1 Peter: How Living Stones Grow Strong (1 Peter 1:1-9, Jeff Kliewer)

to feel good about ourselves. We like therapy, and we like to leave feeling charged when we hear the the

Bible. But deism, again, meaning that ultimately we believe in a God that has stepped out of the picture.

He has created, but he's stepped out of the picture, and he just lets things run their course. And so what really matters is what we do, and what really matters is how we live our lives and what we do in this world.

It's really up to us. The autonomy of man is a high value in America, and think about that.

The Declaration of Independence teaches Americans to be independent, and surely that's a good thing, but the value of independence can come into our theological thinking.

Freedom. We are the land of the free, and so Americans are very much value our freedom.

And so these things in and of themselves are not bad, but shall we form our theology by independence and freedom as the highest goal?

The answer is no. Ultimately, what did Jefferson do wrong? By his freedom, by his reason, by his independence, he took a pair of scissors and he determined what was true.

Rather than submitting to the authority of the Word of God, he created his own Bible by picking and choosing, cherry -picking, like out of a bucket, the parts that he liked.

Now today we go to the book of 1st Peter, and we're gonna really dig in and receive what

I think is a really heavy teaching. There's meat in this passage, too.

There's many things that are not easy to understand. In fact, just the language itself is sometimes hard to follow, because Peter will say something and then modify it with a string of prepositional phrases to try to bring clarity to what he's saying, but that can be hard to follow.

Peter himself moved in his life from being a functional deist to being a pure Christian theist.

Follow me here. Early in his life, when he first confessed Christ, you are the Christ, the

Son of the Living God, Jesus began to give him the Word and to say that he must go and suffer and die, but Peter's reaction was to take matters into his own hands, and right away he rebukes

Jesus and says, you will not die, we'll die with you, we will fight for you, we'll defend you, and Jesus turns to him and says, get behind me,

Satan. You do not have the things of God in mind, but the things of man. He was functioning as a deist.

He was gonna take things into his hands. It was up to him. Rather than hearing and receiving what

Jesus was saying, later in his life, before Jesus was betrayed, that night he kept falling asleep, and finally the soldiers came, which finally woke him up, and what did he immediately do?

Now remember, Jesus had told them about the Passover and how he would have to suffer and die. He had taught that the night before at the at the

Lord's Supper, the Passover, the last Passover. So what did

Peter do? He grabbed his sword, took it in his hand, and swung for a head, trying to chop the guy's head off, but of course he hit an ear and took off Malchus' ear, and Jesus then healed that.

He was functioning as if it was up to him, rather than trusting the plan of God.

Now I'll turn, before we get into 1st Peter, I want us to turn quickly to Acts chapter 4. In this crucifixion of Jesus, we know that mankind was operating freely by the will and the choice of individuals.

In fact, Pontius Pilate had an agenda, didn't he? To protect his own skin and to protect his reign.

Herod had an agenda as king over Jerusalem, over Israel, but he hated

Jesus. The Gentiles had their way of doing things. The Roman soldiers who were there in Jerusalem were listening to Pontius Pilate.

The Jews were listening to their religious leaders, and together, according to Acts 4 27, these four,

Jews, Gentiles, Pontius Pilate, and Herod, operating within the freedom of their will, conspired against Jesus.

To do what? To do what? Look at verse 28, Acts 4 28.

To do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

That's an interesting statement. It's the prayer of the early church after they're facing persecution.

Peter has just gotten out of jail with John, and they come back and they pray, and they confess that in the free decisions and the opposition of these four groups against Jesus, they were doing what

God's hand and God's plan predestined to occur. God had a plan, it says it right here in Acts 4 28, that he was working out, and that plan was compatible with the free choices of men who opposed

Jesus. But God's plan was operating behind the scenes. God was working out a plan.

Now when we go to 1st Peter, let's turn over to 1st Peter chapter 1. Those who read 1st

Peter are encouraged to lift their eyes from present problems and trials and behold the vistas provided by an eternal perspective.

So says Roger Raymer of Dallas Theological Seminary, we tend to live in the natural.

We tend to focus on our lives here and now, not recognizing that God has an eternal plan from eternity past stretching to eternity future that is being worked out in our midst.

But if we can step out of our problems and see from an eternal perspective, it changes everything about our lives.

It changes our worldview. We begin to see the world differently when we have this worldview.

So the main idea today, that Peter, the rock that God made to establish the church, is by writing this letter establishing us in maturity even as Peter himself was wavering.

He cut off somebody's ear. He rebuked Jesus. He operated in the flesh.

30 years later now, he is a mature rock. He has become the rock. And even as Peter followed that path to maturity, we have for ourselves a path toward maturity.

And what was that? Recall from last week. He rebuked Jesus. He cut off an ear.

And then the very next day, that morning, just before dawn, the little girl was saying, weren't you one of his followers?

And what did he say? I never knew him. I don't know him. I'm not one of them.

No, no. He denied Jesus three times. And so Jesus comes to him after the resurrection and restores him.

And three times says the same thing. Feed my sheep. Do you love me more than these?

Feed my sheep. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep. So Peter grew to maturity.

He grew into his name by the study of God's Word. What the Apostle Paul was teaching.

What he was learning by studying the Old Testament. And so this common fisherman who was not educated in the schools of the rabbis, writes this letter to us because he himself has grown to this maturity.

It's not where he started. It's where he is 30 years later. He grew to the maturity of writing this passage to us.

So he doesn't say, here's how you escape suffering. He doesn't say, here's how you have your best life now.

He says, this is how you have a God -centered worldview.

This is how you have God -centered worship. This is God -centered joy which can endure the trials of life.

First Peter is about suffering. It's about trials that come into this life. But more than that, it's about viewing

God as central to everything that happens in this world.

Accepting his plan. Worshiping the God whose plan is good.

And particularly his plan to save sinners like me. Peter is going to move an immature

Christian like me to maturity by these words. That's feeding the sheep.

So remember, Jesus commissioned him, feed my sheep, feed my sheep, feed my sheep. Well what do we eat? The pure milk of the

Word. Now if we're like Thomas Jefferson and we take parts of the Bible that we like and we cut out the rest because we don't like it, ultimately we are our own authority.

But if we throw away the scissors and we open up the book and we say, what does this language mean in context?

We are eating of God's Word. We are receiving from God's Word. Do you follow? And sometimes

God's Word is hard to chew. It's hard to swallow. It's difficult teaching. But see, here's the great thing about God's Word.

It was written in Koine Greek. And this language is a lot more like math than it is like art.

And so when you begin to dig into his Word, it makes sense. And there's connection between a noun and a verb.

And then a prepositional phrase that modifies a noun. And so you need to study to unpack what the meaning is.

I think what tends to happen in American evangelicalism, and I'm guilty of this often too, we bring something to the text and we look for it there.

In fact, in a Bible study what often happens? You read a passage and you say, what does that mean to you?

Right? And the first person says, well I think it means this. And everyone says, hmm, right?

And then you go to the next person, well I think it means this. And everyone goes, oh, yeah. And everybody has an opinion and they're completely all over the map, not connecting one to another.

And by the end of the Bible study everybody says, wow, great study. And we all leave, right?

Don't we do that? Because ultimately we are bringing our own presuppositions to the text.

And we're not maturing because we're not submitted to the pure milk of the Word. So let's dig in, let's read, let's eat.

These passages are a little hard to follow, but they're true. And they're exactly what we need for maturity.

This is what we need. First Peter, chapter 1, just verses 1 and 2 to begin with.

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, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ, and for sprinkling with his blood.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Now here we have it.

What is Peter saying? It's one long sentence, and it's complicated because there are prepositional phrases which modify the noun.

The first part, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, that's pretty simple. We talked about that last week, right? Peter's the author.

The letters, the epistles that were written at that time would always begin with the author, and then who it's addressed to, followed by a salutation.

Something like, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. That's a common form of the letter which would be written.

But what is this in the middle? To those, not just Christians, but let's get specific of who you are.

And here is where Peter begins to shape our identity. This is where we grow because we're told who we are.

And is this how I think about myself? It wouldn't be unless I had this. Thomas Jefferson would never come to this by natural reasoning, by natural light.

This only comes by the Word of God. Feed my sheep.

It only comes through God's Word. So what does he say? To those who are elect exiles.

That's the answer. You are elect exiles.

The noun is exiles. That's who you are. You are a sojourner, an alien, a stranger in a foreign land.

And you're scattered. In this case, he's writing specifically to Christians in northern Turkey, in those five

Roman provinces made up of Jews and Gentiles. They're dispersed. That language of dispersion made sense to the

Jews, right? Because they had been run out of their homeland many times and many of them were scattered. But Christians also had lost property and lost businesses and had to move to safer places.

Gentiles as well as Jews, I mean to say. So the dispersion is a physical displacement.

But more than that, this is speaking to all Christians as exiles.

We are identified as being in exile. What does that mean? It means that the kingdom that we live for is not this world.

It's not America. It's no other country on earth. It's the kingdom of heaven.

We are exiles in this world. Aliens and strangers here.

But notice the adjective that modifies exiles. What is it? Elect.

To those who are elect exiles. Elect means chosen.

Chosen by God. We were elected and chosen for this exile, for this present suffering, where we're persecuted in the world.

Where we don't belong here. Where it's hard. Where there's suffering.

God chose this for us. But look at the second verse now. Modifying this idea.

Explaining this idea. Notice it's according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the

Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. First thing

I want you to notice is that's a Trinitarian formula, isn't it? You wouldn't know the

Trinity unless God spoke it through his word. It's the only way of knowing the Trinity. And here we see the

Father, then the Spirit, then the Son, all mentioned in one verse in three different prepositional phrases.

The last one being a compound phrase. The sanctification of the

Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. So let's take the first one.

First Peter 1, 2. This is important. According to the foreknowledge of God the

Father. Here's where we do the Bible study. Or we could do this.

I could say, what does foreknowledge mean? And then I could pass a microphone around and then we all get to say, right?

And we all say, hmm, that sounds like a good idea. Well, in the Scriptures the word foreknowledge is used seven times in the

New Testament. Twice it refers to mere knowing ahead of time. You know something even though it hasn't happened yet.

Because maybe you can predict it, maybe all the circumstances are lining up, or in the case of God, that he knows everything so he simply knows what will happen.

But that's not how Peter uses the word foreknowledge. Foreknowledge has more than just this meaning of knowing ahead of time.

Turn with me over one page to first Peter 1, 20. In the very same book.

This is a good way to understand a term is see how the same author uses it in context. Foreknowledge here, speaking of Jesus, that precious lamb whose blood saved us by the spilling of his precious blood.

Chapter 1, verse 20. He was, same word, foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you.

Jesus wasn't known by God because God existing outside of time looked into time and said, looking down the pike, there's

Jesus, now I know him. But rather before time existed, when there was nothing but Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the

Trinity, in perfect unity and needing nothing, the Father knew the

Son and knew the Spirit. This is relational language. It's a knowledge that's personal, not learned, but something that has always been known by an omnipotent

God and an omniscient God. So follow me. The knowledge that's referred to here is not merely knowing something before it happens, but knowledge of a person, an intimate knowledge.

Flip back to another sermon of Peter's before the book of 1 Peter, in Acts chapter 2, verse 23.

This will make it very clear what Peter's talking about. It's the first sermon he preached.

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the same word for foreknowledge is used.

Progonosko. Verse 23, Acts 2, 23. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.

Two expressions to refer to the same thing. Remember Acts 4, 28, that we talked about?

That Jesus was crucified according to God's hand and his plan. Here, Peter says in chapter 2, verse 23, he was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.

So foreknowledge, in this case, refers to God's decree. It's something that God had planned before time began.

And turning back now to 1 Peter, chapter 1, track with me.

In verse 2, according to the foreknowledge of God the

Father. What is according to the foreknowledge of God the Father? That we would be elect exiles, strangers here chosen for a kingdom yet to come, and strangers in this world.

According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ.

This is God's plan of redemption. That before the world, before the world began, in eternity past,

God the Father chose elect people to be a people for his own possession.

That's his foreknowledge. In time, 2 ,000 years ago, the

Son of God accomplished redemption in his blood through the shedding of his blood.

You see that in verse 2? For obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.

But in our lives, as each of us is born into this world and we go about living as dead men, dead in our trespasses and sins, he comes along and makes us alive together with Christ.

That is the sanctification of the Spirit, where he takes us out of the world and sets us apart as an exile for another kingdom.

The work of the Spirit is applying redemption, and we live as exiles here until he consummates our redemption on the day we die or on the time when

Christ comes back again. So redemption has four moments.

The Father predestines our redemption before the world began. That's the foreknowledge of God, his plan.

The Son accomplishes redemption by dying in our stead. His death becomes my death.

His burial becomes my burial. His resurrection becomes my resurrection because I'm united with him in his dying.

He dies as a substitute. The third moment is the application of redemption, when the

Holy Spirit sanctifies or sets apart you to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

So it says in chapter 1 verse 2, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the

Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ. What does each preposition mean? According to.

That means the basis of our election is the foreknowledge of God.

His preordained plan is the basis. It's in the sanctification of the

Spirit. So this is the means. The Holy Spirit will sanctify us and for obedience to Jesus Christ.

This is what it's for. This is why it happens. That we would then become followers who bring glory to God by our obedience and we being cleansed by his blood.

So this is some deep theology. I admit that. But look at the next verse. This is what it all does.

When we grasp this, when we accept this, blessed be the

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That expression there is an exalting in God.

It's a worship of God that comes when we understand that it was all his work to save us.

It was the work of the Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to save us. It causes us to exalt and say blessed be the

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So in the first place, that introduction that we read, that salutation, it changes the way we think to recognize that God has a plan for everything that happens under the sun, especially for our salvation.

And now we get into that in what follows. So we're to bless God and now look why. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to 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.

Peter, the rock, the mature one now, mature in his thinking, says blessed be

God. And why? That first phrase is crucial. Look after his blessing.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his great mercy.

If you will, turn with me and read a couple scriptures that highlight what that mercy is.

The issue here is that God has caused us to be born again to a living hope.

So if you'll flip with me to Ephesians chapter 2, verses 4 and 5, in a passage that talks about our deadness and sin, verse 4 and 5 says, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved. In that verse we see

God has stepped in to our lives. This is the sanctification of the Spirit. He has made us to be born again.

It's God doing the work. It's because of his mercy. You see that in 1st Peter 1, verse 3?

It's according to his mercy. Now in Ephesians 2, verse 4, God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us when we were dead made us alive.

God comes by the supernatural work, penetrating into our lives to give us the new birth.

That's the language of Ephesians 2, 4 and 5. John 1, 12 and 13, yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

Children born not of natural descent nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

According to John, the new birth, being born again, is not of human decision but a gift that comes from God.

John 8, 47, he who belongs to God hears what God says.

The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God. And then finally in 1st

John 5, verse 1, it says everyone who believes that Jesus is the

Christ has been born of God. Even as everyone who does the things that God commands has been born of God, everybody who loves the brother has been born of God, it's the work of God that comes first.

Giving the new birth that results in works and in love and in believing.

Alan Kirshner has a quote that I think helps us understand this. The Holy Spirit does not merely whisper in the hardened sinner's ears and hope that the rebel sinner will cooperate.

Instead, while the sinner is in a state of hardness and rebellion, the Holy Spirit penetrates into the human will and performs the miracle of spiritual life.

That's called regeneration, when we're born again. That is grace alone. That is what the

Bible teaches. Faith does not precede regeneration. Regeneration precedes faith.

Now those are big theological words. What is it saying? Picture the

Apostle Paul, while still an enemy of God, dead in his trespasses and sins, going along the road to Damascus to persecute

Christians, all of a sudden a light, a blinding light from heaven, knocks him over. God, by his mercy, changes his heart and gives him the gift of faith.

God mows him over by his power. God penetrates his life and resurrects a dead man.

And so Paul believes, and so he preaches. The work of God precedes the faith that Paul then exhibits in his life.

That's what's being taught in 1st Peter 1. We'll go back to 1st Peter 1 now. 1st

Peter 1, verses 3 to 5. Why is Peter this older man now?

Why is he so filled with joy? Why does he say, blessed be the God and Father of our

Lord Jesus Christ? Why? And if we can answer that question, we can step aside and say, do

I exalt that way? Do I bless God that way?

If the answer is no, we need this maturity, because something is motivating this praise. You see what it is?

He says, according to his great mercy. Mercy is free and it is great. God has given mercy, and what is the definition of mercy?

Not getting what you deserve. And by definition, it has to be free.

God does not owe me anything. I am a fallen son of Adam. If he gives me what

I deserve, it's hell. It's eternal separation from him. But God's great mercy is such that he gives me what

I don't deserve. This is the beautiful teaching of 1st

Peter 1, 3. It's according to his great mercy. There was nothing that I bring to the table, nothing more sensitive in me when

I heard the gospel that I responded when my friend did not. There was nothing more humble about me.

There was nothing about me that earned salvation at all. It was according to his great mercy, and he has caused us to be born again.

There's one energy, there's one work, there's one force that regenerated me, and it's his power.

It's his mercy working in my life. All the glory goes to him. He has caused us to be born again to a living hope.

It's not just that I hope that when I die, I'm going to heaven. My hope is alive.

My hope is that Jesus Christ, who was raised from the dead, is a living Savior, and I know him, and I know where I go when

I die. It's not just a vague hope, it's a living hope.

It's something that's animated, that changes everything about me. It's something that's within me.

The Holy Spirit of God living in me. This is a living hope. How? Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

As he died, I was buried then with him. As he rose from the dead,

I was resurrected with him. From before time began, according to God's plan,

I would be resurrected with Christ. This is a spiritual resurrection. Jesus rose physically.

When I believe in him, I'm resurrected spiritually. To what? Verse 4.

An inheritance that belongs to me, and it's imperishable.

It belongs to you too, brothers and sisters. It's undefiled. It's unfading. It's kept in heaven for you.

You have an inheritance in heaven. Eternity in heaven with God, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Let me summarize what I'm saying here in these first two points, and we'll make the final last point that just drives it home and why it's so important.

What I'm saying to you is that God saves sinners. Period. From first to last, it's

God who's doing the work to save sinners. It's all of his grace, all of his free mercy, and nothing that I brought to the table whatsoever.

So all the glory goes to him. That's important because when we think like that, we see that everything that happens under the sun is according to his plan.

Now, it's compatible with free choices. It's compatible with free choices.

So God's plan is to save sinners. If I in my sin have wandered away from God, I've become a rebel.

There's nothing in me that can choose God. There's nothing that wants God, so I need the powerful working of his spirit to save me.

I need to be made alive, as the text says. Salvation comes from God.

When I think like that and I see that God has been in control of everything, including suffering in the world, including my exile in this world,

I have confidence in God. And more than that, the second point, I rejoice.

I exult in God. He becomes everything to me because he's done everything for me.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It wells up in praise. And so we go to this final last section, six through nine, and this is where maturity comes in.

Because when you think like this, that God has a plan, when you worship like this, that God has done everything for me and I did nothing, then when the trials come, you're mature enough to withstand them.

You recognize that it's God who's allowing these trials for a purpose and for a time, and you don't fall back into the flesh like Peter did with the sword.

You don't rebuke Jesus for allowing you to go through it. You accept the trials of life and you overcome as a mature

Christian because you understand it's his plan that brings it into your life. This is so important.

It's very deep theology, I get that, but when we go deep with God, we go strong with God.

We grow up in to the person that he's calling us to be. So verses six through nine, in this you rejoice.

In what do you rejoice? The inheritance that's waiting for you in heaven in the last time. What's promised to you, what's guarded for you and kept in heaven.

Though now for a little while, if necessary. See, if necessary means that it's

God who has a reason or a plan or a purpose. He's accomplishing something.

There's a need for this suffering. There's a reason for it. There's a purpose in it.

If necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. In Peter's day, this was probably the year 63

AD. We talked about this last week. The very next year was the persecution initiated by Nero, where Christians would be lit up as torches, where Christians would be destroyed and run out of their homes, and so many of them killed.

And yet these same Christians endured that with joy, and they never rejected

Christ. They believed and they confessed him, even in suffering. What did they have that we don't have?

What did those early Christians who died as martyrs have that we don't seem to have today?

Maturity. It says here, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.

Verse 7, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with the joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

When you have this God -centered worldview, that God is on his throne, he's reigning supreme, and he's only allowing to happen what is necessary, what he has a plan for, that when those struggles, when those trials hit you, your joy is unshakable.

You remain joyful in your salvation. An immature person, when hit with difficult circumstances, immediately becomes a deist, functionally.

God is somewhere far away, I'm in the here and now, this is my circumstance,

I need to handle this, and this is how I'm gonna handle it, and it results in sin.

But a mature Christian who understands that God has a foreknowledge, which is an ordained plan for everything, including my salvation, and that salvation is secured and guarded and kept for me in heaven, and it's imperishable and unfading and cannot be destroyed, that when this circumstance hits the mature

Christian, you look to God and you say, he has a plan in this, it's not just this person coming against me, it's not just this trial that's too hard for me,

God is the one allowing this for my sanctification. You overcome when you're mature, but what's an infant look like?

When a little kid doesn't get his way, what happens? Temper tantrum, right? A little child cannot withstand struggles.

When things are going well, they're happy. When things are going poorly, they're sad and crying.

But as Christians, we need to grow up like Peter did, mature into a full -orbed understanding, having a

God -centered worldview that carries us through the trials of life. Through, no, though you have not seen him, you love him.

This is verse 8. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with the joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.

That's our joy. When the joy of our salvation is welling up inside of us and it's unshakable in trials, it results in something.

What is it? Glory and honor and praise at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Who gets the glory?

That's not glory to me, that's glory to him, the God who saved me. When I'm filled with joy and I endure suffering as a good soldier, he is glorified in me as I am satisfied in him.

And so in closing, this is God -centered theology. Some people call it

Calvinism. Well, J .I. Packer has a really great quote, and if you're taking notes, he wrote the introductory essay to a book called

The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. I love that title, The Death of Death in the

Death of Christ, a book by John Owen. J .I. Packer wrote this about Calvinism.

He says, Calvinism is a unified philosophy of history which sees the whole diversity of processes and events that take place in God's world as no more and no less than the outworking of his preordained plan for his creatures in his church.

Now the five points, if you study theology, that's TULIP. The five points assert no more than that God is sovereign in saving the individual, but Calvinism as such is concerned with the much broader assertion that he is sovereign everywhere.

So the idea of Calvinism is not just that God elects and saves certain people, that's the soteriology, that's how

God saves, but Calvinism refers to God having a plan and a purpose over all of history and over everything that happens in this world.

I don't like the term Calvinism, although I'm a

Calvinist, I don't like the term Calvinism. Why? It's anachronistic. It's as if it was developed by this man

Calvin in the 1500s leading the Protestant Reformation. It's not the case at all.

The Scriptures teach the sovereignty of God. The Scriptures teach that he has this preordained plan, that a foreknowledge of everything that will happen,

Acts 2 .23 and Acts 4 .28 and 1st Peter chapter 1.

All of this is by his foreknowledge, his plan, working out in history, and salvation is entirely of the

Lord, and so I rejoice. I submit to you guys, to each one of you, and I know that theology is something that takes time to study, it takes a lot of time to dig in, but I submit that maturity comes by the

Word of God. Sanctify them by your truth.

Your word is truth, says the Lord Jesus. If you will dig in and study what 1st

Peter says about God's foreknowledge here, about his free mercy in verses 3 to 5, about the joy that comes and even conquers trials when we have this

God -centered way of thinking, you will grow into maturity. Don't take my word for it, don't take a system for it, take what the

Scripture says. Go and read John 6 and Romans 9 and Ephesians 1. Some people say, well,

Calvinists get kind of crazy about their theology, and they always want to talk about it.

They talk about it too much. What's the first thing that Peter says?

Chapter 1, verse 1, to those elect. First things first.

According to Peter, first things first is that you're elect. He does it again in the second book when he says that the faith that you have, you have obtained, like Philippians 1 .29

says, just like you suffer, you're appointed to suffer, in the same way you've been gifted faith.

So is it an emphasis of the Scripture? That's the point. Don't worry about me, don't worry about Calvin. Who cares about Calvin?

He's long dead and gone. Care about the emphasis of the Scripture. Read it from beginning to end, and you will see that all of the

Scripture upholds the sovereignty of God in all things, including in salvation.

That the reason that I am saved and preaching today is because the Father has elected me.

That the Lamb was slain for me before the foundation of the world, and that in real time the

Son of God died on a cross, and that in my life the Holy Spirit came and made me alive together with Christ.

That the wind blows wherever it wishes, and no one knows where it's coming from or where it's going, and so it is those born of the

Spirit. It's a gift of God. And so I rejoice, and I feel like I have, and this is not to uphold me because I have plenty of my hang -ups too, but I feel like God has given me a peace in my life.

And I know that some of you are struggling with peace in life. I feel like I have a consistency in my walk, because this is what

I know, that God has a plan, and whatever he gives me on my plate, I recognize it's necessary.

It's from him for my sanctification, in the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. And so I encourage you to study this text and take the words for whatever they are.

Read it in context. Read it according to how

God has written it. Romans 8, 28 and 29, all those verses have

God active. You guys know the verse, right? Romans 8, 28. And we know that in all things

God works together for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.

It goes on to say that those whom God foreknew, he also predestined, and those he predestined, he also called, and those he called, he also justified, and those he justified, he also glorified.

It's all in the past tense because it's done in God's work. It's God who does it.

He's active in every verb. It's God alone who saves. This is the free offer of the gospel and the free message of his salvation.

Now, I say free offer. In God's plan, he has elected those who would be saved, and he has ordained not only that end, but the means of preaching the gospel.

And this offer, because it's compatible with the choices of men, it is free. I can stand here and preach, repent, and believe in Jesus, and mean it freely and genuinely to everyone who hears.

And you can do the same thing. So as those who believe in God's sovereignty, we still preach the gospel.

We recognize it's God who saves, but he has sent us to be the preachers of this message.

And so with that, I'm gonna call on the worship team to come do the last song, and I'm gonna call on us to continue to study 1st

Peter. 1st Peter 1. 1 through 9 today, and next week we get into the 10th verse and following.

I encourage you to read it over and over again this week. Continue to read the Scriptures. I would even challenge you to memorize verses from within this chapter.

This is the food that changes the way you think. If you bring your thinking to the text, you're not changing, you're not maturing.

You already believe that. But if you come to the text and say, what does this say?

That's where maturity comes from. This is the food that we're to eat. Let's pray, and then we'll worship. So Father, thank you so much for your

Word. God, thank you for your plan, and that it's trustworthy, and that it's good, and that your plans are good.

And it included saving us through the preaching of the Word, through the gospel, that we can repent of our sins and come to Christ, and we will find him to be a perfect Savior.

This free message offered to us, and we thank you for your Holy Spirit that works regeneration in us, turning this heart of stone into a heart of flesh that now delights in your

Word, that would be hardened against it, and that would tear it up in the flesh.

But Lord, I thank you for your Word. Help us to just take this and eat it, to receive from you.

Thank you for your free salvation and the delight we can have. And when the trials come, Lord, I pray that this church would be found to be mature.

Whatever trials come, Lord, that we would stand strong. We would never lose our joy, that we would endure with patience, and even with inexpressible joy that brings you glory.