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Reading 1 Peter 1:20-21, understanding that God had perfectly predestined when He would send His Son for our sakes. Visit wwutt.com for all of our videos!
There is nothing that happens that is outside of God's sovereign plan. He has predestined, foreordained, elected everything from the foundation of the world. For your sake, to His glory, when we understand the text.
You are listening to When We Understand the Text, an online Bible ministry so that we may know all the riches freely given to us by God. For questions and comments send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. Dear listener, I must tell you that you must repent of your sins if you are going to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You cannot serve God and serve yourself, your own passions, your own desires.
You cannot have the kingdom of God and the demonic kingdom of this world. The two are completely incompatible. The more that you are seeking after the things of God, the more that you have set your eyes heavenward, the more that your heart desires the glory and the presence of God, the more uncomfortable you will be in this world, and the less of this world will be in yourself.
This is what it means to be holy. As we were talking about yesterday, you shall be holy, for I am holy. God said to his people in Leviticus 11, and he says to his people today. It is not any different at all.
He called his people out of Egypt, talking about the Israelites, those who were descendant from Abraham, as God is faithful to his promise to Abraham. So he called the Israelites out of Egypt, and he has called you out of your sin.
When we read in the Old Testament, when we see the Israelites freed from slavery, that should be a picture to us as to how Jesus Christ has freed us from the slavery of sin. So we cannot live in Egypt and the promised land.
It is physically impossible. And so, therefore, we cannot have this world and also the kingdom of God. There must be less of a desire of this world, no desire for this world. And all of our hearts, soul, mind and strength desiring the glory of God and his future kingdom, which is imperishable, which is an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, as we've been reading about here in 1 Peter.
And we're going to finish up chapter 1 today, 1 Peter chapter 1. Let's start in verse 13 and go to the end of the chapter. Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy.
And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God.
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.
For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass, the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
From verse 13 to verse 21 is what I've seen described as a literary envelope. You'll notice that this section begins and ends with the word hope. You have it said here in verse 13, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
And then look at verse 21, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God. We begin and end verses 13 through 21 with the word hope.
Our hope, our desire, our resolve, our answer for everything in this world is in Jesus Christ. He is our hope. We have no hope in this world. Nothing in the world makes sense without him. Because as we live as finite creatures, as material beings in this world, we know through general revelation by our own experiences that this entire world is wasting away.
You are reminded of that every time you wake up. If you're over the age of 30, every time you get out of bed and your body aches, you are reminded about how this world is wasting away and that your body at some point will even fail you.
I've heard this said, I believe this was Vodie Bauckham that was talking about this, but every person alive is trying to figure out how to solve the problem of death. Everybody's trying to figure this out.
Maybe you don't think about it consciously every moment of every day, but ultimately you are trying to figure out how to solve the problem of death. You know that your body is wasting away. You can observe death and things falling apart all around you in the world.
Everything is just decaying. It's been subjected to futility as is talked about in Romans chapter 8. And so every single person is trying to solve this problem. How do I keep myself from dying? What happens on the other side?
How can I be assured that when my body dies, I'm going to be okay? What's on the other side? This is what every religion in the world is surrounded or is focused on. I mean, is there any religion that you can think of that does not in some way postulate or theorize what's going to happen after we die?
All religion is centered around this. It's why people are spiritual because they know that whatever is spiritual must go on beyond what we experience in the material. So therefore, I'm going to be a spiritual person to try to solve the problem of death.
When it comes down to it, we can't solve that problem. There is nothing that we can do to save ourselves from that judgment. And death is a judgment. Death came into this world because of sin. It is the last enemy that Christ destroys upon his return.
As Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 15, the last enemy to be destroyed is death. The only solution that we have to this problem of death is in Jesus Christ, is in the only one in all of human history who came back from the dead.
And so in him, we have hope. If we can solve this problem of death and the problem has been solved in Christ Jesus, then there is nothing else in this world that should cause us grief or anxiety. We will live forever in Christ.
So have hope, Christian, and be restored in this reminded promise of God through his son, Jesus Christ. And so this, you know, I think that oftentimes when we read the Bible, we take it for granted as we're reading it.
Words on a page. I'm fulfilling my Christian duty today by setting my eyes on these words and listening to somebody else tell me what the words are saying, or something like that. If you're listening to a podcast like this, or you go to church and you listen to the preacher preach, you feel like you are accomplishing something because I've done my devotional duty today.
But do you understand the beauty in which these words were orchestrated, not simply by the apostle Peter, but by the Holy Spirit of God and every, every word of God perfectly fine-tuned and established and intentional in the ways these things are worded.
This is not a guy sitting down at a letter and just throwing his pen across the page and seeing what comes out of it. As these thoughts just roll off my mind, we'll see what comes of this, which is exactly the way that I think.
Okay. This is the way my mind works. I will have kind of an idea of where I'm going anytime I open up this microphone and I start recording the devotionals that we are going to do. But for the most part, there are things that I will say as we go on that I didn't plan on saying.
Now, my mind has been conditioned by years of study of the scripture so that I can be sure that I'm not going to say something that is so wildly off the mark on my human brain that I'm going to lead somebody astray.
So it's years of study of the scriptures that have led me to be able to teach in this way, that have led me to be a pastor or led me to do a podcast such as this. This is not just me talking off the top of my head, but that's the way that we will tend to read the Bible sometimes is thinking of this as something that a person wrote and they were just, you know, okay, I'm going to sit down and write a letter and we'll see what comes of this as I'm writing.
But all of this is from the Spirit of God, and it is fine-tuned and specific and intentional in the ways that these things were laid down. Even when we look at this section from verses 13 through 21, and we have it enveloped in the word hope.
Starts with the word hope, ends with the word hope. So that we would know our hope, that we would know the solution to the things of this world are in Christ Jesus. And there is no other answer to this.
There is no other answer. Nothing in life makes sense without Him. Because if we know that Christ is ultimately working all things for His glory, then even when in this life we will experience suffering or we will experience a trial, we still have a hope in Christ that is unwavering and unmoving because of this promise of an imperishable, undefiled, undefeating inheritance that is kept in heaven for us.
And so everything that we are going through in life is ultimately leading to that, even when we suffer and we go through trial. And I got to tell you, the burden that was relieved of me in my life when I came to understand that God is sovereign and that He has predestined all things from before the foundation of the world.
How much more I worshipped God because of this than I did before, than this idea that basically the idea of deism, that God has just created things and He's letting His creation decide how the course of life is going to go, but He Himself is not foreordaining, predestining, electing from the beginning of time.
What kind of a God is that really? What kind of control can we say that God actually has over His creation? Even if He voluntarily took His hands off of it and just let it run its course, what kind of a God is that to pray to?
To say that for that God to say, you know, I'm not going to intervene in any way unless my creation asks me to, then we control God. That's the only logical conclusion that you can come to if that is your theological mindset, if that's your theological perspective of God.
But we have it said here in what we are reading, verse 20, that He was foreknown, Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you. Christ was revealed to us in these times in which we live, which by the way, we're living in the last times.
These are the end times. This is the last days. The apostle John said in 1 John 2, this is the last hour. And it is as much the last hour now as it was 2000 years ago when he wrote that. And don't listen to the quote unquote scholars who will try to tell you that Jesus and all the disciples in the New Testament expected that Christ was going to return within that first century.
Don't listen to them about that. Everything that we have predicted for us related to the end times in scripture can apply to any age. It applies to every single age. We're not looking at the book of Revelation as a puzzle book.
It is a picture book. And if any one of us now in this time were to be shown the exact thing that John saw when he wrote the book of Revelation, we would see exactly what he saw. Exactly. It applies to every person at every time, which by the way, every time you open up the book of Revelation, that is what you see.
You see exactly what John saw. That's the beauty of God's word. And it applies to all people at all times, throughout all cultures, in all generations. This is not a book that we're trying to piece together with a newspaper in one hand and a globe in the other hand and trying to figure out when all this stuff is going to come together.
That's not the way that we read in times prophecy. It applies to any people of any age. And Peter says here that we are living in the last times. And in these times was revealed to us, the son of God who was foreknown before the foundation of the world and only has since been made manifest in these times for the sake of you.
In other words, God had chosen specifically at which point in history, the son of God would come to fulfill the law and the prophets dying on the cross for our sins, rising again from the grave and commissioning his disciples to plant the church.
God knew exactly in history when that was going to be. And it was done for our sakes, for the sake of you. God revealed in his perfect time exactly when Christ would come for your sake. Are you familiar with the musical Jesus Christ Superstar?
Are you familiar with that musical? I hope not. Honestly, if you've never watched it or never listened to it, do not bother because those songs get stuck in your head and it is a blasphemous play. There was a one time, I can't remember if this was last year or the year before, it might've been last year.
But anyway, here in our community, our local theater was putting together Jesus Christ Superstar. And because I am a pastor who sings and I have a background in theater, I've done some productions here in our community.
Somebody had contacted me and was asking me to play a role in that play and I declined and they did not understand. It really continued to press me to be in the play when I finally had to tell them, look, I consider it a blasphemous musical.
I'm not gonna be a part of it. And they really honestly didn't understand that. They thought that because I was a pastor and this was a musical called Jesus Christ Superstar, that I was gonna jump at the opportunity to be a part of that play.
But it portrays Christ as only a man and not God. In fact, even outright says that. And he is in total mystery as to God's intention and will all the way through the play. I'm not gonna go into doing a whole review of Jesus Christ Superstar, but in the closing number of the rock opera, which is what it is, Judas, who by the way, has a resurrection scene in the play, but Jesus doesn't.
Not kidding. Anyway, Judas at the very end of the rock opera sings the song, the whole title cut number, Jesus Christ Superstar. And in that lyric, he says, if you'd come today, you could have reached a whole nation.
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication. So he is criticizing the fact that this plan apparently was that Jesus would come in the first century and not in the 20th century, when there would have been a better opportunity for the word of God to actually go out to everybody on earth.
Clearly, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, who wrote Jesus Christ Superstar, did not understand the scriptures for it was known by God before the foundation of the world, exactly when he was gonna send Christ his son to die for our sins, redeeming a people to himself and purifying them from all lawlessness.
And the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ would spread around the globe as it has without mass communication by the power of the Holy Spirit, not because of the technology of man. And this revealing of Christ, the things that he taught, what he accomplished and fulfilled through his life and death and resurrection.
These things were made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who through him are believers in God. We believe because of God. Trace back your salvation and you will never find a place in this process of your conversion where you can take credit for it ever.
You can't take credit for your own salvation at any point. Well, I'm the one who prayed a prayer, right? With whose breath? Your own. Where did it come from? Where did you come from? How did you even come into existence?
As you trace the steps back, can you ever take credit for any of it? Now, that's not to say when the Bible says to you, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, that you can't make a decision to repent.
But then when you come to the scriptures and you understand the theology of it, you were only able to do that because the spirit of God changed your mind to be able to hear the words of Christ and respond to them.
When in your sin, you were an enemy of God and you were not seeking after God. It is the spirit of God that changed that wicked heart and mind of yours to be able to respond in a holy and worshipful way to the word of God.
It is through Christ. We're believers in God. You can't state that any more plainly than that. You did not come to belief because you made a choice. You came to belief because you were foreknown because this was predestined because you were elect before the foundation of the world.
Who through him, you through him are believers in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory. So that your faith and hope are in God because of what he has done, not because what you have done, your faith and your hope are in a God that is working all things for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
Praise God. And that's our faith and that's our hope. Not in anything that we have done, not in any decision that we are going to make, but in all things that are being held together through Christ Jesus, the Lord.
Amen. Who was made manifest in these last times for your sake. Let's pray. Dear God, as we bring what we have studied here to a conclusion this week, here in 1 Peter 1, I pray that we continue to dwell on and meditate on this.
There are so many things about this, understanding God's plan from before the foundation of the world that the very belief and the faith that we have, we've been given to us by the spirit of God. There's so many of these things written here that are difficult for us and our finite minds to wrap our minds around.
But I pray that in the difficulty of trying to understand these things, we don't just dismiss it and go, eh, that's too lofty. It's too out there. I can't even conceptualize any of that. So I'm gonna choose to believe this in a way that makes more sense to me.
But we who have been baffled by the words of God would just continue to come back to this until it makes sense to us, meditating on it, crying out to you, asking for clarity and guidance according to your spirit.
And as long as we live in these bodies, we know that we're never gonna gain perfect clarity until we're done with these bodies and we join you in that glory that has been promised us. And then we will see exactly as you see, because we will be made to be like you, as John talks about in 1 John 3.
And so Lord, I pray that this, all of these things that could boggle our mind, just drive us to rely on you more fully, less in the knowledge of the world and more in the knowledge of God. Draw us to you by your divine mysteries and the gloriousness that has been revealed to us in these times through your son, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and then being made holy, being purified by Christ.
We now have access to the kingdom of God, to your very throne, to you whom we are praying to and are able to because of this work that you have done in us through Jesus Christ. And it's in his name that we pray, amen.
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Here once again, is Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. Now you'll notice that we didn't actually get all the way through 1 Peter 1 today. This is just another example of how I kind of have an idea where we're going. And then once you get into the word, you never know what's going to happen.
But there's a good reason for not finishing chapter 1 today because 1 Peter 1 verse 22 through chapter 2 verse 10 is really one section. So the chapter kind of breaks up a section that goes together again, beginning in verse 22.
So that's where we're going to start on Monday. In the meantime, I hope that you'll come back again tomorrow as we continue our study of the book of 1 Samuel.