Living as the Children of God (1 Peter 1:14-17)

This sermon was preached on 24/4/2011

We noticed in our previous study that in this passage (1 Peter 1:13-21) Peter exhorted his readers, whom he described as exiles from their heavenly homeland, to do three things. First, he urged them to set their hope on what they would receive when Jesus returned (v. 13), and we thought about that detail in our previous study. Second, he pressed upon them the need for a proper response to their heavenly Father (vv. 14-17), and we will consider this aspect shortly. Third, he implored them to recall what had happened to Jesus in the past and what he had done for them then (vv. 18-21), and that will be the focus of our next study.

Status of sons

Peter begins his second requirement by reminding his readers of the special status they had been given when they believed in Jesus. They had become the children of God, members of his family. This change of status occurred when they were living away from the homeland.

In order to appreciate how this change could take place in such a location, we can think of ourselves in this biblical sequence: in the family, banished from the family home, becoming exiles rather than banished, arrival in the family home. For those who know something of the writings of Thomas Boston, there is a similarity between our sequences and the one adopted by him in his well-known classic, Human Nature in its Fourfold State, although his sequence does not follow the line of membership of God’s family.

You may ask, ‘I know the Bible says that I was born with a sinful status, estranged from God. So when was I a member of his family?’ The answer to your question is that Adam and Eve belonged to God’s family when they were created by him at the beginning of human history (Luke 3:38). If they had remained in God’s family, then all their descendants would have been God’s children as well.

Sadly they rebelled against God when they refused to obey his prohibitions in the Garden of Eden. The consequence of their rebellion was that they were banished from his family and lost all connection to their former status and inheritance. God was no longer their Father, although he remained their Sovereign. All of their descendants are born banished from the family of God. And that is what we are, each one of us, by nature. We exist banished from God’s family.

Nevertheless, before time began, the heavenly Father desired that some of those who would be banished should also be restored to his family. In order for this recovery to take place, his eternal Son would have to come into the world of the banished and pay the penalty for their sins. This Jesus did when he suffered on the cross, and discovered the awful experience of full banishment when he, the sinbearer, lost the sense of God’s presence for a time. It is important to remember that Jesus was delighted to rescue the banished, although the way of doing so was full of distress and agony for himself.

After Jesus had paid the penalty, the heavenly Father (and Jesus and the Holy Spirit) sent a message of hope to the banished. The message is the gospel and it promises the banished that they can receive from God free membership of his family provided they repent of their sins and depend upon Jesus for salvation. Should they do so, they will have to live in exile for a while before arriving at the homeland.

Of course, this was a word of encouragement from Peter to his readers. He says to his fellow-exiles that, as children of God, they have his nature and they have his promised inheritance. In addition, his reference to adoption is a call to delightful diligence because the joy of their status as God’s children should cause them to rejoice in his service.

This was the stage in the sequence that Peter’s readers had reached. Therefore he instructs how they should live as God’s children in exile and mentions three features that should identify them. First, they are not to live the way they did before they became God’s children; second, the overall description of their new way of life is holiness; and third, prayer and reverence are appropriate aspects of living in exile.

A way of living to reject

The biggest danger facing the exiles is that they resume living like the banished. This possibility is always a real threat as we can see when we read the several letters of the New Testament that were sent to churches facing various problems. So we need to discover what dominates the outlook of the banished, because if we know what it is, then we will know how to respond to Peter’s warnings. Peter highlights two features: the banished are ignorant and the banished have evil desires.

Ignorance here does not mean lack of intelligence. The ancient world was full of intelligent persons (we only have to think of their philosophers, sculptors, builders etc.), but despite their achievements Peter classifies their lifestyle as ignorance. We know what they were ignorant of -- they did not know God and therefore they did not know themselves or what he wanted of them and was prepared to do with them.

The other feature of their outlook was their desires, which Peter describes as ‘passions’. It is important to realise that there are both good and evil passions. Passions are expressions of one’s heart, and the wrong passions are things we desired when we were ignorant of God. These passions cover a wide range of options and we are not to limit them to one area of life. They are things that we look to for satisfaction instead of looking to God to provide it. For some, it is materialism; for others, it is fame; for others, it is physical endeavours; for others, it is immorality. We can easily tell what our passions are, they are the things in which we delight. Some of them are not wrong in themselves, but they become sinful when we put them in place of God.

Holy exiles

Instead of being devoted to such things, the children of God should be devoted to obeying his commandments. Jesus taught his disciples that obedience to his requirements was not difficult (Matt. 11:28-30), that is, once we have become his disciples. Following Jesus becomes easier when we delight in him increasingly. Is it hard for an employee to obey a good employer? If it is, the fault lies within the employee and not with the employer. In a far higher sense, believers experience the Lord’s help as they learn from him. The author of Psalm 119 expresses in several different ways the delight he had in obeying God’s commandments. He is delighted to run in obedience to them, to walk in conformity to them. Obedience depends on the disposition of the heart.

The requirement stressed by Peter is comprehensive heart obedience to God. Peter does not mean that we can be as holy as God, such a standard is impossible for a creature. But he does means that we should be devoted to God in every area of life. We can put it this way: in which area of his life and purpose does God not put his glory first? Such an area does not exist. Similarly, the children of God are not to have an area of life in which God is not first.

Such an outlook results in a life of great beauty. God is revealed as beautiful as he acts for his own glory, and we reflect that beauty when we live our lives for his glory. It is not wrong for God to live for his glory (of course, if any of us should live for the glory of a creature, it is an expression of sin). If God had another primary aim, then what he would do would not be perfect. Living for his own glory does not mean that God is selfish, but it is a reminder that he is permanently jealous for his own glory, and he will punish those who put something else ahead of his glory.

When the Bible says that God is holy, it means that he is free from any defect. Everything about him is always perfect. This means that he is always elevated, that he is permanently exalted. We are given a marvellous insight into his splendour through the vision of God that Isaiah saw and heard (Isa. 6). In that vision, the holy angels, who themselves are sinless, obedient and powerful, they freely and reverently and endlessly extol the superiority of God. Their loving knowledge of the nature of God prevents them from sinning against him.

Since the holy God always requires the best, it means that to disobey him is both rebellious and foolish. Whatever allurements the land of exile may contain, they will not attract refugees who are occupied with the glory of the holy God. Thinking about God’s infinite supremacy will help us to live a holy life. This was the psalmist’s desire, expressed in Psalm 27:4: ‘One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.’

The nineteenth-century Scottish preacher John Brown put it this way: ‘The sum of the Christian’s duty is to be holy; that is, to be conformed to God; to have the same views, and judgments, and sentiments with him; to approve what he approves; to disapprove what he disapproves; and the strongest and best reason why the Christian should have these views, and judgments, and sentiments, and likings and disliking, is just because God has them. The strongest and best reason why he should thus think and thus will, is just that God thus thinks and thus wills. To be holy, is to be conformed to God; and to be conformed to God, is at once man’s highest honour, duty, and happiness; and what more cogent reason can be given for following any tenor of disposition and conduct than that it is ‘the whole of man’ [Eccles. 7:13], the whole of his honour, his duty, and his happiness?’

Privilege of the exiles

Peter then reminds his readers that exile from the homeland does not mean they cannot speak to their Father. Usually, earthly exile means a loss of contact between the refugee and his home. He does not know what is going on at home, and his family don’t know where he is and what is happening to him. How different is the situation for Christian exiles – they can speak to their Father at any time and ask him for help and provisions!

Although prayer is a privilege, it has conditions attached to it. The exiles pray to the God who is both Father and Judge. It is not possible to have a meaningful prayer life if one is indifferent to the fact that God is continually assessing his people as well as all others.

The particular attitude that is essential for a meaningful prayer life is fear of God. Of course, the type of fear that is required is reverence for him, not terror; another way of describing it is filial fear. Such reverential fear has two aspects: there is the fear of offending a holy Father whom we love, and there is the fear of experiencing his displeasure (his chastisement). In order to appreciate the importance of having this fear, we have to recall (1) who each exile is and (2) where each exile is. Each exile is still a sinner and each exile lives in a sinful world. There is much within him to lead him to disobey God and there is much in the sinful world that will tempt the exile to forget about God. Fear of God is a recognition that we have the capability of offending him.

Yet we also know that every other person with whom the exiles share this world is also marked by fear. We hear about these fears every day – fear of economic collapse, fear of disrupted plans, fear of illness and disease, fear of losing prestige among one’s peers, fear of what others will think. In fact, there are numerous causes of fear in society. While it is true that the exiles from heaven are influenced by what happens around them, they cannot allow their circumstances to reduce their fear of God. And such consistent reverence is a challenging lifestyle for those who see it, which is a reminder that fear of God leads to a credible witness by heavenly exiles.

There is also another aspect of their fear of God and that is they know that he will always judge righteously. Peter here connects acceptable prayer to the righteous judgement of God. We can apply this divine assessment to the present and the future. James tells us that one reason prayers are not heard is because petitioners ask with wrong motives (Jas. 4:3). Whatever else these words mean, they surely indicates that God judges or assesses the person who is praying and declines to answer him or her. Later in this letter Peter will say that wrong conduct in the home will prevent prayers being answered (1 Pet. 3:7). Surely this reality would lead each exile to say, ‘I will have to be careful about what I say and do today because my words and actions may hinder my prayers.’ So fear of God influences the level of priority I give to being in a fit state to pray to an all-seeing and consistent God.

Peter’s emphasis on the fact that God is not a respecter of persons is also a statement based on personal experience. He had been given an important place as an apostle, yet he discovered that he could not do as he liked, both before the death of Jesus and after his ascension. His sad denial of Jesus is well-known and can be traced to his spiritual problems, as can his behaviour later on when he refused to eat with Gentiles in Antioch and had to be rebuked by Paul. And we all can speak of similar situations when God in faithfulness dealt with our wrong actions or attitudes.

Connected to the role of God as Father and Judge is the future of the exiles once they arrive in the homeland. The Bible makes clear in many places that the future degree of bliss in the homeland is connected to the previous degree of dedication and Christlikeness in the place of exile. This is a reminder that while entrance into heaven is always a gift from God to those who have believed the gospel, those who receive such favour should aim to have an abundant entrance (2 Pet. 1:11). The heavenly Father will give a great reward to those who reverenced him day by day. No doubt, this reward is part of the grace that will be given to them when Jesus returns, so both Peter’s first two exhortations to the exiles includes looking ahead to life in the heavenly homeland.