The great value of our..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Good evening everyone, and welcome to church. If you have your Bibles, would you please open them up to the first letter of Peter.

The first letter of Peter. This evening we are going to continue with a series that we've started almost five months ago, and that by the grace of God we can continue this evening. We have addressed the first 13 verses in the first letter of Peter, in the first chapter. And this evening, by the grace and I hope with the help of the Holy Spirit, we're going to be addressing the section that is contained from verses 14 to verse 19. And as I was thinking how much should we read in order to get the context of that which I hope by the grace of God we can see here in this portion of the scripture I was being pushed to rather just read probably a lengthy portion and in the end I decided that we should read this lengthy portion just because it will give us the immediate context of what we're going to be addressing and it's going to help me just to present the first point that I'm going to be making.

So we're going to be reading together beloved the words of God from verse 10 in chapter 1 and we are going to go all the way into chapter 2 to verse 12. And as I always say to you, let's read the Word of God with reverent hearts and paying much attention to each one of the words, reading from chapter 1, the first letter of Peter, verse 10, all the way to chapter 2, verse 12. This is the perfect, sufficient, and ever-enduring Word of God. Concerning this salvation, The prophets, who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, this is the section that we're going to be studying. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourself 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, that's Christ, 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.

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth, for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God. For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls. But the word of the Lord remains forever, and this word is the good news that was preached to you.

So put away all malice, and all deceit, and hypocrisy, and envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourself, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone, chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.

They stumble because they disobeyed the word as they were destined to. but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you have not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you, as sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your souls.

Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Amen. This is the Word of God, beloved. If we did not believe in the inspiration of Scripture, if we did not believe that what we have in our hands has been given to us by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, communicating and giving this to us by the hands of prophets and apostles, it would be very difficult for us and for me to believe that the person that we have just read was written by the apostle Peter. the Apostle Peter, who denied the Lord Jesus Christ, who was just a little bit of a coward, who was intimidated by a servant girl.

This man, the Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, is writing this section that we have just read. And I think and I would say to you that perhaps is one of the best sections of scripture that brings Old Testament realities and applies them to New Testament believers or New Testament or New Covenant people. is perhaps one of the best sections of Scripture in the New Testament that will take realities of the Old Covenant and apply them into the salvation that is given under the New Covenant and under the New Testament. The Apostle Peter is going to take us through the Old Testament and apply those things into the life of New Testament believers. You might, in verse 14, we read that he's citing or quoting the holiness code in Leviticus, and he says that we are to be holy because God is holy, and the apostle is quoting and taking that from the Old Testament and applying it to New Testament believers.

Then he's going to speak of the blood of the Lamb that is without blemish and without spot, taking realities from Exodus and Leviticus and applying it to the New Testament. Then he's going to speak of the Word of God, the ever-enduring Word of God, speaking and taking prophecies from Isaiah and applying this to the church. Then he's going to take prophecies given also by the prophet Isaiah, speaking of the cornerstone, the chosen stone, the living stone, Jesus Christ, and applying that to the New Testament church. Not only that, he's also going to speak that we are a royal priesthood, a chosen race, a holy nation, terms that were given to Old Testament people in Israel, and now the Apostle, in a beautiful, exegetical job, he's applying that to New Testament believers. He concludes that section, taking a passage from Hosea 2.

23, and then he says that we were not God's people, but now we are God's people. We love it. the apostle set the foundation of what he's doing now in verses 10 through 12 he said that concerning this salvation that we have in Jesus Christ concerning this salvation in verse 10 he says that the prophets of the old testament prophesied and they inquired and searched carefully trying to know who and when this person was going to come the messiah this is the prophets of the old testament And now what the Apostle is doing is displaying this hermeneutical basis and explaining to us how those prophets of the Old Testament spoke, not only of the Messiah that was going to come, but also of the salvation that he was bringing to his people, to those who by grace through faith would be saved. Now, beloved, even though I'm tempted to continue speaking about the beauty of the work of the Apostle Peter and how he takes these Old Testament realities and applies them into the New Testament, our concern is not the method used by the Apostle, but rather the truth that the Apostle brings to us in this section of Scripture. What we are going to be addressing is found in verse 14 to verse 19, and I'm going to call your attention again to those verses because I want you to see how the apostle speaks to us New Testament believers, and then we will see what is the truth that is contained there.

He says in verse 14, us obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourself 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. In the Greek, this corresponds to a section of thought. In the original language, this corresponds to a section of thought that communicates to us truths that the Apostle is trying to bring from the Old Testament into the New Testament.

Beloved, and now, keep your minds with me, please, here. If I had to summarize this, which I'm going to try to communicate to you from scripture, if I had to summarize it as I usually do with a simple sentence that will set the framework of what we're going to study here, I will give you something like this. That we ought to live our lives as children of God, knowing the value of our salvation. We ought to live our lives as the children of God, knowing the value of our salvation. And if I could divide the passage that we have in two different sections, verses 14 to 17 will tell us those things that we should live like in our Christian life as children of God.

And then in verses 18 to 19, it is the foundation for that living. So, beloved, stay with me. how we ought to live our lives as children of God, knowing the value of our salvation. And the key and very important word of this is this word, knowing, which I'm taking from verse 18. Verse 18 says, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.

So I'm saying to you that as children of God, we ought to live our lives knowing the value of our salvation. And when I say knowing, I mean what the Greek says here by knowing. It's not only an intellectual knowing, but it's an observing, it's a seeing, it's an apprehending that is not only in the mind, but it goes deep into the soul of the person who knows. So if I want to live my life as a children of God, and knowing the value of my salvation defines how I live my life as a children of God, or as a child of God, then I need to invest all my efforts in knowing more about this salvation. Now, beloved, I'm not saying here that we should know about our salvation.

I'm not saying that we should know intellectually about this message of salvation, about Jesus Christ coming as the second person of the Trinity and taking on our flesh and living a perfect life and going to the cross and dying upon the cross, taking our sins, receiving the wrath of God, and then resurrecting and sitting at the right hand of the Father. I'm not talking about knowing only about that message. Because that message was prophesied by the prophets of the Old Testament. But what the Apostle says is that we need to know not only about that salvation, beloved, but we need to know about the value of that salvation. Knowing the value of that salvation is beyond of knowing about the message of salvation of Jesus Christ.

And I'm going to submit to you, beloved, that the reason why we as children of God do not live our lives as we owe to according to what is written is because we do not have a biblical understanding of the value of the salvation that Jesus Christ has given us. When we struggle as children of God, when we struggle as the people of God in living up to what Scripture says that we can and we should live, we don't do it because we do not understand the depths and the fullness of the value of our salvation in Jesus Christ, beloved. And this is not only individually, but it's also corporately. the contemporary church is in the state that it is because the church is directing the eyes to something of greater value and they do not understand the value of the glorious salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. But as human beings, beloved, we are driven to live our lives by that which offers us more value.

We make choices that are based on our assessment of what is more valuable for us or for our families or for those who are valuable to us. When we are put before a situation and we have one option and another option, naturally we tend to choose that which is more valuable for us. And I'm saying to you, beloved, that because we do not understand the depths not only of the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ, but because we do not comprehend and meditate and give ourselves entirely to study and to meditate and to apprehend, to observe, to turn our eyes to the value of our salvation. Then we end up choosing other things that in our blind eyes may have a greater value than our salvation when they do not. That's why churches, that's why the contemporary church is turning her eyes to things that they believe have a value.

But the Bible says that Christ is sufficient, that what he accomplished on the cross is sufficient for everything that we need. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. And this is everything that the churches need. This is everything that we need. This is what empowers the message to extend the kingdom and to edify the church.

So beloved, the apostle is going to here present to us a perspective of the value of our salvation from three different angles. And I want us to see here together from verse 14 to verse 19. The apostle is going to communicate to us the value of this salvation from three different perspectives. One, he's going to show us what we have been saved or rescued or ransomed or redeemed from. He's going to point us to the reality of where we have been taken from or rescued out of.

This is one. And if I can show you kind of like a picture, he's taking us or he's going to show us where we have been rescued from. Then he's going to tell us what we have been rescued or ransomed with And after that, he's going to show us or point us to that which we have been saved or ransomed or rescued unto. That which we have been saved from, that which we have been saved with, and that which we have been saved unto. Beloved, these three different things are going to show us the depths and the beauty of the value of the salvation that we have.

in the person of Jesus Christ. I don't know about you, but I see my life, and when I conform myself to that which is written, I see huge gaps, and I want to be conformed to that which is written. And when I self-examine myself, I see that there are things that I prefer, that I tend to do in my life, because in my sinful nature, I think that those things have a greater value for my life. But if my eyes are open to the beauty of Christ, then those things of the world and those things of the flesh go down or are reduced in value, beloved. And this is something that we cannot accomplish in our own strength or with our intellect.

The beauty and the light of Christ has to be open to our eyes, so that which is valuable in the world will become of no value for us. that can be accomplished only through the power of the Holy Spirit, illuminating Jesus Christ and Him crucified to our eyes through that which is written. Now, beloved, I could spend a lot of time speaking to you about the value of our salvation and many things that the New Testament speaks about the value of our salvation, but it is my duty and it's my responsibility not only before you, but ultimately before God, to preach to you that which is contained in the text that I'm saying that I'm preaching. This is the power that is contained in the Word of God. So let's see what the Apostle Peter says in these verses here of those three things.

The things that we have been saved from, that which we have been saved with, and the things that we have been saved unto. Now, the answer to what we have been saved from, he's going to give us to us in verse 18. He says, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. Is that how you pronounce in Australian, futile? knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers."

The Apostle says that we have been ransomed, that we have been redeemed, beloved, that we have been saved, and I'm going to be using those words interchangeably, ransomed, redeemed, or saved from the futile ways inherited from our forefathers and as you read the text initially that would seem that this is speaking of traditions or behaviors of our forefathers and actually the word in the greek means that it means behaviors it means vain conversations the king james will say or empty behaviors that we have been rescued or ransomed from the futile ways of our forefathers. That will mean that it seems that he's speaking about external manifestations of our behavior. But I'm going to submit to you that these things which we have inherited from our forefathers are not necessarily external, but they are rooted internally. In verse 14, the Apostle says something very important. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.

Before we arrived to Jesus Christ by grace through faith, we were children of disobedience. And as children of disobedience, we had passions inside of us that were dominating and that were ruling our behavior. outside of the person of Jesus Christ. But beloved, I want you to notice what the Apostle does here, because we have this dualistic sonship that is going through the letter. He's speaking as obedient children of God, and then in verse 17 he says, if you call him as father, and now in verse 18, when he's speaking of our previous state, he says that we have inherited these futile ways from our forefathers.

Beloved, I'm going to submit to you that the New Testament teaches that that from which we have been rescued or saved or ransomed from, as the Apostle Peter says here, the futile ways inherited from our forefathers are those passions that then the Apostle Peter will say in chapter 2, these passions that make war inside of us, that when we were outside of Jesus Christ, defined entirely our nature, we were not rescued, beloved, from a set of morals into a better set of morals. We were not rescued from a type of life into a better type of life. We were not rescued from a way of doing things into a better way of doing things. But rather, we were saved from a sinful nature to a new creation. We were saved from the nature that we inherited from our forefathers into a nature that was accomplished by the blood of Jesus Christ, and now the Spirit of God dwells in us.

Beloved, we were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were walking according to the power of this world. We were children of wrath. We were children of disobedience. But now the Apostle calls us children of obedience.

Go to Ephesians chapter 2, and I'm going to show you that because I just quoted, but I prefer that you see it from the authority of the Scripture. Go to Ephesians chapter 2. Here the apostle Paul is going to give us more insight into that which we have been saved from. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1 to 3. Now beloved, pay attention to this because we will not understand Beloved, we will not understand the value of our salvation if we do not know that which we have been saved or rescued from.

The apostle Paul says, and you were dead. You were dead. And if you are not in Christ, if you are within the sound of my voice, and if you are not in Christ, you are dead. The apostle says, you were dead in the trespasses and sins. in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, that is Satan, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

So those who are not in Christ are sons of disobedience. Peter is calling us, those who are the church, as obedient children. Then he says in verse 3, Among whom we old ones lived in the passions of our flesh, beloved, these futile ways that we inherited from our fathers, that Peter has in his section, as these passions of the flesh that were within us before we were saved by grace through faith, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. We were by nature, and then you're reading this from the words of God. We were by nature children of wrath.

And then he says, like the rest of mankind. Those who are not in Jesus Christ are children of wrath, sons of disobedience. They are dead in their trespasses and sins. And the apostle is saying that we were those people. that we were rescued, that we were saved from the futile ways that were inherited from our forefathers.

Beloved, if we do not see the depths of the unrighteousness and unholiness of the nature that we had before, we will not only not value the new nature that we have, But we will still remain with intentions of holding as something of value the things of our previous passions. Our previous passions will still have power in us just because we do not understand the wickedness, the unrighteousness, and the unholiness of that which we were rescued from. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. This is, beloved, what we have been rescued from. But as I said, it's not only that, he's also going to point us to that which we have been saved or rescued or ransomed with.

And then he says also in verse 18, 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. Now, beloved, as I started with the message, I said to you that this is perhaps one of the best applications of Old Testament realities into New Testament life of the Church and salvation of the Church. What should come into your mind when the Apostle says that we have been ransomed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and then he says that Jesus Christ is a lamb without blemish and without spot. The things that should come into your mind are those things of the book of Exodus and Leviticus. the Lamb of the Passover, or the sacrificial system, or the sacrificial priesthood, in which the priest will make an atoning sacrifice on behalf of the people, and on his behalf, he will slaughter the Lamb as an atoning sacrifice under the Old Covenant.

And yes, this is what the Apostle is doing. He's bringing these realities of the Old Testament and he's applying that to Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the one who was prophesied by the prophets of the Old Testament and announced and preached by New Testament preachers the sufferings of Christ as the Lamb of God without blemish and without spot. He's doing that. But beloved, The Apostle is doing also something very interesting here. We cannot perceive it because of the English.

But beloved, what he's doing in the Greek is amazing. He's using two very important words that I'm going to point to here. He's using two words to communicate or to bring the attention of the Gentiles. Because remember, This letter is written to the churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. These are churches, Gentile churches, that had Jews and Gentiles.

Many of the Jews, when the Apostle is using all of these quotations from the Old Testament, all of these truths will be clear in their minds. But not many of the Gentiles. So he's using here, with the Greek, something of the Roman culture to speak and to communicate the beauty of being ransomed. Now, the two words that I'm going to bring your attention to are ransomed, and the other one is precious, or redeemed and precious. These two words that we find here in the text, 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 Jesus Christ, Exactly these two words were used in the Roman Empire to speak of the redemption of slaves.

So, the story goes like this. If you were a slave under the Roman Empire, and then you had a master, and you wanted to be free from your slavery, then the master will define a price, or the same word that is used here for precious, he will define a price for you. Then the slave will save and collect money as much as he could, and when he collected all the money of the prize that the master had defined for the slave, he will take this money to a temple of a god or a goddess. He will give this money to the priest of this temple, and then the priest will take a portion for himself, and then the priest will take the rest of the money and bring it to the master, and this will be the price by which the slave was rescued. So, the slave will be free from the dominion of the master, who is a human being, and then he will be transferred into the dominion of the god or the goddess.

So in society, this person would have been ransomed or rescued by the prize that he collected and gave to the priest and gave to the temple and rescued himself. Now, Peter is using these two words, and then we can confirm that he's actually doing this, because if you go to chapter 2 in verse 16, he's going to bring this same reality again for the Gentiles. In chapter 2, verse 16, he says, live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God, or living as doulos of God, or living as slaves of God. So beloved, what the apostle is doing here is something beautiful and very profound. The slaves will have to collect their own means to pay the price of their ransom and they will take this money to a temple so the priest will take this money and pay for the master so the slave will be free.

The slave will be free from the relationship with the master but he will become a slave of this god who is dead and has no power. The Apostle is saying that we were slaves of unrighteousness, that we were slaves of our previous nature, that we were slaves of Satan, that we were children of wrath, that we were children of disobedience, and that we have been rescued, beloved. not with a prize that we have collected with our own effort, not with a prize that we have given to some God who is not alive, but rather, the God of the universe made himself one of us, died upon the cross, and with his blood, he paid the price of a ransom. We have been rescued from darkness, from sin, from corruption, into life with the blood of Jesus Christ, beloved. The price of our salvation the price of our redemption is the precious blood of Jesus Christ and the apostle gives three characteristics to that blood he says that it's precious and he says that it's imperishable why because he compares it with gold or silver that are perishable so the blood of Jesus Christ it is an imperishable blood but not only that beloved he says that this blood This lamb, the blood of the lamb is without blemish or without spot.

It is a pure lamb. Hebrews should come into your mind, beloved. Because under the Old Covenant, the blood of goats and bulls would purify the things of the temple under the Old Covenant. But the author of Hebrews says, how much more the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, without blemish, without spot, that was delivered, that He gave Himself through the eternal Spirit, how much more that blood of Jesus Christ will not purify or sanctify our bad works or dead works and make us servants of the living God. If the blood of animals under the Old Testament will sanctify and purify the utensils and the things of the temple, how much more the blood of the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity who made himself one of us, dying upon the cross, how much more that precious eternal blood will not produce in us purity, and sanctification.

So the value of our salvation, beloved, is not only that from which we have been saved from, and not only that which we have been saved with, which is the blood of Jesus Christ, God himself, but because Christ is pure, eternal, and majestic, The means of our salvation produced in us something that is completely contrary to that which we were. We were dead in our trespasses, now we are alive in Jesus Christ. We were under the power of Satan, now we are under the power of God. We were in darkness, now we walk in light. because the blood of Jesus Christ.

If you do not understand that, then you will not understand what the Apostle says, that you should be holy as God is holy. We cannot be holy in and of ourselves, but we have been given the power of the new life through the power of the Holy Spirit to live lives that correspond to our new status. So it is not only the value of our salvations in that which we have been saved from and that which we have been saved with, but brothers and sisters and friends, that which we have been saved unto. The apostle is going to say two things here. In verse 14, he says, us obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as the one who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy.

And now I want you to pay attention to what a puzzle does, because then we have been saved, beloved, through the blood of Jesus Christ unto holiness. This is what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 1, that we were chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless. That the purpose of the election and the choosing and the salvation of the individual is the same purpose of choosing and election of the church. That the church has been also chosen by the giving up of Jesus Christ to be without sprinkle, without wrinkle, and without blemish. So we have been saved unto holiness, beloved.

But this is something that we cannot produce in and of ourselves. So the apostle says, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but be holy. So that means that the concept of holiness of the Apostle Peter in this text is not to be conformed to the passions that we still have inside of us, because there is a remnant of sin. So actively and positively put, we are to conform are being to what God is. And it's very interesting because here the Apostle is going to use exactly the same Greek construction that the Apostle Paul will use in Romans 12.

So go to Romans 12 and I'll show you what I mean. If you go to Romans 12 in verse 1, If you go to Romans 12 in verse 1, the Apostle Paul is going to say something very important using the same Greek construction that the Apostle Peter is using there. I appeal to you therefore, in verse 1 and verse 2, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, To present, and you have to see the similar language, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Now he says, do not, exactly the same words, do not be conformed to this world. The apostle Peter says, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but be transformed.

That is, be conformed to this other thing. Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. that by testing you might discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. The Apostle is saying, do not be conformed to the passions that still make war in you, but rather be conformed to God himself, because now you have the power to renew yourself into the conformity of Jesus Christ. This is the purpose of our choosing of our salvation, beloved.

that we will become like the firstborn among many brothers, Jesus Christ. This is the purpose of our choosing, of our justification, of our calling, of our glory, to be conformed to the image of the person of Jesus Christ. And to be conformed to His image is to be Holy is to walk in holiness, but he's not only going to leave us with a commandment to being holy beloved He's also give us another encouragement and I call it encouragement. It's funny verse 17 He says and if you call on him father the one who judges everyone Rightly according to their deeds then walk throughout the time of your exile with fear He says beloved that we are not only that we are not only to be holy because He is holy, that we are not only to be conformed to the character of God Himself, but because we have been removed from the domain of darkness and Satan through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have been saved not only unto holiness, but also the ability to live our lives in fear of God. And then, this is a very difficult statement, right?

that we are to live our lives in fear of God. How are we going to understand that we are supposed to live our lives in fear? Beloved, the reason why this word fear causes this little thing inside of our stomachs and inside of our minds is because we have fear of people who have performed their authority in a wicked and sinful way. The only thing that I can do is just to give you an example, beloved. When you have a father who is morally and emotionally inconsistent, and when a son or when a daughter come to him and then he reacts or she reacts emotionally with outbursts of anger, sometimes good and sometimes bad, this child will not know what to expect of this father, of this mother.

So they will have a sinful fear. They will not know how to approach this father. They will not know how to approach this mother. Or when you have a boss or an employer who is emotionally unstable, who is morally unstable, and then they react with anger and with screaming and all of these things. you will have a fear that it is not founded in respect or in love, but rather in their inconsistencies of their morality and the inconsistencies of their emotions.

But God is not like this. God is Mighty, powerful, sovereign, but it's also loving and just. So he says that we are to walk in fear through the time of our lives because he's a judge that gives to each one according to their deeds. And we can have absolute certainty that the judgment and the justice of God is always going to be perfect. Even if we receive from him that which we don't really want, It's always according to the perfection of His character.

We can rest entirely in the loving and perfect character of God. So this fear that Peter speaks here is a reverent fear. It's a fear that is filled with reverence of knowing that the Creator of our world is not only our Father but is also the judge of everything that we do and everything that we say and everything that we live in our lives, beloved. the value of our salvation, it is founded in that which we have been saved from, our unrighteous and unholy nature. We have been saved with the blood of Jesus Christ.

This is the price that has been paid for our souls. And because this blood is powerful to purify us, we have the ability in our new nature, in this new life, to walk in holiness and with reverent fear. But as I said in the beginning, beloved, We are not going to live our lives as children of God if we do not know the value of this salvation. And I said to you, not only knowing about this salvation, not only knowing as this abstract message, but knowing the value of the price that was paid for our souls. Beloved, if we were given a clear glimpse of what happened at the cross on that day, we would live lives that are very different to the lives that we live.

If we had a deeper, a greater insight into what happened at the cross and the price that was paid for our souls, we would think twice before opening our mouth to lie. Or we would think twice before opening our mouth to say something that is not true. to touch something that has not to be touched, or to go to a place that we should not go, because we will have always this ongoing awareness and presence of the value of what Jesus Christ did upon the cross. Beloved, if the Church of Jesus Christ spend more time and effort in knowing the value of our salvation, We will not go to programs and to events and to things to make the church grow, but we will go to Jesus Christ. He died upon the cross.

He gave his life for the church, and he's the one that is going to build up the church. If we would understand the value of this salvation, beloved, we will understand that the temporary things are of no value compared to this, which is the salvation of our souls. What does it matter if we don't have as much money as we would like to have? What does it matter if we don't have the job that we would like to have? What does it matter if we don't have the house that we would like to have?

If you have been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, you have the most precious gift that a soul can receive. You have been united to Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity. And this, beloved, is the most valuable thing. There is no greater thing than being united to the God of this universe, the one who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them. My words are not sufficient and the limitation of my ideas are not sufficient, beloved, to convey the depths and the beauties of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Beloved, we have not been saved from a different type of life into a better type of life. We are alive in Christ. We are united to Christ and united to Christ. We are to live our lives, beloved. But there is a reason.

There is a reason why Peter spends this time doing all of these things. And the reason, I think, is found in verse 11 in chapter two. And let's just finish with that. Pay attention to what Apostle says in chapter 2 in verse 11. He says, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

He's not speaking of a past reality. He's not speaking about these passions of the flesh as something that was left entirely in the past, that we have been made perfect now by the blood of Jesus Christ. We will be perfect when glory arrives, but there is still a war within us with the passions of our flesh. And he says, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul, beloved. Beloved, you spend a lot of time doing things that are of value to you.

And I have to ask you this question with authority that is found in Scripture. If you should live your life as children of God, knowing the value of your salvation, how much effort are you putting into seeing the value of the salvation that has been given to you? If someone puts a camera into your life and sees you seven days and every second of your life, what would that person say? What would that person say whether you belong to this place or to this other place? Beloved, We cannot win this war against the passions of our flesh with our principles, with our morality, with our strength, with our power.

We don't have it. We are weak. We can only be empowered by the same power that saved us, and that's the message of the gospel applied to our souls by the Holy Spirit, making Jesus Christ more clear to our souls, so that when we see Him, We despise that which is wicked and that which is unrighteous. When we see the beauty of Christ, we despise that which is not of Christ, not only individually, beloved, but corporately. that when people come through that door, they might not see people that love one another only, but that they might see people who love one another because Christ redeemed them, has saved them, and they are united in Christ Jesus.

We cannot do this in ourselves. May the Lord give us grace, and may he help us.