The sermon continues an ongoing exposition of 1 Peter 1, revisiting verses 17-19 before pressing into verses 20-21. Peter has just reminded his readers that they have been ransomed from the futile way of life inherited from their ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. Because of this costly redemption, Peter commands believers to conduct themselves with fear during their time as exiles on earth. The sermon draws a parallel with Paul's warning in Galatians 5:1 and 13: Christ has set believers free, genuinely free, yet that freedom must never become an occasion to indulge the flesh. True spiritual freedom is freedom from bondage to sin and from the "empty way of life," never freedom to return to it.

The preacher illustrates this tension with a personal story from a trip to Lake Taupo, New Zealand, where a long conversation with an Airbnb host - a man who had drifted from Christian faith and doubted the resurrection - raised the question of whether salvation can be lost. The sermon's answer, echoing the logic of 1 John, is that genuine new birth always produces fruit; a person who claims regeneration yet ultimately abandons the Lord shows the new birth was never truly experienced, while a truly regenerate person, though still capable of sin and temptation, will be drawn back to God by the ongoing work of the Spirit. This is offered not as a loophole but as a warning: presuming on freedom while indulging sin risks proving one was never truly free in Christ at all, and that presumption should produce holy fear, since fear functions like physical pain - a protective signal against destruction.

The sermon reinforces this with a parable of a father whose daughter fakes her own kidnapping to extort money from him, then mocks him once safe - a picture of how presuming upon another's costly sacrifice while despising it is a fearful, contemptible thing. Treating Christ's blood, which purchased redemption, as ordinary while continuing in the old empty life is exactly this kind of contempt, and Peter's call to fear guards believers against it.

Turning to verses 20-21, the sermon identifies six statements Peter makes about Christ, arranged to accomplish two purposes: strengthening the believer's faith and hope in God, and deepening a fitting fear of misplacing that hope elsewhere. First, Christ was foreknown and chosen before the foundation of the world, language paralleling Romans 8:29's unbroken chain of foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, and glorification - Christ, as the eternal Word and second person of the Trinity, was loved and chosen by the Father from eternity, so redemption was no afterthought following the fall but an eternal plan. Second, Christ was revealed in these last times, entering history as a man visible to human eyes, fulfilling John 1:18 - the mystery of the incarnation, unparalleled in any other religion or philosophy, in which the infinite Creator confines himself to a finite human body. Third, all of this was done "for your sake," a truth underscored with the "Power of Ten" video's shrinking perspective on human smallness against the vastness of creation, and with Paul's confession in Galatians 2:20 that the Son of God loved him and gave himself for him personally.

Fourth, God raised Christ from the dead, proving the Father accepted his sacrifice as sufficient and complete - unlike a mere resuscitation such as Lazarus's, which still ended in death. Fifth, God glorified Christ, exalting him to reign at the Father's right hand after forty days of post-resurrection appearances; believers who follow Christ's example are likewise called toward a shared future glory rather than the fleeting pleasures of the "wide road" the world offers. Sixth, through Christ believers come to faith in God at all - every prior element culminates in this: faith and hope are set on God, closing out this whole section of the letter (1 Peter 1:13-21), which began with the command to set one's hope fully on grace and now ends by anchoring that hope explicitly in God through Christ.

The sermon closes by contrasting this settled hope with Jeremiah 2:12-13's indictment of Israel for forsaking the Lord, the fountain of living water, to dig broken cisterns that cannot hold water - a picture of how misplaced hope outside of Christ is both foolish and worthy of trembling. As the congregation approaches the Lord's Table, the sermon urges them to receive the bread and cup with grateful hearts, remembering that Christ's precious blood - not the perishable things of this world - has ransomed them, and to let that remembrance produce a holy fear against drifting back into their former, empty way of life.

Bible Verses Used

• 1 Peter 1:17-19: Grounds the command to live in fear during earthly exile in the costly, precious-blood price of redemption from a futile inherited way of life.

• 1 Peter 1:20-21: The sermon's main text - six statements about Christ (foreknown, revealed, for us, raised, glorified, the ground of our faith) that anchor believers' hope in God.

• Galatians 5:1, 13: Parallels Peter's warning - Christ's freedom is real freedom from sin, never a license to indulge the flesh.

• Romans 8:29: Illuminates "foreknown/chosen" in 1 Peter 1:20 through the unbroken chain of foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, and glorification.

• John 1:18: Explains how Christ's incarnation reveals the previously unseen God to humanity.

• Galatians 2:20: Paul's personal testimony that the Son of God loved him and gave himself for him, illustrating the "for your sake" of Christ's mission.

• Jeremiah 2:12-13: Closing warning that forsaking God, the fountain of living water, for other hopes is both foolish and fearful, like digging a broken cistern.