Well we, of course, have the responsibility
tonight to set our hearts toward the cross and the things of Christ and we also are very
mindful of he fact that we are on the brink of a new year and this is a good time to kind
of do a bit of a spiritual inventory. And as I thought about that, I was drawn to
a text of Scripture that I would call to your attention for a few moments...1 Peter, 1 Peter. You might want to turn to it and we'll look
at a couple of scriptures here in the first chapter of 1 Peter that will help us focus
not only on the cross but on setting our priorities. In the thirteenth verse of 1 Peter chapter
1, Peter writes, "Therefore prepare your minds for action." Now the Authorized says, "Gird up your loins,
pull all the loose ends of your life together." This is kind of military language. When a soldier went into battle, he made sure
that he pulled his tunic up, tied it around him tightly so that he could move freely and
not be encumbered or hindered, or give any opportunity for the enemy. And as a soldier pulls all the loose ends
together to go into serious combat, so we are called upon to prepare our minds for action,
to call all of our thoughts into control. And then he says, "Keep sober," and what that
essentially means there in verse 13 is to get your priorities right. Think seriously, think accurately, think nobly,
be sober minded. He adds, "Fix your hope completely on the
grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So in pulling in the loose ends of life, setting
your priorities, you keep in mind the future revelation of Jesus Christ. We do everything we do in view of the return
of the Lord when what we have done will be evaluated, and for that we will suffer either
reward or the loss of reward. As you think about your life at the beginning
of a year, that's a good way to begin. This would be a time for you to begin to pull
in the loose ends. That would be sinful loose ends, that would
be wasteful, useless things that occupy your life and get your priorities where they should
be as you anticipate the face of the Lord Jesus Christ and His glorious return, or your
arrival in His presence in glory. Now just exactly what is foundational to that? I think in this chapter there are a few things
that we can look at that essentially give us a bit of a foundation for getting our lives
in order, pulling in the loose ends, establishing the priorities. And I'm going to suggest a couple of them
that I think you can mark out in your life as consistent perspectives that will help
you keep your priorities right. And the first one that I want to talk about,
I guess I could call it, "Remember who owns you...Remember who owns you." If you'll go down to verses 18 and 19, the
very familiar words, "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 without spot, the blood of Christ." Here we have a call to a holy life. In fact, that call is familiar to anybody
who reads this chapter because it stands out dramatically in verse 16. "You shall be holy for I am holy." What are the elements of living this holy
life? This life with right priorities? This life without loose ends? This life that's fixed on the return of Christ
and our eternal reward? The first thing is, I believe, to remember
who owns you. All of that simply to say that you have been
bought with a price. According to the New Testament, you're not
your own, you're bought with a price. That is the testimony of 1 Corinthians 6:19
and 20, that is the testimony of Acts chapter 20 verse 28, "You are purchased with the blood
of God," it says there which, of course, refers to the blood of the incarnate God, the Lord
Jesus Christ. This blood is precious. Why? Because the Lamb who shed it is precious. The blood here obviously refers to His death. We're aware of the fact that it is by the
death of Jesus Christ that we have been purchased by God, we have been redeemed, we have been
bought. This is Galatians 3:13 that He redeemed us
by coming a curse for us, that He purchased us with His own blood. It is foundational, I think, to the believer
to never loose sight of the fact that you do not own yourself. You do not exist as an independent person. You have as your ambition to please Him, as
we read in 2 Corinthians 5 this morning, because He owns you. You are, in every sense, a slave of God, a
slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. You have been purchased out of the slave market,
you have been redeemed with an inestimable price, the precious blood of the Lord Jesus. And as you look at your life day to day, incident
to incident, event to event, it has to always be in the front of your mind that I am not
my own, I have been bought. And that purchase is forever, the price was
imperishable, the purchase therefore is imperishable as well. He paid, as it were, an imperishable price
for an imperishable ownership of every true believer. And so, from the standpoint of the foundational
focus of the Christian life, it starts with recognizing that you are not your own. Every decision you make then should be made
with the glory of the Lord in view with His praise in view, with His worship in view,
with His reputation in view. How will this reflect on Him? How will it bring honor to Him? How will it enable me to serve Him? That's what is the controlling reality of
our lives. We live to bring honor to the one who purchased
us. Remember who owns you. You are not your own. You have been bought. And it's a good thing you have been bought
because in the slave market of sin, as a slave of sin, you were headed toward eternal damnation. You have been bought in order that you might
be a slave of righteousness and a slave of God and of Christ. The second thing to think about when you begin
to assess how to focus on the right things, how to get your priorities right, is to remember
the covenant of salvation. And Peter points that out. Go back to the beginning of chapter 1. And I don't know if you think about salvation
as a covenant but that is precisely the way it is presented here. "Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to those
who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia
who are chosen." And now we jump from the temporal identification
to the eternal selection, "Who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with
His blood." That is quite an interesting statement. To be chosen...to then be sanctified by the
work of the Spirit, and that would encompass justification, regeneration, conversion, redemption...they
would all be bound up in that. Sanctification is a very big word, it means
to be set apart from sin. It can refer to our progressive sanctification,
it can refer to our ultimate sanctification, or it can refer to that aspect of our sanctification
that is connected to our redemption, our justification, our regeneration. The point I want you to notice is the sequence. You have been chosen, you have been chosen
obviously in eternity past, you have been set apart by the work of the Spirit, that
would be the regenerating work of the Spirit which is the first sanctifying act. To, or with a view, or with an effect to obey
Jesus Christ. In other words, we have been saved in order
to be obedient. And then this interesting phrase, "And be
sprinkled with His blood....and be sprinkled with His blood." Does that go back to the atonement? Doesn't that seem to be out of order? Aren't we sprinkled with His blood first of
all? Well the New Testament never describes salvation
as being sprinkled with blood. It never describes it that way. So this is not describing something that we're
familiar with in the New Testament. Rather this is something from the Old Testament. Turn, for a moment, to Exodus chapter 24 and
in Exodus chapter 24 the people of Israel make a covenant with the Lord. Moses has come to them with the Word of the
Lord, the Law of the Lord, and he recounts it to the people in verse 3. All the ordinances and all the people, verse
3, answered with one voice and said all the words which the Lord has spoken, we will do. This was a covenant. "They committed themselves verbally that they
were going to obey the Law of God. Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord,
then he arose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with
twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the sons of Israel and
they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the Lord. Moses took half the blood and put it in basins,
and the other half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and
read it in the hearing of the people and they said, 'All that the Lord has spoken, we will
do. And we will be obedient.' So Moses took the blood and literally splattered
it on the people and said, 'Behold, the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with
you in accordance with all these words.'" This is a very fascinating moment. Covenants were a very important part of Old
Testament life, as you know. This is the covenant that these people are
making before God to be obedient and to signify this covenant and to create a symbolic representation
of the covenant, blood is taken, it is put in flat saucers and it is just sloshed over
the whole crowd. It rains blood on all of them as a...literally
a symbol of their devotion to keep the Covenant. It's almost like saying, "If I'm unfaithful
to this, may I shed my own blood." Covenants between people in the Old Testament
were very common and they were associated with blood in a very usual way. The people of Israel saw their response to
the Law of God as a promise, same as the word Covenant, essentially. And they wanted to say to God, "We promise
to obey You." The purpose of sprinkling the blood was to
consecrate the parties. Some of the blood is put on the altar which
symbolizes God's side of it, the other blood is sloshed on the people, symbolizing their
side of it. You say, "Well what does this have to do with
us?" Well go back to 1 Peter. Peter borrows this language, very interestingly,
he says that we have been sanctified by the work of the Spirit, that's our regeneration. We have then entered into a covenant to obey
Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood. Symbolically we enter into the same kind of
attitude as the people in the Old Testament. We are brought in to a covenant of obedience,
a covenant of obedience. This is not referring to the sacrificial blood
of Christ on our behalf, but rather the blood of a Covenant which symbolizes the devotion
and the commitment to obedience. So Peter is saying, as the people in the Old
Testament vowed to obey the Word of God, so when you come to Christ, when you experience
the fulfillment of your election, namely the sanctifying work of the Spirit, it results
in obedience and in a Covenant of obedience. I guess you could say it this way, have the
integrity to keep your promise of obedience. I doubt that there was any blood splattered
on you when you were saved, pretty sure that didn't happen. But symbolically when you became a believer,
if you were saying anything at that moment, you were saying, "I commit myself to obey
You." That is essentially what is bound up in confessing
Jesus as Lord, right? If you say Jesus is Lord, you have just put
yourself in a position of being submissive and obedient to Him. And consequently, that is a Covenant, you
made a promise. You turned from your sin, you repented of
your sin by the work of the Holy Spirit, you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ savingly
by the work of the Holy Spirit. And you promised and you affirmed that Jesus
is Lord and thereby you affirmed as well your commitment to be obedient. You know, sometimes we set that aside, don't
we? We think that after we've made that Covenant
at the point of our salvation, as time goes on, we take more and more control of our lives
back and we need to go back to the original Covenant. Peter's point here is that you need to remember
who owns you, who bought you and you need to remember the Covenant you made to be submissive
and obedient to the Lord. Those are the focuses that will help you establish
your spiritual priorities. There's a third one and it's bound in this
same section of Scripture. Go back to verse 14 for a moment. "As obedient children," that's what defines
us, that's the outworking of that salvation, that's also the expression of the legitimacy
and integrity of our Covenant promise, "As obedient children, do not be conformed to
the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance." You don't go back and obey another master,
namely lust. You stay faithful to your Lord. You maintain the Covenant of obedience to
Him. And here is the focus that I want you to see. Verse 15, "Like the holy One who called you,
be holy yourselves also in all your behavior because it is written, 'You shall be holy
for I am holy.'" And here's the motivation. "If you address as father the one who impartially
judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your
stay on earth." Now I want you to just focus on the concept
of father because the third point that I want you to note is in order to keep your priorities
right, number one, you recognize who owns you. Number two, you remember your Covenant with
the Lord that you made at your salvation. And number three, you recognize all sin as
a violation of a relationship...you recognize all sin as a violation of a relationship. And that is the essence of what it is saying
here. You are to be obedient children. You are to stay away from living by the lust
that used to control your life. You are to be holy in all your behavior for
He is holy and here it comes in verse 17, "If you address as Father the One who impartially
judges according to each one's work, then conduct yourself in fear during the time of
your stay on earth." Christianity is a relationship, it is a relationship
to God and all sin is a violation of that relationship. That is so very important to understand. All sin is a violation of that relationship. The Scripture talks about it not only in reference
to God, but in reference to the Holy Spirit where it commands us not to quench the Spirit,
not to grieve the spirit. We are told in the New Testament to do all
that we do to honor the Lord, to do whatever work we do to the honor of Christ. Everything is spoken of relationally. Yes we are commanded to obey the moral Law
of God, the Law that is unchanging, that is the same in the New Testament as it is in
the Old Testament, the Moral and the Spiritual Law. But the New Testament much more calls us to
maintain the integrity of the relationship that we have. God is our Father and we are to love the way
He loves and we are to behave the way He behaves as far as we can. We are to love our enemies and you're never
more like God than when you love your enemies and express forgiveness as He expresses forgiveness. When you sin, you don't really sin against
a creed, you don't really sin against a code, you don't sin against an institution, even
the church, you sin against a person. And that takes you back to Psalm 51 where
David says that "My sin is against You, against You only have I sinned and done this iniquity
in Your sight." It is essential for us to understand that
sin is the violation of a relationship. There's a fourth principle that I think I
see in this opening chapter in 1 Peter that helps us get our priorities right. And this looks at it a bit on the negative
sight. Embrace the effects of adversity, embrace
the positive effects of adversity. Verses 6 and 7, "In this you greatly rejoice,
even though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been distressed by various trials so
that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though
tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation
of Jesus Christ." Again this is that heavenly perspective. It's the same perspective that we saw in verse
13 where you're living your life with a view to the revelation of Christ. Here you're living your life with a view to
the praise and glory and honor again that appears at the revelation of Christ, when
Christ is revealed, either in His coming or when you see Him face to face, having left
this world. And verses 6 and 7 tell us that we are not
just to rejoice, not just to be accepting of trials, but strong language, greatly rejoice
though you have been distressed for a little while by various trials so that the proof
of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable even though tested by
fire may be found." I'm going to stop there for a moment. The greatest gift that you can have as a believer,
I'm convinced, is assurance of your salvation. The toughest thing to try to live with as
a Christian is doubt about whether you're really saved. That is a very difficult thing to experience
and many believers do experience it. The antidote, the cure for doubt is suffering,
trial. Why? Because when trials come, various trials come
and your faith stands the test of those trials and doesn't collapse and doesn't fail, that's
the proof of your faith. And the proof of your faith, as he says there
in verse 7, is more precious than gold. The most valuable thing you have is the confidence
that your faith is the real thing, your faith is the real saving faith, that you're a true
believer. The more trials you have, the longer you live
and the more you accumulate trials, the stronger your faith becomes. I can tell you after many years of living
as a Christian, it is not my triumphs that prove my faith. It is my trials that prove my faith. The proof of the legitimacy and the reality
of my faith is that it has stood the test of trial after trial after trial after trial
and it comes out strong and stronger in every case. Do you want to get your life in focus, if
you want to pull in the loose ends, if you want to set your priorities right, if you
want to live in the light of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, then you have to embrace
the wonderful positive effects of adversity and the dominating positive that comes out
of adversity when your faith is tested, it is revealed then to be the real thing. On the other hand, if your supposed faith
collapses under trial, when things just don't go the way you want them to go, and if you
walk away from the Lord and abandon Him and turn from your profession of Christ as some
have done, of course, in all generations, even in the New Testament time, then you have
evidence that your faith is not the real thing...not the real thing. The deepest pains in life, the most challenging
difficulties, the heartbreaking disappointments that come in relationships in this life with
family and friends, the many other disappointments, the physical infirmities, the losses we all
suffer are all opportunities for our faith to be tested and when it is tested, if it's
the real thing, it is proven to be genuine. And that is more precious than gold which
is perishable. So just for tonight, I want to leave you with
those four simple principles. If you want to pull the loose ends of your
life together, remember who owns you. That is at the very beginning of all of this. You have to be committed to the fact that
you are not your own and that the price that was paid was an infinite price, a staggering
price. Remember, the covenant that you made when
you were saved and renew that vow of obedience which you were so eager to make when you were
so desperate to be saved. And, thirdly, consider all sin as a violation
of a personal relationship with a loving God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and embrace adversity
for its good work of making your faith evident. Peter says, "This is what proves you are real." That is a great gift. Let pray together as we come to the Lord's
table. Lord, we're grateful for the simple straightforward
way in which the Scripture points us in the direction that we need to go and the way that
we need to live to honor You, to enjoy You, to enjoy Your blessing and to gain an eternal
reward which will be for us an everlasting joy. We thank You that the Scripture is so clear
and so direct. Give us the grace to live this way, to pull
in the loose ends, to establish our priorities and live in the light of eternity. Father, we thank You for our congregation
in a church of faithful people, covenant-keeping people, people who understand what it is to
have a true relationship to You and who cherish that relationship and never want to violate
it. Thank You for a congregation of people who
understand the power that trials and adversity has in life, assuring us of our faith and
giving us that assurance that is the most precious of all blessings. Lord, we thank You for purchasing us with
the precious blood of Christ and for taking ownership over our lives so that You're responsible
for us, to care for us, to provide for us, to discipline us, to reward us, to meet our
every need. We rest in that reality. And, Lord, we're so grateful that in this
congregation there is so much commitment, so widespread to these realities. We feel like even in saying the things I've
said tonight that I'm simply reiterating what the congregation is already committed to. We thank You, Lord, that You've given us such
great exposure to the truth and You've given us such a great love for You in response. You've prompted that in our hearts, You've
shed that love abroad in us by the Holy Spirit, we're grateful.
