Living in fear
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2010 · 21 February 2010
“And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each man's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay upon earth; knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.”
We come now this evening to the third command of the Christian life in 1 Peter. Verses 1–12 were celebration of what God has done to make us his own forever and ever. Then in verse 13 came the first command: "Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." So the first command is hope fully in the grace of God.
The second command came last week in verse 15: "Be holy in all your behavior." God says, "Be holy for I am holy" (v. 16). So the first command is be hopeful in the grace of God, and the second command is be holy in the holiness of God.
Today we reach the third command: "Conduct yourselves in fear." Verse 17: "And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each man's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay upon earth." Live in hope! Live in holiness! Live in fear!
When we discussed the first commandment, "Live in hope," I doubt that anyone was thinking, "No way is he going to convince me that hope is a biblical way to live." Hope in God is something that all Christians should have.
For the second commandment, "Live in holiness," the receptivity was still pretty high because we believe that God is holy, but we're still learning what it means to live a holy life or what is really expected of us. So there may some questions related to the sermon to live and be holy last week.
For the third commandment, "Live in fear," I assume there is some suspicion for what I am about to say. Not that you don't trust me. Fear of God just isn't in the way we live today. It's just not part of the culturally acceptable view of a healthy, satisfying religious life.
And not only that, but fear simply seems to be incompatible with hope and incompatible with faith and peace and joy. After all, doesn't 1 John 4:18 say, "There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear"?
Yes, but the verse goes on, "Fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love." So until we are perfected in love, we may not use that verse to say there is no place for fearing punishment.
So I understand why not many preachers preach about the fear of God. But I want to plead with you this evening that growing deeper and stronger as a Christian comes not by choosing to embrace only those biblical teachings you are already comfortable with and already easily understand, you don't grow that way.
But rather you grow deep and strong by also embracing the teachings you are not comfortable with and that are hard to understand with the confidence that God does not teach us anything false or harmful in the Scriptures.
The second thing I want you to do is that you take verses 17–19 seriously and strive to be counter-cultural enough and biblical enough to make fear part of how you live your daily life.
Let me explain how Peter sees fearing God in relation to judgment and redemption. The command to fear is the second half of verse 17: "Conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay upon earth."
There's no special word for "reverence" or "reverent fear" in Greek. Adding that word is an editor's interpretation of what flavor he thinks the word should have. It may be right, or it may be too limiting.
On either side of that command to conduct ourselves in fear is a reason for this fear. On the front side in the first half of verse 17 is this reason: "If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each man's work . . ."
So the first reason for conducting ourselves in fear is that the One we call heavenly Father judges everybody on the same kind of evidence. Namely, what do our lives (our deeds) say to others about our heart?
There won't be different rules for different people. There is only one thing that saves: our faith. And there is one standard of judgment: our life and our deeds.
Peter says, there is a very appropriate fear as we live in this world, namely, a fear of living as though we do not have faith (do not hope and do not do things) in God. Here's the link between verse 17 and verse 13, between living in hope and living in fear. What we are to fear, Peter means, is not living a Godly life.
When we are tempted to conduct our lives in a way that would show that our hope is in money rather than God, we should fear. When we are tempted to act in a way that would show that our hope is in the pleasure of pornography instead of God, we should fear.
When Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:18, "Flee fornication," he meant, "Fear greatly if your hope is in committing fornication." Jesus said in Matthew 5:29, "If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better to enter life with one eye than with two to be cast into hell." Fear living in ways that show that your satisfaction is not in God.
This is one of the most important parts that often is missing in modern Christianity, and one of the main reasons why the church is many times just a carbon-copy of the world. We think that grace means there's nothing to fear in our behavior. And so the thought of judgment has been forgotten in our lives.
And verse 1 Peter 1:17 is simply blanked out in our superficial adaptation to the present culture. But God is loving and gracious and calls us back tonight to fear such behavior that leads to destruction.
And now notice that on the other side of verse 17 Peter gives another reason for conducting ourselves in fear. He says, “Conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay upon earth; 18 knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.”
Listen to Philippians 1:27, "Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel.”
That's the same reasoning we have in these verses: "Conduct yourselves in fear", because you know you were ransomed not with small temporary values like gold and silver, but with precious blood, the blood of Jesus. Simplified: "Fear, because you've been ransomed at infinite cost."
Does this make sense to you? It didn't to me at first. But here's where you can grow. You can send your spiritual roots deeper and grow your branches higher. Don't just blank it out. It sounds just like Psalm 130:4, "There is forgiveness with you [O God], that you may be feared."
Forgiveness leads to fear! In the same way Peter says, "There's an infinite ransom paid, the blood of Jesus, to rescue you from your old ways of life; so conduct yourselves in fear so you do not go back to your old life."
What Peter specifically stresses in verses 18 and 19 is the great value and eternal durability of the ransom paid for God's people. He says that gold and silver are "perishable"—they are not durable, they don't last. But the blood of Jesus is "precious"—it's infinitely valuable.
And the point in connection with verse 17 is: in proportion to the preciousness and the permanence of the ransom we should all the more conduct ourselves with fear. You'd think it would be just the other way around: The more precious and permanent the ransom paid on our behalf, the less we need to fear.
Yes! Yes! And that is gloriously true in one sense: "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies! Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus who died [who paid the infinitely precious and permanent ransom!]" (Romans 8:33–34).
But Peter really says, "Fear God if you conduct yourself as though the ransom were not precious". That's exactly what he means. Because he says in verse 18 that the design of the ransom—the redemption—is to rescue you from your futile way of life.
Do you see that? Verse 18: "You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life . . . but by the precious blood of Christ." The purpose and design of the ransom in this verse is not forgiveness but transformation.
The overall purpose in this verse is victory over the power of sin in your everyday life, not forgiveness from the guilt of sin (as true as that is). The reason Jesus shed his infinitely precious blood was to change our conduct.
Titus 2:14 says, “who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.”
So when Peter says, "Conduct yourselves in fear, knowing that you were ransomed from bad conduct by the blood of Jesus," he means, fear conducting yourself in way that shows that the blood of Jesus is not precious to you.
Illustration: There is a book by Michael Lewis entitled The Blind Side. It is a true story based in Memphis. The central character is a black athlete named Michael Oher. Oher now plays left tackle for the University of Mississippi and is a pre-season All American and predicted to be a great professional football player.
Michael Oher grew up in the 3rd poorest zip code in America, a ghetto area in Memphis. His father was killed in a crime related situation. His mother was a drug addict and non-factor in his life. Oher basically grew up carrying a garbage bag of his stuff from one friend’s house to another for years. He was parentless and homeless and he was also huge. By the time he was 15 he was 6’5” and weighed 350 pounds.
To make a long story short, Oher was discovered by Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, a wealthy white family in Memphis, who took him into their home and practically adopted him. He attended the same exclusive private school that the Tuohy’s daughter and son attended.
Oher was a giant of a man but afraid of everything. He never raised his head and looked anyone in the eye. He never answered a question or spoke to anyone. It was as if he tried to live an invisible life so that he wouldn’t be any trouble to anyone and he’d therefore have a place to sleep overnight.
But the Tuohy’s reached out to him, provided him a home, clothes, food, tutoring and involvement in sports. They then witnessed a transformation. This almost non-person began to receive the love of a family. He began to get an education for the first time. After playing one year of football he was identified by college scouts as the best high school lineman in the nation.
He went from invisible non-person who would neither raise his head nor speak to claiming to be a son of a wealthy white family. The same thing happens in you and me when we come to Christ. But Michael always remembered how he grew up and he always lived with a certain amount of fear, because he remembered how valuable the love of his adoptive parents was and that without that he would be back on the street.
Do you think he would dare to live in such away that would make his adopted parents ashamed of him? No, of course not! And that is also the message that Peter has for us tonight. How you live becomes a testimony of how you think about the gift of salvation that God has given you.
We have no business even thinking about approaching God. We are sinful, broken, ugly people. But in His generosity, Jesus reached out to us and He has so saved us that He has made us sons and daughters of the God of the universe. Therefore, we confidently and yet with fear come into the presence of God as family remembering its value.
If your heart is filled with assurance as you meditate on the preciousness of the ransom Jesus paid with his blood, great! God wants you to filled with assurance. But always remember the value of that assurance by being a living example that proves you think the blood of Jesus is very precious.
Let me put it finally in a systematic way: God's purpose in shedding the blood of Jesus is our justification and our sanctification. He provided our pardon and our purity. They cannot be separated (Peter stresses the purity in verse 18).
Therefore, if we do not fight sin with all the strength in us, it seems as though the preciousness and the permanence of the blood of Jesus are not able to hold us back from sin. If we do not remember that the purpose of God’s gift is so that we are transformed, then we should fear.
Because if our lives stay full of sin and therefore show the world the powerlessness of the blood of Jesus, then Jesus is not really our hope and joy. And we do not belong to him. And that is a fearful prospect.
The sum of the matter is this; hope in the grace of God! And when you are not hoping in the grace of God you have reason to fear! Fear a behavior that would show the world that you have forgotten the preciousness of the love of Jesus. Let us pray.