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[0:00] Now again for a little this evening let us turn to 1st Peter and chapter 1. 1st Peter chapter 1 and we've reached in our studies chapter 1 we've reached verse 17 of the chapter and we may take this evening verses 17 to 21 which while it's a sizable chunk of the passage yet it is very much tied together so that we can try and take out at least the prominent features of it. Now let's read verses 17 to 21 together.

[0:40] And if you call on the Father who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you who by him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory that your faith and hope might be in God.

[1:32] Now Peter as we saw in our last study is setting out motives for a correct or acceptable Christian life. And while he is speaking here in these verses preeminently or especially about the death of Christ, he is still setting out for us certain motives to a proper way of life.

[1:59] We saw in the last study that he set out that great motive of the holiness of God himself as that which was to direct our holy living.

[2:12] And this evening we're going to look at two other motives or features that he sets out for us by way of motivating us into a proper Christian conduct.

[2:24] He's going to set out for us firstly the motive of the judgment of God and then secondly he's going to set out for us the motive of the cost of our redemption.

[2:38] Probably the greatest motive of all in setting out what we were redeemed with. So we can look at three things rising out of these two motives.

[2:51] We can look at fear. We can look at freedom. And we can look at faith. Fear, freedom and faith.

[3:06] He says in verse 17, If you call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.

[3:21] We're looking at fear. We're looking at fear in respect to what Peter calls this judgment according to every man's work by the Father.

[3:37] But you'll notice how he begins it. He says, If you call on the Father, who without respect of persons judges according to every man's work. And really what he's saying to us is, Since it is the case that the person that you call Father is the very God who judges without respect of persons, then it follows that your way of life is to be characterized by fear.

[4:08] Since it is the case that the God that you call Father, he says, is the same God that judges without respect of persons, that is how he is saying to us, we must move in fear.

[4:23] And it is that particular point that he's drawing to our attention. The point that puts across to us the fact that while he is the one we call the Father, our Father, he is as such also the just judge.

[4:42] And because he is the judge, who judges in this particular way, we are to move with fear. Now let's look at what he adds to our calling upon God as the Father.

[4:58] He says that he judges first of all, without respect of persons. And what these words are literally is, if we can translate them really literally, he's saying, Who doesn't regard a man's face in his judging?

[5:21] You see, when we are forming an assessment of somebody, when we are actually trying to reach some conclusion about any particular individual, or even about ourselves, but especially about some other individual, we are liable to be swayed by the kind of expression that they might have on their face.

[5:42] Our particular assessment or conclusion might be something in which we are swayed. We would not deal equitously with such a person. A smile or a frown will make all the difference.

[5:56] We will not reach the proper conclusion. But what Peter is saying is, God is the judge. While he is the one we call Father, he is the judge, who judges without looking at a man's face.

[6:16] He judges with the utmost, with the strictest equity. He judges with his own standards.

[6:27] He cannot be swayed. He cannot be brined. Nothing can be hidden from him in such a way as will sway or change or affect his judgment.

[6:41] And Peter is saying, Yes, you're calling him as a father. You are addressing him as father, and that's a privilege. You are his children. But you are also addressing the one who is the just judge, who judges without looking at any man's face.

[7:01] And because that is the case, he says, as those who are sojourning, with already their strangers scattered, they're not at home in this world, and therefore they have to spend their time in the fear of God.

[7:19] But then he's saying something else to us. Not only is it without respect of persons, but it's according to every man's work, and it's also that he is judging, not that he will judge.

[7:35] We have to do justice to the tense of what he is saying to us there, that this God that we call father is the one who is judging, and who is judging now without looking at a man's face.

[7:53] That doesn't mean there's no day of judgment. That doesn't mean that there is no final, and that there is no judgment on one particular day of reckoning.

[8:04] That day is facing us all, as Paul says. We must all appear, apostle, preacher, and people, whatever we are, before the judgment seat of Christ.

[8:15] Why? That we may all receive the things done in this body, whether it be good or bad. We will be judged according to our individual works.

[8:29] But he's saying to us now, while that is the case, he is now judging. In other words, he's drawing our minds to something which we, ourselves, and we're speaking personally, so sadly, leave out of the reckoning in our living, the fact that God is looking into our hearts every single moment we live.

[8:55] isn't that something that our whole generation, we're not speaking about it, those who are living without God, but the generation in which we live, even in which we ourselves live as Christians, is it not something that we've largely lost sight of, or at least lost a sense of, so that we are not living in the kind of fear that ought to be ours, that God is looking at us every moment, that we are under the omniscient, unfailing, equitous gaze of God.

[9:31] Certainly we are to see him as a father. That is our immense privilege as the children of God, but that in no way disqualifies the justice, the strictness, the ongoing, the presentness of his assessment of you and of me.

[9:55] Since you sat here and since I stood here, since we came here this evening, he has been assessing what's in our minds, what's in our hearts, what our motives are and coming here and being here, what thoughts have gone through our minds, what is at the bottom of our hearts, all of these things are being turned over by this God that we have to deal with.

[10:21] And the more we reckon with that, the more we will have fear in our hearts. The more we see one single sin remaining in our lives, the more we will know that God is making an assessment of us as those who are sinners.

[10:40] Yes, he does forgive completely when he forgives and justifies. But then there is remnant sin, there is remaining sin, there is that to be dealt with in our lives where we sin against God each day we live.

[10:57] There is a daily repentance, there is a daily seeking of forgiveness, and there is a fear over every sin. In other words, he's telling us that we must never use the word Father in a way that would lose sight of the just judgment of God.

[11:23] Indeed, it is peculiar to his father, every next, that he is jealous over his children. And we must never imagine that because we are the children of God, we can relax, that we can use the name of God as a father to cover us from a strict way of life, from our fashioning of ourselves according to God's standard.

[11:47] That is not the case. Seeing the one that you're calling Father is the one who is judging without respect of persons past the time of your sojourning here in fear.

[12:04] As another divine once put it, I may not sin because my father is the just judge, but for my frailties I will hope for mercy because the just judge is my father.

[12:26] He's bringing the two together and we must ever hold them in balance together to know the fatherliness of God and our privileges as children, but never to let that be a way of escape for us from the implications of his constant and ongoing and perfect judgment.

[12:49] past the time of your sojourning here in fear, in the fear of this God, the judge and father.

[13:04] But he's secondly telling us something to do with freedom. For as much, he says, as you know that you are not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

[13:30] And it's significant that he says, for as much as you know. Because what he's telling us there is if we do not live in the way that he's setting out for us, if we do not realize all the implications of all that he has said up to this point, then we're going against what we do know.

[13:52] He is saying to them, for as much as you know these things, for as much as you have a knowledge that this is the case, so that every time we are not living according to this way of life, we are going directly against what we do know and what we do know of these precious things.

[14:13] And he's saying, what is it that you know? Well, he says, you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things.

[14:25] And when we come to this word, redeemed, we come, of course, to one of the great words of the whole Bible, one of the great New Testament words taking us back also into the Old Testament, redemption, to be redeemed.

[14:40] redeemed. And redeemed means not just to be released, but it has at its very center the fact that it is a life that was forfeit that has been released, a life that was under penalty, that was under judgment, a life that was forfeit that could not have been released in any other way, but in a way that included a ransom.

[15:14] We find in the Old Testament the release of slaves whose lives were forfeit. They were released on the occasion of a particular ransom.

[15:28] A specific sum of money was paid to secure their release. And when we bring that into the spiritual realm and into the New Testament especially, we find that when we speak about redemption and being redeemed by Christ, it includes, as we say, the release from penalty, a life that is forfeit is now free, but it is freed by a ransom.

[15:55] It includes all that the Lord himself declares when he's walking through this world regarding the Son of Man. Why has he come?

[16:07] well, in Mark 10, 45, he tells us, he has come not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to minister in such a way as to give his life a ransom for many.

[16:28] The ransom secures the redemption. redemption. The redemption cannot be but by the ransom. And what Peter is saying is here, here is the cost of your redemption, here is the nature of your ransom, and here in that cost and in that ransom and in that redemption is the motive, is the motive of Christian living, for as much as you know that it was not with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ.

[17:07] But you notice he saying that they were redeemed from something. And the Bible tells us in other places that redemption is redemption from certain things and to something else.

[17:22] You remember Paul when he said to the Ephesians in chapter 1 that you were redeemed from your sins. You remember again in Galatians how Paul again says that he has redeemed us from the curse of the law.

[17:39] The redemption that Christ has secured, this great feature of the atonement is something that has taken us out from these things. But Peter is saying to us something rather unique.

[17:53] He's saying you were redeemed from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers. He's really almost generalizing the whole thing and he's saying you were redeemed from something handed down to you from your fathers.

[18:15] And he is saying to them now you're under fatherly direction. You're under the direction of God. You are the children of God. But there was once an occasion and a case where you were under another fatherly direction.

[18:32] Where you were living according to the life handed down to you received by tradition from your fathers. And that word conversation is the same word as in verse 15 which we saw to refer to a total conduct.

[18:47] what he's really saying to us here is that the way of life that characterized them and out of which they were redeemed is a futile.

[18:58] That's the meaning of this word vain. This vain way of life. A futile way of life. A futile overall conduct that was passed down to them from their father.

[19:11] He's picking up their pagan background and he's saying to them this is how you once lived. This is what you were before your redemption. This is what Christ redeemed you from.

[19:23] This is what the cost of your redemption was towards. It was from this futile way of life.

[19:36] And friends what is a way of life without Christ? However near we are to the kingdom of God however promising our lives are.

[19:49] We already saw that they were characterized by being without hope. When we spoke about the hope that is a living hope that these people have and here Peter would have to say to us that the way of life without Christ however near to Christ we may be if we're not in Christ our lives are futile and it's futile that means there is no purpose there is no direction to our lives without Christ we are going in one direction surely but it's not the right one.

[20:23] It's a futile and empty way of life a life characterized by being without hope and without purpose.

[20:34] But he's saying you were redeemed from that and there's a lesson for us in that that however much in our background we have association with godliness we can never rest on that.

[20:54] However much we know of godly parents or relatives we cannot rest with that. However much we know of any association with an eminent saint of god we cannot rest with that because for all of us there is a futile way of life handed down from our fathers out of which we must be redeemed.

[21:19] You remember when Jesus in John chapter 8 is discoursing with the Jews you remember what they are laying all their hopes on. We have Abraham to our father.

[21:32] we are the children of Abraham we were never in bondage to any man. What do you mean you shall be made free?

[21:44] And Jesus says if you were children of Abraham you would do the works of Abraham. And they go on to say we have only one father we have God as our father.

[21:56] but Jesus goes on to say to them also if God were your father you would love me. He has agreed in that.

[22:09] You are of your father the devil. And you see the solemnity in that friends. That there were a people who because they had some connection some natural connection to the figure of Abraham were basing all their hopes on that.

[22:30] Peter is saying you must be redeemed from that. Peter is saying there is nothing whatsoever in being associated with anybody famous, with a famous preacher, with a famous saint, whatever it is, whatever association it is, it's for ourselves and for ourselves personally.

[22:48] We have to be redeemed personally. We have to be redeemed from the way of life we have coming into this world. But he says, for as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things.

[23:05] Now he's saying to us, things like silver and gold, these were not the things that took you out of that futile way of life. Silver and gold, some of the most precious commodities that man possesses.

[23:22] but where does their value lie and in relation to what does their value lie? Well, it's relative, isn't it? It lies in the relation to other things like themselves.

[23:35] Silver is valuable in relation to copper or to wood or to stone. But where does true value really rest?

[23:47] value. Well, true value, friends, is something that has eternal dimensions. If we're going to really value this particular redemption that he is speaking of, we cannot value it in monetary or in human terms.

[24:09] It is something that is eternal in its dimensions. if we're going to value it, if we're going to really come to an assessment of it, then we have to measure it in its eternal extent, in the way that it's a blood that is poured out before God, in the way that it's a blood which secures redemption.

[24:30] that's where its value lies. It's not like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ that you are redeemed.

[24:44] And he tells us three things about that blood that we must notice just briefly. He tells us that the blood of Christ is a precious blood or a valuable blood.

[24:57] He tells us then that it is a sacrificial blood, it's a blood of a lamb without blemish. And then he tells us it's a pure blood, without blemish and without spot.

[25:12] Let's look at them briefly just in turn. He is saying to us first of all that this blood of Christ is precious or valuable. Now we all know of the kind of statements that we hear of over certain paintings or certain things that are said to be valuable and there are even some things that are said to be priceless.

[25:38] They cannot actually be valued at all. Their price goes beyond what we can actually speak of them. But again the relative as we said there is only one thing that is priceless.

[25:58] There is only one thing that is priceless. It is the blood of Jesus Christ. Because he says that is what you were redeemed with.

[26:13] With the valuable blood of Christ. When we're talking about pricelessness make sure that it's in these terms we are talking that we're talking of pricelessness in respect to the cost of our redemption.

[26:29] You were not redeemed with things that men call priceless. You were redeemed with the valuable blood of Christ. You were redeemed with what is truly priceless.

[26:40] What can never be valued. What can never be estimated in its value with the precious blood of Christ. And it's a sacrificial blood.

[26:53] It's the blood of the Lamb of God. The Lamb that brings together every other Lamb that is spoken of by way of promise and by way of the shadows of the Old Testament.

[27:08] Here indeed is the promise to Abraham brought to its fulfillment gloriously. You remember that he said to his son my son God will for himself provide a lamb.

[27:21] Oh well here he is. Here is the Lamb of God that bears away the sin of the world. You were redeemed with precious blood.

[27:34] You were redeemed with sacrificial blood. Because it is not just a blood that is poured out as something valuable. It's a blood that is poured out as an offering.

[27:46] that is poured out as a sacrifice to God. He offered himself to God. That's what it took. That's what it cost.

[27:58] the ransom is the sacrifice. The cost is the sacrifice.

[28:08] The sacrifice is the cost. Whichever way we come to it, it's all brought together in the cost of our redemption in the blood of Christ.

[28:20] It's as of a lamb. it is something where he gives himself to God. He is the prophet, he is the priest, he is the offering, he is everything.

[28:37] And it's in that everything that we find the cost of our redemption. And remember Peter is setting it before us so that it will move us to a proper way of life.

[28:53] So that it will be brought into every area of our living. So that it will be before our minds whatever providence we're facing. This is what Peter is saying.

[29:04] You know that it was not with corruptible things. You know that it was with precious valuable blood. That it was with this sacrifice. that you were redeemed.

[29:18] But he also says without blemish, without spot. As he goes on to say later in the next verse he was foreordained before the foundation of the world.

[29:31] The lamb for the sacrifices in the Old Testament had to be without blemish, without spot. Christ is set apart from all eternity.

[29:43] the eternal Son of God foreordained to this work as the spotless Son of God. But glory be to God he remains spotless.

[29:57] He remains spotless in bringing your nature and my nature to himself. The word became flesh but he remains immaculate.

[30:08] there is no ceasing to the spotlessness or the purity when he takes human nature to himself. It's human nature, complete human nature, but it's endless.

[30:22] It's without blemish and without spot. And as he stands against all the assaults that are made upon them, as he stands before the rudeness of Herod and his henchmen, as he stands clothed in the purple robe, as he endures the contradiction of sinners against himself, he endures spotlessly.

[30:46] And as he hangs on the cross at Calvary, he hangs spotlessly. That is the glory of the atonement, that there is an enduring of sin bearing efficaciously, effectively, successfully, but spotless.

[31:05] that the Son of God came so near to sin as was possible to come without being sinful.

[31:16] And it is the glory of his capacity of bearing sin sinlessly that is the heart of the cost of our redemption.

[31:30] flesh, the precious blood of the Lamb of God, without blemish, without spot.

[31:44] He is looked at by God the Father as an accursed thing. In bearing the sin of his people, he is put outside.

[31:55] he is enveloped in darkness. But in the middle of it all, he remains unspotted.

[32:09] We cannot bring these things together sufficiently, but friends, we have to hold on to them. we have to see that we were redeemed with no less than the precious blood, than the sacrificial blood, than the pure blood of Jesus Christ.

[32:32] And the more we hold on to it, the more we will live an acceptable life before God. Are we then going to go against it?

[32:44] Are we going to live in such a way that goes against the very design of this particular atonement that Christ made? When we know that the design of that is to make us holy, is that we be holy, is that we live in a particular way of life, are we going to say that we're going against all that we know in that?

[33:10] It is indeed the cost of our redemption, a cost that sets before us the implications for our living.

[33:23] As another put it, a cross, a Christless cross, my refuge cannot be. A crossless Christ, my Savior may not be.

[33:37] but all Christ crucified, I will rest in thee. Fear, freedom, finally, their faith.

[33:56] He was, he says, manifest in these last times for you, setting out again the privilege of those who lived in the days of fulfillment. But he goes on to say, who by him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory that your faith and hope might be in God.

[34:17] Now let's understand that particular point that he's making there at the end of the verse. Let's take all that we can take into our minds of the immensity of the atonement, of the cost of our redemption.

[34:32] Let's take all that we can take with us of that into our minds and ask the question, why? Well, it doesn't even finish at propitiation or at redemption or at reconciliation or at satisfaction.

[34:51] Where does it finish then? Well, it finishes in that so that your faith and hope might be in God.

[35:05] That is why the cost is the way it is. That is why the death of Christ is the kind of death that it is. That is why all that we have said concerning it and there's so much more.

[35:20] That is why it is presented here by Peter. It is all that in order that your faith and hope might be in God. What is faith?

[35:36] Well, it's the work, of course, of the Spirit of God. He works faith in us in applying the redemption purchased by Christ, as the Catechism puts it, by working faith in us, thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.

[35:55] But what is at the center of faith? faith. What, perhaps, is it that we do not give the emphasis we should do is in faith?

[36:07] Well, it is truly the element of trust. Faith is not just giving your mind as an ascent to something.

[36:18] Faith is truly a leaning of your whole self upon something or someone that you can depend on. And what you know, as Peter says, you know these things, what you know when you look at the cost of your redemption is the dependableness of God.

[36:40] Because there is the God who gave his Son, and there is the God who raised up the Son from the dead, the dependable, so that you, faith, and hope might be in God.

[36:57] When you look at that empty tomb, what is it that you see? Well, you see an acceptance of Christ's atonement.

[37:10] We saw already that his death is related to his resurrection. His death makes way for the resurrection. His resurrection vindicates his death.

[37:23] He didn't die in vain, in other words. What we're saying is that this God who raised him from the dead is saying by raising him from the dead, he has not died in vain.

[37:38] You remember when he said on the cross, it is finished. Well, when you and I look at that empty tomb, we can say speaking with respect, that we can write over it.

[37:51] It has been accepted. It is finished on the cross. It has been accepted. It is the testimony of the resurrection.

[38:04] It is a perfect adornment. And it is in that God that you, he says, believe.

[38:15] The God who raised him from the dead. That's what we saw Abraham had at the center of his faith. Who against hope believed in hope.

[38:28] Notice how he's bringing the two things together, faith and hope. Because Abraham was one who looked at his own deadness and the deadness of his wife.

[38:39] But he was strong in faith giving glory to God because he knew that that deadness was no barrier to the God who brings life out of the dead.

[38:53] And it's in that God that your faith and my faith must rest. The God who shows his dependability in giving his son and in raising his son so that your faith and hope might be in God.

[39:12] It is on that that the free offer of the gospel is made. It is on that foundation and that foundation alone that is why we can speak with certainty because the words of scripture themselves say believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved because there is the cost of redemption.

[39:39] There is the dependability of God. There is the foundation you can lean on that you can lean on tonight and for time and for eternity.

[39:50] There is the ocean out onto which you can launch your soul the precious blood of Christ. Christ.

[40:02] In as much as you know that God is Father and Judge pass the time here with fear and as much as you know the cost of your redemption be it a holy life be it a life that conforms to God's own holiness for you are not redeemed with corruptible things but with the precious blood of Christ so that your faith and your hope might be in this God.

[40:40] Let's pray. O Lord we pray that as we come from this particular study of thy word as we know ourselves to be so limited in our grasp of those matters that belong to our eternal security nevertheless we pray that thou would impress our souls and minds with that cost of our redemption but also with its effectiveness that we may realize that there is no part of us that thou hast left out of thine atonement that there is no part of our need that has not been met in the precious blood.

[41:30] We bless thee O Lord for all of the heart for the beauty of a savior crucified but now risen and the one who ever offers to us the saving benefits of his blood.

[41:47] Lord thou grant that we may continue to grow in knowledge of all that thou art in thine atoning worth and that we may value thee with these eternal dimensions so that we will truly say to our soul O do thou bless God the Lord and forgetful do not be of all his gracious benefits he hath bestowed on thee part us now with thy blessing and grant us all O Lord an acceptance of our persons and worship for thy great name's sake Amen Let us conclude from Psalm 16 Psalm number 16 and we'll sing verses 8 to 11 the final four stanzas to the tune Wiltshire before me still the

[42:48] Lord I set sith it is so that he doth ever stand at my right hand I shall not move be because of this my heart is glad and joy shall be expressed even by my glory and my flesh and confidence shall rest these verses in conclusion give us to you well hear систем of his son need to hear and Les prays in Hel t incar The fire of heaven I shall look to the king The fire of heaven

[43:51]  I shall look to the king And joy shall be filled In night I go And I shall look to the king And I shall look to the king Because my soul is made And I shall look to the king And I shall look to the king And I shall look to the king