Hope In All Circumstances

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons, or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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As I said before, this afternoon I want to preach to you on the theme of hope.

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And I want to pose a couple of questions as we approach this. As Christians who are in the world, and yet not of the world, where are we to find our hope?

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What is to be the Christian's greatest source of joy in the world, and then beyond?

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Whether we're celebrating, as we did this morning, the first birthday of a church, or for our young church, having been alive for only three years and a bit, or we are mourning the death of an old faithful church, whether we're prospering, or we are in decline, what is to be the source, dear friends, of our constant rejoicing in Christ?

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I'm reminded of an account in the Gospel of Luke, and before we turn to 1

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Peter, let's go to Luke 10, verse 20. I'm reminded of an account in Luke 10 that demonstrates, and I think we know this in ourselves, how often we set our sights far too low, and find our source of hope and of joy in all the wrong places.

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In Luke 10, verse 20, we read about an exchange that happened between our

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Lord Jesus and His disciples. And you might recall this account that our Lord sent out 72 of His disciples, two by two, to go ahead of Him and to proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God.

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And upon their return, as they filed back in, the Lord found the disciples full of hope and joy.

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And they were rejoicing around one theme in particular, and that is this, they exclaimed to Christ, they said, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.

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And our Lord, being that He is a good and a gracious master, and He is kind to us, entered in to the joy of His disciples for a moment, and spoke encouragingly about how

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He saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. But then He issues this humbling corrective, a corrective that we should probably hear and consider more often than we do.

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He said, nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

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So often we can become so enthralled with our ministry successes that we lose the forest for the trees.

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Like the disciples, we can go out into the world, and we can experience that all things are going well.

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We can then rejoice in that which we can see, and then forget about the eternal reality.

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So we ought to keep always before us. And then when difficulties come, because our rejoicing is tied to temporal and material things, advancements, when inevitable trials arise, our hope and our joy wilt like a flower in the desert.

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And what we find is that somewhere along the way, we've tethered our hope to the fading ornaments of this life rather than anchoring ourselves, our greatest joys, our deepest happiness, our most profound hope in the deep rock -solid truths of God's Word.

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And as our church continues to persevere, and by God's grace as we have seen our church grow in the last number of years and in the last number of months, as we begin to prepare to see an elder appointed in our church next week,

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Lord willing, I want to bring this exhortation to us from God's Word.

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It comes straight from 1 Peter, and it's something that in the hearts of every

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Christian, it must speak to you. As Christians, Peter's theme where he's going is this, that we are always to be filled with hope.

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We must always be found rejoicing. But this hope and this rejoicing must never be tied to the temporal circumstances of this life.

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It must not be tied to church growth. It must not be tied to ministry success or any such thing.

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But rather, we are to find hope in all circumstances by affixing our hearts not on that which is seen, but on that which is eternal, namely, the glorious salvation that is found alone in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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That is what I want for this church, brothers and sisters. More than numerical growth.

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More than what the world would describe as ministry success. What I want for us is an unwavering joy that goes beyond today and goes beyond when our brother is appointed as an elder,

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Lord willing, next week and the next year and the next decade and then into eternity. We live in a world that has almost no hope.

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Have you seen it? It's a hopeless world. And yet we can attain to a hope that transcends every single circumstance in this life.

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And some of us are asking, and probably some of us should be asking, how do we attain to a hope like this?

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Today, Peter is going to tell us. So now that we're in Luke 10, I invite you to turn to 1 Peter 1.

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And we're going to look in 1 Peter 1, verses 3 through 12 today.

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And there are a myriad of ways that I could have broken this up. I decided to run with three key words that we find in the text.

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We're going to see how, as Christians who seek to live with a transcending hope, the first word is bless.

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The second, rejoice. And then the third, behold. We're going to look at each of those together.

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And so let's look at what Peter has to say in verses 3 through 5. Peter says,

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy,

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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 at the last time.

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The first verb that I want to put before you is this word bless. Here is as Peter writes to this group of suffering and persecuted

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Christians. And if you were to look with me at 1 Peter, if we were to do a public reading of Scripture this afternoon and read through it, you'd find that the overwhelming theme of 1

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Peter is that Peter is writing to Christians that are persecuted, that are enduring great trials and suffering for their faith.

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And as Peter writes to these suffering Christians, his priority is this. He invites these suffering

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Christians to join him in what? In grumbling and complaining at God's contrary providences?

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In feeling self -pity that they are enduring great difficulty at the hands of their contemporaries?

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Of backbiting and complaining about one another? He invites these suffering

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Christians to join him in blessing God the Father for his saving work through Jesus Christ.

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Let me assure you, brethren, that if you want to have a steadfast and unshakable joy in this life, it must begin where Peter begins here in verse 3.

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Every single day of your life, arise in the morning and make it, dear friends, the theme of your existence to bless

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God for the gospel of our salvation. And let me show you how

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Peter does this. Peter opens in verse 3 with what the

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Jews would call a barakah, a Jewish greeting that often began with the words,

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Blessed be God, who? And then they would fill in the blank. And whenever you look in our Old Testament and you find where these barakahs, what invariably happens is that there is a blessing of God, and then attached to that blessing of God is some kind of acknowledgement, recognition, attachment to the salvific work of God.

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And we see that, for instance, in Psalm 68, verse 19, where the psalmist says,

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Blessed be the Lord who daily bears us up. God is our salvation.

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Selah. But on this side of the cross now, as Peter brings this

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Hebrew barakah to his audience, Peter is not content to bless God in some vague way.

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But he writes to these Christians, who in this hour of trial desperately need hope, and he details what it is that God the

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Father has done for His people. Now, I wish

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I had more time to unpack all of this, but for today's purposes, I'm only going to hit the highlights, and I'm going to hit a couple of them especially hard.

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But I want to start in verse 3 and look at one said highlight. In verse 3,

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Peter reminds us that God's salvation comes to the Christian by the

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Father's own sovereign initiative, mediated through the work of Christ.

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Peter writes this, he says, He, referring to God, He caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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Now, when I spoke to the church this morning, I had no idea where they were on the spectrum of this.

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Some of you, this is going to be very familiar. For some of you, this might be the first time you have ever heard this. So, for those of you who are familiar, just bear with me.

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But oftentimes, when Christians think about being born again, they think that it is their act of repentance and faith that is the instrumental cause of that new birth.

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But that is not at all what Peter is saying here. Rather, he reminds us that if we are

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Christians, if you're sitting in this seat and you say to yourself, Yes, I have been born again.

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Peter reminds us that it is not because we chose to be born again at some point in time, but it is because God, in His great mercy, set

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His love on you from eternity past. And then, fast forward from eternity to time, at the time that He appointed.

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He gave you new life in Christ. There are children in this room.

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Maybe your parents can catechize you after and say, Who causes us to be born again?

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To which the right answer is God. And God alone. And He gets all of the glory for it.

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And we see this phraseology of being born again by God according to His mercy.

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Paul is writing to Titus in Titus chapter 3 verse 5. In Titus 3 verse 5 he says,

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He saved us, that is God saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, not because we respond to the gospel by faith and God sees it and then

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He gives us the gift of the new birth. Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy and how.

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By the washing of regeneration that is the new birth and the renewal of the

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Holy Spirit. If you want a real and unending source of joy in your life, bless

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God every day that He not only delivered His Son over for our sins, which

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He did. That's what Christ was doing as He hung on that cross. He was not in the garden the night before.

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Sweating drops of blood, dreading the cross because He was afraid of the Roman nails or the whips or any such thing.

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But as Christ was on that cross, dying in the place of sinners. And this is a message that is not preached that often anymore unfortunately.

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He was taking the very wrath of God for the sinner. That your sin was imputed to Him.

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As it says in 2 Corinthians 5 .21 That He who knew no sin became sin on your behalf.

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Why? How? So that you might become the righteousness of God in Him that as He hung on that cross your sin went upon Him and He paid the debt in full.

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And then in bringing you to Himself and causing you to be born again and drawing you and granting you repentance and faith

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He imputes His righteousness to you so that when a Christian stands before God they stand with no sin between them and God.

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With the perfect robes of Christ's righteousness. He delivered

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His Son over to death. We see Peter mention resurrection.

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What does that have to do with it? In Romans 4 and verse 25 we're told that He raised

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Him up. Not only delivering Him up to death but He raised Him to life for our justification.

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And more than that. And some of this is old news to you folks but you need to understand.

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And more than that when we were dead in our trespasses. When we did not have so much as one

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God word thought in your mind. When there was nothing about you that was attractive from a divine sense.

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Because of His own mercy He caused us to be born again to a living hope.

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Now there is a powerful story that John Stott recounts in his book Between Two Worlds.

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That I just love the way it portrays this idea of how the Lord grants the new birth and the consequences of that.

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John Stott tells the story of a man named Reverend William Haslam who was a minister in the

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Church of England. And the interesting thing about Haslam was that he was a devoted pastor.

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He loved to spend time with his people. He doted on them. He was a very careful and diligent man in the office of pastor.

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And yet his congregation knew almost immediately after meeting him and interacting with him for any period of time that while this man knew religion he knew nothing of Jesus Christ.

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There might be some of you in this room that this describes. That you know religion but you don't know

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Jesus Christ. But our

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God is a gracious God. And one day as the Lord would have it while he was preaching from Matthew 22 and verse 42 this was nine years after he was ordained.

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Pastoral ministry is hard. I do not know how you sustain nine years of faithful ministry in this condition.

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But nine years after his ordination William Haslam was standing in his pulpit like I am.

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He was preaching from God's Word and he looked down into his Bible at verse 42 and he read this question aloud.

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What think ye of Christ?

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And as he read it aloud in that moment Stott writes this

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The Holy Spirit in answer no doubt to many prayers opened his eyes to see the

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Christ of whom he was speaking and opened his heart to believe in him.

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And the change that came over him as he stood there looking at that verse was so obvious that there was actually a visiting minister that was sitting in one of the pews.

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And he rose from his seat and he said Hallelujah! The minister is converted.

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And as he shouted that the voice of 300 other congregants drowned him out.

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And as for Haslam himself we're told that he joined in the outburst of praise until he wanted to make things more orderly and he led the people in the doxology and the people saying it were told with heart and with voice over and over and over again.

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And the news went out into all of the town that the minister was converted and that by his own sermon in his own pulpit.

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That is what it means when a man or woman is walking dead in their trespasses and sins and not by our initiative but by God's He causes us to be born again to a living hope.

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And what were the results? In the years that followed we're told that Haslam ministered with a vivid sense of God's presence in his ministry.

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I didn't say this this morning so you get a bit of a tidbit for coming to the second part of it but it was surrounded by a three year revival that happened in the church where they said almost every single day someone in that church was being saved.

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Was coming to a sound, saving understanding of the gospel. And then

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Haslam turned his attention to his fellow ministers and devoted the rest of his ministry to going back to the church of England and leading many of his fellow clergymen to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ.

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Now this might strike you as an unusual example. It's a fairly unusual one except that your new birth is no less exceptional.

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Can you think about where you were prior to the

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Lord saving you? I recall even my own experience

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I went to church one Sunday chasing a girl and the Lord was able to redeem that.

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And as I sat there with absolutely no interest in the things of God or the gospel the

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Lord pierced my heart with the sword of His word and brought me to a full conviction of my own sins and I went and bought a

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Bible as soon as I could and sought to read it and by God's grace He opened my eyes not only to see my sin but to see the glories of Christ.

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If you have been born again it is not because you have done it.

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It is because God has done it. And such a truth ought to bring us to our knees in praise to God.

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That you did not deserve your salvation. There was nothing about you that was lovely. And yet God in His kind providence set

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His love on you. And then Peter continues in verse 4 and points out that we have not only been born again but that we have been born again to a living hope and namely an inheritance.

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The idea of inheritance was hard -baked into the Jewish mind. I don't need to explain this all to most of you because you were here in the early chapters of Ephesians except that I'll say this that in the

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Jewish mind inheritance had to do with land. We see Moses speak about that in Deuteronomy chapter 25.

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Their inheritance was the land except for the Levites whose inheritance was the Lord. But Peter is not speaking here about land when he says that we have an inheritance.

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If we look at chapter 1 and verse 1 he speaks to those who are elect exiles those who are in the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.

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He's not promising a plot of land somewhere in Rome. But we actually see where this inheritance is at the end of verse 4 where he says that it is imperishable, unfiled, unfading and kept in heaven for you.

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Here we are called to bless God for this purpose that even though we are strangers and aliens in a foreign land we have an unassailable inheritance an eternal home with God.

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And we read about this inheritance in John chapter 14 and verse 3. I'm at risk of saying that this is one of my favorite verses in the

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Bible because I have too many favorite verses in the Bible but this is top 200 for sure.

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And if I go and prepare a place for you he says I will come again and I will take you to myself and where I am you may be also.

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Dear saints, that is your inheritance. And one of the things that is meant to do at this time in your life is cause you to bless

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God with all of your soul. But not only have you been caused to be born again as he caused you to be born again not only do you have an inheritance but dear saints we have something that this world can never ever ever offer.

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I remember being a young boy and thinking that Canada as a country and as a concept was just a given.

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It's just unstoppable. It will always exist. Life will always go on as it has been.

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And we've seen that that's just not the case. That things are far more unstable than we probably ever imagined they were.

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The Lord here is not giving us something that is unstable but a secure inheritance.

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And Peter goes to great lengths to convey this to us. In verses 4 and 5 he speaks about our inheritance being imperishable meaning it cannot decay.

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It cannot be taken away. It is a Greek word that was often used when an invading army entered a city and they would try to get at something and it was untouched.

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It was imperishable. It was untouchable. The enemy could not reach and grasp hold of it.

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It was out of his reach. But he adds another that it is undefiled.

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It cannot be corrupted. And that it is unfading. It can never lose its pristine character.

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Again, it's interesting to see how this language was used. The Greeks used this word often to refer to a flower.

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When a flower would fade coming from this Greek word it meant that it lost all of its beauty.

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It wilted. It went away. But imagine for a moment a flower.

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Something that is fragile and perfect and beautiful but it never, ever, ever fades.

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It never loses its color. It never drops a leaf. It never gets a little bit of orange on the edge.

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It is always perfect. Such is the character of our inheritance.

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And then he says that it is kept in heaven for you. This inheritance is already prepared.

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It is finished. It is waiting for us. It is in God's storehouse. And then, lest you think that this salvation is completely divorced from our relationship to God to the means that God has made you'll see in verse 5 he says, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time.

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This guarded comes from the same word they would use when they would arrest someone.

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You arrest someone and they are in your custody and you have care and control over them.

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You are responsible for them. Well hear the Lord in causing us to be born again has arrested the hearts of the

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Christian and by his power through your real faith you are being guarded for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time.

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What a joy. The same power that keeps our inheritance is the same power that keeps us day to day to day the very power of God.

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Dear Christian you are secure in him. Some of you have heard me share about going to a

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Billy Graham evangelistic conference and one speaker getting up and standing up and saying from the front you must be born again.

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We'd agree with that. They said you must be born again every single day.

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As if to say you wake up in a state of spiritual death as if sleep somehow unsaves you.

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And then having been unsaved in the night you wake up in the morning and you must be born again. That is an enslaving doctrine and that is not at all what

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Peter is getting at here. But what he is doing is he is shouting security for the believer.

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He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Christ.

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And if you are saved you are saved indeed. And we'll see this get laid out more and more and more.

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But I'll take us next to our next word that is to rejoice. Verses 6 -9

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In this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials.

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So 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.

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Though you have not seen Him you love Him. Though you do not now see

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Him you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.

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I just mentioned that Peter is writing to suffering Christians. And do you think maybe it's a little bit insensitive that Peter would encourage them

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I know you're going through great trials I know that there are afflictions that you are under the hammer of oppression.

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But rejoice. How is it? How is it that Peter mingles suffering and rejoicing?

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How can this be? It is because Peter invites us to a kind of rejoicing that is divorced from the transient joys and trials of this life.

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And what Peter is seeking to do is to take our joy to take our hope to pluck it out of the world to put it where Christ is seated and to keep it there.

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And he goes to show us that it is a rejoicing that sees that even trials even great difficulties disease and death and the worst things that you can think of your worst fears our sovereign

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God when he brings about every contrary providence, when he brings about every difficulty he is using each one of these to refine us to purify us and to prove the genuineness of our faith.

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We read about this in Proverbs 17 .3 there the author writes, the crucible is for silver the furnace is for gold and the

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Lord tests hearts. And what is the outcome of such testing?

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We know Job that he did not suffer all that well, but he did say some true things as did some of his counselors along the way and one thing that Job said in Job 23 in verse 10 is this that when he has tried me

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I shall come out as gold that when the Lord puts us in the furnace of affliction, when we endure every difficulty, not only is our joy divorced from these trivial trials that we experience, but every tear every pain every difficulty is in us refining us, making us more like Christ and producing in us an eternal weight of glory beyond to compare.

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Now, what were the trials that Peter is speaking of that these

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Christians in the dispersion were experiencing? Peter likely wrote this letter in AD 62 or 63 during the reign of the

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Roman Emperor does anyone remember the name of that Roman Emperor? Wasn't a nice guy Nero.

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During the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero Peter is writing to these dispersed Christians in Asia Minor, so that is a region north of the

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Taurus Mountains in what would be modern day Turkey important cities if you were to look in your

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Bible and see some of the letters that were written places in Asia Minor included Ephesus, Colossae Laodicea, Iconium and others to name a few and an important thing to note was that Asia Minor was a cause of great difficulty for these

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Christians for at least two reasons. One because it was a hotbed for Emperor worship, the worship of the

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Roman Emperor Caesar and because we know that there were still existing Jews in those places that created great difficulty for the

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Christians like those Jews that persecuted Paul and then followed him from Thessalonica to Berea and while there isn't evidence to suggest that there was yet a statewide campaign of Christian persecution, there was a growing intolerance for Christians that manifested itself in regional eruptions of violence that resulted in Christians being despised and slandered and criticized and harassed one historian writes this

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Romans viewed Christians as anti -social Now I said this this morning and it was off the cuff and I think it's important for us to say it again.

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Christian, don't you ever feel in the world like maybe we are a little bit anti -social that when someone makes a crude joke in the lunch room that when someone wants to show us a graphic meme or some kind of ridiculous thing that's certainly not going to edify our soul and might even displease the

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Lord. Don't we find that it is very difficult to encounter those things.

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I spoke with a sister recently who said it is just so difficult to be around my unbelieving family because it feels like we have nothing in common we have nothing to talk about, nothing to rejoice in, to share together.

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Well dear Christian if you feel like sometimes the world slanders you or thinks of you as being anti -social at least it is not a new thing.

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But that in the first century of the church Christians were considered anti -social and then more than that the

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Romans viewed Christians and this increased over time as atheists because they rejected their pagan gods they saw them as cannibals because of their practice of the

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Lord's Supper they even accused them of incest and it was for reasons like this that the churches the

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Christians would come and go throughout the day and while I don't like the label of being incestuous

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I do love this about the church and about our church that when we see one another we say

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I love you brother, I love you sister the world has no category for that kind of relationship no category for that kind of love and so they said incest but here it was a community of Christians that simply loved one another and what were slandered for it and yet in the midst of all these difficulties

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Peter and his audience had no idea what was coming next on July 18th in AD 64 there was an event in Rome that changed, that transformed the whole makeup of the church in that area maybe you're familiar with it that on July 18th just outside the chariot stables of the city of Rome a fire started and this fire spread for six days it burned, it raged through the city so that when they finally were able to put the fire out six days after it started they found that over 70 % of the city had been burned to the ground hundreds were killed, thousands left homeless and conveniently very conveniently in fact

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Nero was in his vacationing villa in Antium on the edge of the sea as the city burned and when

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Nero came back to the city he saw the great fire of Rome as a perfect opportunity not to offer benevolence and to care for the

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Roman citizens but to undergo an aggressive building agenda, a building program to pad his legacy and so he rapidly started to rebuild with bigger and better materials and to build bigger edifices and even he created a palace for himself that was one square mile in terms of its footprint established a massive amount of luxury for himself at the extent of the people and we're familiar sometimes with how this works, this will sound familiar to you but as a result of Caesar's aggressive building program, taxes went up inflation went up and what happened to the citizenry?

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Well they were upset and so there began to arise these rumors amongst the citizenry that not only did

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Nero want to rebuild bigger and better and faster but that Nero actually conspired to start the fires so that he could carry out his aggressive building program and so then

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Nero ended up with a critical PR crisis that all of the citizens were beginning to turn on him as they gossiped among themselves that it was

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Nero that started the fire and as we see with the politicians even of our day, when we're caught in some kind of controversy it seems rather than seeking to be honest and forthright and humble he sought to redirect and to shift the blame and so what

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Nero said was this, that I did not cause the fires but I knew exactly who did it was the

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Christians and he took all of that blame and he loaded it onto the backs of faithful Christians who were just seeking to serve their

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Lord with a clear conscience and what resulted is probably one of the most grotesque instances of Christian persecution that the world has ever seen

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Tacitus writes about this, Tacitus was a

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Roman historian he did not speak favorably about Christians he said, to stop the rumor he falsely charged with guilt and punished with the most fearful tortures the persons commonly called

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Christians in their very deaths they were made the subjects of sport for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts and killed by dogs or nailed to crosses or set to fire and when the day waned burned to serve for the evening lights

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Nero offered his own garden players for the spectacle and there's an account from one historian that says on one particular evening

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Nero had guests into his garden, he had his garden players serenading all of his guests with music and then he came to the party dressed as a charioteer a self exalting costume party and as he went around greeting the people and they enjoyed music and food and dance the courtyard was lit by the bodies of burning

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Christians and what's more tradition tells us that following the great fire in Rome, even the apostle

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Peter was killed on one such cross as he hung upside down suffering for his savior this was only about two years after Peter wrote this particular letter and you see

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Peter is not writing something here that he wasn't prepared to live himself he understood that it is not only the

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Christians duty but it is the Christians greatest privilege to rejoice in the face of suffering and to think

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I want to ask you what is your favorite New Testament epistle if you can think of one that expounds the glories of Christ and the beauties of the gospel and the application of those truths to the

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Christian life I would not be surprised if many of you said that it was

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Paul's letter to the Romans how he speaks of our propitiation, of us having peace with Christ how we are more than conquerors how we are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices holy and acceptable to him that we see perhaps most clearly in the gospel of Romans the beauty of Christ on full display and to think that of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Christians that hung on those crosses acting as night lights for the city many of those were the recipients of Paul's letter to the

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Romans they were the ones that heard the glories of Christ expounded from the

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Apostle Paul as that letter's direct recipient and on those dark nights in Rome I would contend with you that they learned the truthfulness of Romans chapter 8 our brother read part of it excuse me

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Romans 8 and verses 35 through 39 think about that these

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Christians as they hung on those crosses they were the ones that heard these words from the Apostle Paul what shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword as it is written for your sake we are being killed all the day long we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered yet Paul says this no in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us for I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come even across nor angels nor rulers nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our

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Lord there they hung with the opportunity to apply those truths and if the

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Lord tests you in that way I have every confidence that he will be with you and that you will see for yourself that absolutely nothing will separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our

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Lord and the reason why I believe that these Christians were able to apply these truths directly is because one of the things that dumb founded the

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Christians in their witch hunt against them was this that as those despised men and women took up their crosses and went to their deaths one writer says they went with joy singing praises to God again another ancient

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Roman historian said this if the Christians trembled at all it was for joy and not for fear and what was the result of their suffering praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ the

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Christians how can we suffer and yet rejoice because we have a

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God who as our brother read just a few moments ago causes all things to work together for good to those who love him and to those who are called according to his purpose and that in everything in every trial in every suffering in every difficulty it is but a momentary and light affliction and were to rejoice not in the future in eternity but were to rejoice now we see in verse 8 though you have not seen him dear brethren though you have not seen him you love him though you do not now see him you believe in him and you rejoice with joy that is inexpressible filled with glory this is why

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Paul says rejoice again I say rejoice dear saints we should not be rejoicing simply because we experience ministry successes or because we are seeing our church grow as I saw this morning this church turning one and celebrating together but we rejoice because we have a

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God who is sovereign and in all of his sovereignty in all of his workings together he is working it together for your good and for his glory and for that we should rejoice and then

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Paul writes in verse 10 Peter writes in verse 10 I was doomed to say

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Paul at least once concerning the salvation the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories it was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you and the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the

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Holy Spirit sent from heaven things into which the angels long to look

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I've said that we should bless God that we should rejoice and the last thing that I want to call us to is this to behold

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Peter wants us to see one last aspect of our salvation and some might ask how can

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I persevere in blessing God even when I don't feel like it how can

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I persevere in rejoicing in the midst of trials what can bring me back to baseline and it is this it is beholding your salvation for what it is your salvation is nothing other than a cosmic spectacle that we ought to gaze upon and fix our hearts to it and love it and adore it and treasure it all the days of our lives it is a call to treasure the gospel of Jesus Christ above all things and Peter goes first to the prophets

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I think it was Calvin but I can't exactly remember it was Calvin or one of the Puritans who said it was the principal job of the prophet to point to Jesus Christ that you'll remember

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Christ speaking to the two men on the road to Emmaus and he explained from the

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Scriptures all those things in the Scriptures and how they pointed to him in all the

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Scriptures and yet the prophets we see Peter recognizing this as well the prophets understood that their prophecies applied to the

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Messiah and yet they did not consciously know every single detail about it and so what did they do they did something that a lot of Christians don't do they searched and inquired carefully seeking to grasp the truths that they could apprehend they wanted to know there is something that you know that Isaiah the prophet did not know there is something that you know that Elijah did not fully grasp it is

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Christ and it was revealed to them they were not serving themselves but you but you and then he escalates it a bit further and he doesn't just invoke the prophets but at the end of verse 12 he invokes the angels and he speaks about these angels as longing if you see at the end of verse 12 as things into which the angels long to look it is a driving compulsion that the angels long to look at these things and that word that idea of looking is something as if they are stooping down gazing intently at this gospel that is ours and think about this for a moment that some of the most exalted creatures not only in this world but in creation some of the most exalted creatures who live continuously in the presence of God some of these creatures long to look at our glorious gospel and they can see and admire the wisdom of it they can look in amazement at the graciousness of God their minds can be exhausted by the kindness of our

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Savior but no matter how long these angels look no matter how long they gaze at it and study it think of this they will never ever ever ever become partakers in it they can gaze at the glorious gospel but it will never be for them brethren if it's not for them, then who is it for?

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it is for you the gospel that the prophets pointed to in all of their prophecies though we trust by faith some, many, all are partakers with us in it it was not fully revealed to them but revealed to us and specifically for you and this gospel that the angels long to look at it was not for the angels but it is for you we are not mere witnesses of God's cosmic eternal plan for such hope but we are partakers of it through Jesus Christ they searched and inquired intently angels longed to look at it think about that for a moment the amount of interest in the history of the world in this gospel the amount of interest in the unseen world in this gospel what a great travesty it is that for many

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Christians we no longer long to look at this gospel we no longer seek to meditate on it we no longer search and inquire intently to understand what it means that Christ died for sinners and is this the attitude that we are to have

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Peter says in 2 Peter 1 19 and we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, he says this to which you will do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place dear saints for those who are partakers how much more should we search and inquire carefully at all that has been announced to us how much more should we long to gaze to behold the glory of Christ in the eternal gospel that God authored before the world began

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I've said it so many times many of you are probably sick of it but we must be students of the gospel we must be obsessed with the gospel it must be our first thought and our last thought it must be our all consuming life but in order for us to say yes to such things we have to be willing to say no to others many of us do not reflect upon the gospel, we do not gaze upon the gospel because we are too busy gazing upon a thousand other things in the world that surrounds us and we need to say no to such things we need to say no to compulsively using our phone instead of meditating on the glories of Christ we need to say no to filling our minds with futile things in place of the very word of God that we are able to by God's grace write on our hearts that we might not sin against Him we must say no to frivolous church growth strategies as a church, we must say no to being peddlers of God's word, we must say no to to seeking to be like the world, to win the world we must say no to every civilian affair that distracts us from this glorious gospel there's a preacher that lived in the early 1900's who is not particularly well known probably none of the people that were hearing this sermon this morning, you know about him now so we have at least half a dozen people but he's not particularly well known, yet he exemplifies this idea of beholding the gospel of Christ and like the prophets, and like the angels, seeking and inquiring intently gazing upon getting closer to his name is

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Harold St. John, he was an early British preacher and he had a profound understanding of the scriptures, if you've heard of Hudson Taylor and the

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China Inland Mission, you'll recognize those names, the director,

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I believe he was the director after Hudson Taylor, or shortly after, his name was Fred Mitchell he said of St.

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John that he knew his bible better than anyone in Britain similarly, the bible scholar

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FF Bruce, some of you might recognize that name, he referred to St. John as the maestro it's an interesting name why did he call him that?

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because he said for detailed acquaintance with the text of scripture he had few equals now is there a sincere

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Christian in this room that would not want to have that kind of acquaintance with the scripture, not for the worldly acclaim but just to know

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God's word what was his secret? well

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St. John was at a gospel meeting and a woman came up to him and said to him, I would give the world to know the bible as you do and St.

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John replied with the most surprising response, he said, Madam that is exactly what it costs dear friends, we must say no to the world no to all the things that distract us, no to all the things that consume the very best of our time, no to the things that steal away our affections from the

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Lord, and then dispensing with the world with the prophets and with the angels, fix our eyes on Jesus Christ looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God sometimes you'll hear us from time to time reference the

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Valley of Vision the collection of Puritan prayers, it's a fantastic book, it's worth its weight in gold and yet there is one singular sentence in that book that just gets me every single time some of you have heard it many times because I love it so much

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I just keep repeating it it is this, Lord open the gates of my soul that Christ may come in if you're a

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Christian in this room open the gates of your soul wider that Christ may come in, that more of Christ may come in, if you are not a believer if you don't know that you're a believer open the gates of your soul that the savior of the world

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Jesus Christ may come in and then once he is in, guard those gates so that no one else can tamper with his throne that he will be there in his rightful place as Lord and Savior and ruler as a church and as individuals we can be about all kinds of things but above all we must be about the gospel we must see everyday

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Christ upon his cross making propitiation for sins we must see him there taking the wrath of God that we deserve we must see the free justification that he brings to us in his nail pierced hands we must see his triumphant rising from the dead, we must see his victory over sin and death and the powers of darkness, we must see him seated at the right hand of God having completed all of his redeeming work and then seeing him we must come with repentance and faith everyday, resting in him, saints we should rejoice in the

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Lord's kindness to us we should praise God that his kingdom is advancing that the gates of hell shall never prevail against his church nevertheless

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I commend something even better to you rejoice that your names are written in heaven where Christ our

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Savior is seated in all the days the Lord gives you on this earth bless the

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Lord rejoice in Christ and keep your eyes unswervingly fixed to his gospel let's go to the

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Lord and ask for his help as we close thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church if you would like to keep up with us you can find us at facebook at gracefellowshipchurch or our instagram at gracechurchyeg all one word finally you can visit us at our website graceedmonton .ca