Four Perspectives on the Greatness of Our Salvation (1 Peter 1:10-12)

Well, good morning. Turn to your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter one. We'll start by reading verses three through 12, 1

Peter chapter one. 1

Peter chapter one verses three through 12. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

To obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been distressed by various trials so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And though you have not seen him, you love him, and though you do not see him now but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.

It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, and these things which now have been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the

Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. Let's pray together.

Father, you've said in your word in this book that those who speak should speak as if they're speaking the very utterances of God.

And Lord, that's my prayer today, that I would speak as if I am speaking your words because I am.

And Lord, to the extent that I'm successful in doing that, I pray that you would be heard, you'd be heard by your sheep.

And Lord, to whatever extent I fail, I pray that I would not be heard. Lord, this is my prayer.

I pray that we would be, your sheep here would hear the voice of your shepherd, the great shepherd, and that we'd be focused on the cross as we leave here today,

Lord. Pray this in Jesus' name. So we're gonna be focused on the last three verses of that section, verses 10 through 12.

Peter's going to lead us to an understanding of the greatness of our salvation in a way that's kind of unexpected. His argument kind of goes in an unexpected direction.

You're going to see four perspectives on the greatness of our salvation in this passage. So my plan is to first remind you of the theme of the book of 1

Peter, what it's all about, and then to exegete these three verses. You're gonna see the esteem in which the gospel of your salvation is held by four different players in the passage.

Then we'll connect the passage to the theme of the book and make the application. So do you remember the theme of 1

Peter? 1 Peter is a book that the aim of which is to raise us above our lives, to help us focus on things that are sacred and eternal and away from things that are just simply secular and temporal.

And it's in this way that believers in Christ, those elect exiles, those who reside as aliens, it says earlier in chapter one, we can live in a way that brings us peace and joy and that glorifies our

Savior. So if you're a Christian and you haven't been living in that joy and that peace lately, then you need this book, you need this passage, and you even need this sermon.

If you're an unbeliever here today, I can just pray that the Lord would bring you to himself through the exposition of his word.

So if the theme of 1 Peter is glorifying God by suffering well through trial and persecution, then how does this section relate to the theme?

We're gonna read the last three verses together again. Starting verse 10, 10 through 12.

As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the

Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them they were not serving themselves, but you in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the

Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. So what is Peter telling us here? Concerning this salvation, your salvation, the prophets who learned of it through the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit, they made careful searches and inquiries. The Spirit of Christ himself indicated and predicted and through the apostles and their associates preached the gospel of your salvation.

The apostles announced and preached the gospel of your salvation. The angels long to look into this.

They long to examine the gospel of your salvation. So the prophets of old, the apostles, the angels, the

Holy Spirit himself, they have this one thing in common. Salvation, the gospel, is their greatest delight.

It's their greatest puzzle, the focus of their curiosity and their attention, their affection. So how does that fit with the theme of 1

Peter? So throughout the letter, the Holy Spirit through the apostle Peter has tried to turn our attention to the cross and continues to do that throughout the book.

Put your mind on the cross and its implications, all the great benefits of the work of Christ on your behalf.

That's the way of wisdom that the book outlines. That's the way of joy and peace in the midst of turmoil and suffering and persecution and just the events of this life in the insanity of the world in which we really don't belong.

We are exiles, aliens. We're here, in other words, for a reason. The reason is the sanctification of our souls.

It's to prepare us, it's to make us fit for our real eternal home with our master,

Jesus Christ. It's that perspective. It's the same focus that the prophets, the spirit, the apostles, the angels all have.

That's the perspective that can bring us joy and peace and empower us to live a God -glorifying life in a really crazed, sin -cursed asylum of a planet.

Even in the midst of the worst kind of suffering and persecution, the kind that Peter's first readers went through.

So that's the end at the beginning. I could fold this up right now, and we'd really be done early.

We could have communion, and you could still be out in time for lunch. But it looks like there's more notes here.

I've got like pages of notes. Sorry, kids. The kids are like, really?

So we're gonna do an exposition so that you believe the word of God rather than just things I say. Okay, so start with verse 10.

As to this salvation, or concerning this salvation, or of this salvation, I think that's clear.

Peter's introducing the topic that is the focus of the prophets, the Holy Spirit, the angels, the apostles.

They're focused on salvation. The word here translated salvation is soteria. It's where we get our word soteriology.

It's a study of salvation. And it's a part of a family of very common words. This particular word's almost always translated salvation.

It appears 45 times in the New Testament. It has the same root as the root for save, which is used 110 times.

And the word for savior, 24 times. So why are they so common? Well, as we'll see, the theme of all of scripture is the salvation of the saved by the savior.

It's the focus of the Holy Spirit's work and inspiration. So what is salvation?

I was tempted to launch on this, and I know sometimes I have that tendency. All right, but the definition of salvation is not the point of the passage.

And I think we all know or should know what salvation is. You come here to worship your savior.

You've experienced salvation if you're a Christian. So I'll give you a few verses here.

I won't even cite the references. I'll just give you a quick understanding of salvation.

So, of course, we were children of wrath. We were at enmity with God. We were rebels against our creator. And while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked. But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace, you have been saved. And raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household.

If you repented of your sins and put your faith in Christ, you're saved. That's salvation. You are saved from God himself.

Understand that? You are saved from the wrath of God. You are saved from God's righteous judgment against your sin.

You're saved from an eternal death sentence, an eternity in the lake of fire. You're saved from a destiny in which God's no longer present for blessing, but he's present.

He's present for judgment and wrath and punishment only. That's what you're saved from. You're saved by the imputation of the perfect life and atoning death of Jesus Christ.

So now, if I were going to encourage you to consider the greatness of your salvation, my first inclination would be to declare to you exactly what happened, to talk about the change in your destiny and all the, remember the ordo salutis that we talked about last time?

All the elements of your salvation and really give God glory for all of those things. That's not what Peter does.

His approach is really different. Now, he's already made clear reference to the greatness of your salvation, the mercy of God, and in the rest of the book, he will come back to that.

But here, he doesn't do that. He does something different. Again, go back to the verses again, 10 through 12.

Don't worry, I won't just keep reading these over and over again, but. Well, it might not be a bad idea, but.

Starting with verse 10. As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time in the spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.

It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you in these things, which now have been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the

Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. If you look carefully as you go through those verses, there are those four perspectives on the greatness of your salvation.

So here's what we're gonna see. We'll see the prophet's puzzle and passion. That's hard to say.

The spirit's object of inspiration. The apostle's point in proclamation.

And the angel's desire and delight. All parties have as their focus the gospel of your salvation.

And the word of the day today is salvation, and your kids are gonna be really busy today. Peter first demonstrates the greatness of salvation by showing our salvation was the prophet's puzzle and passion.

Do you see that? The Old Testament prophets had salvation as the focus of their minds. Because salvation is so great, it's so exciting, it's so interesting, it's so wonderful, it's so important, it's what they wanted to learn about and study about and talk about and hear about.

Peter writes, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you. Who are these prophets?

All of them. All the Old Testament prophets. The scripture reading this morning was from Isaiah.

As Jim said, it was written 700 years before Christ. This is

Isaiah 53, five. He was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well -being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed.

And verse 11, as a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many, as he will bear their iniquities.

Psalm 22 was written by David 1 ,000 years before Christ. These are verses 15 through 18.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws, and you lay me in the dust of death.

For dogs have surrounded me, a band of evildoers has encompassed me, they pierced my hands and my feet, I can count all my bones.

They look, they stare at me, they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. It's a picture of the cross.

Hosea was written about 750 B .C. Romans 9 quotes these verses from Hosea, applies them to our great salvation in Christ.

I will call those who are not my people, my people, and her who was not beloved, beloved. And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, they shall be called sons of the living

God. The reconciliation of man to God. From the serpent's curse in Genesis, remember this,

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel.

To Malachi, they will be mine, says the Lord of hosts. On that day I prepare, that day that I prepare my own possession,

I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him. We see a promise of a savior, a redeemer, one who would bear our sins and defeat our accuser.

We see in the Old Testament a promise of salvation. So the Old Testament prophets prophesied of the grace that would come.

While they themselves received salvation by looking ahead to the promised savior, they didn't get to see the full accomplishment of the work of salvation in time.

They knew that God would do some things, they knew that God would redeem his people. They understood from the earliest time that a savior would come all the way back from Genesis.

They put their faith in that savior. They prophesied of the grace that would come in the person of the promise,

Jesus Christ. They knew the savior was future, they knew he would save his people when he came. They were given glimpses into some of the aspects of the nature and atoning work of that.

We've seen a little bit of that. But they were unaware of some of the facts of our salvation. They understood some things.

Messiah would suffer and die. You see that here in 1 Peter, the sufferings of Christ.

They predicted that. They knew he would live and that his suffering and resurrection would have saving results for his people, that he would be the savior of all people without distinction, not just the physical descendants of Abraham was mentioned today in Sunday school.

That's a reference here, the glories to follow refers to the benefits of salvation that would accrue because to the church from the work of Christ, all to the glory of Christ.

Christ himself, he made it clear that these prophecies pointed to himself that he was the savior, the realization of the grace that was to come.

After his resurrection, he appears to two of his disciples. One of them was Cleopas and I'm pretty sure we don't know who the other one is.

This is Luke 24, 25 through 27. Oh foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.

Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures.

Scriptures were about him. Jesus even spoke to the desire of the prophets to see this salvation.

This is Matthew 13, 17. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desire to see what you see and didn't see it.

And to hear what you hear and did not hear it. So the prophets had this salvation as their passage.

Our passage says they made careful searches and inquiries. I had a section here about the words, exactly what they mean but then

I found out we're having communion so I'm skipping that section. I'm gonna summarize that for you. The idea of the words, the verbs that are used here, made careful searches and inquiries and then inquired.

They kind of build one upon the other and they're very intense. This isn't a casual type of searching.

This wasn't a hobby. This was a very intense searching out and trying to understand things from the very words that they were writing.

They were trying to understand things about them that they didn't understand. They were consumed with answering some questions.

So what was the question they were trying to answer? What were they searching for? What did they want to know?

Look at your passage. They wanted to know what person or time the spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.

They want to know who is the person. And when is this gonna happen? Who's the savior?

When would he come to save his people? John the Baptist. He's sometimes referred to as the last of the

Old Testament prophets. And he serves as a great example of this, this devotion of the prophets to understanding this question, the identity and time of the savior.

This is from Matthew 11, two and three. Now when John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by the disciples and said to them, are you the expected one?

Or shall we look for someone else? He wanted to know, are you the person?

Is this the time? And Jesus didn't really answer that question. He just started healing people.

He started sharing the gospel. I thought it was me for a second, that was the problem.

I didn't remember where I put it. So Jesus was basically telling him, yes,

I am the person and yes, this is the time. That's what John the Baptist wanted to know and he got that assurance.

So he's in that sense an example of all of the Old Testament prophets who had that as their passion. Salvation, it was their focus, it was their interest, it was their passion, it was the thought that brought them joy, captured their curiosity, it was the object of their affection, it was what was most important.

What's the identity of the savior, the messiah, our king? And how and when would salvation be made manifest?

So here's what Peter's saying. How great is our salvation, that it so thoroughly captured the interest of the prophets?

Our salvation's precious, it's interesting, it's wonderful, it's the best of history, best of theology, philosophy, it's the greatest example of love and justice it's ever been, it's a subject whose depths we can never plumb, not in all of eternity will we ever fully understand the greatness of our salvation.

It will be our passion and our puzzle throughout eternity just as it was for the prophets. So that's one of the four parties and you're thinking, okay, if I multiply the time he's been up here by four, it's gonna be a real problem.

Don't worry, the others go much more quickly. Okay, so next we see salvation was also the focus of the work of the

Holy Spirit in inspiration. It's the Spirit himself, you see here, who's active in revealing the plan of salvation.

First through inspiration of the Old Testament, you see here it says the spirit of Christ within them, them being the

Old Testament prophets, was indicating as he, the Holy Spirit, predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.

So he revealed to the prophets that they were looking ahead to a future time, you see that, they were not serving themselves but you.

He also inspired the New Testament. These things which now have been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the

Holy Spirit sent from heaven. All right, those who preach the gospel to you would be a reference to the apostles and their associates who gave us the

New Testament. Or as Peter said, they were moved by the Holy Spirit as they penned the scriptures.

So both the Old Testament prophets, the New Testament apostles, they wrote of the sufferings of Christ as we've seen, they wrote of the glories to follow his resurrection, victory over sin, over death.

They even wrote of glories that are still future to us, the return of Christ, his millennial kingdom, the eternal state, things we love to talk about, the future glories.

Notice the term the spirit of Christ. That's a reference to the Holy Spirit. Referring to the

Holy Spirit in this way as the spirit of Christ, it emphasizes his purpose in revelation and inspiration.

He's exalting Jesus Christ through the revelation of this great plan of salvation, through what

Christ has done. Okay, so all scripture we know is inspired by the

Holy Spirit, and the theme of all scripture, both Old Testament and New Testament, is this reconciliation of man to God.

All right, so if you look at all the scripture, whether you view it as God setting up for himself a kingdom or you view it as God setting up for himself a family, it's all about salvation, isn't it?

It's all about the salvation of setting apart of a people, saving them and setting them apart.

Okay, so just as the prophets had as their passion and puzzle the salvation of God's people, so does the Holy Spirit have as the object of his work in inspiration and revelation, the gospel of your salvation, same focus.

See how fast that was? Thirdly, Peter shows us the greatness of our salvation by pointing out that salvation is the point of the apostolic proclamation.

Verse 12, it refers to these things which now have been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the

Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Same things, the events surrounding the gospel of Jesus Christ, our salvation, same things that consume the interest of the prophets, same things that is the work of the

Holy Spirit in inspiration, these are also the content of the apostolic proclamation, the apostolic teaching of the

New Testament. Salvation, it's the gospel, it's the focus of the apostles. Paul says in 1

Corinthians, and when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified, the gospel.

This is John in 1 John 1, what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the

Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ. The point of John's work was fellowship with the

Father, with the Son, reconciling people to God. Peter in chapter three,

I didn't write down the verse, I think it's verse 18, I'm not sure, it's the gospel in one verse.

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, the gospel.

So of course, we know, right, the whole point of the existing communication that we have of the apostles and their associates is the gospel of our salvation, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the great work of God and the salvation of his elect.

So it was the passion, the point of the proclamation of the gospel, it was the apostles' purpose.

They lived and died for the gospel. Many of them literally died for the gospel. They willingly gave their lives for the gospel.

This is how precious was the gospel to these New Testament writers. All right, so your salvation was the puzzle and passion of the prophets, was the object of the

Spirit's work and inspiration, revelation, and we see salvation as the point of the apostolic proclamation of the

New Testament. Lastly, we see here in the passage, salvation is also the desire and delight of the angels.

Now when someone says lastly, you start to think maybe I can start packing up, but that's not right. This is lastly.

Look at verse 12 again. It was revealed to them, the Old Testament prophets, that they were not serving themselves but you in these things, which now have been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the

Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. So the same things, the things pertaining to salvation, long to look, the angels long to look into these things.

Long to look translates two verbs. I will spend a little bit of time on this because it becomes important later on.

The word that's first translated long, the angels long to look, so there's two words, long and to look.

The word translated long is a common word, epitomeo. It's translated as desire or covet or lust or crave.

The word itself is morally neutral. It just implies a very strong desire.

That desire can be good or bad depending on the object of that desire. So here, it's the desire of the angels to look into the salvation of mankind.

It's a good desire, a laudable desire. Then look into is an interesting word. It translates a word that literally means to stoop.

It's used in the Greek to imply looking carefully into something, as you might stoop down to get a better look at it.

It's used when Peter arrived at the empty tomb, he looked in. The word is the same word.

It means to stoop. So you can kind of imagine the angels stooping down to look into this.

What is going on with this idea of salvation? You know, we sometimes think of the angels as being superior to us.

And of course, in some ways, they are, right? But we have to remember, they're not image bearers of God.

They don't have that responsibility. As such, they've never experienced salvation.

It's only been from the outside looking in that they understand the joy of salvation. Now, they've been involved in the story of salvation and the whole plan of salvation from the beginning.

I believe that the angels, right after their creation, rejoiced in the creation. They got to see some of that.

I wouldn't die on that particular hill. But we know that the angels were involved throughout the

Old Testament. You see them talking to different Old Testament saints and sharing different parts of God's plan.

They were involved in some way in the giving of the law to Moses. We know that. They were there for the proclamation of the birth of Christ.

They were there at the temptation of Christ to give Christ comfort. They comforted

Christ in the garden at his betrayal. They were there at the resurrection. They were there at the ascension.

One of the great stories of the angels are like, well, why are you looking up to heaven? He'll come back.

The angels have been involved, but they've never experienced salvation. The demons, they have no opportunity for salvation.

That's not who we're talking about here. The holy angels, never having sinned, they have no need of salvation.

They have no need of a savior. So why do they long to look into this? Why is salvation the object of their curiosity?

Remember, the angels exist to glorify God. The holy angels, the glory of God is their delight. They're the ones that proclaim glory to God in the highest at the birth of our savior.

Remember, we sing that at Christmas. They see in the work of God in your salvation.

In that work, it's the brightest display of his perfections and his attributes. You see in salvation the attributes of God just put on display in a way that just are not in any other of his great works.

His love and wisdom and mercy and justice, his power and his omniscience. It's all demonstrated in the gospel.

And so they long to look into it. They want to understand it better. So they can glorify God better. Whenever any creature, this is a general principle.

Whenever any creature, including us, learns something about God, God is glorified. The more accurately he is esteemed, or the more accurately he's understood, the more highly is he esteemed.

Has to be true always. The more truth that you comprehend about God, the more falsehood you're able to reject, the more is

God glorified. It has to be true because he's perfect. So a perfect being, the more that is known about a perfect being, the more highly is he esteemed.

And so the angels want to look into this salvation because it is in salvation that God is most clearly glorified.

It's where his attributes are put on display. You know, the angels rejoice when a sinner repents.

I just imagine a kind of wonder and joy that they have when that happens.

They've never experienced it, but they see God glorified when a sinner turns to him. Revelation 5 .9

speaks of this angelic song. And they sang a new song, saying, "'Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals.

"'For you were slain and purchased for God with your blood, "'men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

"'You've made them to be a kingdom and priest to our God, "'and they will reign upon the earth.'" So the prophets have salvation as their puzzle and passion.

The Spirit himself has chosen to reveal our salvation as his work of inspiration. The point of the apostles' proclamation, indeed the point of their lives, was the gospel of your salvation.

And now we see salvation as the desire and delight of the angels. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the person of Jesus Christ, captivates men and angels alike.

His gospel is their consuming interest. Salvation's what they want to read about.

It's what they want to think about. It's what they want to talk about, what they want to sing about, what they want to work toward.

So why is this passage here? That's the meaning of the passage. Why is it here? Seems kind of odd, it did to me at first.

It didn't necessarily fit, right? But it does. Remember this letter, it was written to lift our eyes from the temporal and secular to the eternal and the sacred, from the cares of earth to the glory of God.

We learn in 1 Peter that this succession of moments from our conception to our death, it has a purpose, and that purpose is our sanctification, to prepare us for our real eternal home.

This life is in some sense practice. It's rehearsal, it's preparation for our real eternal life in our real eternal home.

So can you see then why this is here? You see how it connects? For us to be successful here, serving our purpose to glorify

God as we're sanctified by the events of this life, we have to have the right perspective.

We have to have the same perspective. Our focus has to be off of this life, onto the next.

We have to have the same passion, interest, curiosity, focus that drove the prophets and the apostles.

It serves as the object of the Spirit's work and into which the angels long to look. Got to remain focused on our salvation.

This is the key. I feel like if Joel Osteen told the truth right now, it's kind of how

I feel. He's got lots of keys to successful living, right? None of which are actually true.

This is true. This is the key to living a successful Christian life, that success being measured by the glorification of Christ and your own sanctification.

This is it. This is the key to joyful, victorious, contented, happy, peaceful Christian living.

Here in a place that's going to otherwise drive you mad, if you lose this focus, the gospel is cause for celebration.

We see that here. It's a light that never fails. It's a source of joy and peace and certainty and stability and permanence and hope when everything else around us is turning to chaos and confusion and failure.

Our salvation is the highest and greatest of gifts. It's the most important and vital reality that we'll ever experience.

We have to hold onto it. Even through the worst kind of persecution, the kind that Peter's readers went through, the kind of relatively minor difficulties that we're dealing with today.

Scripture tells us throughout to rejoice and praise God for our salvation. I'm gonna skip that little section too.

You just have to believe me on that one. I think you do. Peter just calls us here to join with him in appreciating the greatness of our salvation through those four perspectives.

Okay. Holy Spirit wants us to understand our salvation was and is the primary interest of the prophets, the apostles, the angels, even of the

Holy Spirit himself. Now, if our salvation should so capture the interest of God and godly men and holy angels, it should captivate us as well.

Salvation should be the theme of our lives as well. It should be our center. Appreciation of our salvation, that joy in our salvation, it must have no rival.

How could it? Nothing should be able to take our interest away from salvation, from the gospel.

Nothing should bring us more joy. Nothing should be more captivating. Nothing should be more interesting or important.

Our focus can't fall from this. If God and angels, the best of men, are enthralled by our salvation, doesn't wisdom dictate that it ought to be the same for us?

We've gotta have that same single -minded focus on salvation. It should be our refuge, our peace, our place of rest.

So here's where this gets a little bit preachy, and I've been debating exactly how to do this right up until this moment.

Is salvation your focus? Is it the gospel that consumes your interest?

If you are making careful searches and inquiries, is it into the gospel of your salvation?

Are the things that you're announcing and preaching, things that you proclaim, things that you think about, talk about, things you're passionate about, are they things pertaining to salvation?

What is it that you desire? Do you long to look deeper into salvation, into the gospel, into the word of God to deepen your understanding of the gospel of salvation and understand

God whom you serve? So here's the iffy part that I wasn't sure about.

So I want you to, I want to be careful about this, and I don't want to apply something that ought not to apply to you, right?

Are you really careful when you apply the scripture that the Holy Spirit ought to apply it and not the preacher, right?

So I think this is appropriate, but you have to take this for what it is. It may not apply to you, this particular part of this, but there is application in it for you.

So I don't go on Facebook very much. He's gonna talk about Facebook. So maybe

I'm just catching you at a bad time. That's possible, okay? But I, and not everybody's on Facebook, I get all that.

But I can't say, generally speaking, and solely from your Facebook post, that salvation is your consuming passion.

I wish I could say that, but I can't. It seems like maybe your passion is politics.

When did that happen? When did the focus of the church move so far from the gospel of our salvation to American politics?

I don't know. And I'll, you know,

I'll qualify that. It's not, I'll qualify that here in a minute. If politics isn't your passion, maybe it's whether somebody should wear a mask or not.

Maybe that's your passion. You seem to be passionate about a virus. Political responses to a virus.

Maybe you're passionate about Donald Trump or Joe Biden or flags or statues, guns, slogans, vaccines maybe, social justice, sports, public school, homeschool.

Maybe these are your vaccines. You know, maybe that's your passion. Maybe it's essential oils.

I don't know. It could be essential oils. I, again,

I wanna be careful. I don't wanna go beyond what is written. I'm not here to tell you that you can't be passionate about anything other than the gospel.

You can't have any interests other than the gospel. Of course you can. It would be entirely unbiblical to say that you can't.

And some of the things I mentioned are good, all right? One of them isn't, but two of them, if you include essential oils.

Some of them are good, and I'm glad that you're interested in them. We need Christians interested in these things. But I am, so I'm not here to do that, but I am here,

I am here standing in this pulpit today to question whether salvation, whether the gospel of Jesus Christ is your primary passion.

Is the gospel your hill to die on? Is it the gospel?

If you're speaking to a lost person, is it the gospel that you're announcing and proclaiming?

Is it the gospel that you're at least thinking about? Like how do I shoehorn the gospel into this conversation?

Are you at least thinking that? Or are you focused on correcting their thinking about a political or moral issue?

Something which I'll remind you is absolutely impossible for them to do, apart from the regenerating work of the

Holy Spirit. Does the gospel have any part in the conversation?

That's the question. When you speak to one another, does your speech revolve around salvation, around the grace of God to you?

Does the greatness of your salvation come up at all? And I know it does very often, okay?

I'm not asking these questions to shame you, really. I'm not trying to make anybody feel inadequate.

All of our sins have been borne by Christ, including any sinful preoccupation with the vain things of this world.

If our priorities are a little bit out of whack, if we put lesser things ahead of the gospel of our salvation, we put other things ahead of contemplation of the perfections of God, the work of the

Savior, then sure, we've fallen short. Praise God, our salvation, our Savior has atoned for that.

I have no desire for you to leave here beating yourself up for a failure to fix your eyes on Christ.

I don't want you to leave just thinking you're a lousy Christian. That's no good. I'm trying, absolutely trying to do what

Peter is trying to do. Turn your focus to Christ and his work. Focus on that which can give you a peace that passes all understanding, the thing that can give you real joy and happiness.

This world's preexisting insanity is being made more and more manifest. Don't buy into it.

This isn't our world, not yet. Peter tells us to live as aliens here, to be different, work to see people converted by the

Holy Spirit through living and proclaiming this gospel of your salvation. Same message that was the passion of the prophets and the apostles and the angels has to be our focus.

Look at the application here in 1 Peter. This is safe application, 1 Peter verses 13 through 16.

Therefore, prepare your minds for action. Keep sober in spirit. Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior.

Because it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. Looking forward to preaching on that. Holy meaning separate, otherly, different, different how?

Different like God, obedient to God, focused on the things of God, focused on salvation, made into his image.

The word for lust, interestingly, in verse 14, that word for lust, it's the same word as the word for long in verse 12.

There's a contrast there between the desire of the angels, the prophets, and the apostles, and your former desires.

There should be a contrast. Your desire now should be to look in to the gospel of your salvation. So I hope you see the connection.

We're to have that same focus on things eternal, the work of God in our salvation, all the benefits of our salvation.

Same focus of all of these individuals we've looked at, the prophets, the apostles, the angels, the Holy Spirit himself.

Then you may be holy, separate, otherly, demonstrating the character of God, glorifying

God, which is the purpose of our life on this bizarre planet. So if instead, brothers and sisters in Christ, my church, if instead you choose to dwell on the things of earth, you choose to dwell on things that will not endure, things that are gonna get burned up at the recreation of the new heaven, new earth, things that enthrall the unregenerate, you're wasting your time.

You're just gonna be mired in their same hopelessness and anxiety and their same defeat and their outrage and their despair.

These are people you'll never be with again. This is your opportunity. You can join them in whatever they're passionate about, or you can instead focus on the gospel of your salvation.

You're not gonna find joy and peace in Fox News or CNN or Facebook.

See, I said Fox News and CNN, so I got them both. You won't find satisfaction, joy, and peace in anything other than the gospel of your salvation, and in particular, in relationship to the author of that salvation, our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I guarantee it. But if instead you can join the

Holy Spirit, you can join the prophets, the apostles, the angels, and myriads of sinners that have turned to Christ, the saints that have gone before you, focus all your spiritual, emotional, intellectual efforts on the greatness of your salvation, then you can do it.

You can live here as an elect exile, a happy sojourner, serving your Savior with joy and peace and fruit.

You can glorify God as a faithful slave of your master. We're gonna go to prayer.

I'm gonna pray for communion. I'm gonna ask you to prepare your hearts for communion, confess your sins to God, and I think it follows here, turn to the cross.

Let's pray. I'll give you some quiet time, and then I'll pray for you. Father, indeed, our sins are many, and we confess those sins before you today.

We come to you in eternal gratitude for the gift of the Savior, your son who would die for us, the perfect one, would love us so much to die for us and in our stead, and Lord, as we engage in this ordinance, pray that we would remember the cross, that we would always remember the great sacrifice that was made for us, and then as we leave here, that we would remember the cross, that your salvation would continue to be the focus of our lives,