James Hammond was a plantation owner during the Civil War who served as a congressman as well as the 60th governor of the state of South Carolina. Besides defending slavery, Hammond was guilty of an unbridled sexual appetite. In 1839, Hammond purchased an eighteen-year-old slave named Sally, along with her infant daughter, Louisa. Hammond fathered several children by Sally, and then, when Louisa was twelve, he discarded Sally in favor of her daughter. The two had several more children throughout the politician’s lifetime. Hammond’s career in politics nearly came to an end when his brother-in-law, Wade, accused him of molesting his four daughters, ages thirteen through eighteen. What makes the story even more telling is that Hammond possessed the innate ability to overlook his own sins. After his wife left him and he lost many of his slaves and livestock through sickness, Hammond wrote the following in his diary: “It crushes me to the earth to see every thing of mine so blasted around me. Negroes, cattle, mules, hogs, every thing that has life around me seems to labour [sic] under some fated malediction.... Great God, what have I done? Never was a man so cursed… what have I done or omitted to do to deserve this fate?”
Sin is deceiving disease and pride, especially is self-blinding. Like a person who thinks they can sing when everyone else knows that cannot, sin is frequently is camouflaged from our very eyes. “Pride is the carbon monoxide of sin. It silently and slowly kills you with you ever knowing it.”
Recently I sat down with a young lady who told me the heartache in her life. I hope she is here today. She talked about the pain of a husband of nearly twenty years that is drinking himself to death. She talked about the abuse that her two daughters had faced. She talked about her pain when she left him nearly two years ago now. This young lady spoke about the hurt that her two daughters faced because she couldn’t provide for her family like her husband did. So they were embarrassed by an old car and not-so-nice of a house. They hurt because the oldest child is living with a boyfriend who treats her wrong much like her father did her mother. This mother talked about the hurt of her life.
This morning I want to give you hope to that you rid yourself of your bad habits and your destructive lifestyle. I want you to sense and feel and know that real hope is possible from your pain. I want you to understand that hope is not only a city in our beloved state of Arkansas, it’s also can be found at the cross of Christ. Hope is not found in a political candidate running for President… No, ultimate hope is not found in Washington, DC, where we live, who our father or mother is… or even in nice cars and spacious homes Hope is squarely and ultimately found in Jesus Christ alone. Hope is found for the thing that really ails us.
For the pain that scars us is the pain that is inside of us. It’s the pain of our bondage to sin. We turn this morning to the words of the Apostle Peter who reminds us of the Hope that is found in Christ to rescue us from our “futile ways inherited from your forefathers” 1 Peter 1:18 I want you to see that hope is found in Jesus Christ. there is three prepositional phrases we are focusing on when it comes to our pain and Christ’s death: Our hope arrives because we know … what Christ redeemed us from… what Christ redeemed us with … and what Christ redeemed us for. Peter is going to contrast the change Christ makes by showing you your past, your future, and the “how” Christ changes 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, 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).
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 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. Verses 20 and 21 are really a continuation of the sentence in verses 17-19. Remember the point at the end of verse 17, namely, the command that we should conduct ourselves in fear during the time of our stay on earth? Then verses 18 and 19 gave a strange reason as to why we should fear, namely, that we have been ransomed from our futile way of life by the infinitely precious blood of Christ (v. 19).
1. Know What You Were Redeemed From
“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 word “ransomed” in verse 18 was used to describe the process in Greek and Roman culture where a slave would secure his freedom. Money was deposited into the temple treasury of Roman god or goddess. The money from the temple’s treasury was then given to the slave’s owner. The slave owner then freed the slave. The slave was considered the property of the god or goddess because it was though the gods had secured their freedom. Peter uses this pagan idea to communicate God’s action for us. You sit here this morning either a slave to God or a slave to sin. You do the math. The math that matters is that you are a slave to either God or your sin. Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).
This is a political season we’re in. Less than two weeks from today, our country will choose the 44th President of the United States. Speaking of politics, can you name what the following politicians have in common? Jesse Jackson? New York Governor Eliot Spitzer? Idaho Senator Larry Craig? Former President Bill Clinton? Motown Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick? Or former Senator John Edwards? Each of these men committed adultery. According to the NY Daily News, Dr. Patrick Carnes is the premier treatment specialist in the field of sexual addiction. After ten years of research, Carnes estimated about 8% of the total population of men and 3% of women are sexually addicted. That is around 15 million adults struggling with out-of-control sexual behavior. Much like the story of James Hammond, many of you have a unchecked sexual appetite that is destructive. Whether it’s your sex drive or your drive for greed or you drive to appease your ego, many of you are entrapped by insatiable desire to please “the futile ways inherited from your forefathers” (1 Peter 1:18). This is found in every human being who breathes. Jesus said it another way: “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19).
Peter says we are to fear God in verse seventeen. Why? Repeat from two weeks ago. 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. Again, Peter says we are to fear God in verse 17. We are to be fearful that we act in the same way this kidnapped girl as acted toward God. Instead of loving our heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, for ransoming us… We take our freedom … We take the ransom of the cross and turn and say to Christ: “sucker!” And walk right back into bed with our captors, our kidnappers. We turn on our heels back to the sin that Christ has redeemed us from.
You need to be aware of what you were redeemed from as verses seventeen and eighteen remind you. You were redeemed according to verse eighteen from a lifestyle of prestige and vanity: “…the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.” (1 Peter 1:18)
Before you meet Christ your lifestyle is useless. It’s vain and futile.
Carly Simon made it big in January 1973 with her hit single You’re So Vain. Remember the lyrics? “You’re so vain. You probably think this song is about you.” Carly had just married fellow pop-superstar James Taylor a month before, so when You’re So Vain hit the airwaves, it stirred intense curiosity about which one of her previous lovers was the subject of this wry nod to the male ego. Was it Mick Jagger? Or, Cat Stevens? Or, Kris Kristofferson? The curiosity over which of her former lovers the song was about was so intense that one LA radio station had listeners cast ballots over who they thought was the man behind the vanity in the early 1970’s. NBC Executive Dick Ebersol gave $500,000 in charity auction in order to have Carly Simon reveal who the man was behind the song.
Peter reveals that vanity isn’t just being stuck on oneself. This futile and vain way of living isn’t just reserved to one generation. Instead, it is handed down from one generation to the next. Your fathers and mothers lived this way. Your sons and daughters will live this way except the grace of Christ intervening in your lives. Peter say, “Don’t turn back to your sin!”Christ died for you to be transformed. Don’t go back to a vain way of living.
2. Know What You Were Redeemed With
Do we have the power to change? Yes, only in Christ. How do I find the power to change? Not inside of you. Instead the power is on the outside of you. In verses 19-21, Peter redirects our attention away from ourselves and our sin and onto the historical work of Jesus Christ. When you read verses 19-21, you need to fight the tendency that so many have who think this type of talk should be relegated to a previous generation who loved reading dry and dusty theology books.
Peter tells us that real hope has a zip code. That he has locked on to the GPS coordinates of hope. Hope is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Look again in verses 18 and 19: “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” (1 Peter 1:18-19). Instead, Peter tells us you were purchased with something far more valuable than money – you were purchased by the blood of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. If you want to be free from the slavery and bondage of sin, your money will not save you. If you want to be free from petty jealousies… Free from rampant sexual appetite… Free from the love of greed and tyranny of the markets… If you have come into this building in slavery to sin, there’s hope There’s hope for you this morning! God is for you and not against you. Because you were not bought by gold and silver… Because you were purchased by the blood of Christ… You have the hope of real freedom from the tyranny of your sinful appetite.
“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, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 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 offers the ability to change you. How does Christ change you? Sin is a short in a complex electronic circuit throwing the equipment into confusion. Sin is a bug in the computer program that turns an intelligent operation into chaos. Sin is not only pictured in the Bible as rebellion against God and a master over us and we are its slaves. We are working on a chain-gang and sin is the Master carrying a Double-Barrel Shotgun just in case we don’t do what it says.
Five Ways Christ Increases Your Hope
“He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 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).
2.1 Christ’s Death was Planned
God the Father knew and loved God the Son, the Christ, before the universe was created. The One who shed His blood to pay the ransom for our rescue from futile living was no ordinary man and the plan to pay the ransom was no afterthought to creation. God knew Christ and God knew His plan and Christ’s role in it from eternity. When you think “This sin might make me happy”, think about this: the ransom paid to rescue you from that futility was planned before the universe was created.
2.2 Christ Appeared Now
Second, Peter says in the middle of verse 20 that Christ “was made manifest in the last times.” In other words Christ existed before creation in relationship with his Father and has been invisible to human beings. Now in these last times — the times of the Messiah — He has appeared. There could have been no precious blood ransom if Christ had not appeared in human flesh and blood. He was born to die. And He died to ransom us from a futile life of sin.
2.3 Christ Came For Your Sake
Third, Peter says at the end of verse twenty that the reason Christ appeared was “for the sake of you This should blow us away. We are talking here about the infinitely powerful and wise and holy God of the universe and His one and only divine Son. And we are talking about their purpose from the untraceable distance of infinity and eternity to plan an unthinkable penetration into creation. Why? For our sake, that we might be ransomed from a futile manner of life. If that doesn’t prove that God takes your behavior and your future seriously, what can?
2.4 Christ Was Raised from the Dead
Fourth, in the middle of verse 21 Peter says, that God “who raised him from the dead.” He probably doesn’t mention the death of Jesus because that was the focus already in verse 19 (blood). Here Peter says that the One who gave His life blood did not stay dead. God raised him from the dead. God vindicated the worth of the ransom by giving the Son back His life. What this says to us is not only that the ransom is all-satisfying to God, but also that death is defeated. Often sin comes to us saying, “My way is more hopeful than God’s; indulge yourself, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die.” To that you can reply, “Yes, but what about the day after tomorrow?” “If I put my hope in Jesus and not in you I will live again and be happy forever! Be gone, futile way of sin!” That’s the meaning of Christ's resurrection for daily life.
2.5 Christ was Glorified
Fifth, Peter says next in verse 21 that God “gave him glory,.” In other words he didn’t raise Him from the dead to be a mere mortal, to suffer and die again. He brought him into heaven and set him at his right hand as Lord of the universe with all the glory that He had from eternity with the Father. What this implies for our fight with the futile way of sin is that the way of Christ leads to glory. The way He walked led to glory for Himself. And He lives with glorious power to make sure that our following Him will lead us to glory too. Therefore, we have every reason to hope in what God promises and not in what sin promises.
3. Know Why You Were Redeemed
We have talked about the slavery of our sin. We’ve talked about how Christ can change you. Peter tells you now why Christ died: To change you. Christ didn’t die just to pardon you. He died to purify you.
“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 1:21)
Christ died so that both your faith and your hope are in God. He died to transform you from the power of sin. If Christ died just to give you a ticket to heaven… If Christ died only for you to feel loved… Then you have no hope from the tyranny of your drug abuse…
And your sex addictions… And your alcoholic spouse… And your abusive husband… And your loveless marriages… Yet, Christ didn’t just die to pardon you. He ransomed you to purify you. Watch carefully the words of Paul which are located in your sermon notes: “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, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 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)
Imagine you men who hunt. You woke up early, 3 am. You spend your morning hunting in the cold. Despite the layers of clothes your still cold. You go back to your hunting cabin and warm yourself by the fire. Despite being in a warm place, you’re still cold. Your extremities are still cold even though you are in a warm place. Eventually all of you will be warm but not yet. This is the change that takes place for the believer. You are still fighting your sinful habits (the cold) but you stay next to the fire (Christ’s work).
I began this message with a story of a young lady who was kidnapped. She was a traitor to her father. But Christ’s ransom successfully transforms her from traitor to tender. The young lady, who was kidnapped from her father, runs into her daddy’s arms with thankfulness. When you understand your Father is for you and not against you… You can’t look to Christ’s ransom and say “sucker”. Instead, Christ successful turns her heart. The last thing in the world she wants to do is to run with her kidnappers. You don’t want to run with the money and the kidnappers either. You can take the money and run. But where would it lead you? If you take the money and run, you’ll leave your Father with a cheap and hollow feeling. And note that you are placing your hope in your sinful lifestyle (the kidnappers and the money). How do you know that the kidnappers won’t steal your money and run from you as well? Then where will you be?
This paragraph ends in verse 21 where it began in verse 13, namely, with hoping in God. Verse 13 began the paragraph by commanding, “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ”
1 Peter 1:13 In other words, “Hope fully in the grace of God!” Verse 21 ends the paragraph by saying that God has done everything through Christ so that His people might put their faith and hope in God.
