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Studies in 1
Peter
Message One: Our Glorious Salvation 1:1-12
Let’s turn in our
Bibles this morning to the book of 1 Peter. As I shared with you
last week, we want to learn how to suffer well. Not because we are
some kind of bizarre cult who has pain built into our belief system,
but because suffering is part of the human experience. It is not
something we should try to avoid at all costs, rather, it is
something we need to do well. Suffering is actually one of God’s
ways to make us more like His Son Jesus. So, if you are being
harassed at work because you are a Christian, this series is for
you. If you have way too much month left at the end of your
paycheck, this series is for you. If you are socially marginalized
because you are a Christian, this series is for you. If you have a
spouse who is making your life miserable, this series is for you.
If you are suffering from chronic, debilitating illness, this series
is for you. 1 Peter was written to suffering Christians and
contains ten keys to suffering well. This morning we are going to
look at the first one.
How
many of you are familiar with that saying, “familiarity breeds
contempt?” When I was in 9th grade, skateboarding came
to Florida, and all the boys in the neighborhood became rabid
skaters. I had a cheap one I got from Montgomery Wards, but my eye
was on a very special skateboard at the sporting goods store that
was so expensive no one in my circle of friends even thought of
buying it. But I started harassing my dad several months before my
birthday. Every time I’d come up with a spare dollar, I’d give it
to him and ask him to apply it to the skateboard. And sure enough,
I ended up getting a $40 skateboard for my birthday. That is worth
$160.00 today! I was the envy of the neighborhood and had the
fastest and most beautiful skateboard of all. It was made out of
wood and beautifully varnished, and I was so in love with it that I
actually slept with it at night for about a week. About one year
later, I came home from school one rainy day and noticed my
skateboard lying in the sand. The rain was splashing sand up into
the ball bearings in the wheels, and the varnish was getting ruined;
but I just walked past it and thought to myself how different my
attitude toward it was from a year earlier.
What
was going on? Familiarity breeds contempt. One of humanity’s
quirks is that we tend to think less of things the longer we have
them. It doesn’t always work this way, but generally speaking, the
longer we own the car, the less fanatical we are about keeping it
polished and vacuumed. The older the stereo is, the less concerned
we are about keeping a dust cover over it. And believe it or not,
this same attitude can affect how we view our salvation.
In
the passage we are looking at this morning, Peter spends 12 verses
reminding his hearers of their amazing salvation. I believe this
has particular relevance to us. How many of you have been saved for
less than one year? How about two? Three? Most of us here have
been saved for double digit years, and because of this we run a very
real risk of treating our salvation with a bit of a ho-hum
attitude. It isn’t a deliberate thing, there is no malice involved;
it’s usually just a gradual drift. When the Apostle John was
writing to the church in Ephesus he told them that God was
disappointed with them because they had “left their first love”
(Rev. 2:4). That initial passion wasn’t there any more. The
fervency had dissipated. And since this is a common weakness, let’s
look at these verses and I want to show you four reasons why our
salvation is a glorious salvation. And then we will make
application to how this helps us suffer well.
I. We have a
glorious salvation because we don’t deserve it – vv. 1-2
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those
who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen 2
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying
work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled
with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in fullest measure.
A.
Who is
Peter speaking to?
He uses two words
in verse one to describe his readers. They are “aliens” and
“scattered.” An alien is a temporary resident, or even a
refugee. In other words, the place they are living is not their
permanent home. He also refers to them as scattered. This
is the word diaspora. It is the technical term applied to
Jews who had been scattered throughout the world. But it also
refers to Christians as well as we see from this verse.
B.
Why have
they been scattered? Why are they refugees living in these various
areas?
The scattering
was because of persecution. The emperor of the Roman Empire at the
time Peter wrote this letter was Nero. We aren’t going to talk a
lot about him right now because he is going to come up later in our
study, but let me just say that Nero was not a nice man. He was no
friend to Christianity. But even before he came on the scene and
started persecuting Christians, there was a wave of persecution in
Jerusalem that we read about in Acts 7 and 8. In chapter 7 we read
about the stoning of Peter, the first Christian martyr. Then 8:1 we
read “on that day [when Peter was stoned] a great
persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all
scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria . . .”
And then in verse 3 we read that “Saul began ravaging the church,
entering house after house; dragging off men and women, he would put
them in prison.” This was the initial persecution that drove
the early Christians into Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and
Bithinya.
C.
What is
their real status?
In other words,
we know that in the physical realm they are aliens. They are
temporary residents. They are not in their homeland. But when
Peter called them aliens, did he have in mind that they were
eventually going to move back to their homeland after the
persecution was over and no longer be scattered? No. These people
were aliens both physically and spiritually. In the spiritual
realm, they were temporary residents on earth because their eternal
residence was heaven. And we know this aspect of being an alien is
also what Peter has in mind because of what he is reminding them
of. “They are chosen for salvation by God.” They are “set apart by
the work of the Holy Spirit.” And they “obey Jesus.” Peter is
deliberately reminding his readers of their relationship with God
and their eternal state. Can you appreciate that he immediately
draws their attention away from their temporal status and gets them
refocused on their eternal status. He is dealing with their
perspective – which should sound familiar to us by now – because it
is one of his sub-themes.
But I
want you to look at the last few words of verse one and the first
phrase of verse two (in the NAS), because this is where we get into
our theme of the day – appreciating our glorious salvation. Peter
reminds his readers that they “are chosen according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father.” What is he talking about?
The word chosen is basically a synonym for salvation. You
could legitimately read this, “you who are saved
according to the foreknowledge of God.” But the reason we don’t use
the word saved is because saved doesn’t really do
justice to the word. Chosen conveys the initiator
of the relationship. It is God the Father who was doing the
choosing. Saved focuses on the result without
identifying who made the first move and who responded. But the
point is that Peter is talking about our salvation here.
I’m
not going to take the time this morning to deal thoroughly with this
concept of being chosen for salvation because we simply don’t have
time to do so (I would be more than happy to talk personally with
you at length if you have questions, though). But here is the
concept I want to stick with you today. If you are saved this
morning, can you appreciate that the only reason you will be
spending eternity in heaven with God is because He picked you to be
saved? I want that to sink in for a minute. He chose you. Let me
correct a misperception that many Christians have. Many Christians
view their salvation as if they simply made a wise choice. In other
words, they considered the alternatives, looked at the pros and cons
of each belief system, and because they are intellectually astute
they accept Christ into their lives. That is not the picture the
Bible presents of how a person gets saved.
Here
is how the Bible presents salvation. I want you to picture a huge
mountain with a steep slope. But instead of the slope gradually
leveling out and ending in a nice valley, ¾ of the way down the
mountain it is sheared off and there is a drop of thousands of feet
to the bottom. Now, picture humanity rushing en masse
down that slope, headed for certain death. Salvation is when God
reaches down and plucks a person out of the crowd and puts them in a
place of safety. This is the concept wrapped up in the phrase,
“chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” This
is what Paul is referring to in
Colossians 3:12
when
he says, “And so, as those who have been chosen of God,
holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility,
gentleness and patience.” Or as in 2 Thessalonians 2:13
where we read, “But we should always give thanks to God for you,
brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from
the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and
faith in the truth.” In 2 Timothy 2:10 Paul
says, “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those
who are chosen, that they also may obtain the salvation which
is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.”
And
this is why I am telling you we have a glorious salvation – it’s
because we don’t deserve it. There is absolutely nothing in me that
makes me attractive and desirable to God and somehow worthy of His
attention. But there is another reason why we have a glorious
salvation, and in verses 3 – 5 we see that our salvation is not only
undeserved, it is also certain.
II. We have a
glorious salvation because it is certain – vv. 3-5
3 Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused
us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to obtain an
inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not
fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are
protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to
be revealed in the last time.
The thrust of
these three verses is that in the midst of all the uncertainty of
living in a strange land as a refugee, there is at least one thing
they can count on – their relationship with God. Their economic
status may be unstable, but their salvation is rock solid. The
status of their residency may be unstable, but their salvation is
impervious to change. There housing situation may change from year
to year as they are pushed from one area to another, but the one
constant in their lives is that their salvation is certain. And in
these three verses Peter gives them three truths, all about their
salvation, to which they can anchor their lives. Their salvation is
certain because of its source, because of its stability, and because
of its strength.
A.
Our
Salvation is Certain Because of Its Source – v. 3
Just in case you
aren’t convinced from verse two that our salvation is the result of
God choosing us, Peter tells us in verse three that because of His
great mercy, God has what? He has “caused
us to be born again [God is the initiator in this salvation
thing] to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead.” Since God is the source of our salvation, it is
certain. One of the attributes of God we studied in our Tuesday
night class was the doctrine of God’s immutability. That is a big
word for “unchanging.” God’s nature is that He isn’t always coming
up with new or different requirements for a relationship with him.
He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. This “changelessness”
on God’s part is of great comfort to us because it adds to our sense
of security and certainty.
B.
Our
Salvation is Certain Because of Its Stability – v. 4
Look back at
verse four and note that the contrast is with human inheritances. A
human inheritance is susceptible to a wide variety of factors that
can wipe it out. In other words, a human inheritance isn’t very
stable. Economic conditions can reduce your inheritance to
pennies. Mismanagement can wipe it out. On the other hand, the
inheritance we have as children of God is imperishable, undefiled,
unfading, and reserved in heaven for us. Everything about it speaks
of stability. World economic forces have no bearing on your
spiritual inheritance. Unscrupulous managers can’t wipe it out.
Marauding armies cannot steal it from you. Your spiritual
inheritance is not based on some Ponzi scheme that will give you a
good return for a little while but eventually leave you destitute.
There is a certainty to our salvation because it is so stable.
C.
Our
Salvation is Certain Because of Its Strength – v. 5
What does verse 5
tells us we are protected by? “The power of God.” Our salvation is
certain because it is none other than the Creator God of the
universe who is protecting it. There is some strength involved in
securing our salvation. If you owned a yacht, which would you
rather have it tied to a dock by, a thread or a rope? When you own
something of value, you want something with strength securing it.
So Peter reminds his listeners that their precious salvation is
certain because of God’s strength. Let me give you another picture
of salvation. Some people view salvation as if they are holding on
to God. And as long as they can hold on, and do right, and please
God, they are saved. That is not the biblical picture of
salvation. In
John 10:28-29
we
read the words of Jesus as He says, “I
give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one
shall snatch them out of My hand. 29 "My Father, who has
given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch
them out of the Father's hand.”
Your salvation isn’t dependent on your grip on God. It is dependent
on His grip on you. It is the power of God who protects us for a
salvation ready to be revealed at the last time.
Conclusion:
Are you starting to appreciate your salvation yet? We have a
glorious salvation first of all because we don’t deserve it, and
secondly, because it is certain. What we are going to see next week
is that it is a glorious salvation because it can withstand testing,
and finally, because it has been saved for us. And in a few minutes
we are going to see that we have a glorious salvation because of the
price that was paid to purchase it – the very blood and body of
Jesus Christ – the sinless Son of God. At the beginning of this
message I reminded you of the old saying about how familiarity
breeds contempt. I hope that this morning’s message has rekindled a
sense of awe in your heart about your salvation. I hope you have a
new sense of wonder and amazement as we have revisited these
wonderful truths. Let’s not let it be said about us that we have
left our first love.
How To Suffer Well
Studies in 1
Peter
Message Two: Our Glorious Salvation 1:1-12 Pt.
2
Review:
Last week we started looking at Peter’s first key for suffering
well. It is found in verses 1 – 12 of chapter one where he speaks
extensively about our salvation. My approach to this passage is to
share with you four reasons why we have a glorious salvation. I’m
doing this in hopes that it will help you appreciate your
salvation. We all have a tendency to think less of things the
longer we have them, and this unfortunately affects even how we look
at this matter of accepting Jesus as our Lord. So hopefully our
revisiting the miracle of God delivering us from an eternity in
hell, separated from Him, will rekindle the sense of awe and
amazement and gratitude that we all had when we first came to
Christ.
So far, we have
seen two reasons why we should appreciate our salvation. First of
all, we don’t deserve it. And secondly, it is certain. There are
very few things in life we can count on, but salvation isn’t one of
them! Now when we get to verses 6 – 9 we are going to see a third
reason we should appreciate our salvation, and that is because it
withstands testing.
III. It is a
glorious salvation because it withstands testing – vv. 6-9
6 In this you greatly rejoice, even
though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been
distressed by various trials, 7 that the proof of your
faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable,
even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and
glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 8 and
though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not
see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy
inexpressible and full of glory, 9 obtaining as the
outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.
The third reason
Peter gives us for appreciating our salvation is that our salvation
has the ability to withstand testing. The imagery of these verses
is that of precious metals. The gold ring many of you have on your
finger does not come out of the ground looking like what you are
wearing. When gold is first mined, it is taken from the ground in
the form of ore that is mixed with lots of other elements. This ore
is pulverized, dissolved with cyanide, and sometimes heated to over
1000 degrees Fahrenheit. The intense heat turns the other elements
around the gold to carbon, and then it is further refined with other
methods that eventually render it in the form we all are familiar
with.
Contrast that
with tin. Right across the road from my house is a huge dumpster
full of tin cans. Nobody guards it, they don’t have closed circuit
cameras keeping track of all the activity in the area, and it isn’t
weighed out by the gram. That is because tin is not a precious
metal, and isn’t precious not only because it is plentiful but also
because it can’t withstand severe testing. If you submit tin to the
same refining process gold goes through, it would probably
evaporate. Gold, on the other hand, has the intrinsic qualities
necessary not only to endure the refining process but even come out
of that process more valuable than when it went in.
Peter tells us
that that is what God does to our salvation. Look back at verses
six and seven. “In
this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if
necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, that the
proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is
perishable, even though tested by fire . . .”
As believers in
and followers of Jesus, we have trials, we are tested, and sometimes
we are even tried by fire. There are times we feel pulverized by
the process. But because our salvation has the intrinsic qualities
of a precious metal (remember, its source is God, etc.), we not only
endure the refining, but we also come out of it better than we were
when we went into it. We have a glorious salvation because it can
withstand testing.
But if you will
look again at verse 7 you will see Peter making a very curious
comparison. Yes, gold is precious because it can withstand testing,
but our salvation is what? “More precious than gold, which
is perishable.” You know what that means? It means that
even though gold can withstand extreme temperatures (it will start
to boil at 5173 degrees Fahrenheit), there is a point at which it
will evaporate! It will be gone. It will perish. If you take a
bar of pure gold (not ore) weighing 30 pounds, heat it to its
boiling point, and then let it cool down; it will have lost up to
30% of its mass. So as precious as gold is, and as resistant to
heat as it is, when gold really gets tested, it loses
something. But that will never happen with your salvation because
your salvation is “more precious than gold which is perishable.”
And when our
salvation is tested and comes through the fire intact and without
having lost anything (remember, we don’t lose up to 30% of our
salvation when it gets tested), the result according to verse 7 is
that we give “praise and glory and honor” to Jesus when we
are finally reunited with Him. Note Peter’s reference to the
“revelation of Jesus Christ” at the end of verse seven. The
word “revelation” refers to an “unveiling,” or a “revealing.” When
is Jesus going to be “revealed” or “unveiled” to us? Either at our
death, or His return. And it is at the point when we are finally
reunited with Jesus that we are going to see that our salvation can
withstand the test.
This is the third
reason our salvation is a glorious one. In addition to it being an
undeserved salvation, and a certain
salvation, it is also a salvation that can be tested.
Now, in verses 10 – 12, we are going to see Peter’s third reason why
we should appreciate our salvation, and that is because it is an
accomplished salvation.
IV. It is a
glorious salvation because it is an accomplished salvation – vv.
10-12
10
As to this salvation (the tested, and certain, and undeserved
salvation), the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would
come to you made careful search and inquiry, 11
seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them
was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the
glories to follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they
were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have
been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you
by the Holy Spirit sent from
heaven-- things into which
angels long to look.
The point Peter
is making in these verses is that our salvation is not some kind of
a futuristic, indistinct, or vague salvation. Our salvation is a
historical, clear, and well developed idea. I hope you can
appreciate this morning that our understanding of salvation is a
blessing the Old Testament prophets didn’t have. For instance, when
Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah “was
despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with
grief; and like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised,
and we did not esteem Him,”
he didn’t have Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph in his mind. He
couldn’t envision 33 A.D. and the Roman Empire, and Pontus Pilate.
When Isaiah goes on to say “He Himself bore our grief, and our
sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten
of God, and afflicted . . . He was pierced through for our
transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening
for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are
healed,” he didn’t know who he was talking about other than that
at some point in the future there was going to be someone who would
make an adequate sacrifice for the sins of mankind. He understood
the ideas of a blood sacrifice and a vicarious atonement – but that
is about it.
This
is what Peter means when he says that the prophets who prophesied
about our salvation made careful search and inquiry into who and
when it was all going to take place. And according to verse 12,
God did not satisfy their intellectual curiosity. He didn’t reveal
to them the person or the time of Jesus, just that they were serving
future generations of people. And they had to be content with that.
Contrast that with our understanding of salvation. We have the full
historical account of Jesus in the Gospels. We have a comprehensive
and clear treatment of the entire doctrine in the letters of the New
Testament. There is nothing vague or indistinct about it at all.
This is what I mean when I say we have an accomplished salvation.
The Old Testament prophets and saints in faith looked forward to a
promised salvation; we, in faith, look back on an accomplished
salvation.
And to help us
appreciate this, I have an illustration for us. Which would you
rather do, smell a Thanksgiving Dinner, or eat a Thanksgiving
Dinner? It is nice to see the dinner cooking, and to fill your
nostrils with its smells, and to walk through the dining room and
see the table set. And your salivary glands kick in and it whets
your appetite and you can envision what it is going to be like. But
isn’t it a greater experience to be sitting in your recliner after
you have actually eaten the dinner? To a certain degree, that is
the difference in the salvation experience between the Old and New
Testament saints. We have a glorious salvation because it is
accomplished, as opposed to being promised.
So to summarize
what Peter tells us first in his book, we should appreciate our
glorious salvation for these four reasons. It is undeserved, it is
certain, it can withstand testing, and it is accomplished.
But what bearing
does this passage have on suffering well? Or maybe I should say,
“Why does Peter start a book about suffering well by talking so much
about the doctrine of salvation?” Obviously, it is because
suffering well starts with salvation. You will never
suffer well if you try to live your life independently of Jesus
Christ. It is the presence of Jesus in your life that gives you the
capacity to go through the testing that is part of the human
experience. So if you have never asked Jesus to forgive you of your
sins and made Him the Lord of your life, that is the first thing you
need to do if you are going to suffer well.
Let me give you
one quick illustration of how this works. In
1 Thessalonians
4:13-14,
Paul makes reference to the difference in how saved and unsaved
people view death. Saved people understand that death is a
necessary step to being reunited with Jesus. Unsaved people don’t
grasp this idea, and this fundamental difference in perspective
affects how each party grieves. The way Paul puts it is this. [I]
“do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are
asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will
bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” When you
have Christ in your life, you face the suffering that accompanies
the grave with hope. When you don’t have Christ in your life, you
face the suffering that accompanies the grave with a sense of doom
and irretrievable loss. Suffering well starts with salvation.
But the second
point of application for us is that suffering well is directly tied
to your perception of reality. The reason Peter starts with this
eloquent reminder of their salvation is because he is elevating
their perception. He is getting their eyes off their immediate
circumstances which include being displaced from their
homeland, being persecuted for their faith, and
dealing with the uncertainty that accompanies the life
of being a refugee. He is helping them understand that their
immediate circumstances are not their eternal circumstances. That
is the perspective that accompanies salvation, and it is a good
thing for us to remember as well. When we are in the furnace, we
have to remember the admonition of
Hebrews 12:11,
“trials
for the moment seem not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those
who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit
of righteousness.”
That is an elevated perspective. That is looking through the
immediate to the eternal. So remember that suffering well is
directly tied to your perspective. Yes, there will be suffering,
but as David says, “Weeping may last for a night, but a song of
joy will come in the morning.”
The final point
of application is that suffering well is directly connected to your
grasp of Biblical doctrine. I want that to sink in for a minute.
In these 12 verses, Peter mentions nine different doctrines, five
major and four minor: salvation (election, justification,
sanctification, and perseverance), eschatology, Christology,
pneumatology, and angelology. That is an awful lot of theology for
twelve verses, but I believe there is a lesson here for us. When
you are deeply conversant with Biblical doctrine, you have elevated
insight into the mysteries of the human experience - in particular,
suffering.
·
When you
are faced with tragedy, do you lash out at God, or do
you throw yourself on Him (opposite extremes of the
spectrum)? Which way you respond depends on the depth of your
knowledge of the doctrine of God.
·
When you
are faced with an irreversible, life changing disability, do you
embrace it and grow with it (like Joni Ericson Tada), or
do you escape it with drugs or even ultimately with
suicide. Do I embrace it or escape it? It depends on your
knowledge of the doctrine of providence.
This is what I
mean when I say that suffering well is directly connected to your
grasp of Biblical doctrine. About five years ago, I sat the family
down for morning devotions one day and said, “I am sure this will
never happen to us, but how would you children respond if either me
or mom were killed in an accident?” I said, “Would you get angry at
God and end up bitter, or would you in faith trust that He knew what
He was doing and accept His dealings with us?” I used those
questions as a springboard to teach the children the doctrine of
providence, not knowing that in less than a year that very scenario
was going to be played out in our lives. But it was because of our
wrestling with this doctrine that I was able to huddle up with the
children on the property as we were waiting for the ambulance and
tell them, “We already know how we are going to respond to this. We
aren’t going to get mad at God. We aren’t going to get bitter. We
are going to trust God.” And it has been our unshakable adherence
to the doctrines of God’s Word that have enabled us to go through a
very deep valley. That is the nature of doctrine - it helps you
suffer well.
So Peter’s first
key to suffering well is actually multi-faceted. It involves
salvation and perception and doctrine. I hope you appreciate your
salvation this morning – it’s undeserved, it is certain, it can
withstand testing, and it is accomplished.
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