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I PETER 4: 1-5
September 6, 2009
Exordium: Paul was a lover of life. He rejoiced at being citizen of God’s world as well as of God’s kingdom. He wrote to Timothy: “God has given us richly all things to enjoy.” (I Timothy 6:17B) Think of that sentence in terms of his embracing of life, the good life, God had given him.
We have often recounted his sufferings for the gospel, but how much have we celebrated his joy. You will remember that he wrote his great epistle of joy from a prison cell.
His grasp of God’s world was large, and he tried to expand his view of the world as well to help us to see how gracious and generous and good our God is and to enable us to enjoy Him more and more. One of His great expansive sentences was: “All things are yours and you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.” (I Corinthians 3:21)
I Peter 1:18,19
Good Friday, March 21, 2008
We have seen together the necessity of the cross, that Christ might free us from the curse of sin becoming the curse for us. (Gal. 3:13) We have seen the meaning of the wounds of Christ and how essential they are: revealing God’s wrath, exhibiting His love, and displaying His mercy for us.
In this last message we are on the holiest of all ground. What place and necessity is there for the blood of Jesus Christ our Savior? The New Testament has so many passages about Christ’s precious blood that one is pressed to choose, but we have taken these words of the Apostle Peter, “You know that you were ransomed from your futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” (Peter 1:18, 19)
In the passion account the blood of Christ is ever before us beginning at Gethsemane where the anguish was so great that blood was forced from his pores, to the scourging with cords imbedded with stones to cause the back to bleed, and the crown of thorns pressed down on His brow. Throughout His suffering, blood trickled from the wounds we have come to love. And at the last, as if to empty the sacred heart of its last drops, the soldier thrust in the sword and out came water and blood. He gave it all – every last drop of blood was poured out. His blood was the only part of Himself physically that Christ left on earth. His body and His bones ascended into heaven, but His blood remains behind as a title of ownership of His people.
THIS OWNERSHIP IS AT A GREAT PRICE
