Please turn with me this evening to 1 Peter chapter 1, as we read that chapter, giving particular attention to verses 17 through 21, in connection with Lord's Day 13. So when you have found 1 Peter chapter 1, please turn in the back of the Psalter hymnal to page 20. Page 20. There we find Lord's Day 13, questions and answers 33 and 34, part of our Apostles' Creed that we confess. We'll recite these together. Question 33 asks, Why is He called God's only begotten Son when we also are God's children? Because Christ alone is the eternal, natural Son of God. We, however, are adopted children of God, adopted by grace through Christ. Why do you call Him our Lord? Because not with gold or silver, but with His precious blood, He has set us free from sin and from the tyranny of the devil, and has bought us body and soul to be His very own. 1 Peter 1 as we give our attention to the Word of God. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to God's elect strangers in the world scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying work of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood grace and peace be yours in abundance praise be to the god and father of our lord jesus christ in his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of jesus christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish spoil or fade kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by god's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him. and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told to you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. Therefore, prepare your minds for action. Be self-controlled. Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy. Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. 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 forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth, so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and enduring word of God. For all men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever. And this is the word that was preached to you. Again, may God add his blessing to the reading and the preaching of his word this evening. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, I am the captain of my own ship, the master of my own fate. No doubt you've heard that saying before, and of course that means when it comes to me and my life, and what happens to me in my life, what that means is that I am the final authority. And of course that is the view of mankind blinded in sin. That is the view of paganism as we considered this morning. That is where spiritual ignorance leads. And I trust and pray sincerely that that does not describe anyone here tonight. Because I sincerely hope that we have all been brought to see by faith how dangerous and how deadly it is if life is left up to me. And it is dangerous and deadly then because of me. Now we all know there's a lot of bumper sticker theology out there today. A lot of sayings, spiritual sayings, plastered on bumper stickers. One of them that you may see includes the letters N-O-T-W. Even many young people wear that as logo on their t-shirts. N-O-T-W, not of this world. Another bumper sticker that you may see simply says, God is love. And I trust that those who display those kinds of bumper stickers and emblems on their t-shirts, of course, I trust that that is a genuine testimony that they are given. I'm not going to question that at all. But there is another bumper sticker slogan truth that I have seen a number of times lately that simply says, Jesus is Lord. The confession that we considered this morning. Jesus is Lord. And indeed, we know that that is a true statement. And sometimes I wonder if those who are driving those vehicles that have that bumper sticker, how much they really understand about what that says, what it means that Jesus is Lord. Yet, beloved, that statement, that confession is to be more than simply a blanket statement, but that statement is to be very personal for each and every one of us. And as we considered this morning, it can only be personal by the influence and power of the Holy Spirit. And therefore, when one is influenced by the Holy Spirit, it will be personal for those who have been given the gift of faith, so that in confidence and with conviction we can confess, as we do, that Jesus Christ is our Lord. That Jesus Christ is my Lord. And by the grace of God, beloved, we are able to confess that because of who He is, because of what He has done, and because of what He deserves. First of all, Jesus Christ is our Lord because of who He is. Peter begins verse 3 by saying, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now in the New Testament epistles, that is a common designation for Jesus. Our Lord Jesus Christ. But we need to understand that it is not used there of Him. The word Lord is not used of Him in the common ordinary sense. He is our Lord because of who He is compared to worldly or earthly lords. You see, boys and girls, the Greek word from which we get our word Lord has other meanings like master or ruler or owner or sir, and it was used of different men in different situations in those ways. It was used of a slave for his master. The word Lord was used as a title of respect. It was used when one would simply acknowledge the authority and the rule of another in some way it was used as a title of courtesy for a stranger and to be fair we must also say that it was used in that common ordinary way for jesus in his public ministry by those who came to recognize the authority and the power of his teaching and of his miracles it was used that way of the what the samaritan woman when she came to him at the well she used it as a title of respect. And his disciples, no doubt, used it in that way before they fully understand the truth of who he was. But that common, ordinary usage, except for Jesus, was limited. The title of Lord for any other man was limited in its power, limited in its scope, in its expression, limited in how much power one had and over whom that power was exercised. But for Jesus, the title Lord is unique to Himself, unique to His very being, and because for Jesus, the title Lord is a title of divinity. And when it's used for Jesus Christ, it is used in this way, it corresponds with the Hebrew word Yahweh, as we said this morning, Jehovah. And Jesus, we know, identified Himself with Yahweh of the Old Testament, though those who heard Him use it that way didn't understand it before His resurrection. In Mark 5, verse 19, Jesus had cast the demon out of a man and He told that man, go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you. And in the parallel account in Luke chapter 19, Luke records it this way, go home and tell them how much God has done for you. And we know that our Savior did not use it in the normal, ordinary sense of the word at that time, but he was using it to point back to Yahweh of the Old Testament. He was pointing back to, for example, Psalm 66, verse 16, which says, Come and listen, all you who fear God, let me tell you what He has done for me. It's a title of divinity, even as Thomas confessed, my Lord and my God. But His divinity is also seen, as we confess, that He is the only begotten Son of God. You see, beloved, He is able to be Lord because He is the only begotten Son of God, pointing to His divinity. Again, that's our confession. Why is He called God's only begotten Son when we also are God's children? Because Christ alone is the eternal, natural Son of God. We, however, are adopted children of God, adopted by grace through Christ. He is the only begotten Son of God. That's the clear testimony of Scripture. And that again points to His divine nature. Boys and girls, we are begotten in a sense also. Because we have come forth from our parents and we share the same nature as our parents, which is a human nature. But Jesus is only begotten. His nature is unique. It's one of a kind. No one else has it. Because he alone shares a nature with God the Father, and that, again, is a divine nature, even as Paul says in Philippians 2, that he is equal with God. And as the catechism points out, he is eternal, pointing to one of the attributes of God. In John 1 says of Jesus that he was in the beginning. And Peter, in verse 20, pointing to a great work for which he is chosen, It says that He was chosen before the creation of the world. Beloved, He is our Lord because He is God. He is the only begotten Son of God. He is also Son. We notice that in His baptism. The Father spoke from heaven, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. We think of Peter's profession when he says, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, and Jesus approved of that designation. Paul in Acts chapter 13 applies to Jesus the words of Psalm 2 verse 7 which says, You are my Son, today I have become your Father. He is God. And as God, He is also Lord. And the testimony of Scripture is that God the Father made God the Son Lord. He made Him to be Lord. And that is the prophecy again of Psalm 2. I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill. And that is said there in connection with His position of universal authority and global lordship. And the fact that God the Father made the Son, Lord, is also testified to in Philippians 2, where Paul says, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And Peter points to this truth in verse 21 when he says, through Him you believe in God who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him. And then Paul also says in Romans 9 verse 5 of Christ, who is God overall, pointing to the fact that He is Lord. But now, boys and girls, the Bible and our confession says that we also are sons of God. Well, how does that fit if we are sons of God? If Jesus is a son of God, but He's also Lord, how does that fit? Can we call Him our Lord if we are equal with Him as sons? But the truth is we are not equal with Him. We need to consider the believer's sonship in the context of who we are. In the context of our alienation. Even though we are God's creatures, we are not divine like Jesus. We are not eternal like Jesus. But because of sin, beloved, we were enemies of God. We are not natural sons of God, but we have become God's children through our adoption, as the catechism says. Now, boys and girls, you know that in this life, an adopted child is one who used to belong to someone else. He is one who was born of other parents. And that adopted child is one who is taken into a new family and ordinarily the old family connections are cut off and that one who has been adopted then enjoys a new name and a new status and new blessings and rights and privileges and obligations of that new family. See, Jesus Christ alone is a natural Son of God. But our adoption is by grace. God has made us, by His grace, children of God. Paul says in Romans 8, But you have received the Spirit of Sonship, and by Him we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. But why? Again, we say it's because of grace. But why would God bother to pour out His grace upon us who were alienated from Him? who were sinful, who wanted nothing to do with Him, why would He bother with us? Well, it's for the same reason that Jesus Christ is our Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord because of who He is. He is the only begotten Son of God, and He is Lord because of what He has done. And the same is true with us and our sonship. We are adopted children of God. And He is our Lord because of who He is. And in the second place, because of what He has done. In Acts 2, verse 36, Peter says again, God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Pointing again to what God the Father has done. And as Peter says again in verse 21, God the Father glorified Him. And as Paul says in Philippians 2, that God the Father exalted Him. But again, why? Why did God make Him both Lord and Christ? Why did God the Father glorify Him? Why did God the Father exalt Him? Well, in all three of those instances, in all three of those passages, we see the same reason. It's because of His redeeming work. It's because of what He has done. Paul says in Romans 10, verse 9, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. And we are to understand, when Paul talks about the resurrection there, we are to understand all of the work of Christ. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is proof that His work was sufficient, His work was perfect, His work was complete, and that He is victorious. Beloved, Jesus Christ earned the right to be Lord. To be the ruler over all things. And Paul tells us how in 1 Timothy 2, verse 6, when he says that he gave himself as a ransom. Now boys and girls, a ransom we know is a price that is paid to free a prisoner. It's a price that is paid to free those who are condemned. When we hear about someone who is kidnapped, often there is a ransom note. The kidnapper says, you give me so much money and I'll give you your loved one back. We were condemned to death, to eternal hell. We were finished. We were without hope. But Peter says that in Christ, ours is a living hope. And he tells us how we have that living hope. He tells us how the ransom price was paid when he says in verses 18 and 19, 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 forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. Beloved, that's our confession. Question 34, why do you call him our Lord? Because not with gold or silver, but with his precious blood, he has set us free from sin and from the tyranny of the devil and has bought us body and soul to be His very own. That's the ransom price. And notice the price is not gold or silver. And I think it's good for us to stop and meditate on this for a moment because I think we sometimes slip over this way too quickly, not with gold or silver. Boys and girls, you're familiar with gold and silver. You know that gold is what it takes to back our money supply. And gold and silver are two of the most precious metals known to man. And we need gold to back our money supply to purchase earthly things. And if you follow the stock market, you know that even in our day right now, gold is very, very expensive. It's got a very high value. There's the saying that everything has its price. That if the price is high enough, that anything can be purchased. but to see beloved Peter would have us understand here in this text that there is no amount of money no amount of gold that could pay for sin but the ransom price needed to be something greater in value than the most valuable of earthly riches that could ever be found the treasure that was needed to pay the ransom price could never be destroyed right? It will never lose its value or its effectiveness. And that's treasurable of it is the blood of Jesus. In the Old Testament sacrificial system, God taught that life is in the blood. And we know that too, biologically, don't we? If someone bleeds to that, that's because their body lost too much blood. And the same is true spiritually. Life is in the blood the writer of hebrews 9 says without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness and without forgiveness beloved god's forgiveness there is no hope there is no life there is no salvation but only his blood the blood of jesus was precious enough valuable enough to be acceptable to god because it was perfect because he was unblemished and therefore by shedding His blood He paid every last bit of the price for our freedom and because of His work, beloved after His resurrection the title Lord for Jesus was used by His followers in all of its fullness because He proved that He is God because He proved that He is powerful to rule because He proved that He will save to the uttermost those who believe It's interesting, if you look throughout the New Testament epistles, as I said in the beginning, that never again will you find that the word Lord is used for Jesus in the common, ordinary sense of the word, but it is always used for Him as God, as the Savior, as the Redeemer. And because of what He has done, beloved, we enjoy our adoptive result. Again, that adoption is by grace alone. Our God has taken all that Jesus Christ has done. He has taken His perfect righteousness and satisfaction. He has made it our very own possession. And He has brought us into His very own family. And the family of God, beloved, is not characterized by death and doom. But the family of God is characterized by salvation and forgiveness. By life and blessing. And our adoptive result is that that adoption is an adoption without end. In this life, an adopted orphan might always live wondering, will it last? Will I stay in this family? Or will I once again someday be without a family? But not God's children. God's children never have to worry about whether our adoption will come to an end. because Jesus Christ is our eternal Lord, our eternal Master, our eternal Ruler, our eternal Savior. He is our Ruler who protects completely and eternally so that we will not even lose one hair apart from His will. Our status as children of God will never be taken away. It will never be lost. You and I cannot forfeit it. We cannot lose it. Our status as children of God is not conditioned by our confession of sin. It's not conditioned by our response of obedience. Those will be there by the influence and power of the Holy Spirit, but those things do not keep us saved. But because of what Jesus Christ has done, we have complete reconciliation with our God. And the condemnation and anger of God that was against us is gone forever. And as seminarian Matt Tuning got beautifully reminded his last Sunday evening, now, for those who are in Christ Jesus, no matter what happens from here on out, and that includes no matter how bad we fail, never again will God's wrath be against us. His wrath will not be against us on Judgment Day. The only thing we look forward to hearing one day is enter in my child. Beloved Jesus Christ earned the right to be Lord. And He earned the right to be called our Lord. He has bought us. We belong to Him. We are His possession with the rights and privileges and obligations and responsibilities of the family of God. And therefore we confess Him as our Lord in the third place because of what He deserves. because of what He deserves, beloved, from His redeemed people. When we think about Christ's redemption of us, the Catechism helps us to understand what it is we are redeemed from. It says we are rescued from sin, we are rescued from the power of sin, from the curse of sin, from the punishment of sin, but also we are rescued from the tyranny of the devil. You see, apart from Jesus Christ, the devil is our ruler. The devil is our master. And, beloved, the devil is a hard taskmaster. Young people, he wants us to believe that he loves us, that he cares for us, but he hates us. And his goal is to drive man through sin to utter ruin and destruction. But not so with our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ does not drive us to obedience. He does not say, obey me or else. He does not pound into us fear like a slave who is afraid of punishment if he doesn't obey, but instead he calls us into joyful service because of his perfect obedience given for you and me. And because of his completed work accomplished on our behalf. And the Holy Spirit of God then teaches us of the joy of serving Christ Jesus. But Peter also says we are redeemed from something. He says in verse 18 that we are redeemed from an empty way of life. We are redeemed from that life heading nowhere, that life with no direction, that life of paganism that we talked about this morning, that life that is empty of the truth, that life that is filled with a lie, that life that is leading nowhere, that life that is without the knowledge of God and without the presence of God. That life, as Peter says in verse 14, is characterized by evil desires and by ignorance. Beloved, in Christ Jesus we have been redeemed from that empty way of life, and that life has been filled with the love of God in Christ Jesus, who has a right to our life and our love and our service. Because it is He who gives us clear direction to follow, who gives us direction how we are to walk before Him and serve Him. As our Lord, as our Master, as our Ruler, we are able to have confidence, beloved, that He will not let those He purchased for such a great price fall by the wayside. And as our Lord, as our Ruler, His rule is delightful. His statutes are sweeter than honey. His commands are not burdensome, but instead they are for our good, they are for our benefit, because He loves us deeply. And He cares for us perfectly, as He has proven with His own life. So that as we sing, His love, so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. Because we belong to Him, body and soul, in life and in death. The people of God, this is what He deserves for His honor. Our love and obedience is to be given to Him in faith. In faith for who He is and what we have from Him. Not in fear and terror. Peter says in verse 17, Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. We are strangers in this life because our citizenship is in heaven. but we are to live here in reverent fear, not in terror, but in awe with love and a desire to please Him. We are to live our lives here joyfully, recognizing who our Lord is, that He is God, recognizing what He deserves, and trusting in His promise that He will never leave or forsake us, trusting that He is always with us to the very end. And our love and obedience is to be given exclusively to Him. It's not to be shared with any other. The early Christians lived in a society where Caesar was called Lord. And we know that many even claimed Caesar to be God. And even though the early Christians recognized that earthly authority was instituted by God, they never worshipped earthly rulers. They never gave the honor that belonged only to our Lord Jesus Christ to earthly rulers. And we too, beloved, may not confess Jesus as Lord and then turn around and honor creatures. We may not honor sinful employers who command us to do things that violate God's will, who command us to lie or embellish the truth just to satisfy a customer. We may not give honor to coaches who tell us to play dirty against the rules until we get caught. We may not honor governments that try to force toleration upon God's people for things that are completely ungodly or threaten the tax status of believers and churches. And beloved, you know as well as I do that that is coming dangerously close. We think again of the California Supreme Court ruling in this past week overturning the ban on same-sex marriages. It's coming dangerously close. And more and more as believers and more and more as churches, we are going to be tempted and pressured to give in and to honor ungodly laws and ungodly practices. But our comfort, beloved, is that our divine master rules over sinful employers and coaches and governments and all things. And when he comes, our glorious king, he will be vindicated. And with Him, all who by faith confessed and lived under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Beloved, it is impossible to claim Jesus Christ as Savior, to be saved by Him, but not to worship and bow before Him as Lord. You cannot have Him as Savior without having Him as Lord. You cannot have Him as Lord without having Him as Savior. But those who understand his saving work never want to be out of his loving rule. When he comes again, we know that every knee will bow before him, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and those who rejected him will do so in fear and terror for his rule. But all who turn to him in faith, those who are saved by the grace of God, will do so with joy in honor under the comfort and the protection of his rule. And until He comes, beloved, as those who understand by faith His glorious and righteous rule, it is our privilege to serve Him. And we are called to desire His holiness. We are called to be like Him, to be holy even as He is holy. That's our responsibility as children of God, to resemble Him. But our comfort is that when we fail, when we sin, we have a loving and a righteous Master who doesn't say, away with you. You've got to go. We'd be better off without you. You see, that's the way it is with earthly masters and rulers. If those under their control have no value and no worth in their eyes, they get rid of them. But not so with Jesus Christ our Lord. In and of ourselves, we have no value. We have no worth for Him. Yet He makes us valuable. He gives us worth in the sight of God. And our Lord, beloved, is slow to anger. He is abounding in love and He restores us gently. And of His grace, He continues by the Holy Spirit to sanctify and cleanse us more and more to honor Him with deeds of love. And therefore, may we demonstrate His loving Lordship by displaying Him to the world as the Savior and Lord of our lives. May we demonstrate His loving Lordship by serving Him as we serve each other in love. May we demonstrate His loving Lordship with hearts of compassion for the fatherless and the widow and the lonely and the weak. That's what we were spiritually speaking. But now we belong to Him forever and ever. And we are protected by His glorious rule. People of God, praise God that I'm not the master of my own life's ship, my own fate, but that Jesus Christ is. And that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will rule us, protect us, and bring us to the full possession of His inheritance. That inheritance that can never perish or spoil or fade. That inheritance that is kept safe in heaven for you and I who believe. All because Jesus Christ is our Lord. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we bow before You as Your children. As those indeed You have called to Yourself for the sake of Jesus Christ. The One whom You have made not only our Savior, but also our Lord. And may it be, Heavenly Father, even as we sung a while ago, that in our hearts we would enthrone Him. That indeed we would recognize His sovereign rule over us, that it is perfect, that it is complete, that it is for our good. And we thank You, Father, for the eternal sonship that we enjoy in Christ Jesus, our Lord, that we will never be taken away from You, that You will never send us away, but that we are safe in Your fold forever and ever. And may it be again that we would look forward to the day when our righteous Lord comes again in all of His glory to put His enemies under His feet, put them away forever and ever, and take His people home to glory. Father, help us to live day by day in the joy of being ruled by a sovereign Lord who has our best in mind at all times. In Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen.