SOJOURNERS IN AWE

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on October 17, 2018 under AM Bible Study |

AM Bible Study Group: October 17, 2018 from 1 Peter 1:17-21

Theme: We should spend our earthly life in a sense of reverential awe—knowing what was done to bring about our future glory.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

I used to have a copy in my possession of Amazing Fantasy #15. A comic book. Big deal, you may be thinking. Well; it certainly was to me.

While I was still in high school, I had bought a copy of this comic from a used bookstore in downtown Seattle for a friend. I paid $55 for it; because it was a collectors item at the time—and my friend was, like me, a budding comic book collector. It was worth a little bit more than your average ‘silver age’ comic magazine in 1974 because it featured the first appearance of a character that had been growing significantly in popularity: Spider-Man. For a number of reasons, though, I had to sell it back to the bookstore at a 50% loss. Oh well … lesson learned.

Now; why am I telling you this? It’s to illustrate something that any true ‘collector’ knows: The relative value of a thing—anything; even a comic book—is measured by what someone with competence is willing to pay to have possession of it. And a mint condition copy of that comic that I had bought for $55 and sold back for $27.50 was sold two and a half years ago in a Dallas convention for $5.7 million. (Somehow, just saying, ‘Oh well … lesson learned’ doesn’t seem sufficient.)

Even though it wouldn’t have looked like much to you, you would still have been a bit awestruck if you held a copy of that rare comic book in your hand—just knowing that someone would be willing to pay that much to have it today. This is true of a mere comic book—destined to fall apart and go to dust. But consider what the apostle Peter tells us about those of us who are in Christ by faith. He wrote in 1 Peter 1:17-21;

And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God (1 Peter 1:17-21).

What an enormous price it was that was paid for us! Our redemption price has no earthly measure! If it’s true that the value of a thing is measured by what a competent buyer is willing to pay to have possession of it, then we really should be walking through life with a sense of reverential awe! Just think of what unspeakably great value we are to our heavenly Father!

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This passage is part of a very practical section of Peter’s letter. He had written to his suffering brothers and sisters about the greatness of the future glory to which God has destined them in Christ (vv. 3-12). And in our last time together, we explored how we are to ‘gird up our minds’ and ‘rest our hope’ fully on this future glory (vv. 13-16).

Peter takes this a step further and teaches us that, as we think of the price that was paid for us …

1. WE SHOULD SPEND OUR TIME ON EARTH IN REVERENTIAL AWE (v. 17).

In verse 17, he writes, “And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear …”

Note that he uses the word that is translated “fear”. Peter does not mean, however, that we should walk around with a negative sense of dread—that is, with a kind of apprehension of something terrible about to come. The word is intended to speak to us of a sense of ‘awe’ and ‘reverence’. Psalm 130:3-4 speaks of it this way when it says;

If You, Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with You,
That You may be feared (Psalm 130:3-4);

… that is, that we ‘fear’ (or ‘have reverential awe toward’) Him not because of impending punishment, but because we have been forgiven and completely delivered from it. Similarly, Proverbs 1:7 says “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge”; again, not a negative ‘dread’ of the Lord, but rather a reverential awe of Him. And that’s how we should walk through this world—conducting ourselves throughout our time of stay here on earth—awaiting that promised future glory that God has prepared us for. We should spend our time on earth in a state of holy awe.

Peter says that we are to live this way if we ‘call on the Father’. In the original language, the article “the” is not present; emphasizing the fatherly character of our God. To call Him ‘Father’ in that way assumes that we are now His children. But note also that we’re told that He is the one who righteously judges each one according to their works. This means that the same one who is the Judge of all the earth is also our loving Father! He remains who He is in His majestic holiness, but we have a relationship with Him in which we do not fear ultimate judgment from Him. As Jesus Himself said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life” (John 5:24).

This means that we are to live holy in our daily walk before our Father because we have been made holy in His sight in the righteous Judge. This should greatly motivate us to spend our time on earth in reverential fear.

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But there’s more. Peter urges us to do this because of what we “know”. In verse 18, Peter uses the word, “knowing”; or as it is in the New International Version, “For you know that …” Peter puts this in the perfect tense; suggesting its a settled and firm knowledge of something already accomplished.

As Peter goes on to tell us …

2. OUR SENSE OF AWE COMES FROM KNOWING HOW IT WAS THAT GOD— THE RIGHTEOUS JUDGE—BROUGHT ABOUT OUR REDEMPTION (vv. 18-21).

Peter shows us four things in this passage that we should know. First, he tells us that we should know that our redemption was purchased at an immeasurably high price. In verses 18-19, he writes, “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” To “redeem” means to buy something out of a situation or from the possession of someone else. We often use the word “ransom” to describe this kind of price of redemption.

If the true value of a thing is measured by what someone with competence is willing to pay to possess it, then consider the value God has placed on us! He has redeemed us from the lost condition that we inherited from our ancestors (that is from our first fallen father Adam, and from the sinful inclinations we learned and inherited from those who came before us); and He did this not with silver and gold (which are the most precious things we can imagine on earth), but at the price of the precious blood of His own Son Jesus. Jesus is presented to us as “a lamb without blemish and without spot”; which speaks of the Passover lamb that was commanded to be sacrificed for the people of Israel. Our Savior is that Lamb—without sin or fault—whose blood was shed for our sin. We should walk around with a sense of awe—knowing what was paid for our salvation! How valuable and precious we are to the Father!

Second, Peter would have us know that the price of our redemption was settled before time. Peter goes on to say of Jesus, “He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you …” (v. 20). It wasn’t as if God the Father had looked upon the sin of Adam, was somehow caught off guard by it all, and had to hurriedly devise a plan for our redemption. As Peter makes very clear, the price of our Savior’s blood for our redemption was ‘foreordained’, and was a settled matter in the purpose of God before creation—before the worlds ever were. We may have a hard time sorting this out theologically, but we shouldn’t let it take our eyes off the main point. Not only was a high price paid for our salvation; but it was something that God had purposed to pay for us before Adam ever sinned—indeed before the worlds ever were! This speaks of an eternal plan that God had for us; that was “manifest in these last times” through the fulfillment of these things in the earthly ministry of Jesus—and now preached to us through the gospel.

You and I ought to live our time on earth with a sense of great reverential awe! We are redeemed by the blood of Jesus—paid for at the highest cost the universe has ever seen—settled in value in the heart of God before the world ever began! We are truly products of God’s plan for the ages! We are very significant! We matter greatly!

Thirdly, we should walk through life with a sense of awe knowing that our redemption is confirmed and guaranteed by the resurrection. Peter goes on in verse 21 to speak of us as redeemed by the blood of Jesus, “who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory …” The resurrection of Jesus three days after His death on the cross, and His glorification unto the right hand of the Father, are historic events that serve as the objective guarantee that you and I will be—likewise—raised from the dead and glorified!

Our future glorification is a marvelous thing to think about. But it’s not a case of fantastically over-inflated ‘positive thinking’. We should carry ourselves through daily life with a reverent sense of awe over the fact of our future destiny—a fact confirmed to us by the resurrection of Jesus; who was “delivered up because of our sins, and was raised because of our justification” (Romans 4:25). We should even go through trials and difficulties with a sense of awe; knowing that, as Paul told us, “the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). That glory is absolutely assured to us by Jesus’ resurrection. What an awesome destiny it is that has been guaranteed to us!

And notice carefully that Peter said that it is through Jesus that we “believe in God”. Not even our faith in Jesus, by which we take hold of God’s redemption, is a work of our own doing; but Jesus Himself is truly the author and finisher of our faith. This leads us to the fourth thing that Peter would want us to know; that this redemption is all accomplished for us by God alone. As Peter puts it, God raised Jesus from the dead and gave Him glory—assuring us that we will be raised from the dead also and given His glory—“so that your faith and hope are in God.”

We have a part to play in it all, of course. But we only have a part to play because the Father first graciously gives us the faith to believe. Even that faith itself is the gift of God’s grace to us (Ephesians 2:8). This means that we should walk through life in a state of holy awe; because we absolutely cannot be lost to Him in Christ! The work of our redemption and the glory to follow do not—ultimately—depend upon us. Our faith (that is the beginning of our part) and our hope (that is the glory that is the outcome of that faith) is all “in God”.

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So; what we need, dear brothers and sisters, is to know—truly know—the greatness of our Father’s redemptive work toward us; and to respond to it all with a sense of reverential awe in every detail of daily living. How truly valuable we are to the Father! How truly great are “the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18)! Who on earth could ever measure our value to Him?—except to say that He paid the price of His own Son for us!

If we will let this truth sink deeply into our hears, then we will view ourselves—and conduct ourselves throughout our time of stay here on earth—with a sense of reverential “fear”; rejoicing greatly in our salvation through the cross.

May we do so; and grow continually to be sojourners together in awe!

EA