Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Book: 1 Peter

  • A Tested Faith, a Joyful Heart, Part 1

    A Tested Faith, a Joyful Heart, Part 1

    About this sermon

    We have a foretaste in this age of the joy that is yet to come.

    1. The character of the Christian’s joy (vv. 6, 8).
    2. The reason for the Christian’s joy (v. 6).
    3. The strength of the Christian’s joy (vv. 6-8).

    More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    remain standing for the reading of God’s Word as we continue our consideration of 1 Peter, the Apostle Peter’s first epistle. And this evening we’re going to focus, we are moving along at Presbyterian speed. Nice and slow, but there’s so much here in this passage tonight, we are going to consider 1 Peter 1, verses six through nine. I’m gonna read verses three through nine to remind us of the fuller context here, but our focus will be especially on verses six through nine. So let us hear God’s holy word, 1 Peter 1, beginning at verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

    In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the proclamation of his word. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, your word tells us that the joy of the Lord shall be our strength.

    We pray that we might experience your joy this evening as we consider this glorious portion of Holy Scripture. We pray that the unfolding of your words would give light to our souls. We ask, O Lord, that you would open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word, and we pray that you would feed our souls through this portion of your word. We ask that these truths from your word that we consider this evening would indeed be spiritual milk to those who need the milk of your word, may it be spiritual meat to those who need the meat of your word, and may it be manna to all of us. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you would grant me grace to faithfully declare your word this evening and give us faithfulness in receiving your word. and taking it to our hearts and into our souls by your spirit.

    We ask these things in Christ’s name and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. title of my sermon this evening is, Attested Faith, A Joyful Heart. And there is so much in this passage that we’re considering tonight that I figured instead of pulling an Apostle Paul and detaining you all until midnight, that I would break this up into several sermons. Well, dear ones, the Christian life is often misrepresented today. What I mean is that some seem to incorrectly represent the Christian life as a life of constant thrills and unending spiritual and emotional highs. The Christian life is presented as a victorious life, a life of constant unbroken onwards and upwards, if you will. From this point of view, the Christian seems to be presented as a person who lives on a higher spiritual and emotional plane of existence as compared to the ordinary mortal.

    Professing believers who lean towards this view tend to look down upon Christians who shed tears of sorrow or who experience real suffering, real struggles, real grief in their lives as being somehow unspiritual. The suffering and sorrowful and grieving Christian seems to be viewed by them as a Christian who is missing out on the so-called victorious Christian life. But on the other extreme, there are others who appear to incorrectly believe that the Christian life is ordinarily to be viewed as a life of unending suffering, struggle, tedium, and drudgery. Professing believers who lean towards this view tend to look upon Christians who are openly joyful about their faith as being, well, somewhat superficial, perhaps overly emotional. It seems that for these folks, being a sourpuss seems to be a prerequisite for being spiritual. And the most faithful and mature Christians seem to be viewed as those professing believers who are stiff as a board and who wear a constant scowl on their faces.

    Believers of this persuasion err by either ignoring or overlooking the fact that the true Christian has a deep-seated peace and an exuberant joy in the heart, which the unsaved person can never experience, apart, of course, from turning to Christ in true faith and repentance. This inexpressible joy and peace comes from a living relationship with the living Savior, the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. And it is a peace and a joy which can endure through grievous trials and flourish even in the midst of great suffering. In contrast to these two extreme and erroneous views of the Christian life, and I know I’ve presented them in their most extreme forms, but in contrast to these extremities in viewing the Christian life is, of course, the biblical view. In particular, the biblical view of the Christian life as presented here by Saint Peter the Apostle.

    And remember that Peter the Apostle in this portion of scripture is addressing a group of harassed Christians living in Asia Minor, Christians who faced the threat, the very real threat of severe persecution for their Christian faith. The biblical view of the Christian life avoids the extremes of these two misrepresentations of the Christian life that I explained. On the one hand, as Peter makes clear in this epistle, Scripture recognizes that genuine born-again Christians can and often do experience many sufferings and trials of various sorts. including the fiery trial of persecution. Real Christians face sorrow, too. Real Christians suffer, too. Real Christians grieve, too. And it is not an unspiritual thing to experience sorrow, suffering, grief, or trials of various sorts. On the other hand, scripture also teaches that true believers have been blessed with every blessing in the heavenly places, that we who are true believers have been blessed with the spiritual resources to endure through the trials and sorrows and griefs of life in this fallen, sin-cursed world.

    Because of the presence of the resurrected Christ in our lives, we who by God’s grace are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have implanted within our souls an inexpressible and glorious joy, a joy which enables us to overcome as we face the trials which God in his divine providence decrees and permits to come into our lives. So friends, the biblical picture of the Christian life as presented to us here in this passage of 1 Peter is very realistic, but it’s also incredibly hopeful. It tells us, Peter is telling us, or the Holy Spirit, I should say, through Peter is telling us that the Christian life is a life of joy in the midst of trials and sorrows, even as it is one of trials and sorrows in the midst of joy. There is a paradox to the Christian life that Peter touches upon in this passage for this evening.

    Here in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, as Peter addresses his original first century readers, he encourages them, as the Holy Spirit through Peter encourages us in the church in all ages, to put our main focus on the spiritual blessings that we’ve already received in Christ and the blessings of our inheritance of final salvation, which we shall receive in the future. so that we might have a living hope in the present as we face trying circumstances. In this passage, where the Apostle Peter addresses the joys and the trials of the Christian life, the Holy Spirit reminds us of the paradoxical truth that a tested faith and a joyful heart can coexist. And so this Lord’s Day evening, We will focus particularly on the Christian’s joy. We’ll talk more about the Christian’s trials and testing on the next Lord’s Day, but this evening I want us to focus on the Christian’s joy.

    In particular, we will focus first on the character of the Christian’s joy, then we will focus on the reason for the Christian’s joy, and finally, the strength. of the Christian’s joy. So let’s dive into our passage, beloved, and let’s first of all consider the character of the Christian’s joy, the character of the Christian’s joy. This is the first point on your sermon outline. After the opening doxology where Peter blesses and praises the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who in great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the historic bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and to an eternal inheritance. Peter goes on to say, in this you rejoice. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.” Peter knows those to whom he is writing.

    He knows that they have faced trials. They have faced sorrows. They need comfort. They need encouragement. And he reminds them, notice he says, though now for a little while, If necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. Now, when you’re going through a particularly painful or grievous or difficult time in life, oftentimes those sorrowful times can seem to be so lengthy. But Peter encourages us to take the eternal perspective. From the standpoint of eternity, our trials and struggles and sufferings in this life, though very real and at the time very pressing, nonetheless, in the light of eternity, they are just for a little while. but they are grievous. He says, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

    That’s speaking about Christ’s second coming, his revelation, his appearing. And then he goes on to say in verse eight, though you have not seen him, you have not seen Christ, you love him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. Verse six, Peter says, in this you rejoice. It is translated in a stronger way in the New King James Version as in this you greatly rejoice. This is not just you know, an ordinary kind of rejoicing. This is a great rejoicing. This translation is a translation of the Greek word, agaleasthai. The Bible scholar Norman Hillier says that the rejoicing which is expressed by this New Testament Greek verb is always a jubilant and thankful exaltation for some divine action. A jubilant and thankful exaltation.

    Not just a, yay, that’s great. but an exaltation, a jubilant one. This word is also translated as rejoice in verse eight, which speaks of the believer as rejoicing with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. inexpressible joy. Peter seeks to express the inexpressible here in this passage. The joy that the Spirit has implanted within the soul of his children is a joy that at one level is inexpressible. We do seek to express it in our prayers, in our praises as we sing joyful songs and psalms to the Lord But at the deeper level, this joy cannot be expressed even by those glorious forms of expression. In 1 Peter 4, verse 13, this word is translated in, again in the New King James Version, as exceeding joy. Believer, because of what Christ has done for us and for our salvation, and because of what He has done in our lives, showing His mercy to us, forgiving our sins, renewing us, giving us a living, everlasting hope, we ought to have a great and indescribable joy.

    And you can have an inexpressible and indescribable joy even if, in terms of your personality, you are a reserved person. That’s okay. You don’t have to be one of these bubbly individuals that goes around saying, praise the Lord, every other sentence. And there’s nothing wrong with that, by the way, if you have that kind of personality. Isn’t it wonderful that the Lord saves individuals, that his people include all different personality types? But whatever your personality type may be, whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, whether you’re gregarious or reserved, whatever the case may be. If you are in Christ, the Spirit has implanted within your soul A joy that cannot be expressed because it is a joy that is founded upon Christ. It is a joy that is grounded in the gospel, the good news of your eternal salvation in Christ.

    And so it is expressed by Peter here in verse eight as a joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. Now, what is this term inexpressible? Again, according to Dr. Hillier, this word means not capable of human description or calculation. Beloved, the reason that our joy is inexpressible and full of glory, the reason that it is not capable of human description or calculation is because it is not of human origin. Rather, it is from above. It is a gift of God. You know, it’s interesting, happiness depends, as the word suggests, it depends upon happenstance. You know, I think of that song, oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, I’ve got a wonderful feeling, everything’s going my way. And it’s easy to feel happy, to feel emotionally lifted up when everything’s going your way.

    You’re healthy, you’re comfortable, you’re financially set and all of that. But what happens when you lose your job or when you get that cancer diagnosis? What happens when that trial comes into your life? The joy that we believers experience in Christ is a joy that goes deeper than the mere outward circumstances, the happenstances of our daily lives. It’s not something that we can work up within ourselves. It’s not something that outward circumstances can control. It is from above. It is a gift of God. to try to paraphrase Peter’s expression here into modern lingo. The joy that we believers experience in Christ is a joy that is out of this world. And it is out of this world because the source and origin of our joy is not of this world. It is found in Christ and given to us as a gift of God through Christ.

    Now perhaps you’re wondering, what could produce such deep and rich joy in the souls of believers? Well, you will find the answer to that question in verse six, where Peter tells us the reason for the Christian’s joy. And that brings me to my next main point in your outline, the reason for the Christian’s joy. Verse six, Peter writes, in this, You rejoice. In this, you rejoice. Now, as often is the case, Bible scholars debate about what the in this means. Bible scholars have disagreements about what the in this is to which Peter refers. Some suggest that in this would be better translated as in whom, referring, of course, to God, meaning that we rejoice in God. If that is the case, then Peter is saying that we believers rejoice because of God and in Him.

    Others suggest that it would be better understood and translated as in which, meaning in which time. If that is the case, then Peter is saying that we will rejoice greatly at the final day when we experience the final consummation of our salvation. Now friends, while it is certainly true that as Christians we rejoice in God and that we will rejoice greatly at the last day when Christ returns. Nevertheless, the context of this passage appears to support in this, as the best translation, and in this in the sense in which circumstance, in which circumstance you rejoice. What’s Peter talking about? Well, what Peter seems to be saying is that we rejoice because of the blessings of salvation which we’ve already received. as well as because of the blessing of final, ultimate salvation, which we shall receive on that final day.

    The blessings which Peter has already described in his opening doxology in verses 3 through 5. The certainty of receiving this final consummated salvation and our security in that salvation is the reason why we rejoice with joy inexpressible at this present time and why we rejoice even in the midst of our trials. Remember Peter. has already told us in his opening doxology that we have an inheritance awaiting us and we are being kept for that inheritance. Our eternal inheritance, our eternal salvation, the final consummation of salvation which is described by Peter as our inheritance, how has it been described? It is described in verse four as imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. And so, this, my friends, this, my friends, is the reason for the Christian’s joy, because our salvation, our inheritance, is firm and secure, unfading, kept in heaven for us.

    Beloved, By way of application, these truths revealed here in this passage reinforce the biblical teaching that a Christian can enjoy in this present age a full and infallible assurance of salvation. After all, how could we believers experience such joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory if our salvation was always in question or if we could not be fully assured of our eternal salvation? If you’re always in doubt about whether or not you’re in a state of grace, if you’re always living in doubt of whether God is angry with you or whether you are in Christ and in the favor of God, that can rob you of joy. The praise be to God, the scriptures teach that we who rest upon Christ, who cling to Christ, trusting him alone for salvation from sin can be fully assured of our salvation.

    Dear listener, do you know this joy inexpressible and full of glory that Peter describes here? Do you have a full and infallible assurance of your salvation? If you have doubts about your salvation, take your doubts to the Lord. Jesus is very kind and welcoming. Remember how he treated doubting Thomas. Yes, he rebuked Thomas at one level, but he also welcomed Thomas. And he welcomes us. If you struggle with doubt, if you struggle with assurance of salvation, turn to Christ. He welcomes you. He welcomes you. And trust in him with repentant faith. and be assured that you are forgiven for Jesus’ sake. Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. That’s God’s promise. And God does not go back on his promises. God’s promises don’t contain fine print. That’s hard to discern. God speaks his word.

    He means what he says. He says what he means. Believe in him. Repent and believe in him tonight. But finally, beloved, we note here, we consider here, the strength of the Christian’s joy. This is my final point in your outline, the strength of the Christian’s joy. This is a joy that endures in spite of and even in the midst of trials. This is the irony, not the irony, but the paradox of the Christian life. Again, Peter writes, in this you rejoice, this good news that your inheritance is being kept for you in heaven and you are being guarded through faith for that final salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you’ve been grieved by various trials. The grief is real. You’ve been grieved.

    Not, oh well, grief tempted you, but you’re living the victorious Christian life, you’re beyond grief, no. You’ve been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. We’ll focus more on the testing of our faith on the next Lord’s Day evening, but again, notice the strength of the Christian’s joy here, as brought out in this passage. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. We walk by faith, not by sight. But the things of faith, the things that we grasp and believe in, are real. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. But those things not seen are realities.

    Christ is real. The spiritual realm is real. The fact of our salvation is real. and can be relied upon. And then it goes on to say, though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. And what does this faith, which is suffused with joy, lead to? Obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. And here, again, the salvation he has in view is salvation in the broader, final, consummated sense, it would seem. The strength of the Christian’s joy, beloved, is that it is a joy that endures in spite of and even in the midst of sorrows and trials. And our lives are filled with sorrows and trials. Different degrees, different forms of intensity. But we live in a fallen, sin-cursed world.

    We face the common curse. Believers experience, along with our unbelieving neighbors, we experience the effects of the common curse. but we have hope, a hope that the unbeliever cannot even imagine. Oh, dear believer in Christ, it is because you look forward with joy to receiving final salvation on that final day when Christ returns that you can even now rejoice in spite of and even in the midst of your trials. In commenting on verse six, the Bible scholar, and I quote him often, but he’s got a very helpful commentary, Dr. I. Howard Marshall, He says that Peter’s point is then not a contrast between present suffering and future fullness of joy, but rather the paradox of greatly rejoicing now despite suffering. We have the first fruits of the age to come. We experience a foretaste in the present time of that final age to come.

    By the grace of God, our joy in the Lord will endure through the fiery trials of this life as we walk in that joy through faith in Christ and as we strive to maintain a clear conscience before the Lord. As a biblical example of this kind of joy that was experienced even in the midst of suffering and trial, consider Paul and Silas in Acts chapter 16. Remember Paul and Silas were in the city of Philippi? and they got in trouble with the authorities. They were beaten and they were put in prison in chains and probably expecting to be executed the next day. How did they respond to that brutal treatment that they had received from the Roman government there? Now, if I were in their shoes or their sandals, my natural inclination, I think the natural inclination would be to grumble, to complain, to moan and groan.

    After all, these men were probably in a lot of pain, physical pain from the brutal beating that they had received. But turn with me, if you would, to Acts 16. Let me read verses 22 through 25. Acts chapter 16, and we’ll wrap things up in a few minutes, but just wanna point this out. Acts chapter 16, verses 22 through 25. This kind of sets the context here. It says, The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.” Not a comfortable way to spend the night.

    But notice verse 25, about midnight, Paul and Silas were doing what? Moaning and groaning and complaining and whining. No, they were praying and singing hymns to God. And the prisoners were listening to them. Prisoners were listening to them, their joy in the midst of this trial that they were undergoing, this persecution that they had undergone. This joy must have been a powerful witness to the prisoners who heard them singing and praying and also, no doubt, to the Philippian jailer who is marvelously converted later on in this passage. It was that joy inexpressible and filled with glory that empowered and strengthened Paul and Silas to be calm, to have peace of heart in spite of the throbbing pain that no doubt their bodies were enduring as they were recovering from that brutal beating that they had received.

    The joy of the Lord is our strength. And the strength of the Christian’s joy is that firm and sure and certain eternal hope that we have in Christ because of the gospel. But while it is not possible for us as believers to lose our salvation, it is possible to lose the joy of our salvation. And there’s many ways that we can lose the joy of our salvation. We can lose the joy of our salvation through neglecting the means of grace, neglecting the Word, neglecting prayer. neglecting fellowship in the church and so forth. We can lose the joy of our salvation through unrepentant sin, through hardness of heart, through failing to maintain a clear conscience and so forth. And I think the biblical example of a believer who for a time lost the joy of his salvation, think about King David.

    King David in his grievous sin of falling into the sin of adultery with Bathsheba and arranging for Bathsheba’s husband to be murdered on the front lines of battle. And David continued, hardened and impenitent in that sin for a time. But we read in his Psalm of Repentance, Psalm 51, he prays in Psalm 51, verse 12, restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. When David fell into such grievous, serious sin, he did not lose his salvation. He was not cast out of the kingdom, but he did lose the joy of his salvation. And in his prayer of repentance, he says, Lord, restore to me the joy of your salvation. His salvation was the source of joy itself. I take that to mean that David, because of his sinfulness, was doubting.

    Am I really saved? Am I really in favor with the Lord? And this is a warning to us. Again, while our salvation is secure, we can lose the joy of our salvation. And so, dear ones, let us make every effort to obtain and maintain, by the grace of God, the joy of our salvation. Let us be often in the Word. Let us meditate often on the promises of the gospel, feeding our souls with those wonderful promises. Let us often avail ourselves of the comfort that comes to us through the sacrament of the Holy Supper. Let us diligently use the God-ordained means of grace, the word and the sacraments and prayer, and let us often search our consciences, confessing our sins in repentant humility and thus striving to maintain a clear conscience before the Lord. After all, the joy of the Lord is that which gives us strength for the trials that we face as pilgrims of Christ, making our way through this present evil age.

    Dear friends, may the joy of the Lord be your strength, And may you experience a joyful heart even when your faith is tested. Amen. Let’s pray.

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  • Guarded by God’s Power

    Guarded by God’s Power

    About this sermon

    1. The hope of eternal salvation is kept in heaven for us (v. 4).
    2. We are guarded by God for our inheritance of eternal salvation (v. 5).
    3. Consider the implications of our preservation in the faith (v. 5).

    More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    1 Peter 1, verses 3-5. As we are in our 1 Peter series, considering this wonderful portion of God’s Word, I’ll read the first five verses of chapter 1 to fill out the context a little bit. Again, our focus this evening will especially be on verse 5. So, let us hear God’s holy word. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

    Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the proclamation of His Word this evening. Oh, Heavenly Father, once again, we thank you for the Holy Scriptures. We thank you for your inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word. and especially for this portion of your word that we consider this evening, we ask that you would grant us, Heavenly Father, wisdom and insight. We pray that by your spirit, that spirit who not only breathed out the scriptures but who also illuminates the minds and hearts of your people to understand the scriptures, we pray that your spirit would illuminate us and that your word would find a lodging place in our souls this evening and would bear much spiritual fruit in our lives. Once again, we pray that you would set a guard over my lips, Lord God, that I might speak only that which is faithful to your word, for the edification of your people, the salvation of the lost, and most important of all, for the glory and honor of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is present with us now in his word.

    We pray these things in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. title of my sermon this evening is Guarded by God’s Power. And I just wanna encourage the children, three key words to listen for in my sermon tonight, inheritance, salvation, and guarded. Well, dear ones, as we saw a few weeks ago, the text from God’s word that we’re going to consider once more on this Lord’s Day evening is a passage which offers rich encouragement and deep comfort to God’s people. In this passage, the true believer learns that he or she, as it says in verse three, have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Friends, as believers, this passage assures us that a glorious inheritance awaits us, namely the consummation of our eternal salvation on that last day, that final day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns in glory and ushers in the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells.

    We learn that this glorious inheritance is reserved, is kept for us in heaven, where no one and nothing can cause this inheritance to be corrupted or defiled or decayed. Again, let me read verses three and four. This opening doxology, Peter writes, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 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. And what have we been born again to or unto? As it says in verse four, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. So friends, on this Lord’s Day evening, we’re going to briefly cover some of the truths that are touched upon in verse four, but our main focus this evening will be on verse five, where we are told that we who are followers of Christ are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

    Friends, every word of this verse is packed full of truth and significance, so we’ll spend some time considering this verse in some detail. But before we turn our attention to verse 5, let’s once again look at verse 4. And in this verse, I would have us consider that the inheritance of salvation is kept in heaven for us. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have an inheritance, and that inheritance is being reserved. It is being kept for us in heaven. These words in verse 4 speak of great security, the great security of our salvation. In fact, even if Peter had decided to stop here at verse 4 and not include verse 5 in this chapter of his epistle, verse 4 alone would be sufficient to prove the doctrine of the absolute and eternal security of the true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

    Indeed, the Calvinistically-oriented Baptist theologian, Dr. Miller J. Erickson, comments on this verse, and I quote from him. His comments, I think, are very relevant. He says, the three adjectives used to describe our inheritance are vivid and powerful. They speak of our salvation as incapable of being destroyed in the fashion in which armies ravage a nation during war. It cannot be corrupted or spoiled by the introduction of something impure, and it never fades, no matter what influences are brought to bear upon it. This salvation has a permanent quality about it. It endures. Hence, as Peter writes, this inheritance of salvation is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Beloved children of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has merited and secured for us an eternal salvation. He hasn’t just merited and obtained for us a standing in grace that we may or may not persevere in, a standing in grace that is insecure and unstable, that may be defiled or may perish or fade away, no.

    In Christ, we have an eternal salvation, a salvation that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Through Christ’s atoning sacrifice for sin on the cross of Calvary, he has secured the redemption of his elect sheep. Beloved, because our salvation has been obtained and secured for us by our perfect, spotless, divine Savior, and because our Savior Jesus Christ is the sovereign King and Lord of heaven and earth, we can be sure that the inheritance which He has won for us at the cost of His own precious blood, He will keep and protect for us imperishable, undefiled, and unfading in heaven. This is a truth which should stir up hope and bring great encouragement and comfort to you who are weary pilgrims on your journey to the heavenly Zion. Do not be discouraged, dear believer. You have an inheritance.

    It is being kept for you. So do not give up hope. Oh, praise be unto our great and sovereign God for the security and protection that we have in Christ. But not only do we learn in this passage that our inheritance of eternal consummated salvation is being kept, is being guarded for us in heaven, we also learn in this passage that we are guarded by God for our inheritance of eternal salvation. This is the second point in your sermon outline if you’re following along. Friends, we are guarded by God for our inheritance of eternal salvation. As it says in verse five, that we, for whom this inheritance is being kept, we who by God’s power are being guarded, or as some translations put it, are being kept through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, the last time that Peter speaks of there.

    He’s obviously referring to the ultimate last time. He’s speaking of the consummation of this present age when Jesus returns in glory at his second coming. When the dead are raised, the final judgment occurs and Christ ushers in the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells. So he is speaking here of our ultimate final salvation or what is elsewhere called our glorification. Now, dear ones, what is so comforting about this is that not only is heaven kept for us, as verse four affirms, we are kept for heaven. If you’re taking notes, write that down. Not only is heaven kept for us, we, beloved, we who are in Christ by his grace and grace alone, we are kept for heaven. Verse five is one of the plainest passages in all of God’s word, which teaches the biblical and reformed doctrine that we in the reformed faith call the perseverance of the saints.

    See, the main point of verse five has to do with the fact that true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are preserved, that they are guarded, they are kept, and kept by God himself. but also it teaches that they persevere in their faith. For what does it say? We are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed. So we are preserved by God and by his grace, we persevere in our faith until the end of our lives. And that is implied where in verse five where it says that we are guarded through faith. Now again, theologians typically call this biblical truth the perseverance of the saints. But this is kind of, has the potential to get us into some confusion. Because in many folks’ minds, in our culture, even in the broader church culture, a saint is sort of a super spiritual Christian.

    Or a Christian who is almost beyond sinning. We’ve got ordinary Christians and then we’ve got the saints, right? That misconception of the term saint is is in part due to, for example, Roman Catholic teaching and distortions of the biblical teaching on saints and the significance of that word. But we need to remember, friends, that every true Christian is a saint. The Bible teaches that if you are a Christian, if you have Put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your very own Lord and Savior, having repented of sin and believed upon Christ for salvation as he has offered to you in the gospel. If that is you, then you are a saint. according to the Bible. What does the term saint mean? Well, the term saint simply means consecrated one, holy one.

    That is to say, one who has been set apart to belong to God in Christ. And through the gift of the Holy Spirit, all true believers who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit are set apart to belong to Jesus Christ. And that is true of you, Christian, even on those days where maybe you don’t feel like or behave like the Christian that you ought to behave as. And so all true believers are saints by the biblical definition of that term. Because all true believers are saints, set apart ones, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and because the Bible teaches that true believers will persevere in their faith until the end of their lives, Reformed theologians have typically called this doctrine, as I said, the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. However, because that word saint is often misunderstood, I would agree with a particular theologian who has suggested that it would perhaps be better to refer to this doctrine not as the perseverance of the saints, but the perseverance of true believers.

    And that’s how I’m going to be referring to this doctrine in the remainder of my sermon except where I’m quoting from others. Now, how do we understand and how do we define this biblical doctrine of the perseverance of the saints? Well, I think a wonderful Bible-based definition of this doctrine is found in our beloved Westminster Confession of Faith. And I want to invite you, if you’d like to follow along, to take your Trinity Psalter hymnal and turn to page 929 in the back of your hymnal to Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 17, and I’ll quote from section one of that section of the confession. Page 929, this is in chapter 17, entitled Of the Perseverance of the Saints, section one. And this is a wonderful Bible-based definition or summary of what the Bible teaches about this doctrine.

    It says, they whom God hath accepted in his beloved, the beloved being Jesus, they whom God the Father has accepted in the beloved, Jesus, effectually called and sanctified by his spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end and be eternally saved.” Amen. It’s not saying that true believers can’t fall into sin, even serious or scandalous sin, but that they can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere to the end and be eternally saved. The great Reformed theologian, Louis Burkhoff, defines this doctrine of perseverance as follows. He says, the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is to the effect that they whom God has regenerated and affectionately called to a state of grace can neither totally nor finally fall away from that state, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end and be eternally saved.

    We hear Burkhoff sort of borrowing words there from the Westminster divines. Another Reformed theologian, Herman Hoeksema, in his Reformed Dogmatics, defines this doctrine as follows. He says, the perseverance of the saints, therefore, may be called that act of the grace of God whereby he preserves the believers and saints in Christ Jesus in his power and through faith to the very end unto salvation and glory so that they fight the good fight. and so that they can never fall away from the grace they once received. Now, of course, brothers and sisters, if you’ve been in Reformed circles for a while, you know that this doctrine is often misrepresented or misconstrued by those who do not accept it or by those who are confused by it. The biblical doctrine, let me make an important clarification. The biblical doctrine of the perseverance of true believers, such as we find it in passages like this one, it does not mean, as it is sometimes misrepresented to mean, that everyone who claims to be born again is in fact born again and headed for heaven, no matter what they believe, no matter how they live their lives.

    No, my friends, that is not what it teaches. As the late Dr. John Murray once wrote, in order to place the doctrine of perseverance in proper light, we need to know what it is not. It does not mean that everyone who professes faith in Christ and who is accepted as a believer in the fellowship of the saints is secure for eternity and may entertain the assurance of eternal salvation. Dr. Murray makes an important distinction. Is it possible to fall away from a profession of faith in Christ, an outward profession to believe in Jesus and follow him and be a member of his church and so forth? Yes, of course. It is possible to fall away from a profession of faith because it’s possible to outwardly profess faith in Christ and not possess a true and living faith in your heart. but it is not possible to fall away from the possession of a true and living faith because that faith is the result of a supernatural work of God called regeneration or being born again, wherein God implants new spiritual life in the soul of a dead sinner and causes us to be raised from the deadness of our sins to newness of life in the Lord Jesus Christ.

    And so Dr. Murray goes on to say, It is possible to give all the outward signs of faith in Christ and obedience to Him, to witness for a time a good confession and show great zeal for Christ and His kingdom, and then lose all interest and become indifferent, if not hostile, to the claims of Christ and His kingdom. It is the lesson of the seed sown on rocky ground. referring to Christ’s parable of the soils. The seed took root, it sprang up, but when the sun arose, it was scorched and brought forth no fruit to perfection. And he refers there to Mark’s record of this, of our Lord’s parable of the sower in Mark chapter four. So dear ones, the bottom line is that not all of those who profess faith in Christ will persevere, but rather, that all who possess a true and living faith in Christ will persevere to the end of their lives.

    The biblical and reformed doctrine of the perseverance of true believers teaches that all true believers will persevere in faith, obedience, and holiness until the end of their lives and thus be eternally saved, all by God’s grace and grace alone. We need to watch out for misconceptions. As I mentioned before, this does not mean that true believers never sin. Of course we sin, we struggle with sin every day because in this present life, we continue to have the remnants of our old sin nature. And that’s why the scriptures call upon us to reckon ourselves, to count ourselves dead unto sin and alive unto God in union with Jesus Christ. And that’s why we are called upon to fight the good fight of faith, to take up our cross and follow Jesus and so forth. The Christian life is a blessing, but it’s also a battle, it’s a warfare.

    And we are called upon as children of God to engage in this battle, to be strong and courageous in the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, again, the perseverance of the saints does not mean that true believers never sin. On the contrary, all true believers struggle, as I said, with the remnants of their sin nature, this side of glory. And it is possible for a true believer to not only fall into the kinds of ordinary everyday sins that we are all, in our weakness and frailty, all subject to, but it is possible for a true believer even to fall into serious and scandalous sin. We see examples of that in the Bible. Think, for example, of King David. King David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, David who is described in Scripture as a man after God’s own heart.

    David, a man who obviously loved and trusted the true and living God. He loved the Lord, but think, you read the history of David, there were a number of times in David’s kingship, in his service to God’s people where he fell into very serious sin, the most obvious one being his sin with Bathsheba, committing adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of another man. And then what does he do to cover it up when he learns that Bathsheba, that he’s conceived a child in this adulterous relationship? Well, He tries to get her husband to come home from the battle and spend time with his wife, but that doesn’t work out. And so what does he do? He arranges for Bathsheba’s husband to be put on the front lines of battle so that he will die in battle.

    So David basically committed adultery and murder. And he continued, he persisted in his arrogance, he persisted in those sins for a time until he was confronted. but he was eventually, by the grace of God, brought to repentance. Does that mean that David fell out of grace during that period of spiritual darkness in his life? No, we don’t bounce in and out of grace. But nevertheless, he sinned very seriously. Or think of the apostle Peter. Peter, the author of this epistle that we are studying in this sermon series. Peter himself denied Christ three times. Remember that? When Jesus warned the disciples, you’ll all fall away because of me. You’ll all abandon me when I go to the cross. Peter says, not me, Lord. I’m strong. Even if everyone else abandons you, I will not. I will die with you if I must.” And that very night, at the instigation of a servant girl, he gets intimidated and he denies knowing the Lord Jesus Christ.

    And the last time he denies Christ, he does so with an oath. He calls a curse upon himself if he’s lying, which he obviously was. Again, Peter denied Christ. But the Holy Spirit eventually brought these erring believers, David, Peter, and others, to repentance. And that’s what the Spirit does with true believers. He will bring the true believer back to renewed repentance and a renewed striving after a new obedience. And so the biblical doctrine of perseverance teaches that the true believer cannot fully and finally and permanently abandon Christ and cannot completely and irreversibly fall away from the faith into final apostasy. That’s what the doctrine means. Although a true believer may fall many times in the faith and may grievously fail the Lord many times. The biblical doctrine of the perseverance of the true believer is taught, again, very clearly here in 1 Peter 1, verse 5, where we are told that we are, by God’s power, are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

    Again, we have an eternal inheritance that is kept in heaven for us, and praise God, we are being kept for that inheritance in heaven. Do you have the assurance that you are a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? That is to say, have you personally put your faith and trust in Christ and Christ alone for your salvation from sin? The word of God calls you, the gospel of Jesus Christ calls you to repent and trust in Christ. Receive and rest upon Christ and Christ alone for your salvation. Christ who was crucified for the forgiveness of sins and raised from the dead so that all who believe in him may not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is the God-man, the Word made flesh, the one and only mediator between the Holy God and sinful humanity.

    Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Confide in Him, believe that in Jesus you have a merciful, forgiving God. And then continue to cling to Him with confidence and joy. Finally, beloved, let us consider just some of the implications of our preservation in the faith. This is the final point in your sermon outline. Let’s consider the implications of our preservation in the faith as some of those implications are laid out for us in this passage. Again, notice the language here. We are guarded by what? by God’s power. Believer in Christ, you are kept, you are guarded. You do not keep yourself, you do not guard yourself, at least not in the ultimate sense. Yes, you are responsible to be in the word, to diligently use the means of grace, you are responsible to faithfully follow Jesus, but you do not ultimately keep yourself.

    God, your omnipotent Father in heaven, keeps you. And this, my friends, is the biggest difference between the Calvinist and the Arminian understandings of the believer’s perseverance. You see, in the end, beloved, for the Calvinist, it is God who keeps us as our passage teaches. Whereas for the Arminian, ultimately speaking, it is we who keep ourselves, with God’s help of course, but the ultimate factor for the Arminian in the believer’s perseverance unto the end is the believer’s choice to continue clinging to Christ. The good news of this doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. You know, sometimes, brothers and sisters, we get weak in our faith. Sometimes we falter in our faith. Sometimes our grip on Christ gets loosened. But praise God, even, brother or sister in Christ, even when your grip on your Savior gets loosened, his grip on you will never be loosened.

    He continues to hold you in his sovereign hand. He keeps you, and that is your confidence and mine. Praise God. I don’t know about you, brothers and sisters, but the more years I live as a Christian, a follower of Jesus, the more I see my own weakness, my own frailty, And the more grateful I become in knowing that, praise God, my salvation does not depend on me. If it did, I’m in big trouble. My salvation depends on Christ. Your salvation depends on Christ, not on your keeping yourself, doing more, trying harder, being better. And certainly we should strive after a new obedience, absolutely, but out of gratitude, for what God has done for us in Christ. So believer, be comforted. You are kept, you do not keep yourself. And consider also, dear friend, that if you are a true believer in Christ, if you have trusted, personally trusted Christ as your very own Lord and Savior, you are kept by the almighty power of God.

    This word power here is so comforting. We are guarded By what? God’s power. What do you think of when you think of God’s power? God’s power, is it limited? No, God’s power is almighty. All the power of his omnipotent being is brought to bear in preserving and keeping His elect in the faith and in His grace until the end of their lives. That same power of God, who in the very beginning, by His sovereign, omnipotent power, spoke the universe into being out of nothing. That power that said, let there be and there was. That’s the biblical Big Bang, by the way. God spoke and bang, it happened, right? just simply by speaking the word. Nothing existed besides God in the very beginning. He was the only existent one. He was beyond time, space, and matter.

    And he brought time, space, and matter, and everything else into being simply by speaking the word. We think of the power of God in parting the Red Sea for the Israelites to walk through on dry land. We especially think of the power of God that raised our Lord Jesus from the dead. What power to raise a dead man to life. That same power is at work guarding and keeping you believer. So be comforted. But notice also we believers are guarded by God’s power, not apart from faith, but through faith. So there is human responsibility here. But let us remember, beloved, that this faith by which we receive and rest upon Christ, this saving faith that clings to Christ and Christ alone, is not the accomplishment of our own autonomous free will. You do not believe because you make better decisions than your unbelieving neighbor or coworker or family member.

    It’s not that you’re better or more worthy. Your faith is indeed itself ultimately a gift of God, a gift of God that was purchased for you by Christ himself. Our faith is not the result, is not the cause of our new birth, I should say. It is the fruit of our new birth. This is reflected, for example, by the Apostle Paul’s language in that very familiar passage in Ephesians chapter two, Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9, Paul writes, for by grace, you have been saved. Grace is God’s unmerited, undeserved favor, his demerited favor, if you will. By grace, you’ve been saved through faith. Faith is the empty hand that receives the gift of salvation. But you’ve been saved through faith, and this, not your own doing. What does the this refer to? Some think it refers to salvation and not to faith, but I think it refers to the entire salvation process.

    This faith is itself a gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. If you’ve come to believe in Jesus, don’t pat yourself on the back and say, hey, I’m a sinner, yeah, but at least I got faith right. Now, your faith is a gift of God, the fruit of the Spirit working in your heart and applying the gospel to your life. So friends. we believers are being kept for salvation. And again, in the scriptures, the term salvation is a broad concept. It’s sort of an umbrella concept that depending on how it’s being used in a particular passage, it can include many different aspects. Aspects such as regeneration or being born again, effectual calling, conversion, justification, adoption, sanctification, and ultimately glorification. If someone comes up to you on the street and says, brother or sister, are you saved?

    The correct biblical answer is, I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved. Salvation involves things that have happened in the past, God has justified me, adopted me, forgiven my sins, things that are happening in the present, the Holy Spirit is sanctifying me, and ultimately, final salvation in our glorification. Now in the context of this particular passage, Peter seems clearly to be speaking of salvation in its final, ultimate, consummated sense. He is speaking here about our final glorification on the last day when we receive our resurrection bodies and are made perfect in body and soul to live in the direct presence of God forever in the new heavens and the new earth. And so, friends, as we close our time in the Word this evening, we are confronted with comfort as well as a challenge.

    The comfort of this passage, beloved, is that we who know Christ as Lord and Savior can be assured, true believers can know the joy of full assurance of salvation. Because we are weak and because our faith is weak, sometimes we have doubts about our salvation, our faith wavers, But if Christ is your savior and if he is keeping you, if you know that and meditate upon that and realize that he is for you, in Christ God is for you, that can fill you with joy, the joy of knowing that he who began a good work in you will carry it through to completion until the day of Christ Jesus, the last day. The challenge of this passage is that it encourages us, by implication, to reflect upon the question, am I a true believer in Christ?

    Now I raise this question. This question is not set before you to get you to doubt your salvation. It’s not my intention, brothers and sisters, to minister to doubt. If you are a believer with a sensitive conscience, do not misinterpret or misconstrue what I’m saying. But if you are here and you’re arrogant and unrepentant in your sin, you have no intention of turning from your sin, you have no interest in the Lord or the things of the Lord or his word, then you need to ask yourself, am I a true believer? Do I know Christ as my Savior and may God give you the grace to search your heart and to repent and to come to Jesus Christ. He offers himself in the gospel to you, dear sinner. Do not refuse him. Turn to him this evening and then you too can know the joy of the Lord that is spoken of in our passage this evening.

    Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we are so thankful that our salvation is from you and through you and unto you, that you keep for us an eternal inheritance, and that you, by your grace, through God-given faith, are keeping us for that inheritance. May these truths bring deep and rich comfort to our souls, and may they fortify us, Lord, to face the challenges that we face, living as your pilgrim people in this fallen, sin-cursed world. Encourage us, Lord, bless us, guard us. Through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, we pray, and all of God’s people said, amen. Dear ones, as we close our time of worship this evening, let’s rise and sing hymn number 514, O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go. 400, I’m sorry, 514, hymn number 514. you O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee.

    I give thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths its flow may richer O light that followest all my way, I yield my flickering torch to thee. My heart restores its borrowed ray, that in thy sunshine’s blaze its day may brighter ♪ O joy that seekest me through pain ♪ I cannot close my heart to thee ♪ I trace the rainbow through the rain ♪ And feel the promise is not vain ♪ That morn shall tearless be ♪ O cross that liftest up my head ♪ ♪ I dare not ask to fly from thee ♪ ♪ I lay in dust life’s glory dead ♪ ♪ And from the ground there blossoms red ♪ ♪ Life that shall endless be ♪ Amen. Dear people of God, look up and receive the declaration of God’s blessing, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

    Amen. We’ll close our time singing stanza one of number 562, Lord dismiss us. ♪ Lord, dismiss us with your blessing, fill our hearts with joy and peace. Let us each, your love possessing, triumph in redeeming grace. Oh, refresh us. Oh, refresh us. Traveling through this wilderness. I know. Thank you, Toby. Thank you.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • A Living Lord, a Living Hope

    A Living Lord, a Living Hope

    About this sermon

    1. We believers have a living hope because we have been “born again” (v. 3a).
    2. The objective basis for the new birth: The historic resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (v. 3b).
    3. Our living hope: An imperishable inheritance (vv. 4-5).

    More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    standing for the reading of God’s Word as we continue our consideration of 1 Peter. This evening we consider 1 Peter 1, verses 3-5. 1 Peter 1, verses 3-5. Dear friends, let us hear with reverence and awe the Word of our God. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Dear friends, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. You may be seated. Please join me in your hearts as we pray for the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching of his word.

    Our gracious Lord and Heavenly Father, once again, we pray that by Your Spirit, You would help us to gain insight into that which Your Spirit has recorded for us in Holy Scripture. We do thank You, O God, that the Bible is theopneustos, that it is God-breathed, that it comes from You, that it is practical, instructive and sufficient. We pray that by your spirit you would help us to behold wondrous things in your word this evening. And we pray that your word would find a lodging place in our souls. We ask these things through Christ our Lord. Amen. The title of my sermon this evening is A Living Lord, A Living Hope. And there’s a number of key words that you can be listening for that are listed in your sermon outline that I encourage you, especially the children, to listen for this evening.

    Well, my dear friends, one of the greatest human needs is the need for hope. Without hope, the human spirit is crushed, dashed upon the rock of utter despondency. Without hope, the bright sunshine is hidden behind the dark storm clouds of despair. Without a sense of hope, you can lose all sense of meaning and purpose in your life. If you don’t have a sense of hope, you may even lose your will to live. However, beloved, if you have a strong sense of hope, you will be much better equipped to endure great trials and afflictions, even persecutions if they should come your way. Throughout history, we read of men and women who have been able to endure great sufferings because they had a strong sense of hope amidst their sufferings. Many a valiant soldier has been willing to lay down his life on the battlefield because of the hope that his death in battle would help to pave the way for a brighter, more peaceful future for his loved ones and for his country.

    Many brave Christian martyrs, past and present, have been willing to endure unspeakable cruelties at the hands of their persecutors, rather than to renounce their faith in Christ, because the hope of the resurrection was a living reality in their lives. And they knew that in the end, that their Savior would vindicate them. Again, few things can make a person stronger than a powerful sense of hope, and few things can cripple a person more severely than the loss of hope. Well, dear ones, in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, the Apostle Peter is writing to a group of Christians who were facing the threat of severe persecution because of their allegiance to Christ. And what these brothers and sisters, these first century brothers and sisters needed was encouragement. And they also needed hope. Because of the afflictions and persecutions that Peter’s original readers faced, they would no doubt be tempted to lose their sense of hope.

    And that is why in the opening doxology of praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostle Peter reminds his readers that they have been given a new birth, or to use Peter’s language, they have been born again to a living hope, as we’re told in verse three. The living hope to which Peter refers, of course, is it’s not a false or misleading and certainly not a dead hope, such as is entertained by unbelievers and followers of false religions who have a false hope. Rather, it is a true and certain and living hope. And what is it that makes this hope sure and certain? What is it that makes this hope trustworthy, reliable? What is the objective ground and basis for this new birth into a living hope? Again, the answer is given to us in verse three.

    That answer is through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. There is hope because Jesus literally, physically, bodily rose from the dead as he had promised that he would. In other words, it is because of their spiritual and saving union with the resurrected Jesus, their living Lord, that they have a living hope. As their Savior is the living Lord, their hope is a living hope. One that Peter describes as imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, as we’re told in verse four. And what was true for these first century believers facing persecution is true for us. The Holy Spirit breathed out this portion of his word, not just for these original readers, but this message of a living hope grounded upon and based upon our living Lord. This is a hope that belongs to each and every one of us and belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ today in the 21st century as well.

    And so let us consider this passage of God’s Word. And the first thing, as we focus on verse three, notice, first of all, that we believers have a living hope because we have been born again. We believers have a living hope because we have been born again. Again, notice Peter’s opening doxology, which is again, this was customary in epistles. especially Christian epistles of this time, such as the apostolic letters. Peter writes, Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is referring to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the first person of the Holy Trinity. That’s God the father. And notice that Christ is described as our Lord Jesus Christ showing forth his divinity, his deity, and showing that he too, revealing that he too is the object of worship and praise.

    Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope. What does it mean, though, to be born again? I think it’s often helpful to understand what something is by first of all understanding what it is not. There are probably many misconceptions out there in the professedly Christian world and the world at large about what it means to be born again. What does it mean to be born again? Well, first of all, it does not mean water baptism. Some folks think that water baptism automatically and necessarily causes the one receiving that baptism to be born again, to receive this gift that is being spoken of in this passage. But this is not speaking of water baptism, though baptism is indeed a means of grace and it is an outward sign and seal of our new birth.

    But many have received the outward sign who have not received the inward grace, and some have received the inward grace without receiving the outward sign. And so the new birth is not water baptism. Some might say, well, then is the new birth confirmation, as is the practice in some churches, confirmation? where the bishop comes and lays his hands on you. And I grew up in the Episcopal Church. I remember as a young person being confirmed and the bishop came and laid his hands on you and smeared some oil on your forehead and with the sign of the cross and all of that. Is that what it means to be born again? No, that’s not what Peter is speaking of. The New Testament does not speak of any right of confirmation. I suspect that some folks think that being born again means turning over a new leaf in your life.

    It means, perhaps to some, a moral resolution to reform their lives. And, you know, for example, some folks might feel that they’re born again if they’ve had struggles with alcohol abuse. And we read stories and we know that there are folks who have struggled with the bottle, with addiction to the bottle, and have found help with that. through such organizations as Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, and they’ve gotten help and they’ve cleaned up their lives, they’ve turned over a new leaf. But friends, is that the new birth? Well, that may be in the lives of some, that may be one of the effects of the new birth, is that the Holy Spirit helps you to overcome sinful patterns or addictions or what have you. But there are plenty of unbelievers who have cleaned up their lives outwardly, who have outwardly reformed their lives, which has benefited them and benefited loved ones in their lives.

    But outward reformation, turning over a new leaf, cleaning up your life, Well, those are good things. That’s not what the new birth is. So what is this new birth that Peter speaks of? Well, it is in the context of this passage and in the broader context of scripture, the new birth is the spiritual rebirth or resurrection of a spiritually dead sinner unto newness of life in Jesus Christ. It’s much more than than simply a sacrament. It’s much more than simply a moral resolution to do better, to try harder. It is a supernatural reality. It is something that God, as we will see, that God does for us. You see, beloved, in the scriptures, the scriptures indicate that as fallen sinners, as those who are fallen sons and daughters of Adam, in our fallen nature, we are dead to the things of God.

    We are described in scripture as being dead in our transgressions and sins, as we’re told in Ephesians chapter two, verse one. And what that means, that doesn’t mean that we are unconscious or unaware or physically dead. You can be dead in your sins, but very much alive and healthy and vigorous in your physical and natural life. But we are dead in the sense that we are dead to the things of God. In our fallen, unregenerate condition, apart from grace, we are oriented away from God. Our spiritual disposition is a disposition of inner hatred for the true and living God, the God revealed in the Bible. You see, apart from God’s grace, we hate the true God and we hate the things of God and of his word. We are hardened in our sinful rebellion. We are insensitive to the demands of God’s holy law.

    And we are unresponsive to the call of the gospel, the call to repent of sin and believe in Christ as Savior. But through the gift, the divinely given gift of the new birth, God the Holy Spirit raises us from a condition of spiritual death into a condition of spiritual life in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. In the new birth, He implants within our souls a new spiritual disposition. A disposition that is repentant for sin. A disposition which longs for and trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ and Christ alone as Savior from sin. A disposition that has new desires. A desire for holiness. A desire for the things of the Lord. Some of you may resonate with with this but I recall. when the Lord was merciful to me and granted me, again, insofar as I understand my own conversion and walk with the Lord, I remember as a new believer, a newly born again believer, that I wanted to know the Bible.

    I wanted to learn the Word. I had this hunger, this desire to grow in my knowledge of who Jesus was. And I wanted to know about what Jesus did for me. and so forth. There was a hunger and thirst that wasn’t there before. Before that time, spiritual things were intellectually interesting to me. But now that the Lord was merciful, now that I came to understand the gospel, now that the Lord had granted me the new birth, now I really wanted to know. There was a hunger to know. Dear friends, through this spiritual miracle of the new birth, we are made willing and able to respond to the gospel call with true faith and repentance unto life. Well, this passage is instructive because it shows us who the author of this new birth is. Verse three, blessed be who?

    Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. I’ve shared this before, but I have in my library a book written by a famous evangelist, and the book is entitled How to be Born Again. How to be Born Again. And again, well-intended evangelist, well-intended book, but that would be, it makes about as much sense from a biblical standpoint, the title of that book as a book entitled How to be Born. Does that make sense? You didn’t choose when you were born. You didn’t choose what gender you were going to be. You didn’t choose your mother or father. That was given to you. That was something that God created.

    Likewise, with the new birth, we don’t cause ourselves to be born again. We don’t contribute to our new birth. The author of the new birth is not God plus our cooperation. The author of the new birth is God. and God alone, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is clearly revealed in this passage to be the author of this new birth, this spiritual resurrection. Through Jesus Christ and by the power and agency of the Holy Spirit, God accomplishes this miracle of sovereign grace known as the new birth or regeneration. He does so in the soul of the elect sinner in God’s good time. I find it interesting that Dr. I. Howard Marshall, who I’m given to understand is not at all a Calvinist. I believe he’s Arminian and perhaps even Wesleyan in his theological views.

    Yet in his commentary, he says this about the new birth. He says that the new birth, the concept of the new birth, quote, emphasizes that the source of life is outside ourselves and lies wholly with God, whose word engenders life. Might as well be a Calvinist to say something like that. So God, God is the source and origin of the new birth. He’s the author of the new birth. But this passage also speaks of the source of the new birth. The author is the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. But notice again what it says. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his what? According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again. excuse me, to a living hope according to his great mercy.

    The source of our new birth is the Father’s great mercy. Now, the term grace and the term mercy are closely related to one another. They’re closely connected concepts, but they are distinct in some ways. God’s grace, God’s grace is views us as guilty sinners in need of forgiveness. God’s grace is his undeserved favor that provides deliverance from the guilt and penalty of sin. So God’s grace views us as guilty sinners in need of forgiveness, and it provides us with that forgiveness. On the other hand, God’s mercy views us as miserable because of our sins. Grace meets us and meets our need for the guilt and penalty of sin to be dealt with. But mercy comes to us in our state of misery, our fallen state of misery. And therefore, it provides us with relief from the misery of sin.

    By His grace, God favors us in Christ with His undeserved, unmerited love, providing forgiveness of sins, deliverance from the guilt and penalty of sin. But by His mercy, He pities us with a heart of compassion. And friends, it is said to be because of His great mercy that He has caused us to be born again to a living hope. Now, by way of application, I want you to notice in verse 3 that the Apostle Peter tells us that God’s mercy is great. He doesn’t just say, according to His mercy, He has caused us to be born again. He says, according to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again. How great is God’s mercy, brothers and sisters? How great is God’s mercy to us in Christ? Friends, God’s mercy toward His people is as great as God Himself is great.

    Beloved in Christ, do you realize that God’s mercy toward you is infinite, eternal, inexhaustible, and unchanging? Even as God Himself is infinite, eternal, inexhaustible, and unchanging. Do you realize how deep His heart of compassion beats for you? Dear one in Christ, the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ are powerful demonstrations of God’s heart of mercy for the redeemed. Oh, believer, rest with confidence in the tender mercies of your heavenly Father. And though you and I may face great trials, deep wounds of affliction, and even the blows of persecution, we can rest assured that our heavenly Father views us with his pity and compassion and his mercy comes to meet us in that need and he will deliver us in due time. But what is the basis for this new birth? We’ve considered the author of the new birth.

    We’ve considered what it means. Let’s next consider the objective basis for this new birth, and that objective basis is the historic resurrection of Jesus Christ. from the dead. And this is the second point in your sermon outline. The objective basis for the new birth is the historic resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We’re told again in verse three, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. You see, friends, because of what Jesus did by rising from the dead, physically, bodily rising from the dead, we can be spiritually resurrected in the new birth. The objective, historical, physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the basis and foundation of our regeneration of the new birth.

    And through his bodily resurrection victory over death, we receive victory over death, both spiritual death and ultimately physical death. Not only does Christ’s resurrection guarantee our ultimate physical resurrection unto life on the last day, it also guarantees the spiritual resurrection of all of the elect in this present age in God’s good time. And this is one of the reasons why the resurrection of Jesus is so important and central to our faith, and also why it is so central in the writings of the apostles in the New Testament. You read the Acts of the Apostles, you read the various samplings that we are given in the book of Acts of apostolic preaching. What are the apostles constantly emphasizing when they preach the gospel? They don’t emphasize as so many preachers today making a decision for Christ or the response to the gospel, although that that is there, that there is the call to repentance and faith.

    But what the apostles in their preaching of the gospel emphasized so much is that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and they, the apostles, were eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus. You see, without the resurrection of Christ, We would have no basis for our Christian faith. But in regard to our passage for this evening, without the resurrection of Christ, we would have no sure, certain, or lasting hope. But because of Jesus’s resurrection, we have an eternal hope, firm and sure. Dear ones, let us, as believers in Christ, be vocal and zealous defenders of the truth of Christ’s physical bodily resurrection from the dead. Without Christ’s resurrection, we would have no hope and neither would anyone else. Let us hold fast this cornerstone of Christian truth, for Christ our Lord is risen indeed. So what then is our living hope?

    This is the final point on your outline this evening. What is our living hope? Our living hope is an imperishable inheritance, an imperishable inheritance. Now, we’re going to be coming back to this passage and digging into it more in terms of the specifics tonight. I’m going to give you more of a general overview here, but let’s look at verses four and five again. He says, we’ve been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. And what have we been born again to? To an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, if you are in Christ, your inheritance in heaven is being kept for you and you are being kept by grace for your inheritance. Kept for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

    Not only has God given you a new birth to a living hope, He also preserves you in that hope. And He is keeping you for your inheritance in the end. See, friends, because we’ve been born again, as verse 3 makes it clear, because of our union with the resurrected Jesus, Because of this, we look forward with assured certainty to receiving our eternal inheritance, which Christ has purchased for us at the price of his own precious shed blood. You see, just as Christ rose from the dead never to die again, so the inheritance of salvation that we receive in the new birth is imperishable and secure. The resurrection of Christ is clear testimony to this promise. You know, our Roman Catholic friends believe wrongly, they believe that it is a sin of presumption to have the assurance of salvation or to have a firm and certain assurance of salvation.

    And certainly they would say that, well, you can have a strong hope that you are currently under the umbrella of grace, that you’re currently under grace, but you have you can’t be assured that you will have that in the end. But the Apostle Peter here makes it clear that you can be assured. Here, our Catholic friends are contradicting their own supposed first Pope. Peter, of course, was not the Pope. But he tells us that our inheritance is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, that it is kept in heaven for us and that we, by God’s power, are being guarded through faith for this final salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. When I’ve studied church history and read about the martyrs and some of the sufferings that they endured, sometimes I find myself wondering Would I have been faithful to the end if I were in their position?

    And you know, I figured out the answer to that. The answer is, in myself, in my own strength, no. I know my weaknesses. I know my frailties. But it is not my persevering through my own steam that keeps me secure. Yes, true believers do persevere, but we persevere in faith Because God preserves us in that faith. We are kept by the power of God. God’s infinite, almighty power. That power by which He spoke the universe into existence. That power by which the Father raised His Son from the dead. That power that raised us from spiritual death unto newness of life in Christ. That power, likewise, preserves us. If you are in Christ, fear not. The Father will keep you. That’s not a call to be lazy or lax or not to be diligent in your Christian life.

    We must. We are called to be diligent. We are called to give diligent use of the means of grace and so forth. But it is calling us not to trust in our diligence, but to trust in the one who preserves us. Well, brothers and sisters in Christ, if these things are so, and indeed they are, let me offer you these closing applications very briefly. When you face trials, persecutions, difficulties, and struggles because of your allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you are tempted to lose hope, ask the Lord to remind you of the living hope that you have. That living hope of an eternal inheritance that is even now being kept for you. Meditate on the glories of heaven. Meditate on the beauty and majesty of your Savior. And let these truths be to you the light at the end of the tunnel that gives you strength to travel through that dark tunnel of afflictions.

    Because though the tunnel may be dark, though the way may be dark, the Lord’s hand is with you and he will pull you through. For you have an eternal inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you. Another application, if you have been born again, if you’ve received the gift and the grace of the new birth, Seek by the grace of God to live a life that is consistent with the new birth that you have received. We have been raised up to live in newness of life, and therefore that is the indicative, if you will, that is our position in Christ. And therefore, the imperative is to live in newness of life because of what the Lord has done for you in the new birth. We claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

    By the grace of God, let us seek to act like disciples, His followers, in every area of our lives. And finally, since you have received such abundant and great mercy, do not neglect to show mercy, even to your enemies. Remember that it was not when we were worthy or when we were the Lord’s friends When we were faithful to Him, no, we were not. We were fallen in Adam. We were, by nature and by choice, sinners, rebels against our Creator, guilty of committing cosmic treason. And the Lord could have justly said, forget it. Forget it. You’re out. But it was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for us. God had mercy upon us, not because we deserved His mercy, He had mercy upon us because He is merciful. And it was when we were His enemies, shaking our fists at Him or being indifferent toward Him, that He had mercy upon us and raised us to newness of life in the Lord Jesus Christ.

    Since God has shown us such great mercy, let us strive by the grace of God to show mercy to others, even to our enemies. We can’t do that in our own strength, our own power. It’s not natural to us in our fallenness to pray for those who persecute us and even to love our enemies, which doesn’t mean liking your enemies. Jesus says to love your enemies, that is to seek their ultimate good, which would be if they’re unbelievers, that would be their repentance and so forth. We can only do this by the grace of God. In closing, let me ask you, dear listener, have you been born again? Has the Holy Spirit raised you from the deadness of your sin to newness of life in Jesus Christ? You say, well, how do I know whether I’ve been born again?

    Do you look to yourself or do you look to Jesus for your salvation? Are you repentant for your sin or do you wish to cling to it and love it and embrace it? If you are repentant and believing, then you can be assured that the Spirit is at work in your life. But remember, dear listener, God calls you and invites you to come to Jesus. Jesus died for sinners and rose from the dead so that all who believe in him might not perish, but have everlasting life. If you find within yourself the desire to believe in Christ, he welcomes you. He commands all men everywhere to repent and turn to him. Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. And you can be assured that you have received the gift of the new birth because it is we believe and repent because we have been born again.

    Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for your supernatural grace given to us in union with Christ, and we thank you that in sovereign grace you have raised us from the deadness of our sins to newness of life in the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord, to take these truths to heart and live out the implications of these truths in our lives. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, Amen. Well, friends, let’s close our time together by rising and we’ll sing together hymn 490, Behold My Servant, 490.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Sprinkling by the Blood of Jesus Christ

    Sprinkling by the Blood of Jesus Christ

    About this sermon

    1. The reason why Christ’s blood needed to be shed.
    2. The significance of Christ’s blood.
    3. The blessings of Christ’s sprinkled blood.

    More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Amen. Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word as we continue our consideration of 1 Peter. We are still in the opening verses of 1 Peter. There is so much packed into the first two verses. And so my sermon text this evening is 1 Peter 1, verses 1 and 2. So friends, let us hear with reverence and awe the Word of our God. 1 Peter 1, 1 and 2. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. May grace and peace be multiplied to you. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.

    Let’s ask the Lord to bless our time in the word this evening. Let us pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, indeed, we would pray that your grace and your peace would be multiplied to us this evening by the work of your Holy Spirit working through this word We thank You, God, for the Scriptures. And we thank You for the comfort that the Scriptures offer to us, Your people. We would ask, Heavenly Father, that You would open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from Your Word. We ask that You would encourage us and strengthen us, comfort us, challenge us, build us up in our most holy faith. And we pray that these truths would find a lodging place in our souls this evening. May this portion of Scripture be to us indeed food for our souls.

    And we pray, Heavenly Father, that You would set a guard over my lips, O Lord. Grant unto me, Your unworthy servant, the grace to declare Your Word with clarity and power and with the assistance of Your Holy Spirit. For the glory of the name of Jesus Christ and the edification of Your people and the salvation of the lost. We pray these things through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, and all of God’s people said, Amen. Friends, you may be seated. title of my sermon this evening is Sprinkling by the Blood of Jesus Christ. And there’s just two key words to listen for this evening, the words sprinkling and blood. Well, dear friends, the Apostle Peter wrote 1 Peter to Christians in Asia Minor who were facing the real possibility of severe persecution for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

    And so Peter’s main reasons for writing this letter, this epistle, included inspiring hope in the face of hardship and providing encouragement to these harassed believers. Since Peter is seeking to encourage these believers and to fortify their faith and their hope in the face of hardship, Peter begins this letter by reminding them of their true identity in Christ. Notice he doesn’t begin by reminding them of their duties or by preaching law to them. He doesn’t start out that way. He starts out reminding them of their identity in Christ. So Peter begins by addressing these believers as elect exiles of the dispersion or other translations. For example, the New King James Version translates it pilgrims of the dispersion. The NIV translates it as strangers in the world. Brothers and sisters in Christ, like all followers of Jesus, we too are pilgrims of the dispersion.

    We are elect exiles of the dispersion. By reminding us of this truth, the Holy Spirit, through Peter the Apostle, points the eyes of our faith heavenward. He is setting our sights on our true home, our eternal home. And this hope purifies our souls and it gives us strength to press on through the difficulties that we face in this present life. Peter also reminds his readers that they are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, as we see in verses 1 and 2. And as we’ve learned in recent weeks, this means that we believers have been loved with the everlasting, sovereign, saving love of God. A love that has chosen us in Christ from before the creation of the universe. A love which will therefore keep us secure even until the end. What an awesome thought that even before God spoke the universe into existence, brothers and sisters, he had you and me in mind and he intended, he set his eternal saving love upon us in Christ.

    What this means is that our heavenly father again will preserve us through our trials and persecutions, and he will enable us to persevere by his sovereign grace. And this is something that Peter’s original readers desperately needed to hear. Peter then goes on to remind his readers that they have been sanctified by the spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. Now, the obedience that Peter is speaking of here, I don’t believe he’s speaking specifically of obedience to God’s law, although striving after pursuing obedience to the law is certainly the fruit of the renewing work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives. But by God’s sovereign grace, What this is talking about is being renewed by the Spirit to obey the gospel call. By God’s sovereign grace, we have been born again.

    We’ve been regenerated and renewed by the Holy Spirit, which has enabled us to obey the call of the gospel by believing in Christ as our Savior and by repenting of our sins. This initial obedience to the gospel call of repentance and faith, of course, leads to a lifetime of walking after a new obedience, a lifetime of daily renewed repentance and faith. But not only are we sanctified by the spirit for gospel obedience, Peter goes on to say that we are sanctified for obedience and for sprinkling with his blood, sprinkling with his blood. What’s going on here? What’s he talking about? It is through this spirit wrought, obedient response of faith to the gospel call that we sinners are sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ and therefore receive the full benefits of Christ’s atoning work on the cross of Calvary.

    The Holy Spirit applies to us the saving work of Christ, the Redeemer. He applies that saving work to the elect by giving them the gift of saving faith, the faith through which we receive the full benefits of Christ’s substitutionary atonement. But again, what exactly does Peter mean when he talks about being sprinkled by the blood of Jesus Christ? Doesn’t sound sounds kind of gross, right? Sounds kind of gory. What’s he talking about in this phrase? Obviously, he’s not speaking in a physical sense. When you believe in Jesus, what happens when you believe in Jesus? It doesn’t mean that the heavens part and Jesus literally sprinkles his physical blood upon you. Obviously, Peter is using this terminology in a more metaphorical sense, but a very real sense. And that’s what we’re going to consider for my sermon on this Lord’s Day evening.

    But before we dive into the significance and meaning of what it what it means to be sprinkled with Christ’s blood, let’s first of all, consider the reason why Christ’s blood needed to be shed. Why Christ’s blood needed to be shed, it was not optional. Let’s go back to the very beginning. Man was created good and in the image of God. But as the word of God reveals, our first parents, Adam and Eve, who were real historical persons, Adam and Eve chose by their own free will to disobey a direct command of God. You know the story of what happened in the Garden of Eden. By disobeying God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, By that act, they declared their independence from God and they rejected his word.

    Indeed, they chose the lying words of the serpent, Satan, over God’s true and trustworthy word. Now, we need to remember that Adam was appointed by God to be the covenant head and representative of the human race. The representative principle is strong in the scriptures. And since Adam represented the entire human race as the initial covenant head and representative, when he sinned, we sinned in covenantal solidarity with him. And that is why we are born with a sin nature. Brothers and sisters, let me make it clear. You and I are not sinners because God created us sinful. Such a thought is utterly blasphemous. God is a good God. If God created us with an evil nature, Then God himself would be evil. No, he created us good and in his image. Well, how then did we inherit?

    How did we get a sin nature? Well, we didn’t get it from God. We inherited it from Adam. our covenant head and representative. And that is why we were born with a sin nature. The Bible says that because of our fall in Adam, we are all by nature and by choice, by fall in nature and by choice, sinners, rebels against our creator, traitors guilty of committing cosmic treason against the infinite divine majesty. Now, because the true and living God is infinitely holy and just, His holy and just character demands that sin be punished. Because we have sinned against the infinite holiness of the infinite Creator God, we therefore deserve infinite punishment for our sins. And some would say, well, can’t I make up for my sins by my penances, my good deeds, my acts of charity?

    No, friends, you cannot do that. By our own good deeds or religious endeavors, we could never pay the infinite debt of our sin, nor earn that perfect, everlasting righteousness that we would need in order to serve as our title to heaven. You see, in order to get into heaven, it’s not enough to just have your Your sins forgiven. It’s not enough to just have the slate wiped clean. That’s enough to keep you out of hell. But in order to get into heaven, think about it. Heaven is a perfect place. God is a perfect God. Heaven is a perfect place. You and I need a perfect, everlasting righteousness to serve as our title to gain entrance into heaven. And we don’t have it in ourselves. And so. This is why we so desperately need a perfect, sinless Savior.

    A Savior who will not only pay the infinite debt of our sin, but who will also credit to us His perfect, everlasting righteousness. And that’s precisely what Jesus Christ did for those whom He represented as the second or last Adam. My friends, the good news is that out of love for hell-deserving sinners like me and like you, God the Father sent His eternal Son into this world in order to save His people from their sins. That’s why He’s called Jesus, Yeshua. The word Jesus means the Lord is salvation. And as we’re told in Matthew 1, the angel directed Joseph to name Him Jesus. Why? Because He would save His people from their sins. Sin is a big deal to God because God is holy and righteous. Sin is such a serious offense. Because sin is such a serious offense against God, only God has the omnipotent power and grace needed to save fallen humanity from their sins.

    However, since it was man who sinned against God, God could only save mankind by taking to himself a human nature body and soul, and by representing fallen man in that human nature. And that is precisely what God did in the person of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the infinite God-man, the Word made flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. God the Son, the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity in the Incarnation, He took upon Himself a sinless human nature, body and soul, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is fully God and fully man. True God and true man united in one divine person. And that is why He can serve as the mediator between God and man. The only saving religion that there is, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

    Because only the Gospel of Jesus Christ presents to fallen sinners a perfect, sinless mediator. A mediator who provides not only atonement and cleansing from our sins by His precious blood, but a mediator who provides the gift of His righteousness credited to us, received by faith alone. And so, because of the obedient life, the atoning death and the glorious resurrection of Christ, The moment you hear the Gospel and the Holy Spirit opens your heart and calls you through the effectual call to trust Christ and Christ alone for your salvation from sin. The moment that the Spirit regenerates and converts you. At that moment, your sins are forgiven. The benefits of Christ’s shed blood are applied to you and you receive. You are clothed in Christ’s perfect, everlasting righteousness. So that, judicially speaking, when God the Judge looks at you, He sees not you in your sin.

    He sees his son. He sees Jesus and Jesus’s righteousness. Praise be to God. The long and short of it is, friends, is that Christ needed to shed his blood on the cross because that was the only way that God’s elect could be saved from their sins. There was no other way. The God-man had to pay the penalty for sin and had to provide that perfect, everlasting righteousness which is necessary to gain entrance into glory. Dear listener, have you trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ and His shed blood on the cross of Calvary to cleanse you from your sins? Do you look to Jesus and Jesus alone as your righteousness, your redemption, your sanctification, and your wisdom? Jesus in the Gospel offers Himself to you. He offers full and free pardon. And He not only offers to wipe the slate clean, to cleanse you through his blood, to sprinkle you with his blood.

    He offers to clothe you in his righteousness. Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. So we see the reason why Jesus had to die, why his blood had to be shed. But let’s next consider in more detail the significance of Christ’s blood. Peter, in opening his first epistle, reminds his readers and therefore reminds us. that we have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. This is one of the blessed blessings of the of the gospel. What is the significance of Christ’s blood? You know, modernists and liberals and rationalist Bible scholars often scoff at the biblical doctrine of the substitutionary atonement. They said, oh, that’s just blood and gore religion. And to suggest that it is, in my mind, is the height of arrogance and blasphemy.

    These folks don’t understand the significance of the shedding of blood as it is revealed in the scriptures. What is the significance of Christ’s blood? Well, we need to kind of look at the Old Testament background a little bit. Let us, first of all, remember the important principle that is revealed in the scriptures that the life is in the blood. If you are in an accident and a major artery is severed and you bleed out, If you have a severe wound and you are swiftly losing blood, as your blood drains from your body, your life drains from your body. The life is in the blood. Let’s take a look at Leviticus 17, verses 10 and 11. Some of the Old Testament background to this concept of being sprinkled with the blood of Christ. Leviticus chapter 10.

    I’m sorry, Leviticus 17 verses 10 and 11. Leviticus chapter 17 verses 10 and 11. And in this passage, the Holy Spirit through Moses instructs the old covenant people of God that they are not to eat meat with the blood in it. It says in verse 10, if anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. Either cutting him off, either meaning excommunicate, put them outside the covenant community, or perhaps even this perhaps might even indicate a threat of death. Why is it that eating meat with the blood in it at this particular point in redemptive history carried with it such a severe penalty? Look at verse 11.

    The Lord explains, for the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it, I’ve given this blood for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. That blood does not belong to you. It belongs on my altar, God is saying to the people. And I provide that blood to make atonement for your souls. So by ingesting the blood instead of offering it on the altar, that was an act, an implicit act of rejecting God’s provision of blood atonement. Now, I want you, as we reflect on that passage, notice that God is the one who provides this blood for atonement. The blood is a gift from God, not something that man earns by works or merits. When we say, looking forward towards the New Testament, the New Covenant, when we say that Jesus Christ poured out his blood on the cross for sinners, we mean that he poured out his very life on the cross in order to redeem us.

    The blood represents the life. And to say that Jesus gave his blood for us means that he gave up his life for us. He substituted his life on the cross, bearing our curse so that we might receive his blessing, his grace, his forgiveness. So the blood, the life is in the blood. The principle that we read in the Old Testament is that the life is in the blood. Another principle that is revealed in scripture is that sprinkling with blood was a symbol of cleansing. Sprinkling with blood was a symbol of cleansing. Let’s go to another passage in Leviticus, Leviticus chapter 14, and let me read verses one through seven. Leviticus 14, verses one through seven, which contains instructions for what was to be done in the case of lepers in restoring them ritually to the covenant community.

    It says this. The Lord spoke to Moses saying this shall be the law of the leprous person for the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought to the priest and the priest shall go out of the camp and the priest shall look. Then if the case of leprous disease is healed in the leprous person, the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed, two live clean birds and cedar wood and scarlet yarn and hyssop. And the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthenware vessel over fresh water. He shall take the live bird with the cedar wood and the scarlet yarn and the hyssop and dip them and the live bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water.

    And he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed of the leprous disease. Then he shall pronounce him clean and shall let the living bird go into the open field. Again, we read that today and we think this is kind of a strange ritual what’s going on here. But again, this is meant to anticipate and point us to Jesus Christ. This passage tells us that when a leper had been healed of his leprosy, he was to be sprinkled with the blood of a bird. This ritual was one of the means by which the former leper was ritually cleansed and therefore welcomed back into the life of the worshiping covenant community, sprinkling with blood. We learn from this passage, therefore, that sprinkling with blood is a symbol of cleansing from sin and impurity.

    Well, friends, again, as I said, this points us to Christ in the New Covenant. And through the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross, through His precious blood, we believers are cleansed from our sin. Our sin is like a spiritual leprosy. But through the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, we are cleansed from that spiritual leprosy and we are welcomed back into the covenant people of God. Sprinkling with blood was also a symbol of setting apart or sanctification, consecration, setting apart for service to God. Let’s take a look at two very short passages, Exodus 29, 19 to 21, and then Leviticus 830. But let’s go back, first of all, to Exodus chapter 29. Verses 19 through 21. Making you skip around in your Bibles this evening. As we compare scripture with scripture, Exodus 29, 19 through 21, we read these words.

    And this was instructions that the Lord gave to Moses for the consecration of the Aaronic priests, you shall take the other ram. And Aaron and his son shall lay their hands on the head of the ram, a symbol of being identified with the ram. And you shall kill the ram and take part of its blood and put it on the tip of the right ear of Aaron and on the tips of the right ears of his sons and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the great toes of their right feet and throw the rest of the blood against the sides of the altar. Then you shall take part of the blood that is on the altar and of the anointing oil and sprinkle it on Aaron and his garments and on his sons and his son’s garments with him.

    He and his garments shall be holy and his sons and his son’s garments with him. Holy, set apart, consecrated for the service of God. And then Leviticus eight, verse 30. Leviticus chapter eight. Verse 30, again, dealing with instructions for consecrating Aaron and his sons for the priesthood. It says, Then Moses took some of the anointing oil and of the blood that was on the altar and sprinkled it on Aaron and his garments and also on his sons and his son’s garments. So he consecrated Aaron and his garments and his sons and his son’s garments with him. Again, from our 21st century perspective and living as we do under the new covenant, these rituals may seem rather strange, but these verses, what do they teach us? Well, they indicate that it was through the ritual of sprinkling with blood that Aaron and his sons were consecrated or set apart to their priestly service to the Lord.

    And you may say, well, that’s interesting, Pastor, but we’re not priests today, are we? Well, we’re not priests like Aaron was, and we’re certainly not priests like Jesus is. We don’t offer atoning sacrifices. But through the sprinkling of Christ’s blood, we Christians are likewise set apart to be a kingdom of priests unto God. And we are indeed called in this priestly service to offer unto God the spiritual sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, both with our lips and by our obedient lives. In fact, getting back to our passage for today, Peter, in this very epistle, speaks of our priesthood as believers. If you skip ahead to chapter two and look at verses four and five in First Peter, chapter two, verses four and five, it says, As you come to him, that’s Jesus, as you come to Jesus, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be what?

    To be a holy priesthood. Peter’s Peter’s addressing believers in general. He’s not addressing ministers or elders. He’s addressing all of God’s people. We are being built up. not only as a spiritual house or temple, but a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And that’s what we do, by the way, when we sing praises to God and offer our prayers to God. We are offering to God sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. And the reason that we can do that and have those sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving accepted by God is because we have been sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ. And there’s many other things that could be spoken of in terms of the significance of the sprinkling of blood. But the final point I want to make here under this second point is that the sprinkling of blood confirms the covenant between God and his people.

    According to Exodus chapter 24, verses 1 through 8, which I read to you earlier in the service, Moses confirmed the covenant between God and his people by doing something rather strange, by sprinkling them. with the blood of the covenant by, you know, if you were standing around Moses on that occasion, Moses would throw some blood on you. And that would be a sign of the confirmation of the covenant between God and his people. Likewise, think about our Lord Jesus when he instituted the Lord’s Supper. When our Lord instituted the Holy Supper, he indicated that his shed blood would ratify and confirm the new covenant. For example, consider our Lord’s language in Matthew 26, verse 28, Matthew 26, verse 28, which is Matthew’s account of our Lord’s institution of the Holy Supper. I’m going to start with verse 27.

    It says. And he took a cup. And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink of it, all of you, for this is my what? This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Because of Jesus’s shed blood on the cross, God’s elect are confirmed as the beneficiaries of the covenant of grace. And by the benefits of Christ’s sprinkled blood, which we receive through our faith in him, we receive all of the saving benefits of that covenant of grace. Through the sprinkling of Christ’s blood, we receive all of the blessings of the new covenant. Praise be to our faithful covenant, God, for his wonderful mercies to us in Christ, our Savior. So we’ve considered why it was that Christ needed to shed his blood.

    We’ve considered, as we’ve looked at various scripture passages, the significance of the sprinkling of blood. But finally, let us consider the blessings of Christ’s sprinkled blood, the blessings of Christ’s sprinkled blood. There’s many things, many blessings that come to us because we are sprinkled with the blood of Christ, because we are cleansed through the blood of Christ. And let me just mention a few. First of all, believer. Through the blood of Christ, your sin has been atoned for and thus your sins have been forgiven. Now, we are tempted to think, well, yeah, that’s the message that unbelievers need to hear. They need to hear that they are to trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. And that certainly is true. Unbelievers need to hear the good news so that those among them that are of God’s elect may be may be drawn to Christ. and may come to trust in Christ as their Lord and Savior.

    But we Christians, we, too, need to hear the good news, not just once. We need to hear it over and over and over again, because each and every one of us has a little Pharisee, a little Judaizer in our souls saying, well, I can fix this. I can do it myself. I can pick myself up by my bootstraps or I can help Jesus save me. I’m not completely helpless. I can do something right. then that little pride, that little proud Pharisee in us starts to rise up. Friends, nothing but the blood of Jesus can cleanse us from our sins. The good news is that through the blood of Christ, through His atoning sacrifice on the cross, your sin and mine has been atoned for. And thus, through faith in Christ, God-given faith in Christ, our sins have been forgiven.

    Our sins have been forgiven. Get it through your thick skull, Christian! Your sins are forgiven! Do you believe it? Do you really believe it? Our Lord’s death on the cross was a penal substitutionary atonement for sin. What that means is that He took the penalty that we deserve. He suffered in our place, in our stead. His atonement on the cross purchased the gift of saving faith for you and for me. And through that faith, that God-given faith, you and I have received the full benefits of His precious shed blood. Yes, it is true. Jesus even died for your sins of unbelief and your rejection of Him when you were still in an unsaved condition. I’ve heard some suggest that, well, Jesus died for every sin except the sin of unbelief. Well, if that’s the case, I’m hopeless because I still struggle with unbelief.

    And either I can remember, I don’t know about you folks, some of you have been raised in faithful covenant homes and you can never remember a time when you didn’t repent and believe. Praise God for that, if that’s your testimony. But for some of us, we can remember a time when we were still in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. We can still remember a time when we did not know or trust in the Lord, when we were unbelieving and unrepentant. But Jesus died even for that unbelief and impenitence. Oh, what marvelous, super abounding grace. Another blessing of Christ’s sprinkled blood. You, believer, have been consecrated, set apart, to belong to Christ forever. Yes, you’ve been set apart to serve, but you’ve also been set apart to be His beloved, blood-bought child, both for time and for eternity.

    You are His now. You are His forever. And because atonement and forgiveness have been provided for you through the sprinkling of Christ’s blood, you can know the blessing of a clear conscience. Oh, how many walk around with a load of guilt on their consciences. Skeletons in their closet from the past. Things that they look back on their lives and they say, I’m just so ashamed that I behave that way or that I said this thing or that I, you know, I sinned against the Lord on that occasion in that way. How many walk with a load of guilt on their consciences? How many are tormented by an accusing conscience? Few things are more painful, subjectively speaking, than an accusing guilty conscience. The Bible indicates that the wicked in hell will not only suffer in their physical bodies, the indescribable torments in their resurrected bodies, but subjectively and internally, they will also suffer the throbbing pangs of an accusing conscience, which will never be relieved.

    It will be like the worm that never dies. An accusing conscience can rob you of peace, It can strip away the comfort that the gospel promises are intended to bestow upon believers. And it can even lead to the kind of mental anguish that is encountered by the psychological profession. It can even lead to suicide. But friends, there is an antidote to the poison of a guilty conscience. And that antidote is the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. The only lasting solution to a guilty, accusing conscience is the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. I know I read this earlier in the service, but let me read to pass two verses as we close our time in the word this evening. Hebrews 9, 13 and 14. The author of Hebrews writes, for if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

    Dear listener, do you enjoy a clear conscience? Or is your conscience still plagued by guilt because of past sins? Has your conscience been sprinkled by the blood of Christ? You say, well, you know, I’m still struggling with sin, so I still have a guilty conscience. His mercies are new every morning. His covenant faithfulness remains. Even when we are faithless, He remains faithful. That’s not an excuse to be faithless. It’s not an excuse to give ourselves over to antinomianism or anything like that. But brothers and sisters in Christ, God knows, God, your Heavenly Father, He knows that you failed in the past. He knows you’re going to fail tomorrow and next week and the rest of your life. But He still loves you. And the blood of Jesus was shed to cleanse you, not only from those past sins, not only from your present struggles, but even from those future sins.

    So rest upon Christ. Take His yoke upon you. Learn from Him. Remember, Jesus said, I am gentle and lowly in spirit. He will not crush the wounded. He will not snuff out the smoldering wick. He is compassionate. He is merciful. Trust in Him. May God bless you and me as we are sprinkled in our consciences by the blood of Jesus. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you that you loved us to such an extent that you gave your son Jesus to take the curse upon himself, to take our curse upon himself. that we might receive your blessings of grace. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you would sprinkle our consciences clean by the blood of Christ, that you would renew us by your spirit, that we might live lives confident in Christ and show forth gratitude by our obedience to you.

    We pray these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus name and all of God’s people said. Amen. Let’s respond to what we’ve heard this evening by rising and we’ll sing as our closing hymn. Nothing but the blood. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. 278, 278.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Sanctification of the Spirit: Being a Holy People in a Hostile World

    Sanctification of the Spirit: Being a Holy People in a Hostile World

    About this sermon

    Christians must live as a holy people in a hostile world, facing three enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil. Christ has already overcome all three. God the Father chose his people so that they would become holy, and the Spirit’s sanctifying work first gives them new birth and then leads them into obedience and the sprinkling of Christ’s blood. Growth in holiness is slow, like watching corn grow, and it makes believers more humble, but God will finish the good work he began.

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    Sermon transcript

    My sermon text this evening, as we have begun a new sermon series in 1 Peter, we continue to consider the various phrases and statements here in the opening section of 1 Peter, chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. So that is my sermon text this evening, but I’m going to read verses 1 through 9 to fill out the context a bit. So let us hear, once again, God’s holy word. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ, and for sprinkling with his blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

    In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Once again, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the preaching of his word. Lord and Father in heaven, once again, we are awed at the truth that you have spoken to us, and we thank you for your word of grace in Jesus Christ.

    We pray that we might hear that word of grace this evening as we consider this portion of your God-breathed, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word We ask that this passage of Holy Scripture would indeed be to us a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path, a guide to our way. And we ask, Lord, that you would feed our souls this evening, edify us and build us up, challenge and strengthen us. We pray these things through Christ our Lord and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. This evening we’re gonna focus on the phrase, in the sanctification of the spirit. And so the title of my sermon this evening is, Sanctification of the Spirit, Being a Holy People in a Hostile World. And there’s just a couple key words for the children to listen for this evening.

    Sanctification and then sanctify and holy. Well, dear friends, the challenge that was faced by the original recipients of 1 Peter is essentially the same challenge that has been faced by all true followers of Christ in every age of church history. And that is the challenge of how to live as a holy people in the midst of a hostile, unholy world. As Christians living in this present evil age, we face many obstacles that threaten to hinder us from becoming the kind of people that Christ has redeemed and called us to be. The Word of God identifies three specific obstacles or hindrances or enemies to holy living. These obstacles being identified as the world, the flesh, and the devil. Three powerful enemies that set themselves against us in our pursuit of holiness. Now let’s take them one at a time.

    When the Bible uses the term world in a negative sense, it is referring to this present disordered world, this world that has resulted from mankind’s fall into sin in Adam. It is the world as it has set itself in opposition to the lordship of Jesus Christ and the truth of God’s word. It is the world which is in the grips and under the control of Satan and his servants. When the scriptures refer to the flesh in a negative sense, they’re not talking about our physical skin or about the human body as if the skin and body that God himself has created was somehow an evil thing. No, instead the term flesh is sometimes used in the body to describe man’s sinful nature. That sinful nature expresses itself through our flesh, our bodies, but nevertheless, in the negative sense of that term, the flesh refers to basically our sin nature, our corrupt, fallen sin nature.

    And though we as Christians, though as Christians our flesh has in principle been put to death because of our union with the Lord Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection, at the same time in this present age every believer will continue throughout his or her life to do battle against the remnants of the sin nature that remain within us. And of course the final obstacle to holiness that we believers face in this hostile world is the devil himself, God’s arch enemy and the devil’s servants. Now these are imposing and powerful enemies. Friends, with such imposing obstacles facing us, what hope do we believers have when it comes to living holy lives in the midst of a hostile world? How can we ever hope to stand against the world, the flesh, and the devil? It is at times when we are tempted to be discouraged in our spiritual warfare that we need to remind ourselves, brothers and sisters, that Christ our Savior has Himself overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil.

    He is our divine victor over the world, the flesh, and the devil. And the word of God says that we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Through Christ, we are more than conquerors. As the scriptures assure us, he who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. And Christ enables us by his grace and indwelling spirit to live progressively and increasingly holy lives through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, the kind of sanctification that the Apostle Peter speaks of in our text for this Lord’s Day evening. Again, as our passage says, we are elect exiles, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of Christ. But, you know, when we consider the term and the concept of sanctification, that term and that concept in Scripture can be viewed from several different angles.

    Sanctification, for example, can be viewed as both an event and as a process. Believer, when the Holy Spirit caused you to be renewed, regenerated, born again, and effectually called you through the gospel to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as your very own Savior from sin, when that happened, you were then and there sanctified forever. You were set apart once and for all and forever. Theologians sometimes call this definitive or positional sanctification. That’s what it means to be a saint. It means to be a set-apart one, a holy one, one who has been consecrated to God through the finished work of Christ. Again, you were set-apart believer to be consecrated, to belong to Christ, not only for time but for eternity. All true Christians are sanctified in this sense, the moment that they are born again and converted to Christ.

    Even Christians who are messed up like the Corinthian Christians were. It’s amazing to me, if you read 1 Corinthians, if you’re familiar with that portion of scripture, the Corinthian church had all kinds of problems. There was division and schism in the church. There were some Christians who were falling back into old pagan patterns of sexual immorality and even idol worship and yet notice how Paul addresses the Corinthians in his opening opening words in 1st Corinthians chapter 1 verse 2. He opens up saying who the letter is from, Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those, what? To those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.

    But friends, that initial setting apart that begins our Christian lives, that positional or definitive sanctification that begins our lives, begins a lifelong process of growing in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. There’s no one who has been definitively or positionally sanctified who is not also being progressively sanctified and growing in the knowledge and love of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a process, again, that is often called progressive sanctification because it’s a process that happens over a lengthy period of time, over a lifetime indeed. What this means, brothers and sisters, is that if you are a born-again Christian, You have been sanctified and you are also being sanctified. If you ever get into a conversation with a fellow Christian, perhaps from another denominational tradition who asks you, well, are you sanctified?

    You can say, yes, I have been sanctified, but I am also being sanctified. By his indwelling spirit, God gradually over time continues to conform you more and more. into the ethical image of His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So then, sanctification means having been set apart to belong to Christ, which is what it means to be a saint, a set apart one, a consecrated one, a holy one, and it is also being increasingly changed over time so that you become more like Jesus as you grow in the knowledge and love of the Lord. Well, friends, in our text for this Lord’s Day evening, the Apostle Paul expresses and points to this truth by telling us that we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.

    In our passage for this evening, We will consider three things. First of all, we will consider the foundation of our sanctification. Then we will consider the agent of our sanctification. And finally, we will consider the effects of our sanctification. If you’re busy writing down those three points, those are the three points. The foundation of our sanctification, the agent of our sanctification, and the effects of our sanctification. Let’s first of all consider the foundation of our sanctification. How is it that we are sanctified? What is our sanctification grounded in? Well again, Paul makes it clear. We are sanctified because we have been elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Friends, our eternal election in Christ according to the Father’s love of foreknowledge is the bedrock foundation of our sanctification. Now, as we have learned in recent weeks, God’s foreknowledge does not mean that God simply foresees our actions.

    God’s foreknowledge does not simply mean that God chose us because he looked down the corridors of time and he foresaw that we would believe in Christ and live holy lives. If God chose us because he foresaw that we would choose him, that would mean salvation is ultimately our work and is the result of our actions or decisions. But friends, God’s foreknowledge means that God in sovereign mercy and grace has loved us even before the creation of the universe. And therefore, he has chosen us, not because he foresaw that we would have faith and live holy lives, but he loved us in order that we might come to believe in Christ and live holy lives. We have been loved and chosen unto faith and sanctification. In other words, we believe in Christ and strive to live holy lives because God in his sovereign grace and mercy has unconditionally elected or chosen us unto salvation, even before he created the universe.

    We were chosen by God, not because God foresaw that we would be holy or worthy of being chosen. That would make salvation by works, not by grace. Instead, we were chosen so that we might become His redeemed, holy, obedient people. Dr. I. Howard Marshall in his commentary on 1 Peter, and it’s my understanding that Dr. Marshall is not a Calvinist or not reformed in any way, and yet he explains that the phrase in the sanctification of the spirit, or as it is translated in the New International Version, through the sanctifying work of the spirit, that this phrase in verse two, quote, expresses the way in which God’s choice and its effects take place. What that means is that the results which come about from God choosing us take place in our lives through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.

    Again, the Father has chosen us unto salvation. The Son incarnate in time has redeemed us by his obedient life and atoning death. and glorious resurrection and ascension and intercession for us at the Father’s right hand. And God, the Holy Spirit, in God’s timing, applies the redeeming work of Christ to us. Now, how should we react to this truth? There’s many things that could be said in answer to that question, but let me just suggest three important ways, three important implications of this truth. First of all, beloved, this truth ought to make us humble. After all, the fruit of the Spirit in our lives is the fruit of the Spirit. Not the fruit of our own self-efforts, our own resolutions to do more, try harder, be better. Not the fruits of our own attempts at being pious, but the fruit of the Spirit.

    Now does that mean that in the Christian life we should just sit back and be passive, sort of the let go, let God mindset? That we shouldn’t be diligent in seeking to pursue holiness? No, it doesn’t mean that at all. We ought to diligently use the means of grace. We ought to diligently seek to fight against sin, to put off sin and put on holiness and pursue Christ. But let us understand that if we do that, it is because God is at work in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. So he and he alone gets the glory. I remember as as a young believer, and again, I’ve shared this before, and I don’t wanna get too autobiographical, but insofar as I understand the Lord’s work in my own life, I believe I was effectually called or converted to Christ as a 15-year-old in the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of high school.

    I remember as a young believer, a year after I had come to trust Christ as my Savior, I remember looking back and, you know, I had been reading my Bible and learning about the faith and I remember looking back and thinking, I wonder if I’m starting to mature as a Christian. I wonder now if I’m a grown-up Christian, right? And then two years after my conversion, three years, I would sometimes look back and sometimes I would feel proud, like, wow, I’m really crushing it in the Christian life. I’m reading my Bible, I’m praying, I’m going to church regularly. Then I had a bit of a dark night of the soul. in college for about a semester, a year. I fell into a cult for a couple months and I thought that I committed the unpardonable sin I considered suicide.

    The Lord humbled me humbled me through that experience. And by the way, that was one of the impetuses that drove me to the Reformed faith because when I looked at my own life, I realized there’s no way my salvation can be based on my performance, my religiosity, my piety. No. It’s all by grace and grace alone. And what a freeing truth that was. To know, as God’s word says, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Even if you’ve messed up and wandered astray, the good shepherd seeks after his lost and wandering sheep. Brothers and sisters, if you are being sanctified by the Spirit, if you are growing in your faith, What that will mean is that the more you grow in grace, the more sinful you will realize you are.

    The more you get closer to Jesus, the more the light of his holiness will shine into the dark corners of your soul and show you that you’re not as holy as you think you are. And the more that will drive you to the foot of the cross, and it is only there that you will find relief. That is what sanctification does. It results in you becoming more humble. The fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, the fruit of the Spirit is not something that you work up within yourself. It is not something that you can produce by your own efforts at trying harder and making resolutions. It is the result of the Spirit’s secret, mysterious work. So let this truth humble you. This truth also ought to make us thankful.

    If we are being sanctified by the Spirit, it means that God has chosen us for salvation and loved us with the everlasting love of foreknowledge. Doesn’t that blow your mind, dear Christian, to think that God loved you even before He spoke the universe into existence. God had you and me in mind. He had plans of mercy in view for you even before He created you, even before He created the universe. that ought to fill your heart with joy inexpressible and filled with glory and deep thankfulness for the amazing grace and mercy of God. If we are being sanctified by the Spirit, it means that God has chosen us for salvation and loved us with the everlasting love of foreknowledge. Praise be to God. This truth also ought to make us confident. Confident, even in the face of hostility.

    Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have been set apart to belong to Christ, not only for time, but for eternity, forever. And even if we struggle with sin, which we will, that’s not an excuse to sin, but simply a realistic recognition that the sin principle will remain in us until we take our dying breath And so the Christian life is a battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. But even if we struggle with sin, again, which we will, if we belong to Jesus Christ, and if we are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, which we will be if we belong to Christ, we can rest assured that God will cause us to prevail in the end. For he who began a good work in us will carry it through to completion. So the foundation of our sanctification is God’s eternal love of foreknowledge.

    Let’s consider next the agent of our sanctification. Who is it that sanctifies us according to Peter here? We are chosen by God according to his foreknowledge in the sanctification of what? Your spirit? Your pious intentions, no, in the sanctification of the spirit, that is the divine spirit, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity. Friends, the Holy Spirit is the divine agent of our sanctification. Again, notice how the Apostle Paul mentions all three persons of the Holy Trinity in verse two. This reminds us that the apostolic faith was and is a thoroughly Trinitarian faith. All three persons of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are active in working out our salvation. And in the work of our salvation, the work of sanctification in particular is ascribed specifically to God the Holy Spirit.

    That doesn’t mean that the Father and the Son have nothing to do with our sanctification, but it does mean that the direct agent of our sanctification is the Holy Spirit. That is the agent to whom our sanctification is ascribed. The word which is translated here in, here in the ESV, is the Greek word en. And according to the linguists and grammarians, this word is probably being used here in what is called the instrumental sense. What that means is that the effects of having been elected and foreknown by God take place through or by means of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. And that’s why I think that, at least in this particular case, the New International Version translation probably gives the better sense of the original when it translates it through the sanctifying work of the Spirit.

    What God has planned for us in our salvation is applied to us through the sanctifying work of the Spirit. As one commentator states, the order of terms employed suggests that the sanctifying work of the Spirit referred to here is the influence of the Spirit that draws one from sin towards holiness. Peter says it is for or to obedience and sprinkling of Christ’s blood. In other words, the Spirit’s sanctifying leads to obedient saving faith and cleansing from sin. So in other words, friends, when Peter talks here about the sanctification of the Spirit, Peter seems to be using this term sanctification in this context to refer to what the theologians normally call regeneration or being born again. But again, this initial sanctification, this initial renewal by the Holy Spirit by which you are born again, that’s not the end.

    It isn’t just that God zaps you, you’re born again, okay, that’s it, everything’s cool. No, you’re born again and then that begins the Christian life. That is just the beginning of a lifelong process of growing up spiritually to be more like Jesus. That is your purpose in life. That is God’s purpose for you, believer. Your sanctification, your growth into the image of Jesus Christ, making you more and more like Jesus. And the divine agent of this initial and continued spiritual transformation is none other than the spirit of the living God himself. The fact that the Holy Spirit is the agent of our sanctification ought to lead us to give God all the glory for any progress that we make in the Christian life. Remember, pride goes before a fall. Be very wary. If you think you’re crushing it in the Christian life, it’s time to sit back and say, whoa, what’s going on here?

    What sin am I ignoring? What am I overlooking? Because Christ alone is your righteousness. Christ alone is your redemption. Christ alone is your sanctification and your wisdom. to God alone be the glory. Dear listener, have you been and are you being sanctified by the Spirit? May God in His sovereign grace draw you to Christ, causing you to trust in Him and Him alone for your salvation. By the grace of God, repent of your sin and believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation from sin. And that leads me to my final point. We’ve considered the foundation of our sanctification, the agent of our sanctification, but now let us consider the effects of sanctification, which Peter mentions here, the effects of sanctification. He says we are chosen and called in the sanctification of the spirit for what?

    For obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. The word obey is not a four-letter curse word. It is what we are called to. But what is this obedience that Peter specifically has in mind here? Is he talking about obedience to God’s law? Is he talking about, is he giving a sort of opening the door for a works righteousness view of salvation? Well, no. The primary thing that Peter probably has in mind here when he talks about obedience to Jesus Christ is that initial obedience which is involved in the call of the gospel, the call to faith and repentance. However, once again, no doubt Peter understood, as we should understand, that this initial obedience of repentance from sin and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, this initial obedience of conversion in response to the gospel call will inevitably lead to a life of walking after, pursuing a new obedience, walking after a new obedience as our confessional standards like to put it.

    So what are the results of this sanctifying of the Spirit? Obedience to Jesus Christ, in other words, true conversion to Christ by the sovereign grace of God. But then he goes on to mention, and for sprinkling with his blood, through faith, through saving faith in Christ, we receive the benefits of Christ’s shed blood. Now I plan to preach on the phrase, the sprinkling of His blood on the next Lord’s Day evening, so more on this particular point in a future sermon. But here I would simply remind us that this phrase points to the truth, that it is the Holy Spirit who applies to us the redeeming work of Christ. Again, as I’ve already said, but as we need to hear over and over again, the Father has chosen us in Christ God the Son incarnate has redeemed us by his precious blood and the spirit of sanctification, the Holy Spirit, applies to us the benefits of Christ’s atoning blood.

    How do we receive those benefits? By God-given faith. Simply put, believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Trust that in Christ you have a merciful, forgiving God. It is the Spirit that enables you to believe in Christ, and it is the Spirit who will apply to you the benefits of His shed blood, namely forgiveness of all of your sins and a right standing with God. So what are some of the lessons we can learn here? We can learn many lessons, but let me just leave you with two thoughts as we close our time in the Word this evening. First of all, true believers desire to live holy, obedient lives. If you love your sin, if you are arrogant and unrepentant in your sin and you cling to it, you don’t want to let it go, I can assure you, you are not a Christian.

    You’re not born again. The Spirit, if He is at work in your heart and life, will implant within your soul a desire for holiness. Though you still have your sin nature and you will still desire other things as well, there will be that inner conflict. Yet in your heart of hearts, you desire to live a holy, obedient life. And by the way, if you have that genuine desire, however faint, take encouragement from that, for that shows that the Spirit is at work in you. Yes, we who are believers will continue to struggle with sin as long as we continue in this present life. The world may overwhelm us with its temptations. The devil may mightily discourage and viciously accuse us. He’s called the accuser of the brethren for a reason. He loves to dredge up your past, remind you of all the bad stuff you did in the past, and remind you also of your present sin struggles.

    Well, how can you call yourself a Christian when you did this? on this particular occasion, when you thought that thought or said that word or committed that sinful deed, how can you call yourself a Christian if you’re thinking, if you still struggle with those evil, sinful thoughts? The devil would love to get your focus off of Jesus and back onto yourself. The devil would love to get you navel-gazing. Don’t fall for it. For every look that you take in yourself, for every act of legitimate self-examination, for every look at yourself, take three looks at Jesus at least. Keep your eyes fixed upon him. So the world may seek to overwhelm you with its temptations. The devil may seek to discourage you. And your own sinful flesh may often seem to get the upper hand. But if we are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, then in our heart of hearts, we will desire nothing more than to live holy lives that are pleasing to our loving Father, and we will strive after holiness in heart and life, however halting and imperfect that striving may be.

    And so believer, let me leave you with this. Believer, be encouraged. Though you may be painfully aware of your own struggle with sin, The truth is that the Spirit is leading you into greater and more consistent obedience. You may look, if you’ve been in the Lord for a while, you may look back in your life and say, you know, Pastor, I’m not sure if I see much growth in sanctification. I seem to be struggling with the same sins, and where’s the change that there ought to be? I remember reading a comment once, I believe by the Reformed theologian Michael Horton. He made a comment once that discipleship is like watching corn grow. You ever tried to watch corn grow? You know, you fertilize it, you make sure it’s watered, and then you pull out a seat and you watch.

    Are you gonna see that corn grow? You’re gonna be sitting there a long time. It’s a gradual process. While holiness, progressive sanctification, is the same way. And so my encouragement to you is continue fighting the good fight. God is indeed at work in you, both to will and to do. And he who began a good work in you, not may, not might, but will carry it through to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. May God encourage and bless you, dear brother, dear sister in Christ. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Sovereign and Eternal God, we praise you and thank you for the finished work of Christ. We thank you for the work of your Spirit, who works in us both to will and to do that which is your good pleasure, and who is conforming us over time into the image of Christ.

    We do pray that you would deepen our hunger and thirst after righteousness, our desire after holiness, and we pray that you would help us from our hearts to hate sin more and more, and to love righteousness, and to pursue holiness, not in order to gain your grace or favor, but because you have been so merciful and kind to us. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. Let’s respond to what we’ve heard this evening by rising and singing number 502, All for Jesus. As we prepare to partake of the Lord’s supper together, we’ll sing 502, All for Jesus.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Elect according to God’s Foreknowledge, Part 2

    Elect according to God’s Foreknowledge, Part 2

    About this sermon

    Peter comforts persecuted believers by reminding them that they are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. God’s foreknowledge means his love set on his people before creation, and it never depends on anything he foresaw in them. Roman sacramentalism and Arminian revivalism both make God’s saving power depend on the sinner’s permission. God changes the will of sinners so that they come to Christ, and he will never turn away anyone who comes.

    More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Dear friends, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word as we continue our consideration of 1 Peter 1, verses 1 and 2. 1 Peter 1, verses 1 and 2. Hear God’s Holy Word. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the preaching of his word. Heavenly Father, we do thank you and praise you for the spirit of Messiah, the Lord Jesus. We thank you that the spirit has breathed out the scriptures.

    We thank you that by your spirit, through sovereign grace, you have spoken new life into our souls, implanting us into Christ. And we thank you that by your spirit, you are at work in us, sanctifying us, conforming us more and more into the image of Christ. And that one day, indeed, we will be glorified in him. Lord, as we come before your word this evening, we pray that your spirit would once again open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word. And especially, Lord, help us to understand the importance and the significance of the truth that we have been foreknown by you, O God, our heavenly father. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you would help us to appreciate that, indeed, we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.

    In Jesus’ name we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this evening is elect according to God’s foreknowledge part two. I know we’ve been spending a lot of time in this opening section of Peter’s first epistle, but this is a very important section and it kind of sets the trajectory and the focus of the rest of this marvelous portion of God’s holy word known as first Peter. And there are four key words to listen for in my sermon this evening. The words grace, elect, and then maybe two words that you may or may not be familiar with, the word synergism and the word monergism. Well, dear ones, when you and I face struggles and trials in our lives, what do we need? Well, of course, we need comfort.

    We need encouragement. This would especially be the case if we found ourselves facing mistreatment, hostility, perhaps even outright persecution simply because of our commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. As Christians, we are committed to following and obeying and trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and confessing him to a lost and dying world. God’s Word, of course, is a source of rich encouragement and deep comfort for suffering and struggling believers. In fact, one of the Apostle Peter’s main purposes in penning this epistle known as First Peter was to encourage and comfort Christians who were facing outright hostility and persecution simply because they confessed Jesus as their Lord. They were facing what Peter later on in this epistle describes as the fiery trials of affliction. It was because Peter was speaking to encourage these believers that he begins this letter by reminding them of their identity as elect exiles of the dispersion, as he calls them in verse one, as well as by reminding them of the spiritual and saving blessings of grace and peace that God had granted to them.

    He highlights these blessings of grace and peace especially in verse 2. He says that they are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. And then he issues his opening blessing, his opening benediction, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. That grace and peace is possible because they have been foreknown by God the Father, being sanctified by the Spirit. have been sanctified for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling with his blood.” Now again, notice that among these blessings that Peter mentions here was the truth that they had been elect or chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. And we started to, on the last Lord’s Day, dive in quite some detail about what that term foreknowledge actually means in Scripture.

    Now, I just want to, first of all, have us take a little step back. This morning, as many of you know, I preached on the doctrine of the Trinity. We’ve been using the Apostles’ Creed as a guide for the New Foundations series, and we considered the we considered our Lord’s Great Commission where he commands his church to go and baptize in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit and and So we considered the doctrine of the Trinity I want you to notice the Trinitarian blessings that are mentioned here in in verse 2 in verses 1 & 2 and We see God the Father being mentioned. We’ve been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, the first person of the Trinity. In the sanctification of the Spirit, that’s the third person of the Holy Trinity.

    For obedience to Jesus Christ, that’s the second person of the Holy Trinity. And all of this, again, underscores the fact that that there was an implicit and devotional Trinitarianism in the early Apostolic Church, a Trinitarianism that existed in Christ’s Church even from the earliest days of the Apostles. Even though the doctrine of the Church hadn’t fully developed or hammered out the doctrine of the Trinity, it’s there in the Bible. It just took the church some time studying the word to bring it out. And, you know, God actually allowed in his providence heretics to rise up in the church. And that forced the church to go back to the scriptures and say, wait a minute, what does the Bible actually teach here? And so we have the Trinity in the Holy Scriptures and Trinitarianism saturates the scriptures, especially the New Testament epistles like First Peter.

    In any case, On the last Lord’s Day, we focused, as I mentioned, on the term foreknowledge. Perhaps we focused to such an extent that maybe it was a bit wearying. I did a lot of linguistic, talked about the linguistics of it and so forth. But one of the things, one of the reasons I did that is because it’s so important to get a right understanding of what this term foreknowledge means. And what we learned on the last Lord’s Day is that the term foreknowledge does not merely mean being able to foresee. When the Bible says that God has foreknown you, it doesn’t just mean that God looked down the corridors of time and saw in advance the choices that you would make. The idea of foreknowledge is an idea of foreloving. In the Bible, when God is said to know someone, it indicates a knowledge with affection, a love, if you will. not merely to foresee or know about or to know in advance, but to forelove.

    So to be foreknown by God the Father is to be loved with a purposeful, everlasting, saving love. In scripture, of course, as I mentioned, the word no can often carry with it the sense of love as in when it says Adam knew his wife Eve means a lot more than simply that he knew about her or was intellectually cognizant of her, but that he loved her with intimate marital love. Well, on the last Lord’s Day, we contrasted the so-called Arminian understanding of God’s foreknowledge with the biblically reformed understanding of God’s foreknowledge. And Arminianism, of course, is named after that famous or infamous Dutch theologian, Jacobus Arminius. And according to Arminius, God’s election of us was conditional. It was conditioned upon the foreseen faith and obedience and perseverance in faith and obedience of believers. And this foreseeing of faith, this is how many of our fellow Christians of an Arminian persuasion understand the term foreknowledge.

    However, as I tried to demonstrate on the last Lord’s Day, the Arminian understanding of God’s foreknowledge is fundamentally incorrect, indeed fundamentally unbiblical, because it misunderstands the biblical term for foreknowledge, and it is also contrary to what the Bible teaches us about the graciousness of our salvation in Christ. Tonight, I want to have us spend the bulk of our time considering some of the reasons why it is so important for us as Christians to have a correct understanding of God’s foreknowledge. And this is the first main heading of your sermon outline. If you’re following along, let’s consider some reasons why it is important for Christians to have a correct understanding of God’s foreknowledge. Is it so that we might pride ourselves in being theologically correct? No, this actually has really practical implications. It’s important to understand what foreknowledge means, first of all, because how we understand God’s foreknowledge will ultimately determine whether or not we are being consistent in our belief in salvation by grace alone.

    You see, friends, like Roman Catholics who know their church’s theology, Arminians who know their theology will assert with vigor and energy that they are champions of salvation by grace alone. You talk to many Arminian Christians, evangelicals of an Arminian persuasion who believe in this foreknowledge, this view of election, this foreseeing or knowing in advance view of election. And they’ll say, hey, we believe like you guys in salvation. In fact, we affirm salvation by grace alone. They use the same words that we do. Arminian evangelicals will claim that they believe that salvation is an unmerited gift of God and not at all an achievement by human merits or human good works. So at least at the surface level, it would appear that Arminian evangelicals and Calvinistic or Reformed evangelicals, if we can use the term evangelical to describe ourselves, that we are all in agreement, at least on the fundamental tenet of salvation by grace.

    However, It’s when we dig beneath the surface that it becomes clear that the Arminian understanding of salvation by grace is quite different from the biblical doctrine of salvation by grace that we confess in the Reformed faith. We use the same words, the same terminology, but we don’t necessarily mean the same thing. You see, like the Roman Catholic Church, Arminian evangelical churches hold to what might be described as a synergistic view of salvation, which is a fancy way of of saying that a cooperative view is from S.Y.N. the word sin or soon, which means working together with together or with. And so Armenians believe that salvation is ultimately a cooperative process between God’s grace on the one hand and human free will on the other hand, and therefore. When you take it to its logically consistent extreme, Arminian theology cannot claim to believe in salvation by God’s grace alone, but rather salvation by God’s grace plus human free choice, human free will.

    It is a grace plus theology, just like Romanism is a grace plus theology. There’s obviously some important differences between the Arminian view and the Roman Catholic view. But when you get down, dig beneath the surface, at the foundation level, it’s very much the same. And let me just illustrate this. And maybe you’ve heard certain preachers on TV or on the radio or over the Internet say things like, well, you know, friends, God has done His part to save you, but you have to do your part. Or maybe you’ve heard this statement. God cast his vote for you. Who cast his vote against you? Satan cast his vote against you. Who cast the deciding vote? You cast the deciding vote. You ever heard a preacher say that? God cast his vote for you. Satan cast his vote against you.

    But you cast the deciding vote. That, my friends, is synergism. That is the cooperative view of salvation. It’s by God’s grace plus human cooperation with that grace. Again, as I mentioned, this view is called synergism. And when it comes to affirming a synergistic understanding of salvation, it’s interesting to observe. that evangelical Arminianism and Roman Catholicism are in essential fundamental agreement. Both systems hold to the synergistic or cooperative understanding of the salvation process. And therefore, both systems, I would assert, are ultimately systems of works righteousness, at least when they are taken to their logical conclusion, which thankfully they often are not. But nevertheless, when you take it to their logical conclusion, they both end up being systems of works righteousness. For both systems teach that while God’s grace is certainly necessary, absolutely necessary, nevertheless, salvation ultimately depends upon man’s choice or man’s actions.

    For example, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that you attain salvation through obtaining merit before God. And how do you get that merit by which you are ultimately justified and saved? You get that merit through your cooperation with God’s sanctifying grace. And how does that sanctifying grace reach you? It comes to you through Rome’s sacramental system, especially through the mass and penance and things like that. Evangelical Arminianism, on the other hand, teaches that you attain salvation by making a freewill decision for Christ as you cooperate with God’s prevenient grace, especially as that grace is offered to you through modern evangelical new measures like the sinner’s prayer and the altar call and rededicating your life to Christ and so forth. Practices, by the way, that were unknown in the Church of Jesus Christ until about the mid-1800s.

    Though these systems are very different at a surface level. I mean, the Roman system is a system of salvation through sacramental grace. Evangelical Arminianism is often a system of salvation through revivalistic grace, through these new measures. They both essentially teach the same thing. They’re both saying essentially that God is powerless to save you unless you, sovereign man, sovereign woman, sovereign boy, sovereign girl, unless you allow Him to save you. We hear that kind of language all that time in the evangelical world. We hear preachers say, oh, just let God have His way with you. Allow God to come into your heart. It’s all about you granting God permission. After all, God is a gentleman and he would never force himself upon you against your will. Of course, that’s a character of the Reformed view, but the point is, salvation according to the Arminian system is ultimately up to you.

    It’s your decision, not God’s. But God’s word and the Reformed faith in line with God’s word presents a very different view. A view known as monergism from the word mono, which means one. And it points to the fact that God and God alone is the only one who saves us from beginning to end. Salvation is ultimately of God alone from first to last. As the Apostle Paul states in Romans 9, a chapter where he is talking about the mystery of divine election, Paul writes in Romans 9.16, So then, it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. It is not of him who wills, Contrary to what our Arminian friends say. Nor of him who runs or exerts himself. Contrary to what the Roman Catholics would claim. But it is of God who has mercy.

    Sola gratia. Grace alone. Salvation is not a cooperative process where we are equal parties with God in the salvation process. No. Salvation is by God’s grace alone. God alone saves you, brother, sister in Christ. Yes, it is true that in the gospel call, God does indeed command all men everywhere to repent and that all who hear the gospel are indeed held responsible to repent of their sins and to put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. However, the scriptures also teach that It is only by His grace that we are able to repent and believe. Indeed, by His grace, God gives what He demands. For faith and repentance are themselves gifts of God which Christ has purchased for those whom the Father has foreknown. those who have been chosen in him before the foundation of the world.

    Notice, by the way, the close connection between foreknowledge and sanctification and sprinkling with the blood of Christ. God has foreknown us, and he has therefore chosen to set his everlasting saving love upon us and to make possible that faith and repentance by which we receive the blessings of salvation. So it’s important to have a correct understanding of God’s foreknowledge if we’re going to be consistent in affirming salvation by grace alone. Now, I will say, brothers and sisters, I believe that many of our Arminian friends are inconsistent in their Arminianism. That they are true brothers and sisters in Christ who are simply, you know, they don’t put all of the logical pieces together in their minds, and they do trust Christ alone for their salvation in spite of their theology. But nevertheless, when taken to its logical extreme, Arminianism as a theological system is a false gospel.

    And those who are consistent in their Arminianism cannot be true Christians because they’re not really trusting in Christ alone, but Christ plus something they do. That’s the Galatian heresy. Also, it’s important to understand the truth about foreknowledge because when taken to its logical end, acceptance of the Arminian view of foreknowledge is the denial of the sovereign God revealed in Holy Scripture and the worshiping of an idol which allows man to hold on to a measure of his own fallen autonomy. In the Arminian system of salvation, God is not the ultimate sovereign. Man is. The Arminian God is forced to beg and plead and grovel before sovereign man to, oh, please, please, please believe in my son and be saved. And if you don’t, I’ll be so crushed But in the biblical system, God is absolutely sovereign over every sphere, every realm, including the realm of salvation.

    Again, while humanity is indeed held fully responsible for its sins, and while God does not compel human actions by a direct external force, God does not force us against our will to believe in Christ. Nevertheless, God is the one who sovereignly changes the hearts of his people so that they willingly, freely believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, you and I would never want the Jesus revealed in this book. God commands and invites all to come to Christ. No one wants to come. unless the Holy Spirit is at work in their hearts and in their lives. God doesn’t force us against our will, but he changes our will to make us willing. All of this is wrapped up in and implied by the doctrine of God’s foreknowledge, God having loved us from before the foundation of the world.

    And this change of heart is the ultimate outcome of God’s gracious foreknowledge of his people in Christ. The Arminian understanding of God’s foreknowledge also brings no real lasting comfort to the true believer. Since Peter wrote this epistle in part to comfort and to encourage these harassed, persecuted believers who faced a fiery trial of affliction, let me ask you the question, what comfort would it be to these believers If Peter was basically telling them in verse two that their election depended upon their continued faith and obedience, that would be the implication if the Arminian understanding of foreknowledge was correct. You see, according to the Arminian understanding of foreknowledge, as I think I’ve tried to explain, but let me just illustrate this. Insofar as I understand how the Lord has worked in my own life, I believe that I think it was August 22nd, 1982, was the date when I knelt beside my bed in my bedroom.

    It was the summer after my freshman year of high school. I was a 15-year-old, and I called upon the name of the Lord Jesus for salvation. I believe that is when God, in sovereign mercy, had affectionately called me to faith in Christ. According to Arminianism, God chose me because In eternity past, he looked down the corridors of time and he saw that on August 22nd, 1982, Jeff Willauer would accept Jesus Christ as his own Lord and Savior. And based upon foreseeing what I would do on that date, God chose to save me. He chose me as one of his people. However, what if the foreknowledge view of election is correct? then what comfort is there for me if I stumble and fall? If I struggle with faith? If I face persecution and God forbid, deny my Lord?

    What comfort is there? Knowing the weakness of my own flesh. There would be no comfort. What comfort would it be to these Christians if Peter was essentially saying to them, hey, come on now, guys, pull yourselves together. Keep a stiff upper lip. You know, you can handle this. You can crush this. In the end, God’s loving choice of you depends upon your continued good choices and your continued good actions. So just do more. Try harder. Be better. Come on, buck up. Be a man. Right. What comfort would that be to these beleaguered, harassed, and discouraged Christians? Such counsel would likely just have sunk these discouraged believers who desperately needed a word of grace into further discouragement and further distress. What we need, we are strengthened by grace, not by being harangued, not by being Law heavy preaching.

    The law is necessary to show us our sin and our weakness and to humble us before the Lord and to show us the way that the Lord would have us to live. But the law cannot comfort the beleaguered and the discouraged Christian. Only the word of grace can. The grace of the gospel and God’s foreknowledge of us is not that He foresees that we will be good Christians, good disciples, always faithful, always onward and upward. No. The comfort of foreknowledge is that God set His love on us, not because He saw anything worthy in us, not because He saw us persevering in faith. We persevere in faith because He has loved us with His everlasting love for knowledge. He has chosen to love us from before the foundation of the world. This is where true comfort comes from.

    Dear ones, what truly comforts us as God’s people is understanding that God’s love for us is an omnipotent love that is grounded in eternity. The love of an all-sovereign God that cannot be thwarted by puny man. A love that reaches back into eternity past and stretches forward into eternity future. In other words, the love of God’s foreknowledge. That love which has elected us in Christ unconditionally from before the foundation of the world. But the consistent Arminian cannot view God’s love as an eternal, sovereign, omnipotent, unchanging love, a love that not merely offers sinners a conditional salvation through faith in Christ that sinners themselves must secure by jumping through the appropriate hoops, but an omnipotent love that actually and eternally secures the salvation for all who are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.

    Dear listener, do you know in your own life the eternal love of foreknowledge? You say, well, how can I know that? And that brings me to my final point this evening. How can we know with certainty that we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God, the Father, that God, and not because he foresaw anything worthy or meritorious in us, but simply because he chose according to his inscrutable will to set his eternal saving love upon us even before he created us. How can we know that we are the recipients of that love? Well, here in chapter 1, verse 2, Peter teaches that God’s foreknowledge of His people is the foundation of all other saving graces that they enjoy. Our election, our being chosen by God, is said to be based upon or according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.

    God’s loving of us from eternity past. His eternal saving love for us in Christ. And then Peter goes on to list some of the blessings that are the outworking of that love of foreknowledge in the lives of his chosen ones. Blessings such as sanctification of the Holy Spirit, redemption through the atoning blood of Christ, and a life of faith-filled obedience. Now, there’s so much in this passage, and we’re going to come back And we’re going to consider further in future weeks the significance of the sanctification of the Spirit and what it means to be chosen for obedience to Jesus Christ, what kind of obedience He’s speaking about, and so forth. We’re going to dive deeper in future weeks, but tonight I just want to focus more in general and give a summary of these two blessings.

    And how they can how if you see these blessings that work in your life, you can be assured that indeed you have been foreknown by God the Father. If you see these evidences of salvation at work in your life. First of all, brothers and sisters, you have been foreknown by God the Father. If you are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, it says that we have been chosen or elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the spirit. Well, that raises another question. Well, what does that mean, pastor? And how do I know that I’m being sanctified by the spirit? Now, as I will argue and in a future sermon, I believe that when Peter uses the term sanctification here, that he has especially in mind initial sanctification or regeneration, what we would call being born again or regenerated by the Holy Spirit.

    But that initial born again, that initial regeneration and sanctification leads to a life of progressive sanctification, growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. So if the Spirit has caused you to be born again and is at work in your life, how will you know that? Well, there’s many things that could be said about that, but one thing I will suggest, brothers and sisters, if you are being sanctified by the Spirit, if you’ve been born again and are being sanctified by the Spirit, the Spirit will produce within you a sense of your own spiritual poverty and will drive you outside of your own self-reliance to reliance upon Christ and Christ alone. This is what it means to be poor in spirit. You’re not being sanctified by the spirit if you think you’re crushing it in the Christian life.

    If you think, hey, I’m really I’m reading my Bible, I’m going to church, I’m saying my prayers, I’m being faithful. Now, all of those are good things and you should continue doing those things. But if you’re relying on those things as a as a way of saying, well, I must be I must be getting really sanctified. I’m just being, I’m just crushing it in the Christian life. I mean, and you know, I’m not looking at pornography. I’m not getting drunk. I’m not partying, partying wildly or anything like that. Well, all of that, it’s good to avoid all of that bad stuff, but it’s possible to avoid all that stuff and be nothing more than a good Pharisee. Just living an outwardly Christian life is not enough. You need to be trusting Christ and Christ alone.

    And who are those who trust in Christ alone? Those who know their own wretchedness. Matthew chapter five in the Beatitudes, which the Beatitudes are a wonderful portion of scripture. I believe in in the Beatitudes, Christ is describing the character qualities of citizens of God’s kingdom. And Christ says in Matthew chapter five, verse three, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. You see, my friends, if you are poor in spirit, if you’re being sanctified by the spirit, you will come to understand that you are a sinner. The more you grow in grace, the more you grow in your Christian life, the more wretched and sinful you will realize you are. The more uncomfortable you will be with your own flesh, your own inner sin struggle. You will come to understand that you’re a sinner engaged, apart from grace, that you’re engaged in cosmic treason against your creator, that you are a rebel and a transgressor against God’s holy law.

    You will also find within yourself a yearning for personal holiness. Though you are poor in spirit and you say, oh, I just I never measure up. I can never seem to get there. I’m struggling. The flesh battles against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh. And what does this manifest? It manifests another aspect of the Beatitudes. As Christ says in Matthew 5, verse 6, Jesus says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. If you hunger and thirst for something, that means that you don’t have what you hunger and thirst for quite yet. But the assurance is you will be satisfied. You see, friends, Being sanctified by the Spirit doesn’t mean that our lives will be all together, that we’ll have it all together. Growing in the Christian life means growing in the knowledge and understanding of your own wretchedness and that Christ is your only hope.

    He is your only hope more so now than even than he was when you first came to know him. That’s how you will feel. And you will have a love for God and for your brothers and sisters in Christ. A love that will manifest itself as well in heartfelt striving after obedience to God and acts of love for your brothers and sisters in Christ. Other evidences could be mentioned. But these are some of the chief manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s work in us. If the Spirit is at work in your heart, He will never lead you to look to yourself or to rely upon yourself or your decisions or your works or your resolutions. Nor will He ever throw you back onto your own spiritual resources or efforts for hope and peace of soul. Instead, he will always humble you in the dust and drive you outside of yourself back to the foot of the cross, relying upon the saving resources that are found in Christ and Christ alone.

    You also can be assured that you have been foreknown by God the Father if you are growing in faith filled, spirit wrought obedience. We are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the spirit. for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. Now, in in his epistles, Paul sometimes speaks of the obedience of faith or of obeying the gospel. And and I believe that what Peter means here by obedience is what we would call conversion, repentance and faith. That is specifically or particularly what he has in mind. If God has led you, dear listener, to willingly respond to the gospel call by repenting of your sin and putting your trust in Christ alone for your salvation, then that too is an evidence of the fact that you have been foreknown before the foundation of the world.

    You have been foreknown and loved with an everlasting love. You are an object of God’s eternal saving, fatherly foreknowledge. Pastor, I’m still not sure if that’s true of me. Well, your assurance will not be found in looking within yourself or navel-gazing. Your assurance can only be found in Christ. If you have been made willing by the grace of God to come to Jesus, to rest in Him, you can be assured that He will not turn you away. If you mean business with the Lord Jesus, He is willing to receive you. If the Spirit has made you willing. And so Jesus says, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And don’t tell me, well Pastor, you don’t know the baggage, you don’t know the skeletons in my closet, or the baggage I carry.

    We all carry baggage. We carry the baggage of our sin. And no matter how much baggage you carry, Jesus will lift that baggage off of you. Come to Him in penitent faith, and He will receive you. And those of us by grace who have come to Jesus, let us show our gratitude for His grace by living lives of grateful obedience to the Father who has loved us from before the foundation of the world with a love of foreknowledge. Let us pray. Our Lord and Father in Heaven, we thank You, Sovereign God, for the love of Christ We thank you that you have chosen us from before the foundation of the world to belong to Christ. And we pray that by your spirit, you would so work in us that we might find peace and joy and rest in our souls as we rely upon Christ and Christ alone.

    And Jesus, we thank you. We thank you, Lord, that you have saved us from first to last. We thank you, O God. that we are saved by your grace alone, through God-given faith alone, in Christ alone, apart from works. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Dear friends, let us respond to what we’ve heard tonight by rising and we’ll sing as our closing hymn. 427, I sought the Lord and afterward I knew. 427.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • God’s Pilgrim People, Part 2

    God’s Pilgrim People, Part 2

    About this sermon

    Peter writes to believers scattered across Asia Minor and calls them elect exiles of the dispersion, pilgrims whose final home lies in the age to come. Their trials never meant that God had abandoned them. The church is catholic in the true sense, spread through the whole world among every nation, and Christians should remember their persecuted brothers and sisters. God the Father chose them, the Spirit sanctifies them, and the blood of Jesus Christ sprinkles them for obedience.

    More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Just a second. Well, dear friends, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. We’ve just begun on the last Lord’s Day a new sermon series in the first epistle of Peter, 1 Peter. And this evening we continue to consider the opening verses of 1 Peter, 1 Peter 1, verses 1 and 2. I’ll read the first nine verses to fill out the context a little bit, but let us hear God’s Word. 1 Peter 1 verses 1-9. Dear friends, this is the Word of God. Hear it with reverence and awe. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

    Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

    Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the preaching of His Word. Almighty, most merciful God, Heavenly Father, once again we would invoke and beseech you for the presence of your spirit to bless the proclamation of your word this evening. We ask that you would make our hearts open and receptive to your word. We pray that you would keep us from all distractions, and may our focus be upon that which the Spirit is speaking to us in your God-breathed word this evening. We ask, Lord, that you would open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word, and that your word would find a lodging place in our souls and transform our lives. We pray that you would guard my lips, that I might speak only that which is faithful to your word.

    And we pray all of these things through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. This evening, my sermon is entitled God’s Pilgrim People, Part Two, as we continue our consideration that we began on the last Lord’s Day. And children can be listening for the three key words tonight, the words pilgrim, Catholic, and blessing, pilgrim, Catholic, and blessing. Well, dear ones, on the last Lord’s Day evening, as I mentioned, we began to study the New Testament epistle or letter of 1 Peter. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, St. Peter the Apostle wrote this letter to a group of Christians who were scattered over a large area north of the Taurus Mountains in what is today known as Turkey. This area included the five Roman provinces that Peter mentions in verse one of our passage, the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.

    As we begin our journey through this marvelous portion of God’s holy word, we’ll see that the original readers to whom Peter wrote this letter were facing persecution because of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And perhaps this is why Peter begins by addressing these believers as elect exiles of the dispersion. As it says in verse one, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia and so forth. Now other translations read strangers in the world or sojourners or pilgrims of the dispersion. Now the term sojourners or pilgrims of the dispersion, these terms remind us of our identity as followers of Jesus Christ. This term reminds us that this present world is not our final home. We are simply pilgrims or sojourners making our journey through this present life to our ultimate homeland in glory, our final home, the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells.

    As I pointed out on the last Lord’s Day evening, there’s really no reason for us believers to have an identity crisis, for God’s Word tells us that we are the pilgrim people of God. That is our fundamental identity. Our fundamental identity is in Christ, and as those who are in Christ living in this present evil age, we are the pilgrim people of God. Through His sovereign grace, we have been chosen by God the Father, redeemed by God the Son incarnate, and renewed and sanctified by God the Holy Spirit. Therefore, whatever our earthly lot or state may be, we belong to the forever family of God. We belong to the age yet to come. And friends, this truth of our identity as the pilgrim people of God would have been a particularly important truth for the Apostle Peter to stress in writing to his original first century readers, especially as they faced the fiery trials of hostility and persecution for their Christian faith.

    These brothers and sisters to whom Peter originally wrote this letter, they needed assurance that the trials and the sufferings that they were facing did not mean that God had abandoned them or that God no longer regarded them as his people or that God was angry with them. I think sometimes when we face trials and persecutions and tribulations and difficulties, we’re tempted to think, well, God must be mad at me or maybe God has abandoned me. But we need to be assured that no, that is not the case. And that certainly was not the case with the original Christians to whom Peter wrote this letter. Rather, their trials and their sufferings were just one more evidence that they were still on their journey to their eternal home. They were still sojourners, pilgrims on the way. and thus that they could be assured that God had not abandoned them, for they still belonged and they would always belong to the pilgrim people of God.” So friends, again, on the last Lord’s Day, we began to consider our identity as God’s pilgrim people, and we considered some of the implications of our identity as the pilgrim people of God.

    But for my sermon for this Lord’s Day evening, I want to have us continue to consider this opening section of Peter’s first epistle. And as we do so, I want us, first of all, to consider the catholicity of God’s pilgrim people. That’s the first point in your sermon outline, if you’re following along. Let us continue the catholicity of God’s pilgrim people. Now, let me just pause there, and some of you may be thinking, I don’t know if I like this, Pastor Jeff. You’re talking about the Catholicity. I mean, it sounds awfully Catholic, right? Well, the word Catholic is actually not a bad word. It simply is a word that, at least originally, meant universal. When we talk about the Catholic Church and when we affirm, for example, in the Apostles’ Creed that we believe in the Holy Catholic Church, we’re not affirming belief in the Roman Catholic Church.

    Rather, we are affirming belief in the spiritual oneness of all true believers throughout the world. Catholic means universal, means worldwide. It means God’s people throughout the world. And Peter, in terms of how those whom he addresses in these opening verses, shows the catholicity of God’s pilgrim people. As he says, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion those among God’s people who are dispersed in Gentile parts of the Roman Empire. Remember, Peter, as an apostle of Jesus Christ, was primarily focused on sharing the gospel with his fellow Jews. The apostle Paul describes Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, whereas Paul was gifted by God to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ primarily to the Gentiles. But here Peter is addressing this letter to a group of mostly Gentile Christians who’ve come to faith in Christ from a pagan background.

    So in verse 1, again, we observe that Peter writes this epistle to the pilgrims of the dispersion, as the New King James Version puts it, for example. Now, the Greek term that is translated here as dispersion is the term diasporos. Now allow me to quote from the late Bible scholar William Barclay’s commentary where he explains what this term means. It’s actually a very significant term. He explains that diaspora, literally the dispersion, was the technical name for the Jews scattered in exile in all the countries outside the bounds of Palestine. Those exiled Jews were called the diaspora. But now, now under the new covenant, in other words, now the real diaspora is not the Jewish nation. It is the Christian church scattered abroad throughout the provinces of the Roman Empire and the nations of the world.

    They are the people whose king is God, whose home is eternity, and who are exiles in the world. And this is very significant. I mean, think about this from a broader biblical perspective. If you go back to Old Testament times and under the Old Covenant, Who on the face of the earth, who were the people of God? Well, under the old covenant, God constituted his church, his people, his covenant community as a theocratic nation. Under the Mosaic covenant, the church and the theocratic nation of Israel were, for all practical purposes, one and the same. But with the coming of Jesus Christ and the new covenant, the church is now reconstituted as an international worldwide community. That is to say, the covenant people of God is no longer confined to the nation of the Jews and to those Gentiles who happen to associate themselves with the Jewish nation, but now the people of God includes Jews and Gentiles from all the nations of humanity who come to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and are brought by the sovereign grace of God into the kingdom of God through that faith. with the coming of Christ and the resurrected Christ’s command to his church in the Great Commission to make disciples not just of the Jewish nation or one particular region of the world, but to make disciples of all the nations, all the people groups of mankind.

    The church is now Catholic or universal. It is now a worldwide entity rather than merely a national entity. It is inclusive of all who profess true faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, together, of course, with their covenant children. And this is true whether they be Jews or Gentiles, men or women, slaves or freedmen, and so forth. The true church of Jesus Christ is Catholic in the sense that it is spread abroad throughout the whole world and is represented by many nationalities. So what are some of the implications of this? What are some of the lessons that we can glean from this language that Peter uses in addressing the Christians to whom he’s writing? And of course, the Holy Spirit inspired Peter to write this, and it’s written not just for the original readers, but it also applies to us as God’s church today in the 21st century.

    What can we learn from this? Well, first of all, the term diaspora undergirds the fact that Christ’s church is not at home in this present world order. In biblical times, the Jews of the dispersion, the Jewish diaspora, lived as foreigners in foreign lands and under foreign domination. They were the Jews that were exiled from the land of Israel into places like Babylon or Assyria. They were strangers in a strange land, foreigners living away from their homeland. They were scattered abroad. Well, friends, likewise, the Church of Jesus Christ lives in this present world order as those who have been dispersed, those who have been exiled from their true native land and who long for their ultimate heavenly homeland. Friends, though we are called upon in Scripture to be active in this present world, we are to be salt and light in this present world, we are to love our neighbors and seek to bring the gospel to the nations, and we’re to be good neighbors, good citizens, and so forth, but nevertheless, this is not our final home.

    Though we have been called to be active in this world as salt and light, this world is not our final home. We’re just passing through. And we need to remind ourselves of that each and every day because the world tugs upon us. The fallen world system around us, we are immersed in it. I’m not being Baptistic here, but we live in a context where this fallen world, it’s all around us. A culture, there are so many pressures to conform to this present world. But as the scriptures tell us in places like Romans chapter 12, do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. And how are we transformed? Well, we’re transformed by the word of God. That’s why it’s so important to be in the Word, to read it, meditate upon it, study it, and sit under the faithful preaching and teaching of it.

    Again, this term diaspora reminds us that as the Pilgrim People of God, we are part of the diaspora of God as we await our final homeland. Another lesson I think we can glean from this language here in our passage for today is that since the Church of Jesus Christ is spread throughout the whole world, you and I would do well to take a deep interest in what God is doing among our brothers and sisters throughout the world. And so it is our custom, as you folks know, as you’re attending the evening worship service tonight, and many of you are regulars at the evening service, you know that before the service, our Elder Jansch gets up and he reads from the telenews. And why do we do that? Well, one of the reasons is to make us aware of the missionary efforts of our denomination and to raise our awareness of what God is doing in other parts of the world. we need to realize that as pilgrims of the dispersion, as God’s people scattered throughout the world, we have a bond, a fellowship, even with brothers and sisters on the other side of the world.

    We are one body of Christ. We are a covenant community, even though we are dispersed at this present time. So how do we How do we do this? How do we take an interest in this? Well, I would encourage you, I would encourage all of us, let us regularly pray for our missionaries. Let us seek to learn about them and about their missionary labors. Let us be attentive when the telenews is read. Let’s make an effort to be world Christians, not worldly Christians, but world Christians, Christians who are aware of what the Lord through his church is doing throughout the world. And we can also do this by remembering our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ. We in this country have been so blessed with religious liberty and freedom, and we sometimes take that for granted, and we sometimes forget that many of our brothers and sisters, like the brothers and sisters that Peter wrote this epistle to, live with the daily reality or the daily possibility of serious, even fiery persecution simply because they love and trust, confess and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

    So let us, brothers and sisters, let us seek to take a deep interest in what God is doing throughout the Christian diaspora, throughout the church around the world. But next, as we move on in our passage, we focused on, in verse one, on this language of exiles being exiles of the dispersion. Next, beloved, especially based on verse two, let us take to heart the blessings which have been bestowed upon us as God’s pilgrim people. That’s the next point in your sermon outline. Let us take to heart the blessings which have been bestowed upon us as God’s pilgrim people. You may have noticed in verse two, well let me read it again and see if you pick up on something significant here. It says that we are elect exiles of the dispersion. We are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with His blood.

    Did you pick up on the deep Trinitarianism of this verse? Even as Peter opens up his epistle The language here is saturated with the reality and the truth that God is a triune being, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the blessings of the triune God are enumerated and fleshed out here. as Peter reminds his readers and reminds us, as the Holy Spirit, through Peter’s writings, reminds us of the blessings that we have received as God’s pilgrim people. What do those blessings include? Well, Peter, in mentioning the three persons of the Holy Trinity, God the Father, the Spirit, and Jesus Christ the Son, He mentions that first of all we are elect or chosen exiles according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Now we’re going to learn more about the significance and the meaning of God’s foreknowledge in the Lord’s days to come.

    But basically, in summary, what this points to, friends, is that God Almighty, in eternity past, had set His everlasting, saving love upon us. And He chose us to be His own people. He chose us. He had us in mind, brothers and sisters, even before He created the universe. He had us in mind. He set His saving, everlasting love upon us even before He created the universe. You know, many Christians are intimidated by the words election, the words predestination, chosen. These are words that many Christians are uncomfortable with, but clearly they are Bible words when we talk about election and predestination and God choosing a people for himself. These are biblical words, biblical concepts, and so we cannot claim to be Bible-believing Christians and ignore this biblical language. But we need to understand, beloved, that the word election, like the word predestination, These words are not intended to scare or terrorize the true believer.

    See, the Bible presents the doctrines of election and predestination as truths which are meant to bring comfort, great comfort to true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. The truth, dear ones, that we are elect or chosen, what this means is that God took the initiative in reaching out to us even before we reached up to him. As the scriptures clearly teach, He chose us before we chose Him. He loved us before we loved Him. In fact, as we are told in 1 John, we love Him because He first loved us. That’s what grace is all about. God takes the initiative. He comes down to us and we respond to that grace with faith and gratitude, but that is a response of grace, not a response of merit. He chose us before we chose Him. We love him because he first loved us.

    More on that, more on all of this on the next Lord’s Day evening. But we are identified as the pilgrim people of God as elect or chosen exiles according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. But then he goes on to say in the sanctification of the spirit, sanctification of the spirit, The great reformer Martin Luther once said or wrote, I believe in his small catechism, he said, I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him. I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him. Even faith itself must be a gift of God, which is produced in the hearts of God’s chosen ones by an act of divine grace and grace alone. And friends, this is why the Holy Spirit is so essential for salvation and for living the Christian life.

    Without the Holy Spirit, we cannot believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation. Again, to quote from William Barclay, he is correct when he writes, quote, for the Christian, the Holy Spirit is essential to every part of the Christian life and every step in it. It is the Holy Spirit who awakens within us the first faint longings for God and goodness. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts us of our sin and leads us to the cross where that sin is forgiven. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to be freed from the sins which have us in their grip and to gain the virtues which are the fruit of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the assurance that our sins are forgiven and that Jesus Christ is Lord.

    The beginning, the middle, and the end of the Christian life are the work of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Indeed, we are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit. And so one of the other implications of this is that we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit for an obedient life. And so Peter goes on to write that we have been chosen by the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit for what? for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. I believe the obedience in view here, the specific obedience that Peter has in view here is not a general obedience to the word of God, but obedience in particular to the gospel call, the call to repent and believe upon Christ, the call to conversion.

    The Holy Spirit enables us to answer that general call of the gospel. The Holy Spirit provides the effectual call to the elect through the general call of the gospel. And it is through the Spirit that we are empowered not only to respond initially in faith, but to begin walking in obedience. Your Christian life began when the Holy Spirit regenerated you, caused you to be born again, and therefore enabled you to obey the call of the gospel by repenting of your sin and by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ alone as your savior from sin. Through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, you and I are empowered, brothers and sisters, to grow in the knowledge and in the love of our Lord and Savior. And therefore, we are enabled by the grace of God to grow in our obedience.

    And one of the other blessings, wonderful blessings that we have received as the pilgrim people of God and through God’s electing and sanctifying and redeeming work is that we are redeemed through the precious blood of Christ. You notice at the end of verse two, towards the end of verse two, he says that we have been chosen and sanctified for obedience to Jesus Christ, and what? For sprinkling with his blood. Under the old covenant ceremonial system, there were many rituals that involved the sprinkling of blood, the blood of the covenant. It was sprinkled on the people and so forth. And it is through the shedding of blood, Christ’s blood, that we are forgiven of our sins, that our sins are atoned for. Through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, our sins have been forgiven. and we have been brought back into a right relationship with God.

    Again, we’re gonna go into more detail in weeks ahead about these wonderful blessings that Peter speaks of in these opening verses. And again, I plan to elaborate more on these wonderful blessings that we have received as the Pilgrim People of God in future weeks, so stay tuned. But before I end this sermon this evening, let me ask you, dear listener, are you part of the Pilgrim People of God? If you’re not part of God’s pilgrim people, then you are on what the Lord Jesus described as the broad road that leads to destruction. The Bible says that you, apart from grace, you are a slave to your sin, and that you are headed for eternal punishment in hell for your sins. Your only hope of salvation is the Lord Jesus Christ. According to God’s word, the bad news is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that the wages of sin is death, not just physical death, but this includes God’s righteous sentence of eternal death in hell.

    And that’s bad news indeed. If you are not in union with Jesus Christ and thus in union as well with his people, you are under the wrath of God. But the good news is that God the Father sent his eternal son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty for sin by dying on the cross as a substitutionary atonement. He died in our place, in our stead. He rose from the dead three days later, proving that God the Father had accepted his sacrifice for sin. And then he ascended into heaven, where he reigns at God’s right hand, where he intercedes for God’s people as their great high priest. The Bible says that God now commands all people everywhere, that includes you, that includes me, he commands all people everywhere to repent of their sins. And God promises in his word that everyone who turns from their sins in repentance and who by grace trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for their salvation will not perish, but have everlasting life.

    If you’ve been in the church many years, you’ve heard this message many, many times, but have you believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you repented of your sins? As a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I call upon each and every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin, not just as the Savior from sin, not just a historical faith, but by the grace of God, may you embrace Christ with a personal trust. May you personally trust him as your Savior from sin. And the Bible promises that if you do, you will be saved. Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. For if you confess with your lips Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved as God says in his word.

    But if you refuse to repent and believe, then the Bible warns you that you abide under the righteous wrath of God. But if God grants you the grace to turn to Christ from your sins, then you can rest assured that you have been called to belong both now and forevermore to God’s pilgrim people. My prayer, beloved, is that all of us would leave this place tonight fully assured of our identity as members of God’s pilgrim people, as those who belong to Christ, those who are elect exiles of the dispersion, those who are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit and for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling with His blood. May God, in His mercy, grant that it would be so. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for the many spiritual blessings that we have received in Christ, and that you have constituted us, O Lord, as your people.

    And in this world, we are your pilgrim people. But Lord, may we not grow weary, may we not become discouraged, may we realize that you are working within us and that you are leading us through this present age to ultimate glory in Christ. So Lord, help us to live our lives in hope, that blessed hope, that sure and certain hope that one day we will see our Savior face to face in glory. In his name we pray and all of God’s people said. Amen. As we close our time in worship this evening, we’ll rise and we’ll sing together 404, the church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord. Let’s rise and sing hymn number 404.

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  • God’s Pilgrim People

    God’s Pilgrim People

    About this sermon

    Peter writes to elect exiles scattered across Asia Minor who faced the threat of persecution for their faith. God’s people live in the world, but they belong to the age to come, so they often feel out of place here and long for their true home. God the Father chose them, the Spirit sanctifies them, and the blood of Jesus Christ sprinkles them for obedience. Believers can enjoy God’s good gifts with thanksgiving while they set their minds on things above, where their life is hidden with Christ.

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    Sermon transcript

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  • Jeremiah 29:1-14

    Jeremiah 29:1-14

    About this sermon

    Jeremiah writes to the exiles in Babylon, telling them to build houses, plant gardens, and seek the welfare of the city where God has sent them. False prophets promised a quick return home, but the Lord declares that the exile will last seventy years, and only then will he bring his people back. ‘I know the plans I have for you,’ he says, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope.’ God’s people must speak hard truths with tears, and they can trust his good purposes through long seasons of suffering as they look to the risen Christ.

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    Sermon transcript

    It’s an honor to be with you once again and to open the Word of God for you. Let’s do turn our hearts to the Word of God once again. We’ll focus on perhaps a familiar passage, Jeremiah 29, 11, but in order to stir our hearts and to get our thinking aiming in that direction in light of the fullness of God’s Word, let’s turn to two passages prior, both of them in the New Testament. Please open first to 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter 2. be working our way backward in God’s word and also backward in time to see these themes in their development and then in God’s faithfulness and bringing them about in the past. 1 Peter chapter two. And I’ll be reading verses one through 12. This is on page 180 of the Pew Bible, if you’re using that.

    First Peter chapter two, starting in verse one, this is the word of the Lord. Therefore putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. If you have tasted the kindness of the Lord, And coming to him as to a living stone, which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God. You also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes in him will not be disappointed.

    This precious value, then, is for you who believe, but for those who disbelieve. The stone which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word and to this doom they were also appointed. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. For once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.

    And now please back to the gospels, specifically to Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16. We see our Lord’s words to his beloved disciple, Peter. Peter, who goes from a wonderful affirmation of faith to needing to be rebuked in what seems like just a few moments. Matthew chapter 16. And I’ll begin our reading in verse 13. Again, Matthew 16, starting in verse 13. Again, the word of the Lord. Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he was asking his disciples, who do people say that the son of man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist and others Elijah, but others still Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.

    And Jesus said to him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Then he warned the disciples that they should tell no one that he was the Christ. From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the third day.

    Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, God forbid it, Lord. This shall never happen to you. But he turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s. Then Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. And now please to Jeremiah chapter 29, our primary passage for this evening. Jeremiah chapter 29. echoes of which we hear in the passages we just read in the language of the Lord Jesus building his church, building a holy priesthood and people as a temple.

    Jeremiah chapter 29. And I’ll begin our reading in verse one. Again, God’s holy word. Now these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exile, the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother, the court officials, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem. This letter was sent by the hand of Elasa the son of Shaphan and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon saying, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses and live in them and plant gardens and eat their produce.

    Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands that they may bear sons and daughters and multiply there and do not decrease. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf. For in its welfare, you will have welfare. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Do not let your prophets who are in your midst and your diviners deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams which they dream. For they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them, declares the Lord. For thus says the Lord, when 70 years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill my good word to you to bring you back to this place.

    For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord. And I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord. and will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile. And we’ll end our reading of the word of God at that point. Let’s pray, brothers and sisters, and ask for God’s blessing in both the preaching and the hearing of the word that we’ve just read.

    Let’s pray together. Father in heaven, we have read and even sung this evening much of your word in a short time, and we pray for your Holy Spirit’s power and activity among us that you would, by him and through the word that he has given to us, order our thoughts and bring them to an intensified focus upon the one in whom all of these words are fulfilled, your Son and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray, O God, that your word would now be proclaimed in truth and that it would be received by your people with faith and love and an eagerness to put into practice that which the Good Shepherd would say to us this evening as we continue to worship you through him. We pray, O God, that this very same word would call to faith and salvation and repentance any in this assembly who do not know Christ as Lord and Savior.

    And we pray that for all who do, that this would be a time of true strengthening and grace, that we would together grow in the grace and knowledge of our blessed savior and your only begotten son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose matchless and majestic name we pray, amen. Well, following the sermon this evening, as you know, we’ll have opportunity to participate in the blessing that the Lord Jesus gave to the church that we refer to as the Lord’s Supper. It’s a means of grace which is designed to advance us, which is designed to confirm and to continue us in the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. I wanna begin the sermon this evening with a quotation from someone who did not continue along in his life of professed faith. Someone who now as a professional writes and speaks the very stuff which encourages others like him in their own exodus from the church. which gives them reason to disbelieve and a reason to abandon the faith in which many of them grew up, or at least to which they were exposed.

    This is from a scholar named Bart Ehrman. And Ehrman writes in a book called God’s Problem, how the Bible fails to answer our most important question, why we suffer. Ehrman writes of his own personal journey away from the God of the Bible. And he writes this, the God I once believed in was a God who was active in the world. He saved Israelites from slavery. He sent Jesus for the salvation of the world. He answered prayer. He intervened on behalf of the people when they were in desperate need. He was actively involved in my life. But I can’t believe in that God anymore. Because from what I now see around the world, He doesn’t intervene.” End quote. Now, Ehrman might be considered an apostle to the apostate. His material gives encouragement to those, and very many of them are young adults, again, who have grown up within the church, who begin to take a very adult look at life and to recognize the profound suffering that exists, not necessarily in their circumstances, although certainly sometimes, but especially beyond them and around them.

    And they begin to think of the Bible as utterly inadequate to deal with the real hardships of life. And the stories within scripture as little more than morality tales, if not fairy tales, which if believed actually serve to mock the pain that people go through by constantly calling them to faith in the very God who is putting them through it. A God who in Airman’s mind, in reality, just does not intervene and does not save in the way that we’re told to believe he does in the pages of scripture. And what does all that have to do with our passage this evening? Well, it’s very common and it’s necessary for those of us who are in reformed theological circles to speak against the abuses of our primary passage this evening, Jeremiah 29, 11, in which God promises that the plans that he has for us are for our well-being and for our peace and prosperity.

    Jeremiah 29 11 is a very popular verse among Christians. And the thinking among some professing believers goes that if we have not found peace and prosperity in terms of material wealth and good health, then we must not be seeking God with our whole heart. If our lives are filled with illness and pain and deprivation, then that can only be because our hearts are not filled with true faith. And so, as we ought, we critique that terrible abuse of this particular passage and those like it. But this evening, we need to dig deeper and to explore the ways in which we who might openly and loudly criticize the health and wealth gospel might set ourselves up not only for devastating disappointment within the faith, but if we are not careful, and if the word of God is not truly rooted within us, for a departure from the faith that we once claimed to believe, similar to so many others, and as exemplified by Mr.

    Ehrman, from whose work I read earlier. Jeremiah 29 is a passage that is full of the very realism which Mr. Ehrman denies. It is full of the demonstration of who God is and what he does in this a fallen world. And it proclaims to us the grace and the patience and the perseverance of this God in bringing people to himself. And as such, it is a wonderful passage for us to look to, to strengthen our hearts in that which we claim to believe, especially as we do come in more contact with the deep and pervasive suffering in this world. We’ll have a very simple outline for any of you taking notes tonight. We’ll spend most of our time on the first point. Point number one is God’s prerogative. God’s prerogative, and then secondly, God’s plans.

    So God’s prerogative, and then secondly, God’s plans. Look with me please again at verse 11 of Jeremiah 29. For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope. Once again, we so often, at least it’s popular in Christian circles to interpret this passage as promising us a this worldly wealth and prosperity. God’s plans for us are indeed glorious and for our peace and for our welfare, but not always according to the terms by which we would like to see those promises fulfilled. There were prophets in the days of Jeremiah. This is the time of the Babylonian captivity who were rising up among the people and who really foreshadowed the health and wealth preachers of our day. And who said to the people, it’s time to go, pack your bags.

    God has our deliverance right in front of us. If you just trust and believe, we are going home. Notice verses eight and nine, God’s commentary on these prophets. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets who are in your midst and your diviners deceive you. And do not listen to the dreams which they dream, for they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them, declares the Lord. These prophets were speaking exactly what the people of God in Jeremiah’s day and in Babylon would have loved to have heard, would have loved to be true, that they were going to go home, but they were lying. And the Lord reveals that through this letter from Jeremiah. He tells the people through Jeremiah the very hard truth that yes, they would go home, but not yet. not for a very long time.

    Verse 10, for thus says the Lord, when 70 years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill my good word to you to bring you back to this place. Think of it, that’s good news, but it also contains some very bad news for many who were hearing it. Imagine being one of the exiles and hearing that news. 70 years would come and go before the people would go home. Seven decades. Now when you and I read history, 70 years can pass in the turn of a page or even a paragraph. But as we live history, 70 years may in fact be the full expanse of our lives or far longer for some of us. Now think therefore of the elderly people hearing this news. They were essentially hearing that they were not going home.

    They would die in exile. Now young people, imagine yourselves among the exiles and hearing this news at your age. How old will you be in 70 years or even 50 or even 40? I don’t know your ages, but I do know that the answer is much older. And so the old and likely many of the young would not see their homeland again. And this is all beside issues of illness, which may arise as they were in Babylon and take them. Yes, the people of God as a whole would return, but some among them would not have the joy of that journey. They would die in exile. Imagine hearing those words. What would you think of God? And how could you then think in terms of the very next words of this promise in verse 11, that God’s plans for you were actually good and not evil, when such evil had already been unleashed upon you through Babylon and its psychotic king, Nebuchadnezzar? and especially if you are not among those whose rebellion against God brought about the Babylonian captivity.

    Imagine yourself as a God-fearing Hebrew person seeking the Lord in great sorrow in Babylon, not having been someone who had contributed so far as you know to the significant sin, and yet having that judgment sweep up you and everybody else around you, those who truly loved the Lord and those who did not. What would you think of God then? Let’s switch it to present tense and present times. What do you think of the Lord as you find yourself or even worse, loved ones swept up into the essential pains of our day and of life in a fallen world? Again, there are some people who claim to know Christ and who will say, well, the bad stuff can’t be from God. And this is one of the passages that proves it. God’s plans are for peace and prosperity, not war and devastation.

    God isn’t the one bringing about terrorist attacks. God isn’t the one who ordains the bad news X-ray, the natural disasters we see and we sometimes experience. But twice in verses four through 14, God makes it very clear to the people that he was the one who did this. Yes, it was Babylon. And yes, it was Nebuchadnezzar, these kinds of secondary causes. But look again to verse four. God refers to the people as the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem into Babylon. God did this. God decreed this disaster in light of his people’s refusal to repent. Their sin was, and our sin is, that serious. We must truly take to heart the fact that God is truly holy, and that we are truly sinful, and that whatever we may have in this world, it is more than we deserve. and that God freely and rightly ordains whatsoever comes to pass.

    From Isaiah 45, the Lord speaking, I form light and create darkness. I make wellbeing and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. If you hold this view of God, a view clearly expressed in our confessional standards, even as we read this evening, you must hold it forth to others through trembling hands, as it were, as we see disaster in our day. Because holding this view makes you relatively rare in our contemporary American Christian culture. And therefore you have the rare opportunity to tell people that while God’s plans for his people are not plans for evil, he does in fact employ evil. These plans do make use of catastrophe and calamity and captivity of all kinds. We may tell the truth, the hard truth with a soft voice and perhaps a voice choked up by tears.

    We must never be brash and harsh in our declaration of the truth, but we must declare it, especially in a day when professing believers in Christ are disposed to despise such truth. And when we feel the weight of this, we might ask, Well, how can I possibly do that? Or even beneath that question, why would I want to do that? Why would I want to say those things when I know what kind of reception I’m going to get? Well, welcome to Jeremiah’s world. This is part of why he is called the weeping prophet. No one wanted to hear what he had to say, true as it was. We feel this personally in our own lives. Sometimes those who refuse these kinds of truths from scripture, they’ll be so well-intentioned in the counsel they bring to us when we’re in pain.

    They’ll say, I’ve prayed for you and I just know you’re going to be healed. I have faith for it. I just know the next time the x-ray comes back, it’s gonna be clear. I just know and I claim it in the name of Jesus that you will get this job. They don’t realize. how closely their words match those of the prosperity preachers in Jeremiah’s day. We’re going home. God has told us we’re going home soon. We so often interpret Jeremiah 29 11 in terms of what you might call individualized earthly prosperity. Personal peace and happiness with regard to the circumstances in this world. Individualized earthly prosperity. Prosperity having to do with marriage and family and work and health and weather and whatever. Something we so often miss, which is a clear strike from the Holy Spirit against that kind of individualizing and distorting of the truth revealed here.

    Something we often miss when interpreting and applying this passage happens especially in verse 11. I know the plans that I have for you. If we look at that in the original language, the you is plural. The you is plural. God is addressing the church. Yes, certainly the individuals who comprise the corporate body, but fundamentally and most essentially, this passage is directed to the church as a whole. In verse 11, dear brothers and sisters, God is not promising us as individuals money, marriage, a job, healing for a loved one, political freedom, all of which we tend to feel entitled to in this culture. And if this passage does in fact promise us individualized earthly prosperity, well, that sets us up for shipwreck in our faith. Because if we don’t have it, despite our having prayed for it, then we must either conclude that God broke his promise, or that somehow this promise depends upon our faithfulness to bring to fruition, and that we didn’t hold up our end of the bargain, and that the reason the healing didn’t come is because there wasn’t enough faith in here.

    Otherwise, God would have done it. The word of God tells us though, brothers and sisters, The things of this life come and go, jobs come and go, wealth comes and goes, political freedom comes and goes, as the Israelites were experiencing here. And most painfully, people come and go from our lives, in and then out of our lives, all according to the will of our sovereign Lord. and all according to God’s big picture plans for all of his people. Again, the plural you is significant. Or as we might translate it around here, yins, or y’all, or whatever colloquialism applies to you and your background, it’s plural. It’s what Peter is referring to in the passage we read earlier. We are spiritual stones, individual stones, each of which matters, but being built together and fitted together for the sake of the whole, the holy priesthood, the holy place of God.

    The details of God’s providence differ in our lives from one to another, but his providence serves his promise to build his people. Every providence serves that promise. Now when we read the promise of Jeremiah 29 and others like it through the lens of individualized earthly prosperity, we begin to wonder what pains in our lives are the direct result of our personal sin. It’s an ironic and sick twist on the fact that the Israelites were here at Babylon because of their sin. And whatever your background theologically, When hardship comes, do you find yourself asking questions like this? Did I do it? Did I cause this? Is this punishment? Certainly there are sometimes very easy to see cause and effect relationships between our sin and certain consequences, but not always. There is not always a perceivable direct relationship or even one at all between our personal sin and the pain that we find in our lives.

    God does not play manipulative mind games with us, making us guess and worry about what’s our fault and what is not. He gives us clear guidance in his holy word. We do not have what Jeremiah’s people had, a direct word from God that their captivity as a whole was a direct result of the nation’s sin. Times of hardship in our lives do indeed occasion a hard look at our hearts. We ought to take opportunity during those times to ask the Lord through his word to search us and to see if there are false ways within us. but without a direct word from scripture as to the situation in our lives. Brothers and sisters, we need not look for a sin behind every sneeze. At the same time, and in a very real sense, we all caused every instance of misery in this world.

    Sin and death and suffering are in this world. because of what we did in our first parents through Adam. In our first father, Adam, we fell into that estate of sin and misery. And that statement, that confession of part of our faith is no mere theory and each of us knows that. Life in this world is at times so hard and so hurtful and so miserable. And it’s precisely when our hearts are awoken to the severity of life in a fallen world that we must be so careful to know and to trust the word that God has given us. So again, let’s drive this home for any of us here this evening, and certainly as a congregation and as a denomination steeped in the Reformed faith. Now, perhaps unlike believers who refuse to believe that God is in these things, you know very well that he is.

    You know the statements from our confessional standards. But for those of us who can quickly agree that God has the prerogative to bring about such terrible things in such a sinful world and that he does so sinlessly, please consider this question. Do our doctrinal affirmations, do they serve as an anchor in life or as an anesthetic which keeps us from feeling life’s pain? Here’s what I mean by that. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of affirming the truth but putting it to false use. All our doctrinal statements about God’s sovereignty, rightly rooted in God’s holy word, can become an anesthetic by which we numb ourselves to the pain that sin has brought into this world. They can become cliche, they can become quick gut reaction, knee jerk, easy answers, by which we don’t let the pain in, or by which we encourage someone else or think we’re encouraging them. while not really understanding the weight of what they’re trying to communicate to us.

    If we’re not careful, our false use of good truth can prevent us from really taking into our souls the severity of our fallenness as a people. We can keep the pain at bay until it hits us like a shockwave, just how bad things really are and can be. until that pain comes calling personally. And we’re tempted to think, like Mr. Ehrman, I don’t think God’s word actually is equipped to deal with this. This is just too much. How can God not stop this? Mr. Ehrman fails to account, among many things, he fails to account for the crucial fact that this often deeply difficult state of things is exactly how our Lord said it would be in His holy word. And so we move now from God’s prerogative to think secondly and more briefly about God’s plans.

    Once again, verse 11. For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope. When we’re doubting the truthfulness or at least the realism of God’s holy word, what we’re doing is we’re treating people like Jeremiah in situations like the Babylonian captivity as if they were mere myth. Again, a morality tale or a fairy tale and not real flesh and blood human beings in the midst of truly traumatic devastations. Jeremiah understood how bad things could be in life. The other prophets of the Old and the New Testament really and viscerally and personally understood these things. And of course, Jeremiah, the weeping prophet who can not only sympathize, but empathize with our pain. His tears foreshadow those of the Lord Jesus himself, who is our sympathetic high priest, who has carried our sorrows.

    See, all of them, the Lord Jesus and those prophets who served him in the old and the new covenant eras, they understood a basic cause and effect relationship to these things. If we as humanity have willingly walked away from the one who is life, what do we have reason to expect but death? The reason life in a fallen world can be so hard and so severe is because God is so good. These are not, if honestly understood, reasons to deny God’s goodness, they are reasons to affirm it, to recognize that to walk in the way of the Lord is to walk in life, but that we, in Adam, have chosen the opposite. While we need not look for a sin behind every sneeze, it is at the same time true that every bitter tear, every bad news x-ray, every betrayal, every broken heart, every famine, and every violently active fault line is ultimately a result of original and at times actual human sin. of our collective fall into sin and our first father, Adam, and our continually singing against God daily in word and thought and deed.

    We must see ourselves as the word of God teaches us to see ourselves as exiles, suffering the effects of our sin and Adam. And Jeremiah’s letter then gives us a sketch of the church’s condition in this world. It is no mere coincidence, it is purposeful under the leading of the Holy Spirit that Peter refers to his Christian readers in the New Covenant era some 600 years later as elect exiles, sons and daughters of God who live in a sin-filled world as strangers. And so we must admit our fall in Adam. but praise the living God. That is not all we have to confess. As God’s people, we must also affirm our forgiveness and our life through the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is precisely that salvation through that savior to which God points his people in this passage.

    Notice with me again, please, verses 12 through 14. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord. And I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile. God brings the reprimand. And he also brings the restoration. He brings that pain and he produces from it peace. You will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

    We hear echoes of that. in Jesus and what he says in Matthew 6. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Everything that we need to serve the kingdom. Seeking God for the sake of God and his kingdom. Not just what God can give us in terms of temporal comforts in this life. Seeking with our whole hearts. But notice brothers and sisters, It is God himself who supplies the seeking. God doesn’t stand back and wait for us to gin up enough strength in our hearts to really go after him. Again, he’s not an endorser of that health and wealth kind of approach to life. If I just have enough faith, God is bound to do this and that for me. No, God is a God of grace.

    And he tells us in our passage, when we seek him with our whole heart, we’ll find him. and that he will supply that seeking. Just a few chapters over in this prophecy, we have that promise that God will supply us with a new heart, one that is alive and responsive to him and which seeks him through faith. Here again, these words as emphasized from the standpoint of God’s sovereignty, You will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. This is what God was doing in Jeremiah’s day. He was purifying for himself a people and he’s doing the very same thing today in and through every last detail of life for you, plural. and all of you living stones who comprise that plural.

    In order to beat back despair whenever we feel like the world is crashing down around us, and in some cases where that seems to be literally true, as we hear of natural disasters around the world, whenever we’re crushed because we know our Lord has brought this about, We must get our hearts and minds off of and above ourselves and realize that whatever situation is vexing us is not ultimately about us. It involves us deeply, but it’s bigger. The assurance that this passage brings to God’s people of all time is that God will use the circumstances of our lives and the circumstances of history in order to build his church. He knows the plans he has for you and they are glorious. There is always something much bigger happening, something gargantuan in scope and glorious in content.

    The big picture which the circumstances in our lives ultimately help to paint. Think of it. Even for the people of Jeremiah’s day, this letter, And this prophecy, in particular, was not ultimately fulfilled when God did, in fact, bring them back to Jerusalem after those 70 years. After their return, foreign power after foreign power played out their respective times on the world stage, each exercising political and geographical dominion over the promised land. The people of Israel were rebellious again and again, and in AD 70, The temple, which God sent them back to build, was destroyed, utterly shattering the dreams of a united Israel, worshiping God in the promised land in that blessed building. And yet, what did that destruction do? It declared to the world that the temple building was no longer the focal point for God’s people. and that in reality there had always been a bigger and more essential focal point.

    It declared to the world that the church was coming to maturity and that she included, as she always had and yet all the more explicitly in the New Covenant era, people from every tongue and tribe who would worship God from all kinds of places on the planet, not just a building in Jerusalem. And as we read about in the book of Acts, it was precisely the persecution of Christianity which brought the gospel beyond the bounds of Israel. Right into the new covenant era, we see God not only allowing but ordaining catastrophe. and using it to serve his ultimate purpose in this world. The building of the church, and of course, nowhere is that principle more fully realized than in God’s ordaining the crucifixion of his sinless son, out of which he brings victory over sin and death and hell for all whom the Lord gave himself to redeem and rose again to justify.

    Think of it. In God’s providence, here this evening, a little town in Pennsylvania, we’re singing to and about, hearing about, talking about a risen Christ. How did that happen? Our faith is the product, humanly speaking, and yet God working through those means, Our faith is the product of persecution. Our faith is the product of evil men driving Christians from their homes. The gospel spreading beyond those homes into empires and across seas and oceans till it finds its place here among us and so many other places around the world, all various corners of Christ’s kingdom. Should we not also therefore be willing to endure whatever hardship the Lord sends us for the sake of the gospel? So that the great shepherd’s other sheep will be gathered into the fold. And so that we, the church, can exert by his grace, his redemptive influence here in this fallen world.

    That’s what was happening in the days of Jeremiah. And that’s the promise that Jesus picks up and makes all the clearer in Matthew 16 when he says, I will build my church. The exiles in Jeremiah’s day knew that 70 years must be accomplished before they could go home. We are not given the number of years before our own personal home goings. But we do know that as the psalmist says, our times are in God’s hands. And that at the appointed time, a time known only to him, he will bring the full number of sheep into the fold. And we will fully and finally, as the plural you and every single individual you that comprises it, be home. We don’t know when, but we do know that it will happen. As part of the glory of believing that God really is in that much control over life, he can do it and he will do it.

    Christ is building his church and he is with you as you endure the trials he sends in order to perfect you in his grace. Know the love of God the Father which sent Christ to redeem you. Know the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit whose ministry is to comfort and counsel you along your journey home. Know and trust that God knows the plans he has for his people, the thoughts he thinks toward us. Those which are confirmed in the sacrament we’ll observe here in just a few moments. And when in the process of your journey, the reality and the severity of life in a fallen world really does settle in on your hearts. And when you need to cry, cry along with the weeping prophet. Don’t look away from the word of God as inadequate.

    Look to our own understanding as inadequate and to what he has given us. You can cry along with the weeping prophet who says this in Lamentations 3. My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Let’s pray. Thank you, our God and heavenly Father, that you have not left us lightless or lifeless here in this fallen world.

    You’ve given us your word as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. You’ve given us the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, giving us something tangible, something that is seen to strengthen us in our trust in that which is unseen. You have been so good to provide so many mercies every single day of our lives, and in particular on this day, as we gather morning and evening as the plural people of God to worship our Savior, who is risen and reigning at your right hand. We pray for the comfort and the wisdom and the counsel of the Holy Spirit. Oh God, that he would guide us ever deeper into the word that he has provided for us. that we would all the more fully, at times through tears, focus the eyes of our faith upon our risen Savior, in whose blessed name we pray, amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Baptism Saves You

    Baptism Saves You

    About this sermon

    Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring sinners to God. As eight persons were brought safely through the water in Noah’s ark, baptism now saves, as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The water itself cannot wash away sin, because baptism points to union with Christ in his death and resurrection. Believers find their hope in the risen Savior, and those who have never trusted Christ must turn to him in faith.

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    Sermon transcript

    Please be seated and turn with me this morning please to 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3. We will begin reading in verse 13, though our primary consideration this morning will be verses 21 and 22. 1 Peter 3. Who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled. But in your hearts, regard Christ the Lord as holy. Always prepare to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

    For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit, which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formally did not obey. When God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. This is the Word of God. Let’s pray together.

    Our Father, we know the glorious truth that those whose trespasses have been forgiven are greatly blessed. The wicked will suffer your judgment. But those who have sought you in Christ Jesus, our Savior, for mercy will find it. They will know forgiveness. They will know new life because of what Christ suffered and because of His exaltation in His resurrection. We come today with newness of life because of that. And we know that the waters of baptism point to that great salvation that is ours in Jesus Christ. May we see this clearly today. May we rejoice in it, and may you, Holy Spirit, stir our hearts that we would be given to a new determination to have a good conscience in testifying of Christ and living righteously, even if we’re called to suffer. that our eyes, Lord Jesus, will be upon You who suffered for us, who made this life possible.

    And we ask it all in Your name, Amen. In 2005, there was a Russian mini-submarine that got tangled up in some fishing nets. and ended up 600 feet at the depth of the sea. Unlike what happened in the year 2000, Russia appealed to other nations for help. In 2000, one of their Nuclear submarines encountered some problems as well. And Russia, because of its desire to be dependent only on itself and because of its boast of a superior navy, did not seek the help of others. 118 sailors died on that sub. This one only had seven, but they did reach out for help and the British came to the rescue and they had a robotic sub that went down to the Russian sub and cut away the fishing nets and freed the sub after it had been there for three days.

    You can imagine what it would have been like for these sailors. They conserved as much as electricity as they could. They had the sailors get into these thermal suits and it was totally dark on the sub. They had them lay down on their backs and they told them to breathe as lightly as possible to conserve their energy and the oxygen, of course, on the submarine. It was as though 600 feet at the bottom of the ocean, they were just waiting to die. But they didn’t. They were all rescued. All seven sailors made it to the surface and their lives were spared. An article in the China Daily read, the headline read as follows, Russians recount cold, dark ordeal. A watery ordeal in these cold waters. And they were delivered through it. I share that story with you to tell you that this is not unlike the waters of baptism.

    It is truly a watery ordeal. Some through that ordeal will be delivered. Others won’t. They will be judged. And we come, as we consider this passage this morning, to look at baptism and to consider this truth from Peter’s first epistle. The truth I bring to all of us today that we can rejoice in. There is a baptism that saves you. That’s exactly what Peter says. Well, let’s give consideration to this. As we look at a baptism which can save you. And I mean by that, the waters of baptism can save you. But we need to understand what Peter means when he talks about this. In a letter, of course, that is written Christians likely under the reign of Nero were undergoing a significant amount of persecution. And Peter was writing to remind them of all that they had in Jesus Christ.

    How he does in chapter 1 when he says to them that they have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They had salvation in Him. who died for them, who rose again for them. And then the passage that we read, he talks significantly about the suffering that they undergo, even as Christ underwent suffering, even as he talked about significantly in the previous chapter. And he urges them on to Good behavior. And basically says, nobody’s going to harm you if you’re zealous to do good, you’ll be blessed. Don’t be afraid. Just like Jesus said, don’t be afraid of people who the most they can do is kill you. And after that, they can’t do anything. Rather fear God who has the power to cast into hell. And then he says as he talks about them in the midst of this suffering, having a testimony in which they tell others of Christ, of the hope that is in them because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, they have this living hope.

    And he tells them, as you testify of Christ, do it with gentleness, do it with respect, You know, the gospel is an offense to people, but you don’t need to be offensive when you relate it to them. And then he says something in verse 16 that as they testify, they ought to do it with a good conscience with lives that back up the hope they speak of. Because they’re going to be slandered, as the Christians were. They will revile your good behavior in Christ. But because you testify of Him with a good conscience, they, in the end, will be put to shame. Maybe not in this life, but definitely in the life to come. And then Peter says, it’s better to suffer for doing good if God should will that for you. And he does at times.

    It’s better to suffer for doing good than it is for doing evil. No big deal if you suffer because of some wrong you’ve committed. But if you’re faithful to Christ, that is a big deal. Why? Because Christ suffered for you. the righteous one, perfectly, for you, the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God. And he could do so because he was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit by the power of the Holy Spirit, raised from the dead. Then he goes on to talk about salvation and judgment through water. And he says, in the days of Noah, God waited patiently while the ark was being prepared, giving the opportunity for people to repent. But obviously only a few were brought safely through the flood, eight persons, Noah and his family.

    Now think for a moment about the waters of the flood, as you might think about the Red Sea crossing. There were waters in both of those accounts, but here we’re considering what’s taking place in the days of Noah, in which the water delivered some, but resulted in the judgment of most. They were drowned. They were judged. But in the ark, Noah and his family were delivered. Then he moves on from the flood to start talking about baptism. Water baptism. Baptism which corresponds to this. In other words, he’s saying, and it’s more clear in in the original here. Baptism exists as the anti-type of the flood. The flood was a type of baptism. As that which occurred at a certain time in the history of redemption, it was looking ahead to another event It was pointing us to Christ and His salvation and the baptism which represents it.

    And then he says something amazing. Baptism, which the flood pointed to, now saves you. Like the waters of the flood saved Noah and his family. Now are we to conclude from this, as some do, as the Roman Catholic Church does, that there’s some power in the waters of baptism that regenerate or save somebody? John Calvin, when he looks at this passage, and maybe you’ll disagree with my interpretation of this, If you’re familiar with what Calvin says of this, he says, this is not, when Peter talks about baptism here, saving you, it’s efficacious. It has an effect. It truly does. John Calvin taught a form of baptismal regeneration. I don’t like to say that. Calvin’s one of my heroes. But he believed it was efficacious for the elect. There’s much more to be said about that, but we move on.

    Peter qualifies what he’s saying by noting, the waters of baptism save you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, What’s he speaking of here? Some sort of ceremonial cleansing perhaps? There are those who believe Peter is here talking about the idea that Peter’s making very clear the fact that there is not some sort of magical power in the waters themselves. so that moral filth could be removed. Rather, the waters of baptism save you as they are an appeal to God for a good conscience, we read in the ESV. And commentators are divided over how do we understand this phrase. Is it, as we read in the ESV, an appeal for a good conscience, as if to say, when we’re baptized, we are, as we look at the fact that baptism represents the salvation we have in Jesus Christ, a spiritual cleansing. being buried in the likeness of his death and raised to walk in newness of life.

    That when we’re baptized, we are appealing to God for the faith, the good conscience, the life that comes to back it up. Or, as others argue, is it the pledge of a good conscience? as some translations have. The NIV, for example. Well, I believe that is the case. Peter is saying this. The waters of baptism save you as they are attached to the pledge of a good conscience. What is that? You don’t see this phrase anywhere else in the New Testament. What’s he talking about? In summary, we can say, as Peter uses this type of language of being born again to a living hope, and as he talked about earlier in the chapter, responding to people who slander and persecute you with a good conscience, that he’s speaking about when he talks about the pledge of a good conscience of that new life that we have in Christ.

    I remember when I was baptized at the age of 21 in a Baptist church and of course immersed And they dipped me back in the water, and they said, buried in the likeness of his death in the language of Romans 6. And then they brought me out of the water, raised to walk in newness of life.” That’s a wonderful picture of baptism and of the salvation we have in Jesus Christ. The pledge of a good conscience is simply a fact that we have been, those who were dead in our sin, And now united to Christ, buried with Him, have been raised with Him, as we’re united to Him, for a new life in Him. Now here’s the key, this phrase that comes next to let us know that it’s not the waters themselves that save you.

    They save you as they’re attached to this newness of life through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The One who, having died and been buried in His humiliation, is now exalted as death could not hold Him because He never sinned. He was risen, He rose from the dead, and He ascended into heaven and is at the right hand of God with everything subjected to Him. in the fullness of His glory. Our baptism saves us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now notice earlier in the chapter, as it speaks about Jesus’ suffering put to death in the flesh, made alive in the Spirit, that baptism As it is a wonderful picture of salvation, many people often miss this. It isn’t just that. It is also a picture of judgment. I say that in relation to what we just read about Noah, the waters of the flood, We’re a means of salvation for some and a means of judgment for most.

    So too, baptism depicts salvation and judgment. Why would I say that? Because of what we read of the baptism of Jesus Christ. And when I speak of that, I’m not talking about his water baptism so much as what he says in Luke 12. In Luke 12, after his baptism, he says to the disciples, I have a baptism to be baptized with. And in that context, he is speaking about his death on the cross. And Paul helps us to understand this in Colossians 2. Let’s turn there for a minute. As he speaks of circumcision, sign of the covenant, that we are the people of God, and then makes a transition to baptism as the sign of the new covenant for the people of God. Notice what he says. beginning in verse 11. In Him, Christ, also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.

    We know As we have the image of Christ being cut off, as the people were cut off from the land, Christ was cut off. A depiction of circumcision and the cutting away of the foreskin. Paul here is not just speaking about the circumcision of the heart which occurs in believers, which it truly does. He’s talking about the circumcision of Christ by pointing out it is through the death of Jesus Christ that this occurs. That circumcision as it represented being set apart unto God by the cutting away of the foreskin. finds its fulfillment in the circumcision of Christ and his crucifixion. Christ, our circumcision. And then quickly he makes a transition into baptism. Again, starting out by talking about the death of Jesus Christ. He says, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

    Clearly, Paul is saying that in a sense, circumcision and baptism point to the cross of Christ and the judgment that He underwent, as we hear, of Christ, that He came to baptize with fire. There is judgment involved in the waters of baptism as they’re applied to the individual. Looking at this idea that baptism now saves you and attaching it to the pledge of a good conscience, the Baptist, and I used to be one, and a Reformed Baptist who believed he was taking covenant theology very seriously, will point to this and say, look, this is why it ought to be the case. that until you can make a pledge, such a pledge, that you have faith in Christ and you are walking in newness of life, you ought not to be baptized. It’s only those who can make such a pledge that ought to be baptized.

    And I used to think as I looked at this passage, well, it’s talking about the act of pledge that a believer makes before his baptism or that which is made passively for an infant by his parents. Not so. It is the act of pledge. But notice, this passage doesn’t say when that pledge ought to occur regarding the waters of baptism, either before or after it. What is important is this, that at the end of the day, your baptism must be joined to faith, to newness of life in which you walk, in which you are called to. in which you were brought into by the resurrection power of Christ. So when the water is applied, that water symbolizes on the individual. as an infant, for example, and waters are put on their forehead. I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

    Those waters indeed point to the promises of salvation, but they also point to the judgment of Christ and the judgment that will come through that water applied on the individual who at the end of the day never owns Christ in faith. The waters of baptism will judge him. They will be a sign of his condemnation. And even for somebody who comes to make a profession of faith, it remains to be seen whether they make it to the end. and whether the waters that represent these glorious promises of salvation will be theirs. And that’s why some theologians speak of baptism as a watery ordeal, such as Meredith Klein does. Rightly so. These waters await that day, that confirmation before the Lord, of your salvation. So in that sense, at the last day, you will have a baptism by water that saves you like no one has family or saved through the waters of the flood or damns you like the multitudes who were judged.

    Nothing in the waters themselves bring the salvation, but the resurrection life to which they point. Here, indeed, are the glorious promises of Christ fulfilled as baptism represents them. So what do we make of this? Whenever somebody is baptized, maybe you’re hearing you haven’t been baptized. We are, as the Puritans like to say, we are to make an improvement upon our baptism. That whenever it occurs, or whenever we reflect upon it, there would be careful consideration given to the waters of baptism that have been applied to us. How it points us to Jesus Christ, who was judged for you, who took the curse upon himself for you. How it depicts the fact that you’ve been set apart unto him, you’ve been raised to walk in newness of life. and how serious it is to turn your back on Him as one who has been baptized.

    In that respect, to be in the church of Jesus Christ among the covenant people brings with it great spiritual blessings. But it’s also a very serious matter. not something to be taken lightly, and so we’re to be warned by God who has set you apart in this way, not necessarily savingly, but with these covenant blessings. Demands that the water applied to you will be realized in the reality that it represents. So baptism isn’t some sort of flood insurance. It doesn’t have the powers of regeneration in it. We are to have great hope and encouragement in reflecting upon our baptism, not like Martin Luther, who said, my baptism, my baptism, because he was speaking of baptismal regeneration, but in reminding us of the glorious promises that are attached to it. And we are to be humbled when we reflect upon our baptism or when a baptism occurs.

    Humbled as we are reminded anew of our sin. Reminded anew that there is no such thing as the pledge of a good conscience before the Lord without Christ. Who alone can save us. who alone can qualify us. And then at the same time, we are to be strengthened as we reflect upon our baptism, as we’re mindful of the resurrection power that it represents, that our hope is in Jesus Christ. There’s the living hope. Our hope is not in ourselves, but in Him. So that when we do fail, when we are unfaithful, to our faith, that we go to Him anew, whose resurrection life has been worked in us. There is, as Robert Bruce in The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper in talking about the Lord’s Supper says, there’s no truth in the Lord’s Supper, and we can say the same of baptism, there’s nothing new you get in those sacraments that you don’t already get in the Word.

    But rather it’s a seal, a confirmation, a symbol attached to the Word in a visible way. When we come to the Lord’s Supper, when a baptism takes place, it is a visible stirring that takes place. that persuades us of the truth in a wonderful way. So our outward senses, either by the waters applied or seeing or the taste of the bread and the wine and the smell of it and the sight of it, it persuades us of the truth and our outward senses are stirred so that our inward senses in the heart are persuaded in a powerful way to believe upon Jesus Christ. And God has given these sacraments as a wonderful gift. The waters themselves don’t save you, but the Christ to which they point, that is what saves you. And we can rejoice in that.

    I’ll return back to that story of that Russian sub. The sailors came forth and they interviewed the wife of the commander of this little sub just to get an idea of how she felt, what was her response. And they asked her, how did you respond when you found out that your husband was alive? that He made it through this watery ordeal. She said this, I cried. I cried with happiness. I danced. Her husband had been delivered and she rejoiced. As we on a regular basis ought to give consideration to our baptism. We look forward to that day when it will be confirmed that we have been delivered safely through the watery ordeal. That those waters were a sign of our salvation through Jesus Christ. We look forward to the day that we can cry with happiness and dance because of what has been accomplished in Jesus Christ.

    Let’s pray. Our Father, we know that we are the unrighteous for whom Christ suffered. We know that we are unworthy of His salvation. Our hope is in Him. Our hope is in You, Holy Spirit, who have given us new birth for this newness of life, this resurrected life in our resurrected Savior. And there is our hope. And the waters of baptism point us to that. May it truly be that which brings great encouragement to us and leads us to take seriously our sin and to be humbled by it and to turn with faith to Christ. And for anyone here who does not have that, who not only may never have been baptized, but has never believed upon Jesus Christ, or those who have been baptized, who have not owned the Christ to whom these waters point, that they would know the pledge of a good conscience.

    That they on that day, with all of us, would be able to dance with rejoicing in You, Lord Jesus, our crucified and risen Savior. We pray all of this in Your name. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.