Why Serve the Lord? Because of….The Precious Blood of Christ

1 Peter 1:17-19 – “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, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with persihable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”

When buying a diamond, there are five C’s to pay attention to – cut, color, clarity, carat, and certification. Cut is in reference to the shape of the diamond after it is cut by a jewler. It could be a pear cut, a round cut, or a princess cut to name a few. Color and clarity refer to how clear and white the diamond is, meaning that there should be no blemishes, for each blemish will take away from the beautiful diffraction of light. Carat refers to the weight of the diamond, and certification refers to the authentification that the diamond is actually a diamond1. Just looking at these five C’s, one can easily realize that it is difficult to find the “perfect” diamond to the say the least if not completely impossible. Fortunately, for a buyer, most of these C’s are within human control, such as cut, carat, and certification. The only two C’s that man cannot control are color and clarity. Yet even with the possibility to create the perfect diamond in 3 out of 5 of the C’s, no one has yet to find one. If finding the perfect diamond is statistically improbable, then certainly, finding the perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty of our sins is impossible.

In the Old Testament when a person sinned, he was required to bring a perfect, spotless sacrifice to the Lord to pay the penalty of death for his sin. Since animal sacrifices are not a common place thing in our world today, we don’t actually realize how difficult it was to find a spotless, blemishless animal. To get just the right one, a shepherd must have to go through thousands of sheep. Just think about any person you meet on the street today. You probably could pick out at least one imperfection in that person even before you said one word to them, and certainly if you saw an animal, you could as well. Nothing is completely perfect, yet that was the sacrifice required by God, an impossible sacrifice to make. Of course, the Lord accepted the sacrifices in the Old Testament which were basically “spotless and without blemish” though they might have not been perfect, but He made this requirement as a picture for man to realize how costly the price of sin was. It required a perfect sacrifice, one that in all reality could not be achieved, not until the perfect, spotless Lamb of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, gave Himself for us.
In our passage today, Peter reminds the believers throughout the world that they needed to conduct themselves with fear of God throughout their time on this earth. He was clearly calling them to a life of righteousness and holiness, and actually, this passage is preceded by the statement, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” Peter was clearly calling those who called themselves disciples of Christ to live holy lives for God. Yet he did not just leave it at a simple command, Peter gave them a strong reason as to why they should keep the command – because of the price that was paid for them. He reminded them that they should live in the fear of God because they were bought with a price that is more costly than gold or silver, more costly than houses or land, and even more costly than the most perfect diamond, for those would all eventually perish. But what they were bought with was more costly and imperishable – the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or spot. The word precious means costly. It is so easy to take for granted what our Lord did on that cross when He spilled His blood for you and me, but that blood cost more than the Hope diamond with all its imperfections. It was blood spilled from the Perfect Sacrifice, a sacrifice impossible to find much less pay for.You would need someone who would be willing to pay such a high price for you – that someone is Jesus Christ, who gave His costly blood for you. That is why you should live holy and righteous lives. That is why you should continue during suffering, because Christ gave His precious blood for you.

Even more, consider how lucky you are to be able to have knowledge of that gift. In 1 Peter 1:10-12, we are told that the prophets of old and even angels sought to know the time and day of this salvation, but they died without seeing it in their day. Yet you today have the knowledge of what the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did for you right now in front of your very eyes. You are very lucky that you get to experience it.

My dear fellow disciples of Jesus Christ, the answer to the questions of “Why should we go on living holy lives to Christ? Why should we continue even in the midst of suffering?” is given to us right here – we were bought with the most costly price – the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. God gave His Son for us. Just try to imagine for a second what this meant. From the Father’s view, He gave His precious Son for us, something no parent could ever do, for they would died before seeing their child go through suffering. From Christ’s view, He willingly laid down His life for us, His enemies at the time. From a physical and emotional view, the graphic pictures of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ allow us to relive the horrors of the trial, the scourging, and the crucifixion. But take a minute and think about it from the spiritual view. Before we came to Christ we were compltely separated from God, for God cannot be in the presence ofsin. When Christ died for us, He took on sin for us, forcing God to turn away from God at that moment in time. God turned away from Himself, prompting Christ to cry out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” Imagine trying to turn away from yourself. I don’t even think that is possible, yet God did that for us. That was a costly price – a price greater than that of the costliest diamond. If we as disciples of Christ will but remember the cost of the precious blood of Christ, we will never have to ask the questions of “Why should we be holy?” or “Why should we serve the Lord?” for the natural inclination of our hearts will be to give ourselves to Him. Never forget the precious blood of Christ.

1 http://www.exceldiamonds.com/education/diamonds/five-cs.php