A new life of reverence - part 1

OK, well, today we're we're into the first Peter, obviously, and we're going to cover versus 17 to 21. I'd like to kind of go back and I think actually Jeremy's done this and and Bob will do it sometimes. And just so I can go back and just kind of review where we're at a little bit before we start. I mean, a couple of charts that we've used before. So I want to use just to call it some of this material. I kind of changed this light there.

So the first section that we're studying has been designated the Believer's Common Salvation. And the key word that kind of comes up in many of the passages is salvation. And you know, it's hard to see that sometimes exactly, but the overall thrust in 1.1 through 2.12 is that every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has the salvation that God has provided based upon their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus.

And then the next section, which starts in chapter 2 and verse 13, It talks about submission, and that's the idea that there are rulers and authorities over us, and that we're to submit to those authorities, because God's in control. I mean, if we don't believe God's in control, then it doesn't make any sense. But if God's in control, we submit to those authorities. We don't submit to them to do wrong things, but we submit them to do what governments do.

Hopefully they do it. It would be tough. We're so very blessed here in this country. We have, you might argue today, what kind of government we have. Historically, it has been somewhat just and fair. Maybe it's not changing. Probably it looks like it is changing from that. But it would be very hard to be in a government system that is unjust and unfair, but still says that control.

We'll see. There's a lot to say about that. We'll see it down the road here. And then we have the last section. Actually, is the key word is a common experience. That experience is suffering. We kind of see some of that back in the salvation section. You know, these aren't. exactly hard lines, some of the suffering has shown up back in chapter 1 that we talked about.

But this is kind of an overall, it's a very kind of straightforward, I like it because it's simple and maybe easy to understand. So that's kind of the structure. So today we're going to look at, we've already looked at God's plan of salvation, that was the first 12 verses, there was like three parts to that. The hope of our salvation was in verses 1 through 5, and then we had the joy of our salvation, and six through nine.

I remember all these sections. So there's a lot of the topics that come up. It's just not like you say, OK, it's just that one topic. So, you know, in trying to summarize, you know, you take liberties there. So there's some overlap between these categories.

So in this next section, which is started last week, we saw last week, and Josiah did a great job on the life of holiness and what that was about. And then today, we're going to have a section on a new life of reverence. And actually it's going to be reverence, and actually reverence is going to be understood in an interesting way. It's going to be understood through God's plan of redemption, which I would not have really thought. I mean, the more you look at this, I look at the past and I begin to realize that. And the interesting, you say, well, reverence, what is reverence? Is reverence the fruit of the spirit? And the more, I think we're going to see that it is. And maybe you, you know, let's see if you agree with me on that.

And then the last session, which will be covered next week, will be actually only next week, it will be two weeks from now, because actually we're going to spend two weeks on 17th of 21, will be a new life of love. And that will complete chapter 1. I didn't include the C part of this, which is the first 12 verses in chapter 2. So that's kind of the overall what we've covered and what we're going to cover this morning. With that said, there's actually a fair amount of things to go through here. We'll just go ahead and jump into this section here.

Can I get someone to read these verses? You can read them in the overhead or from your Bible, 17-21. If you address us, Father, the one who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth, knowing that you are not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your from your futile way of life, inherited from your forefathers, with the precious blood as of a lamb, unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Okay, in this section, verse 17 kind of sets the stage for this whole passage, in a sense. The word conduct, conduct yourself in fear, conduct yourself is the main verb, and that main verb actually takes into account 18 and part of 19. So there's a focus on here, and it's going to seem like, here's where it's so careful in scripture. You can look at that and say, oh, Here's something, I'm going to put this down in my refrigerator, I'm going to put this down in the back of my hand, I've got to worry about my conduct here. And I think we can be misled by that. It's not that the Lord is concerned about our conduct, but how are we going to implement that conduct is key. And actually the verb tense in that is going to be very important, that verb alone. And that's why careful study of God's word is so important.

Just a casual glance, a casual going through to say, oh, here's some things, I'll just I'll grab a nice verse here, and I'll grab a nice verse there. And actually we see that abounding, unfortunately, in the Christian community. They'll hang their hat on one verse or one set of verses. So anyway, I think we'll see that as we go along.

So the first verse talks about conduct yourself in fear. We're going to see what kind of fear that is. There are several kinds of fear in the New Testament. And then the next part, 18 through 21, kind of focuses on redemption. And we're going to see, that's a wonderful topic. That's a whole class unto itself. In fact, the ladies are studying Great Doctrines of Salvation. They're going to finish that on Tuesdays. And actually, I'm going to draw on some of the material from that. Because that whole section, this is one of the many verses that talks about our redemption.

And we're going to see, this is a sermon that's been titled Life of Reverence. And this reverence is a reverence for what God has accomplished. His very character, his very life. And Macaulay says, life is to be lived with respect or reverential fear for the Lord's character. He is holy and righteous and just. And that's actually a wonderful freedom because we don't have to worry about what kind of decisions he's going to make. They're going to be holy and righteous and just. So we can relax and let him be God and we be his servants.

And we're going to see, secondly, that part of the motivation for this reverential fear is that his wonderful plan of salvation, the doctrine of salvation. We're going to see that in the rest of those verses. So that's kind of a bird's eye overview of these verses here. So we're just going to jump in here. So verse 17 starts off with, so it actually starts off, verse 17 starts off, if you address as father. So this talks about, we can call the Gandhi universe our father. Remember, Abba Father, Daddy, we can call him that.

And actually, that if isn't an if. In Greek, there's several what they call conditions of if statement. And this is one that I point out here. This is if. And it's like a logical argument in view of the fact. So you're saying, in view of the fact that I can address the God of the universe as my father, That's going to lead me to understanding, and that's going to tell me something wonderful about myself. So, some like to translate it sense. I don't have a big problem with that, but it's a logical statement. You're basing it upon, this is who God is, and this is my relationship with God. Okay, it says you address. The idea of address is to call upon, has the idea to appeal. There are several verses, I'll list a couple of verses there. There's one in Acts, Acts chapter 7, verse 59.

It says, this is when they were stowing Stephen, and he called upon the Lord. So this is to address or call upon So the idea is here, we can call upon the God of the universe as our father. As we think of our earthly father, we can call upon him that same way.

And that talks of intimacy that only a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has. So I think that's a wonderful word, wonderful idea here. And I like the amplified version said, and if for a sense you call him as sent and if, common sense, you call upon him as your father. So that's the idea.

That's our position in the Lord Jesus Christ. We can address a God in the universe as father. Then it goes on in the B part of this verse. It's going to say, so you address as your father God. And it's going to give something about his character. This is his character, the one who impartially judges according to each one's work. And this is kind of interesting.

We're going to see here that you're going to you're going to have to kind of think about how do we do works in the Christian life. Here's another kind of key thing we're going to see. How do we Christians know? Well, I mean, I ask the question, how do we how do we do how to say this without what it looks like in the Christian life? Is that a good question? Do do I do I decide that those works?

That's one of the questions. He prepared them beforehand in advance for us to do, and he's the one who carries us along, and directs, and gives the strength, and gets the glory. Right. So what's cool is, he makes the list. Wow. He makes the list. So you think, wow, he makes the list. What if I don't find the list, or I can't figure out the list?

I'm not sure I can give you and say that I have it all figured out. I mean, it's basically trust and faith in what he's doing. And in some ways, you may do something that wasn't. You thought, well, I thought this was what the Lord wanted me to do, and it wasn't. And I think you find out over time. I can't be hard and fast on that.

But it is his list, and that's really important. So we're going to kind of see that. So it's interesting that it says, the one who impartially judges according to each one's worth So it kind of made me think, wow, he's going to judge it. And think about this. Only the works that you do in the Lord Jesus Christ are going to be works that are acceptable to him. So it's interesting phraseology here.

You could be led astray here by thinking, OK, I'll do a bunch of works. Some I'll get yes, some I'll get no. And maybe a majority will be yes, and I'll be OK. No. The idea is that he prepares a list. My job is to, by faith, enter into that list and understand what he wants me to do. Not that I just do a random bunch of things, hoping that some of these will kind of count. I'll get a higher score. I've got lots of works out there. He'll just grab enough to make it good for me. I think you know what I'm trying to say here. OK.

The one who impartially judges. And basically, impartiality is without respect of persons. God is not interested in in our earthly, whether we're a king or a pauper or whatever we are. He's interested in knowing him. So he's impartial. And there's a bunch of verses that talk about God's impartiality. God is not one to show partiality. In Romans there it talks about, for there's no partiality with God. In the Ephesians it says there's no partiality with him. There's just a bunch of verses that, and that's part of his character. He would not be God if he was partial. If he was crooked, then he would cease to be God. That would not be his character. He's holy. He's absolutely righteous. So this is one of the flow downs, his impartiality with the very character of God.

And it says, according to each one's work. So I actually kind of asked the question already and kind of talked about it. So I thought, a couple of things occurred to me. The beam of judgment, see, there's that verse in 3.13. Each man's work will be revealed. That's by fire. Some will be burned up, some will not be burned. So they'll be revealed by fire. That's one part.

And then the Ephesians 2.10 was talked about.

That's the one that God has created the works beforehand that we should walk in them. So our job is to walk in the works that he's created. Our job is not to make the works, it's to walk in those works. So any thoughts or questions about this little section before we go on? Yeah. And a lot of it has to do with that word holy. That's why we just and that's actually never that just preceded the section. We know he holy for I'm holy. And that almost sounds like a command. But as we pointed out to me, I got rid of down. One's indicative and one's imperative. Right. Right. And this is indicative.

Well, we're going to see here when we get to the next section here, we're talking about conduct yourself or the bird chance. It can be very important there because it's going to it's going to. How do we accomplish that? That is going to be an imperative to how we accomplish that. Conduct yourself. That's another. How do we know? One question. How do these works happen? And how do we how does this conduct yourself?

Happen to go through. Yeah. Could we say that if God has a refrigerator list for us to do, you know, we don't make it up, but he does. And he's guiding us. He's guiding us to do those, you know, and we can do them joyfully or impressed, or we can just go about our lives and think, you know, be grumpy and, you know, well, I got to do this. Well, especially if that list contains trials. And that's what Peter's all about here. What if that list contains a very severe trial? He has some very strong statements. A severe trial that's just a fiery trial. I mean, it's just not, you know, it's hard. I mean, it's something that, you know, that just, you know, without the Lord, you say, I couldn't go through that. I couldn't live, you know. So some of those trials are just beyond, our imagination. So I think that and that's part of his good works for us to do to trust him through that.

And those are those are you know it's the easiest I find it's the easiest thing in the world to comfort another person in a trial when it's a reverse situation and you're in the trial. Boy are they different. I mean it's just and you have people saying the same words that you said to them. And it's just so hard. It is so hard to But the Lord asks us to do that very thing, to trust Him through the trials of life. That's what is kind of encouraging.

James is another epistle that talks about trials. This one looks more about looking to your final position with the Lord, your glorification with God. Other ones look about your sanctification. That's part of sanctification, isn't it? I know it is. Growing in Christ, I think, is going through these trials and learning to trust Him and do it joyfully. Because it's hard. I've been through some trials where I went through the five steps, you know, anger and railing against God and all that stuff. I've done that. It wasn't the right way to do it, but I learned from it. That's right. OK, so. All right. So let's go on to the next section here. So here we come to this section like this verse right here. And this is interesting. This is a colleague pointed this out.

So I thought I'd point it out to conduct yourself as a verb and in fear modifies that verb. But in the end, I'm not a real. I have not spent much time thinking about the. The word order in the Greek word appears in the Greek structure. And now some people have spent time, and they have their understanding of the Greek. They believe that if that in fear precedes a verb in the Greek text, that means the Holy Spirit is trying to emphasize that.

So rather than saying conduct yourself in fear, it should use implied, use the subject. You, in fear, conduct yourself. fact on your reverence for God in your conduct. The other way around, you've got your conduct and then it says about reverence. This kind of has emphasis on being in fear or your reverence for God, which I thought was kind of neat.

So that's why I took the time to kind of point that out. Oops. I didn't mean to do that. How'd I do that? I didn't think I could do that. OK, here we go. All right, so fear is phobos, and there's a couple You know, fear is used in the sense of a dread or a terror, or it's used in the sense of a reverential fear. In this case, and I believe, in this case it's being used as reverential fear. Let's read, if I could get someone to read, let's find it here.

Let's read Ephesians 5.21.

Ephesians 5.21. be subordinate to one another, out of reverence for Christ. Okay, well that's interesting, yours actually translates, my translation has the word fear, it's the same philosophy, that's actually the use when you haven't translated it. And then there's another verse, it's in the next chapter, Ephesians 6, 5, does someone read that?

Slaves obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ. Right, so this, you know, This is in reverence for God. You're trusting that your earthly master is here. And we're going to see more of that in that submissive section. So I believe this is reverential fear. So I kind of answered the question. I believe it's used as reverential fear.

And conduct yourself is used to talk about how one lives their life or how one passes their time. What's interesting is it's Aris imperative passive. You know, in the Greek, there's three tense mood and voice. So it's this is air pass point back or it could be something call it. There could be successive points in time, which probably is that case. But it's a command. It's imperative. Well, what's interesting is it's the passive voice. So just kind of review here.

If I say I hit the ball, right. I as a subject. So I take the action, I hit the ball. If I say, I was hit by a ball, the subject, I, receives the action. So in this case, it says, this conduct is not coming from us. We're receiving this conduct. So I looked at this as like, wow, this is the fruit of the spirit. But you know, you don't really find conduct thing in there. So let's turn the passage on the fruit of the Spirit. So I started looking at the fruit of the Spirit, thinking, well, can I find this action here, which is talked about, can I find this action in the fruit of the Spirit?

In Galatians 5.22. Can someone read the fruits of the Spirit, I should say, plural? It's 5.22 through 22. For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another. Great. Thank you. So I was just looking like in twenty two and twenty three.

I was just trying to think of is there something that come with a conduct idea come out of some of these things like maybe patience, possibly maybe kindness. I guess you could argue that all of these conduct could be all of these. Right. Since the conduct is through the spirit. Anyway, I just it's kind of made me think that since this is passive voice, We're being acted upon so that the Spirit of God wants our conduct to be reverential. You can say holy too, right? Right, oh yeah.

So this is kind of another aspect of this verse. We're talking about reverence for God. So we're going to move on after this. Any last thoughts on this? I think this is a key part of this passage. Because this verb will be modified by other sections of passages. Go ahead. So this is passive. This is not me conducting. This is God conducting this in me. Right. Isn't that interesting? I've never heard that.

Well, I mean, think about Galatians 2.20.

I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Not I, but Christ lives in me. In the life I live now, by the grace of the Son of God. So this is Christ living in me. That's why I was trying to catch up with the fruit of the Spirit, because it's not something that we're going to produce.

So I mean, you know, this is why you have to be so careful. You can see it. You say, well, there's my boy. Come get your condo, Jim. Get your condo going here. You got to get busy. I could I could really get on your case. There's your contacts, not major. I think it should be right. Go ahead. How would you translate it? How would I translate this? More than what I have here in the past.

Well, let, I don't know, of course, Bernoulli points out, let is not allow. So, I don't know, let your conduct, allow the Lord to allow your conduct. I haven't actually, that's actually, I probably shouldn't have gone down that path. I didn't actually try to do that. I also didn't find anybody that tried to bring that across. Did I look at Weisner? I didn't see anybody try to bring that across at Passive. I'm just wondering. No, I agree with you. How do you say how would you say that? It's easy to say the ball hit me. I mean, that's very simple. But you're going to allow it.

You're going to allow the spirit of God, you know, just like you allow Christ to be your life. And the operation, the main operation, the only operation of the Christian life is what? Faith, right? He doesn't ask us to do. As you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. You receive Him by faith, you're to walk by faith. Our single task in the Christian life is to by faith believe what He says and trust Him.

The H.C.J. H.C.S.B. says that I'll read the verse again. If you could address as father the one who judges impartially based on each one's work, you are to conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your temporary residence. So you are to do that. Not not. You are to make it. But you are to let God conduct yourself.

That seems better. Now, of course, I put the fear in front. I try to make an agreement with that. The idea that he was trying to emphasize the referential part. You are in fear to let God conduct yourself. How would you say in El? The fruits of the spirit. How would you express that? You know, right now, this is an interlinear translation. It says pass the time of your soldiering here in fear. It doesn't really convey. It says, you know, pass. Yeah. So that would cut that would cut. Yeah. Sorry. Pass.

That's actually a that's actually part of the definition of past ones. Time is the word for conduct. So it has that idea in there. But this is. Yeah, that's good. That's good. So I mean, this is this is pretty key in this passage is this little section right here. Because what's gonna happen after this, we're going to talk about during your time to stay. And that's pretty straightforward. Now we're going to talk about basically redemption, which we all have, you know, but I think this is pretty, pretty neat, pretty neat stuff. Okay, so it says, conduct yourself in fear, or in fear conduct yourself, during your time of stay.

And so what this points out is that our time of stay, from God's perspective, is not, you know, this is not our home, right? We have a heavenly home. That's our true home. This is just, we're exiles, we're strangers, we're aliens here on this earth. Sojourning exile is, or stay is sojourning residence in a foreign land without the right of citizenship. The Amplify translates that as during the time of your residence as a foreigner.

We don't think of ourselves as foreigners here. I'm American, I'm not a foreigner. It's kind of a hard thing to say, I'm a foreigner here. We've been so blessed in this country, we don't feel too foreign. We actually feel pretty comfortable. Maybe a negative. If you think about it, maybe we're in some place being oppressed more than we're oppressed here too. Maybe we see that better. I don't know. I feel like a foreigner with all this sin nature in me. This isn't right. This isn't where I live. When I think of heaven. Yeah, that sounds like where I belong. That's where I belong.

Well, actually, you need to say that when God looks at it right now, He sees you. In your position, you're seated with Christ as a heavenly, so He wants us to look from that perspective. So, as Miles Stambert would say, keep looking down. And we say, keep looking up. No, keep looking down. It starts with our position.

I always enjoyed, I can't remember the tales of it so much right now, but the black woman who gave herself the name Sojourner Truth. Oh, interesting. That's neat. She's an outstanding Christian. Actually, I think it's a good mindset to have. As wonderful as we are blessed in this country, we don't see it as, this is it. The abundance and whatever we have gained in this life, this is not it. We're still sojourning. We're just passing the time until we go to be with our Savior. So, that's great. My clicks didn't, I didn't separate them.

So now we're going to start, starting with verse 18, we're going to say, so based upon, so it says conduct yourself with reverential fear and it tells us where to remember something, where to know something. This know is oida. to have knowledge of, full knowledge of. This is something we're to know well.

We're to know our redemption well. We're to understand our redemption well. I think most Christians have some understanding of that, but it never helps, and I'm going to spend a little bit of time on this, it never helps to go back and remember that about our redemption. This passage is going to talk about our redemption. It's going to tell us the character of our redemption.

Did God put down $100,000 for us to buy our redemption? And so I make that comparison. But obviously he did not. He gave his own son for our redemption. So it was a costly encounter for God to redeem us. So this says, it's going to state the negative virtue. You are not redeemed. And this word redeemed is this word lutro, is to release on receipt of ransom.

And there's a couple ways it's taken. The one in Titus there. Let's read that one in Titus. Titus 2.14. Can someone read that?

Titus 2.14.

He gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds. Thanks, Winnie. OK, so that's one of the verses to talk about that Christ redeemed us, and it's Lutro. There's actually a whole family of words, and I listed this, this whole family of words. And I think, actually, in the women's study, that may have listed that as well. But I thought I'd just kind of just quickly just read through that list. Lutron, there's some verbs and some nouns. Lutron is a noun. What's interesting is there's just all these variations of this kind of base word. Lutron, Lutro, Lutrosis, Apolutrosis. They all have the idea of a ransom released from receipt upon a ransom. They all have the idea of a price needed to be paid.

A price needed to be paid for our redemption. This wasn't a no, no, no money transacts, not money. I was trying to get something that covered money. It was a transaction that something had to be provided to secure our redemption. The sense in the time of the New Testament was there were slaves, and you could buy a slave for a certain amount of money, silver or gold, and that's how they allude to that. But our redemption required the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. So ours was costly. redemption, very extremely costly redemption.

And then there's these two words, agorazzo and ex-agorazzo. They have very similar ideas. It's basically a picture of the marketplace to buy or purchase out of the marketplace. You buy it out. It was in the marketplace. People look at the marketplace of sin. You bought out the marketplace of sin and placed in the Lord Jesus Christ. So there's a lot of wonderful pictures there. And that's a whole study into itself. The last few charts I have a little kind of one liners like 21 one liners are just from a variety of verses that use the word you some of these words, these Greek words.

So the part knowing that you are not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold. So we're first going to lose the fact that the cost of our redemption was not with silver or gold. And those are called perishable. Silver and gold are not going to last. They're valuable right now in our society, but they're not lasting things. Perishable means subject to corruption, corruptible.

And Weiss points out that the word silver and gold are in the diminutive form. And to be honest with you, I'm not truly, I understand what the diminutive form is. I don't know if Mayor White does or I don't. Anyway, he says that points to the fact that they point to either silver or gold coins.

And that kind of fits well with the slavery concept that, and listening to some folks talk about this past, people would save up if they were, they point out that the early church was mostly involved, a lot of people were slaves or former slaves, and they had bought their freedom.

So they would save up money, they'd work and save up to buy, you could buy your freedom. I think Burns alluded to that too, you could buy to become a son, right, in the Roman situation. So if you could save up your money and have enough money, become a son. Or you can buy your freedom. So that's kind of the idea here.

Our redemption is not like silver and gold. We can't purchase our redemption with any perishable quantity like that. Isn't it interesting that he uses little silver and gold coins? And Jesus' blood was priced Exactly. I know. I mean, and that's what that's what the contrast is is stark. When you get this the diminutive form thing, you think, well, we have these little pieces of silver and gold and and they can buy the earthly redemption. They could get out of slavery here. But just for for one of us, I mean, it took it took his blood to procure our vision for all of us. I know it's pretty, pretty incredible. OK, and it talks about that also it kind of makes up A statement about the silver and gold, it kind of says, you know that silver and gold is not that valuable. It says, from your futile way of life, inherited from your forefathers. The word from is out or away from. Out or away from your futile way of life. Our vain manner of life. That vain manner is void of results.

And we see a passage in Ephesians. It's the idea, it says, no longer walk, as the rest of the Gentiles who walk in the futility of their minds. It kind of makes a statement, this verse makes a statement about this earthly existence with silver and gold and all we interact. Without God, that's a futile, there's no eternal value in that. without God, because it talks about the fact that that you're not ready with these perishable things. And that's and that's from your futile way of life. You you started to buy gold and silver and make gold and silver or whatever, or obtain gold and silver. And basically the idea of inherited from your father is one words passed down from your father's now okay now verse 19 so now we're going to take the contrast here but in the greek this is the word Allah which is I think a strong contrast so in strong contrast to the silver and gold that you could buy your slavery from in strong contrast to that you were redeemed with the precious blood you could actually actually take the previous part of this verse, or actually, it's the previous verse,

18. It says, you could say, we were redeemed with a precious blood. This just says, but, in strong kind of meaning. We were redeemed with a precious blood. So I'm going to spend a little time. This precious blood is this idea of held in honor, esteemed, very dear, of high price, costly, like a precious stone. It's interesting. And actually, that word precious is used in another passage. It actually is in 2 Peter. Let's look at that. There's something else. He calls the blood of Christ precious. He'll use that same word in terms of another aspect here.

Let's look at 2 Peter 1.4.

It's supposed to be 2 Peter 1.4. By which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them we may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. Thank you.

So I was looking for the very first part of that verse where it says, For by thee he has granted to you his precious and magnificent promises. So the same word precious here is used in the context of his promises. So that word precious talks of the value of Christ's blood. So I was just going to, what I thought about here was that, and Weiss kind of strings a whole bunch of things together. He likes to do expanded translations. He says, but with a costly, highly honored blood. So I had about five verses that talked about the value of, Studying the value of Christ's blood, there's just a lot to be said about that.

We don't have to look at all these, but in Acts 20-28, I didn't put it on this chart, I apologize. In Acts 20-28, it says, He purchased us with His own blood, talking about the body of Christ. We were purchased in Acts 20-28. We were purchased with His own blood, talking about the body of Christ.

Then in Romans 5-9, It says, having been justified by his blood. That's Romans 5-9. Then, the one I mentioned in the Lord's Table a few times, is that in 1 Corinthians 10-16 it says, we share in the blood of Christ. As we take the Lord's Table, that's a sharing in the blood of Christ, a fellowshipping in the blood of Christ there.

And then in Ephesians, let's look at the last two, Ephesians 1-7. And there's more, but I just put it down. These five look to be pretty representative of just kind of cataloging the marvelous value of the blood of Christ. And I'll just go ahead and read that. Ephesians 1-7.

It says, In him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace. You know, in Ephesians it has all these wonderful statements. It just has one statement after another. It's just like this It's just mind-boggling, one statement after another, of what Christ has accomplished on our behalf. So it says, in Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace. So that's another verse talking about the value of the blood of Christ.

And then the last one is in 1 John 1.7. This is a very familiar one that we quote many times. It says, But if we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. So that's just a short little list of the wonderful value of the blood of Christ.

I think there's two kinds of things that really help us to understand what Christ did for us. His death, if you trace through scripture, and look at all the verses that talk about his death and what that accomplished for us. And secondly, when we just look at his blood, those two things, his death and his blood, really point out or highlight what Christ accomplished on our behalf on the cross. His death and his blood, those two together.

Miles picks up on those too, and one of his devotional things, he'll pick up on that concept in several places. That's actually how I kind of realized that, because he kind of mentioned it to me, and I said, well is that really true? I started looking. So he started looking all the passages up. Just do a search on death with Christ, and Christ's death, and then do a search on blood, and all these verses start popping up. Just like I read those verses there. It's pretty neat. OK, so it goes on. It says, now it's going to make a comparison.

It's going to say, but with the precious blood, as of, or in comparison to, it's going to compare it to a lamb, a lamb unblemished and spotless of the blood of Christ. So we talk about these two words, unblemished and spotless. As of, like that of a sacrificial lamb, And Vine points out, I think we point something out here, the absence of the article stresses the nature and character of the sacrifice are set forth. Unblemished in the classical Greek was used as a technical word to designate the absence of something amiss in the sacrifice, or something which would render it unworthy.

That was from Zodiacis. There's a verse in Exodus that talks about, it tells in his instructions, For the Israelites, your lamb shall be an unblemished male, a year old. It says you can take it from you, the sheep or the goat. So God was very specific about how to be unblemished, how to be a male, and how to come from one of those two. Very specific about the unblemishness of the sacrifice.

And the other word is spotless. It's a negative of this word for a spot or stain. And that's spotless. Let's read this one and go back to Ephesians. Ephesians 5, 27. Talk about the spotless, being spotless. So this is in the section, talk to the husband, love your wives, and so on.

And 26 says that he might sanctify her speaking about her having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the Word, he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. So in that comparison, two characteristics. Unblemished and spotless.

And we've already kind of talked about the value of the blood of Christ. Okay, so, and then actually I just kind of put down, remember in John there, when he said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It doesn't exactly have the blood of Christ in that. So actually, the last two charts are going to be this little summary of redemption. Before I do that, I was going to close with that. Any other thoughts or questions about this one?

We just we just go through this list. I just did this list. I just kind of I looked at that. Unfortunately, I apologize. Maybe there's one version I have that had the scripture reference. Some cases you can figure it out pretty easily. I had a reference for each one. Trust me on that. But if it's not one, tell me. I just chopped them up. I thought it was kind of neat to be able to say it in one line. So I don't have the scripture written on it. But thoughts or comments? In verse 18. OK.

They were redeemed from the vain of you conduct delivered from your fathers. That vain conduct there? The word conduct is the same. It's in the noun form of that verb. The one earlier? Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, it's just that we know that the conduct that we've been redeemed from with the precious blood not suffering. And before that he said... Conduct yourself. Conduct yourselves or let pass, or let the state of being that you're in. Interesting. That's good. I'd make that connection. Yeah, it's just an interesting thought. No, that is good. I didn't pick up that word occurred. Yeah. Interesting.

The other thing I was wondering about is when we talk about the blood of Christ, My thought is that the life of our bodies is in the blood. The life of the flesh is in the blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. It took a blood sacrifice to accomplish that. He poured out his life, didn't he? He did. So I'll just read through these guys here. OK. I apologize for not putting the verse in there.

It says, we are not your own. Our redemption was costly. We are free men of the Lord. We are Christ's slaves. Christ was slaughtered for us. That's a literal translation of that word. And I've forgotten the English of it. But it actually means slaughtered. It took Christ's blood to purchase us. The redemption was for God. I always like the thing in John 17, we're a gift from God the Father to God the Son.

I often think about that. I said, you didn't get a very good deal. You look at yourself and you see your sin nature and you see where you are and you say, God didn't give me a very good deal. If I'm a gift from God the Father to God the Son, it seems like a poor gift. But he says that was his desire.

We are under the curse of the law. We were under the curse of the law. Christ brought us out of this curse. Christ became a curse on our behalf. This is all in connection with redemption. Christ brought us out of the law system. Christ gave himself on behalf of us. Christ redeemed us from every lawless deed.

Here's our verse today. We're not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold. We're redeemed with the costly blood of Christ. So 14 and 15 are for the verses today. Christ redeemed. Redemption is eternal. Christ's redemption is once for all. We are now declared righteous through redemption and gift of God's grace. I guess the Ephesians passage We have redemption right now.

We don't have to wait for redemption. We have it now. That's what's so wonderful about knowing what we have in Christ. We're not waiting. When I get to glory, I'm going to have this. Christ gives it to us now. That's what he wants us to focus on. That's what can be so helpful. Redemption is through Christ's blood. Redemption is the forgiveness of our trespasses and sins.

So well, that's it. Thanks, guys. I appreciate your comments. Number five. Yeah. That's ten twenty. Is that is that right? OK. By a new and living way. Living is actually means freshly slaughtered. Yeah. OK. By a new and freshly slaughtered way. I thought when I first heard that. I know. I know it is. But it's true. But it's true. I know.

So it was an awful picture. Awful. You know, the cross was, you know, hung right in Christ's gospel. Most people were coming up to the cross before they were almost dead. They didn't make it through. I said I was explaining scourging. If you were scourged in the Romans, the Roman Empire, that was just about you just about were virtually dead. You couldn't survive those things that were so brutal. I heard that some scourgings, they scourge them so hard they'll rip them in two. Yeah, it's just so, I mean, I actually didn't, I didn't quite realize until someone explained that to me about how brutal scourging was.

Alright, well let's close in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior, Lord. We thank you for your plans and your purposes, Lord. Thank you that we can trust you, Lord, and rely upon you. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.