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God's Ransom Note (1 Peter 1:13-25) · Arrow Heights Students

• 0:04
  Speaker A: All right, you guys can go ahead and open to First Peter again. First Peter, chapter one. Now, today, I want to start off by asking, have any of you ever, you know, gone a very long time? Too long? How does it. Not a specific amount of time, but too long in your life thinking, you know, a word means something, but you are actually wrong? Yeah. Are there any good examples? You guys, you knew immediately. What'd you say? Oh, you're never wrong. I actually believe you. Do you want to. You don't have to share. Oh, that's okay. You're just. You just know. You've had that sensation. Does anyone have a fun example?
• 0:51
  Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
• 0:52
  Speaker C: Wait, what is song?
• 0:54
  Speaker A: Oh, like getting the wrong lyric. But I mean. I mean, like, you believe this word has this definition, but you are just wrong and someone says, you are not using that right. And.
• 1:05
  Speaker C: Oh, wait.
• 1:08
  Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, it did. What. What's your example?
• 1:11
  Speaker C: When I was little, I thought th means, like. Okay, I doubt that means. I really believe that. I thought that was my thought. So we figured out a couple of, like, years later. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:28
  Speaker A: Probably. Oh, you have an example. I always thought, like, the saying, nip it in the bud. I thought it was nip it in the bud. Yeah, Nip it in the bud. Nip it in the butt. No, it's. It's the bud, but kind of works both ways. So that one. That one is confusing. I think I've had that wrong for a while too. So what's your example?
• 1:52
  Speaker B: So it's kind of with a song, but it's like, still the same thing. Sorry, sorry. My words there. So basically, there's this one song that I like. It's called this Town by Matt Lauren. I thought it said so far from the start, but it says so far from the stars. And I would just sing that everywhere.
• 2:09
  Speaker A: And then I look at the lyrics, I'm like, yeah, yeah, the lyric. The lyric phenomenon is. Is, you know, a whole other thing. It's. Singers just need to pronounce. They need to pronunciate better. Yeah. You guys have one? Yeah, you guys can share. What is it? I could not hear you. Buzz Lightyear. Buzz Lightyear. Hey, in some parts of the country, it probably is that. All right, you two are the last two. We'll go. Connor first.
• 2:58
  Speaker B: Remember I said okay when I was like 2 years old. I thought it was like the opposite.
• 3:03
  Speaker A: You thought okay meant not okay? That's funny because that is. That's so often used. That's a really good one. Yeah. I used to call whataburger water, booger. Okay, yeah, I'm thinking more about, like, definitions, but the mispronouncing stuff is also funny. So thank you for sharing those too. It took me into adulthood to now, actually. I guess for most of my childhood, I didn't even know the word tumultuous. Do people know that word? Mixed word. I didn't know it into adulthood. I thought it meant something like good. I thought it was good even. Maybe fruitful. Maybe good. Yeah. And I used it in a conversation just like four or five years ago and someone corrected me and I was like, wow, I guess this is what happens when you don't read books growing up. So don't be stupid like me. I didn't read any books. I didn't know that word. And another word I didn't know, not into adulthood, but older childhood, maybe even like tween teen area. I didn't know what the word priceless meant. I thought priceless was akin to worthless. Without price means it's worth nothing. It's worth zero dollars. It is worthless. You know, that's what I thought. That is wrong. If you think that, you're wrong. Just like I was. Again, read a book. Be different than me. Read a book. So eventually I did learn that priceless does mean it is not without value, but it means that it's so precious that no value can be attached to it. And this is the word that I was thinking about, studying this text. We talk about the precious and priceless blood of Jesus. Precious is used in the text. Priceless is what I kind of understand this as. Now, before we get into all that, let's just remember where we're at. We just started First Peter, so there's not too much to remember, but we want to remember the context. Last week we studied just the first 12 verses and Peter the apostle. Remember, apostle is someone who's called and commissioned by the risen Jesus. He is writing to Christians, churches that are scattered throughout the world. And they are suffering, they are struggling, they are lonely. This fits with what I said the main theme of First Peter was. You might remember. You can write it down if you forgot. Main theme of all of First Peter is suffering now, but glory later. Suffering now, but glory later, later. So this is kind of a theme we will probably see at least bits and pieces of in each passage, but we'll have a different theme just for this passage. But we have this idea of suffering that is something that is just true in the Christian life. This was especially true for the people he's writing to but there will be glory when they meet the Lord in heaven. So though glory is coming later, they know that Peter is writing to them to give them hope. Hope was the big theme of last week. He told them that they have been born again to not just any hope, but to a living hope. It is not dead. They can have hope in God who is the Trinity. They can have hope in Christ who lives. They can have hope in Christ who suffered on their behalf. Now picking up on this idea, the next passage is introduced with with the Word. Therefore so the way we should read this is because of their living hope through the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories he brings because of that. Therefore that'll be how we will read the passage. We need to remember what he just said to understand and appreciate these next several verses. So the main idea before we read it first Peter 1:13 25 is that Christ bought Christians with his precious blood. Christ bought Christians with his precious blood, therefore they must be holy by abiding in the Word of God. Christ bought Christians with his precious blood, therefore they must be holy by abiding in the Word of God. Let us holy read the passage first Peter 1:13. 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. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written you shall be holy, for I am holy. 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, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 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, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. For a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God. For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The Grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. Christ bought Christians with His precious blood. Therefore they must be holy by abiding in the word of God. Because of Christ's sufferings on the cross and the subsequent glories that have happened are happening and will happen in eternity, we must live a particular way because of these truths. We must conduct ourselves in a certain way. Peter demonstrates this truth well for us. Theology is not static. Studying the Bible is not just an academic discipline. Every single. Remember that every single, single truth in the Scriptures has an application. Every single one. Any lesson you can learn about God has an application that can apply to your living. And if we trust in Christ, then when we learn about him, we must change. By basing his call for these Christians to be holy because of the blood of Jesus that purchased their forgiveness, Peter is showing these Christians that though they suffer and though saving grace is free, their lives are not off the hook. Just because grace is free and just because they're suffering and having a hard time, their lives are not off the hook, Their conduct still matters. Further, Peter throughout the Old Testament, or he references the Old Testament to show this, he references Leviticus. This is a reminder, just as a little side point, that the Old Testament is not irrelevant for Christians. It can be used for our instruction and can be applied to our lives. It's more than mere history. It is God's word, just as First Peter is. These are commands that we learn from and that should transform our lives. Let's look at our first main point. Number one. Hope in Christ's precious blood. Hope in Christ's precious blood. So again, the theme of hope is there. We talked about that last week, but it's again still permeating through this text. So we want to hit on it again. Hope in Christ's precious blood. So the heart motivation of these commands that Peter is giving them is this hope in his blood. If you're a believer in Christ, verse 18 says you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. Now, what is a ransom? We might have heard of this. We've maybe heard of ransom ransoms in movies, ransom notes. So a ransom. Here's an example of a ransom that I encounter all the time, maybe not with words. A ransom is when my wonderful daughter, you know, says or implies rather that I will not be happy, which is what you want. You want her to be happy. Until you let me play with your copy of the City of God or whatever book I'm reading at the time. And I'm going to play with this book or I'm not going to be happy. And I need the book, frankly. I really need it. If I want her happiness, I need to pay her off. I need to give her the book or she's going to throw a fit. I'm not saying you should do that. If you, all of you future parents, current parents, don't do that. Don't let the, don't let the tantrum win. I did. This happened the other day. I took the book, but she was not happy. But if I wanted to be happy, I would have to pay her off. That's sort of like a ransom. Probably a much better picture of a ransom comes in the very famous C.S. lewis Chronicles of Narnia as probably the most vivid I can think of the picture. When Aslan trades his life to pay the ransom on Edmund's life. That is a ransom. That is the specific theme that Lewis is trying to show his readers. And you know, eventually, I guess the. The watchers of the movie that I'm sure he anticipated. You know, of course they, you know, they were. These Christians were ransomed by Christ. They were bought with his precious blood. But Peter specifies something here that I find interesting. They were ransomed specifically from futile ways. From their futile ways. So these Christians were ransomed by Christ, but from futile ways? You know, of course, they were ransomed from sin, ransomed from eternal death that they deserved. But. But Peter is putting a certain aspect into focus. He's not saying this is the only thing Christ's precious blood did, but he's focusing on one particular aspect. And this is not surprising, right? Ecclesiastes 2:26 helps us kind of understand this concept. We read in this verse, for to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy. But to the sinner, he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after the wind. The futile ways inherited by their forefathers are the same as the vanities in Ecclesiastes. You read just the first chapter or two of Ecclesiastes alone. You kind of see the futile ways of the sinful world. This is what they are being ransomed from. The point is that without Christ, we inherit futility. This is what you should remember. Without Christ, we inherit futility, uselessness from our forefathers. That's what we are born into. A futile existence without Christ, that is, by Nature, the pointlessness of a sinful life is passed down from generation to generation to generation to generation. And unless Christ plucks you out of that, you are in it. He must ransom you out. He must save you from that. I think Peter is reminding these suffering saints that their life without Christ was. Was truly hopeless. If they feel hopeless now, when they are suffering and lonely though they have been saved, if they feel hopeless now, they need to remember that they were born hopeless. They are not anymore. Their life has meaning and purpose now. Christ has saved them. To that end, Jesus offers hope and meaning and significance to this life, to all who believe in Him. He bought this with his precious, his priceless blood. And this is something. His blood is something that cannot be calculated. It is priceless. This fulfilled also the words of Isaiah, the prophet who said, for thus says the Lord, you were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money. That's Isaiah 52, 3. The people were sold for nothing, but they would be redeemed without money. Their ransom would be paid by. Not money, by the blood of Christ. He fulfilled this. God's people are redeemed by no amount of money, but by the precious and priceless blood of Christ. No amount of money, no amount of things can get us out of our eternal debt that we deserve. No amount of things that we can accumulate in this life can give us meaning and purpose in life that can get us out of the futility of our ways. Only the precious blood of Christ can buy that. That is freedom that only Christ can buy. And as those who would believe were foreknown, we saw that up in verse 2, they were foreknown by God before the foundation of the world. We see here also that Christ was foreknown by God. In other words, I think the point that Peter's bringing up here is that the plan of God to redeem his people through the suffering of Christ was set in stone eternally before creation. All of it was set. God had his mind set. He knew what would happen in he didn't have to turn to a plan B at any point, because he had all of this laid out. This was always known. But God was gracious to reveal Christ at this time to those people so that these Christians, and even Christians today can know and bow to the name of Jesus for a long time. They're awaiting, they're believing and having faith in a promise. But he has been revealed. We know who he is. We know how God has fulfilled his promises. And so we now get to worship Jesus Christ by name. And that is a wonderful gift from God. So believers, those of you who are believers in the room, have hope in God, who put his plan in place and executed it, who accomplished redemption and applies it to those who have faith. And if you have trusted in Christ, your life should look like it. That leads us to our second main point. Be holy. Be holy. So at the heart is the gospel. This means that if you have trusted in Christ, then God has set you apart as holy in a way. But until your full holiness is realized, and none of us are claiming to be completely holy. So until your full holiness is realized in heaven, Peter claims that there is still an impetus to not just be considered holy by God, but to actually live like it. What God declares of you, you put into practice the holiness that Jesus has accomplished for the faithful is the charge that powers you to have actually holy conduct. You actually can live holy lives. You can grow in holiness because of what Christ has done. So here are four ways to live with holy conduct. Of course, all of this must begin with belief in Christ alone and his works of holiness. But the first one is engage your brain. Engage your brain, or I should say, get your mind, because verse 13 says preparing your minds for action and being sober minded. This verse more literally says, girding up the loins of your mind. But people don't talk like that anymore, so I guess they changed it. Girding up the loins of your mind. This is basically a call to armor up and go to battle. But the battlefield is your mind. It is inside you. How can you go to battle in your mind? Maybe you do that all the time. How do you do that? Well, in the Bible, the mind actually probably refers typically more than just to more than just the brain. The mind, I think, typically refers to the soul and the spirit. The mind. These three are kind of parallels. This isn't basically. This is an inward spiritual battle. So to be girded up in mind, we need to do. Well, we could do a lot of things, but one thing we can do is we can increase our knowledge of God so we can battle by growing what we know. So how do we do this? Well, it's simple. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. We need to read the Bible. We need to be devoted to that. We need to prioritize that. We need to maybe even read extra books about God if we have time. We need to try to actually learn when we're at church, learn from others, learn from our pastors, learn from anyone that you possibly can Learn from. There are other ways, extracurricular ways, from books to podcasts and all these ways. You can ask for recommendations, but ultimately we need to be in the Word. We also need to be in prayer if we want to win this battle. If we want to have our minds ready for action and we want to be sober minded, we need to be praying. Praying is the most readily available spiritual discipline. It is always ready to be wielded, yet so often neglected. We can do it anytime, anywhere, and we so often forget it. I know this from personal experience. You know, in the last chapter of this letter, Peter mentions being sober minded again. And he gives us a reason to be sober minded. He says, because the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. That's in chapter five, verse eight. So we need to be prayerful, asking God for help. You cannot have holy conduct without God's help. We cannot do this on our own. We can mimic it, we can fake it, but it's not going to be genuine. It's going to be a facade. So we need to engage our minds, our souls, our spirits. Second way to live with holy conduct. Obey the Father as a child verse 14 says as obedient children is how he addresses them. Obey the Father as an obedient child. A well disciplined child always obeys his or her father or mother. When you're an adult, or sometimes even a teenager, you might be able to reason with your parents. When they tell you to do something, there's typically at least a little more freedom. Not total freedom, but a little bit. But for a child that doesn't exist, there's no freedom, there is no autonomy. They want it, but they don't have it. When a parent tells their child to do something, that child needs to do it. He or she lacks the ability to make wise decisions. When they're three years old, they just can't make wise decisions. Well, God the Father is wise. We would be lucky to be compared to the wisdom of a three year old compared to the wisdom of God. We need to obey Him. No matter what your age or stage of life, you should listen to the authoritative word and command of God. The Father as a young child should listen to her father when he tells her to stay out of the street. What God commands is important and it's life saving. That's what Peter means when he calls these Christians obedient children. They need to humbly obey as a child would in order to live with holy conduct. You must obey the Heavenly Father as if you're A child. The third way we can live with holy do not act like you're still a non believer. Verse 14. Peter writes, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. So if you are in Christ, remember this is for those who have faith in Christ. If you're in Christ, like the readers of this letter were, then you cannot live like a non believer. Your life must look different from your non Christian neighbors. Now, apart from Christ, we are enslaved to our passions. Passions is a word Peter uses here. The word passions refers to emotions that drive you. They are emotions that drive your behavior, your attitude, your mood. That is what a passion is. Think of your you know, maybe this will help. Maybe think of your sibling doing something to irritate you and you snap at him or her. You didn't think about it, you just snap. That is a passion. It's an emotion that has controlled your your behavior. It has controlled your mood. You hopefully can see how such passions are dangerous and so quickly and suddenly can lead us into sinning. Thus, if we are in Christ, then we cannot be controlled by our passions. We must be controlled by our love for Jesus. We cannot be controlled by sinful passions. We must be controlled by our love for Jesus. Paul says something similar in Romans. In Romans 6:2, he says, how can we who died to sin still live in it? How can we live in sin if we've died to it? He also says six chapters later, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Have you died to sin? Really? Have you been transformed? You need to have already died to sin if you have a living hope. And if you have a living hope, then you must be conformed to the or you must not be conformed to the living styles of this world. We cannot live like the world. Peter says to not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. When you come to know Jesus Christ, he removes that ignorance. He illuminates your whole world. Suddenly the foolishness that we live in is revealed to us. The sinfulness that we love is put in our face. It's in sight. Everyone who has not given his or her life to Christ is ignorant of the true weight of his or her sin. But those who know him have no excuse. Those who are in Christ. The this ignorance becomes a former ignorance. We now know it has been revealed to us. Jesus changes us from the inside out. Therefore, be holy and live with holy conduct. The fourth way to live with holy conduct is to live with a holy fear of God. Verse 17 says conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. Fear is a central theme of the Christian life. It is, and we don't think of this often because we might sometimes overemphasize how often the Bible says, do not fear. And fear can kind of mean a couple of different things. But fear, a holy reverence of God, is a central theme of the Christian life. It's clear in the Bible that we should fear God, to name a few places that tell us as much. Jeremiah 32:40 says, and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. Proverbs 9:10 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. Hebrews 12:29 says that our God is a consuming fire. Matthew 10:28. Jesus says, and do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. If you don't fear God, then you won't understand why you need him in the first place. We need to fear God first. Remember, especially with that last verse, Matthew 10:28, we aren't saved from the wrath of Satan. We're saved from the wrath of God. If we trust in Jesus, we need to start by fearing God and the wrath that we deserve so we know our sin, that it'll be revealed to us that we can turn and to him. So since it is fear and reverence of the mighty God that humbles and brings people to Christ, then if you are a believer, you must continue to live with a holy conduct. You must continue to live with a holy fear of God as well. Peter says this to these exiles. Whatever they might be enduring, they should remember that God is to be feared more than any persecutor, is to be feared more than any situation that they may be worried about. They need to fear God. More than any loneliness they might encounter, they need to fear God most of all. And only when they do that can they truly not fear anything in the world. To live with holy conduct, you must live with first a holy fear. That brings us then to our third main point. Abide in the Word. The Word and the Gospel are the motor that starts and powers the Christian life. Look at these last few verses again. Verses 22 through 25. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth, for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and Abiding word of God. For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. Peter is exhorting Christians here to love one another as another means of holy conduct. He ties this first thing to verse 22, which is, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. Having purified your souls by obedience to the truth. Now, frequently in the Bible, the truth refers to the gospel. I think that's what Peter is intending here. Far from saying obedience generally purifies us, Peter is saying that obeying the gospel purifies us. In other words, obeying the gospel by repenting of your sin and putting your faith in Christ, Jesus purifies you. That is how to be purified. Faith in Christ. Another reason to love other Christians with a brotherly sort of love is because as Christians, you have been born again. We've already seen this born again to a living hope. Here Peter again reminds them that the content of their inheritance and salvation is not perishable. It does not and will not spoil. It will not go bad. The inheritance that Christ gives to the faithful does not age like milk. It ages like wine. Isn't that the saying? Right? It gets better with age. It does not spoil. And from where does this imperishable inheritance come? It comes from the living and abiding word of God. Hebrews 4:12 also calls this word living and active. The word lives and abides and is active because it is inspired and illuminated by the living Holy Spirit. The word is used by God then to transform the hearts of men and women. And it always does this. It will continue to do this. This is why it is hopeful for these Christians. People die. These Christians will die. They have died. That is why Peter quotes Isaiah 40 right after this. He says, all flesh is like grass. In other words, all flesh will die and be cut off and burned, so to speak. But God's word lives forever. This is incredibly good news, incredibly hopeful news. The reason our church and lives must be centered around the abiding Word of God is because we will all die. We will all die. But the next generation will be just fine because they have the same Bible that reveals the same gospel, which will have the same effect, the redemption of their souls and the ransom of their lives. It will continue to live and abide generation after generation. We can have hope in that. We're not going to cause the church to collapse. Nothing can Cause that so abide in the Word. Here are two quick ways to do this. Number one, read through the Bible, cover to cover. Read through the whole thing. It is a book. Did you know that? It's a book. We should read it like a book. A pastor named Greg Gilber has written something to this effect. He asks, would we read the Lord of the Rings like we often read the Bible? Would we? Maybe some of you. Would we pick up the two towers and open to the middle and read a line and think about that line specifically? No, it probably wouldn't make sense. Unless you are a really big fan and have read through the books a lot, then you might understand what is happening in that line. But there are so many details, you're likely to be kind of confused at what's going on. Now, again, if you've read the whole story, it might not be too hard. So the point is, you should read through the Bible so that you know the whole story, so that you don't get lost, so you don't accidentally misunderstand what you're reading. It's not that you can never read from a book or a verse, but we need to know the story. We need to be committed to reading the Bible cover to cover. If you have not done that, I would highly encourage you to make that a priority. Because if the Word is abiding, if it is true, if it is living and active, if it gives us life as Christians, if it gives the church life, if it gives the future of the church life, we should know it. And we can only know it well if we read it all the way through and examine it closely. Number two, another way to abide in the Word. Don't just do a reading plan, but meditate on the Word. It's probably something that I have been tempted to do in the past because I like tasks and goals. And I can do a checklist. You know, check off this passage. I read this passage, this passage, and I can do that, and that's going to make me feel really good. But we need to meditate on the Word as well. So even while reading the whole Bible, maybe you're reading a lot, maybe reading 3, 4, 15 chapters a day. Be sure to look for parts that stand out to you. You can't definitely do that for every single word. But spend time meditating on those parts that the Lord puts on your heart, asking God to help you to understand them and to apply them to your life. That's one way we can abide in the Word. Though these Christians were suffering Peter knew they would go to glory one day. He continued to instill hope in them. I want those of you who believe in Jesus to feel that hope, no matter what happens, to feel that hope. And hopefully that hope will drive you to live holy lives as the God who called you out of darkness is a holy God. I hope that those of you who have been holding out on God, either partly or fully, would be convicted by the living and abiding word of God. It is true and it is life giving and it gives meaning to your life. The good news of Jesus Christ and his precious and priceless blood should reveal to you that you are a sinner in need of him. You need your ransom to be paid. You need God's wrath against you to be satisfied. You need Christ. You need to repent of your sin and trust in him. Christ bought Christians with his precious blood, therefore they must be holy by abiding in the word of God. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word and for the precious blood of Christ. Lord, we thank you for this wonderful gift of grace from your Son that all who turned from their sins and trusted him would be saved. God, we pray that you would help us to live holy lives as a result of that. Not as a way to fool ourselves into thinking we're saved. Not as a way to look good for people looking, but as a way to honor you. Because you have saved us and you are a holy God and we long to be like you. Lord, we pray all of this in Jesus name. Amen.