The way that 1 Peter 1:14 argues, “as obedient children, don’t be conformed,” seems to say that being a child is a motive for not being conformed. He doesn’t say, “get your passions fixed so that you can become a child,” right? That’s not Christianity. He says, “As obedient children, you’ve been born.” First Peter 1:3: “He caused you to be born again.” You’re born into a family, and now you have a Father, and you are a child, and as a new child in a new family with a new Father, let that have an effect on your behavior.

We love our Father. We don’t want to dishonor our Father. We are obedient children. We are chips off the old block. That is what new birth says, isn’t it? When you get a new birth by the Spirit, you get a new DNA, a spiritual DNA, and all kinds of new passions are written into that DNA.

I want to jump right now to 1 Peter 2:2, where it says, “Grow up into salvation.” Eagerly desire the sincere spiritual milk that you may grow into salvation. Because I don’t want to create the impression that the moment you’re born again, you have all these new passions full-blown immediately. You don’t, and 1 Peter knows you don’t. First Peter 2:2 is growth and 1 Peter 2:3 is be built into a house. There’s this process that comes into being. Let’s see if we can get there.

The Pattern of 1 Peter

Okay, let’s see if we can summarize. This little slide right here is a summary of what we’ve seen so far. We have God who is at the front of everything, right? Ultimate reality: God. We’re not ultimate. He’s ultimate — always been there. We learn 1 Peter 1:2–3 that this God is a God of great mercy. Where would we be?

Where would we be? Since we’ve not lived up to our own standards, let alone his, this God of great mercy sends a bleeding and rising Christ into the world. He dies for sinners. He’s raised from the dead. Then he comes to each of us, and he awakens us from our deadness spiritually, and we experience new birth.

In this new birth, in the new family, we have new knowledge, not the old ignorance, but new knowledge of a great inheritance, and the Father’s getting us there. So the inheritance is great, and he keeps us for it. We know that now because we’ve been born again. And out of that new knowledge, new passions come, new passions of faith, hope, joy, and out of that comes new conduct, namely holiness.

That’s the pattern we’ve seen so far: God, mercy, work of Christ, new birth, new knowledge, new passions, new conduct. He hasn’t said a word yet about the effect this has on Vancouver or Cappadocia, Pontus, Galatia. He will. He hasn’t said a word yet about doing it for the glory of God. He will.

Live a Life of Fear

First Peter 1:17: “And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves” — so he’s still at the conduct level here — “conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.” He’s still got that in mind: “with fear.” The basic command in 1 Peter 1:17 is live a life of fear.

And that jars us because you’ve probably heard that the most frequent command in the Bible is “fear not.” And here we’re being told to live our whole lives in fear.

First Peter 1:18: “Knowing” — so this is a foundation or a reason for living your life in fear — “that you were ransomed from the futile ways” — that’s the old ways in ignorance, the futile ways. So here’s futile ways and here’s new conduct. So, conduct yourselves with fear. This is new and you were bought. “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.”

I would just love to linger here. If I were preaching a sermon here instead of trying to move us forward, I would so want to apply to those of you who feel fatalistic about the effects of your parents’ treatment of you on the possibilities of your life. You feel fatalistic about that and probably some people have told you that you’re just stuck and that abuse or that neglect has made you this way and that’s just sad, and we will just have to accept that.

Yes, there are scars that don’t go away. That’s true. But I just want to you linger over 1 Peter 1:17–18 here because why would he say inherited from your forefathers. Futile ways, knowing that you were ransom with what? In order to be set free from futile ways that came down to you, through your parents, through some kind of generational sin. And you are feeling fatalistic about your possibilities as a man or a woman, and I want to say to you, don’t minimize the value of the blood of Jesus right here.

Because look: “Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold.” The ransom that was paid for you. It’s not like gold and silver. It’s not like a billion dollars, a mere billion dollars. “Such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18–19).

A Word for Counselors

So he’s contrasting a ransom payment that is small and a ransom payment that is infinite. The blood of the Son of God. And if you say, “Well, that ransom really can’t free me from the futile ways inherited from my parents,” then you are saying something untrue about the blood of Jesus. This is worth a lot of your prayer, a lot of your thought, a lot of your discussion, if you’re in counseling, you should take this to your counselor. Just take these verses to your counselor and say, “How do you think that works?”

Counselors ought to have to come to terms with things like that. I mean, I love counseling. My wife and I have gone to counseling. We’ve been married 46 years, I think we spent four of them in counseling, just to be honest about how hard life is sometimes in ministry. So don’t hear me debunking Christian counseling. I think God anoints people with wisdom, which is what counseling is, and some of them are terrible. Paul Tripp is not a terrible counselor. Be here for your marriage seminars. And what I mean by terrible is there’s very little profound reflection on a verse like this. Okay, I said I wasn’t going to linger too long over that.

Fear to Bring Dishonor to the Lord

Here’s the strange thing. This “knowing” right here is like “because you know, so conduct yourselves with fear throughout your exile because you know, you’ve been ransomed with an infinite price.” Does that make any sense at all? “Conduct yourself with fear because you know, an infinite price has been paid to rescue you.” That wouldn’t produce fear, that produces hope.

So this is the kind of thing that causes me to just think and think and think and pray and pray. I want to get this, I want to get this. You’re telling me to live my whole life in fear. Conduct yourself in fear because you know, you know that you were ransomed from all the deadly ways of your forefathers, not with mere billion dollars worth of gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus. Therefore, live your life in fear.

Okay, here’s my attempt at a solution to that. I mean, you could, I suppose just immediately say, “Well, ‘fear’ doesn’t mean fear. It means reverence. Okay?” Do a word study on “fear” in 1 Peter, I don’t think you’ll go there too quick. It’s used for “really being afraid” sometimes. And so the question is, is it here?

Here’s a picture. I’ll do a little picture for you. You have been kidnapped — say you’re 18 years old, you’re a young woman — and they send your dad a ransom note that says they want a million dollars and you leave it here. She’ll pick it up and I mean, we’ll pick it up and let her go meet you on this field. And so you love her and though it’s risky and the police may advise you against it, you’re going to take whatever risk necessary to get your daughter.

And so you somehow get the million dollars together, mortgage, everything, or whatever. And then you take it and you put it out there and you walk to the appointed place and she walks out, picks it up, walks back, and says, “Sucker!” I think what 1 Peter is saying is, “Fear that that ever happens to you.”

Don’t ever become that young woman. Don’t ever take the blood of Jesus and pretend that it doesn’t rescue you from evil conduct and just go ahead and side up with the devil and bank on the blood of Jesus to get you out of hell in the end while you live like the devil here. Don’t treat the blood that way. The price. Don’t treat your dad that way. Don’t treat Jesus that way.

Here’s what I mean. I think fear frequently in the New Testament — I don’t know whether I have any other verses to illustrate this — is a motive to keep you from acting in a way that would bring dishonor upon the Lord and to drive you to Christ where there is hope.

Fear Unbelief

Here’s a few verses that point in that direction. Romans 11:20: “That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.” That means fear unbelief. Can you handle that paradox? I don’t want to mess up your life here. I don’t want you to walk out of here thinking you’re supposed to be walking in fear.

He may not love me. What I want you to fear is your unbelief. You are walking out and saying, “Sucker!” Fear that you might wake up tomorrow morning and say “sucker” to God. Fear that. And what does that fear do to you? That fear drives you into faith, drives you into hope, drives you into girding up the loins of your minds and being sober and setting your hope, fully on the things that are to come, so that you don’t drift away into cherishing the world and say, sucker, I love the world.

That’s how I think this fear in 1 Peter 1:17. Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. I mean, I think means conduct yourselves with a kind of fear and trembling that Paul talks about a fear and trembling that recognizes how frail you are and how desperately you need grace. And then fly to grace, fall on grace, and put away fear.

It’s a rhythm. Numerous other passages. Luke 12: “Don’t fear the one who can only kill the body. . . . Fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!” (Luke 12:4–5). That kind of fear should drive us to the cross. Drive us to faith.