“A Reverent Fear” 1 Peter 1.17-21, Easter 3A, April ‘20

1.                Please pray with me.  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer.  Amen.  The message from God’s Word this 3^rd Sunday of Easter is taken from 1 Peter 1:17-21.  It’s entitled, “A Reverent Fear,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                St. Peter writes in our Epistle today that “silver or gold” can’t buy the most important commodity in life and that the price is more than we can pay.  Listen again to what he says from 1 Peter 1:17-21, “¹⁷And 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, ¹⁸knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, ¹⁹but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. ²⁰He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for your sake, ²¹who 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.”

3.                Having urged us to keep our heavenly inheritance as the highest priority in life, the Apostle Peter would have us live our lives in reverent fear.  The Greek word for fear here is phobos.  There are many kinds of fear.  Fear of punishment is maybe the most frequent. The child who misbehaves and the thief who steals are descendants of a man who said to his Maker, “I was afraid because I was naked.”  Fear of injury or of death in an accident is also high on the list. Jesus rebuked his disciples for their lack of faith when they cried out, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” as a storm engulfed their boat (Mt 8:25).  Fear of the unknown frequently surfaced at the appearance of angels: to Zechariah (Lk 1:11–13); to shepherds (Lk 2:10); to the women at the empty tomb (Mt 28:5); and certainly to the soldiers on Easter morning—“The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became as dead men” (Mt 28:4). 

4.                In spite of this, there’s a “good” fear that Peter calls “reverent fear.” It’s not the fear of a slave, but a fear or deep respect born out of love toward our heavenly Father. Because he has blessed us with undeserved gifts, we want to please him by keeping his commandments (Jn 14:15; 1 Thess 4:3).  Our Lutheran Confessions help us to understand this reverent fear by distinguishing between filial fear and servile fear: “Filial fear can be clearly defined as an anxiety joined with faith, where faith consoles and sustains the anxious heart, whereas in servile fear faith does not sustain the anxious heart” (Ap XII, 38). “‘The regenerated do good works’ . . . not from a fear of punishment, like a slave, but out of a love of righteousness, like a child (Rom 8:15)” (FC Ep IV, 11–12). See also FC SD VI, 15–16; An Explanation of the Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1991) 58.

5.                Loving God and living in reverent fear means that we conduct ourselves as “aliens and strangers in the world” (2:11), for we are a “people belonging to God” (2:9–10). As such we don’t become attached to “earthly things” (Col 3:2).  C. S. Lewis in his Mere Christianity gives us this proverb, “Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity [New York: Macmillan, 1943] 118).

6.                A reverent fear is an ongoing rejection of “the cravings of sinful man, the lust of the eyes and the boasting of what he has and does” (1 Jn 2:16). Why do Christians so often live unsanctified lives? Because we don’t think. 1 Peter 1:17-21 helps us to get our thinking straight, to see things as they really are. He’s so intense that this whole paragraph in the original Greek pours out all as one sentence. Think! Remember to whom you’re praying—to your Father! You are connected to him now, and everything you do reflects on his reputation. Remember that he judges each one’s work—God cares not only about how we talk but also about what we do with our lives. Respectful, God-fearing children know that the word Father isn’t just a magic word to be invoked—it’s a sacred relationship that calls us to a new way of thinking and living. In John chapter 8, Jesus rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for their complacency—they called on the Father, but they weren’t of the Father because their deeds were evil. They weren’t listening to God’s Word, and their true father was really the devil.

7.                St. Peter reminds us that, “You were redeemed.”  Not with silver or gold, which were commonly used to buy slaves. Joseph was sold to Midianite merchants for 20 shekels of silver (Gen 37:28). Judas sells vital information leading to the capture of Jesus for 30 silver coins (Mt 26:15). The guards at the tomb on Easter are paid a large sum of silver money if they say that the disciples came during the night and stole Jesus’ body (Mt 28:12–13):  Not with the empty way of life. Peter is writing to converts who have come out of heathenism. This way of life they inherited from their forefathers. It’s “empty” because it’s unfulfilling—an existence that offers no true satisfaction or joy. A similar lifestyle is practiced by those who have a “form of godliness” (2 Tim 3:5), an outward expression of religion and religious activity that’s not Christ-centered nor biblically oriented. While such persons know that God exists, they don’t give him glory (Rom. 1:21).  Here’s one example of this.  A soap manufacturer said to a minister one day, “What good is all the work the church does? After the thousands of sermons that have been preached and all the hours spent in Bible study for two thousand years people still lie and cheat, fight and kill.” The minister said nothing for a while as they walked together. Soon they saw some children playing in the mud. Then the minister said, “What good is all the soap that you make? You say that it makes people clean but look at those kids. Soap has been around for thousands of years, and those children are still filthy.”  “Oh,” the soap maker responded, “soap does no good until people use it.” What’s true about soap is true about Jesus.

8.                The precious blood of Christ makes us free. In March 1960, the little town of Agidir, Morocco, Africa, was reduced to rubble by an earthquake. At the time, Lt. Gerald Martin was stationed there accompanied by his wife, Sue. While he wasn’t harmed, his wife simply couldn’t be found. Several days of fruitless searching ended when the military people were told to leave the area as a second earthquake was likely to occur. Lt. Martin stayed on. After another day he found Sue, still alive, buried under six feet of debris.  What do you think he did? Scold her for coming there in the first place? Offer advice to her so that she might free herself? Pass down a survival kit? Cheer her up and console her with comforting words? Of course not. He got busy, and with his two hands dug away the rubble until she was free.

9.                So, God dealt with us. Advice or a “do-it-yourself” salvation kit would do no good. Cheerful words of encouragement couldn’t help us. Rather, through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ, God set aside the rubble of sin to rescue us. Slaves to sin, we were ransomed from its guilt, burden, and fearful consequence: Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. . . . If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (Jn 8:34, 36)

10.             What we’re going through in this Covid-19 pandemic is enough to put the fear of God into you and give you a reverent fear.  And, that’s a good thing.  Because God is always inviting us to, fear, love, and trust in Him along above all things.  Fear and love find their common ground in trust.  We have a God who has entered our frail human flesh to sacrifice His life on the cross so that we might live.  This Jesus our Lord and Savior now invites our trust.  Before he emerged in risen glory Jesus first endured the cross and grave for you.  We confess, “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.  He descended into hell.”  Jesus knows exactly what he’s talking about as he stills our human fears and calms our anxious hearts.  God certainly has caught our attention in this national emergency.  And, that’s a good thing.  God is inviting us to leave our fears behind and trust in Him alone.  That’s the only true antidote to anxiety and fear.

11.             As you live your lives, remember what it cost God to make you his own—the precious blood of Christ. The Father is that serious about claiming you! The Son is that serious about rescuing you! The sacrificial lambs of the Old Testament ceremonial laws had to be outwardly perfect, without defect or blemish (Exodus 12:5). They symbolized the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. On the cross, outwardly, Jesus didn’t look too good—as Isaiah said prophetically, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him (53:2)”—but his was an inward perfection, without defect or blemish of sin (Hebrews 7:26). The blood of Jesus Christ has done what no other religion or philosophy in human history could do—remove sinful guilt from human beings and put in its place God’s own righteousness, and all this as God’s gift, received by faith. The Father showed that he accepted the Son’s sacrificial gift by raising him from the dead and glorifying him at his right hand. This is our faith; this is our hope.  Amen.  Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.  Amen.

“A Living Hope” 1 Peter. 1.3-9, Easter 2A April ‘20

1.         Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  The message from God’s Word this Second Sunday of Easter is taken from 1 Peter 1:3-9, it’s entitled, “A Living Hope,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.         Milton Carpenter, former treasurer of the state of Missouri, had this advice for retired people: (1) have someone to love; (2) keep busy; and (3) have something to look forward to. These apply not just to senior citizens but to young and old alike. “Everything that is done in this world,” says the Great Reformer Martin Luther, “is done by hope” (Table Talk). Now in the spring of the year, in the midst of our Covid-19 Pandemic, school children and teens look forward to Summer plans and warmer weather. People suffering from cabin fever, because of the cold weather or from our current Stay at Home Order during this pandemic, are anxious to get out. Those with green thumbs page through seed catalogs planning to start their gardening. It’s not too late for high school seniors to select a college to attend in the fall or for June graduates to start job hunting.

3.         St. Peter writes of a living hope we have in Christ Jesus our Lord in 1Peter 1:3-5 he says, “³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Here, the Apostle Peter invites the church to join in a hymn of praise for the unique blessings God has showered on us. He speaks of a “living hope.”

4.         Hopes and predictions that cling to the belief that man is basically good fall flat. The notion that people do wrong things because they’re not taught properly has been around for a long time. About 150 years ago Horace Mann, a prominent educator from Boston, prophesied that crime in our country would in time disappear. Why? Because, he maintained, there will be more and larger schools that would be tax-supported. It hasn’t happened. In fact, many schools have become crime ridden.  Not intentionally, of course. We have nothing but praise for patient teachers and administrators who stick it out in less than desirable settings. A high school graduation speaker, determined to lift the sights of the class, quoted this bit of poetry: “Believe in God—in thine own self believe:  All that thou hast hoped for thou shalt achieve.”

5.         Believe in God? Yes. Have confidence? Yes. But the last sentence isn’t true. We hope they didn’t listen to that!  But there are “living hopes.” Shortly after the birth of Christ an old man named Simeon, “was waiting for the consolation of Israel. . . . It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (Lk 2:25–26). His hope was living because it came from God and not from his own wishful thinking.

6.         Look at the many people who formed a parade coming to Jesus with the hope that he would cure their loved ones—Jairus, whose 12-year-old daughter was dying, to name one. Even while the Savior was on his way a woman came up from behind and touched him, and her bleeding of 12 years stopped (Lk 8:40–48).  The living hope Peter describes has as its goal an “inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven” for us. “Inheritance” conjures up the picture of tense men and women listening closely to a lawyer read a deceased one’s last will and testament. Often this eagerly awaited moment disappoints and may even divide the siblings in days and years to come. Inheritances may not always be a blessing.

7.         There are several lessons to be learned from our Lord’s best-known parable of the Prodigal Son. One of the lesser of these is what the younger son did with his share of the inheritance, which he asked for before his father’s death: he squandered his wealth in wild living (Lk 15:13). So, it is with earthly inheritances. Because they aren’t earned, the recipients, unless they are thrifty & frugal, spend the money quickly. “Easy come, easy go.”

8.         It can’t be emphasized enough that we inherit, not earn, “the kingdom prepared for you” (Mt 25:34). Christ followed this statement in Matthew 25 with his parable of the sheep and the goats. We may mistakenly conclude that the works of mercy performed by the righteous pay their way into heaven: “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me” (Mt 25: 35–36). These good works provide evidence that true believers who, having received God’s mercy in Christ, are merciful to others, especially to those in need (Lk 6:36). But the heavenly inheritance is theirs because they are members of the Father’s family.  St. Paul says in Gal. 3, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26).

9.         St. Peter also records for us this morning of the joyous hope we have in our crucified and risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Peter writes in 1 Peter 1:6-9, “⁶In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, ⁷so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ⁸Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, ⁹obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

10.       Notice how Peter says that this hope is accompanied by suffering and trials.  Now as a Christian don’t always be troubled because you aren’t always joyful and strong, and therefore think that your faith is lacking.  The 20^th Century Christian Apologist C.S. Lewis writes, “Most of us find it very difficult to want ‘Heaven’ at all—except insofar as ‘Heaven’ means meeting again our friends who have died. One reason for this difficulty is that we have not been trained: our whole education tends to fix our minds on this world.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity [New York: Macmillan, 1943, 1945, 1952] 104). 

11.       The purpose of the pain that we experience as Christians is to purify our faith. St. Peter says in our text, “Of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire.” So precious a metal can be dissolved, or it’s seldom found in a pure state and therefore needs refinement. In either case, the faith God gives won’t be dissolved but needs purification.

12.       Already in this life we enjoy a taste of “inexpressible and glorious joy,” which is to say, there are no adequate words to describe it. As the proverb puts it, “Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy” (Prov 14:10). Even before his crucifixion, our Lord Jesus assures his disciples, “You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. . . . Now is the time of your grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. . . . Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete” (Jn 16:20, 22, 24). We pray for many things. Have we ever asked God for joy? 

13.       This Easter season as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, we have great joy.  Peter reminds us today of eternity we have with Jesus. This is the most distinctive feature of our Christian faith. It trusts in what Christ has done for us, and not in what we might do or not do for ourselves or for God for that matter.  It is faith in Jesus. He’s the one we trust, depend on, hope in, and love. But here’s a curious point. We have not seen Jesus. We don’t see Him now. Yet, we have faith in Him. Our trust is in someone we have never set eyes upon, except representatively through the cross and sacramentally through the Lord’s Supper. “Though you have not seen Him,” writes Peter, “you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible” (1:8). Our Lord Jesus also made this observation: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

14.       That is us. We haven’t seen Him, but it doesn’t matter. We’re still blessed. “Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible.” It turns out we’ve hit upon a feature of faith. The New Testament’s letter to the Hebrews sets out a definition of faith in the very sense of the word we have been talking about. “Now faith,” it says, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

15.       Faith must be this way. It must be so because nobody can see everything. Even Thomas, who saw Jesus risen from the dead in such an indisputable way, couldn’t see his conclusion. Thus, Peter ends our text with the words, “the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1:9). Even Thomas, who felt the marks of the nails in Jesus’ hands, couldn’t see the outcome, the salvation of his soul. He had to believe that. And we all must hope in and believe it, rather than see it during this life.  Nor can we see how God’s hand will guide us through every challenge of this life, we have to believe it by the power of the Holy Spirit. Afterwards, we see how it happened, but in the midst of challenges and trials, we walk by faith and not by sight.  This is our living hope.  Amen.  Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.  Amen.