Now, if you appeal with all your heart, in all your trials and troubles and difficulties and in your worship, to one who you really regard as your Father – and so he is, your heavenly Father – then you reflect him, you represent him. Of course, you must be very careful how you live for him. You must have great reverence and regard for him. In the office, in the college, wherever you are, you are known (or should be known) as one who calls upon him as your father and the family name is at stake in your conduct. ‘Don’t disgrace him,’ Peter seems to say. If you call upon him as father, what difference does it make to your life? How it should sober us and caution us. We are his representatives; we are those that bear the family likeness. His honour is in our hands. Since he does not show respect of persons or favouritism to any but judges all without partiality, do not think that you can take advantage of him to sin and not be called to account for it.
We are sojourners in this world, here only for a time and on our way to another place which alone deserves to be called ‘home’. We therefore conduct ourselves in this temporary realm with the utmost care and in godly fear. We fear because sin is near, even as near as our own hearts and our old nature is ready to rise up with great power if given any leeway. Once it gets the bit between the teeth, it will not let go and there will be a great struggle to regain control of the direction of life. We fear because there is profound evil in the world and although the sovereign God governs all things, evil is very virulent and if it were allowed it would even drag God from his throne. When you are decorating your house, make it clean and comfortable and attractive to your taste, somewhere you can live, and your family and enjoy, but don't go way over the top and make it a place of baronial splendour and wonder.
What are the healthy fears for a Christian? Fear of hypocrisy, fear of drifting into a state of living where I do things I wouldn't like my fellow believers to see. Outwardly I am one person, but inwardly I am giving hospitality to thoughts, and tempers, and trends, which I wouldn't want people to know about, secret things. Fear bringing disgrace to the Lord – any kind of misbehaviour that discredits the gospel, that curbs my witness, that makes me odious in the sight of those to whom I owe the word of God. Fear of falling – I go a step too far and then Satan brings me down into unbelief and causes me to stumble.
Do not Calvinists teach that God has respect of persons? God has indeed chosen his people according to his mere good pleasure for reasons that he does not reveal to us; he favours one with everlasting life and passes over another condemning them to everlasting punishment. In this sense, God shows favour to one and not to another, but his favour is not based on anything in man and it is this type of favouritism that Peter is referring to. God does not make distinctions as human beings make distinctions in their relations with each other. He does not choose some and reject others on the basis of either his perception of their character, or on the basis of considerations of fear or favour. The Lord knows that no man woman or child has a character that merits his favour for all are guilty of sin, even those who have not sinned personally like Adam. There is no one righteous and all are under the sentence of death. Nor can the Lord be threatened or bribed by any man because he cannot be harmed by his creatures and needs nothing from them.