something.
Slavery in the ancient world was based not on race but on economics. A slave would typically receive his freedom after money was deposited in the temple of a god or goddess and then paid to the slave’s owner. The sum paid for the redemption or ransom was referred to as the “price” and the slave was considered to have been redeemed by the deity.
Sam Storms
Peter is taking us back to the Gospel. He is taking us back to the cross.
1-2 Peter Lamb without Blemish
In referring to Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot, Peter is taking his readers back to the Old Testament celebrations of the Passover and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Commemorated at Passover is the occasion when the angel of death passed over homes on which the doorposts were marked with the blood of the lamb. When God saw the mark of the blood upon a doorpost, His judgment passed by. God told the Israelites never to forget what He had done. That very celebration reached its fulfillment in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, in which we remember the shedding of the blood of Christ for our salvation. On the Day of Atonement, the blood of an animal was taken by the high priest into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled on the mercy seat, on the throne of God, as a covering for the sins of the people. That pointed to the One whose blood was precious, not because of a divinely commanded ritual but because the blood had inherent value.
We have been redeemed, our ransom was paid. It was paid in full. It is the words Jesus spoke in John 19:30, Tetelestai
It is paid in full.
Peter compares the ransom Christ paid to gold and silver, something he calls perishable.
Gold and Silver are virtually indestructible. But Peter compares it to rotten fruit. Why?
Because of what it is compared against.
Gold and Silver were most likely the ransom for Greco-Roman slaves, but our ransom was the blood of Jesus.
The blood of Christ makes the gold and silver worthless.
Precious Blood of Christ
Precious Blood of Christ
The reference to blood is not just blood, but the entire life of Jesus.
Doubt me?
I want you to think about this quote from Thomas Watson (my family calls him the great potter, golfer, preacher)
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 the Word, in the other the shedding of blood. The creation was but the work of God’s fingers. Redemption is the work of His arm.
God spoke creation into existence, His Son had to give up His life for our ransom.
Made Manifest
Made Manifest
Again, Peter is taking us back to the point of this letter.
What is the point? Hopefully you can write it down.
The central message of 1 Peter is: stand firm in the Grace of God.
This is also the message we are going to continually repeat. If you want to be ready for suffering, hard times, difficulty, loss, and persecution you must have a firm standing in the foundation of your faith.
A believers faith is grounded in Christ and what Christ did on the cross.
This is greater than your feelings, this is greater than your wealth, this is greater than your highest accomplishment, the love of Christ is greater than anything on earth.
The ESV uses the word manifest, which is to be manifest v. — to be or become clearly revealed to the mind, the senses, or judgment.
1 Peter Exposition
We are told in Leviticus that “it is the blood with the life that makes atonement” (Lev 17:11). God never forgave sin apart from blood under the law. This stood as a constant text—“Apart from the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb 9:22). There is no other plan by which sinners can be made at one with God except by Jesus’ precious blood. I may make sacrifices; I may mortify my body; I may be baptized; I may receive sacraments; I may pray until my knees grow hard with kneeling; I may read devout words until I know them by heart; I may celebrate masses; I may worship in one language or in fifty languages. But I can never be at one with God except by blood, and that blood, “the precious blood of Christ.”
Peter identifies four specifics of Christ:
He was foreknown! He was the planned Redeemer before the foundation of the world.
23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,
His Incarnation! The infinite, eternal God took on human flesh.
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
His Resurrection! God raised Him from the dead. He has conquered death.
24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
His Glory! God gave Him Glory.
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Peter is again reminding us that the Gospel is not an accident.
This was the plan from before the beginning.
Now notice that Peter again personalizes the Gospel.
For the sake of you.
The Gospel is personal and practical. It is for you.
If you do not personalize the Gospel, you are missing the point. The Gospel is for each and every one of us.
Why?
What is the central message of 1 Peter?
Why do we keep repeating this phrase?
For this simple reason, the time to learn and solidify this idea is before the crisis comes.
In the military, the concept is that you train and exercise to be prepared. Aircrew do this continually, they practice the emergency procedures to be prepared for the real emergency.
If you do not solidify your position by having your faith and hope in God, you cannot stand firm in God’s Grace.
When the crisis, suffering, difficulty or persecution comes it is not the time to solidify your faith in God.
This is like having an aircraft emergency while you are reading the how to fly manual.
Stand firm in the Grace of God by having your faith and hope in God.