SPB Sermons || 1 Peter 1:17-21 || Part 4 of Contending for Hope || Redeemed for Such a Time As This || Rev Andrew

 

Whatever you wake up carrying will shape how you see the day. Some mornings the world feels lighter, and other mornings the steps feel heavier before you even leave the house. Peter writes to a church who knew that weight. They were believers trying to live faithfully in a contested world, learning what it means to belong to Christ when the world around them does not share their hope, their story, or their priorities.

And Peter does something deeply pastoral. Before he presses them into action, he anchors them again in reality, not the reality of their headlines, but the reality of God. God is Father, yes, and we come to Him as children, yes, but He is also the holy Judge who shows no partiality. That is not meant to terrify the Christian. It is meant to steady the Christian. A holy God means evil is not ignored, suffering is not meaningless, and injustice does not get the last word.

Holy fear is not panic, it is reverence

Peter calls the church to live their lives “as strangers here in reverent fear.” That phrase can land badly if we hear it through the lens of guilt, performance, or shame. But Peter’s point is different. Reverent fear is the settled seriousness of people who know who God is, and therefore know what matters. It is respect, awe, and worship working its way into ordinary decisions. It is the opposite of drifting through life half awake, shaped by whatever is loudest or easiest or most convenient.

In other words, Peter is not calling the church into anxious religion. He is calling them into grounded discipleship. The Fatherhood of God does not cancel His holiness, and His holiness does not cancel His love. In the gospel, those truths meet, and they meet at the cross.

You were bought, and the price tells the truth

Peter reminds the church what redeemed them. Not money. Not status. Not influence. Not their own effort. Not “better habits” or a spiritual upgrade. They were ransomed from empty ways of life, handed down and reinforced by human tradition, by “the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”

That single line holds two realities together. First, the weight of sin is real. We cannot shrug it off, rename it, or pretend we are morally improving as a civilisation. The world does not support that fantasy. Second, our worth before God is real. If all the gold and silver in the world could not purchase one soul’s freedom, then what does it say that God gave His Son? The cross exposes our need, and it announces our value. Not because we are impressive, but because God is gracious.

Grace does not reduce responsibility, it deepens dependence

One of the subtle temptations in the Christian life is to treat grace like a tool kit. As if God saves us, hands us the equipment, and then watches from a distance while we try to become holy by sheer willpower. Peter refuses that. Holiness is not self help, and the Christian life is not driven by self improvement. Grace is not a moment we look back on. It is the sustaining presence and power of God in the people of God, to the glory of God each day.

That means holiness is not the ladder we climb to reach God. Holiness is the fruit God grows in us as we walk with Him. Worship, prayer, the Word, fellowship, repentance, love, service, ordinary obedience, these rhythms do not earn us anything. They shape us into the kind of people who reflect the God we belong to.

Your faith and hope are in God

Peter lifts the eyes of the church beyond their moment and reminds them that Christ “was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.” Jesus is not God’s reaction to human failure. The gospel is not Plan B. The cross was always the plan, and the resurrection is the guarantee that God can be trusted even when we cannot see what He is doing.

So Peter lands with clarity. “Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.” Not in circumstances. Not in a calmer week. Not in political outcomes. Not even in church strength or institutional survival. In God. And that changes how we live in Belfast. It changes how we endure. It changes how we serve. It changes how we speak, how we welcome, how we love, and how we resist the empty ways that promise life but cannot deliver it.

As we move through our 175th year at St Paul’s & St Barnabas, this passage presses a simple, searching question: not only what are we doing as a church, but what kind of people are we becoming. A holy people, redeemed at infinite cost, with faith and hope set on God, living distinctively by grace, and sent into our streets with the hope of Christ.

Listen to the sermon

You are very welcome to join us for worship at St Paul’s & St Barnabas, York Street, Belfast. We meet each Sunday at 10:30am, and we would love to have you with us, whether you are exploring faith, returning after time away, or looking for a church family in the city.

Come as you are. Come and worship God with us. Come and discover the hope that is ours in Jesus Christ.