Full Assurance (07/11/2004)

Park Meadows Church

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Before I begin with 1 Peter, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus, seeking strength, wisdom.

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May I say the right thing at the right time to impress the right people for you.

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In the name of Christ, we ask. Amen. In the book of 1

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Peter, he tells us we are his.

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You know, a great many folk have never had the feeling of assurance in their salvation.

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The security of the believer is a doctrine which I believe, although it took me a long time to come to the place of assurance in my own salvation.

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I found this poem and would like to read it. I know not when

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I go or from whom this familiar scene, but he is here and he is there and all the way between.

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And when I leave this life, I know for the dim, vast unknown, though late

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I stay or soon I go, I shall not go alone.

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Full assurance is not essential to salvation. Thank goodness.

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But it is essential to satisfaction. May you get it.

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May you get it at once. And I would ask that you would never be satisfied without it.

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Now, why is this that many people do not have the full assurance of salvation?

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Is it because they're suffering? Is it because of the lack of security?

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Well, the suffering and security go together. And do you know what this produces?

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Security and suffering. In case you don't, it produces joy.

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That's hard for me to imagine. Joy comes from suffering and knowing

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I belong to him. 1 Peter 1 .1.

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Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout

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Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Now, the first thing to notice is his name,

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Peter. Petros is feminine.

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Stone, a chip off the block. The Catholics say Peter was

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Petra, masculine. But that's not true.

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Peter was a chip off of the rock. The rock on which

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Jesus built his church was Petra, masculine. He is now the rock man.

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The day of Pentecost is behind him. He knows what it is to take a stand for Christ.

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He has been arrested, put in jail. He's been threatened.

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And he realizes that there is crucifixion on the cross awaiting him.

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He knows what he's talking about when he says that he suffers.

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I must confess I'm not impressed by the professors in theological seminaries with their little, if any, experience as a pastor.

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Who get up and spin off some little theory in there to prepare the young man for ministry.

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They don't really know the problems of the pastorate because they've never been one.

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They don't know what it is to really suffer for Christ. I'm sorry, but I just don't trust these young professors.

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I want to hear from the man who has gone through the experience. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

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Peter is an apostle of Jesus Christ. And that's all he claimed to be.

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When Paul went to Jerusalem to confer with the apostles, he talked with Peter, James, and John.

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He said that they seemed to be pillars. But he did not learn the gospel from them.

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Paul makes it very clear that he received the gospel directly from Jesus the Christ by revelation.

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Nowhere does Peter claim superiority. He was an apostle and that was all.

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He is writing to the strangers and aliens. They're all scattered throughout the

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Roman Empire. They were the Jews called the dysphoria because they were no longer in the land of Palestine.

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Due to persecution and other reasons, they had settled throughout the empire.

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This is what God wanted for them. Paul was the apostle to the

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Gentiles. Peter is the apostle to the Jew. The apostles had a position in the early church that does not exist today.

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So there are no apostles. This position they held enabled them to perform miracles.

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Second verse, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you, and peace be multiplied.

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The apostle Peter immediately plunges us into a discussion on the deep fundamentals.

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The deep waters, if you please. He presents the doctrine of the

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Trinity, the foreknowledge of God the Father. What is foreknowledge?

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Well, from our view, we would say it was telling something before it happened.

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Now, Greg, can God the Father have foreknowledge?

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No. He knows it all. He planned it all.

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God had no foreknowledge or he would have to have afterknowledge if he had foreknowledge.

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So there is no foreknowledge in God's vocabulary. Foreknowledge is this.

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God knows what he has decreed to occur at any time before it actually does occur in history.

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To have foreknowledge belongs to this world, to you and I. It is an earthly term.

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Sanctification of the spirit, sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.

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Don't let anyone confuse you or tell you that the Bible does not teach the

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Trinity. The word is not there, but it teaches. The Bible is full of it.

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Peter said, I'm not ashamed to confess that I am ignorant of what I do not know.

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We certainly cannot consider him to be an ignorant fisherman because he's talking about things that most of us don't know.

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We don't know much about it. Theologians try to help us and they try to present it in a way that we understand these tremendous doctrines.

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For example, Lewis Barry Schaeffer in his systematic theology says, having recognized the sovereign right of God over his creation and having assigned to him a rational purpose in all of his plan, the truth contained in the doctrine of election follows in natural sequence as the necessity function of one who is divine.

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Now, do you understand that? I doubt it. But it sounds good, doesn't it?

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Sanctification is separation. Separation to God.

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You can have two kinds of separation, either separated from or separated to. Sanctification is separated to God.

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The Holy Spirit, the agent in this act, it is a divine act of God.

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We cannot sanctify ourself. In Romans 8, 29, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his

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Son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

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Romans 8, 30, moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

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We were by a second creation made his sons in Christ, his only begotten, by whose spirit we are inwardly changed, and by whose blood we are also reconciled.

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It is the blood of Christ, the blood of bulls, goats, of animals, could never satisfy the

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Father. It had to be the blood of one of us. And Jesus was one of us.

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He was the Christ man. Three, blessed be the

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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you.

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He mentions the word inheritance, incorruptible inheritance, means it's incapable of being morally corrupted, not subject to corruption or decay, meaning that it is non -destructible.

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It cannot be damaged in any way, your inheritance. No rust, no moth, no germ, no fire can touch it.

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Undefiled indicates that it is not stained or defiled by anything.

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We will not get this inheritance illegally that fadeth not away.

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We won't inherit and then find out that it was worthless, like some stocks that once had a value, and now they've become completely worthless, reserved in heaven for you.

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The word reserved means it is guarded. God the

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Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are taking care of it for us.

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We couldn't have it in a better safety deposit box than that. I heard of a man who was willed a beautiful southern home in Louisiana, but the very night the original owner died, the house caught on fire and burned down.

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There was no insurance. The wonderful home that was has gone up in smoke.

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As believers, we have an inheritance that is incorruptible. This is a wonderful thing to look forward to.

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The believers in whom Peter was writing, and you and I as well, praise

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God, as the father of the incarnate Son, the

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Lord Jesus, the author of the new creation, and of a spiritual redemption.

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By the way, just what does redemption mean? What? All right.

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It means that we were once deemed. Deemed.

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What does that word mean, Russell? All right.

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We once belonged to Him. He could not redeem us if we had not already belonged to Him.

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The seed of Satan did not belong to Him, but we did. So you see that the one word redeemed, we have the security of the believer in that.

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Also, He gives a living hope, a hope that we'll never die. He has begotten us and made us

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His sons through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

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And in addition, He has preserved for us an inheritance. Not here on earth, but inheritance in heaven.

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That inheritance is imperishable, indestructible.

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No enemy can take it away from us. Someone has expressed it poetically.

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It will always be new. It will never decay.

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No night ever comes.

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It will always be day. How it gladdens my heart with joy that's untold, to think of that land where nothing grows old.

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Unfortunately, in our day, our attention has been taken away from that which is future because so much emphasis is placed on the present.

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You have to live now, you go around but once, make the most of it.

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By the way, His son had to become

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Jesus. Greg, tell me, can

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Christ inherit anything? Can Jesus inherit?

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There lies the difference. We are in Jesus.

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He can inherit because of that which He has done. He was invited to sit down.

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He didn't just walk in and sit down. Five, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

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Kept by the power of God. This emphasizes the keeping power of God.

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John, the word kept is a military term. One of the most wonderful words we have here, kept by the power of God through faith.

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Kept by the power of God. Protected, guarded, guided.

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Six, wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.

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The suffering and the security of the believer produces of all things joy.

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Happiness is not perfected until it is shared.

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Think of it. The greatest joy of a Christian is to give joy to Christ.

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They can do that because of the work of the triune God. God our

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Father, according to His mercy, He has been so merciful, has begotten us, giving us a new nature, and living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead.

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Hope like a gleaming tapers light adorns and cheers our way, and still as darker grows the night, emits a brighter ray.

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And out yonder in the future, He is a marvelous inheritance waiting for us.

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Wherein ye shall greatly rejoice. Now rejoice in what?

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In something good, no, in heaviness through manifold trials.

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This place is in contrast to words that are worlds apart.

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Rejoice and trials. Peter gives us reasons for enduring the trials, and we have plenty of them down here in this life.

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Now for a season, he says, where everybody comes to life's end, the trials will not be long compared to eternity.

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Greg, how long is eternity? Well, it's not something that begins after you are dead.

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Clarence, we are in eternity now. This is part of eternity, going on all of the time.

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We're now in it. That only is worth my having which

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I can have forever, and I can have nothing physical forever.

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That only is worth my grasping, which death cannot tear out of my hand.

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In our day, there's too much emphasis on the present life.

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Psychology, materialism have slipped into the church. We're told that we must develop ourselves into a well -rounded individual.

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You have all heard that term in other churches. If we're having a little trouble, something's wrong with your

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Christianity. Well, it doesn't mean that at all.

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Instead of so much introspection, we ought to have the looking outward to the great

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God. And we have the marvelous inheritance which he has already for us, has ready for us to receive someday.

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We should stop this attempt to improve our old nature through the power of the flesh.

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We cannot improve our nature just by the power of the flesh.

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God is the one who is in the business of improving us. All improvement that has taken place,

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Russell, has been due to the love of God, the mercy of God.

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He is the only one who is trying to bring us to a maturity in our

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Christian life. God's way of improving us is through the manifold trials that we undergo.

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We have been told this in previous books. In fact, it's almost like a stuck recording.

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Jesus told us not to be dismayed. He said that in the world we will have troubles.

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In the epistle to the Hebrews, we learn that God tests us by trials and troubles.

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James wrote about the testing that comes from God. Paul had a great deal to say about suffering.

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Now Peter comes along and says the same thing. I know it's not at all popular to teach that God will prove us and lead us to maturity through suffering.

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People would rather be encouraged to think that they are somebody important and they can do great things on their own.

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We're nothing until the spirit of God begins to move in our hearts. We're nothing.

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That's hard for the average man to accept. Seven, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perish, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Christ.

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We need to always remember that our trials are only temporary. My body will quit hurting someday.

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I'll be able to run and to stand. We all have aches and pains.

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And as you grow older, they increase. In 2

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Corinthians 4, 17 and 18, But the things which are not seen are eternal.

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The things at our fingertips which we consider so valuable are not really of value.

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They're simply passing things when measured in the perspective of eternity.

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All these things are destructible. They're corruptible. And they can be defiled.

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The things of this world do fade away. The things we cannot see are the eternal things.

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They are of real value. Whom having not seen we love, in whom though now we see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

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This verse ought to, well it ought to mean a great deal to us.

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Remember that Peter had seen the Lord Jesus personally. And had traveled with him for three years.

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He had failed miserably during that period. Then one morning on a shore on the

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Sea of Galilee, the Lord prepared breakfast for the men who had been fishing all night.

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And I guess he was waiting for Peter. I would have expected him to say something like this.

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Peter, I can't trust you. Why did you deny me?

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I'm going to have to put you on the sideline. I cannot use you. But no, he didn't say anything like that.

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He said, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? That was his question.

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Do you love me? Peter had been a man that loved to brag.

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But he was no longer bragging. He finally just cried out,

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Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you.

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And the Lord said, I'm going to let you feed my sheep. And it was

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Peter who preached the first sermon on the day of Pentecost.

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Now Peter says to you, and whom having not seen ye love, the

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Holy Spirit is the one who can make him real to you.

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He can make Jesus real. This is the secret of the

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Christian life, when we love him. Everything else falls into place.

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If you do not love him, no course in the world is going to help you.

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And neither will he commission you to feed his sheep. Though now you see him not, yet believing we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, does this set your heart to beating faster?

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Are you really in love with him? Or do you have a dead religion that is quite meaningless?

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Christ is so wonderful. Simon Peter loved him. Paul loved him.

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And all of those who have genuinely served him have loved him.

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I hope you love him today. If you do, it will solve a lot of your problems.

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It will help the husband -wife relationship. It is wonderful how the love of Christ draws our hearts together.

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Not only will it help you in your home, it will help you in your church.

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Loving Christ draws believers together. It will help you in all of your relationships.

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If you love him, then you have to love him first. Ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

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Loving Christ brings rejoicing in your heart. Are you a rejoicing

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Christian? You should be. You are a child of the King. And you have an inheritance coming to you someday.

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Isn't that wonderful? Isn't it wonderful to be loved for no reason?

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Nothing that I can do. But he loved me anyhow.

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Stand with me, please. Our Heavenly Father, we have presented your word.

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We trust that it was as you would have. Go with us in our daily meal.

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That it will nourish our bodies. That we will dispense this place and meet again.