Evening Sermon - 6th September 2026 - Holy Fear and the Life of the Exile

If you've got your Bibles with you will you turn with me to Peter's first epistle please.

The first epistle of Peter.

And we'll take time to read the first 17 verses of this together.

So first Peter and reading the first chapter and the first 17 verses.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and the sanctification of the spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that's imperishable, undefiled, unfailing, kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire may be found to result in the praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you have not seen him, you love him.

Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible filled with glory obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Concerning this salvation the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the suffering of Christ and the subsequent glories.

It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you and the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven things into which angels long to look.

Therefore preparing your minds for action and being super minded set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

As obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance but as he who has called you as holy you also be holy in all your conduct since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy.

And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourself with fear throughout the time of your exile and may God bless his word to our hearts.

Now the Apostle Paul writes to believers as we have read who have been scattered across Pontus and Galatia and Cappadocia and Asia and Bithynia.

The elect exiles of the dispersion as they're called And these Christians were facing social hostility.

They were facing slander and the looming threat of more severe persecution under Roman governance.

And Peter doesn't comfort them by denying the reality of their trials or by promising them immediate ease.

Instead he roots their identity and conduct in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

They've been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ to an inheritance that's imperishable, undefiled, unfailing, kept in heaven for them.

We're told that in verses three to five.

And in the light of that salvation, he calls them to holiness there in verses fourteen and fifteen.

As obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance but as he who called you as holy you also be holy in all your conduct.

And then we come to the text that we want to look at this evening which is verse 17, And if you call on Him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.

And the grammar is conditional here yet it's assumed if you call on Him as Father.

And of course we do, we call upon Him as Father, the privilege of adoption into God's family is real believers address God as Father because they've been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ.

We're told that in verses eighteen and nineteen of the chapter that we have read or part of the chapter that we have read and that we're born of imperishable seed and yet this father is also the judge who judges impartially according to each one's deeds and there's no favoritism here with God.

The same God who receives us as sons will evaluate our lives.

And Peter therefore commands a specific manner of life.

He says at the latter part of verse 17 conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.

Now that word exile underscores the temporary sojourning nature of the Christian life.

We're aware of that.

We know that we are resident aliens upon this earth.

We're pilgrims passing through a world that is not really our final home.

And the word fear here in the Greek is the word phobos from where we get the whole idea of phobia and the fear required is not a terror that drives us from God.

Excuse me, but it's a reverent watching and affectionate awe that keeps us near him and careful in our walk.

And Scripture repeatedly forbids of course sinful fears so this can't mean every kind of fear when it's used here by Peter.

And as we unfold this text this evening, first Peter chapter one verse 17 under the title the call to holy fear, we must distinguish the fears we are to reject from the holy fear that we are to cultivate.

John Calvin commenting on this passage notes that Peter connects fear with the free adoption of God showing that the knowledge of God the Father does not produce license but rather a godly fear that restrains us because we know that we must give an account.

Matthew Henry observes that the time of our sojourning is short and therefore we must pass it in the fear of God not in the security of the flesh.

And from these words we might dwell long on the nature of the Christian life as a temporary stay that it's we're here for a limited time.

We're only here for an appointed time but the Holy Spirit is really emphasizing more here through Peter as he writes.

The Holy Spirit emphasizes, this whole idea of how we are to live during that stay so that we might finish well, that we might conduct ourselves with fear throughout the time of our exile.

And this holy fear will free us from man fearing.

It will free us from unbelief.

True holy fear will free us from slavish dread, and true holy fear will produce a vigilant hatred of sin.

And those are the four dimensions that we want to look at this evening.

Being freed from man fearing, being free from unbelief being free from slavish dread being free in such a way that it will produce a vigilant hatred of sin.

So the first dimension of holy fear is this, do not fear what people can do to you.

This whole idea of man fearing and we must not give end to fear of anything we may suffer from fellow creatures when we follow the path of our calling.

The fear of man is a snare we know that that it chokes obedience that it silences witness it produces hypocrisy.

And instead the believer is summoned to be bold and confident in the knowledge that we're told in Hebrews chapter 13 and verse six, The Lord is my helper.

I will not fear what man will do to me.

And Jesus himself set the boundary with a stark reality if you remember.

In Luke's gospel he said, I tell you my friends do not fear those who kill the body and after that of nothing more that they can do.

But I will warn you whom to fear.

Fear Him who after He is killed has authority to cast you into hell.

Yes I tell you fear Him.

And the worst man can do well the worst that man I suppose in many ways can do to us it's a temporary thing.

It's not eternal and therefore the fear of God displaces the fear of man.

And Paul embodies this freedom from man fearing, facing chains and afflictions he declared in Acts chapter 20 in verse 24.

But I do not count my life of any value nor as precious to myself.

If only I may finish my course in the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus Christ to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

And if you remember when Peter and John were threatened and ordered not to speak the name of Jesus, they answered in Acts chapter four they said, Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.

And later they stated the principle plainly, we must obey God rather than men.

And the risen Lord Jesus said, go into the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole of creation and silence as a result of the fear of man is disobedience to Christ.

Daniel's three friends if you remember refused to bow to Nebuchadnezzar's image answering our God whom we serve is able to deliver us.

But if not, we will serve.

We will not serve your gods.

And then remember Esther, she rest her life with the words there.

If I perish, I perish in the book of Esther chapter four.

And in the New Testament Stephen's fear shone as he bore witness even on to death.

Charles Spurgeon warned many a man has been kept from duty by the fear or a frown or a jest or a loss of custom.

And you know John Bunyan who himself languished in prison for preaching, he wrote on Pilgrim's Progress of his own experience when he said Pilgrim must pass through vanity fair without banging its wares or fearing its mockery.

Has the fear of man perhaps silenced you to some degree?

Have you softened the gospel perhaps with those around you to avoid awkwardness?

Have you withheld a needed rebuke because you dreaded conflict?

Have you concealed your Christian identity in certain circles?

We're not to court persecution foolishly or act with reckless provocation.

Yet we will never make solid progress in godliness until we are delivered from the fear of man that brings a snare perfect love for Christ casts out all fear.

And the Lord asks us this evening, He says to you, are you really fearful of man more than me?

And we should ask the Lord this evening for a holy boldness and to resolve that reputation, comfort, promotion and even life itself are secondary to finishing the course with real joy.

And the exile, pilgrim who fears God more than man walks free.

So this first dimension this evening.

This first dimension of holy fear is do not fear what people can do to you but obey God.

And then the second dimension of holy fear is do not distrust God's Word.

Do not distrust God's Word.

And we must also reject a fearful distrust of God's promises.

And this unbelief dishonors God and wounds our own souls.

It robs us of comfort and lays the mind open to all sorts of temptations.

You can think of Abraham for example, though he was the friend of God and he was the heir of the promise in a moment of unbelief and perverication about Sarah lying about who Sarah really was, debasing himself and exposing her to danger.

Genesis chapter 20.

There was fearful distrust and it produced sin and it produced shame.

And when God had spoken the outcome is certain His word is more firm than earth and heaven.

Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away.

And we may and must rest upon it without any uncertainty as to whether God will keep his promises.

We must stand firm on the word of God.

And what we may properly fear is not whether the promise will feel, but whether we ourselves are truly heirs of the promise, not whether those on the way to everlasting will perish, but whether we are on the right way.

Are we with the Lord?

The Apostle solemnly comes and admonishes us with words in Hebrews chapter four and verse one, Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

In other words, self examination is not the enemy of assurance.

Presumption is the enemy of our lives.

Some mistakes can never be fixed and people can fool themselves into making bad choices, but it's better to on the side of solicitous care than of any carnal security.

Thomas Watson said, A holy fear is the guard of the soul.

It's the trembling of the heart that keeps it from dashing upon the rock of presumption.

John Owen likewise pressed the duty of watching against unbelief and noting distrust of God's truthfulness as a route to sin that hardens the very heart.

Remember Israel in Kadesh Barnea, they believe the report of the evil spies, the 10 rather than the two.

And what did they do?

Rather than accept the promises of God, the children of Israel perished in the wilderness.

We're told that and Zachariah doubted the angels word and was struck dumb.

By contrast, Mary replied, behold, I am the servant of the Lord.

Let it be to me according to your word.

And Sarah said, consider him faithful who had promised.

And we examine ourselves.

Do you functionally distrust God's promises of provision of presence and final perseverance?

Does anxiety about the future reveal that you treat his word as uncertain?

And at the same time, I say do not take the word of God lightly.

Don't take the Word of God lightly.

Depend upon the Word of grace.

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it's God who works it out for you.

And God stands with us in the midst of things.

Rest in the objective promises of God yet pursue the subjective evidences of grace.

What are the evidences of grace?

Repentance, faith, obedience, love for the brethren.

And the holy fear that God speaks about draws us into the place of rest and drives us to real diligent faith.

So the second dimension of holy fear is do not distrust God's Word.

And the third dimension of holy fear is do not live in slavish fear but unfilial fear.

Do not live in slavish fear but live in filial fear.

And you know a servile cringing fear is not to be cherished as the permanent atmosphere of the Christian life.

It may proceed conversion or appear in a season of conviction.

But if our fear of God begins only with Him as a judge, it must mature into into the fear of Him as Father.

It signals a low degree of spiritual life when a person is hailed to duty merely like a slave dreading some form of lash.

Scripture is decisive.

We're told in Romans chapter eight in verse 15, For you do not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you've received the spirit of adoption of sons by whom we call Abba Father.

And the slave is converted into a child and God spares him as a man spares his son who serves him.

And yet there remains a proper and all important fear that God himself has engaged to put into our hearts that fear that we may not turn from him.

And this is the fear of respect.

This is the fear of esteem.

This is the fear of real gratitude.

And it regards not only God's greatness but it involves God's goodness.

And there's nothing irksome in it.

It's fully compatible with consolation.

It's fully compatible with the joy of the Lord.

The early church were told in Acts nine thirty one, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it was multiplied.

And in reality, this fear is the flipside of love.

The love and fear of an inferior bears to a superior.

The love of a dutiful child to a parent, a faithful servant to a good master, a thankful dependent to a generous benefactor.

And it expresses itself as a saying reverence and obedience and real eager attention.

And you know the more we love God and the more we fear Him, the more we dread offending Him and the more we study to please Him and the more we ask Lord, what shall I do?

And the more we pray, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my rock and my Redeemer.

Jonathan Edwards described true gracious affections as always attended with a sense of the heart of the loveliness of God's holiness producing a filial fear, a family fear, the fear of a father and a loving child and a loving father.

The scripture tells us the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom yet for the believer it is a fear mixed with sweet confidence, not torment.

No wonder this evening is your faith mainly the avoidance of punishment or do you delight in pleasing the Father?

The tasks that we do for the Lord, do we do them to delight God or we do them because it's our duty to do them or nobody else will do them?

Do you serve from dread of hell alone or from gratitude for Calvary and the spirit of adoption.

And slavish fear produces either despair or temporary external conformity, but filial fear, holy fear produces willing obedience and intimacy and cultivate the latter.

That's the challenge of this evening by meditating on the fatherhood of God and the characteristics of God by preaching the gospel to yourself daily by walking in step with the spirit that we might cry Abba Father knowing that God is truly within us.

Let your fear be the trembling of the joy of a child who loves his father smile and shrinks from his grief.

The third dimension of a holy fear, do not live in slavish fear, but in filial fear.

And the fourth and final dimension of holy fear is live with healthy caution towards sin.

Live with healthy caution towards sin.

There's a fear of caution and watchfulness in which it becomes us to live especially with regard to sin.

Sin is the greatest evil to which we can be exposed greater than suffering, greater than poverty, greater than death itself.

David's case is enough to make even a good man stand in dread of it.

Though God put away his sin as it is as far as eternal penalty is concerned, the consequences of that sin moved down the generations.

The sword never departed from his house.

He was filled with the dread of divine abandonment.

He was deprived of peace and joy.

His bones were broken.

His tongue was silenced.

A Holy God will cause the backsliding of His own people to reprove them and make them know that it's evil and better for you to forsake the Lord your God.

And he may cloud our hopes, he may destroy our comfort, he may bring troubles upon us If we and those things might even come to us even if we don't, but he can use them.

A reputation built over years can be ruined in a moment.

The fruit of a thousand good actions can be largely lost by one evil deed.

One who has befriended Christ can cause the way of righteousness to be blasphemed and become a stumbling block to the whole community.

Are we in no danger?

We are.

Therefore we must read the Scriptures.

See the falls of Noah and Abraham and Moses and David and Solomon and Peter, men eminently Godly.

And we have a subtle and active enemy always at hand and we have a wicked world without an evil heart of remaining indwelling sin and owing to our residual depravity, we are liable to be ensnared by almost anything we with, however harmless it might seem.

And if we think caution unnecessary we have the greatest need of all because we're told in Proverbs chapter 16 and verse 18, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

John Owen in his classic work, The Mortification of Sin, he warned us sin is never idle and the believers must be killing its sin or it will be killing them.

And he urged continual watchfulness over the heart.

Another Puritan Thomas Brooks wrote these words, The best saints are the most watchful saints.

Spurgeon counseled as follows, He who is dying need fear no fall, but he who stands high should walk very carefully.

And the challenge for us is, is I suppose very practical this evening.

The challenge for us is to practice habitual self suspicion regarding sin.

We've got to watch our eyes.

We've got to watch our tongue.

We've got to watch our private thoughts.

We've got to watch our handling of relationships.

We've got to flee from passion, make no provision for the flesh.

We have got to maintain accountability, stay near the means of grace, Scripture, prayer, fellowship, the Lord's table.

And when you fall run quickly to the advocate Jesus Christ, the righteous and remember that the exile who treats sin lightly will find his sojourning a very bitter thing.

The fear of sin is the friend of holiness and of lasting joy.

So the fourth dimension of holy fear is live with healthy caution towards sin.

So the call to Holy fear conduct yourself with fear throughout the time of your exile.

And we've seen that the Father who judges impartially calls his children to conduct themselves with fear throughout their brief sojourn.

And the fear rejects the snare of man pleasing and man fearing.

It rejects unbelieving distrust of God's sure word while retaining a sober fear of self deception.

It rejects slavish terror and embraces the affectionate reverent fear of adopted sons and daughters and it maintains a vigilant humble caution against the bitterness of sin.

And therefore, do not become proud but fear.

That's what Paul told us in Romans chapter 11 and verse 20.

If we would maintain this frame of mind, let's walk circumspectly, let's walk wisely, not as fools but as wise and let us not be anxious to rise in the world and gain the let's be anxious when should I say when we're lifted up and we're seen by people, let's be careful just to realize that we have got to walk with that circumspectness.

So let's look to the Lord for help.

Let's look to the Lord for grace for each day and pray hold me up Lord that I may be safe.

Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always.

So tonight if you're a Christian, you're an exile.

The time is short, the judge is also your father and live without holy fear which is the beginning of wisdom.

It's the companion of joy and finish your course in the fear of the Lord.

And maybe there's someone in here who's a stranger to adoption.

You're still in your sin.

You're not saved.

You may feel little fear now.

You may mock at holy living or postpone repentance but the same God who is Father will be your judge.

And it's important that you come and settle your account of sin through Jesus Christ who died for you on the cross of Calvary.

May the God of grace help us to live out these words.

May he help us to make our stand.

May He help us to live without holy and godly fear in the love of Christ.

Amen.