Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us and I hope and pray that this message
will be a blessing to you. As we look at God's Word, I'll
be preaching today from the book of 1 Peter chapter 1. The first letter or epistle of
the Apostle Peter to the church and specifically to believers
who are scattered throughout, and even Jewish believers, both
Jew and Gentile. And the title of the message
today is The Value of Christ's Blood. We're going to be talking
about the blood, the concept of the blood that runs through
the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. And when we speak of the blood
of Christ, We sing hymns about the blood. What can wash away
my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
And there's power in the blood. It's another hymn we sing. Under
the blood of Jesus. When we speak of the blood, what
we're speaking of is this. It is the fact, the truth, the
glorious gospel truth of the death of Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, God in human flesh, God manifest in the flesh. It is
the death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as the surety, the
substitute, and the redeemer of God's chosen people. And His
death works out or results in what the Bible calls propitiation. You may have heard that term.
The word is used four times in the New Testament, but the concept
is Old and New Testament. It's like the concept of the
mercy seat. You may have read of the mercy
seat in the Old Covenant, which is in the tabernacle. In the
Holy of Holies, the mercy seat was the lid over the Ark of the
Covenant that enclosed the law. and that law which was broken
by sinners, by us, and by the people of Israel. And that mercy
seat was a lid, and it was made of chetem wood and overlaid with
gold. And the chetem wood was a type
of the humanity of Christ, and the gold was a type of his deity. And on that mercy seat, on that
lid that had the two cherubims facing each other, in the Holy
of Holies, the high priest would come in one time a year with
the blood of a lamb off of the altar of burnt offering, and
he'd sprinkle that blood over the mercy seat. And that all
typified the way God saves sinners by His grace through the blood
of Christ. Now that word propitiation is
a word that means satisfaction. You understand? That's what the
blood is. The death of Christ satisfied the justice of God. And that, and we're talking about
the power of His blood, and this is what, it's redemption. In
other words, it's the price of the sins of God's people fully
paid by His one death. The Bible says in Hebrews 10,
14, for by one offering, and that's the offering of Himself
upon the cross, to die by one offering, he, Christ, hath perfected,
completed, fulfilled, finished forever them that are sanctified. That is, those whom God set apart
and gave to him. Hebrews 10, 14. So the power
of the blood of Christ, the value of the blood of Christ, is this,
that all for whom he died shall be saved. Now people today devalue
the blood of Christ because instead of making it a propitiation,
a satisfaction, what they make it is a blanket pardon that is
only effectual if you'll believe or if you'll accept it. And so
they'll say things, you know, you're the common language of
today's false Christianity. God loves you. Christ died for
you. Now, if you'll do your part, you'll be saved. Well, that devalues
his blood. That says that his blood was
shed just as much for those who die in their sins and perish
as it was for those who were saved. And that devalues the
blood. But see, God puts all value on
the blood. You think about the Passover.
Remember back in Egypt when the last plague, when God told Moses
to tell the children, the Hebrew children, to slay a lamb. and
put the blood over the door, so that when he came through
in judgment on Egypt, when he sees the blood, he said, when
I see the blood, I will pass over you. And when God said,
I see the blood, and that's what he's showing, that the blood
satisfies his law and justice, and it satisfies it in two ways.
Number one, it is the putting away the bearing away of all
the sins of all of God's people imputed, charged to Christ. And then secondly, it is His
blood, His death, is the fulfillment of all the righteousness that
God's people need, that God requires and God's people need to enable
Him to justify them. And it's Christ's righteousness,
imputed, charged to them. Now look at 1 Peter 1 and verse
1. First of all, look at who Peter's
writing to here. He says in 1 Peter 1 and verse
1, he says, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers
scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and
Bithynia. So that's believers that are
all throughout these Gentile regions. And he's marking out
Jewish believers too. But here's what he says in verse
two, elect according to the foreknowledge of God, the Father. That's their
election. My friend, the Bible teaches
that God elected a people. And that's not just for the Jews.
That's for, who are the elect of God? They are believers. If
you're a believer, you were chosen by God before the foundation
of the world. Your name was written in the
Lamb's book of life. The Lamb that was slain. And
so that's the blood of Christ. He is dying for his elect, his
chosen people. He identified them in John chapter
six and verse 37. When he said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
unknowwise cast out. Now people, unbelievers, take
these truths and they abuse them and misuse them and confuse them.
They'll say things like, well, if I'm not one of his elect,
doesn't matter what I do. No, you're not God. You don't
know who the elect are. We preach the gospel. and all
who believe it, and God commands you to believe it, shall be saved. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. Pleading the blood of Christ,
pleading His righteousness imputed. So look at 1 Peter 1 and verse
2. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification
of the Spirit, that's the Holy Spirit, the word sanctify there
is the same as the word holy, it means to set apart You were
set apart by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes, brings
you under the preaching of the gospel, and he says, unto obedience. And what obedience is he talking
about there? He's not just talking about mere
human morality. He's not simply talking about
getting people off of drugs and alcohol. Listen, we need to get
off drugs and alcohol. But false religion can accomplish
that. Now I'm telling you that. Don't
think it can't. False religion can do a lot of
things that people look highly upon and need to do. But the
obedience here is faith in Christ and repentance of dead works.
Faith in His blood. Romans chapter 3 tells us. In
other words, I know now something I didn't know before I was set
apart by the Spirit in the new birth, before I was born again,
before He gave me eyes to see and ears to hear this truth.
I know that the only thing that can put away my sins is the blood
of Jesus Christ. I know that the only righteousness
that I have before God is the blood of Jesus Christ, His righteousness
imputed. So he says in 1 Peter 1 and verse
2, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. And what he's talking
about is the sprinkling of the conscience, the guilty conscience,
the condemned conscience, the legal conscience. When God the
Holy Spirit brings a sinner under conviction of sin, knowing that
I can, even at my best, I deserve nothing from God but eternal
death, and that I cannot make myself righteous. I cannot wash
myself clean from my sins. It's a matter of grace and mercy
from God through the blood of Jesus Christ. And then he brings
me by faith to Christ to show me that Christ is my all. His cross, Paul said it this
way in Galatians 6.14, God forbid that I should glory, boast, or
have confidence except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's that sprinkling of
the blood of Jesus Christ, and then he says, grace unto you
and peace be multiplied. Now, look over at verse 18 of
1 Peter 1. Now Peter says here, for as much
as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things
as silver and gold, Now, a lot of people will look at that and
say, well, you can't buy your way into heaven. You can't buy
your way into acceptance with God or righteousness with money. And that's true. You know, the
Catholic Church has their concept of purgatory. And some people
had the idea that you could pay money and pray to get relatives
and people out of purgatory. Well, you're not redeemed that
way. That's not the way it goes. That's false religion, folks.
That's works religion. That's pride and self-righteousness. But I believe the main thing
that Peter has in mind here is the silver and gold of the tabernacle,
the religious elements of the tabernacle. Silver was the metal
that represented typified redemption. paying the redemption price.
And of course, gold was the representation of the deity of Christ. And so
you're not redeemed with these metals. And what Peter's saying
is, he says in 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 fathers,
that is from your religious walk But your father said, now you
gotta do this, and you gotta do that, and stop doing this,
and stop doing that, and then you'll be redeemed? No. He says,
verse 19, here it is. Here's the power, the value of
the blood of Christ. He says, but you're redeemed
with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot. In verse 20, he says, who verily
was foreordained Now you remember back over in verse two, he says,
elect according to the foreknowledge of God. Well, that's foreordained. And so here he says, Christ barely
was foreordained, verse 20, before the foundation of the world,
but was manifest, made known, appeared on earth in these last
times for you. That is for the elect. That's
who he's talking to, believers. So the precious blood of Christ
as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. The Bible says
that Christ is the just suffering. The death of Christ is the just
suffering for the unjust. Jesus Christ died in the place
of his people as their surety to redeem them. Now that speaks
of, as I mentioned before, there's the doctrine of Christ being
the surety of his people. Now what does that mean? He's
the surety of his people. The Bible calls him the surety
of the covenant. Hebrews 8 speaks of him as the
surety of a better covenant. Well, a surety is one who takes
responsibility to pay the debts of another. And before the foundation
of the world, God chose a people and gave them to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Put all the responsibility of
their sin debt, which would come in the future, their sin debt,
upon the account of Christ. That's the doctrine of imputation. Impute means to charge it to
him. It's a legal term. He's charged with the guilt of
their sins. He's charged with the accountability
of their sins. It's also a mercantile term,
like if you run up a debt on a credit card. That debt is imputed. It's charged to you. So Christ
voluntarily, because He loved His Father and loved His people
whom the Father gave Him, He literally agreed to be our surety. And so what it's talking about
here, here's Christ. He's the Lamb of God without
spot, without blemish. He knew no sin, He did no sin.
He came to this world and took into union with Himself a perfect,
sinless human body and human nature. And He was never corrupted
with that sin inwardly. But He already had the sins of
His people charged to His account. So even though he himself was
sinlessly perfect, he was made guilty not based upon any corruption
in him or any sin that he did. He did no sin. He was a lamb
without spot and without blemish. Remember back in the Passover. when the Lord instructed them
through Moses to get a lamb. Had to be a lamb of the first
year, cut down in the prime of life. That picture's Christ being
cut down in his youth at 33 years old. He had to be a lamb without
spot and without blemish. That picture's Christ the sinless
one. He bore the sins of his people. He was made a curse for his people. That is the curse of the law.
The law curses. any person to whom sin is imputed. That's why without Christ, we
have sin imputed to us. But in Christ, our sins are not
imputed, charged to us, it's imputed to Him. The Bible says,
who shall lay anything, Romans 8.33, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect. It's God that justifies. Why
cannot charges be laid to the elect? Because they're charged
to Christ. And so he went under the curse
of God. And it was a suffering. He suffered
for the sins of his people. He suffered unto death. He suffered
alienation from his father. On the cross he said, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And he did all that as the
surety of his people, but in suffering, he actually took the
place of his people. That's called substitution. So
the Lamb of God boreth away the sins of the world. Not everybody
without exception in the world, but all of his people out of
every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation all over the world.
That's what that means. So they're redeemed. And so that's
what happens. The surety took the place of
his people, shed his precious blood as the full payment, the
full payment of all their sins, and by his death he washed them
away. That means he paid the full redemption
price. and ensured and secured their
whole salvation, including their new birth, including their believing
in Him. If you truly believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ as He's identified and distinguished in the Word
of God, the Gospel, the true Gospel, that is the evidence
that God chose you before the foundation of the world. that
your name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life before the
foundation of the world. That's the evidence that Christ
redeemed you by His precious blood on the cross. And that's
the evidence that you've been born again by the Holy Spirit.
So Christ died. And here's the power and the
value of His blood. He didn't stay dead. He arose
again the third day, because His blood equals righteousness,
and righteousness demands life. That's what the Bible says. Christ
is the end of the law, Romans 10, 4. Christ is the end of the
law, the finishing, the fulfilling of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. Well, he says here that all of
this in verse 20, this is 1 Peter 1, 20. All of this was foreordained
by God before the foundation of the world. But it's manifest,
it's made known in these last times for you. That is all the
elect, all who believe. And here's the proof of that.
Look at verse 21. Who by Him, who by Christ, do
believe in God. See, believing is not the product
of your innate goodness. You don't have any. The Bible
says there's none good, no, not one. The Bible says the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. If left
to ourselves, we would never choose God's way of salvation.
It doesn't give us any room to glory and to boast. So it's by
Him that do believe in God that raised Him up from the dead and
gave Him glory that your faith and hope might be in God. You
see, you're not to have faith in yourself. I'm talking about
for salvation. Now, I'm not talking about self-esteem. You know, we try to promote self-esteem in our children
and confidence in some realm of pride, but not before God
now. We're talking about salvation.
We're talking about a right relationship with God. And this right relationship
with God is not based upon your goodness, your self-esteem, or
your pride. It's all in Christ. He gets all
the glory. And we get none. That's it. We get the results. We get the
gift. We get the promises. We get the blessings. But He
gets the glory. And so that your faith might
not be in yourself. When it comes to how God saved
me, I'm not to have faith in myself. I'm to have faith in
Christ. I'm not to have faith in my faith. It's not my faith
that made the difference between being saved and being lost. It
was the blood of Christ. That's the value of His blood.
Now, if you believe that He shed His blood for everybody, even
for those who end up perishing, then you have to look elsewhere
to find something else that makes the difference between saved
and lost, and usually people today will look towards their
faith. Well, we don't have faith in our faith that your faith
and your hope, your assurance of salvation might be in God,
the God who saves me by His grace. Then verse 22, he says, seeing
you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through
the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you
love one another with a pure heart fervently. In other words,
now that you believe the gospel, you go with those others who
believe it. That's the brethren, loving the
brethren, sticking with the brethren, uniting with the brethren. Verse
23, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible
by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. And that's
Christ, the word. There is the word that he uses
in John 1. Christ is the living word. Christ
is the incarnate word. The word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. Christ is the subject of the
written word and the preached word. And he goes on to say,
verse 24, for all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man
is the flower of grass. The grass withereth, the flower
thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever.
Christ endures forever. And as long as Christ endures
forever, all for whom he died, all for whom he shed his blood,
all to whom his righteousness is imputed, they'll live forever.
And he says, and this is the word, there's a different word
there, that's the preached word, which by the gospel is preached
unto you. That's what we preach, that's
what the gospel is. The gospel is not smile, God
loves you. The gospel is not God loves you
and Christ died for you, now you can make the difference,
no. The gospel is, look, you're a sinner. You have no hope of
salvation by your works. It's not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. It's
not by your will. And your only hope is to throw
yourself on the mercy of God and plead like that old publican,
God be merciful. Propitious is the word there.
God be merciful to me, the sinner. Well, where do I find God's mercy?
In Christ, in his blood, in his righteousness, his death, his
cross. Where do I find God's grace? Grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Your only hope
is the Lord Jesus Christ, the grace of God through the Lord
Jesus Christ, through his blood alone. If we walk in the light
as he is in the light, We're assured that the blood of Jesus
Christ cleanses us from all sin, not just some sins, not just
past sin, all sin. And what does that mean? That
means my sins are paid for. I don't owe a debt to God's law
and justice anymore. Christ paid my debt in full.
My debt is a debt of love to God, which will never be repaid.
I'll spend eternity realizing that debt. I owe God all of my
love, all of my allegiance, all of my service, not in order to
be saved or even to be kept saved. but because I already am because
of the value and the power of the blood of Christ. In that
hymn about what can wash away my sins, nothing but the blood
of Jesus, one of the verses says this, this is all my hope and
plea, nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. That's the power of His blood.
That's the value of His blood. Don't devalue it. Look to Christ
as the Lamb of God who bears away the sins of the world. My
friend, if He bore your sins away, you don't have anything
to worry about. Just cling to Him. Believe in
Him. Live your life looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher
of your faith. That's the power and the value
of His blood. That's satisfaction of God's
law and justice. That's all the righteousness
that a sinner needs in order to have a right relationship
with God, to be accepted with God, and blessed of God. I hope
you'll join us next week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.