1 Peter 1:17-21 | Live with Child-like Fear of God

Sunday Morning | September 8, 2024 | Colby Flowers | Louisville, KY

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Good morning, church. How are we doing? It's good to see you here this morning. I am Colby Flowers, a student pastor here at Valley View and, John decided to give me the reins this morning. I don't know why, but he did. So thank you for the opportunity, John. And, we're going to be continuing on in our series here in first Peter, first Peter chapter one. We're going to be working through verses 17 through 21. So a small chunk of verses, but incredibly important truths that we're going to see today. And I'm very excited to have the opportunity to work through these verses with you. But two weeks ago, my neighbor came to my door and knocked on my door, and we're a little bit surprised by it just because it was out of the blue. And we've become friends with our neighbors. And so we go to the door and it's incredible. She actually hands me a Valley View bulletin from 1958. And so I've got it on the screen for us for to put it up here. We've got several pictures. And it was incredible to me. They were renovating some cabinets and they brought it over and they said that we thought that you might like to have this. And I said, yes, I would love to have this is an incredible gift. So I was obviously very intrigued, interested by it. I started looking through it, seeing what was in it. The different programs and things that they had going on at the church at the time and the various staff people. And our subdivision was built in the mid 1950s. Some of the houses were later in the 1960s, but this bulletin somehow ended up in their house that unbeknownst to them, and they uncover it at this point and then bring it over to me. Obviously it's a God thing, so I was blown away by it. So I wanted to show it to you just because it left such an impression on me. Because whenever you see things that are this just incredible, this historical, you think back, you think back to what has been before you. And so obviously, I've been here for just a little over two years at the church, but there's been so much before me, and there'll be so much after me. But to find myself in this place for this season, I was thinking back to all the faithful people at Valley View and the the time, the energy, the resources that they put into this church so that it stands here today. And I still have a burden, as they did, to reach people in the South and with the gospel. And so they still leave an impression on me. And the other two weeks ago when I received this, it just put a lot of humility in my heart, because people in the past tend to impress us even today. And we also see this too, though, in our parents. I mean, the saying is true you will inevitably become like your parents. Amen. You may even catch yourself saying something or doing something that your parents do or have done. And sometimes, maybe we tend to become more like one or the other. But if you've ever seen the progressive commercials where they do, you know, homeowners that are becoming more like their parents and they're trying to avoid all of that, but it's incredibly funny. But it hits in this nerve where our forefathers, people before us still have an impression on us today. And we're to see that in our past this morning that our forefathers still have an impression on us. But we're going to see in the text today that Christians should live with a fear of God because they have been ransomed from the sinful ways they inherited from their forefathers, that all of us have a past. Amen. All of us have things that we can look back to that we might not be pleased with. But the beautiful part about the gospel. As Christians, we can look back and say, I've been ransom from that way of life, and now I'm living new. And we're to see that in our passage this morning. And so the context for for today, Peter is writing to these churches scattered throughout the first century world, and we just looked at last week the call from Peter that we should be holy because God is holy, coming from Leviticus 19. And so Peter's sending us up that this is how we should be living. But this morning, his his encouragement is going to be this conduct yourselves with fear. And so we're in unpack that this morning. So first Peter chapter one verse 17 says this. 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. So Peter is continuing his argument that he started back in verse 14, and which he calls Christians obedient children. And so as children of God, we call on God as Father. It's a theme that's throughout Scripture that we see often. And so he's saying, if you call on God as Father, then your life needs to be different. Your life needs to look different. And so he uses this conditional clause to bring up this whole idea, bring that verse back up for me just so we can see it. I want to make sure we we don't miss out on this phrase before you. I'm I'm bringing that back up. Chad. The verse. Sorry. Bring the verse back up. There we go. Perfect. So it says that not only is God a father, I want you to see here too that God is also a judge. See, we like the idea of God being a father, don't we? But then we think about God being a judge. We get a little antsy. But here's the truth just because God is your father does not mean he gave up his gavel, says a Christian. God is our father, but he is also still our judge. So just because God is your father does not mean he gave up his gavel. So it's simple. God is both and God is both a loving, compassionate father. But he is also a correcting, disciplining, righteous judge. So notice God is a loving father to all believers. So if you're a believer in this house today, praise God, but he is a father to you. But look, he is also an impartial judge to all people. So whether you're a believer or not, God is our judge. Meaning, if you become a Christian, that doesn't mean that you don't escape the fact that God is still over your life and he is your judge. And it says that God is a impartial judge, meaning he doesn't judge unfairly because we believe in a all knowing, all powerful God. So he knows the things you're doing behind closed doors. He knows the conversations you may be having with your spouse in your homes. He knows everything about you and everything in you. And so he's not going to judge us unfairly. But here's something I think we overlook sometimes as Christians, God is equally displeased with sin, whether it comes from an unbeliever or Christian. It doesn't matter who sin, it is sin is this pleasing to God. God desires for you and me to follow Jesus, to become like him because it's the most satisfying, rewarding life we could possibly live. Because it's what we were created to live how we're supposed to create. Or let me rephrase that, it was we were created to live like God. And so when we don't, it displeases him, whether we're a Christian or not a Christian. But sometimes I think we can sometimes get it in our mind that because I'm a Christian, I can live how I want. I've got freedom. We say the phrase a lot freedom in Christ. But here's the truth this morning God holds the same standard of righteousness for all people, but he has greater expectations for his children. So if I ever see my daughter get in a, argument or is not playing well with another another child, my first instinct is to go to my daughter. I'm not going to go to the kid who's not my kid, right? I'm going to go to my daughter first because I going to pull her out of the situation and then explain to her, we don't play that way. We don't argue that way. Right. But I may give advice to the other kid. I might say, hey, you know what? Maybe we shouldn't throw the toy and hit my daughter in the head. We probably shouldn't do that. But over the, you know, I'll go and pick her up at daycare. And so when I go to pick her up, I'll see to sometimes. But my instinct is always to go to my daughter first. Why? It's because I have different expectations for my daughter than I do for the other children. Yes, I believe all children should play fairly. They shouldn't be arguing my standard for all children is the same, but I have greater expectations for my child. And that's the way God looks at you and me as Christians, that his standard of righteousness is the same for all people. But he has greater expectations from his kids. So if we call on God, His father, he is also our judge. And because of that, Peter says here in this verse that we are to conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. Here's kind of the main point Peter's trying to get at. If you call on God as your father and he is also your judge, you should be living your life with a sense of fear in your heart. So just because God has unending grace, he can forgive us of all sins and he does in Christ Jesus. This does not mean we can just live carelessly. That is, I'm going to confess Jesus, but then I'm going to live how I want to live. It doesn't work like that. And Peter is is trying to prepare them. Listen, you have called God and God is Father, but now you got to be careful on how you live. Your life matters more. Paul says in Romans six, he says he has this rhetorical question. He says, should we continue in sin so that grace may increase? Meaning should we just keep living in sin so that more grace comes into our life? And he says, obviously, no, you don't keep living in sin. And this is why he says it. He says, for those who have died to sin, how can they still live in it? So the picture he's giving is, if we've died to sin, we shouldn't keep on living in it. Your life should change. Your life should look different. He also says in Galatians five one for freedom Christ set us free, meaning Jesus saves us and sets us free from sin. Not so that we would go back into that lifestyle, but that we would run from it. It's like Jesus opening the key to the prison in us staying in it. He set us free from sin. He set us free from death. And for us to stay in that prison cell is not what God's called us to do. So he says, for freedom Christ set us free. Therefore do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. That is, don't put that slavery and sin back on you. Take it off and go forward. So here's the point. This morning, Christ did not set us free so that we could have the the freedom to come and go in God's family. That is, we have one foot in the world and one foot in church. That is, we live a certain way on Sundays, but we live a different way on Monday through Saturday night and closer. But instead our lives should look the same because we have a father who loves us, who died for us. But he's also our judge. And your life matters. My life matters. Faith in Jesus is important, but now how you live it out also matters. So this is why Peter's pointing them to conduct yourselves. Live your lives with fear. But you got to take a moment. What does he mean here by fear? Because it's not merely this complete, total fear where we are paralyzed, but it's also not this idea. Sometimes in churches where, oh, I respect God. It's much more than that. So I want to say this this morning, maybe this will help us kind of understand it, that a holy fear of God is not exaggerated or careless, but it's childlike. So let me let me try to unpack this real quick. If we look at God and overemphasize him as this righteous, holy judge that will immediately smite me down if I sneeze wrong, you're going to look at God with the wrong fear. If you look at God though, as this loving father who will forgive me for every sin that I ever commit, and I can live how I want, you're going to live carelessly. But like Jesus says in the Gospels, he says, you should have a child like faith. And I see this picture too here. I'm not saying Jesus certainly did not say this, but I see this picture in this passage that if we call on God as Father, we need to have a child like fear of God. Not to overemphasize God is Father or overemphasize God is judge. He is both at the same time. And we know that God loves us and we know that God will discipline us. Do you see that? That's what good parents do, don't they? Good parents can have both law and love. Good parents can discipline and also encourage. Good parents will correct behavior, and then they will also have compassion towards kids who make mistakes. You've got to have both. And this is God at the perfect sense. God is the perfect parent. So Christians, believers, we should obey God because we love him as our father, but we also fear him as our judge. Do you see that this morning we have to approach God that way? And John 1415 says it very quickly. Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Our love for God is our motivating, our motivation for our obedience to God. So listen, if you have become God's child, then your life should look distinctly different. And this is what this is what Peter's trying to do this morning. And listen, I want us to do the same. I've been doing this all week. I've been looking at my life and this is what Peter would say. Examine how you're living. And does that match up with your confession? Does your life match up to what you confess to? So here's my first point this morning. We need to live with a child like fear of God. We shouldn't overemphasize God as if he's going to smite us at every mistake we make. But we also shouldn't approach God with this flippant, careless, unserious tone where we believe God is going to forgive us all the time and we really don't have to change our life. But like any good parent, God doesn't want you to stay in your mess. He wants you to step out of your mess. Amen. So Peter goes on here in verse 18. So this is Peter continuing his arm argument, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold. Peter says, conduct yourselves with fear, because you have been ransomed. Now Peter is very strategic here. Peter is a smart guy. He uses this word specifically on purpose. It was likely that Peter was writing to Gentiles, that is, non-Jewish people, and they predominantly lived in a pagan worship and a pagan lifestyle with idols all around them, particularly in Greece. In the Roman culture, there was pagan idol worship all over the place. But this word ransomed is interesting because it would give the earliest readers that we give them this word picture here, because this word was used often in the Greco-Roman commerce system. So basically, when a slave was liberated from their slavery, they would pay a ransom. And this word was used. And what would happen is the slave would would gather together money, gold, silver, whatever he could find. And to free himself, he would come to the temple, pay the temple, and they would pay off his slave owner. And so this picture is this. This God or goddess would ransom a slave away from their slave owner. So if you can even turn this slightly, a little bit, you already see what the gospel is in this, that God would redeem and ransom a former slave out of their slavery. So Peter says, I'm going to use this word here, but it would also be, relatable to Jewish people because they once spent years and years in Egypt in which God used Moses to ransom and redeem them out of Egypt by using the blood of a spotless lamb. But also notice to in this passage, in this verse that they were ransomed from what Peter says, futile ways, futile, being empty, fruitless, vain. So Peter saying, listen, you were former pagan worshipers and God has ransomed. You purchased you, bought you out of that lifestyle, and it no longer is a part of your life. He says. You've inherited those futile, those empty ways of living from your forefathers. It was went from one dad to the son, not son to his son, from his son to this son. And it was this cycle of sin and rebellion and harmful living. Then listen, God broke that in your life. And I don't know if anybody can relate to that here, because our forefathers, our parents had this effect on us even today, whether we want it to be or not. Some of us have families who have struggled with drug and alcohol abuse. Some of us have grown up in families of broken marriages, abusive relationships. You've grown up in a family that has cycles of sin and rebellion and futile ways. But here's the beautiful part this morning church sinful habits and lifestyles can cycle through for generations over and over. But God can break every chain for any person. There is not one thing that's going on in your life that God cannot ransom you from. I don't care how long it's been going in your family, but what if God was to look at you and say, I'm going to break this, this chain right now in this family, with this person, his family, her family, they struggle with alcohol and drug abuse, he's going to come and ransom me from it. He is able to. But notice he's not able to or I don't want to say it that way. There's there's nothing we can do to fix it. See, our futile ways require something much more precious than silver or gold to ransom us. There's no amount of money you can pay. There's no amount of religious duty or righteous deeds that you can come up with to ransom and fix your life. There's no amount of extreme discipline that's just going to fix everything and cure the sin in your heart. But look what Peter says in verse 19, come on, church, verse 19, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot, Peter says, it's not gold. It's not money, it's not religious deeds, it's not duties. Here's what does ransomed me from your old way of life. It's the blood of Jesus. And now some of us might hear that and think, this is a little archaic. This is a little cultish. Like, this is kind of weird that we're talking about blood. I mean, it's the 21st century. What are we talking about here? Blood saving us from something. The whole reason Peter speaking the blood here is this word picture. See, the Jewish, the Jews believed in the Old Testament. They wrote about it that blood was the essence of life. And often it was described in the Old Testament that when blood was shed is for sacrifice. Something had to die so something else could live. Peter's giving this word. Picture this illustration to say that listen, the precious blood of Jesus was spilled so that you didn't have to die in your sins. Peter's giving us this picture that there was a substitutionary death by Jesus. He took our place and we reap the benefits of his perfect life. Look at this in Hebrews ten. Hebrews does a great job of explaining this to us, and every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. They would stand in the in the temple and offer sacrifices over and over and over again for sins they knew about, for sins they were unaware of. But this was a way that they could appease God and delay the payment later. It's like swiping a credit card and committing, I'm going to pay this later. That's what these sacrifices were. Swipe the credit card. But look what it says in verse 12. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. He brings it to culmination in verse 14. Listen to this, for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. If there's one thing you can. Amen. Today, church, it is that for by one single, solitary offering, Jesus perfect life on the cross, dying in our place for our sins. And because of that, he fully and perfectly in one sense sanctifies us, makes us holy, ransom ransoms us, redeems us from all of our futile ways through faith in Jesus and. So you want to know why the blood of Jesus is precious? It's because it's the only thing that can ransom you right? I don't know what you're going to right now to try to find ransom money. I don't know if there's a particular habit that you're leaning on. If there's a particular hobby that you're going to, if there's some way that you're trying to maybe fix or clean up your life. But listen, there is only one way. And that's the blood of Jesus. So the world can call us archaic. The world can call us cultish. But I'm going to preach and plead the blood of Jesus the rest of my life. And if and if the world calls us weird, that's okay. I'm okay with be called weird if they come to know Jesus. So this morning, church, remember the precious blood that Jesus paid for you? The cost was not cheap. It took God surrendering his precious son on the cross for you and me. So look here in verse 20, last two verses of our passage this morning, it says Jesus, he, Jesus was for known before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times. For the sake of you. I can spend a lot of time on this, but here's what this basically means Jesus was chosen before the foundation of of the world, and there is a plan in place for you and me to be saved. It was God's plan for all eternity to ransom his children through the precious blood of Jesus. Since Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, it was God's plan to ransom us, you and me, today through the blood of Jesus. He knew about us. He knew about our sins. He knew the direction of and trajectory of the world and he knew what he was going to do. And just. And within the past 20,000 years, God's plan is starting to be fulfilled. We're literally in the last times now we should be conducting ourselves with fear because the Lord can be coming back anytime. But notice what Peter says it was for the sake of you that God revealed his plan according to his timing. You and I get the privilege of being in history right now. Jesus has died. Jesus has been raised from the dead, and we look to the day that Jesus gets to come back. Today is a blessed day to be a Christian and and it's going to get better. Last verse in our passage, verse 21 who through him that's us are believers in God. You and me are believers through Christ, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. So we see two things here. God raised Jesus from the dead and he glorified Jesus. Two things that we can't lose in our Bible believing faith. And listen. What Peter's saying here is that our hope and our faith are centered on these two things. So the resurrection of Christ listen, it was the payment confirmation of the cross. Y'all know what I'm talking about. You get these emails all the time. If you pay an online bill, you get the confirmation that you paid it. When Jesus went to the cross, he paid for the sins, but then he was raised in three days, and that's the confirmation that the payment went through. And so we can have confidence that the payments good. Look at this in first Corinthians 15. Here Paul goes on to explain, he says, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith, here's our word. Futile, pointless. Empty. Worthless. And you are still in your sins. But here's the glory of it all. Verse 20. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep, and by first fruits means we're going to follow him. Jesus was first. We're coming right behind him. Resurrection. Amen. That's good to clap back. So not only have we, we're going to be raised with Jesus. He also says that Jesus was glorified. So to think of it this way, the glorification of Christ is the paid off deed to your new home with God. The deeds been paid, the property has been purchased, and now we're heading home. And one day we'll get to be with God for all eternity in his presence forever. And this is why Peter is wrapping all of this in the context. Conduct yourselves with fear. Do you see that if all of this is true, we should live differently? Our last verse this morning, Galatians or sorry, Colossians three four When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Brothers and sisters, I pray that we're longing for that day, and because we're longing for that day, it would change the way you live right now. And if you don't know Christ in this room, I got an answer to your problems. It's the blood of Jesus. And as archaic and cultish as that might seem. Jesus took all of the suffering that we deserve from a holy, righteous God so that you don't have to to reintroduce you to the one who made you. So on these two things, on the resurrection and glorification, are the anchors of our faith and hope in God. And I pray, church, that you're reminding yourself daily that Jesus is alive, and one day you're going to follow suit with him in glory. So my third point for this morning, and I encourage you keep your faith and hope in God, not in your sufferings, not in the things of this world, not in the things that you can get lost in, with hobbies and career and job and relationships and the whole gamut of things that I can mention but keep your faith and hope in God. So this morning, my challenge is simple. Do you live with a childlike fear of God? Do you walk knowing that God loves you, but that he also will discipline you, that your life matters? And I pray this morning that you and me, all of us, would examine our lives to see if our life matches up with our confession. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you, God that you love us even when we mess up. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you were willing to take the full weight and penalty of our sin so that we might have a relationship with you, and because of your precious blood that you spilled on our behalf, we are ransomed from our old ways. And father, you have provided a solution to all of the things that may hold us back. All of the chains and cycles of sin and harmful behavior and harmful habits. You have ransomed and and cured us all of all those things through the blood of Jesus. Now, father, I know that that doesn't mean life's going to be easy. That we still experience temptation. We still experience the desire to go back. But if we would just remember, father, that Jesus is alive and we're headed to be with him, that we will find the motivation to keep walking in the fear of the Lord. Help us God this morning to walk with a childlike fear. In Jesus name, Amen.