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).
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.
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