Exchange Rate
From 1 Peter 1:13 through 19
13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
I have always found a lot of value in this section of Scripture. Peter writes very clear instructions on how to live day by day. Let’s take a look:
Prepare: Just as you exercise your body, so to do we prepare our minds. Worship and Bible study are the gyms of the soul.
For Action: While we are waiting for the Lord, we have plenty to keep us busy. We have been commissioned and sent.
Be Sober Minded: Keep it real. Understand your faith is not going to make you popular, but it will
Set Your Hope: Your hope will not automatically find the Lord. You need to consciously focus your hope. Give it directions.
Do Not Be Conformed: There is a standard that we are held to. You can conform to what you want or conform to what your creator wants.
Your Creator Is Holy…we often think about that, but His holiness becomes your standard. Holy. Not almost holy, not close to holy…completely holy. No mistakes, no sins, no excuses.
you were told to prepare, you were pushed into action, you were told to be sober minded.
And Your Father Judges Impartially.
You are being judged according to your deeds
So where is your hope?
How can you be saved…. That is the beautiful answer found at the end of this reading.
You were ransomed…purchased…. intentionally bought. You were wanted and a precious resource was spent to acquire you. Not simple gold or silver.
God wouldn’t do that…you sacrifice for that which you love.
A sacrifice costs you something. God can create endless piles of gold and silver.
No, he purchases you with the greatest of His treasures…the blood of Christ.
He gave Christ over to death, that you may live. Or as Luther put it;
“Who can comprehend the riches of the glory of this grace? Christ, that rich and pious husband, takes as a wife a needy and impious harlot, redeeming her from all her evils, and supplying her with all His good things. It is impossible now that her sins should destroy her, since they have been laid upon Christ and swallowed up in Him, and since she has in her husband Christ a righteousness which she may claim as her own, and which she can set up with confidence against all her sins, against death and hell, saying: “If I have sinned, my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned; all mine is His, and all His is mine;” as it is written, “My beloved is mine, and I am his. (Songs 2:16) This is what Paul says: “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ;” – Luther “The Freedom of a Christian”
Bought and paid for.
Free indeed.
See you Sunday my friends,
-Pastor Dan