It's a privilege to get to worship with you again wherever and whenever this finds you. So good evening to our Saturday night viewers, good morning to you on Sunday morning, and good afternoon or whatever time it is for those of you who have been joining us from around the world and around our country. It is a joy to get to study God's Word with you. Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter 1, verses 17 through 21. That's where we're going to be as we study 1 Peter. And while you turn there, for those of you that live in the Arizona area, you're part of our church here, you live in the valley, you no doubt are aware of the governor's recent order as we quarantine once more. I just want to encourage you. that we are under the sovereign providence of God, that there's no molecule outside of his control, and that while you might not like it or it seems appropriate to say this isn't ideal, we miss you, we're saddened, all the platitudes that we're supposed to say, we really believe those and we share those emotions as your elders and as the people who love you and serve you. But also, our call as believers is to know that God is working in the midst of any circumstance, that His purposes and ways are good, that the outcome is going to be good, and good as He defines it. And so, in the midst of all this, I want to encourage you, find a reason to praise. Find the gold that God is purifying and bringing out to the surface. I can think of one right now, and that is the way that His Word has not been stopped. So let's dig in together. Each time I preach, we go through a study in 1 Peter. We've been walking verse by verse through it, and the series is called Heading Home. Heading Home. It's an appropriate series. I thought when we started it in 2019 that it would definitely be something everybody could relate to, but now more than ever, shockingly, though not surprisingly with God, It certainly applies more than I ever thought it would. With all that is going on in our culture, we need to be reminded, as Peter's audience was reminded, that this is not our home. that we are sojourners, he calls us, aliens. Our citizenship is in heaven. We're passing through this world, and while we do, there's a way that we're called to live. There are orders that we are under from the mighty captain, our great high priest. Our king has given us orders and a way to live. And so, if you're able to, please stand wherever you are, unless you're driving and you're listening to this, in which case, stay buckled in, and let's give honor and reverence to God's word as we read these verses, pray, and jump in. Peter writes, and if you call on him as father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. Like that of a lamb without blemish or spot, he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God. Let's pray. Father, as we jump into this text, really all in to it, teach us please. guide our hearts, keep our minds free from distraction and all that is going on in this world. Please draw us closer to you. Give us an eternal perspective and an eternal hope that goes beyond the cares of this world, the noise of the culture. We are your people. We are devoted and excited to learn from your words. So Holy Spirit, do a mighty work in our hearts. Bring conviction upon us and help us to glorify Jesus, to learn and to go and live it. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Now, even as I talk about all that's going on in our culture right now, I'm sure thoughts come to mind. The thoughts of hopelessness, thoughts of despair. But why this letter is so special again is that what Peter's audience was going through is very similar to what you and I might be experiencing now or certainly will be experiencing very soon. But God has called you and I to hope in the midst of hopelessness. to look at his word and to trust his will and to have perspective in the midst of pain, if you will. And then just recently, when we studied the last passage that we dug into, we were called to holiness. Holiness in a world full of heathens, where the culture says one thing, but God's word says another. But like Peter's original audience, church, we don't take our cues from the culture. We take our cues from Christ. And right now, the wisdom of this world will tell you a lot of things. Very few fear God. Even fewer care about his word. The world's wisdom right now seeks to dismantle the nuclear family, do away with gender, do away with biblical roles for husbands and for wives. The world's wisdom right now seeks to destroy society. It's revolting against authority. It's demanding, even in some churches right now, that you repent for your skin color, that you cower in retreat, that you shelf your biblical convictions, that you bow to their barking and that you fear their fury. There is a threat right now. It's from a noisy culture that demands you live their way and you bow to their rules. But God has not called the Christian to such a life. God has called Christians to live according to the wisdom of his word. In fact, the world's wisdom, James says, is demonic. In James chapter three, verses 13 through 18. A church, we need wisdom. And why that ties in to what Peter says is he actually calls us here and now to a fear of the Lord. And if you remember from your early Awana years or maybe just studying the Bible, Proverbs 9 verse 10 says that the beginning of wisdom is what? The fear of the Lord. That's where God's word takes us today, to fear the Lord. We fear no man. We fear not culture. We fear not a government. but we fear, revere, and bring honor to our God. And so first. The what? The what is that we are to, number one in your notes, make decisions based on the fear of God. We're to make all our life's decisions based on the fear of God. Peter says, and if you call on him as father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. Now, you can underline it in your Bible, that line, if you call on him as father. This means if you consider yourself a child of God, if you have a bond with God, a relationship with Him, then the fear of the Lord must mark your life. Now, if you wanna circle the word fear, this is where we get our word phobia from. And certainly it has correlations and connotations to a striking fear, a sense of nervousness, even retreat or fright. But the way Peter is using it and the way it is often used throughout scripture is reverence, respect. to fear the Lord, is to honor Him, to revere Him above all things. In other words, if you were given a choice between pleasing man and pleasing God, you would say, how can I do anything but fear God, please God? He's it, He's bigger and better, more important to you than anything else. Now, for Peter's original audience, and as well for us today, they're told, and also indirectly now in the church, we are told to do this, to conduct ourselves with a fear and a reverence for God throughout the time of our exile. Now, before you think, well, where'd they get exiled from? Or are they displaced from their national city or their national culture? Well, there could have been some of that, but really to conduct yourself with fear throughout the time of your exile is referring to time on earth. Peter is using this term to explain once again that the Christian is in exile here on earth. Yes, some of us, we're American. Yes, you might be Canadian. Yes, you might be European. But in the end, if you are in Christ, your citizenship is truly in heaven. You are in exile here on earth. And what exactly will our Father, who we have relationship with, do when that exile is over, when your time on earth is over? Well, Peter says he's an impartial judge. He's gonna judge with impartiality. This is really important. When we're talking about making decisions based on the fear of God and how we view God, Well, we have to have an eschatological or an end times view of God. In other words, that there is gonna come a point at the end when we answer to God. You can't just live your life and think, well, we're all gonna go to heaven and nobody's gonna answer for anything. We're just living it up in grace. No, this is an excellent example of how Peter balances the character of God. Early on in chapter one, oh, he is a wonderful father who has chosen you mercifully and loved you. He's a father who has provided an irrevocable inheritance. He has blessed you and is going to bless you and nothing can steal your eternal inheritance. Yes. But he is also a righteous and impartial judge. Holy living. must be rooted in the fear of the Lord. Holy living does remember that God, in fact, is a judge. And the concept of judging really rattles people today. They get all bent out of shape because they don't like authority. They don't like accountability. But Peter wants his audience, even in the midst of persecution and challenges, much like us here today, to face the concept of judgment head on. Scripture doesn't whisper on the subject. And as a side note, for those of you who have been looky-looing in to our ministry and watching on YouTube, some 17 plus thousand of you, listen, if you ever find yourself sitting under preaching that does not teach you about the judgment of God, you are not being fed a balanced biblical diet. And look, there's nothing wrong with enjoying dessert and having the sweet stuff. We like dessert in my house, too. But if you're not getting all the food groups and all the nourishment you need, you're gonna end up malnourished. So make sure you are at a church, and if you're at our church, you hold your elders' feet to the fire on this, that we preach the whole counsel of God, including, like this passage, the literal judgment of God. There's no skirting over this. I'm not just gonna jump to the blood of Jesus and the hope of God and the hope of heaven. I must, we all must give you the full counsel of God, and that includes his judgment. There are certainly two truths that we can derive from scripture about God's impartial judgment of believers. The first is that God is not a respecter of persons, church. He's not a respecter of persons. What does that mean? It means he doesn't care about people, he doesn't respect people or love people. No, this is a phrase that is best explained in Romans 2, six and seven, and then verse 11. Let me read it to you. He will render each according to his works. To those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. That's seeking the things of God, salvation. But for those who are self-seeking, they don't obey the truth, but they obey unrighteousness. There will be wrath and fury. And then it goes on in verse 11, for God shows no partiality. This is in perfect alignment with our passage. Peter and Paul, both sharing the same clear understanding of God's impartial judgment. Now, for you Bible nerds, for a moment, impartially is a really fun word. As I was studying this in the original Greek, I came upon the word, I thought, this is really fun. It's aprasopalemtos, aprasopalemtos. Okay, and you say, well, why are you speaking Greek? Why do we need to know this? Don't bring the seminary language in here. We're normal people. I'm normal like you. So I like to look at what words mean and what they come from to get a better understanding of the meaning. So here's a fun one. The word is from prosopon, meaning countenance, okay? This is gonna help us all understand what God's impartial judgment means. And the word lumbano, meaning to receive. So this is what you get. God has no regard in his judgments for tall, short, big, small, pretty, ugly, dark, light, what you speak, deformities, infirmities, intellect, social rank. He don't care about your countenance. He ain't worried how you look. He's not regarding or receiving what you look like and then judging you based on that. Oh no, he is looking inside of you, church. He's looking at the internal, the character. That's why he's impartial. It don't matter if you're rich. It don't matter how much money you've given for your philanthropic projects. It doesn't matter if you're an outstanding worker. It doesn't matter if you always drive the speed limit. It doesn't matter if you are royalty. Even the queen herself will answer to God's impartial judgment one day. It'll be based on character. And so, we must remember God does not side with people. He sides with His word. So make your decisions, church. Live your life. based on the fear of God and the understanding of what he has said you and I must do. Number two, another thing we can understand about God's judgment is that he cares about your works. Okay, so what you do does have weight with God. Now, you're not saved by good works, but you are saved for good works. We have to remind you of that very often. In fact, we remind people of that all the time at our church because we're in an area that has a lot of different types of belief systems, including Mormonism, which hinges on works getting you to heaven. getting you in. It's by grace, but then you got to add in some works as well to really be saved. And so we always want to remind you that you are saved not by good works, but for good works. You're saved by grace and grace alone. But as far as a judgment for believers, God does care about the way you live. There's a judgment that weighs our works and our motives. In 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15, Paul explains what this judgment will look like and the criteria for it. He says, according to the grace of God given to me like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation, with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw. each one's work will become manifest, for the day, capital D, that's judgment day, will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built is on the foundation and survives, he'll receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he'll suffer loss, though he himself will be saved as only through fire. Here's the deal. We're gonna get to heaven one day, and there's gonna be a judgment of our works. Now you're saved, but there will be this moment where God weighs what you've done in his name, and he weighs the motives. And he weighs the thoughts, and he weighs the reasons. Some of us start getting really convicted right now, right? And some of it's gonna burn up in whatever fiery furnace he has, that all the works are gonna go through. I think of it like the airport, when all the things go through security, and God is looking through all of what we've done, and then something comes out, and it's a bar of gold. And you go, yes, Lord, that was for you, thank you, only you knew the depths of my heart, woo! And then the next thing goes through and it's a bunch of sawdust. You go, okay, Lord, yeah, you got me on that one. That was kind of all about me. And then all those things happen. Now you're still saved, but God is gonna weigh your works. And so while you live and while you make decisions, why not keep that in mind and realize that God cares about your decisions and what you do. Ask yourself, does this please God? Does it best reflect His will? Is this something He will bless? You see, there is such a lack of fear and such a lack of prudence in the church today when it comes to the things of God. I don't think we fear God the way that we ought to. I don't think we fear God the way that He has called us to. People, who hate authority and hate accountability, church leaders who are quick to bow and repent to the culture, but not to uphold the word of Christ. It's a lack of fear, church. Only a lack of fear could cause us to abandon the call from Christ and begin to capitulate to the culture. Only a lack of the fear of God. But not you, not me, not this church, not now. That is the call. That is why we wanna let the word of God out of its cage like a roaring lion to take hold of our hearts and transform the way we live. because we're exiles, we're aliens, we're sojourners. I've said it before in early messages, we're weirdos, okay? We're just weird and we don't care, because we are serving a higher king and a higher coming kingdom. The fear of the Lord. Many of these people out there, the world, the culture, and those that I've referred to who are bowing to the culture and not to Christ, listen, they would often, and I've been guilty of this, so many of us have, and so we're speaking from experience and weakness and in times past in the flesh as we bow to the culture. You know what the reason really is? Here it comes down to this. We prefer that our God is safe. that he's always okay with whatever decision we make, that, you know, grace covers it all. We don't want a God that is set apart because that's gonna have to mean that we're gonna be set apart, which is gonna make us weird. Now the culture won't like us, now people might leave our church, and now other friends might not like us anymore, and what happens? Well, we begin to compromise. And I'm reminded by the Chronicles of Narnia the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, C.S. Lewis's great work, where Susan and Lucy are getting ready to meet Aslan the lion, okay? And he represents Christ in this story symbolically, the big lion. And remember Mr. and Mrs. Beaver? They're having a conversation to prepare the children, Susan and Lucy, for their encounter with Aslan. Oh, says Susan, I thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion, she says. That you will, dearie, says Mrs. Beaver, and make no mistake, if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly. Then he isn't safe, said Lucy nervously. Well, safe, said Mr. Beaver. Well, don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe, but he's good. He's the king, I tell you. Church, listen, he's not safe. He's a judge. He's not fluffy, he's to be feared. He's not just someone that comes along and throws the church some suggestions. He is a king who has commanded his people follow in his ways, and we ought to do that boldly, proudly, humbly, joyfully. I know I speak on behalf of all the elders, all your pastors, John, Dale, Mike, Kyle, the whole group, when I say, Let your decisions be made through the filter of the fear of the Lord. Never fear man. from how you treat your wife or your husband, to how you wait on the Lord if you're single, to how you approach your parenting and how you plan your calendar, from where you socialize and how you socialize, to where you commit to going to church and how you work at your job. Every decision for the Christian must go through the filter of healthy fear. Fear the Lord, church. And second, Peter doesn't just tell us the what. He gives us the why. He gives us the why. We are to be, number two in your notes, motivated to fear God because of redemption. We're motivated to fear the Lord because of redemption. Look at what I mean and what God's Word is saying, knowing that you were ransomed. See, Peter's saying, fear the Lord, conduct yourself with fear, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things, such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Bottom line, Peter loves to point to redemption as the believer's motivation for serving the Lord in the midst of whatever they are going through. He's always giving them a contrast to what God has done in contrast to the circumstances they face, knowing that what is to come in Christ makes everything else seem so futile. Small, not that it's not important, not that your feelings aren't real, and not that the pain isn't real, but that all of that pales in comparison to the redemption, the glory, and the future that you have in Jesus Christ. You've been bought with an imperishable price. Reminds them of that in one verse four, one verse 23, three verse four, and of course here in verses 17 through 21. And I want you to understand a few things that are in this larger section of the text. The first is the phrase, the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ. If you want to add precious, you can. Precious blood of Christ. You can underline that or highlight it in your Bible. It's referring to the atonement. which is the idea, the concept, or the doctrine of Jesus buying believers, atoning for their sin, making things right on their behalf. Now, the atonement is that he had to die. That's what blood represents in the New Testament. It's not just that he had to bleed. Otherwise, Jesus would have just cut his finger and dripped it out a little bit on the ground, and the Father would have said, perfect. You bled, you got cut, all sin is handled. No, it was blood in death like that of a perfect, without blemish, lamb. A sacrificial lamb. The final Passover lamb, if you will. A sacrifice for all sin. Death being the way of redemption. Okay. Why is that significant? Well, it begins to breed motivation. When you realize that God's not just saying, do what I say, because I'm holy. You best be scared. He's saying, conduct yourself with fear and reverence, because I bought you. You're mine. You belong to me. Now, the full doctrinal truth here is what's called penal substitutionary atonement, just a big old scholarly church word that's really easy to understand when we define exactly what atonement is. I gave you the picture of it, the lamb being slaughtered, the blood shed in death, but this is the actual Webster-like definition, that which appeases anger and brings reconciliation with someone who has reason to be angry. See, now we're back to the righteous judge. We're back to understanding why Jesus had to die, because God's wrath had to be satisfied. See, he was an impartial judge, even to his son, putting on him the full wrath for you, for me, to take care of sin once and for all. What Adam ruined, Christ restored. The relationship broken was bonded back together because of Christ. You could have unbridled access now to your heavenly Father who loves you and who is for you because the bridge of the cross. Now, you've been ransomed from your sin, but Peter qualifies that a little bit. Look down again, he says, you're futile ways. Okay, the futile ways. It's another key phrase I want you to understand. He's specifically referring here to the traditions of men. Now, scholars have a little menu of what traditions he means. First and foremost, you've got a Jewish audience, certainly in the mix here that Peter's talking to, and they would have had traditions handed down from the Pharisees. And so they've got a little man-made doctrine. A couple things added in to what God's law actually teaches. Well, Peter says you've actually been ransomed from that, too. You're carnal, human, man-made, made-up ways of thinking. You've been rescued, ransomed, pulled out of that. But also, scholars, many agree that there's some pagan indication here. Old ways of living, wild nights. The way that the Gentiles would live, immorality. You've been ransomed from those futile ways. A small-minded thinking, not really believing or thinking with eternity or the future in mind. Now, whatever Peter is precisely trying to say, you and I can all agree that we have been rescued from our former ways. rescued from the sort of indictment that Jesus makes against the Pharisees. In Matthew 15, seven to nine, he says, you hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Church, oh, it is so easy to get sucked into two extremes and to lose the balance that God has called us to. Extreme number one, the ways of this culture that ignore the fear of God. It's easy to get sucked into that. It's easy even in the quote church world right now to get sucked into ways and traditions and vain things that have not the fear of the Lord attached to them. That's a God who's just safe. forgetting that you have been saved from all of that, that the blood covered sin and all sin once and for all, that it has been dealt with. It's easy to get sucked into the extremes of culture, thinking of redemption as a right rather than a merciful privilege, and so we start to take God for granted. You and I both know the minute you start to take something or someone for granted, you lose respect for them, you lose appreciation for them. This happens all the time in marriage, right? You begin to take your spouse for granted and you lose what? Reverence, honor, respect. what they do and say and how they think has less and less weight because you're taking them for granted. Often it can be the same way with God. And so if we've swung to that extreme, you ought to repent, turn the other way. Start going back to a deep reverent fear of the Lord where everything he says has weight and every decision you make is filtered through that healthy fear. But the other extreme is seeing God as little more than just an angry judge up in heaven, ready to drop the gavel, the angry executioner, who's ready to swing the sword and chop us up at any given moment. But he's not that either. See, the fear of the Lord is the balance to all the other attributes of God as well. All of those things are God. They are a part of God. You can't pull an attribute out He is love. He is even hate, hate of sin, hate of wickedness, hate of division, hate of compromise, hate of evil. He is mercy. He is also justice. He is wrath. He is fury. We will see that in the last day when the wicked and Lucifer himself are thrown into the lake of fire. He is a comfort. He is peace. He is joy. He is a father. He is Abba. You can cry out to him. He is near. Yes. He is also holy. He is to be respected. He is to be worshiped. He is to be the backstop, if you will, of everything you do and say in life. When you think about the decisions you make, the way you live, the way you serve, the way you give, the way you love, For church leaders, the way we lead, the way we teach, all of it must come under and look up at and to the fear of the Lord. We are not our own church. We've been bought with a price, precious blood. The blood of Jesus always holds its value. It's not like the stock market, it never takes a dip. It's not like the car you just bought that depreciates the minute you pull off the lot. It's not like the housing market that one year is up, and we're all excited, and we're gonna sell, and the next year is down, and you hunker down, refinance, and try to pay the mortgage another month. No, Jesus' blood always holds its value, which is why you can depend on his word and his ways. I don't care what the culture says. I don't care who's compromising. What does Christ call us to? It doesn't matter if this world looks like it's going to hell in a handbasket. We already know who's won the victory, amen? We already know the way the story ends. And so just like Peter's audience, we must be called back to, in the midst of a crazy heathen culture, holiness, a fear of the Lord, and the motivation to fear him because of redemption. All that he's done, his cross, his goodness, his kindness to us. the father who gave his son, whose blood paid for your sin. Let your decisions be made based on the fear of the Lord. Let it be said that our church makes its decisions and sets its course as a body based on not the fear of man, but the fear of the Lord. Let's pray. Father, I can't help but think, though we're not under the persecution of Nero, and though nobody right now in the valley or around the world just yet on a whole under command are being burned at the stake for just being a Christian, not yet everywhere, though there's persecution some places. I still can't help but think how alike we are with Peter's audience in the midst of a chaotic culture. In the midst of false teaching and compromise and all of the above, the noise is so loud. We are asking and praying that every single week and even every single day we are reminded by the preaching of your word and the powerful conviction of the Holy Spirit to what you have called us to do. That your voice through your word would be the loudest in the crowd. That our church would remain faithful. that you would call your remnant to stand firm. In Jesus' name, amen.