Study Guide: "A River Runs Through It"

Text: 1 Peter 1:17-19

OPEN:

My all-time favorite fishing movie is actually the screen version of author Norman MacLean's memoir of his youth spent in Montana.  "A River Runs Through It" tells the story of the MacLean family, presided over by the strict but encouraging Presbyterian minister Rev. MacLean and his loving wife. Norman, the older son in his family, takes his school work and writing a bit too seriously for Paul, the impetuous younger son. Paul would rather have a good time, drink and play cards than get involved with academic study. Where Norman wants to be a college literature professor, Paul would prefer to stay in Montana all his life and wrangle some kind of job writing for a local newspaper. Fly fishing is the constant for each of the men in the story, and fishing becomes inseparable from life for each of them.

Our text for today speaks of a theme that God intends to run through each of our lives.  It may surprise you to note what that theme is according to the Apostle Peter: Fear.

We're learning some "Life Lessons from a Lifelong Fisherman" by studying the small New Testament book known as "The First Letter of Peter." We're learning how to live despite difficult challenges and, at times, overwhelming circumstances.  

Verses 1-12 of chapter one are a celebration of what God has done to make us his own forever.

Verses 13-19 of chapter one issue three commands for living in the here and now.

The first command is to live in hope. "Set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you" (v. 13).

The second command is to live in holiness. "Be holy yourselves in all your conduct" (v. 15).

The third command is to live in fear. "Live in reverent fear during the time of your exile" (v. 17).

Essentially, Peter says the river that should run through each of our lives is the fear of living in a way that does not honor God.

I. Fear Living As Though Our Faith Were Not in God (v.17).

"If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile." (v. 17)

A couple of things strike me immediately when I read this.

  1) It sounds as if Peter is contradicting himself.  He has just told us to set all our hope on grace (verse 13), and now he's telling us that God will judge us according to or deeds. So, which is it? Am I judged according to Christ's finished work on the cross or on my unfinished work here on earth?

This judgment to which Peter refers has nothing to do with our salvation, but has everything to do with our rewards in heaven.

"For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire." 

(1 Corinthians 3:9-15, NASB)

In other words, Christ lays the foundation of salvation by grace.  I will determine what is built upon that foundation. What I do with this life matters for eternity.

  2) The second thing that strikes me is this matter of fear.  I thought that God is a God of relationship and that he implores me to explore and enjoy intimacy with him.  That sounds a lot more like love than it does fear.

Note several things about this fear:

There is no special word for "reverence" or "reverent fear" in the Greek language.  This phrase was the choice of Bible translators to provide the Editors' interpretation of what connotation they thought the word should have.

The word is phobeo, and it means to put to flight by terrifying (to scare away), to be seized with alarm. We get from this word phobia.  For example, I am claustrophobic.

1.  I choose to live in fear because I know that what I do today counts tomorrow, and all the tomorrow's that follow.

The same idea Paul had in mind in 1 Corinthians 6:18, "Flee fornication."

The same idea Jesus had in mind when he said, "If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out" (Matthew 5:29).

2.  I choose to live in fear because I know that how I live today says a great deal about the condition of my heart. As we saw last week, outward holiness comes from an inner holiness. The external eventually reveals the nature of the internal.

Peter tells us that there is a very appropriate fear that all believers are to display: the fear of living as though we do not belong to God.

II. Fear Living As Though Jesus' Blood Is Not Precious (vv. 18-19).

"You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish."

Paraphrase: "Live in fear, because you've been ransomed at infinite cost."

  1. Peter stresses the surpassing value of Christ's sacrifice.

He says that the blood of Jesus is "precious." This word in the Greek is timos and it means "beyond price." You can't assign a value to it.  It is priceless.

 

  2. This points to the fact that the ultimate purpose of Christ's sacrifice is not forgiveness, but transformation.

The design of Christ's redemption is to rescue us from a futile way of living. The aim of this verse is victory over the power of sin in your everyday life, not just forgiveness from the guilt of sin in the past.

So, we live each moment in light of the inestimable value of the blood of Jesus Christ that gives us life now, and throughout all eternity.

CLOSE:

Each time I've stood in front of a war memorial has had a profound effect on me.  Standing in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C., or before the monuments erected to honor veterans from each war in Port Arthur's Veterans Memorial Park, or walking the civil war battlefields in the Shenendoah Valley of Virginia, I have been impacted by the sacrifice of those who've gone before me and gave themselves for my freedom.  I should be a better American because of those who fought to secure and sustain my freedom.

Today, we have the opportunity to hold in our hands a piece of bread and a cup of grape juice that should effect an even higher emotion.  When we meditate on the precious blood of Jesus and his body broken for us, it should result in life on a higher plane. We should live in profound fear of doing anything to dishonor our Christ and his precious blood that he shed freely for us. 

(Dr. Dane Fowlkes)