Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 22 from your Spiral Gospel Hymn
book, and let's all stand together. Number 22. We were ruined by the fall, Adam's
sin defiles us all. By our deed as by our birth,
we deserve the law's great curse. Helpless, hopeless sinners we,
never can our souls retrieve. ? But the blessed Son of God
? ? Came as man in flesh and blood ? ? He fulfilled the Lord's
demands ? ? And in death stretched out his hands ? ? On the cross
of Calvary ? ? Christ redeemed and set us free ? In the time
which God had set, the Spirit came for His elect to regenerate
and call from the ruin of the fall. By His power and by His
grace, we were born for God's own praise. ? Now your purpose
we fulfill ? ? Saved according to your will ? ? Sing this song
of joyful praise ? ? For the glory of your grace ? ? Blessed
holy triune God ? ? Hear our praise through Christ our Lord
? Please be seated. Good morning. If you'd like to open your Bibles
with me, we'll be in 1 Peter 1. This hymn we just sang, Now
Your Purpose We Fulfill, purpose that we have is to glorify
God, to worship Him, to rejoice in Him. And by His grace, I'm
very hopeful that we will find ourselves fulfilling our purpose
this morning. Let's go to the Lord in prayer
and ask His blessings. Our Heavenly Father, We know, Lord, that you have
sought out your people, that they might worship you in spirit
and in truth. We thank you for the new heart
that you give in the new birth that enables us to worship you. We thank you for the promise
of your Holy Spirit that works grace in our hearts, enabling
us to worship you. We thank you for the revelation
of Christ who himself is the way, the truth, and the life. Lord, we pray that you would
reveal more of his glory. We pray that you would bless
your word. We pray that you would Guard
us against error that you would enable us to rejoice in truth. And we ask it in Christ's name
and for his sake. Amen. We've been going verse by verse
through first Peter on Wednesday nights and this past Wednesday
night. We looked at verse 17, where
the Lord says, if you call on the Father, who without respect
of persons judges according to every man's word, pass the time
of your sojourning here in fear. And we considered what it is
meant by God having no respect of persons. The Lord has a perfect
standard of righteousness that has no exceptions to it. It has
no exemptions. There's no appeal to his standard
of absolute perfection. He requires that of all men. And the greatest example of that
is the cross. When his darling son bore the
sins of his people in his body upon that tree, God Almighty
could not lower his standard of righteousness. He could not
make an exception for his only son. He was forced by his holy
standard of righteousness to pour out the full fury of his
wrath and The glorious truth of the
gospel is that the sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ made
quenched that fire so that there is now therefore no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. But here's the point. If the
father could not make an exception for his own son when he saw sin
on him, then we know that he can make no exception for no
man. He is not a respecter of persons. He cannot change. But it's a good thing. It's our
hope that the full righteousness of God has been established. Justice has been satisfied. We
have an advocate with the Father. We have a righteousness in Christ
Jesus that the Father's pleased with and that he accepts. And
Christ the Lord himself is the hope of our salvation. He is
no respecter of persons. Isn't that good? I'm thankful
that he's not. If he was a respecter of persons,
if his standard changed or he made exceptions or adjustments,
how would we know what he required and how would we know if we were
able to satisfy that requirement? God has a standard of righteousness
that he cannot, cannot change. He is no respecter of persons. Verse 18, for as much as you
know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
father, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before
the foundation of the world, but was manifest or made known
in these last times for you, who by him, by the Lord Jesus
Christ, we do believe in God, that raised him from the dead
and gave him glory, that your faith and your hope might be
in God. all of your faith and all of
your hope might be in God. The first thing I want us to
see on these verses is that God writes his word to his people,
to his church. The Bible is not written to rebuke
the world. The world doesn't know what the
Bible says. The world doesn't care what God
thinks about anything. This is a word to us, to his
redeemed. You see that when Peter says,
you know, you know these things. You know that you were not redeemed
with corruptible things such as silver and gold. That phrase in itself is very
interesting. You almost think when the Lord
said you were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as wood,
hay, and stubble, that that would be something corruptible. The
two things that we know of in this world that don't decay is
silver and gold. So what is the Lord saying to
us? Silver and gold are instruments
of exchange. subject of monetary value that
we use to buy things. That's what silver and gold is.
What's the Lord saying to us? You weren't redeemed with something
that you offered to God in order to purchase from him your redemption. You didn't offer to God something
that was of great value and highly esteemed in this world, that
which is highly esteemed among men, the scripture says, and
is an abomination to God. You didn't offer to him your
works or your free will or anything else to accomplish your redemption. You know that. So why is the
Lord reminding us of these things? Well, because in every child
of God there is a self-righteous Pharisee that is always tempted
to look back over its shoulder, puts its hand to the plow, but
he's always looking back. I can remember the first time
I ever tilled up a garden. I bought an old used rototiller
and I was so proud. I grew up in the city, I'd never
lived in the country, first time in the country and I thought
I'm gonna plant a garden. And cranked that thing up and
started plowing down the row and I was so proud of what I
was doing, I kept looking back over my shoulder. And when I
got to the end of the row, my line was like this, all over
the place. And my neighbor came over, he
saw what I was doing, he said, no, no, no, that's not the way
you do it. He said, take a stake with a flag on it and put it
down at the end of the row and keep your eye on that. And sure
enough, it worked. The lines were straight. But
aren't we like that? Always looking over our shoulder
to see what kind of line we're drawing. See what kind of life
we're living? See how straight our rows are?
And the more we look back, the crookeder they get. And the Lord
is saying to you, child of God, you were not redeemed with corruptible
things such as silver and gold. Don't look back over your shoulder.
Don't try to find comfort and salvation and hope in something
you've done or something that you haven't done. The natural man receives not
the things of God, they're spiritually discerned. This word is not to
the world. God's not rebuking the world,
saying to the world, you know, whether it be the irreligious
world or the religious world. If we spent our time preaching
against the sins of society or the sins of man-made religion,
all we would do is cause a spirit of pride and self-righteousness
in ourselves. This is to God's people, you
know, you know. Why do you keep looking to corruptible
things for the hope of your salvation? This is for you. You notice that
in verse 20, the last two words in verse 20, he was manifested
in these last times for you. Who by him you believe. This is a word to God's people, a word of encouragement,
a word of reminder. Pride is so subtle and self-righteousness
is so ugly and yet like Cain who brought before God The very
first time we read of the word respect, we saw that in verse
17, God does not have respect for persons. The very first time
we read of the word respect is that Cain brought the offering
of his hands to God, and God had no respect for his offering. And Abel, on the other hand,
brought a blood sacrifice, and God had respect for his offering. So the Lord does. respect his
son, he respects the blood sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ made
on behalf of his people, but he has no respect for anything
that we produce or offer to God. He calls them corruptible things.
They're silver and gold to the world. What's more precious,
what's more valuable than silver and gold? And yet, the scripture
says that the streets in heaven are going to be paved with that
stuff. And I don't think that the meaning,
matter of fact, in the same passage in the book of Revelation where
it speaks of the streets of heaven being pure gold, it says they're
so pure of gold that they're transparent. What that means
to me is not that, those streets of gold are not going to capture
our attention. We're just going to look right
through them. Gold is going to have no value
in heaven. The glory of the Lord Jesus Christ
is going to be so overwhelming and so glorious that the streets
of heaven are not going to be. Notice these things of gold and
silver that men put so much value in. The scriptures speak of things,
believer, that we know. In 1 John chapter 20 it says, you
have an unction from the Holy Ghost and you know the truth. You know the truth. By God's
grace and by His Spirit, we are able to discern the difference
between a lie and the truth. Between the false gospel and
the true gospel. You know these things. You know
that you're nothing but sin. You know that. God's revealed
that to you. If you have an unction from the
Holy Ghost. And yet, though we know these
things, we're always trying to offer God something in the flesh,
aren't we? Always tempted to look somewhere
else for the hope of our salvation other than to Christ. But you
know these things. You know that no lie is of the
truth. You can discern any lying spirit that would say
to you, you have to do this and you have to do that in order
to be saved. You know that's not true. Or any lying spirit that would
tempt you to believe that things are out of control. How often
times that lying spirit whispers in our ear. But you know that
all things work together for good for them that love God and
those that are called according to his purpose. You know that
and yet you forget, don't you? We forget. We forget. We think, you know, things are
out of control. They're not going as I'd hoped
or as I'd planned. No, everything's right on schedule.
Right on schedule. You know that's true. Much of the truth that we don't
know, all the depth of truth is infinite. Infinite. For all of eternity we're going
to have more and more of the glory of Christ revealed to us. And some might take that truth
and say, well how do you know that what you believe now is
true. You know, is Trevor here? Trevor's
a mathematician. I had to get somebody to tutor
me through algebra just to get the basics down to get through
college. But he knows all that stuff. Does that mean that what I know
About 2 plus 2 equaling 4 is not true? No. You see, you can have a whole
lot more knowledge, but that doesn't change the fact that
what you know is true. You have an unction from the
Holy Ghost. You know the truth. It doesn't mean that you know
all the truth, but you know that what he's revealed to you is
true. It's true. First John chapter 3 verse 5,
and you know that he was manifested to take away our sins and in
him is no sin, you know that. You know that the sins that the
Lord Jesus Christ bore on Calvary's cross, he owned them as his own
and he bore the shame and the guilt of them but he didn't commit
them, we committed them and he took them. and suffered the full
wrath of God's justice in order to put them away. You know that. Paul said in Romans chapter 7,
he says, and we know that the law is spiritual but I am carnal. I am carnal, sold under sin. There's a sin nature in us that cannot believe God, cannot
find any hope or comfort in Christ. And yet the new heart and the
new man, that's all he has. All he has is Christ. Corruptible things as silver and gold, all the things
that men value, sincerity, good works, law keeping, commitment. Oh, if I can just do a little
more, if I can do a little more, I can redeem myself. No, you
can't. And you know that. You weren't
redeemed with corruptible things. Come, buy and eat without money
and without price. You know there's no amount of
gold, there's no amount of silver, there's no amount of works performed
by man that can redeem a sinner, that can buy a sinner and pay
for his sins. You know that. You know it takes
something more. It takes what God requires and
he's not a respecter of persons. And he won't be satisfied with
anything less than the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And all this touch not, taste
not, handle not temptations that men give, it can't redeem. Can't redeem. Notice also in verse 18 where
he says that You know that you were not redeemed
with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, from the
vain conversation. Now, conversation in the Bible
isn't just a verbal exchange in the sense that we use conversation. It's your life. It's your behavior.
It's everything there is about you. And he calls it a vain conversation,
a vain life. And the word vain means empty.
And so there is a place in the book
of Ephesians where Paul uses the word conversation to speak
of the behavior that we were engaged in before we knew Christ. And he says in chapter 2 at verse
3, we had our conversation in times past in the lust of our
flesh fulfilling its desires. of the flesh and of the mind,
but that's not what he's referring to here in our text. He says,
vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers.
So Peter's writing to a Jewish audience and he's talking to
them about their attempt to redeem themselves by the keeping of
God's law. And he says, these are vain conversations. These are empty lifestyles. This is a vain attempt to try
to redeem yourself before a holy God. Traditions from your fathers. And here's the truth for us who
are not Jewish. Our fathers and their fathers
before them and their fathers before them came into this world
believing that redemption could be achieved by something that
man did. It is in our nature and that's
how you came into the world and that's how I came into the world.
Believing that there was something that we needed to do. in order
to redeem ourselves and if we could just accumulate enough
silver and gold and offer it to God that it would be sufficient. The universal lie that is believed
by all men, all men, all men believe this and God has sent
men a strong delusion and they believe the lie, they really
believe it with all their hearts, is that man has a free will.
And that he can choose to accept or reject God anytime he wants
to. And that he's basically the captain
of his own ship and the Lord of his own destiny. I'll be saved
when I'm ready to be saved. And God will operate on my terms. God's voting for me, I understand
that. The devil's voting against me,
but I hold the trump card. I get to break the tie. Child of God, you're not redeemed with corruptible
things. How corruptible our will is. Man has a will, but his will
is his problem, not the hope of his salvation. We exercise our will, we're always
in rebellion against God. Galatians chapter 3, turn with
me to that passage, Galatians chapter 3. Again, this is a word
to God's people who are always tempted to look over their shoulder
and see how straight their lines are in order to find comfort
and hope. And you know that you were not
redeemed by those things. Galatians chapter 3, and there
is a spirit of Galatia in every believer. Oh foolish Galatians, who has
bewitched you? Who's deceived you? Who's hinted to you that you
could find hope of your salvation somewhere outside of the Lord
Jesus Christ? That you should not obey the
truth. What is the truth? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you shall be saved. Christ is all of our salvation.
Before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth
and crucified among you. You know that's why he died.
He died to put away your sin. He died to satisfy divine justice. He died to establish a righteousness
that God would be satisfied with. Why would we be tempted to go
and look anywhere else? This only would I learn if you
received you the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing
of faith. Are you so foolish that haven't
begun in the spirit? Are you now made perfect by the
flesh? Is this not the accusations of
the devil? Oh, you could you could you can
be more acceptable to God. You can achieve your perfection. Have you suffered so many things
in vain if it be yet in vain? He, therefore, that ministered
the Spirit among you, and that's God. God's the one. He's the
only one that can give us His Spirit. We ask the Lord for His
Holy Spirit, and He ministers His Spirit among us. And He works
miracles among you, the greatest of which, I was talking to somebody
recently who has received a a very difficult diagnosis. And their response, they're not
believers, and their response was, well, you know, there's
always hope of a miracle. And I said, yes, there is. And
we do pray the Lord will do that. But if he performs a physical
miracle for you, it's only going to be temporary. I mean, you're
70 years old, you're gonna get sick again soon and eventually
you're gonna die. And I had an opportunity to say
to them, the greatest miracle of all was the new birth. That's
the greatest miracle. That a dead sinner would be made
alive, that his eyes would be opened, that he would trust Christ
rather than trusting himself. That's the greatest miracle of
all. And so he that ministers the
Spirit to you and works miracles among you, doeth it by the works
of the law or by the hearing of faith? It's not the works
of the law that bring these things about. The new birth doesn't
come by the works of the law. The giving of the Spirit doesn't
come by the works of the law. We don't earn these things, they
come through faith. And faith is a gift from God. Verse six, even as Abraham believed
God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore
that they which are of faith, the same are the children of
Abraham. Abraham, the father of the faithful.
Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
Abraham trusted Christ. Abraham looked to that sacrifice
that would be made for him. Abraham came before God only
through the blood of that lamb that was without spot and without
blemish. And the scriptures foreseeing,
verse 8, that God would justify the heathen through faith preached
before the gospel unto Abraham saying, in these shall all nations
be blessed. So then, they which be of faith
are blessed with faithful Abraham. For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things that are written
in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, it is evident. For the just shall
live by faith. And the law's not a faith, the
man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed
us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for
it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree. We're redeemed from the, why
would we go back to the law? To try to earn our acceptance
with God. Why would we do that? Why do
we do that? because we received vain traditions
from our fathers. That's why we do it. And we have to hear the gospel
to remind us how vain and how empty that hope is. It's vain,
there's nothing to it. Go back with me to our text. Let me say this without going
to the text. There's nothing wrong with God's
law. God's law is holy, just, and good, and we love God's law.
The problem was with our inability to keep it. That's the problem. And to have any thought that
we could produce something that would be acceptable to God for
our redemption is a vain thought. A foolish idea. Verse 19 in our text. We were
not redeemed with these things, but we are redeemed with the
precious and that word precious means priceless. There's no price
that can be put on the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
no price that we can come up with to buy it. And there's no
offering once you have it, there's no offering that can be given
to you that would cause you to sell it. It is priceless. It is the precious blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Why blood? Why blood? Well, it goes back to the garden.
God said in the day in which you eat of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, which we've all done, you shall surely die. And life is in the blood. And
so God requires the death penalty for the atonement for sin. It's
the only thing that he requires. But your death and my death is
not sufficient. All the death of all those animals
throughout all those years in the Old Testament were simply
pointing to the death of the one who would be able by his
shed blood. He brought his blood, the scripture
says, not into the holies of holies through that veil to put
on the mercy seat, where the Old Testament priests would put
it, but he carried it into heaven. And he put that blood that he
shed on that mercy seat, not made with hands, the mercy seat
in heaven. And God saw his blood and God
said, I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. Atonement has
been made. The price has been paid. Reconciliation
is complete. Redemption, the price that God
required, was that of a lamb that was without spot, a sinless
lamb. The only reason the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ was sufficient to redeem is because His blood
was without sin. His blood was without sin. He
bore our sins in His body upon that tree. But he wasn't born
in the natural way that you and I were born. He was conceived
of the Holy Spirit and his nature was without sin. He didn't inherit
his sin nature from his father. He didn't get those vain traditions
like you and I did. He got his hope from his heavenly
father. Let me show you that, turn back with me to Hebrews
chapter 9 and I would recommend that you
read all of Hebrews 9 and 10 to understand the full picture
here but let's just read a couple of verses quickly. Hebrews chapter
9 verse 22, and almost all things were by the law purged with blood
and without the shedding of blood there's no remission. Making
reference to the Old Testament priests sprinkling the tabernacle
and the things that were set apart with blood, again, pointing
to the blood of Christ. It was therefore necessary that
the patterns of things in heaven should be purified with these,
but the heavenly things themselves were with better sacrifices than
these. You see, that Old Testament tabernacle
was just a pattern of the spiritual tabernacle that is in heaven.
And a better sacrifice had to be made. These were just physical
pictures, shadows, types of what the Lord Jesus would accomplish.
Turn over to chapter 10 at verse 17. And their sins and their iniquities
will I remember no more. Now where remission of these
is, there's no more offering for sin. There's no more offering
for sin. We seek to love Him and serve
Him and want to obey Him, but as soon as we think in any way
that anything that we do It's going to satisfy his requirement
for the remission of our sins. We've fallen from grace. There's no more sacrifice for
sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness. to enter into the holiest by
the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath
consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. So that veil that separated the
holies of holies and the tabernacle in the tabernacle and the Ark
of the Covenant where the mercy seat was were all types and pictures. God said to Moses, Aaron goes
in here once a year and puts the blood on this mercy seat,
and here I will meet with you. And what God is saying to me
and you is that that veil was a picture of his flesh. And when
he died, the veil was rent from top to bottom. God rent it. God
rent that veil. And the Lord Jesus Christ went
into that holies of holies in heaven, and he put his blood
on that mercy seat. And God is saying to you and
me, here, I will meet with you. Nowhere else. Nowhere else. Don't look anywhere else. I'm
not a respecter of persons. I make no exceptions to this.
I didn't make any exceptions for my son, and I'm certainly
not going to make them for you. And that's a good thing. That's
a good thing. That's our hope. I want to close with just a couple
brief statements about the resurrection because the Lord brings it up
in our text. Look at verse 21 in 1 Peter chapter
1, who by him, by the Lord Jesus Christ, you do believe in God. that raised him from the dead
and gave him glory that your faith and hope might be in God. That your faith and hope be not
in corruptible things such as silver and gold, something that
you offer God to purchase your salvation, but that your faith
might be completely in God. What is the hope of our faith?
It's the resurrection. It's the resurrection. The whole
world is recognizing the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ today.
And I fear that the vast majority of them are only acknowledging
a historical event, or they think that the resurrection is the
hope that anyone can be saved. Neither one of those is the point
of the resurrection. The point of the resurrection
is that God was obligated by the law, by his holy standards,
by his covenant that he made with the Lord Jesus Christ to
raise his son from the dead because God was satisfied with what he
accomplished. What did he accomplish? What
did he accomplish? The salvation of all men, an
offering made to all men? No, he offered himself to his
father on behalf of his people. And God could not allow his holy
one to see corruption. The resurrection, child of God,
is the only evidence that God has given us. That the Lord Jesus
Christ was completely successful in what he came to do. And what
was that that he came to do? Save his people from their sins. And he did exactly that. He did exactly that. He didn't make a stab at it.
He didn't make a general offering to all. He saved his people from
their sins. He made redemption for sin. He put away sins of his people. He satisfied the demands of God's
justice. He fulfilled all the requirements
of righteousness and the resurrection is the proof of that. The Lord said, you look for anything
else. A wicked and adulterous generation
seeketh after a sign." You see, and we do that, don't we? You
see, this goes back to our looking over our shoulder and trying
to find some sign and some evidence of our salvation. We all do it. Why? Because we've
got that self-righteous Galatian spirit pharisaical spirit in
us that tries to find some hope of our salvation in something
other than the accomplished sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ made
on Calvary's cross proven to be accepted by the Father by
his resurrection. No other sign will be given but
the sign of Jonah. who spent three days and three
nights in the belly of the whale. That's the sign, the resurrection. And it's the resurrection that
we, you know, we don't make a big thing out of Easter because the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is the cause of our rejoicing
always, always. It will be for all eternity.
For all eternity, we'll be rejoicing in a living Christ who conquered
death, who conquered the grave, who defeated Satan, who established
righteousness, through whom God says, I remember your sins no
more. Amen? Amen. All right, let's take a
break.