What we find ourselves in affects how we live both at the daily level and in terms of the bigger picture. You get up this morning and find your mind focused on something worrying that has been worrying from the night before, and you tend to find it shapes how you perceive the day and all that happens in it: Energy can feel low, motivation lacking, and everything just seems to take a little more energy to get done than it would have on another day. That’s why we tend to feel the effects of the winter months when the light is less and the days are colder – the moment we are in affects how we both perceive the world and live in it.

Then, in the larger sense, what our hearts are focused on, what shapes our minds and our thinking about identity, politics, purpose, and desires, shapes the next step our feet will take in the hours ahead. As James Smith puts it, “You are what you love because you live toward what you want.” We live towards the things we want and the challenge for us each day is to make sure that those things are Good thigns, and to make sure that good things never become god in our lives. Peter’s message in this letter has been simple to a church in the midst of a difficult context, as the people wonder how they are to live – Peter reminds them what it is they live for and why they live: Grace.

Thus, up until just before this point in the Letter Peter has been focused on lifting the head of this weary church to focus their minds on the bigger picture of who God is, and how they have understood that in Christ. First Peter has sought to remind the Church of the protection of God, the power of the Spirt, and the remptive Grace of Christ over them (by his blood) – he who although they have not seen him, they have lived well for him by faith. Slowly, because of this triune salvation Peter has started to move them from the weight of their current situation and interrupting it as a sign that God not be fully present with them, to understanding the difficulty as a sign that they are doing the work of God and living out the Kingdom. Thus, Peter lifts their eyes upwards towards this salvation so that they can look outwards and continue to live for God each day.

In the section of verses before our passage today, Peter has moved from just thinking to instruction with that wonderful biblical world – therefore! As he has commanded the Church to be ready for what is ahead by having a mind sharpened for the world they are in, with hopes set on Jesus as Children of God who have embraced dependency on the Holy Spirit as the means by which we resist the world, all while remembering that call to Holy Living because we worship a Holy God. One Author summed up Peter’s teaching perfectly as he wrote: “Holiness does not consist in mystic speculations, enthusiastic fervours, or uncommanded austerities; it consists in thinking as God thinks, and willing as God wills.” Thus, here at the close of chapter 1, what we see is both the outworking of reason and practically in this call to Holy Living.

1. Living in Reverent Fear Before a Holy Father (1 Peter 1:17)

Have you ever struggled to grasp just what sin is, and why the Holiness of God is so important for our hope and the Gospel to be true? So many Churches today want us to focus on the love of God and his goodness towards humanity, and they often do so in a way that makes us think of God the Father as Seperate from the God of the Old Testament. That Jesus is some sort of progression from the Old Testament God that we read of. Yet, such moves don’t just ignore the truth and beauty of Scripture, and the reality of the world’s that the people of God lived in. Such moves also ignore the reality of our world today, and the lie of moral progression – that some how humanity is better than it was a thousands years ago, and less prone to evil that even 80 years ago. All while ignoring the darkest of humanity and selfish living that has been made clear on the news in the last few weeks, the wars that continue to rage because of one leader’s choice as 30,000 of his men passed in the month of January alone. The world today should have no ability to convince us that we are any more moral than those who have gone before us. That we are any less sinful. Thus, a right understanding of the world that we live in should never leave us in no doubt about our sin, and why a Holy God is a hopeful sinner. A Holy God is a reminder that one day the curse of sin upon this world will end as darkness is destroyed and evil is judged. Yet,

1.1 God as Father and Judge

Yet, Peter also wants to make clear to the children of God that God is no less Holy because of the Cross, or towards us. To put it simply, Peter wants to make clear that God’s fatherhood does not cancel his holiness, nor does it change the primary purpose of Christians’ lives. The Grace of Christ brings us into the most beautiful of relationships with God as father, as we learn to live in this world as his children, but it does not remove the essence of God or what it means for us from us. Thus, Peter reminds the church here that they call more because they are God’s children, not freed from Holiness of God. The Blood of Christ does not free us to live ignorant of the Holiness of God, but because of Grace, we are those who know that God judges fairly/impartially, and thus we are moved to live distinctly in the world to show the wonder of His Holiness and Grace. More beautifully still Grace deepens our responsibility to live well for God in this world; it does not remove it! Because we are those who live before God’s face and under his care, it means that we more than any should know the weight of his holiness, of his glory, and what it will mean one day for darkness and sin. Yet, we don’t live in fear of it; we live distinct lives in this moment to show the beauty of it.

1.2 Faithfulness in Exile

When our minds are focused on Christ, and sober from the temptations of the world, and worship is our priority, and we lean more on the Spirit of God than our own strength, then we are those who know that how we live will affect how people perceive the god we worship. It is a knowledge of the Holiness of God that shapes our ordinary obedience, love, and service of God. Thus, we might find ourselves living in an exile moment, amid the difficulty of our streets, but this exile is not an excuse to disengage from the Kingdom; rather, it is the very thing that moves us to live in a way that shows the God we worship. A Holy people living for a Holy means that each day we grasp that what we do matters because it will either speak well of God or dishonour his name. Thus, on Sundays, the way of our worship and its heart matters because it shows how real God is to our fruit. The depth of our welcome, the way we speak to each other in the context of the church, how we keep our buildings, and our giving toward the work of God all speak to what we are living for.

Thus, if we claim the name of Christ, we should show it by our lives in the power of the Spirit because God is Holy. If we tell people we are a Christian but never make time for church, then our fruit speaks of a different priority. If we tell people we follow Jesus, but never do seek the rhythms of Grace to grow in Grace, then – Prayer, Word, Fellowship, Service, Love, Worship, Bible Study – then, our lives show a different living. You are a Holy People, and because you belong to God by the Blood of Christ, your lives matter, declares Peter, so live not in your own strength but by the Spirit’s power.

2. Redeemed at Infinite Cost (1 Peter 1:18–19)

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 16:20 a simple truth: “You were bought with a price.” The freedom that each of us enjoys through Grace has a cost! It is that Cost that the treasures of this world can measure. Silver and gold have not the means to free one of us from the curse of sin, never mind all of us! The Empty things of this earth cannot free us from the empty life that ensnares so many of us. As JB Philips translates this section so beautifully and powerfully:

For you must realise all the time that you have been “ransomed” from the futile way of living passed on to you by your fathers’ traditions, not with some money payment of transient value

2.1 An Empty Way of Life Left Behind

You see, even when we have grasped Grace, we can still fall back into the old ways of life we inherited from our culture and from moments. We still try to define ourselves in them and through them, to please God by them. But, there is no hope for them and nothing to be earned there – the inherited patterns of life are empty, and emptying of life. Sometimes the hardest thing for us to admit in the ordinary of the everyday is how dependent on God we are in all things. Redemption is not about God giving us the tools to do better in the everyday; Grace is not a self-help package by which we get to do better in a broken world! Redemption is rescue in every aspect of our lives and our living, and that is why it took the blood of Christ.

2.2 The Precious Blood of Christ

Verse 19 is one of the shortest versions in this passage, yet it draws out so much truth in terms of Imagery and testament. Peter shifts focus here away from the folly of our ways and the danger of our days to the means by which we have been saved, the thing that has purchased us. How does Peter want to help the Church best understand this work of Redemption by bringing them back to the Old Testament? You see, you cannot separate the New Testament from the Old Testament because Grace and the work of God in the world today make no sense without it. You cannot explain the Gospel without the Old Testament and what it reveals about God’s work in the world. To help this Church in their understanding and living, Peter deploys Old Testament Sacrificial imagery. Jesus is the Lamb to whom the entire Jewish sacrificial system pointed, and it was his blood alone that could pay the depth of sin and deal with the curse of brokenness that infects our world and every part of our lives. He was the Lamb without blemish or defect, the sufficient one who by his blood has made us a Holy People, and thus the marvel of the Cross is that it reveals both the weight of our sin before God and our worth. That is why a Holy People live distinctly.

3. Faith and Hope Anchored in Christ (1 Peter 1:20–21)

Peter now lifts the eyes of the church one final time in this section above the clouds of the moment, and the weight of their worry. He lifts their eyes to something beyond their life, horizon, understanding and ability – to the eternal purposes of God. Purposes that were already in motion long before these followers of Jesus found themselves scattered, marginalised, or struggling to endure. 2000 years might have passed since the age of the Early church, and the sovereign plans of God and his outworking of purpose are no less true for us today. Thus, having spoken about reverent fear, costly redemption, and holy living, Peter refuses to leave the church with a burden they must carry alone, because that is not how a loving God work, he does not leave the extension of the Kingdom on earth to the mercy of our efforts or motivation – What God sets out to do through us, his strength carries us to. Thus, here Peter grounds everything he has said in the person and work of Christ himself. From the Manager to the Cross, and to the resurrection and ascension! That is our foundation. Beautifully, this is not some detached Christian Doctrine that has little impact on the life of the church or speaks little into the situations we find ourselves in: For Peter, this is pastoral reassurance of the deepest kind and practical wisdom/challenge of the Kingdom. Peter is saying pastorally and practically: The God who calls you to live differently, to live a holy life, is the God who has already acted decisively for you in Christ, by the Cross and with knowledge of you before the foundation of the world. Our life does not hang on our ability to hold it all together, nor does our faith hinge on the axis of our productivity in matters of the call of God. We are saved by Grace, and grace becomes our strength and way. Our life does not hang on our ability to hold it all together; rather, it is held within the story that began before the foundation of the world and has now been revealed for your sake, and which we are being sent to reveal for the sake of the world.

3.1 Christ at the Centre of God’s Eternal Plan

God is sovereign! God is in Control! Don’t worry, God has a plan! – Say it however you want, but the truth remains the truth that Peter is trying to get across, to get the church to grasp, to give them both a foundation for life, and energy/motivation for their life of the faith. How? He reminds the church that Christ “was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.” I often think this is one of those sentences that we can read too quickly if we are not careful; it feels so normal in the life of the church because we have grown up with the knowledge that God saves us and knows us by name. Yet, this very sentence is staggering and carries with it a weight that should humble us and flatten any pride, even as it carries a staggering weight of assurance. Jesus was not an afterthought when sin surprised God as it entered the world; nor is the cross an emergency measure because God had no idea what to do once things got out of hand. To put it bluntly: Redemption was not improvised; Nor was Grace rushed. Before all things God was, and because God was, there was a plan. That means before exile, before suffering, and before the weight of sin and death pressed in on human history, God had already purposed salvation in Christ through the Cross with you in mind! What a beautiful thought, that each of us who approached the throne of God by faith in Christ has been on the mind of God from before the foundation of the world, from before time!

Again, I think this is where the JB Phillips translation is helpful in how it brings out the personal edge of Peter’s words and their pastoral implications: Phillips renders it: “God chose him for this purpose long before the world began, but only revealed him in these last days for your sake.” That final phrase matters perhaps the most – For your sake – because it makes the Metanarrative of salvation and the Cross deeply personal and profound – Before our DNA ever began to form, our name was known by God, and because of it, he acted. God did not act for religious purity; Nor for religious systems; Nor even for the moral improvement of the world; not even simply for his Glory alone, no in all things God the Father sent the Son, whom sent the Spirit into the world For your sake. The Son of God stepped into time, into our history with all of its suffering and mess, and weakness; the darkness and the brokenness – he has experienced it all! Why? so that we ordinary people living under the darkness of sin and all the pressure of this age could know that our lives are not accidents and our faith is not misplaced and that the God who is sovereign over all things is the secure foundation our gospel hope rests in. Jesus Christ is the centre of God’s purpose and acting in the world, and that means that our church’s life, even when it feels fragile or contested or under threat from outside pressure or a lack of institutional vision is caught up in something far larger than it can see. The standards and metrics of the world do not matter when it comes to the life of the Kingdom. Gospel confidence does not come from our strength, numbers, or cultural influence, but from knowing that God has already acted, already spoken, already committed himself to his people in Christ, and will continue to be faithful until the day he returns. He will not judge us by the numerical size of our church, nor its wealth, but by our collective dependency upon Him, and fruitfulness in the life of the Spirit.

3.2 Faith and Hope Directed Godward

Now the whole thread is drawn together in simplicity and beauty as Peter writes: “Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.” Again, do you notice where Peter puts the weight of this sentence? Where are Faith and hope pointed to? It is not about better circumstances, institutional renewal, or even visible success in church growth or mission. No, Faith and hope are simply directed towards God, through Christ because that is where our Hope is found. Biblically, Faith (and for Peter) is not a self-generated resolve in spite of the situation we are in, nor is Hope religious optimism that seems foolish given circumstances. Rather, both are gifts that flow from the resurrection and glorification of Jesus in his ascension and are being made known by the sanctifying work of the Spirit amid our ordinary lives. If Death has been defeated at the Cross, then Hope placed in the one who defeated it is never foolish. And our faith is never fragile. Everything the church is being called to endure and embody rests on that foundational truth! The resurrection is not simply proof that Jesus is alive; it is the guarantee that God can be trusted, even when obedience is costly and the future unclear; thus, what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:19 should be our challenge to move on:

“If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone”

Yet, as verse 20 of 1 Corinthians tells us: “But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died!” This matters deeply for a church living in exile, and it matters for us. It reminds us that Christian living is never about trying to conjure courage from within ourselves. We do not live holy lives in order to secure hope; we live holy/distinct because hope has already been secured for us in Christ. Our faith and our hope do not depend on us, but on God, who has already shown himself faithful in raising Jesus from the dead. Thus, beautifully, that means that even in seasons of waiting, uncertainty, or pressure, the church is not aimless without an anchor or secure foundation – we stand on the resurrection of ground, with confidence that he who ascended will come again.

4 | A People Shaped by Redemption: Contending for Hope in a Renewing City (Conclusion)

As we stand in this particular moment, at the beginning of a new year and on the threshold of this church’s 175th year of worship and witness, Peter’s words press us toward a question that is both deeply theological and profoundly practical. Not simply, Can we survive? but, What kind of people are we being formed to be? The passage we have heard today does not invite us to nostalgia for the past, nor does it permit us to retreat into anxiety about the future. It calls us to locate our faith and hope where they have always belonged, in the God who has acted in Christ and is not finished with his work.

4.1 A Church Rooted, Not Preserved

We live and serve on streets in our city that know the weight of weariness all too well; yet, also show signs of renewal on their edge – as life comes back into the city, and old factories are cleared for flats and housing. Streets that have carried the weight of loss and neglect are being reshaped as homes are being built, and hopefully with them, new businesses are opening; this is a season that can bring hope as well as anxiety, as we wonder what the future will be. Yet, we have to act, we as a church have to do someththing, we have a choice to make something of this moment for the Glory of the God we worship – or to allow it to pass us by. Thus, now we are confronted with a question and challenge for the sake of the Kingdom: When the change has swept across our streets, will we be present within it as a community shaped by the gospel rather than preserved as a relic of a former age?

Peter’s challenge to Holy Living because of a Holy God who has sent this plan in motion from the foundation of the world is a reminder that the church in every age is not simply a monument to its past faithfulness – it’s a gathering of people made alive by God, who by their living make known their faith and hope in God. We honour all the faithfulness over the last 175 years not by clinging to familiarity, but by doing as those who have gone before us – dwelling deeply in Christ and allowing the Spirit to send us outward in love, courage, and costly obedience. Why? For the sake of those who will soon call these streets home. It is not simply our Job to exist; we are a people who know Hope, and are then sent in Hope.

4.2 A People Sent in Hope

It is so simple it’s beautiful: because Christ has been revealed for our sake and because we have grasped the wonder of our redemption, the Spirit moves us to reveal Him for the sake of all who are yet to know Him, and for their Glory. More wonderful yet, because what we have received from God is not from this world, then we are free to contend for this hope amid our streets and in our city with confident, faithful presence. Why? because we know that Faithful presence, patient witness, and costly love are not signs of decline; they are marks of resurrection life at work in, to soon by at work through us. This hope is not of this earth, nor in a thing or an institution, a tradition, or a moral programme: No! It is a living Saviour, raised from the dead, and still living and active in the world today, giving life to all who trust in him. Thus, two things: first, is this your hope? Secondly, will we be bold enough to let the Spirit allow us to dwell deeper and go further than we have ever gone before?