Introducing Peter's First Letter 1 Peter 1:1-2

Oh, what a blessing to hear the Word of God and it shows you how important it is to, when we read it, right, to understand how he's saying it, right, and it just adds a lot to it and so thank you,

Mark, that sure is a blessing to hear it and you can tell he studied the text because of the way he would say things, it's like that's exactly what we need to highlight, you know, and the secondary is secondary, the primary is primary,

I mean you get to see the emphasis in his voice, so what a blessing and what

I love about Mark's ministry is that he presents the books of the Bible in such a way that the author would have said it as we've just seen it and what

Mark did through this practice of publicly proclaiming a letter is what would have taken place in the early church.

Not everyone had a copy of the letter like we do today, in fact, very few would have had one of these,

I mean we have the whole Bible, but back then they would have had separate books of the Bible and very few of them would have had a copy.

Some places just one person would have had a copy, it would have been the pastor who would have been reading the letter to the people.

At the end of the letter of Colossians in Colossians 4 .16, the Apostle Paul told the churches in Colossae that when this letter has been read among you, have it also read to the churches in Laodicea.

Anyone reading the letter would not read it monotone, but they would have read it like Peter himself was reading it.

What was neat about what Mark did today is that he did not just read the whole letter, he recited it by heart,

I mean think of the pressure to be under, you're in front of all these people and he was flawless and as Mark quoted 1

Peter, it brought back old memories for me when I was in high school, my junior year of high school when

I participated in Bible quizzing, I was in Bible quizzing from 8th grade all the way through my senior year.

Every year there were different portions of scripture assigned to be quizzed on. That year

I memorized 1 and 2 Peter by heart. So as he's quoting it today,

I'm like deep in the recesses of my mind, these verses are still there, it actually inspires me to go back and memorize it myself.

Now, what he exercised today, what he showed us today is the importance of hiding the

Word of God in our hearts. Think about what the Bible says concerning itself, 2

Peter 3 .16 and 17 says, All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Hebrews 4 .12 says the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

2 Peter 1 .21 says, No prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

Holy Spirit. To not know the Bible is deadly. Listen to this,

Hosea 4 .6 says, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, because you have rejected knowledge.

I remember listening to someone talk about the biblical illiteracy in America, among American Christians, among people who profess faith in Christ.

There was a survey sent out where people thought that Billy Graham preached the Sermon on the Mount, and Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife.

This shows you how bad biblical illiteracy is in some places. To not know the

Bible is deadly, but to know it is life. It is life -giving.

Psalm 1 verses 1 -3 says, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the

Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and all that he does he prospers.

Psalm 119 and 105 says, Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

Proverbs 6 -23 says, For the commandment is a lamp, and the teaching a light, and the reproves of discipline are the way of life.

This is what the Bible says concerning itself, and how important it is that we know what's in this.

We don't want it to collect dust on our shelf, we want to read it, and as Mark showed us today, memorize it.

Psalm 119 -11 says, I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

We need to be regularly reading the Bible. On Sunday mornings we hear the preaching of the word, but we need more

Bible than that for our weeks, for the days. We need to be a people who regularly read the

Bible, and as we soak ourselves with it, then it gets in our minds. Even as I read and recited these passages this morning, they come to your mind.

You're like, oh I know that one. You're storing it up in your heart. We want to fill our minds with the right things, and the best thing we can fill our minds with is

God's holy word. Now there is, of course, a reason I had Mark quote 1

Peter. He knows quite a bit of other scripture in the New Testament. How many books do you know, by the way?

Twelve, okay. So there's 27 books in the New Testament, so he knows almost half of the books of the

New Testament. By the end of your life, maybe, the whole thing? Is that the goal? No pressure?

So I had him quote 1 Peter, of course, because that's where we're going today. We're going to start this journey, and he quoted it in about 12 to 15 minutes, and we're going to take several months to go through this, which shows you how deep it is.

There's so much to unpack here, and we look forward to doing that here as we go through this.

So this time I encourage you to turn with me to 1 Peter, and we will be looking this morning at Peter's introduction in the first two verses of the chapter, chapter 1, and what we are going to learn is its background, the background of the letter of 1

Peter. So I'm going to begin by reading the first two verses, and then we'll unpack this.

1 Peter 1, verses 1 and 2. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the

Father and the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with His blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

So here's our big idea, what these two verses are calling you to do, what this sermon is calling you to do.

See the stage that Peter sets for this glorious letter. See the stage that Peter sets for this glorious letter.

We're going to see four areas of focus, and the first is his authorship. His authorship. And you'll notice this in your bulletins, there's an outline there as always.

So in this letter, there's a reason it's called 1 Peter. It's written by Peter.

If that's the most profound thought you hear all day, we're in trouble. But in the opening words of 1

Peter, he writes, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to those who are elect exiles. And then he lists the people he's writing to here.

Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Now liberal scholars looking to push forward a cutting -edge idea to make a name for themselves say often that biblical books are not written by the one who states that he is the one writing.

But rather someone else is writing in that person's name. A pseudonym.

There's no reason to believe this. Peter says he's the one who wrote it. And the letter certainly carries that apostolic authority.

So we must affirm that Peter is the one who wrote not only 1 Peter, but also his second letter.

2 Peter. Peter starts the same way in his second letter where he writes, Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of God and Savior Jesus Christ, may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our

Lord. It sounds like the same author, doesn't it? So Peter says he wrote 1 Peter. Peter says he wrote 2

Peter as well. So this is the first area of focus that Peter sets for this glorious letter.

What Peter establishes is that he is the author. And by the way, most of the letters, most of the books of the

New Testament are written by the apostles. Well, who are the apostles?

The apostles are those who were the disciples of Jesus Christ while he was on the earth.

And they also had to be witnesses of his bodily resurrection. So Peter and John and James, these guys, they're disciples and they're witnesses of the resurrection of Christ.

And they are put in this office known as apostle. It's a select group.

And they wrote most of the New Testament. Now you might be wondering, okay, who are the ones who wrote the other books?

Well, if you look at the Gospels, so Matthew was an apostle, right?

He's a tax collector and Jesus called him. He's one of his twelve disciples. Mark and Luke were not apostles.

They were associates of apostles. Mark was an associate of Peter.

So in a lot of ways, Mark is Peter's gospel. Luke was not an apostle, but his associate, anybody know?

Paul, the apostle Paul, who wrote the thirteen letters of the New Testament. So we have these men who were not apostles, but they were closely associated with the apostles.

But most of the letters in the New Testament are written by the apostles, the people who held this important office, who spent this time with Jesus.

They spent all this time with him, and then they witnessed his bodily resurrection.

So Peter is one of those apostles, and he writes two letters. He writes first Peter, and he writes second

Peter. Now here's our second area of focus. When and where did he write?

When we look at the dates the biblical books are written, it is hard to nail down exact dates, but we can get within a few years.

What we know from church history is that Peter died during the reign of the

Roman emperor Nero. The 4th century Christian historian Eusebius writes that Peter was crucified upside down.

In that passage I read this morning, Jesus tells Peter how he's going to die. Someone else is going to close you.

And then church history fills in the rest of the details. He was crucified upside down. And why was he crucified upside down?

Because he did not see himself worthy to be crucified the same way as his

Savior. So Nero, this evil

Roman emperor, he died in 68 A .D. This means that this letter at the latest was written in 68

A .D. And you may be wondering how long after this was the time of Christ. There's some debate about the year that Jesus died and rose again, but the latest date given concerning Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection and ascension is 33

A .D. This means that Peter wrote this letter two to three decades after Christ ascended to heaven.

Think about that. Two to three decades? For us, that's the year 2000? The 90s?

That's not that far back. Especially if you're older. It feels like yesterday. In 1

Peter 5 .13, Peter makes a reference to the location where he is writing from as Babylon.

Babylon was, of course, a Middle Eastern empire hundreds of years before this. But Babylon was often used as a reference for the city of Rome, which tells us that Peter wrote this letter from Rome.

The Neronian persecution took place from 64 to 68 A .D. And as I mentioned,

Peter died during this great persecution. So he wrote this letter likely in the early 60s

A .D. before the great persecution began. So this is the second area of focus that Peter sets for this glorious letter.

Peter wrote in the early 60s A .D. from the city of Rome.

Here's the third area of focus. To whom did he write? The recipients of this letter are stated in 1

Peter 1 .1 as we have heard. Those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.

What Peter calls the believers of these different regions is the elect. Elect literally means the called out ones.

At the beginning of verse 2, Peter writes that these believers were chosen according to God's foreknowledge. What this means is that God intimately knew these believers before the foundation of the world.

What Peter is telling these Christians is that to be among God's chosen is a great blessing.

And the people reading this letter were reminded that they forever belong to the Lord. And nothing could change that.

And this was encouragement they needed, as Mark said. These people were experiencing great persecution.

They needed encouragement. And by saying that they're these elect exiles, he is encouraging them with these words.

Now as those who belong to the Lord, they experience the sanctification of the Spirit.

As the middle of verse 2 says, and as the Spirit sanctifies believers, what is really happening is that believers are obeying the

Lord Jesus. This is why Peter says in verse 2, you are sanctified for obedience to Jesus Christ.

And that's a simple definition of sanctification. Sanctification is this fancy word that means the process of growing in holiness.

Another way to say it is you become more like Jesus. Think about that in your life.

Who are the most pleasant people to be around? Who are the best people to be around? It's the ones who are like Jesus.

That's sanctification. And when you become a Christian, Jesus becomes the

Lord of your life. You are no longer running your life. He is. For Him to run your life is an enormous blessing because as Jesus said in Matthew 11, verses 28 -30,

As you come to Him, you find rest for your souls. And as you follow Him, His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

But to go any other way is the opposite. To follow dead religion is a burden.

That's what Jesus went after during His ministry. The dead religion of the Jews, the Pharisees, the

Sanhedrin, the teachers of the law, who put burdens on people that God did not put on them.

It was joyless to follow this dead religion. And how many people would say that today?

Why do people not want to go to church? Because it's joyless in so many places. This should be the most joyful place there is.

Because it's the place where you follow the one whose yoke is easy and His burden is light. And it's not only a burden, by the way, to follow dead religion.

It's a burden to follow secularism. Because people pursue secularism because they want instant gratification.

They want pleasure. They want to consume themselves with pleasure. They want to do what they want, when they want.

But you know what the end result of this is? Burden. Pain. Death.

Proverbs says, There's a way that seems right to a man, but this way is death.

And it sure is a burden. So as the Spirit sanctifies you, as verse 2 says, this is the path of blessing as you obey

Jesus. Now what the end of verse 2 says is that you are set apart for sprinkling with His blood.

In the Old Testament, when Israel agreed to obey the Mosaic covenant, Moses sprinkled sacrificial blood on the people that symbolized the sealing of the covenant.

That they were promising to obey God's word. In the same way, when you believe in Christ's finished work at the cross, you are making the promise to God that you are going to obey

His Son, Jesus. And as I mentioned, this is for your joy to obey

Him. This is what Peter is communicating to the audience to which he was writing, and to us as well.

Now let's go back to verse 1 to look at the audience that he is specifically addressing. What Peter says is that the recipients of this letter were elect exiles of the dispersion.

The word exile is one that you are probably familiar with. To be exiled is to be away from home and in a foreign land.

Israel experienced this when the Babylonians took them into their land in the 6th century

B .C. In the New Testament, there's something called the dispersion.

That is mentioned in John 7 .35 and James 1 .1. In those passages, what is being mentioned is that Jews had been scattered all over the known world.

This happened in 63 B .C. when many Jews were taken by the

Romans as slaves when the Jews were conquered by the Romans. Think about the experience of the

Jews. They're conquered by the Babylonians. Then they're conquered by the Medes and the Persians.

Then they're conquered by Greco -Macedonia, Alexander the Great's empire.

And then they're conquered by the Romans. And as they're conquered, they're spread all over the world. They're spread away from their homeland.

And some Jews voluntarily left too. So what you have is Jews scattered all over the known world, and it's called the dispersion, the scattering.

And this is the language that Peter uses here, 1 Peter 1 .1, the dispersion. But what's interesting is that I just said the dispersion.

He doesn't actually use the article in front of it. He just calls it dispersion. So Peter's not referring to that historical event where the

Jews scattered all over the Mediterranean region. So what dispersion is Peter describing?

He is writing to exiles that are spread across the earth, as we will see.

Peter's writing to believers spread over a large area. So as Peter is describing the dispersion of elect exiles, he's describing every

Christian, Jew, and Gentile. These elect exiles are foreigners in this fallen world.

Let me ask you this question. Do you feel like an exile on the earth in the world we are living in right now?

The answer is obvious. Our world is worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.

I believe that. And look what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. I mean, we read about Sodom and Gomorrah.

It must have been such a horrible place. And I think if we went back there, we'd be like, oh, man, they actually have more civility than we do. There's more morality than we have in some places.

And obviously there's some regions in our country and the world that are pretty good, that do follow the law, that do hold the

Bible in high regard. But so many places, they are worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.

In 1 Peter 2 .11, Peter gives the exhortation, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.

Peter is reminding these believers at the outset of this letter that they are exiles just passing through this world.

This is not your home, is what he's saying. Our citizenship is not in this dark world, as Philippians 3 .21

says. Our citizenship is in heaven. And from it we await a Savior, the

Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.

We need this reminder. And Peter knew that they needed this reminder, these recipients.

So he opens this letter by saying that both the Jews and the

Gentile believers that he is addressing, their primary citizenship is not on earth, it's in heaven.

Now these exiles on earth that Peter is writing, they come from five different places, as he mentions.

They come from Pontus and Galatia and Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. All of these churches are located in Asia Minor, what is now called modern -day

Turkey. Now you might be saying, well this sounds familiar. For those of you visiting today, we just went through the seven churches of Revelation.

Jesus addresses seven historical churches. All of these churches were located in what we call modern -day

Turkey. And then now in 1 Peter, these regions that he's addressing, all of them are located in modern -day

Turkey. So if you go to Turkey, lots of biblical history there. Now these are different regions.

Pontus was the region furthest to the north. Galatia was located in central Asia Minor.

And it included the towns of Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium. The book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul wrote to this region, and it's the letter called

Galatians. The third area mentioned is Cappadocia, that was located in the eastern part of Asia Minor.

Now the fourth place that Peter mentions is Asia. And when we think of Asia, we think China and Japan and India, Korea.

That's not what he's talking about here. The location on the western part of Asia Minor was just called

Asia. In Acts 19 .10, the author of Acts wrote,

All who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. So it's this western portion of Asia Minor.

The fifth region mentioned by Paul is Bithynia, and this was located in northwest Asia Minor. It was located near the

Bosphorus, which was, and it still is today, a body of water separating the

European and Asian sections of modern -day Turkey. This letter from Peter was directed toward a broader audience than other

New Testament letters. I mean, think about it. Ephesians is directed toward the church in Ephesus.

Philippians is directed toward the church in Philippi. Thessalonians is directed toward the church in Thessalonica.

This one covers a wide region of believers, because he knows in this wide region they're experiencing this great persecution, and they need encouragement.

So he addresses these different groups. So this is the third area of focus that Peter sets for this glorious letter.

Peter wrote to churches across a broad region in Asia Minor, which are located in modern -day

Turkey. And here's the fourth and final focus, and this is the best part.

His reminder of the Lord's blessing. Peter closes his greeting and introduction by saying at the end of verse 2, the sweet words,

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

The words grace and peace hold such richness in Scripture. And I think they're words that can just float right over our head.

Grace and peace to you. What do these mean? Peter was a

Jew, and he knew well the Aaronic blessing from Numbers 6, 24 -26.

I say this after a lot of the services. In fact, I'm going to say it today, but I'll say it right now too. The Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn

His face toward you and give you peace. Most Americans know that from Star Trek.

You realize that? Spock from Star Trek, he would close episodes by doing that.

In fact, Nate was the one who told me about that. He's like, every time you do that, I think about Star Trek.

But this is the great Jewish blessing. It's called the Aaronic blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you.

A number of years back, I heard a pastor describe what the Aaronic blessing is really all about. It's not a prayer.

They are words of blessing upon genuine believers. In other words, the words of blessing are a reminder of the glorious standing that you have as a believer before God.

The Lord blesses you. He keeps you. His face shines upon you, and He's gracious to you.

And the Lord's peace goes with you wherever you go. This blessing is upon you as a follower of the

Lord. And think of the opposite, by the way. If you don't have the Lord, His grace is not upon you.

His peace is not upon you. The Apostle Paul often opens his letters this way, and so does

Peter. And as they open their letters, they have Numbers chapter 6 in mind.

The Aaronic blessing. Let's look at the first part of grace and peace as we look at the meaning of grace.

What does it mean for the Lord to be gracious toward you? First of all, it means that your standing with Him is one where you have an eternal relationship with Him.

Once you truly belong to Him, you cannot lose your salvation. In fact, we'll see that next week.

You are guarded by God's power through faith to a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

That's what Peter writes. You're guarded. When He sees you, when the

Lord sees you, He does not see your sin. He does not see you as one who deserves judgment.

He sees the righteousness of His Son. The righteousness of Christ. And as you live, what a beautiful reality that His favor is always upon you in this way.

But His grace does not just forgive us, but it also empowers us to live for Him. You see, the

Apostle Paul described God's grace in this way in 1 Corinthians 15. Where Paul writes,

By the grace of God, I am what I am. And His grace toward me was not in vain. To the contrary.

I worked harder than any of them. Though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

In several of Paul's letters, he starts the letter by saying, Grace to you. And then ends the letter by saying,

Grace be with you. These are just little tidbits that are treasures. Grace to you.

Then the end of the letter is, Grace with you. Why does he say that? What he's communicating is that the

Word of God is the grace. Let me say that again.

The Word of God, Holy Scripture, is the grace.

And through the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life, you are able to live out what that book of the

Bible says. So, 1 Peter, grace to you. And then

I think he closes by saying, Peace be with you. But some of the letters say, Grace be with you. And when that happens, what he's saying is,

As you listen to what is being said in this book of the

Bible, in this letter that I wrote, as you take it into your heart and yield to the

Spirit's work, you experience grace. You are empowered to live out the

Word of God. So think about how rich grace is.

Then we get to the peace that belongs to a believer. So this is the second half. Grace and peace.

Grace and peace to you, he says. In the Old Testament Hebrew, this peace is called shalom.

For the Lord's shalom to be with you, it means that his blessing is always over you.

The Jews would say, shalom. What they'd be saying is, well -being. They were hoping peace and prosperity for you.

For the Lord's shalom, though, it means blessing upon the believer. That is that as you follow him, he fills you with great joy.

And as you go through trying circumstances, he places a calm over you.

In Philippians 4 -7, that is described as the peace of God that surpasses all understanding.

And you know this peace because you've experienced it. You've gone through difficult times in your life.

And there's no reason for you to feel okay, but you do. Because as you trust the

Lord, his peace is over you. Just as Jesus calmed the waters and said, peace be still, so the

Lord does that when you and I face anxious times. That's why Paul writes, do not be anxious about anything but in everything.

By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

So Peter is telling this church and every one of us the blessings of having the grace and peace of the

Lord. Peter is calling his readers to pay close attention to what is written in this letter.

Because those who listen to the instruction will experience the grace and peace of the

Lord. So that's our goal in the coming months as we go through this letter.

We want to experience the grace and peace that is shown in here. So see the stage that Peter sets for this glorious letter.

And in the first two verses, we have seen four focuses. His authorship. When and where he wrote.

To whom he wrote. And the reminder of the Lord's blessing to his recipients, which includes all of the believers in this room.

So the stage has been set to begin our journey through Peter's first letter.

So in the coming months, prepare yourselves for the treasures that we will see revealed in this letter that the

Lord wants us to dig deep into. So that it would dig deep into our hearts.

And that's our prayer. That's my prayer. Let's bow our heads right now. Lord, this is indeed my prayer for our church that as we go through this letter, that we have heard quoted and as we have gone through the first two verses, that as we go through it,

Lord, that you would fill our hearts and that we would experience the grace and the peace that is found in this letter as we listen to it and as we believe what it says and live it out through the power of the