Anchored #2 - Grounded in our Salvation (1 Peter 1:3-12)

Redeemer Bible Fellowship

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of, I believe it's Rebecca Markle's book, Eve in Exile, Friday mornings at 10 o 'clock.

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All the details are in there and if you want more information, come and see me. I can put you in touch with Mikkel, who is the contact person for that.

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All right, those are my announcements, I should say. We come to the mystery of God's word and the sermon series that we began last week, which we've called

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Anchored, Anchored, Stabilizing Truths for Shaky Times. If you have your copy of God's Word nearby, and I hope you do, take it and turn with me to 1

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Peter chapter 1 and verse 3, 1

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Peter chapter 1 and verse 3. If you grabbed a study guide, we are not going to look at 1, 3 through to 2, 10 in one sermon, that's insanity.

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We are going to look at verses 3 through 12, 1 Peter chapter 3, chapter 1, excuse me, and verses 3 through 12, 1

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Peter chapter 1 from verse 3 through to verse 12. And one last time, if you're able to do so,

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I invite you to stand with me out of reverence for God's word as we read it. 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 3 through 12.

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Brothers and sisters, these are God's words. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Oh, by the way, I'll just read the text, so just follow along with me as I read. Blessed be the God and Father of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. Because of His great mercy, He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

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

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You rejoice in this, even though now, for a short time if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials so that the proven character of your faith, more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though not seeing Him now, you believe in Him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

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Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that would come to you searched and carefully investigated.

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They inquired into what time or what circumstances the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating when

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He testified in advance to the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

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

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Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Angels long to catch a glimpse of these things.

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The gospel is the flower of faith, but this Word of God will abide forever. Join with me as I pray, ask for the Spirit's help, and we get to work in this text.

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Heavenly Father, we thank You so much for Your Word. We thank You for its truth. We thank You that we have a firm foundation in it on which to plant our feet in a world that is so easily given to instability and shakiness.

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Father, I pray that as we open up this portion of Your Word that You would grant us insights and understanding, that You would open our eyes, that we would see wonderful things out of Your law.

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And Father, as I pray this for us, I pray this also for our friends over at Rogue Valley Christian Church in Rogue River.

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Pray for Pastor Lucas and Pastor Frank there and Elder Rob and Elder Kenny as they serve there, that You would continue to grant them great help and great grace.

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Pray for Pastor Frank who's just begun there as their pastor for administration and discipleship.

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Pray that You would help him as he settles into this new role and being a blessing to that body which is so precious.

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Bless their labors there and pray You bless us now as we open up Your Word. For we ask in Jesus' name and for His sake, amen.

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Go ahead and have a seat, please. I don't know, actually no one knows who wrote this song, but in the tradition

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I grew up in, it was one that we sung often. And it's one that I actually come back to repeatedly.

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The opening verse of the song I'm thinking of says, I've seen the lightning flashing,

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I've heard the thunder roll. I've felt sin's breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul.

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I've heard the voice of Jesus, pitting me still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.

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There's something about songs like that which resonate with us. Maybe not as familiar in our context, maybe here's one that we are more familiar with.

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His oath, His covenant, His blood, support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives way,

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He then is all my hope and stay. Why was it that saints in years gone by were so prone to sing songs like that?

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What was it about them? What is it that they knew that we, I won't say we don't know, let me not say that.

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But what was it about those saints? What is it that they knew that we sometimes aren't so quick to remember that makes them able to sing songs like that in the midst of trials?

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Why is it that our fathers in the faith could sing songs like, Be still my soul, the Lord is for us of grief or pain. Leave to your

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God to order and provide. Why is it they could sing songs like that, when everything around them told them to do the polar opposite?

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I put it to you that it's because of truths that what we're about to study as we come to this text in 1

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Peter. We're in the second study in our summer series going through 1 Peter that we have, like I said, called

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Anchored, stabilizing truths for a shaky world. And as we come to the second study, we're really entering into the beef of the lineup as it were.

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I've tagged this text this afternoon, Grounded in Our Salvation.

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Grounded, excuse me, in our salvation. And I've titled it that because if you understand what

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Peter is doing here, he's pointing us to our salvation so that we can find some stability in the midst of a shaky world.

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If very quickly, I can remind you of the structure that I talked about last week as we introduced this letter. You remember that I said that Peter really has an opening and a closing and in between the meat of his letter as it were, the body of it breaks up into three.

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You have this idea that we are anchored by the reality of salvation, which runs from where we're going to start today through to chapter 2 verse 10.

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Then we are anchored in the role of submission, which is 2 .11 all the way through to 4 .6.

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And then we are anchored by the return of the Savior, chapter 4 verse 7 through 5 .11.

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And we are really in this first section as we think about the reality of our salvation.

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This is going to take us two or three weeks of our study in Peter because what he does here is he bounces back and forth between positive affirmations about our salvation and then practical implications that flow from that.

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If I can borrow some loaded theological terms for a moment, he starts with the indicative who we are and what

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God has done and then he moves to the imperative. If I can pause for a moment, that's a very important order that you never want to confuse.

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Too often Christians will try and do things, the imperatives, and they've got no foundation for doing those things.

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The only foundation we have for doing those things is the indicatives, the statements of reality about what

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God has done and who God is. If we don't have those in place, we're not going to be able to glorify

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Him the way that He desires to be glorified. And so Peter starts where every good

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Christian, I think, should start as they think about their walk with the

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Lord. He starts with who we are and what God has done. And remember, he's doing all of this.

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Everything he writes in this letter is in aid of this central message. I called it the melodic line. It's on the top of the study guide if you grabbed one.

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This idea that believers navigate through suffering to glory by remaining anchored in the grace of God.

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I mean, it's an irony if you think about it. We're navigating from one place to another, but the way we do it is by remaining anchored.

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If you think about that, it sounds strange, but that's the Christian life as a whole. Doesn't it sound strange when we think about what

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God calls us to be and the fact that often what God calls us to be requires us to do the polar opposite of what our rational minds will tell us to do.

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And so, yes, we are on a journey through suffering on the way to glory, but the way we get to glory, paradoxically, is by being anchored in the grace of God.

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And so, as we come to this first section of affirmation in this text, there's really just one truth at the core of it.

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There's one thing that Peter wants you to leave here with today as we look at this section from verses 3 through 12, and it's this.

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That the believer can be secure in the face of trials and suffering because they have been saved for a glorious purpose.

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Let me say that again. The believer can be secure in the face of trials and suffering because they have been saved for a glorious purpose.

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Peter essentially says to us, listen, saints, God did everything that was necessary to save you.

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If he could do that, he is more than able to keep you in the face of trials.

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If God could do everything required for your salvation, he's able not just to get you saved, but to keep you saved.

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And not only to keep you saved, but to get you to where you need to go. And if that's the case, here's the implication.

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Stand firm. I don't know about you, but could you use some encouragement to keep on keeping on?

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Could you use a little help as a weary pilgrim? I know I do. As we are headed on our way to glory,

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I put it to you that every passage in God's word is important for us. But I'm going to say especially what we're going to look at today is crucial for us as we journey in the

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Christian life. To help us get the most out of studying this text, can

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I invite you to consider with me three valuable realities that will ground you in the midst of shaky times.

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Three valuable realities about your salvation that ought to ground you in shaky times.

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I'm going to try my best not to be long before you. We'll see how it goes. First of all, can you consider with me that you have possessions that are preserved for the future?

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You have possessions preserved for the future, verses three through five. The first reason that we can remain grounded as a result of our salvation is precisely because we have precious spiritual possessions, a treasure that has been preserved for us in the future.

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Peter sets the tone for us in verse three. He says, look at it there, first Peter 1 .3, that first sentence, blessed be the

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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, it's worth noting that verses three through nine that we're about to look at.

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Three through nine is one long sentence. It's one of a number of these kind of long run -on sentences in the

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New Testament. And Peter just goes and goes and goes all the way through to verse nine to make it easier for us to read.

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Our English translators do a good job of breaking into sentences while keeping his flow. But this is all one section.

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And as he starts his one section, he wants to ensure that his tone isn't missed.

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And I think before we get into anything else, he has to say, we need to get the tone of this passage down. Peter isn't writing this for scientific examination, you know, just cold and detached, disconnected from the truth he's writing about.

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This is not the scientist in the lab like, oh, isn't this fascinating? Peter wasn't writing this for philosophical pondering.

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This wasn't just, oh, I have some intellectual curiosity. And so I'm going to introduce some truths here that will kind of scratch your intellectual itch.

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Peter definitely wasn't writing for polemical weaponry. He wasn't, as it were, trying to give them some tools to sharpen blades and wet swords for theological fights.

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No, no, he tells you up front in these words that the truths that he is about to share are meant to be sung about.

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They're meant to be shared with joy. They're meant to be exalted in. That these are not just ideas we talk about for the sake of talking about ideas.

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I can't speak for you, but the longer I walk in the Christian life, the less time I have for just knowing stuff for knowing stuff's sake.

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No, Peter says, I'm writing so that we can just off the bat recognize that God is worthy of praise.

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And in particular, Peter takes a moment to extend praise to God the Father and to God the

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Son. Did you see it there in the text? He says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he can't just talk about the

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Father and not talk about the Son. You see, brothers and sisters, we praise God for his gracious work in Christ.

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Why? Because Christ, the Bible helps us to understand, is the focus of the plan of redemption.

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Even the title that Peter uses for Jesus puts Jesus in center stage here. Did you catch that?

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He doesn't just say the God and Father of our Christ or of Jesus or of our

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Lord even. No, he says the Lord Jesus Christ. All three of those are important.

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He's the Lord because he's God's appointed sovereign. He's Jesus because he is God incarnate.

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He's Christ because he is God's anointed prophet, priest, and king. All three of those are important.

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And Peter wants us to understand just as we get started, we want to praise Christ for who he is and for what he has done.

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And the rest of verses three through five are going to spell out exactly why it is that God is worthy of praise.

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God is worthy of praise because he has given us precious resources in Christ that we will one day fully enjoy in the world to come.

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Peter begins by explaining, first of all, why we have these resources, beginning of verse three. He starts off by explaining why we have these resources.

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So look at the beginning of verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy, he has given us new birth.

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Two reasons right there. First of all, we have these spiritual resources because of God's great mercy.

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We have them precisely because God poured out his mercy upon us in Christ.

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Peter, interestingly, he says that, he doesn't just say because of the mercy of God, which would be true. But he says because of God's great mercy.

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It's literally the word mega attached to this word mercy. You could probably translate it.

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It would look kind of weird. Mega mercy. God, as it were, doesn't skimp on the mercy like folks at the drive -thru do with fries.

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By the way, I hate when they do that. It's really annoying. No, God is lavish with the grace.

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Ephesians chapter one verse eight says that in Christ, he, same interesting, same concept, that he lavished his grace on us in the beloved.

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We have these resources because of God's great mercy. And secondly, we have them because of the new birth. Because of the new birth.

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You know what he says? Because of God's great mercy, he has given us new birth. Peter's praising

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God for his mega mercy, his great mercy. But he narrows in the lens a little bit and says,

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I want to talk in particular about one manifestation of that, which is the blessing of new spiritual life that we received when we were dead.

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Some of your translations will say because of his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again. Same idea.

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The term born again, it's lost kind of its weightiness in our day and age.

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You know, we kind of just use that. You hear people use this term born -again Christian. I'm in the camp of Dr. Vodibachan who famously said that's an oxymoron because all

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Christians are born again. You can call yourself a Christian and not be born again. That's one thing.

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But all Christians are actually born again. But we kind of use it more as just a label to describe what type of Christian we are.

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Oh, you're a Christian? Yeah, I'm a born -again Christian. And I think we sometimes lose the weightiness of that.

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But think about who we were before we were saved for a moment. We were studying this on Wednesday nights.

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We talked about this a little bit for those of you who were there. We were dead in sin. We were unable to see or to respond to God's gracious gift.

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And God had to do something for us to be able to even see it. John said it in John chapter 3 verse 3.

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He said that unless someone is born again, and in that text, born again literally can be translated born from above.

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Unless somebody is born again, unless somebody is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

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That's who we were. We were those who could not even see the kingdom of God, much less enter into it.

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But then God sovereignly acted. And he made us alive when we were deader than dead in Christ.

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Think about this with me for a moment. I was preparing this this week. It hit me. If God were all -powerful, but not merciful, that would be scary, wouldn't it?

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If God were all -powerful, he could do anything. But completely lacking in mercy.

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I would put it to you that that's pretty terrifying. But imagine if God were merciful and not all -powerful.

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Imagine if we use this term kind of pejoratively, but go there with me for a moment. Imagine if God were the greatest bleeding heart that ever lived and could do nothing about it.

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That would be quite weak, wouldn't it? But here's the beauty of what we've discovered in the new birth.

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Not only do we encounter in the new birth the reality that we serve a God who is merciful and desires to save men, but we serve a

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God who's also all -powerful, who can take the hardened heart of man that rejects him, that has once nothing to do with him, and can take that spiritually dead heart and make it beat again.

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In the language of Ezekiel 36, that he takes the heart of stone. I don't know about you. I have never seen stone beat before.

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But God is gracious in that he is able to take a heart of stone, a heart that is dead, and to cause that heart through the operation of his spirit to pulsate with spiritual life.

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Couldn't it be that if this God is as gracious as we determine him to be, and he is as powerful as we determine to be, why would sinners not come to him?

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Why would sinners not flock to him? Well, they're dead in their sins and trespasses, yes, but here's the beautiful thing, that through the gospel, the very preaching of the gospel, he takes dead sinners and he makes them alive.

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Not only does Peter tell us that we've been gifted these precious resources because of God's grace and because of the new birth, secondly, he tells us what these resources are.

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He tells us what these resources are. So again, look at the end of verse three. Because of his great mercy, he's given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

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Peter's point is very simple here. This new birth that we have, don't say he says that he's given us new birth into a living hope.

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The new birth basically is the pathway into these wonderful spiritual blessings that we have waiting for us.

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And again, he highlights two blessings that we have. First of all, we have a living hope for present times.

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You see that there? A living hope for present times. He says that he's given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

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Again, I remind you what we talked about last week about this audience. These are believers who are scattered throughout a wide area.

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And we get the sense as we read the letter, if you remember from last week, that they're a little bit beleaguered. They're a little bit beaten down by their circumstances.

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And to these believers who are a little beleaguered and a little beaten down by their circumstances, he reminds them that they, and by extension, we have been born into a living hope.

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As one writer puts it, quote, the hope here is not only an objective thing, but a subjective hope on the part of the believer.

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It is a lively hope. That is not only living, but actively alive.

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An energizing principle of divine life in the believer, a Christian hopefulness and optimism produced in the believer yielded to the indwelling

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Holy Spirit. Again, I'm not going to ask any of you to answer to this.

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I'll just cop to it myself. As somebody who can suffer a little bit from what

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I call HDS, you know what HDS is? Hope Deficiency Syndrome.

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I'm somebody, if you presented me a glass that has some liquid in it, but it's not quite full, you say, is this half empty or half full?

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I'm going to say it's half empty on its way to being empty. I'm not somebody who naturally veers towards being a hopeful person.

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And I put it to you that I know personally how easy it is to suffer from spiritual amnesia, as it were, to forget that I am the heir of an incredible hope.

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I won't put anyone on the spot, but I don't think I'm wrong for thinking that most of us are not like the film character

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Pollyanna. And that whether you're like me, you kind of give it a funny name just to be able to deal with it.

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Whether you do or not. We all need the reminder that because Jesus rose, again, that's why he says it, he says, a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

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It's precisely because Jesus rose that we can have hope. Not only do we have a living hope for present times, but secondly, we have a certain inheritance on the last day.

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See that there in verse four? Not only have we been given birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, but we've also been given an entrance into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

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Verse four. The hope of the Christian is pointed in a very definite direction.

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We have a hope that is future, not necessarily present.

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When you read the Bible, one of the great biblical pictures for the destiny of Christians, the destiny of believers, is this picture of an inheritance.

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So you read the Old Testament, I won't read it, but if you're taking notes, Psalm 78 verse 55, God speaks of Israel's redemption of the land, their reception of the land, and He says that He apportioned their inheritance to them by lot.

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Here's the thing. That language that is used for old covenant believers is also applied to new covenant believers.

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So again, you don't need to turn there, but I'll give you the references. Acts chapter 20 verse 32. Some of you remember that from our series in January when we looked at the means of grace.

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Remember what Paul said to the Ephesian elders? He said that, I commit you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all who are sanctified.

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Romans chapter 8 verse 17 says that, because of what Jesus has done, the Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are

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God's children. And if we are children, we are also heirs, heirs of God and co -heirs with Christ.

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The believer is said to have an inheritance. Now, what's the thing about inheritances?

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Inheritances are future. You don't have them yet. They're on their way.

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And Peter uses four descriptions. Did you catch it in verse four? The four descriptions he uses to describe this inheritance?

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He says that it's imperishable, first of all. It cannot decay. It's not subject to death and destruction.

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It's undefiled. Literally, it's unstained that the pollution of sin can't affect it.

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It's imperishable. It's undefiled. It's unfading. It never loses its shine, its splendor, its magnificence.

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And he says that it's kept in heaven for you. It's not on earth where folks can meddle with it.

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Our inheritance is in the very presence of God. I'd like to see someone break into heaven and mess around with that. So he tells us why we have these resources.

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He tells us what these resources are. But verse five, he tells us why it matters. Why it matters.

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So in verse five, you are being guarded by God's power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

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In the original language, the phrase by God's power is actually at the front of the sentence. This is where the emphasis is.

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The emphasis is not so much on the guarded part. Its emphasis is on the power of God. It's as it were,

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Peter wants you to put the proper emphasis on the right syllable as we come to this discussion.

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You see, it's not on you to earn or preserve the inheritance that's provided for you.

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You don't have that kind of power. That's one of the reasons that I believe the Bible teaches that salvation cannot be lost for God's children.

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Because here's the thing, you do not have the power to keep yourself. I believe one of our songs that we sing,

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He Will Hold Me Fast, has the line, I could never keep my hold through life's fearful path. That's the truth.

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No, it's not on you to earn or preserve your inheritance that's provided for you. And I have to say, sometimes we as preachers are guilty because we sometimes talk as though it's all on you.

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In the words of Sinclair Ferguson, that the tincture of the gospel, the color of the gospel doesn't come through in the way in which we speak.

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But it does for Peter. He makes it very clear, no, it's by God's power that you are being guarded. If God can keep your inheritance on the way to glory, here's the implication.

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If He can keep your inheritance, is it that much of a stretch to think that He can't keep you?

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If God can keep this precious inheritance that's waiting for us in glory, if He can look after that, oh, come on, you mean to tell me

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He can't look after you? I think it's beyond fair, I think it's fair to say, excuse me, that He is beyond able to keep you to the day when you get to collect on that inheritance.

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Now, let's be honest, you may feel at points as though you won't make it. The world, it feels like the world hates us as Christians, that flesh seems determined to hold us back, the devil seems to have a target painted on our backs.

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All that is true, but this is where Peter's words ought to leap off the page and grab you, brothers and sisters,

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God is more than able to get you on the other side. Think about it, the

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God who saved you from the penalty of sin when He justified you, the God who is saving you now from the power of sin as He sanctifies you, you mean to tell me that that God can't keep us until the day when we're free from the very presence of sin?

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Of course He can, and that's Peter's point. The fact that you've been saved ought to give you some, here's my second point, ought to give you some perspective.

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In fact, he does say that, verses six through nine, that you have perspective in the face of the present.

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You've got possessions that are preserved for the future, and that gives you perspective in the face of the present, verses six through nine.

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I mean, it's all well and good for Peter to talk about the future day. You can just, again, put yourself in the shoes of the original audience for a moment.

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It's all well and good for him to speak about that, but for Peter's readers in Asia Minor, or for us in Medford in 2022, we aren't living in the future, are we?

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Peter's readers weren't even living in the future. We live in the present, and Peter, as a wise brother elder, knows that.

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And so not only does he teach, but like a good brother elder, he teaches, and then he applies.

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Oftentimes, Christians will wonder, why is it that God allows trials, temptations, setbacks, and stumbling blocks for the

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Christian? Now, again, I'm going to put my hat up and say, sometimes we preachers don't do a good job of this, because we kind of make it sound like you shouldn't ask that question.

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No, it's not wrong to ask the question. I think it's wrong if you get bad answers, but God, in his word, actually does give us answers, thankfully.

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Here's one of the many answers his word gives to us. Why does God allow trials, temptations, setbacks, and stumbling blocks in our lives?

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One of them is so that the hope of our inheritance can give us perspective, even as we suffer in the present.

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Let me see if I can flesh this out from verse six. So look at verse six with me. Peter says, you rejoice in this, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials.

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I mean, do these words hit you as weirdly as they sound to us? It sounds weird to say that we should rejoice when times get hard.

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And one could excuse Peter for maybe misspeaking. Of course, the Bible's inerrant, so Peter didn't misspeak. But from a human perspective,

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Peter, are you sure? Well, we're in 1 Peter. Flip back one book to the book of James.

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Real quickly, James chapter one, I want to show you something there. James chapter one, it's interesting.

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James is writing to a very similar group. A group of believers. These are Jewish believers, and they've been spread out all through the empire.

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Verse two, James chapter one, verse two. James says, consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, when you experience various trials.

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Consider it, credit it, count it as a great joy when you experience various trials.

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I read that quote from Dr. David Helm last week, and I reiterate it. We at times have failed.

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Again, I'm being really hard on preachers. I read this this week. I realized, are these themes that I hear in my own preaching?

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At times, we make it sound as though trials are circumstantial. Not circumstantial, that trials are optional.

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And thus, rejoicing then is circumstantial. When trials come, we don't rejoice. But when everything is great, we should rejoice.

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Here's the reality, though. For the Christian, rejoicing in trials is not circumstantial. It's not, oh, the trial's over.

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Now I can rejoice. Note that James says, and Peter reaffirms in 1 -6, you rejoice in this, in the trial.

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Consider it a great joy whenever you experience various trials. For the Christian, we rejoice not just when trials are over.

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We supernaturally are able to rejoice when the trials come. One of my favorite

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Puritan writers, Thomas Watson, said it like this. He said, afflictions work for good as they make way for comfort.

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He quotes Hosea 2 -15, in the valley of Achor is a door of hope. Achor signifies trouble. God sweetens outward pain with inward peace.

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Here is the water turned into wine. After a bitter pill, God gives sugar. Paul had his prison songs.

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God's rod has honey at the end of it. The saints in affliction have had such sweet raptures of joy that they ought themselves in the borders of the, they ought, they have thought themselves, excuse me, in the borders of the heavenly

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Canaan. There is a reason why, that's why I started

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R7 with these songs from previous generations of believers who were able to sing powerfully in the midst of their suffering.

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Peter goes on and explains why suffering is part of the believer's experience. So verse 6, he says, you rejoice in this even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials.

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So that the proven character of your faith, more valuable than gold, which though perishable is refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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God uses suffering in the present to purify and to cleanse the believer. It's interesting, the word that he uses, it's like Peter's being redundant here, because the word that he uses there when he says, the proven character of your faith in the

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CSB, some of your translations would just say the proof of your faith, or the character of your faith, that word there was what was used for when gold went through the fire and it came out purified.

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The result is the word that he uses here. So Peter kind of doubles it by using that word, which his audience would have immediately understood, and then describing it.

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There's a, that's a foreign concept to some modern iterations of Christianity, but it was a fully understood one in previous generations.

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John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace that we all know and love, he wrote another hymn. The original title of the hymn was,

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Prayers Answered. Most modern listeners to that hymn know it as, I ask the Lord that I might grow. And in that hymn he says this towards the end,

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These inward trials I employ from self and pride to set thee free, and break thy schemes of earthly joy that thou may'st find thy all in me.

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I mean, I like the words of John Newton, but I like the words of the Psalmist even better. Psalm 119 verse 71, It was good for me to be afflicted.

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Whoa, imagine saying that out loud. Not just, okay, I'm, you know, I'm rejoicing.

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No, it was good for me to be afflicted. Why did he say that? So that I could learn your statutes.

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Beloved, it's not that there is some inherently redemptive power in suffering. Let's be clear, only the blood of Jesus is inherently redemptive.

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Only Jesus' sufferings save us. Suffering doesn't save. I don't even go so far as to say when

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I read the Bible, suffering doesn't sanctify in and of itself. But in God's sovereign and sanctifying purposes, he often employs suffering as the furnace, as it were, for burning off the impurities in our lives, so that what remains is genuine.

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As God uses sufferings and his great purposes for our lives, the result, Peter says, that he receives praise, honor, and glory.

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That on that final day, all the glory and all the praise and all the honor will go to him.

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That's the reason why we read the Bible so much. And there's this constant refrain of the fact that suffering is temporary and it's the gateway to glory.

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Romans 8 .18, remember, the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is going to be revealed in us.

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2 Corinthians 4 .17, our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.

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That's perspective. That's a gracious gift that God gives to his children.

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And that's some kind of perspective. Pick it up in verse 8. He says, Though you have not seen him, you love him.

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Though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

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The kind of divine perspective that we have on suffering, when you think about it, it looks just downright weird.

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In a world where, think about it, what are we naturally taught to do from the beginning? If something is hard or something is difficult or something is painful, we're generally taught to run away from it.

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And sometimes there's wisdom in that. Proverbs has a whole set of categories about, listen, the righteous man, the wise man sees danger from afar and runs away.

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It's not bravery to stand up to everything and say, I'm going to fight this. No, sometimes running is good. It's okay. But when it comes to trials and affliction,

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God says we don't have the option of running from those. And here's another reason that he gives us in verses eight and nine, we can do that.

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These Christians, much like us, hadn't seen Jesus by the time that Peter gets to writing, 30 years have passed since the events of the gospels.

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There were thousands of miles removed even after that. And yet, verse eight and nine, he says,

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You haven't seen him, yet you love him. You don't see him now, and yet you believe in him.

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And that's why you're able to rejoice. Did you catch the two words he uses for this joy that they have?

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You rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy. There's a

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Puritan classic called The True Christian's Love for the Unseen Christ. You can get it for free from Chapel Library.

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It's a paperback. The writer, another Thomas, Thomas Vincent this time, starts off his book, which is actually just an exposition of 1

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Peter 1a. And he starts off with three reasons why the Christian loves a savior that they've never seen.

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He says, firstly, Christians love Jesus because of how much they need him. As we are reminded, that's why it's important every day to preach the gospel to yourself, because every day you remind yourself of the gospel, you're reminded of just how much you need

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Christ. Secondly, he says, Christians love Jesus because of how lovely he is.

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If I can quote Vincent directly, this loveliness, excuse me, though it is not and cannot be, cannot here be seen by the eye of the body is evident unto the eye of faith.

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Finally, the Christians love Jesus because of the great love that he has for them. That's why

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John could say that we love him because he first loved us. And so Peter would have us to know that it's as the believer loves this unseen

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Christ, that he or she receives the ultimate reward, entrance into the very presence of God.

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And that's how we can have perspective, because this world, though it appears as though this world is permanent and it's all that there is, actually it's not.

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There's a reward that we live for, and because we are living for a reward, that keeps us grounded.

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Future possessions, present perspectives is the third and final way our salvation keeps us grounded. And it's the reality that we have privileges compared to the past.

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Privileges compared to the past verses 10 through 12. The final way our salvation makes us grounded is the fact that when we think about our salvation that we enjoy, we have so many privileges compared with previous generations.

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As I read verses 10 through 12, did you catch just how word -centric these verses were?

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Talks about the prophets, talks about the preaching of the gospel, talks about them revealing.

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There's such an emphasis on truth and on revelation here. Because you see, beloved, our privileges are made known to us through the word of God, and there was a process by which this took place.

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First of all, the prophets investigated these privileges. See it there in verse 10? Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that will come to you, searched and carefully investigated.

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The prophets here obviously are the prophets of the Old Testament. Not only did they receive divine revelation, but once they received that revelation, they, this is fascinating, they had to study and investigate the prophecies that they received.

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Now, I've got to be careful for a moment. There are some writers you will read who, they're not bad people, I just think they misunderstand this verse.

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They will say, well, that just proves that the prophets of the Old Testament didn't understand what they received.

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And so since they didn't understand what they received, we don't have to bother ourselves with authorial intent, you know, the intent of the human author as we read this text.

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All we have to worry about is what is the spirit of God saying? Well, that's not actually what

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Peter says when you look at this closely. And we get an answer in verse 11.

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You see it there, verse 11? They, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that will come to you, inquired into what time or what circumstances the spirit of Christ was indicating.

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Now, those of you who read other translations than the CSB, you'll notice that that verse is rendered differently depending which translation you read.

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Because actually, the original language is very complicated. But I think the CSB kind of hits it here.

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And it's not just the CSB, a number of translations get it here. That the prophets received divine revelation, they understood its content, but here's what they didn't understand.

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They didn't know when this would happen and how this would happen. The spirit was speaking, we'll talk more about that in a moment.

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But they didn't understand, okay, what time is this gonna happen and what will be the circumstances by which this happens?

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They knew that the Messiah would suffer and that he would enter into glory, but how and when, they had no clue. But here's

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Peter's kind of unspoken, but spoken point. They didn't know it, but you do.

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How do I know that? We'll come to that in just a moment. Yes, these prophets may have investigated, but they only had something to investigate because secondly, the spirit revealed these privileges.

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Did you notice that he says that it was the spirit of Christ who was indicating these things? 2

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Peter 1, 20 to 21, I won't have you turn there, but Peter says in his second letter that no prophecy of scripture came from the prophet's own interpretation.

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They didn't sit privately and make this stuff up, but men spoke from God, 1

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Peter 1, 21, as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

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The prophets could only minister because the spirit was at work revealing and indicating these things.

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Every believer knows more than the Old Testament prophets, only because of the spirit of God. But it was the same spirit of God who was revealing these prophecies of a coming servant, who were talking about these future prophecies of coming glory.

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The prophets did all of this. Did you catch that in verse 12? For the benefit of believers. It was revealed to them, verse 12, that they were not serving themselves, but you.

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And while I believe that the Old Testament does stand on its own merits and we aren't called to make the Old Testament say stuff that it never meant, the reality is that the writings of the

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Old Testament were ultimately for the benefit. Catch this of every one of you if you're a Christian. That's why if I can pause for a moment,

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I think it's tragic that so many Christians don't understand three quarters of their Bibles. Because those three quarters were written to you every bit as much as the one quarter that you do understand.

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That's why Paul could say in Romans 15, 4 that whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction.

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1 Corinthians 10, 11, same thing. These things happen to them as examples and they're written for our instruction.

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The Old Testament is for the Christian every bit as much as the New Testament is. The apostles understood this and so thirdly, the apostles proclaimed these privileges.

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The apostles proclaimed these privileges. So verse 12, it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you.

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These things, the glories of salvation as revealed in the New Covenant, have now been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the

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Holy Spirit sent from heaven. So again, follow the chain of custody as it were as we've looked at this.

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You have the prophets. Behind the prophets was the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God speaks to the prophets who then have their words proclaimed by the apostles.

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The central message of the apostles and their message was Jesus Christ and what he had done.

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So in Hebrews 2, verse 3, the writers of the Hebrews could say that this salvation had its beginning when it was spoken of by the

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Lord and it was confirmed to us by those who heard him. That's why Paul could say 2

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Corinthians 4, 5, for we are not proclaiming ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

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One last time. I'm almost done, I promise. Almost done. But for one moment, can

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I pause again and note something that I think gets lost in modern versions of Christianity.

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And we try our hardest here at Redeemer to try and emphasize Christianity. Now, I'm not talking about the thing that the thousands of iterations out there that profess to be

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Christianity. I'm talking true Bible Christianity, true apostolic

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Christianity. Christianity is a preaching religion. Have you caught that? Our religion, unlike any other, emphasizes the importance of preaching.

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Jesus was a preacher. The apostles he chose were preachers. The one competency. We'll talk about this in the summer.

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We're going to do a series on ecclesiology. In the summer, the one competency that leaders in God's church are called to have, they're called to have a ton of character and just one competency.

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The ability to teach. 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. In an age of feel -good, touchy -feely religion where we're more concerned about how people feel than what people know, might

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I suggest being a little suspicious? I mean, I would say, would you consider kicking it all the way to Pluto?

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But let me be a little nicer and just say, be a little suspicious of approaches to Christianity that are either suspicious of or bored with the faithful ministry of God's word.

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There's a reason why in our Reformation tradition, when they built church buildings, the buildings they built, by and large, were very simple buildings.

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And you know what was at the center of every building? Pulpit. Why? Because the

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Reformers understood that the most important thing that happens when we come together is that God speaks to his people through the preaching of his word.

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I'm with Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, who said that it takes a whole Christ, it takes a whole Bible, excuse me, to proclaim a whole

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Christ and to make whole Christians. It's interesting that when you see, we've been reading through the book of Acts, have you caught that?

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Even today's reading in Acts chapter 6, didn't plan it, it just worked out that way. Did you catch that the apostle said, listen, we are not going to give up preaching the word of God to deal with matters involving food.

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He said, find somebody to take care of that. It's where deacons come from. We're going to give ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.

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In other words, we're going to talk to, as I remember when I was in college, the guy who led our Christian union had an excellent phrase and it stuck with me.

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He said, the goal of all Christian ministry is that we talk to God about people and we talk to people about God. The privileges that we enjoy are so rich in this new covenant that the prophets investigated them.

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Only the spirit could reveal this. The apostles proclaim this. My last point and I'm done. Angels marvel at these privileges.

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Angels marvel at these privileges. Peter enters section from verse 3 to 12 with a sentence that on the surface seems to come right out of nowhere.

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End of verse 12. These things have now been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the

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Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Angels long to catch a glimpse of these things.

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Why on earth does Peter feel the need to mention that angels long?

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The word here literally is the idea of they bend over to get a good view of these things.

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Well, remember how we started by saying that the theme of this unit really is the privileges that come from our salvation? Think about it.

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What do we have as saved human beings that angels don't have? Anyone want to tell me out loud?

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Think about it. We can get saved, they can't. Think about it.

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Angels know nothing of the plan of redemption. Elect angels are always going to be in the presence of God and fallen angels have no hope of redemption.

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The only way that they're going to understand the plan of redemption, the Bible puts it in multiple places, they're going to learn it from me and you.

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Paul puts it like this, Ephesians chapter 3 verses 9 and 10. Paul describes the mission of his ministry.

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He says that his mission was to shed light for all about the administration of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.

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Verse 10. This is so that God's multifaceted wisdom may now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities, not on earth,

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Ephesians 3 10, but in the heavens. God's wisdom is put on display for all creation, visible and invisible to behold.

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And if you're here today and you know the Lord, you are a participant in that grand drama of redemption.

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Think about this with me as I close. If angels wish to know these things, think about angels, they live in perfect, they behold, we sing, which song is it that says angels from the realms of God, angels, they behold his face, something along those lines,

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I forget the hymn now. Praise my soul, yes, praise my soul the king of heaven has a line where it says that angels behold him face to face.

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They see God all the time. They've seen God from the beginning, before there was, they had a point of creation, from the day that they were created until now, they have seen

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God in his full unvarnished glory. And yet John, not John, yet Paul and Peter alike both say that when they think about the plan of redemption, they're literally bending over one another trying to get a glimpse of this.

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If that's what they're doing, how valuable must this be? What a great salvation, amen?

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Can I put it to you that maybe that's why even in the face of trials we can hold our heads up and sing,

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I started with a verse from a song, can I give the last line of that song? The last verse of that song? That's what we can sing.

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He died for me on the mountain, for me they pierced his side. For me he opened that fountain, the crimson cleansing tide.

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For me he waits in glory, seated upon his throne. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.

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We can sing that precisely because of the good news of the gospel and the forgiveness of sins and the hope of glory that we have in no other than Jesus Christ.

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And Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for that gospel. We thank you that the knowledge of salvation and what you are doing in it grounds us as your people.

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Oh Lord, may we daily grow in our appreciation of the blessing that you have given us in our salvation.

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May we never take it for granted. May we use up every opportunity you give us to grow in the grace and knowledge of God.