This evening's lesson comes from 1 Peter 1, verses 17-25. And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as the Lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the spirit and sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and abides forever. Because all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers as the flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. You may be seated. May God add his blessing to that fine reading of the holy book tonight. On this Sunday evening, we'll study the good fear of God that all of us need and how this affects our lives as believers. As always, though, let's go to the throne and seek help before we even go into the word. Father, it is sometimes a temptation for us to become a bit drowsier or perhaps a little inattentive even in the Lord's Day services of worship. We confess this. We pray that you would keep us very much focused on you, on your text, on your Word, on the Lord Jesus. We pray that you will inspire us to walk with you carefully this week. In this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. If anything needs to be revived in the church, and then later after that in the world generally, it is the fear of God. The vast majority of human beings live and act as if there is no absolutely holy, just, and perfectly good God in heaven, who will judge every person on the last day and send all unbelievers to hell, and has already cast the judgment for the saints on the Lord Jesus Christ and will usher them into heaven. Peter exhorts the church to live in holy fear in verse 17, which is the key verse to this whole section of scripture that Ken just read a few moments ago. Peter knew that without this fear of God, There is no love for God, and there's no obedience to him, and indeed, actually, there's no redemptive relationship to God without fear of God. This kind of fear is pleasing to God, and it ennobles the souls of all those who possess it. Incidentally, this is not a carnal fear. This isn't a Muslim-type fear of God. This is a familial fear, but it's a very real one nonetheless. And all those who really know God and love Him experience it. Because godly fear is necessarily joint to all vitality in the Christian church, it will be our goal this evening to be fully alive in Jesus. We're going to look at 1 Peter 1, 17-25, title of the sermon, Resurrected Fear. First, let us consider why it is good for fear to be revived in us. Why would something that seems so negative and which the world and most of the church would shy away from, ignore, or seek to escape, be so beneficial actually to us? Well, consider these two reasons. First, because without it, that is the fear of God, there is no knowledge of God. Those who don't fear God cannot and do not know Him, no matter how much prattling they make to the contrary. Indeed, one of the great axioms of all life is summed up in the familiar words of Proverbs 9, verse 10, which say, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Now that verse employs Hebraic parallel structure, and it is actually saying that the fear of the Lord is the knowledge of Him. It's impossible to know Him without fearing Him. It is good to be known by and to know the Lord God of the universe, and to know Him as He really is, not as He is portrayed falsely. And that necessarily entails a hearty, healthy, holy fear of Him. Why it is good to fear that fear be revived in us, because without it there's no knowledge of God, and then because without it there's no love for God. That one whom we don't know we cannot love. Biblical fear of God leads to ardent love for Him. In the Old Testament Pentateuch, which is the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses, Moses wrote these two closely knit absolute laws which govern everything God would really ever call on us to do. Listen to them as they're taken from Deuteronomy 6, verses 5 and 13. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength. you shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him and shall take oaths in His name." Now, why do we love God? Is it because He's powerful and strong and mighty and will judge the world? No, not primarily. That is not the main reason we love Him. We love God because He has perfectly loved us first in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and I reference for you First John 419. When we really come to love God through Jesus our Savior, we have now no longer any problem with nor trouble understanding the concept of the fear of God. Why it is good that fear be revived, and it's next from the text, note with me, three incentives, children, I-N-C-E-N-T-I-V-E-S, incentives or motives, if you will, reasons to do something for resurrected fear, verses 17 through 25, 1 Peter 1. There are some outstanding reasons for embracing the Lord God with a holy fear. All of which find their locus in the fact that God brought his son back to life in the glorious resurrection from the dead. Three incentives for resurrected fear. Here's the first one, verses 17 through 19, long word. Accountability. A-C-C-O-U-N-T. Ability. A-B-I-L-I-T-Y. Accountability based on Jesus' ultimate sacrifice. Accountability holds our feet to the fire, children. It causes us to take note of why we are and what we're doing. Look at verses 17 through 19. If you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work. Remember, he's writing to believers here, dispersed, displaced, troubled, harassed believers. Conduct yourselves through the time of your stay here, that is, on earth, in fear, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers." One of the reasons many think this was written also to Gentile churchmen. but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Though we are in no way, now get this very important, we are in no way justified by works. We know this. This is an axiom of the gospel. Not justified by works. Though as James expresses it, our works do prove our righteous standing before God, We are, nonetheless, are you ready? We are judged by our works. It says it right there. Do you see that? According to each one's work. Verse 17. And this makes perfectly good sense, because works, what we do, things that we express in our lives, reflect the reality or the unreality, one or the other, of the new birth. Now please understand that doesn't mean that all of our works are completely holy, if you will, but those who have the Holy Spirit do work, and those works are wrought by God, and those things demonstrate to ourselves and to the world and to the Church the reality of our faith. Peter is giving us, in these three verses, one motive for accountability, though it has two dimensions. That incentive is judgment. Now, for you believers, those of you who are in Christ, and those of you who have the comfort of being in the covenant of the Church, and those of you who are sincere in your hearts with regard to your atonement, apprehension of Jesus' blood, righteousness by faith, your judgment has already been born by Jesus in verses 18 and 19. You don't have a fearful judgment to anticipate on the last day. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. I can't remember if it was morning or evening. Morning, I think. The believer should have so much confidence and assurance if we really believe the gospel, and though it is sometimes hard to, that we go to and before God with complete, familial, childlike, fearful, yet confident, loving comfort. He loves us. But the reality of the specific application of the Messiah's atonement to hearts is manifest in godly living. So our profession, our faith, must be consistent in the main with our lifestyle. Are you following that? So our lifestyle will be a result of our faith walk. And again, not perfection, we're not looking for that, but we're looking for sincerity. And it flows from on our relationship with God, which starts practically in the church, Lord's Day to Lord's Day. But the main thrust of what Peter is arguing here in these verses is that we ought to constantly reflect on what it was that was required for us to be redeemed in the first place, namely the shedding of the precious blood of the spotless Lamb of God. That's a remarkable thing in itself, and that reproves in us everything and every time we are tempted to add anything to the righteousness of Christ apprehended for us in His cross, death, and resurrection. All people seek, by virtue of their being created in the image of God, redemption. And anyone who finds or seeks it outside of divine regeneration finds it or seeks it in corruptible things, things that are going to rot, things that won't hold up before God on the last day. May that never be true of us. Three incentives for resurrected fear. Accountability. Here's another incentive. Verses 20 and 21, awe, A-W-E. Being in amazement at. We read, he indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. Now that's a great verse right there. First of all, you see the foreordination before the foundation of the world, but now he's manifest in these last, what are the last days? They started at the resurrection of Jesus and they continue. till the day of judgment, the resurrection of the bodies of all people, some unto life and some unto death, and then the institution and start of the eternal state. And then if you look, continuing at verse 21, who through Him believe in God. See, no one believes in God except through Him. Do you know that Muslims, not here to hammer Muslims, but they don't believe in God. Neither do unbelieving Jews, or Hindus, or Buddhists, or even atheists who have their gods. No one believes in God who doesn't believe in God through Jesus. Just the fact. Let's face it. He's the only God. He's the true God. You are the adherents of the true religion, and you're not ashamed of it. You don't cower. You don't make excuses. You don't hide the fact. You don't wave it in people's faces. You're not belligerent, mean, ornery, or obnoxious. You're gentle, kind, sweet, and good. But you also have the courage and the conviction to face the truth. So we believe in God who raised him from the dead. That's why we're here. Did you ever wonder why we worship God together on Sunday? That's the day that we commemorate the raising of Jesus from the dead. It becomes the new Sabbath day, the new seventh day, the first day, the day of the resurrection. And we continue, and gave him glory. gave Him glory. So Jesus isn't waiting for glory on some future event. Jesus Christ was crowned with glory at His resurrection, and then 40 days later on His ascension, He was given all that glory that He had coming as a result of giving His life for His people, so that your faith and hope are in God. The reason you have faith and hope in God is because Jesus has come back from the dead. If you ever, and I'm certain you do, lie in bed or think about the struggles you have, and maybe even doubts, maybe even some questions about the absoluteness of your Christian faith, recognize this fact, that in time and space and real history, Jesus Christ came out of the grave and lives today. And that is the basis of your faith and hope in God. And if that doesn't bring awe and inspiration and amazement to us, then really nothing will. Notice as well here that Christ's life and work and our risen life in Him and grace are intertwined. Jesus Christ's mission, formulated before the creation, comes into fruition in space and time for us. Actually, there's also this huge emphasis in the New Testament on how we're the blessed ones on this side of the equation. The last days, the new covenant church. Those in the Old Covenant looked with great amazement. Angels longed to look into. Even Hebrews 11, the end, they were doing all these acts of faith ultimately in conjunction with you. You. Do you realize we live in glorious days? Do you realize that we live in amazing days? We live in days of great light and glorious apprehension. We Like Moses, behold the glory of God face to face, whereas in the old covenant only Moses did. And then he'd have to come down with that veil on his face. You behold him as individual and collective Christians, Lord's day to Lord's day and throughout the week with unveiled face. You live in amazing days. And we should not look askance at that fact. We should be thankful to God for it. Here is our hope. Perhaps in your soul, your mind, your experience, you think something's dead, something in your heart. It may be a hope you have, a marriage, family life, profession, something that you've desired and it seems to be dead. Well, God can, and if He desires and it's good for you and it brings Him glory, He will Bring that thing back to life. What's our responsibility? Two things, basically. Faith and prayer. And true faith then leads to certain things, like what you're doing. House of the Lord. Sabbath day worship. Life of evangelism and grace and love and service toward others. Three incentives for resurrected fear. Accountability. Awe. verses 22 through 25, affection based on the Spirit's gospel renewal. Affection means love. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart. Doesn't that match our morning text very nicely? Love one another fervently from the pure heart. Very sweet language. And it's the result of what God has done. Remember, Craig and I were talking about this text last week, and there's some beautiful flow to this text. And then continuing, we read, having been born again. See, this is a past tense. This is what's happened. Yeah, we have problems. Yeah, they had problems. But we have been born again. And not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible. There's that corruptible-incorruptible dichotomy that was brought up a little earlier. Incorruptible through the Word of God. The Word of God which lives and abides forever. Okay, let's talk about that. The Word of God. It's alive. In what form? Two forms. The inscripturated written Word and the preached, proclaimed word. They go together, and they both live, and they bring life to you. You need them, and you must have them. Continuing, because all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of the grass, the grass withers, this flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Now look at this, this last phrase. Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. Past tense. Preached to you. Preached. Remember what I just said about the word being both inscripturated. In fact, he's quoting here in verse 24. He's quoting from the Old Testament. Looks like Isaiah 46 through 8. And now he says, this word was preached to you. It wasn't just read to you, but it was preached to you by the apostles, by the officers in the church as well. Affection. This third inspiration for resurrected fear is the most compelling of all. As great as accountability can be, keep our feet to the fire, as great as awe can be, wow, what an amazing God, look what he did. I'll tell you, there's nothing like love. Love for God will carry you through many difficult trials. When you are tempted to look with a bit of a jaundiced eye upon your God and your Father's face, because things aren't going so perfectly well and not exactly according to your plans, recognize that love is compelling and will carry you very far. If the love of God won't do it, nothing will. Love for God always entails more It also means love for neighbors, Mark 12, 30 and 31, and elsewhere. This is why Peter enjoins affection in the church, in verse 22, and especially in verse 23. If we don't love God's saints in the church, then we don't love God. It's just that simple. And 1 John makes this point too. And notice how the gospel lives and never dies. in the word of God and the lives of his people, verse 23, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible through the word of God, which lives and abides forever. Why it is good for fear to be revived, three incentives. Finally, let us learn how to stir up resurrected fear in us. Is there anything we can do? Sometimes I think, as Calvinists, we tend to, by the nature of our theology, almost automatically, imperceptibly, get a little passive. After all, we recognize we're dead, God does the work, that all. That's very important and absolutely true. But once we are redeemed, we're regenerated, we're born again, we're enlightened, we're renewed, we have a lot to do. And the Christian life is doing things according to the nature of who we are, which is directed by the nature of faith, which puts us into a community of believers, which forms who we are, and therefore what we do. so that now the resurrected soul and the Spirit of God work in perfect harmony in the sanctification process of the saints collectively and individually, and that's a difficult process. Now let's consider how to stir up resurrected fear in us. In other words, what can we do to refresh this notion in us. Is there anything we can do? Well, let me suggest this first one. Often call to mind God's righteousness. See, the battle is really between the ears, if you will. A great deterrent to any sin is a healthy understanding of the truth, that there is a God, and that He's righteous, and that He judges. It's actually very compassionate for any pastor following the scripture's example to preach the righteousness or justice of God, because it will help us garrison our souls against religious hypocrisy and mindless, sleepy, self-delusional security that many people hope in that will not ever deliver. Otherwise, why would Peter open tonight's scripture lesson with the words, and if you call on the Father, and he didn't doubt it, he wasn't calling into question the validity of these people's profession, they've actually shown the reality of it, they're born with suffering, who without partiality judges According to each one's work conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear There's that whole doctrine again of the fear of God Those who won't fear him will never love him and certainly never Obey him even though they might appear to outwardly. They're not obeying God now how to stir up resurrected fear often called the mind God's righteousness and and Never forget God's mercy. The other great religious error, not practiced so much today as in times past, is to envision God as merciless. This was the great medieval error of the church. The idea was that Christ was mean, nasty, cruel, harsh, unreasonable, and therefore you had to have other mediators who would whisper in his ear and get his attention and show a little bit of mercy to poor sinners. A terrible, blasphemous notion. And it's largely how the saints of the situation came into being. But it is very wrong for us not to balance the righteousness of God with his mercy. He is so merciful. What can be more merciful for sinners than the cross of Jesus? If God would sacrifice his own son for rebellious workers of iniquity who put him there, how dare we think for a moment that God isn't merciful? And how dare we think that we can add anything to that salvation equation, which is fully completed in Jesus alone. But even this kind of unspeakable mercy engenders a holy fear in the true saints. Did you get that? When you think about what God did in the amazing atonement of Jesus for us, It causes us to fear Him in another way, in another gracious way, in a sweet way. And this is why, for instance, the letter to the Hebrews, chapter 2, verses 1 and 2a read, Therefore we must give more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? So we're reminded of that again as we close yet another Lord's Day. And what a miracle it is to be given yet another Sabbath day. What a blessing it is. But let us recognize that we have a great salvation. Beloved, in light of that, consider resurrected fear. Let your good and holy familial fear of God lead you not away from God. God forbid! That's what a mindless, thoughtless atheist would do. Rather, let our good and holy familial fear of God lead us to Jesus. to His cross, to His atonement, to His loving embrace, to His refreshing love and encouragement to us sinners who are His saints and need His grace. He is our hope. Let us trust Him, love Him, and fear God through Him even tonight. Shall we pray? Father, we do thank you for resurrected fear. We need to stir it up in us from time to time. Be reminded of what's involved in the atonement. It's an amazing thing to consider, Father, not with corruptible things, incorruptible, the precious, priceless, eternally efficient and efficacious blood of the Lamb of God. We thank you for him. We thank you for a holy fear of you, Lord. It doesn't throw us away from you, it draws us to you. Continue to draw us unto yourself through this affection wrought of grace. as a result of your work in us that has made us apprehend the atonement through faith in Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.