Well, there's a misunderstanding of God's gorgeous gift of grace that crops up again and again. This misunderstanding seems to never die, although it definitely needs to die. And it's addressed here in Peter and many other places in Scripture, but Peter does a wonderful job.
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 perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
This misunderstanding of God's grace basically says this, "If I'm saved by grace, if all of my sins are covered, past, present, and future, it doesn't matter how I live." I once had a person say to me, as I was questioning a choice they were going to make, "Ah! God will forgive me anyway." That is a horrible misconstruing of the nature of the operation His grace. The Bible never teaches such a thing.
There's an old name for this; it's not used as much as it was. It was called 'Easy-believism.' "As long as I believe, I'm the object of God's grace, and between 'the already and not yet,' nothing else makes a whole lot of difference." But it does matter; and after Peter's talking about the Father-Judge, he says, "Here's why it matters, how you live."
And he talks about two things. First of all, he says, "You were ransomed from your sin." God worked to intervene because sin is just that serious. He harnessed the forces of nature; He controlled the events of human history, so at a certain time, His Son would be born. You can't look at the birth of the Messiah and conclude that sin is just sort of okay. Then he adds on to that. He said, "Don't you understand the terrible cost of that ransom? It was the precious blood of Jesus." Jesus suffered a horrible, cruel death, taking our sin on His shoulders. That's how serious this is.
Think about this. It required the death of the Messiah. But he adds more. It also required a substitutionary sacrifice; it had to be an unblemished lamb. Someone had to come and, in every way, live as a completely righteous human being. Now, that's a whole lot of effort invested in something that we're tempted to say is not such a big deal. Peter argues, "You cannot look at the radical intervention of redemption, the radical birth of Christ, the radical life of Christ, the radical death of Jesus Christ, and not see sin as a serious thing."
You see, here's what happens even though we don't know it. Every moment in our lives, where we minimize sin, we devalue the righteous life and acceptable sacrifice of Jesus. Every time you argue within yourself that you don't really need to confess because that was really not a sin, you were just feeling bad or you were just busy or whatever excuse you give, you denigrate the cross of Jesus Christ. You devalue this radical intervention! The birth of Jesus, the righteous life of Jesus, the death of Jesus argue that sin is serious and because it is, it makes a difference how I live!
