Series: 1 Peter
Title: Forasmuch as Ye Know
Text: 1 Peter 1: 17-23
Date: February 20, 2011
Place: SGBC, New Jersey
1 Peter 1: 17: And if ye 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:
The evil which a child of God fears is dishonoring our heavenly Father. This fear is not torment. It the fear of a new heart. This fear has in it purity of faith and hope, and joy. It makes the believer to distrust self and to put all our confidence in the Father, clinging to him for safe refuge. We pass through this life in reverence to our constant need of our Father’s keeping power.
Notice: “who judgeth according to every man’s work”—not works. When the Lord Jesus was asked, “What shall we do that we might work the works of God?” His answer was singular instead of plural, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.”
It is the heart of faith—believing on the Son of God--which makes the believers works a sweet smell, “well-pleasing unto God.” Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
1 Peter 1: 18: Forasmuch 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; 19: But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21: 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.
Divisions: 1: What does it mean to be redeemed? 2: With what is the believer NOT redeemed 3: With what IS the believer redeemed?
I. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE REDEEMED?
A. Redeemed means: to be set free by the payment of a ransom price.
1. It implies bondage, captivity, slavery. Every saved sinner is first born into slavery to sin. The Apostle Paul says this of believers “ye were the servants of sin,” (Romans 6: 17)-slaves of sin. Peter says, “the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.” (2 Peter 2: 19).
Illustration: Egyptian bondage. Exodus 1: 13-14: And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.
2. Sin has dominion over the sinner.
· By the transgression of Adam all men became slaves to the guilt and power of sin
· The natural heart is in chains of darkness
· The natural will is in bondage to sin
· There is no way a sinner can redeem himself from the power and dominion of sin
· A price had to be paid—the wages of sin is death
· The captive has to be set free—liberated by a redeemer!
II. WITH WHAT IS THE BELIEVER NOT REDEEMED? (v18)
Peter said before in verse: 14: As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:…(now in v18 Peter gives an example of that former lust in ignorance):…Forasmuch 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;
A. When is a religious work a corrupt thing, lusts of the flesh, ignorance? When is a tradition a vain tradition? When it does not wholly shut us up to rest in the finished work of Christ Jesus.
1. This tradition was a corruption of the word of God. (Ex 30: 12-16).
It was a memorial--to put them in mind that they were sinners in bondage—a ransom price was paid for them, accepted of God by atonement, in a typical sense, made for them; it was an acknowledging that God had redeemed them from slavery. (Sockets, rings)
Illustration: War memorials—remind us of the price that soldiers paid to give us liberty—does building a memorial give us liberty—it only serves to remind us.
2. Yet, we see the corruption of man by nature--vain tradition corrupts the word of God which declares God’s redemption by Christ.
· The moral law was given to give a “knowledge of sin”—“that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God” (Romans 3: 19-20). To change the use of it, is to vainly corrupt its purpose.
· The ceremonial law—the blood of bulls and goats—was to foreshadow Christ our Redeemer who obtained eternal redemption for his people with his own blood—to require a believer to observe ceremonial law now that Christ has come is to change its purpose
· Circumcision—was given to show the work of the Spirit in heart--“But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” (Ro 2:29 AV)—to teach the letter of the law for acceptance with God is to corrupt it.
· Gospel graces—church attendance, prayer, giving, any work whereby we may help to further the cause of Christ, obedience—these are things not to be forced but done from a willing heart made new by the Spirit of God.
3. When does a precept of God become a corrupt precept of men? Or when is a precept of man taught as though it were a commandment of God? When it is used to do anything other than teach us that salvation is of the LORD! Peter is motivating us by that which is true. Our motive is because of how we have been redeemed.
III. SO WITH WHAT IS THE BELIEVER REDEEMED?
1 Peter 1: 19: But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
A. CHRIST alone is the Lamb without blemish and without spot—the perfect nature as a man, perfect obedience
B. Christ is the Lamb who is God himself, provided by God himself
1 Peter 20: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21: Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory;
A. There has never been a moment in time when the purpose of eternity has not been in progress.
1. Christ was chosen of God—entered into covenant to perform this work of redemption--before he founded the world
2. He became the near kinsmen when God gave him the children he chose in Christ-
3. Christ knew who he came to redeem
B. Everything written in the law and the prophets was to declare Christ our Redeemer
· This is that grace the prophets enquired and searched diligently
· That grace the angels desire to look into
C. Then Christ was manifest in these last times for you who by him do believe on Christ—
· He fulfilled the law in precept and penatlty—
· He was condemned—now there is no condemnation for those who in Christ Jesus
· He was made a curse—now there is no curse for those whom he Redeemed
· He suffered the wrath of God-now there is no wrath for those born of his Spirit
· Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every that believes
D. BY HIM WE BELIEVE
Hawker” “We were not only justly exposed by nature, and by practice, to the wrath and displeasure of Almighty God, but our whole nature was under the dominion and influence of sin; and none short of Christ could buy us out. The Son of God, therefore, by price and by power accomplished both those purposes of salvation; and not only delivered us from the wrath to come, but brought us into the privileges of a purchased inheritance. Yea, he induced in us a new nature, in taking away the natural enmity of our hearts, and making us "willing in the day of his power."
Romans 6: 18: Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness….servants to God…servants of Christ…
To you who believe he is precious…Precious because by his blood:
· Satisfaction has been made to God for us--we are justified by his blood
· His blood has sanctified us-purged our conscious through the Holy Spirits application
· His blood continually “cleanseth us from all sin”
· His blood preserves us—“when I see the blood I will pass over you”
· His blood pleades for us in heaven—“it speaks better things than that of Abel”
· His blood gives us entrance with liberty into God’s presence—“brought nigh by the blood of Christ”
· His blood assures us—“this is the new testament in my blood”
· His blood is our peace with God—“having made peace through the blood of his cross’
· His blood invigorates us—“my blood is drink indeed”
· His blood makes us to overcome—“they overcame by the blood of the Lamb”
· But Peter sums it all up in this last phrase in v21:
1 Peter 1: 21:…that your faith and hope might be in God.
Not in our works, but faith and hope in God.
· Romans 3: 19: Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: {in an unregenerate, natural state}
· Galatians 3:23: But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed….
· Galatians 4:4-10
· Galatians 5: 1-6…18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
Illustration: Father to the son--“What have you cost me?”
Application: Is God your Father? Do you see what it cost him to receive you as his son? It cost him his only begotten Son! Pass the time of your sojourning here in reverence to your Father. As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the lusts of our flesh in ignorance. 1 Peter 1: 22: Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: 23: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.