The most profound, essential human responsibility in coming to God through Jesus Christ is repentance. Stated simply, repentance is a redirection of a person's thinking and life. The words, "redirection of a person's thinking and life," are filled with responsibility. This says, "There is more to life than is found in anything physical. A person can grasp all dimensions of life only if he/she knows God." This says, "If a person does not belong to God, he/she does not know life." This says, "In any way a person needs to redirect his/her thinking and life, he/she wants to do it regardless of cost". He/she understands that "someone" rules his/her life. Whatever the cost, he/she wants that "someone" to be God. He/she understands serving God is a matter of actively pursuing God's values and priorities in life, not just a passive agreement with God's values and priorities.
The reaction of far too many Christians: "Why would I do that? That is a heavy, serious responsibility! I just want to be a church member who avoids hell. Why would I pay such a demanding costs to serve God?"
1 Peter 1:17-21 If you address as 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 were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with 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.
These are the statements that follow last week's text on the Christian's call to holiness. The emphasis in the last lesson and this lesson are founded on God's declaration, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." Pay careful attention to the motives for Christians accepting God's call to holiness. Note these motives are emphasized to all who recognize God as their Father.
Motivation # 1: God will impartially judge those who call him Father. This is not a renunciation of God's mercy and grace. It is a straightforward declaration of our responsibility when we lay claim to God's mercy and grace. Remember Romans 14:11,12; 1 Peter 4:4,5; Matthew 12:35-37; and Matthew 16:27? Neither God nor Christ is flattered by human praise! Remember Matthew 7:21-23? Certainly neither is deceived when a human calls them Lord! The issue goes far beyond honoring God with a name! The issue is doing His will because He is worthy! The issue is serving Him because the honorable name we call Him genuinely indicates His position and role in our lives. Deeds committed in serving His will are as important as words!
Motivation # 2: there is a reverent understanding of Who God is. That reverence acknowledges personal responsibility through a sense of fearful awe. When we behold God in the day of judgment, each of us will reach this sober awareness: "So that is what God was about in His works and revelations to people on earth!" It is only when we see God's absolute holiness that we will become fully aware of the enormous evil in us. If you need a reminder of that truth, read Isaiah 6:1-5 again.
Motivation # 3: The Christian should be filled with an awe and awareness of the enormous price God paid to produce his/her salvation. A typical first century slave was ransomed (redeemed, freed) through a payment of gold or silver. The Christian is ransomed by God with a payment far more precious than silver or gold. God paid for our release from slavery with innocent blood. In words that were clearly understood by Israelites and many others of that world, God freed the Christian from slavery by offering a sacrifice. The innocent blood of that pure sacrifice given in Jesus' death was the price God paid. Since God paid an incredible price for our freedom, appreciation of God's sacrifice demands that Christians conduct ourselves as people freed from evil rather than people who embrace and serve evil.
Note the life a person has prior to surrendering to God is futile. That life led no where. It produced nothing that endures. Whatever passions were its focus, such passions are left in this physical world. In the context of their day, no matter what idol they worshipped, no matter what idol controlled their daily activities, no matter what idol was embraced by their city or their guild, no matter what excesses their idol permitted, physical death reduced all that to meaninglessness. In the context of the American culture, no matter what controls you, defines your lifestyle, or determines the focus of your physical existence, it stays in this physical world. Neither greed, nor sexual indulgence, nor addiction of any kind, nor living for pleasure by indulging physical desires, nor success, nor praise by the godless, nor wealth, nor power will reach beyond physical death. How horrible to realize, "I wasted my physical life on nothing, on things with no eternal significance!" when God's judgment comes. What emptiness to realize at that moment God's values were the only values capable of giving physical life an eternal significance!
God did not make His sacrifice accidentally. God's sacrifice was the result of intentions and planning. God knew what He was doing. God knew the cost of what He was doing. God was willing to pay the only price that would free us.
Christians respond to God's sacrifice with an active trust. They place their hope in what God did in Jesus' death and resurrection. Their confidence is in God's accomplishments in Jesus' death and resurrection. They express their confidence and their hope in God by totally surrendering life in service to God's values and priorities. They demonstrate their appreciation for what the Holy God did and does for them in Christ by focusing their existence on serving Him.
Thought Questions:
Link to Teacher's Guide
Lesson 7