1 Peter 1:13-25 – Redeemed
Our Bible reading this morning is from 1 Peter chapter 1 and reading verses 13-25. But the reading begins with the word, "therefore." In other words, what Peter is saying to us in these verses follows on from what he has been saying in the first half of the chapter. So before I read these verses I want to summarise what has preceded them.
After his opening greeting, Peter bursts into a hymn of praise. He praises God for the living hope that we have as believers because of Jesus' resurrection from the dead; our faith and hope rests in him and he is our living Lord. He has saved us and will bring us share in his glory when he returns.
In the light of this Peter writes:
13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’
17 Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For 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 ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For,
‘All people are like grass,
and
all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
25 but the word of the Lord endures for ever.’
And this is the word that was preached to you.
Prayer that the living and enduring word of God may speak into our lives…
It is my normal practice when preaching at a Thursday communion service to try to preach on one of the Scripture passages set in the Lectionary. I had planned to preach on Jeremiah 17:5-10 and had in fact written out a sermon on that passage. But on Sunday I changed my mind.
On Sunday mornings leading up to Easter, the church is focussing on the meaning of the cross and has chosen four themes based on a phrase from the lovely hymn, Praise my soul the King of heaven. Those themes are, Ransomed, Healed, Restored, Forgiven and on Sunday Dan was preaching on the theme of what it means to be ransomed, or redeemed. It was a wonderful sermon and it convinced me that I should focus on the same theme this morning.
Dan reminded us that the word 'redeemed' is taken from the slave market. A person could be redeemed from slavery through the payment of a purchase price and would then belong to a new owner. The Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed us through the cross, through his shed bleed; we are no longer slaves to sin but are children of God. We belong to Jesus Christ and are called to follow him. The grace of God that has appeared in Jesus calls us to live "self-controlled, upright and godly lives." He has redeemed us that he might "purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."
That's just a summary of Dan's moving and challenging sermon from Sunday morning that was humorously and helpfully illustrated. If you were not there, I would encourage you, if you are able, to listen to it or watch it on YouTube.
So this morning, I want us to look again at this lovely theme of our redemption from these verses in 1 Peter and to look at it under four headings, four 'C's:
1. The Cost of our redemption
2. The Comfort of knowing we are redeemed
3. The Consummation of our redemption
4. The Consequence of our redemption.
Dan told us that when he was a child he took his sister's favourite doll and hid it from her. He said that she would only get it back if she bought him a giant gobstopper from the local sweetshop. What would you pay to get back something that was lost to you?
In verses 18-20 of the passage we read Peter says:
For 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 ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
Peter reminds us of the immense price that has been paid for our redemption – far exceeding the value of even a mountain of silver and gold. Our redemption was purchased though the precious shed blood of Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
The writer of the letter to the Hebrews urges us to fix our eyes on Jesus,
the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus viewed the prospect of the cross with horror; he knew what it would mean for him to bear our sins in his body at the cross and to endure the judgment our sins deserved. Hanging on the cross he felt as if he, the Son of God, had been abandoned by his heavenly Father. Yet here, in the letter to the Hebrews we read that it was "for the joy that was set before him [that] he endured the cross, scorning its shame". He paid this awful price for the joy of bringing us to glory.
The writer of the letter to the Hebrews encourages us to "fix our eyes on Jesus", to "consider him". And this is what we do as we come in a few moments to this communion table. Do not let this ever become mere habit or routine as you come to take the bread and wine. Realise afresh the immense cost of your redemption. His body was broken for you. His blood was shed for you.
There is an extraordinary phrase in Acts chapter 20. Paul is on his way to Jerusalem where he fears he may face imprisonment or even death. He is only able to have a brief meeting with elders from the church at Ephesus as the ship on which Paul is travelling docks for a while in Miletus. Paul encourages these elders to take great care of every one of the Christians in the church at Ephesus. He says to them:
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. (Acts 20:28)
Do you hear what Paul is saying? The church of God – and that means each one of you along with every Christian believer around the world – are a people whom God has purchased with his own blood. You have been purchased, redeemed, with the blood of God! This is the immense price that has been paid for your redemption.
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Never cease to be amazed at the love, goodness and grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Liz and I lived in America for a school year in 1977/8. I was a student at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There was a lovely family over there who took us into their home and who looked after. In return, Liz helped out in the home and we both tried to help their four children with some of their lessons.
The family attended a Christian Reformed Church, a church of Dutch settler origins. The children were asked by their church to learn the Heidelberg Catechism and I was roped in to help them by asking the catechism's questions and seeing whether they had learnt the answers. I had not previously come across this catechism but I instantly fell in love with its first question and answer.
The first question is, What is your only comfort in life and in death?
And the answer that the children were to learn was this:
[My only comfort in life and in death is] that I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Saviour, Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.
Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
As Dan reminded us on Sunday, the language of redemption is language taken from the slave market. Christ, who paid to set us free from slavery to sin and death has bought us for himself. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, "You are not your own; you were bought at a price." A bad master would make the life of his slave or servant a misery; when we were slaves of sin we were earning for ourselves a wage of death. But a loving and gracious master would make the life of his servant a joy – providing for them and caring for them.
Christ our Lord has purchased us to be his own and, as the catechism reminds us, he watches over us with tender loving care that not only extends to all the days of our life but which will extend into eternity.
This is our comfort in life and in death – we are redeemed, bought with a great price, we are Christ's treasured possession.
We have noticed that Christ has redeemed us at great cost that we might be his for all eternity. What is the goal of our redemption? What is the hope that is ours as a redeemed people?
Notice what Peter says in the verses we read:
Verse 13, "with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming."
Peter does not say that our hope is that at death we will be taken to be with Christ in heaven. Our hope is far bigger than that. It is the hope of Christ's return in glory when he will transform this broken and sinful world to be again the world that God created it to be – a world made new, suffused with his glory. And in that day we shall be made fully like him, possessing a resurrection body like his glorious resurrection body, no longer subject to decay and death. And we shall be like him in that we will in that day be freed of every last vestige of sin; we shall be holy as he is holy.
And this also will be all of grace – grace brought to us when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.
We are redeemed, but in that day, all of creation shall be redeemed and made new. As Paul puts it in Romans 8:21 –
the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
This is our hope, a hope shared by the very fabric of creation (Romans 8:20).
What an amazing hope we have as Christians. It's not 'me-centred' hope – that all will be well for me. It’s a hope of cosmic proportions. Christ's death upon the cross is God's judgment on a world marked by death. Christ's resurrection from the dead is the firstfruits and promise of the new creation. This is our hope.
But what of our lives right now as redeemed men and women?
The Heidelberg Catechism puts it well:
Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
Peter puts it rather more bluntly:
As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’ (1 Peter 1:14-16)
But it little later he highlights one particular behaviour that will show that we are a redeemed people. He writes in verse 22:
Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.
We are to be holy as God is holy, and in particular we are to be like Christ who loved us and gave himself for us; we are to love one another deeply, sincerely, from the heart. It is by this that others will know that we are followers of Christ – that we are his redeemed people, his purchased possession. It is through such love for others that we show the world something of the character of our Saviour.
The Cost of our redemption: we have been redeemed with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Comfort of knowing we are redeemed: we are not our own, we were bought with a price. We belong to our faithful Saviour who has made us his own, cares for us deeply and will never let us go.
The Consummation of our redemption: our sure and certain hope is that we shall be made perfectly like him when he returns and will reign with him in the glory of the new creation.
The Consequence of our redemption: that we reflect the character of the one who loved us and gave himself for us by loving one another and showing his love to a dying world.
Peter Misselbrook
Christ Church Downend, 29/2/2024