Read the First Letter of Peter, chapter 1, verses13–25

1. RANSOMED WITH THE BLOOD OF CHRIST

A couple of weeks ago we looked at the “big idea” in this section of the first letter of Peter, and that is idea is the payment of a “ransom.” In the ancient world many people lived in slavery and could only be set free if someone made a ransom payment for their freedom. Although it is less visible to most of us today, there are millions of people around the world today who still live in slavery. And we know that today people can also be kidnapped and held captive until a ransom is paid for their freedom.

Two weeks ago, I asked myself and you, how we would feel if we were a slave or if we had been kidnapped, and someone else paid a $1 million ransom so that we could be set free, without any expectation that we would pay them back? How would it change our lives?

That’s exactly what Peter says has happened for followers of Jesus. We were slaves to the things that we all do which harm ourselves and others, and which damage our relationship not only with them but with God:

1 Peter 1: 18–21 (NRSV)

¹⁸ YOU know that YOU were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ … ²¹ Through him [Jesus] YOU have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that YOUR faith and hope are set on God.

When we reflected on these words a couple of weeks ago, we saw that for Christians this means we have a secure hope for the future. This is because our hope is set on God and what God has done for us through Jesus, not on ourselves. Therefore, our hope is “imperishable” (verse 22).

2. HOLY BECAUSE GOD IS HOLY

Today I want to focus on another point that Peter makes here. And that is that because our ransom has been paid, Jesus’ death and resurrection has set us free, our new lives should be completely shaped by that life-changing experience. Peter says:

1 Peter 1: 13–16 (NRSV)

¹³ Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. ¹⁴As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. ¹⁵ But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; ¹⁶ for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” 

Peter words are built on God’s instruction in Leviticus (19:1-2) after God had saved the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt: “You shall be holy [or ‘sacred’], for I the Lord your God am holy”, (and these words are also in Leviticus 11:44, 45; 19:2; 20:7).

This is not just something that’s there in the Old Testament, or just here in Peter’s letter, Jesus said similar words to his first followers:

Matthew 20:26, 28 (NRSV)

²⁶ … whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant … ²⁸ just as the Son of Man [Jesus] did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

And Paul said the same thing writing to one of the early churches:

1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (NRSV)

¹⁹ You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.

But today we are focused on what Peter said *with some help from Norman Hillyer’s commentary on this section, pages 44–47).

First, Peter calls them to “a single-minded commitment” (Hillyer, 1 and 2 Peter, Jude, Paternoster Press, 1992) — “with minds that are alert and fully sober” (in v. 13).

Second, he tells them that their commitment to “holiness” or “sacredness” will be worth all the effort — “set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming” (v.13). Jesus, who paid the ransom to secure our life, will return and we will be with him forever.

Third, Peter points out that if it’s true that in his death Jesus paid a ransom to give us a new life, that new life should not be like the old one — instead it should look like the life of Jesus, just as the people of Israel were called to the holy in the same way that God is holy or sacred.

3. OUR OBEDIENCE MATTERS

In a book he wrote about this letter, Norman Hillier points out that this single-minded commitment to Jesus and his lifestyle really matters. He says:

Obedience to God is to be the motivation behind every action, in the small and everyday matters of life as well as in the great issues-for who knows when some affair, small to our way of thinking, is going to turn out to mean a major change of direction in God’s scheme of things.
My friends, you might think that your Christian lives don’t matter much, or maybe you wonder sometimes if you’re really making a difference. Norman Hillyer reminds each of us that everything we do for Christ matters, and in fact none of us knows what difference even some of the smallest things we do, which might seem insignificant or uninfluential to us, will make, even if we may never see the result ourselves.

4. WHAT IS IT YOU WOULD WANT SAID AT YOUR FUNERAL?

Most people know about Martin Luther King’s campaigning for racial equality. Less people know that in the late 1960’s, King began to tackle the issues of poverty and war. Less people probably also know that after his death it became clear that behind the public persona was a man who also struggled to live a holy life and failed in his commitment to remain faithful to his wife. Without excusing his failures, I want to quote what I consider a helpful reflection King made on his own life. Exactly two months before he died (4 February 1968) King preached a different sermon in which he said that “every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral. And I don’t think of it in a morbid sense. Every now and then I ask myself, ‘What is it I would want said?’ And I leave the word to you this morning.” He went on to say he’d like to be remembered as a “drum major” — someone who sets the beat in a marching band:

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won’t leave any money behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that’s all I want to say. (The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by Claybourne Carson, Little, Brown & Company, 1999, pages 365-366)

What is it you would want said at your own funeral? What things are you a “drum major” for?

5. SHAPED BY GOD’S LIFE

Before I finish, I would like to invite you to join me in reading this passage from Peter (1:13-25) again together from a different translation (THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.):

¹³So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. ¹⁴Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. ¹⁵As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. ¹⁶God said,

 “I am holy; you be holy.”

 ¹⁷You call out to God for help and he helps – he’s a good Father that way. But don’t forget, he’s also a responsible Father, and won’t let you get by with sloppy living. Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. ¹⁸It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. ¹⁹He paid with Christ’s sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. ²⁰And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately – at the end of the ages – become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. ²¹It’s because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God.

 ²²Now that you’ve cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. ²³Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal seed; your new birth comes from God’s living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God himself! ²⁴That’s why the prophet said,

 “The old life is a grass life,
its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers;
Grass dries up, flowers droop,

²⁵God’s Word goes on and on forever.”

 This is the Word that conceived the new life in you.

 Amen.