1 Peter 1:17-21 Revised Standard Version
17 And if you invoke as Father him who judges each one impartially according to his deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. 18 You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, 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. 20 He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake. 21 Through him you have confidence in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

 

1 – Read the verses. What is your first impression?

My first impression was the need and ability to “invoke as Father.” To me it was clear that I had to take action in order to be a child of God and that sitting back and doing nothing was not enough. I likened it to the lead character in Shazam having to accept his new foster family as his own. He was in the group, but it wasn’t until he took action that he became part of the family. Other first impression included “I’m confused”, “I’ll have to think about that”, and “I’m stuck.” Which I think are all find first impressions. As we find with each verse, Peter has packed everything he seems to know about being a Christian into the smallest form he can, and he knows a lot.

 2 – Invoke as Father? What does that mean to you?

 The most interesting response I heard was the idea that you transition from just a relationship to Christ to a one-on-one relationship with God the Father Himself. With Christ as our priest and our mediator and our sinless cover, we can relate directly to God in a way others could not before Christ came. A second aspect was the formality within the term invoke that is not evident in the other translations of “address” or “call on.” We spoke a little about the variance of translations and agreed looking at several really brings flavor to our discussions.

3 – Him who judges each one impartially according to his deeds. – What does that mean to you?

 We all had lots to share on this one and we ended with two main themes. One is that God when judging us for salvation or eternal damnation does not play favorites nor compare us to each other. Our position before the judgement throne is individual and the scales are as neutral as possible. The great thing for us as Christians is that God only sees the sinless life of Christ when we are judged in this manner and we pass because of the sacrifice He made and the decision we made to accept that sacrifice.

The other aspect that was brought out was how once we have passed this eternal judgement, our actions as Christians are judged again to receive rewards to cast before the throne. We each have gifts and we lead different lives that allow us the opportunity to choose to serve Christ and whether our gift is serving or our gift is teaching, the judgment for each of us is fair and impartial even when different. Teachers and pastors are held to a different level, but it is still fair and impartial.

4 – Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of exile. What does that mean to you?

 This was a fun one. One of our team showed back up after a battle with COVID and the after effects. The pieces he shares are always great, but this day was special for us as we knew how close he was to waking up with his Savior. Psalm 107 will now mean more to me than before.

The first idea was one of eminent catastrophe. This is how I felt last Monday looking at the snow and the lack of electricity. One of our team has a mindset that any moment catastrophe is coming to test his faith in Christ. Well more than one, but one who shared it today. The idea is that we need to be constantly ready to turn to God to get us through the next moment. If ever we think we can handle it, we are ripe for correction.

The second idea was that we are called to heaven. We are living in a foreign land and we have to act like we are going to a better place and need to bring others with us.

The third idea was that we live with God. He is always with us, always available, and our “position” is with Him.

The last piece that I wanted to share was to contrast our lives with that of the Jews after the exodus. God gave His people laws (613 I think) that had one purpose of making them stick out like sore thumbs among the people they were to be living. God wanted everyone to know a Jew just by looking so that He could be glorified and identified and worshipped. The Jews were not to conform to the lives of their neighbors. The same is true of us. If we are not different, if people cannot look at our lives and see that we are not like them, then we are not doing it right. We have to be foreigners. We have to be acting as exiles. We have to shine the light of Christ. Or we might as well give up the fight. As Job 7:15 says (sorta) “My bones chose death over living like this.”

Holy Fear. Holy as in being separate. Fear as in being in awe of the Greatness of God. Be so in awe of God that you stick out like a sore thumb.