On a glorious morning, with the sun streaming through the windows of St Swithun’s, a good congregation gathered for Valley Worship on Sunday in Martyr Worthy. John Barber led the service and its theme was the free gift of our salvation, the great cost of which was paid for by God himself, drawing on 1 Peter 1, verses 14 to 23.
In her talk Nicky Barber addressed this theme, emphasising that the gift of salvation is free (as is our adoption into God’s family) but also that it brings with it an obligation to live as his obedient children in the power of his indwelling Holy Spirit. We therefore need not just to believe it with our heads but also receive it, obey it and share it with others and also to ask the Holy Spirit to fill us each day and to do his sanctifying work in us.
Tim Uffindell (the leader of the Gospel Collective Choir in Alresford) beautifully led the worship, which was alternatively rousing and reflective. As the latest ‘episode’ in our long running Every Day Lives series, John interviewed Nick Fuggle and we learned of both his love for his professional field of rheumatology (where he both practices as a doctor and conducts research as a scientist) and of the significant impact on his life of coming into a full relationship with Jesus at age 13. During the service Verity Greig led a typically energetic and exciting Ark session both across the lane in the Village Hall and on the bridge over the Itchen at the bottom of Church Lane, taking advantage of the warm sunshine to get outdoors.
The reading was as follows:
1 Peter 1, verses 14-23
As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
17 Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
A recording of Nicky’s talk can be accessed below
The text of Nicky’s talk can be read below:
How much do you enjoy giving and receiving gifts? We sometimes read of extraordinary gifts given to people. Apparently, Mike Tyson delighted his wife with a golden bathtub worth $2 million. Or what about the waterfall which Angelina Jolie gave to Brad Pitt – she apparently said to her staff “He is so hard to buy gifts for”.
These gifts are of extraordinary monetary value and the “Wow” factor, but I long for gifts that show people really know me and what I would most love, which is sometimes a tall order for those around me. Have you ever had a really terrible gift given to you or messed up horribly with a gift for someone else? Can you remember how it felt?
We felt terrible one Christmas. We had promised our son Ben a dog but then we were busy doing house renovations and the time never seemed right to actually buy the dog. On Christmas Day we opened a lovely card from Ben, signed “with love from Ben and the dog”, with a beautiful paw print drawn on it. We felt awful when we saw his crushing disappointment.
Or the opposite, have you ever received a gift that made your heart sing? Made you feel really loved and known?
What is the most precious gift which has ever been given? Peter speaks frequently in this chapter about the gift of salvation God has given us and in this passage, he talks about the price God has paid to redeem us, which is more precious than silver or gold (or any other earthly jewels).
We will look more at this gift in a minute. But first we need to think a bit more about the God who gives this gift. When we look at God’s character we face a conundrum. Peter tells us that among other things God is:
15 – Holy
17 – He is also just –
But the bible also tells us that God is Love. I John 4v8 says that God is love – he isn’t just loving, and he loves all those who he has made.
The problem with this is that:
God’s Holiness means he cannot tolerate evil or wickedness so no-one who sins can enter his Holy presence.
Have you ever taken a bowl of clean, fresh water and dropped a tiny piece of soot into it? The soot spreads over the surface and however hard you try you can’t get it out again. You have to throw all the water away. Our sin is like that soot – it spreads and contaminates everything it touches. How could a pure and holy God allow that to happen to his holiness?
Meanwhile God’s justice means that he has to deal with that same evil or sin. Would we think it was fair if murderers, rapists, tyrants went unpunished?
John and I spent a day in Winchester’s crown court recently when a friend of ours was being dedicated as the new High Sherriff. It was fascinating watching the judge deciding how to treat each person in the dock. Who to acquit and who to send to prison. Imagine what it would feel like to sit in the dock while God looked over all the innermost details of our lives? What do you think the sentence would be? Is there anything that might make us squirm under his searching gaze? I know my cheeks would flush crimson with shame if some of the hidden things I notice in my own heart were brought out into the open.
Whether our individual sin seems huge or tiny compared to other people’s it is still not compatible with God’s holiness. No-one is good enough. Hitler or Putin may have more on their lists than Mother Theresa or Pope Francis, but no human being has ever lived a perfectly sinless life, except Jesus.
God is holy and he is just but he is also Love and he loves all the people he has made. That love means he wants to be reconciled with each one of us and not separated from us.
Who can deal with this impossible quandary? How can Holiness, Justice and Love be in a right relationship with human beings who have sinned?
Payment has to be made for each of our wrong-doings and that payment is eternal separation from a holy and just God.
The incredible solution our God has come up with is that he himself has made that payment. When God came to earth as a human being, he did live a life of perfect obedience or righteousness and then chose to hang on the cross of divine justice in our place, accepting the death sentence himself and paying our penalty.
The verse on the top of our service sheets sums it up. Romans 6 v.23:
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
V 14 and 17 tell us that through this gift we now also receive the honour of being adopted as God’s children, allowed to call on him as Father.
Recently our 2-year-old grandson has started calling John “Papa” – a name we both love. Jesus called God “Abba” which is an Aramaic term of affection, similar to “Papa” or “Daddy”. According to Romans 8 v.15, as God’s adopted children, we too can call him “Abba, Papa, Father”. How does that feel?
When we try to imagine God, do we still see him as a rather scary judge, an unapproachable divine being, or do we see his eyes full of fatherly love as they look at us?
The gift of salvation itself is free, totally unmerited, but it also asks for a response from us.
First, we have to believe it – we know from earlier in the chapter and also from v. 21 that the gift is received by faith. We can’t see it with our physical eyes. We have to trust the one who has given it to us and believe that what he says is true and that he will do what he says he will do. Do we believe it?
Second, we have to receive it – not just accept it as knowledge in our heads but we have to take the gift, unwrap it, learn how to use it, treasure it.
Just under 30 years ago I stood before an altar with John and we exchanged our marriage vows together. After the wedding, we couldn’t actually see the marriage; we didn’t look different to how we looked before but our status had fundamentally changed. We were now married. If we had gone back to our single lives, it would have made a mockery of the wedding service. We had made a commitment to grow in love with each other and so we have behaved differently from then on.
Similarly, when we accept God’s offer of salvation and eternal life, we may not look any different but the reality is that we are different. I am no longer Nicky St John; I am now Nicky Barber. I am also no longer a condemned sinner who will have to face the justice of a holy God, I have been ransomed, redeemed. I am now a much-loved child of God who is able to stand in his holy presence.
Part of receiving God’s free gift of salvation therefore is to accept that we are forgiven – totally, unconditionally, completely. No shame, no guilt. We are redeemed prisoners who have been set free.
Have we been set free from all those niggling feelings of guilt or are we still carrying some around? If we don’t feel forgiven, if guilt is still lingering, then the problem is not that God hasn’t forgiven us, it is that we haven’t fully realised that he has and accepted his forgiveness.
As the author Corrie Ten Boom put it “God has taken our sin and thrown it into the sea of forgetfulness and posted a sign that says “No fishing allowed”. But some of us can’t resist having another poke at it anyway.
If we look at v. 14, 15 and also 22, we see that the gift also brings a new obligation to obey the one who has given it to us. We may have already have been saved from eternal judgement but as v.17 reminds us, God is still our judge.
One day we will each have to stand before the Father who loves us and feel his gaze as he looks through how we have lived our lives since we were brought into his family and filled with his spirit. Will he find that we have invested it well or squandered it? Will he say “well done good and faithful child” or will we be full of regret when we see the opportunities we have missed?
Lastly, we can’t keep this gift to ourselves – it is for sharing and investing in his kingdom. We receive God’s love and forgiveness and we then pass it on to others. v. 22 says that we must have sincere love for each other, loving each other deeply from the heart. God wants all men and women to know about his love and the fact that the gift is for them too. This invitation usually comes by one telling another the good news about what God has done for us to rescue us. Are we passing that invitation on? Is there anyone we know or will come across who might only hear it from us?
To make sure this drops from our heads to our hearts, is there any action we need to take? Let’s each ponder this in our hearts.
Do we each really believe, deep inside, that we have been redeemed, forgiven, saved from eternal death? If not, the simplest answer is to ask God to give us faith to believe that this gift is for each of us individually and then to receive it.
It is so easy to say to God “I am so sorry for all the ways I have sinned against you and against other people. Please forgive me and give me a fresh start, not because of anything I have done but because of what Jesus has done for me.”
Then, every day, we can ask his Holy Spirit to come and fill us and make this salvation real in our hearts and teach us how to become obedient children. In v.2 of this chapter, Peter spoke about the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. He gives us the power we need to live as God’s children and also produces the family likeness in us, making us more Christ like, more holy, from the inside out. Ephesians 5 v.18 tell us to be filled with the Holy Spirit and the words used mean we are to go on being filled or continually be filled.
Every morning when I come downstairs, I have a large glass of fresh water before I start the day properly. Maybe we should all write a little post-it note reminding us to ask the Holy Spirit to fill us afresh each morning.
We had an extraordinary glimpse of the Holy Spirit at work in a friend of ours last week. She was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in her brain, just a few weeks before her son’s wedding, which was yesterday. She had very scary brain surgery a week ago which could easily have killed her or left her paralysed and lots of us were praying for her during it and in particular that she would make it to the wedding. She survived the surgery but the prognosis is still very bad. Yet, she wrote these words to all of us a few days ago:
“This has been and continues to be an absolutely extraordinary journey, where I have found God to be totally present and all I desire and need – I never want to leave this place, I want to choose to be holy. Set apart for you, my master. Ready to do your will”. She said yesterday that she wished she hadn’t wasted the years up till now and had shared the message of God’s love with more people.
The power of the Holy Spirit living in one of God’s children is giving our friend victory over her very dire circumstances. I think the Holy Spirit is wanting to bring each of us to a similar place of deep trust in our loving Father, whatever our outward circumstances might be.
According to v. 8 of this chapter, receiving this gift of salvation and our adoption into God’s family should fill believers with an “inexpressible and glorious joy”, so that we too can be filled with joy when life is going well, but also when we are facing really hard times.