1 Peter 1:3-9

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into first Peter. All right, we're live and we're going to be studying first Peter chapter 1 starting with verse 3.
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First Peter, does anyone remember what the audience was like, the primary audience, the original audience?
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Jews. Jews, okay. Pilgrims. Yeah, pilgrims. Sure. What does it mean by pilgrims?
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Yeah, they're living in foreign lands. They're exiled. They're sojourners, right?
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You're all right. And yeah, we actually talked a lot about how
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I think it's most likely Jews because of the references written of the
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Old Testament references and also how it's
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Peter writing it and Peter was the apostle to the Jews and much more, which is that they are actually called in dispersion and dispersion is only used to describe
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Jews. Yeah, dispersion in the New Testament at least.
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Yeah. In the New Testament, at least the references are those
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Jews who ended up elsewhere. So, there's a John context and there's also
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James. And in that context, it's referring to the
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Jews. However, even though these are Jews, they're Jewish Christians.
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So, I would say, hey, Dexter, there's more in common with us and them than they are to non -Christ -believing
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Jews because we are all saved, right? We're all brothers and sisters in Christ so that even though it was written to the
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Jewish Christians, they're closer to us than they are to the Jews.
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I believe that's very important. And also, because they're also
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Christians, they're under the same covenant, new covenant in Christ. Their allegiance to Christ all matters and so does ours.
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So, because of that, this book applies to Christians just as well, right?
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But it does help to think about how these Jews probably weren't feeling at home, right?
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They weren't feeling at home. They probably were treated as rejects, like they're not truly quote unquote
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Jews, right? That's how they were probably treated. They're in another land. They might not have themselves not have gone to Jerusalem in a while, right?
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After all, traveling back then was much riskier and harder and more expensive. So, I think with that in mind, how
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Peter writes to them is extremely encouraging and very thoughtful and gives them the hope.
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And that's really, that's what we're going to study today, hope. So, remembering the purpose, it's to the scattered
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Jews who became Christians and there have not been shepherded well. And the apostle to the
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Jews writes this letter to encourage and shepherd them through the persecution and suffering they're now facing.
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And it's an encouraging letter. And for us, it applies to us too, although I don't know any of us are
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Jews. Do you have any Jewish blood in you? Not that I know of. Cassandra, Dexter?
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No, yeah, no, we don't. Although we're not Jews, we are in one sense, we're sojourners too.
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We're spiritual sojourners, right? I mean, you might have been. Well, actually, we all have
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Jesus. That's right. Yeah. So, in that sense, we are sojourners and sometimes we, maybe more often than sometimes you might feel out of place in this world and that's okay.
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If you're longing for another world, the kingdom of Christ, then it's a good place to be, right?
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Maybe it's not good to be comfortable in loving this world too much, right?
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So, let's pray and then we'll get started with verse three. Father, we are grateful that we find home in Christ and we long for his return so that we may be with him once and for all and spend our eternity with him and live in his kingdom.
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We pray that he would come back for the church soon in Jesus name. Amen. All right.
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Who can read verse three? Okay, go ahead, Jim. With the epistles, we have to,
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I think there's so much to unpack here compared to narratives where narratives we read chunk by chunk, but with epistles, we go slower because words can have a huge theological significance.
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Although in narrative, that is true, but things like, and he walked and he saw, we can't unpack too much of that compared to blessed be the
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God, the father, right? So, let's go ahead.
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And how does Peter start his letter? Blessed be.
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Yeah, blessed be. God and father. What does it mean to bless the God, the father?
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What does it mean to bless God? We're used to God blessing us, right?
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God blessing us. But what would it mean for humans to bless God? Kind of like thanking?
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In a way, it's thanking. Yeah. Praising. Praising would be another way to say it too.
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So, when God blesses us, that's not the same as we blessing God. God doesn't need our blessing.
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We desperately need his blessing. Blessing, both in New and the
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Old Testament, when humans bless God, it's a way of praising
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God. It's praise. Praise be to God and father of Jesus Christ, right?
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That's what it is. In fact, if you look up this word to be praised as an adjective, it's oftentimes
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God who is the recipient of this blessing, which slash praise.
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So, we saw this in Luke 168, when Zechariah praised God for the redemption of Israel through the
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Messiah. We actually see this in the beginning of the letters.
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So, Paul does this in Ephesians 1, 3 and 2 Corinthians 1, 3. So, it is a very common way to begin a theological letter.
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Blessed be God the Father. Is it in Galatians too?
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Was it 6, 16? Okay. Yeah. At the end. Titus 3, 5. Yeah. James 1, 18.
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Yeah. And 1 Peter 1, 2. Yeah. So, there are a lot of.
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Right. There are a lot of blessing and in which God is a recipient and that means praise, right?
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Now, when we read verse 3, what is the reason for God to be praised?
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He made us. He made. Well, what does it say? What does it mean to be begotten?
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Begotten us. Saving us. What is it? Saving us. Saving us, right? Begetting.
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Begetting us. It says notice again. Begotten us again. He caused us to be born again.
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Yeah. He caused us to be born again. The reason for praising God is because we have been begotten again, born again, right?
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What does it mean by this rebirth? What does this born again language mean?
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Yeah, for sure. It's one way, another way to say be saved, right?
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Through his son. Through his son. Yeah. And it's not a normal physical birth, right?
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It's a spiritual birth. You're made again. You're remade, renewed, a new creation.
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It's that idea, right? And what is the cause of our rebirth?
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What does it mean? Yes, it says through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, right?
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And also, can this be earned? No. No. Why not?
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What does it say? Why can it not be earned? Because Jesus.
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Yes, it's his mercy, right? What did you say, Diane? Okay. Yeah, according to his great mercy, right?
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Mercy, can mercy be earned? No. Mercy cannot be earned, right?
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Mercy is, mercy and grace are kind of like the two sides of the same coin.
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Grace is freely given as a gift. Mercy is given freely too.
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One component that mercy has is it's given out of compassion slash pity.
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No. If you've ever given to someone who needs help, right?
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Whether homeless or family, right? Someone who needs it, someone who can't go on without it, that's done out of mercy, right?
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So, mercy cannot be earned. You can't earn the mercy of God.
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So, what does this tell us about our salvation? It's a free gift.
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It's a free gift. Good. What else? It's not earned.
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Anything else? It gives us hope.
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Yeah, it gives us hope. Yeah, we'll go over that. And just like being born again, right?
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What do you need to do to be born again? Believe. That's right. Yeah, believe. You don't contribute to your own salvation, right?
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You don't add a thing to your own salvation. Yeah, Jesus did it all for us.
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God did it all for us, right? I liked what Jonathan Edwards said, a
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Puritan theologian slash pastor from the 1700s. You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.
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Here comes Lehman. Hey, Lehman. Do you want me to move this or do you want that chair?
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Oh, okay. All right. Good. Now, we talked about this.
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What are we born into? What is the goal of this rebirth? We kind of mentioned this. Verse three, begotten us again to a living hope, right?
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You're being born again. There's a goal to it, and it is there's living hope.
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You're not born again just to be a blank page, right? There's hope.
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And what does it mean by living hope? Why would you describe that to someone?
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Living hope. It has to do with Jesus. Sure. Yeah, it has to do with Jesus.
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Oh, living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yes. What does that tell us?
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Yeah, new family, and this is not the end, right?
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Hope means that there's future. Yeah, that's what hope means. I think our
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English word for hope, we often use it so flippantly, right? I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow, right?
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In that sense, or like, I hope I win the lottery. In that sense, we often use hope as without needing any authenticity or evidence because there's no reason to believe that I'm going to win the lottery.
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It's like so slim, right? There's no reason to believe that it might not rain tomorrow.
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It does rain tomorrow, right? I'm not a meteorologist, right? But in this case, living hope is actually hope that is genuine, right?
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Hope that is authentic. It's, and it will be unpacked verses three, four through five.
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Now, when it says through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, what is the ground of this living hope?
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What is the ground for this hope? The resurrection. What Jesus did.
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What Jesus did. What does this tell us about our living hope right now then?
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There's evidence for it. So, it's not dead. Yeah, right.
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It's not dead. There's evidence for it. The resurrection is a historically,
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I mean, historically robustly proven event.
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So, the fact that Peter ties it to the resurrection of Jesus Christ is huge. Just as his resurrection is a guaranteed sure event, so is their hope, right?
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And Diane said it earlier, I think, and Cassandra too.
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It's based upon what Jesus did. It's accomplished by Jesus, right? When he died for our sin and rose from the dead, that's what garnered, gained the living hope for us.
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And I like what Dexter said. It's, even death can't touch this, right?
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Even death can't take this away. Then there's evidence for it. Nothing in this world can take this hope away.
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That's important. There's evidence for it in 1 Corinthians and 1
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Peter. Yes. 1 Corinthians 15, 20 and 1
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Peter 3, 21. Now, considering the primary audience,
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I think it's really important to think what would have these, what would have the first readers, right?
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The dispersed Jews, what would they have thought of this? What kind of effect do you think they had when they read verse three?
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Depends how they believed. Okay. Well, they're Christians, right? They're Christian Jews. So what, what, what do they, what would they have thought?
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What effect do you think they, it must have had on them when they read, blessed be the
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God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
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What do you think? He would give me hope even though things are really bad right now.
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Yeah. Right. That's right. It's a, it's a very encouraging way to start the letter, right?
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Even if things are really bad right now, there's actually hope. There's a reason to continue on, right?
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I think that's great. There's scattered Jews being a scattered
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Jew in itself. Uh, there's probably some persecution to that because you're a foreigner in a foreign land, but then not only that you're a scattered
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Jew who converted to Christianity. So all of a sudden, even in your own
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Jewish community, they're, they're giving you the side eyes, right? So there's an extra layer of persecution just for being a
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Christian Jew. And now their faith has been kind of alienating them.
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And what Paul, not Paul, Peter, Peter is saying, that is not in vain because you know what?
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Praise God for what you're going through because there's living hope, right?
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Whatever you are facing right now cannot take away this living hope.
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That's important. Um, many people and many people groups have gone through horrendous things done by other human beings, uh,
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Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, communist China, right? I mean, slavery of every kind, like just humans have done horrible things.
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The difference between people who endure and who don't is that there's something they look forward to at the end.
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That's, that's what it is. It's hope. Uh, it might, I mean what some, some people probably weren't
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Christians, but they, they, they, they hoped that there's something out there, right? That's what got them through.
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And for Christians, yours is living hope. It's a hope that's alive.
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Hope that's genuine. It's authentic. It's true. All right.
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Who can read verse four? I kind of went, right? Yeah, go ahead.
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To obtain an inheritance, which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.
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Okay. What is verse four describing here? What is it?
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Yeah. What is this? It, what is, what's, what's, what's being described?
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The resurrection, the inheritance. What is this inheritance?
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Salvation. Salvation, right? Eternal life. Eternal life. Salvation. In the end, it's the living hope, right?
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It's unpacking the living hope, right? What are, how, what are three ways in which
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Peter, I'm going to keep saying Paul because we just studied Titus, but Peter, what are the three ways in which
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Peter describes this living hope in verse four? Well, it's a living hope.
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Yeah. What to an inheritance that is imperishable and undefiled and does not fade away.
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Those are the three things. I don't know what's going on in Peter's mind, but Peter tends to use triads a lot.
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Three things. We saw this in the beginning, the father, the son, and the Holy spirit are mentioned.
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And then here he's going to mention three ways in which this inheritance is special.
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Not only that, he's going to talk about hope, love, and I think faith, but I got hope, love, and salvation or grace.
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But yeah, there's a triad. I got to look it up. I forget. I needed to write it down. Well, let's unpack each one.
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What does it mean to be incorruptible or imperishable? It doesn't change, right?
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Peter uses this in first Peter three, four imperishable. I mean, imperishable beauty for women.
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What's important is not the ornaments, but it's what's inside the beauty that is unchanging inside.
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First Peter one 23, the imperishable seed, right? I think that that's the, that's scripture.
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Uh, first Corinthians nine 25, our reward in heaven is imperishable.
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First Corinthians 15 52, our resurrection is, uh, to an imperishable body body that does not go bad.
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Uh, and also Romans one 23, God is described as incorruptible slash immortal.
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He doesn't change and he has existed forever. Right? So that's, that's the inheritance here.
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One sense. And what does it mean by undefiled? What does undefiled mean?
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Doesn't spoil, right? Unblemished is another one.
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It doesn't have imperfection, right? That's, that's, that's, uh, yeah.
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Um, Hebrews 13, four shows that it's the purity and keep your marriage pure.
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It's, it's that pure purity, right? Uh, it will not lose its shine.
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That's the, that's, that's another way, right? It will not lose its awe. It's not going to lose its beauty, right?
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If you have jewelry, like the first time you wear it, it's really nice. And it glows that over time it loses its shine.
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So you have to polish it again. Not so this inheritance, uh, what does it mean by unfading does not fade away.
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It stays, it stays like, right. Yeah. It stays bright. It will last forever. I know they're, they're kind of like all overlapping terms, right?
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So it's after a while, it's like, it's kind of about that. Yes. Right. It's the point is their inheritance is untouchable.
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It's unchangeable. It's sealed. It's promised. It's guaranteed. Right now in the old
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Testament, what was the inheritance for God's people? The land, right?
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The inheritance was the land. And you know what? I, I really think, uh, there, it is so helpful to know whom to whom was
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Peter writing to the Jews, Jewish Christians. These Jewish Christians would have had a huge theological depth and relationship with the land, even more so because they are dispersed.
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So that adds another layer of complexity, doesn't it? For them, think about that all throughout the old
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Testament. How, how was their inheritance kept the Jews or ancient
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Jews? What was their relationship to the inheritance? The land, like what was it? Yeah, it would be transferred to the family line.
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And that was what meant to be faithful, right? You got to transfer it. You got to let it inherit.
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Right, right, right. Even if you sold it. Yeah. You had to give it back to the original family.
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Now, how did it actually turn out for the Jews? Not good. Right. Their, their land maintenance was not good.
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Right. Maybe they're not supposed to be landscapers, right? Their land was constantly under attack.
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I mean, just read the book of judges. You get Mesopotamia, Moabites, Midianites, Ammonites, Philistines, like Hittites, Amorites.
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They didn't do what God wanted them to do. Exactly. He told them what to do and they didn't do it. And that's, that's, that's not
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God's fault, right? By no means was it God's fault. It's because they disobeyed multiple times over and over again.
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So God delivered them to their enemies. And not only that, whenever they sin, whenever they rebelled and not repented, the land experienced famines, plagues, pestilence, right?
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He even told them what if they didn't do it. Right. Now, eventually all the tribes are exiled.
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First, the, uh, the Northern Kingdom, the first 10 tribes, right? Uh, they're exiled because of Assyria, I think 722
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BC. And then the, uh, next, uh, Southern Kingdom, 586
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BC, Judah. They're all exiled. And that is the ultimate judgment in the
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Old Testament. You're out of your inheritance, right? That's, that's, that's a brief history of the
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Old Testament. Now let's think about this to these Jewish dispersed
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Jew, Jewish dispersed Christians. What is the inheritance that Peter is promising?
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You can't lose it. I mean, imagine that for us,
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I think we're so used to, you know, hearing that our salvation, you can't lose that. Hopefully that's what you've heard.
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Right. Right. But for these Jews, when they think of inheritance, it's like, it's shaky.
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Historically, they've lost it. In fact, they are the example and remnant of the fact that they've lost their inheritance.
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They're not home. They haven't been home. They probably can't even go back.
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They don't even know who owns their land. They don't even know which land they need to own. Right.
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But now Peter writes, he has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance and corruptible incorruptible and undefiled.
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And that does not fade away in water. What an encouragement. There's a new inheritance for you and it's better, right?
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Your salvation is better. And in this sense, us and then these dispersed
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Jewish Christians have something in common. We have the same inheritance.
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Right. So this does apply to us too. And this is an eschatological living hope.
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It's not just good feelings now, but it's a continued until the very end forever.
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Right. And in fact, if you believe in that, it does include the land when
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Jesus comes back, when the kingdom is established. No, we won't really care, but he will rule in the land.
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Right. So it's just like, you'll be living in his kingdom physically. And so will they.
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Right. Yeah, for sure. Right. In the end, it's about Christ, but they'll get the land to. Right.
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So, again, when we consider the Jewish Christians, I think there is a depth of richness that we might miss when we just read it as if it's just for us.
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It is for us. It is for us. But let's consider what was it originally thought of.
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Right. These Jewish Christians in dispersion, there was no guarantee that the kingdom will be established in their lifetime.
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There's no guarantee that they were going to go back to Jerusalem or Judea. They have no claim on the promised land right now.
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It's been turned over to Rome. And they may never have even been there.
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Who knows? And Peter does not latch their hope on the land.
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He latches the hope on something that is more permanent, unchanging, and that is linked to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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Now, let's talk about this. How secure is this living hope? Where is it kept?
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It's in heaven. No human army can take that away. I mean, think about the
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Jewish land. It's one empire to the next. It's kind of like a volleyball, right?
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Assyria, Babylon, Greek, Syrian, Rome. And really until 1948,
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Jews didn't really have a claim on that land. Yeah, the
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Middle East is like really until Jesus comes back, I assume it's going to be always fighting.
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Yeah, that's what I think, too, for sure. But Peter doesn't latch on that.
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He latches it on their salvation, right? Now, this is important because there are cults, and I guess maybe some of them might be safe, but there are people who believe that you can lose your salvation.
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Yeah. And this is one of the texts that I would go to to say you can't.
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For Peter to say this is the living hope, and if that is also kept in heaven, then you can't really argue that something you can lose if it's kept in heaven.
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For you, it says, right? Kept in heaven for you. It's stored. It's locked.
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It's vaulted. Now, let's read verse five.
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Who can read verse five? All right, Dexter, she volunteered you. Who is verse five describing?
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Yeah, it goes back to the most recent referent.
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Referent is the thing or object or person that who refers to.
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I know it's like high school grammar again. Who, which, that, whom, any of the where.
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When you see those words. Who is for you. That's right. When you see those words, these are called.
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Why am I blanking? Who, which. Who, what, when, where, why, and how. Oh, man, there's a pronoun.
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Is it indefinite? Let me see. It's not indefinite pronoun.
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Man, why am I, who, part of speech.
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Oh, it can be interrogative pronoun. Yeah, interrogative pronoun.
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Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. So, when you see that, the best thing to do oftentimes is go back to the closest thing that it refers to.
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And Diane's right. For you. And of course, this you is plural, right? Kept in heaven for you.
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Who, so it's verse five is actually describing now those who have received the living hope, right?
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So, who are kept by the power of God. So, when we consider this verse five, what keeps them safe?
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The power of God. God's very power, right? And how do they receive this?
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Like through faith. Through faith. For salvation, right? You can't go wrong with this.
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I mean, this is theologically deep. Your salvation is not maintained by your power.
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It's maintained by God's power. And this is why you can't lose your salvation.
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Now, I don't mean your salvation as that one prayer you did 30 years ago, but you're living like a pagan.
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I'm not condoning that. And I would probably argue that there's no fruit. There's no fruit.
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There's no guarantee that there's any salvation. I'm talking about in the end, you live faithfully and you're committed to Christ.
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In the end, it's not because you were extra strong in faith, but it's because God was the one who gave you the power to do so.
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It is purely the divine power that you endure until the end, right?
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That's important. If you're guarded by God, I don't know of any other security system even more secure than that.
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That can't be taken away. Satan can take it away. There might be fruit. We don't know if there wasn't any fruit.
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Yeah, I don't know. But again, Jesus said, you shall know them by their fruit.
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So that's the only thing we go by. But for those who are saved, those who are truly genuinely saved, their salvation is not kept by their good works, but by God's power.
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And when is this salvation to be revealed? In the last time.
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In the last time. So it's the eschaton. It's the last days, right?
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In the last time, this salvation will be revealed. This is important because in the
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New Testament, there are different ways of looking at salvation. It is true to say that the moment you believe that you are saved, that is the moment of salvation.
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But it is also true in another sense to say that the full culmination of your salvation is revealed when
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Jesus comes back, because that's when you have a glorified body. So in one sense, you are saved the moment you believe, but you're also being saved.
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And then you're finally saved where there's no remnant of sin and no effect of sin on you whatsoever.
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So they're both ends. And then in this case, Peter's looking at the final moment of revelation, the resurrection of the saints.
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And what that means is your current state is sealed, but not only that, your future state is sealed.
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And that is encouraging, right?
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Your future state is sealed too. So you don't have to worry about your faith tomorrow.
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You don't have to worry about your faith in 10 years. It's guarded in heaven by God's power, right?
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Now let's go over verse 6. Who's going to read verse 6? Is it Cassandra? All right.
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If you want. Okay. So now we are getting to the presence part, right?
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Just before it was the future hope. Now it's presently.
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What is happening to them presently? Yeah, they're suffering right now, right?
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That's a context. Peter brings up the suffering pretty early on.
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Now, what is the appropriate response to receiving this living hope?
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Rejoice. Yeah, greatly rejoice here when it says in this, in this, it's again, you know, this is a demonstrative pronoun, right?
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It's pointing to something else, right? It's pointing to what was just talked about, which
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I believe is salvation, right? The living hope. So in this you greatly rejoice.
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What is this salvation in the last days, right? Rejoicing is important.
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Oftentimes we get confused with happiness and joy. And I'm not saying one is bad or the other, you know, like if you, if something happens to you and you're happy about it, by all means be happy, right?
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It's like, I don't like it when Christians make it seem like, oh no, being happy is so, so, so superficial or, you know, and then you need to seek joy.
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Like, you know, if God blesses you, yeah. If God blesses you and something great happens, it's okay to be happy, right?
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But here's the difference. Does joy depend on circumstance?
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No, joy does not depend on circumstance. That is, that's, that's the difference. Yeah. That's the difference between happiness.
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Yeah. Happiness depends on circumstance. I like my mentor
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Warren says this happiness depends on happenings. Happiness depends on what's happening.
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Joy does not depend on what's happening or else what Peter commands doesn't make sense.
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In this you greatly rejoice or not commands, but rather describes in this you're greatly rejoicing what though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials.
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Joy does not depend on circumstance. They're grieving still, but there's still joy.
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What does this tell us about joy? It's God -given.
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It's God -given. What else? It doesn't fade.
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True joy doesn't fade. Yeah. And we don't, we don't, we don't make it.
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Yeah. It's not right. It's not. Well, yeah, in this case, it's, it's not human made, right?
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Yeah. It's, it's an emotional response that is not dependent on circumstances and it's an emotional response that is dependent on reality.
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It's dependent on facts. After all, Peter is telling them in this you're greatly rejoicing.
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When you consider all this, when you consider the living hope that is secured in heaven for you, which
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God has kept for you in heaven, right? Through faith you receive.
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Joy is dependent. It's joy is facts dependent. Joy is not based upon hopium, right?
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It's not dependent on what I hope happens, right? But it's based upon real hope.
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Joy is joy. The power of God to save, it's the salvation.
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Yeah. The salvation that will be revealed in the last time. And that's why you're rejoicing. You know what?
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In the end, that is not the final chapter of my book. That's what it is.
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People suffer. People go through a lot of painful things because they look ahead to what is coming ahead.
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And for Christians, it is the apocalypse, which is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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Right? That's, that's, that's really important.
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Joy is highly intellectual. It's, it's based upon facts. You need to consider this.
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You need to think about it. You need to meditate on that. You need to ponder it, saturate it. That's what joy is dependent on.
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Happiness might not be, and that's okay. There are times to be happy, right?
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I don't discourage any form of emotion. Just respond to it in a faithful way.
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All right. Verse seven.
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Who can, Lehman, would you like to read verse seven? Yes. Thank you. So that the tested genuine, genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that heritage knowing is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor as the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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Yeah. There's that three thing. There's the triad again, praise, honor, glory, right?
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Praise, glory, honor. Peter does use this triad. I don't know why, but he does.
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He likes to keep it at three. Now, what is the purpose of their suffering?
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Proof testing, right? Suffering is the furnace for your faith.
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Suffering is the crucible for your faith. That when things get heated up, you get to see the impurities gone away and what's left is genuine.
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Peter even says it's like more precious than gold. And you know, gold is the most precious metal there is.
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And I mean, right now it's going through the roof, right? It's the highest it's ever been. But he says it's more precious than even gold and gold.
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He says gold perishes. But which is, I think it's a hyperbole because like gold is known for not changing, right?
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Gold is unchangeable. That's what makes it so valuable. It can melt. But what
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Peter is saying, but the genuineness of your faith, that's even better.
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That's even more beautiful. That is even more precious. That's more valuable. Jesus Christ is better than gold.
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Mm hmm. And it's as though it is tested by fire may be found to praise, honor, and glory.
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And again, it's looking ahead, right? The result of a genuine believer after suffering is that the future reward from God on the last day may result in praise, honor, and glory.
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And this is also important because do you think these Jewish Christians who are in foreign land, do you think they had much honor?
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No. No. Do you think they were praised much? No. Or held in high glory?
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No. No. But what Peter says is, because you're going through this right now for Christ's sake, that's what you're going to receive, right?
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That's the living hope. That's the effect. That's the result of the living hope. I mean, it is wonderful.
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It's marvelous. Imagine receiving this kind of letter and then hearing that out loud.
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And it's from the apostle Peter, right? That's encouraging. And then
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I guess it's my turn. I'll do eight through nine because nine is quite short, right?
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But again, this is why we spent a lot of time last time we met even just going through two verses to imagine, not imagine, but just learn, learn and think about what kind of scenario and situation that the original audience was facing, because you get so much depth and richness when you know what the original audience was facing, right?
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It's easy to just jump to how does that apply to me? But sometimes how it applies to you gets deeper and more significant when we consider how did it apply to them first, right?
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That's just a good way of interpreting text. How did the original audience receive this?
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All right. Verses eight through nine. Jesus Christ, this is the whom, whom having not seen you all love, though now you do not see him yet believing you rejoice with joy, inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
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So here, who, whom is this? Who's who's the referent for whom?
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Jesus, right? So again, it goes back to who was mentioned before. And notice it's whom, which means it's the object.
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So it's the object of the verb to see. So having not seen Jesus, that's what it is.
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You have not seen Jesus. But how do they respond? In love, right?
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So this is important. The Jewish Christians in Asia minor in dispersion have not seen
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Jesus Christ in person. They were not in Jerusalem when Jesus rose from the dead and showed up to over 500 people and the apostles.
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These. Have never seen Jesus, but they love.
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And in verse nine, yet believing you rejoice, so they love, though now you do not see they believe.
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So both love and faith. And you rejoice with joy, inexpressible and full of glory.
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And what is the reason they respond in love and joy? For salvation, right?
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End of your faith. It's the salvation that they're rejoicing and and why they responded in love and joy.
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Salvation for faith, right? Ultimately, uh, receiving
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Christ in faith is because you receive Christ. Uh, before we end here,
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I do want to read Jonathan Edwards. Salvation story. Jonathan Edwards was a
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Puritan in the 1700s who lived in Massachusetts. He was brilliant.
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He was a genius. He knew Latin, Hebrew and Greek at a young age and graduated from Yale at like as a teenager.
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So he was he was extremely a genius, loved sciences, and he has notes about like spiders and how there's life cycle and stuff.
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So yeah, so he he's not just like, you know. A nerd of theology, but nerd of everything.
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But Jonathan Edwards, although growing up in a Christian family, he wasn't, of course, saved when he was born.
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And this is what Jonathan Edwards writes when he first became saved, when the truth of the gospel hit his heart.
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As I rode out into the woods for my health in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly has been to walk for divine contemplation and prayer,
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I had a view that was for me extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God as mediator between God and man, and his wonderful, great, full, pure, and sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condescension that he came down to us.
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This grace that appeared so calm and sweet appeared also great above the heavens.
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The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, within excellency great enough to swallow up all thoughts and conceptions, which continued as near as I can judge about an hour, such as to keep me a greater part of the time in a flood of tears, and weeping aloud,
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I felt as ardency of soul to be what I know not otherwise how to express inexpressible, emptied and annihilated, to lie in the dust, and to be full of Christ alone, to love him with a holy and pure love, to trust him, to live upon him, to serve him, and to be perfectly sanctified and made pure with a divine and heavenly purity.
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That was the only thing going on in his mind and heart during that walk, and he was on the ground weeping when he realized that fact of who
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Christ is and what he had done for him. And I sometimes wonder, I mean, that's such a great illustration of whom having not seen you love, because Jonathan Edwards didn't get to see
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Christ. Though now you do not see him yet believing, he responded in trust, and you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.
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I mean, that's as much as the English language could express his experience of realizing what kind of person
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Christ is and what he had done for him. And oftentimes, that's got to be our prayer.
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Can we experience that? Can we meditate on that fact of his grace, his pure love for us?
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And the desire is that we respond in that kind of love, pure, whole, complete.
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All right, let's pray. Father, we're grateful for my brothers and sisters for bringing them here.
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Thank you that you are good. Thank you that you are God and help us to love Jesus the way that Peter encourages us to rejoice in love.
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Help us to rejoice in the day, rejoice in the fact that he is coming back in.
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Our salvation will be full. Help us to long for that day whenever that is.