I heard about a young boy that went off to one of these extremely expensive universities, and the bills were coming in monthly to these parents and they were struggling to keep their head above water. One day his mother received a letter from him and he said: “Dear Mom, I’m writing to inform you that I have flunked all of my courses. I had an accident and totally wrecked my car. I owe the clothing store in town $2,000.00 and I have been suspended for the next semester because of misconduct. I am coming home, prepare Dad.” His mother wrote a letter back to him that just said this “Dear Son, Dad is prepared, prepare yourself.”
Peter writes from Rome (1 Peter 5:13) to the believers in what is now know as modern-day Turkey (1 Peter 1:1), an area of around many square miles. Peter writes to believers who are facing a testing of their faith. Just on the onset of a severe persecution from Nero (Peter is probably writing around 62-63 AD), modern-day American Christians struggle with identifying with the believers in Peter’s day. Most of us are afraid of the recent economic downturn where the retirement accounts of Americans have lost $2 trillion in the past 15 months. This is very different crisis that the believers in Peter’s day were experiencing. In present day Mosul, Iraqi (the third [3rd] largest city in Iraqi), dozens of Christians have been killed the past two weeks. Al-Qaeda is being blamed for this persecution. Christians have lived in Mosul for centuries. Recently, the archbishop of the area was conducted and murdered. Consequently, 1,000 families have left the area in order to hide. This is the kind of severe trial Peter addresses.
“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” (1 Peter 1:17-21).
The more precious the price paid to rescue you from a life of sin, the more horrible and fearful it is to take that price and make it a permission for sinning. Imagine a girl who is kidnapped from her wealthy father. The kidnappers demand a huge ransom and the father liquidates all his assets, selling his house and his possessions right down to his wife’s wedding ring. He brings all that he has to the appointed place and sets the ransom down in a field and walks away. Soon the daughter walks out and gets the ransom and takes it back to the kidnappers. Then she puts her arm around one of them and as she walks away looks over her shoulder to her father laughing and hollers, “Sucker!” We would all say that the girl committed a fearful and treacherous act. Peter is warning us against the horrible danger of trying to do that with the ransom of God. He knows that there are people who try take the ransom of God from sin—the blood of Jesus—and turn it into a means of sinning. The very ransom that verse 18 says was paid to free us from a futile way of life some people try to use to fund that very life of sin.
The Bible commands you to: 1. Set Your Hope on Christ (1 Peter 1:13); 2. Be Holy (1 Peter 1:15) and now… 3. Fear God (1 Peter 1:17). For the first commandment, “Set Your Hope on Christ,” I doubt that anyone had their defenses up. For the second commandment, “Be Holy,” the receptivity was still pretty high because we believe that God is holy. For the third commandment, "Fear God,” I assume almost universal suspicion for what I am about to say. Fear of God just isn't in the acceptable air we breath today. It’s not part of the culturally correct—which means mainly psychologically correct—view of the healthy, satisfying religious life. So what I want to plead with you is to recognize that growing deeper and stronger as a Christian comes not by choosing to embrace only those biblical teachings you are already comfortable with and already easily understand You don’t grow that way. Rather you grow deep and strong by also embracing the teachings you are not comfortable with and that are hard to understand with the confidence that God has not taught us anything false or harmful in the Scriptures
1. God is an Impartial Judge
“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…” (1 Peter 1:17) I want to call attention to the conditional of the word “if” for a moment. The first reason for conducting ourselves in fear is that the One we call heavenly Father judges everybody on the same kind of evidence — namely, what do our lives (our deeds) say about our heart? There won’t be different rules for different people. There is one thing that saves: faith. And there is one standard of judgment: life (deeds). This is one crucial missing note in modern Christianity, and one of the main reasons why the church is such a carbon-copy of the world.
I want to share a series of passages in rapid-fire to help us see the transforming power of faith: “He will render to each one according to his works…” (Romans 2:6). “There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil…” (Romans 2:9a) “For God shows no partiality” (Romans 2:11). “For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done” (Matthew 16:27). “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.” (1 Corinthians 3:13) “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). “And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works” (Revelation 2:23). “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done” (Revelation 20:12-13).
We think that grace means there’s nothing to fear in our behavior. And so the sanction of judgment has no place in our lives. And 1 Peter 1:17 is simply blanked out in our superficial adaptation to culture. But God is gracious and calls us back today to fear the behavior that leads to destruction.
2. Your Father Disciplines You
“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…”
1 Peter 1:17
God is prepared to deal with his children when they sin.
Now there are three (3) ways God could deal with us when we sin.
2.1. God could condemn us.
That is, even after a person is saved, the first time they sin God could go ahead and send them to hell. But He cannot do that, for the Bible says that “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:1
2.2. God could condone us.
God could just stick his head in the sand and just ignore our sin and overlook it. He could have a “Well, boys will be boys” attitude. But God could not do that and maintain His own holiness. But the third way that God could deal with us is,
2.3. God could correct us.
The first way would be legalism. If you sin you go to hell. The second way would be liberalism where God would say sin is not that big of a deal, just let it go. But the third way is love.
The Lord said in Revelation 3:19, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.”
Why does our great God, who certainly has enough to do with running this universe, concern Himself with the sins of his children enough to take action and to discipline us when we go astray.
Keep in mind that the discipline of God is not to discourage us, it is to encourage us.
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.
Hebrews 12:5-11
If your kids are playing in the yard with the neighbors kids, and they begin to misbehave and get into a fight, whose kids do you discipline?
Certainly not the neighbor’s kids.
You discipline your kids.
At least you do if you are a smart parent.
Now you may be thinking, “Well. I am a Christian. God never disciplines me. I am living just like I want to, and it doesn’t bother me one bit. Now how do you explain that?”
Very simply, you're not saved, you are lost.
I can tell you, with complete confidence, if there is unrecognized, unrevealed, unrepented of sin in your life that has caused you neither guilt nor grief, you are lost, and you need to be saved.
I want to emphasize that discipline is not a sign that God does not love you. It is a sign that God does love you.
“For the Lord disciplines the one he loves…”
Hebrews 12:6
I read a story one time about a family of wayward members of a church who at one time were very active in their church, but had fallen away and had lost interest in the church.
They were true backsliders.
They were saved, but they had just gotten away from the Lord.
Well the deacons went and talked to the father and his three sons, Jim, John, and Sam, about their condition.
But they had no success.
Then the preacher went to visit them, but he failed and some of the brethren went and visited with them and tried to get them back into the church, but everyone of them failed.
One day when all the boys were out in the pasture, a large rattlesnake bit John.
He became very sick.
They called the doctor and after an examination he said to the family, “There’s nothing that I can do. About all you can now do is just pray,” and he went on his way.
This father immediately called for the preacher and asked the preacher to come.
He told him of John’s condition.
He said, “Preacher, would you please pray for John? Please pray for my boy.”
I want you to listen to this pastor’s prayer:
"O wise and righteous Father, we thank Thee that in Thy wisdom Thou hast sent this rattlesnake to bite John in order to bring him to his senses. He has not been inside the church house for years and it is doubtful that in all of this time he has even felt the need of prayer. Now we trust that this will be a valuable lesson to him and that it will lead him to genuine repentance. Now, O Father, wilt Thou send another snake to bite Sam, and another one to bite Jim, and a big one to bite the old man. We've been doing everything we know for years to restore them, but to no avail. It seems that all of our combined efforts could not do what this one snake has done. Thus we conclude that the only thing left that will do this family any good is more rattlesnakes. So Lord, send us bigger and better rattlesnakes, we pray in Jesus name. Amen!"
God loves you too much, if you are indeed one of His children, to allow you to continue to live in sin, and He will do whatever is necessary to lead you to repentance.
Would it surprise many of you to know that God has killed people for sin?
Tell me if the following list does not surprise you.
God kills the entire population of the earth during Noah’s day for their wickedness.
Eli’s two sons were having sex with the girls serving on the outside of the tent (1 Samuel 2:22) God later took both of their lives on the same day that (1 Samuel 4:11).
Herod Agrippa I was eaten by worms because when he failed to give God the glory (Acts 12:20-23).
At the conclusion of giving a great speech, he drank in the glory of the crowd instead of point the crowd’s applause upward to God.
Ananias and Sapphira decided to lie to the church (Acts 5) and both husband and wife were dragged from the assembly.
Ananias sold a piece of land and told the entire church he gave all the money to the church.
Instead, he kept a little of the money for himself.
God killed him and his wife on the spot.
God killed an entire generation of people who failed to have faith.
12 spies go into the Promised Land and only two come out and say they can conquer the giants in the land.
The majority report failed to believe God and everyone under the age of twenty died because they grumbled against God (Number 14:26-29).
A unnamed man in Scripture decided to have sex with a Midianite Women (Numbers 25:6-9).
God told them to only be with other Israelites.
Phinehas went into their bedroom and killed both the woman and the man with a spear.
And God gave his approval.
The citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah were killed for homosexuality (Genesis 19:24).
Lot’s wife was killed for simply looking back at Sodom (Genesis 19:26) when God had told her not to look back.
King David’s child dies because he committed adultery with Bathsheba, impregnated her, and killed her husband to cover up what he did.
God killed David’s child (2 Samuel 12:15-19).
David counted his army as an act of pride (2 Samuel 24:1).
God killed 70,000 people before He stopped his angel (2 Samuel 24:16).
God takes sin very seriously.
To recap, God has killed people for:
1) pride;
2) adultery;
3) disobedience;
4) grumbling;
5) homosexuality;
6) sex outside of marriage;
7) lying;
8) idolatry;
9) violence (Noah).
May every person under the sound of my voice understand that God takes sin very seriously.
“Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”
Hebrews 12:14
3. Christ Died Not Just to Pardon You, but also to Purify You.
Peter says in verse 18 that the design of the ransom — the redemption — is to rescue you from your futile way of life.
Do you see that?
“knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold…”
1 Peter 1:18
The aim and purpose and design of the ransom in this verse is not forgiveness but transformation.
The aim in this verse is victory over the power of sin in your everyday life, not forgiveness from the guilt of sin (as true as that is).
The reason Jesus shed His infinitely precious blood was to change our conduct.
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
God's purpose in the blood of Jesus is our pardon and our purity.
These two cannot be separated.
If our lives bear constant witness to the powerlessness of the blood of Jesus, then Jesus is not really our hope and joy.
And we do not belong to him.
And that is a fearful prospect.
It’s the reverse of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 This is a portrait of you. Because you are not washed, you are not sanctified, you are not justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
How to Do You Respond?
3.1 You Can Resent it.
You can get bitter when God disciplines you. You can get mad at God when He disciplines you. I heard about a little girl who was disobedient to her mother and her mother put her in the closet to discipline her. It got very quiet. So the mother went to check on the little girl. She opened up the door and she said, “What are you doing?” She said, “Well I spit on your shoes; I spit on your coat; I spit on your dress; and I'm just waiting for more spit.”
3.2. You Can Reject It
You can just quit. You can just give up. When God disciplines you and life gets a little tough, you can just totally desert God’s army. You can just drop out of God’s school. You can say, “Well God, if this is the way you're going to treat me, I’m just not going to serve you anymore.”
3.3. You Can Receive It
When trouble comes into your life you need to ask the question, “"Why is this happening to me?” “Lord, what are you trying to teach me?”
I began this message discussing a daughter of a wealthy father. She was abducted and he sold everything that he owned in order to ransom her from he abductors. He even sold his wife’s wedding ring. In the last scene, we saw the young girl, with her arms around her abductors, walking away with all of her father’s money.
