1 Peter 1:17-21 (p. 1887)
It was God’s love, the very nature of his being, that led him to redeem you from sin and death.
God’s love for the unloving, his love for the unlovable, his willingness to sacrifice himself for the sake of creatures whom he made, is beyond comprehension. God could have rejected our entire race and wiped us off the face of the earth, and made new and better creatures to serve him. Many people today wonder why God did not simply exterminate mankind when we sinned and start over with something better. In fact, God almost did that at the time of the great Flood, when a mere eight people were saved from death in Noah’s ark; eight dedicated believers. But they and their descendants soon fell back into sin, for as God noted about people, “Every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.” (Genesis 8:21)
St. John declares in his first epistle that “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) That nature of God desires to be loved in return, and not simply blindly obeyed. All the planets and stars and galaxies in the universe blindly obey God’s laws in their movements and in the burning of hydrogen and whatever else they do, but they can not love God. All the plants and animals that God created to live on the earth obey God’s laws of physics and also his laws of life, and the animals also obey the instincts that God programmed into their genes, but they can not love God. Only people and angels were created in God’s own image, with an immortal soul that is capable of knowing God and of loving God, and of choosing whether to love him or to despise him.
We were originally capable of loving God perfectly, but sin spoiled that, first in the angels who turned against God, and then in our human race. God created millions of angels, and only some of them defied him in sin and became demons. The other angels remain faithful forever, for God has taken away their ability to choose sin, and has confirmed them in holiness. But our whole human race, all two original people, chose to defy God in sin. There was no one left to confirm in holiness, so God chose to save us from our own natures and our own actions instead.
St. Peter tells us in our text this morning that God’s plan of redemption for sinful mankind was established and completed already before the creation of the world.
As if God’s redeeming love for us was not already beyond comprehension, now we learn that God had that love for us before he even made our race, or anything else for that matter. God knew that if he made creatures with free will, they would rebel against him, yet he made us anyway. God knew what it would take to redeem us from sin and enable us to love him with only a faulty and imperfect love, yet he chose to make us anyway.
That redeeming love of God for our sinful race is so far beyond human experience, so far beyond imagination, that on our own we people simply can not believe in it. We can not grasp what God did for us in his Son Jesus Christ, or why he would do it. By nature we are as lost and discouraged as Cleopas and his friend were as they walked from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the first Easter evening. But then God comes and speaks to our hearts with his word and makes us believe the impossible, just as Jesus did for his two friends on that first Easter. In our text this morning St. Peter talks to us with a word straight from God, and he tells us how and why Christ redeemed you. Peter says, …
CHRIST REDEEMED YOU ...
I. From An Empty Way Of Life.
That empty way of life was “handed down to you from your forefathers,” St. Peter told the Christians to whom he wrote.
Those Christians had for the most part been Gentiles before St. Paul visited their cities in his missionary journeys and brought them the message of Jesus Christ as their Savior. The Gentiles way of life and their religions were indeed empty. Their religions were composed of silly myths that made superheroes out of their ancestors and gods out of the forces of nature. Those myths gave no meaning, no comfort, and no hope to life. And after this life they said that people would be miserable shades flitting forlornly through the dark and damp caves of the underworld forever. Life was meaningless, pointless; hopeless. What worthless emptiness such religion was! No wonder it was abandoned long ago.
The philosophers of that time could offer nothing better. To endure the meaninglessness of life, the Stoics urged people to suck it up in the face of hopelessness and to do your duty. If you live a good enough life you will be long remembered as a hero by generations to come, and perhaps even honored as a demi-god. The Epicureans urged people to just enjoy life and get the most out of each day, because there is nothing but misery to come once this life is over. Thus philosophy too gave an empty way of life without hope, even while trying to find some point to life.
Some of those to whom Peter wrote were Jews, but their religion also had become merely an empty way of life. Originally, the Hebrew religion was filled with meaning and hope as it clearly pointed people to God’s promised Messiah as their Savior from sin. But then Hebrew teachers of the law perverted the whole thing by telling people that they could save themselves by following the rules in certain ways and by offering sacrifices in the temple when they messed up. But the teachers lied about the works and the sacrifices. Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah to tell his people about their religion, “They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.” (Mark 7:7) Their way of life too became empty and useless – just going through the motions of religion.
The way of life for many in our time also is empty and useless.
The majority of people in this world have bought the silly myth that all of life is merely the result of time and senseless chance via the process of evolution. Many claim that evolution is a scientifically proven fact and that life is an accident, totally void of meaning and purpose, and afterward there is nothing. Believing this myth results in lives that are truly senseless, hopeless and empty.
In the face of such emptiness denial of God, many Americans today look to themselves for meaning in life. We often hear people say, “I just have to be me,” to explain their selfishness and heartlessness toward others. Many others explain that they are “trying to find themselves” when they leave their jobs, desert their spouses and children, and chase after hedonism. You see, without service to God as the center and point of life, there is no point to life and no meaning in it. As King Solomon said long ago about such lives, “I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” (Eccl. 1:14) You can’t catch the wind, and you can’t find the meaning of life by trying to find yourself, either.
Jesus, the very Son of God came into this world to redeem us from such empty ways of life and to give meaning to our lives by earning forgiveness of our sins and bringing us back to God. As St. Peter says in our text this morning, Christ redeemed you …
II. With His Holy, Precious Blood.
“You know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers,” Peter says in our text.
Money can’t buy forgiveness from God and salvation from the effects of sin. “The wages of sin is death,” (Romans 6:23) and you can’t buy life with money. Besides that, God says through his prophet Haggai, “‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the LORD Almighty.” (Haggai 2:8) Since all the money in the world already belongs to God, how could anyone hope to buy God’s favor by giving to him what he already owns?
Sacrifices can’t buy forgiveness from God, either. God tells us, “I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.” (Psalm 50:9-10)
If neither money nor sacrifices can buy forgiveness from God, then what does he want from us? Well, as the prophet Samuel told King Saul, “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.” (1 Samuel 15:22-23) You see, what God really wants from us is our love, which is why he commands, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5) That love is not just a feeling in our hearts, for God tells us, “This is love for God: to obey his commands.” (1 John 5:3) Loving obedience is what God wants from us.
But loving God perfectly with our whole being and obeying his commands in everything we think, say and do is impossible! Nobody can ever be that good! Yes, and that is exactly why God says, “All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:12) If we could be good enough to save ourselves, then God would not have had to come into this world to save us from being ourselves. St. Paul tells us, “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5) Christ redeemed us from the law’s demands by fulfilling those demands in our place. He earned holiness for us with his perfect life under the law, and he gives us that holiness before God through our faith in him.
In our text St. Peter says, “You were redeemed … with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”
St. Paul explains this when he tells us, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’” (Galatians 3:13) The curse of God’s law upon sin is death, and Jesus died in our place to redeem us from the law’s curse. Now our debt to God has been paid by the Son of God himself, and we are set free. Because of that, St. Paul can assure us, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
After demonstrating clearly from Scripture that we cannot be saved by our works of obedience to God’s law, St. Paul told the Christians of Rome, “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” (Romans 3:21-25) “Faith in his blood” is the way of salvation for God’s people, for Jesus Christ was the Lamb of God without blemish or defect that takes away the sin of the world. That was always the way of salvation for God’s people, for there never was another way by which anyone could be saved from sin and death and hell.
For what purpose does God now give us salvation through faith in Christ Jesus? St. Peter tells us that Christ redeemed you …
III. So That You Will Live For Him In Reverent Fear.
“Live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear,” Peter says in our text.
We are to live our lives in this world like travelers who are just passing through on our way to somewhere else, because that is exactly what we Christians are. In the next chapter of Peter’s first epistle, he tells us, “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.” (1 Peter 2:11) The people of this world have nothing better to believe in than themselves, and nothing better to live for than the empty way of life handed down to them from their forefathers. For them, all of life is but a quick trip to the grave, and through the grave to hell. No wonder we Christians must live as though we are just passing through this world, and we must avoid getting caught up in its foolishness and empty way of life.
We may be strangers and aliens on earth, but we are not aliens and strangers to God. St. Paul tells us, “You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” (Ephesians 2:19-20) By faith we have been adopted as members of God’s own household and made his sons and daughters through Jesus Christ. Our lives in this world should now be lived to honor the name of our Father in heaven by doing everything we can to become like God and to love him as he has loved us. As St. John said, we show our love to God by following his commands.
As Peter directs our text, we “live our lives as strangers here in reverent fear.”
That reverent fear is the foundation for all faithful service to God. Our Father in heaven fills the entire universe and has all power and all knowledge, and he “judges each man’s work impartially,” as Peter says in our text. For that reason we must remind our sinful human natures that God hates sin and sinners, and we must fear God’s anger and his justice and do everything we can to avoid them.
Loving service to God begins with reverent fear also. Love is not afraid of God, because it is based upon God’s love for us, love that is expressed in Jesus Christ. Reverent fear is absolute respect for the Lord of all the universe and the Judge of all mankind, and the fear that as sinners we cannot live up to the high standards that God has set for his children on earth. Dr. Martin Luther reminds us in his explanation to every one of God’s commandments that all faithful service to God begins with fear and love for God. Luther begins each one of those explanations with the words, “We should fear and love God …”
Peter too tells us, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:12) Your life as a Christian is to be lived to glorify God, first by giving him your love and service as a member of his family, and secondly by causing even unbelievers to thank God for you and for all the good that you do in this world as you pass through it on your way to eternity.
In these weeks after Easter and throughout all of your life, keep in mind that …
Con.: CHRIST REDEEMED YOU ...
From An Empty Way Of Life that could give no fulfillment and could lead you nowhere but to hell.
With His Holy, Precious Blood, as the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world.
So That You Will Live For Him In Reverent Fear, thus glorifying his name always. Amen.