Turn your Bibles to the 1st Epistle of
Peter, 1st Chapter, verses 3 through 9.
The God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who according to His abundant mercy hath
begotten us again unto a living hope by
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,
who are kept by the power of God
through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last time.
In this ye greatly rejoice, though now for
a season, if need be, ye are in
heaviness through manifold trials, that the trial of
your faith, being much more precious than of
gold that perishes, though it be tried with
fire, might be found unto praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ,
whom having not seen ye love, in whom
though now ye see him not, yet believing,
ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of
glory, receiving the end of your faith, even
the salvation of your souls.
No man has yet been able to comprehend
all of the spiritual blessings that God has
provided for those who trust Jesus Christ for
their salvation.
The Apostle Paul emphasizes the greatness of these
spiritual blessings in the 8th chapter of Romans,
in verse 31 and 32, when he asks,
If God be for us, who can be
against us?
He that spared not his own son, but
delivered him up for us all, how shall
he not with him also freely give us
all things?
And then in writing to the Ephesians in
chapter 1 and verse 3, the Apostle reminds
us that in Jesus Christ God has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings, and those all
spiritual blessings include everything that an God in
infinite wisdom could devise to give to those
who take him at his word and accept
Jesus Christ as a personal Savior.
When the Apostle Peter comes to write to
those whom he considers sheep in his flock,
the strangers scattered abroad throughout Asia Minor because
of the great persecutions upon the Saints in
Palestine and Jerusalem, he reminds them in 1
Peter 1 and verse 3 of some of
the spiritual blessings that God has provided for
those who have been born again.
As we pointed out to you in our
introduction to this epistle last week, the Apostle
Peter, although still a resident in Jerusalem or
as a leader in the church in Jerusalem,
felt a responsibility for those Jews who, because
of persecution, had been scattered north to Antioch
and then outside of the bounds of Antioch
and Syria to Asia Minor.
They were undergoing political and religious persecution that
had left them bereft of income, bereft of
a social gathering place, bereft of any spiritual
supervision or oversight.
They were cut off from all familiar ties,
and they felt their loneliness.
The Apostle, as a shepherd, is writing to
his sheep in order that they might be
encouraged in their suffering in the trials and
in the tests that come to them.
Peter, in that portion to which we would
direct your attention, 1 Peter 1 verses 3
to 9, lays a foundation upon which these
believers may build Christian lives even in the
midst of their sufferings and testing.
He begins with a foundation stone in verse
3, that the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, according to his abundant mercy,
hath begotten us unto a living hope.
The word begotten is the word for a
new birth, and Peter is emphasizing here the
fact that these who are scattered abroad have
been born into the family of God.
Now, it is not Peter's purpose here to
try to enumerate all of the spiritual blessings
that have been given to us in Jesus
Christ, but from among the multitude of spiritual
blessings, Peter selects several that will be a
foundation for a Christian life in the midst
of suffering and trial.
Because they have been born again, or because
they have been born into the Father's family,
they, first of all, verse 3, have been
born unto a living hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Born unto a living hope.
We use the word hope today of some
vague wish, some dream or desire that we
feel has little chance of realization.
But that is not the biblical or the
New Testament concept in the word hope.
For hope in the word of God refers
to a settled assurance, an absolute, unshakable certainty
that is based upon some well-known fact.
And the fact upon which this hope rests
is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead.
The most incontrovertible fact of all human history
is the fact that Jesus Christ rose again
from the dead on the third day.
And on the basis of that fact, the
believer has a hope.
It is called here a living hope.
That is a hope that pervades life every
moment of every day.
And that living hope that is based on
the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the absolute
assurance that because Jesus Christ lives, we shall
live also.
You see, the danger that confronted these believers
as they faced these waves of opposition and
these tides of persecution was that things might
somehow get out of control, and that their
physical lives might be snatched away, and that
that might be the end of all hope
that they had ever had.
These believers had the teaching of the apostles
that the Lord Jesus Christ was coming in
the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory, and he was coming to receive believers
unto himself.
It is that which we refer to as
the imminent hope of the Lord's return.
And those who lived in that generation had
the hope that the Lord might come in
their day, as you and I live in
the light of that same glorious and blessed
hope that the Lord Jesus Christ must certainly
appear in our day.
And so they had expected that they would
live to see the coming of the Lord,
and they as past generations would not have
to pass through physical death.
Peter wants to assure them that if the
Lord should tarry and delay his coming, and
physical death should be their portion, and they
should go to be with the Lord, not
by rapture and translation, but by passing through
the valley of dark shadows that they went
through death to life.
And so Peter reminds them that they have
been begotten unto a living hope.
This hope was based upon the words of
our Lord himself.
Will you turn with me to John's Gospel,
where our Lord lays the foundation for this
hope through his teaching, and frequently our Lord
emphasizes this great truth in the sixth chapter
of John's Gospel, in verse 39 and 40,
in connection with his great discourse on the
bread of life.
Our Lord says, This is the Father's will
which hath sent me, that of all which
he hath given me I should lose nothing,
but should raise it up again at the
last day.
And this is the will of him that
sent me, that every one which seeth the
Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting
life, and I will raise him up at
the last day.
When our Lord ministered to Mary and Martha
at the time of their bereavement because of
the death of their brother Lazarus, our Lord
in John 11 and verse 25 said, I
am the resurrection and the life.
He that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live.
And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die.
Or again in the upper room, just before
our Lord's death, in John chapter 14 and
verse 19, our Lord said to the disciples,
Because I live, ye shall live also.
These are but a few of the many
instances in which our Lord affirmed the basis
of Peter's hope, for Peter's hope was not
some vague desire for immortality.
Peter's hope was an absolute certainty that rested
upon the oft-repeated promise of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
But if Jesus Christ promised men life and
then died and stayed dead, and his body
saw corruption in the grave, how empty is
his promise.
But because Jesus Christ authenticated his promise by
his own resurrection, those who believed him had
the assurance of life because he was alive.
And Peter wanted to remind these persecuted saints
that they had been begotten through the new
birth unto a hope that permeated every area
of life.
The hope, the assurance, the certainty that they
would live.
But then the second thing that Peter emphasizes
as the result of our new birth is
given in verse 4.
According to his abundant mercy hath begotten us
to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth
not away, reserved in heaven for you.
The inheritance to which the apostle refers here
is the Father's presence in the Father's house.
Not only are we given through the new
birth the promise of life, we are also
given the promise of a place where that
life will be lived and enjoyed.
We are not to be disembodied spirits floating
around alone in space like a wisp of
cloud.
We are to enjoy the Father's presence in
the Father's house.
And so Peter emphasizes that they are strangers
and pilgrims here.
They are simply passing through this world.
They have a destiny, and that destiny is
a Father's house where the Father's presence will
be forever enjoyed.
Once again, this promise is based on our
Lord's words.
For you will recall in John chapter 14,
verses 2 and 3, our Lord said, In
my Father's house are many mansions, or dwelling
places.
If it were not so, would I have
told you I go to prepare a place
for you?
And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive
you unto myself, that where I am, there
ye may be also.
Whither I go ye know, and the way
ye know.
Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not
whither thou goest, and how can we know
the way?
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way,
the truth, and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father, but by
me.
And in these verses, our Lord points out
two essential elements of his promise.
First of all, we are destined for the
Father's presence, and we are destined for the
Father's house, the Father's home.
And so when Peter would write to encourage
those persecuted believers, he reminds them that through
the new birth they have a certain hope
they will live.
And second, they have a destiny, they have
an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, that fate is
not away that is reserved in heaven.
Every material thing that these believers had could
be stripped away from them.
Many of them were left destitute, poverty-stricken,
and penniless.
But that destiny, that inheritance that is given
to them is incorruptible.
It cannot be corrupted.
It is undefiled, can never be rendered impure
and unfit for God's presence as their material
possessions were.
They might see all of their life savings
and investments fade away, but that which God
has reserved for us can never fade away,
nor diminish, nor lose its value.
It is safety posited in heaven for you.
Not only a hope we shall live, but
a place in which that life shall be
enjoyed.
But then, in verse 5, he gives us
a third result of our new birth.
We are kept by the power of God
through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last time.
We have one who keeps us.
The businessman of that day might hide the
fruits of his labor by burying them in
the garden patio.
He might put the results of his labors
out to investors and live off the interest.
He might find some banker that would take
his capital gains and secure them for him.
But he had no guarantee that the results
of his labors would be permanent.
How easily a thief could How easily the
Roman government could assess a tax.
How easily he could lose his citizenship in
the nation, and therefore all his rights to
hold property or to hold gainful employment, so
that any material thing that a man had
was something about which he had no assurance,
from which he could find security.
The believer might think that because the persecutor
could take away every material thing that he
had, perhaps the adversary of his soul could
take away the hope that had been given
to him and rob him of the home
that was reserved for him in the Father's
presence.
So to those who had seen all material
things disappear because of the persecutions that came
to them, Peter reminds them that when they
were begotten of God, they were born into
the care and keeping of one who would
guard them to the very end of the
destiny for which they had been born into
God's family.
You are kept by no less of one
than God himself.
And what kind of a God do we
have?
A God of power, and the same power
that could regenerate a sinner and make him
a saint, guarantees the preservation and protection and
safety and ultimate realization of all that has
been promised to us through Jesus Christ.
Once again, Peter's doctrine is based on the
words of our Lord, for you will recall
in John chapter 10 and verse 28, our
Lord said, I give unto them eternal life,
and they shall never perish, neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand.
My Father which gave them me is greater
than all, and no man is able to
pluck them out of my Father's hand.
I and my Father are one.
And Christ there pictures the believer as being
safe-deposited in the hand of Christ, and
that safe-deposit vault in turn is deposited
in the hand of God so that the
believer is doubly secured, secured by the Father
and secured by the Son.
And Peter, perhaps mindful of those very words
of our Lord, reminded these persecuted saints who
perchance felt that they were in jeopardy of
losing everything, of the truth that the one
who had been begotten unto a livelier living
hope and unto an inheritance was guaranteed God's
preservation by his own power to the salvation
for which or the deliverance for which we
had been saved.
All hell seeks to keep the from his
inheritance, but all hell cannot prevent God from
bringing his blood-bought child home to himself.
And so Peter, to strengthen those who are
going through and will go through testing, reminds
them of what was entailed in our new
birth.
But in the 6th verse, Peter reminds those
believers that he is cognizant of their present
suffering.
He knows that they are in heaviness through
manifold testing or manifold trial.
The word in some texts is translated temptation,
and temptation suggests a solicitation to evil.
Peter is not dealing here with the problem
of temptation to sin in a believer's life.
He is dealing with the problems of the
sufferings and the testings that come in the
daily experiences of God's children.
Peter reminds them that the hope that we
have and the inheritance that we have is
received and enjoyed in the midst of suffering.
The hope that we have is no guarantee
of deliverance from suffering, from testing, from trial,
from burden.
But the hope that we have is to
be enjoyed in the midst of suffering.
Why?
Peter does not go into the details of
it here.
Do you remember that the Apostle Paul on
numerous occasions explains why.
He tells us, for instance, in the 8th
chapter of Romans, that we as believers possess
as we are of the assurance of eternal
life, live in the midst of an unredeemed
creation.
This world is under a curse, and men
apart from Jesus Christ are under a curse,
and they are lumped together in the category
of sinners.
We live in the midst of an unredeemed
creation.
We as believers live in an unredeemed body,
subject to disease, to physical death, to physical
weakness.
We live with a fallen nature within us,
for although by the new birth we have
had implanted to us a new divine nature,
that old nature is not removed until the
time of our translation into glory.
Therefore, testings may come to us from the
world which we live, because the world is
an enemy of Christ.
These testings may come because of the nature
of the body that we have today, a
body subject to disease and death.
We are tested because of the old nature
with which we were born into this world.
That 8th chapter of Romans gives to us
God's answer to these three different areas, and
anticipates the redemption that will be ours when
we realize our living hope.
But Peter in 1 Peter 1 says, note
that the hope that they have is to
be enjoyed in the midst of suffering.
And Peter in the 7th verse moves on
to explain to these tested ones God's purpose
in submitting them to these testings.
We are tested that the trial of your
faith, being much more precious than a gold
that perishes though it be tried under fire,
might be found unto praise and honor and
glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
And God uses testing of many and various
kinds as the means of conforming His children
to Jesus Christ.
In Romans 8.29, after having asserted the
fact that all things work together for good,
explains why all things work together for good,
because God chooses those things to bring into
our experience which will conform us to the
image of His Son.
There is no way of polishing anything without
the use of abrasive.
There is nothing that exists that bears a
polish or a sheath without having been subjected
to the abrasion.
It doesn't take much abrasion to sculpt wax.
Very little abrasion to sculpt clay.
A lot more abrasion if you are going
to polish marble.
And still more if you are going to
polish a diamond.
And God, knowing the temperament of the individual,
will select the abrasion to fit what the
individual is.
And if we become wax in the sculptor's
hand, it takes very little to mold us
into the image of Christ.
And if we resist the molding process of
God and make ourselves as marble in His
hand, then He chooses and uses the suitable
abrasion.
We forget that God's purpose is to conform
us to Christ, and God is going to
select those things that will accomplish His purpose.
And so often the sufferings which God sends
to us are because of our obstinance and
stubbornness and resistance to His molding process to
conform us to Jesus Christ.
Peter was looking beyond the immediate circumstances of
their sufferings to the end product, so that
Jesus Christ might be, might present us to
the Father, to the praise and honor and
glory of God in His appearing.
Peter said, don't be surprised that these sufferings
come to you.
For the sufferings will come and must come.
But the sufferings are not sufferings generated by
Satan.
They are not sufferings generated by sin.
They are sufferings generated by God, who is
working to conform us to Jesus Christ, so
that we might be found unto praise and
honor and glory at His appearing.
Then in verses 8 and 9, the Apostle
closes this portion of his instruction by pointing
out the response of believers to the sufferings
which they endure.
There are two attitudes that they are to
have.
First of all, the attitude of faith.
Whom having not seen ye love, in whom,
though now ye see him not yet, believing.
Will you underscore that word believing?
They are to what?
Verse 3, they have already believed unto salvation.
They have already received Christ as a personal
Savior, so he is not exhorting them to
receive Christ for their salvation.
But they are to believe this fact that
he has presented, that a sovereign God in
infinite wisdom has chosen the very things that
he knows will conform us to Christ.
We can't see how this will work out.
We can't see the end from the beginning.
But we must believe that an infinite God,
who is sovereign over all details, has chosen
these very things, and this is his method
and process of conforming us to Jesus Christ.
We respond, first of all, in faith.
Second, verse 8, he rejoiced with joy unspeakable
and full of glory.
This is the counterpart of what James wrote,
you'll remember, in that very strange statement when
he says in James chapter 1, verse 2,
My brethren, count it all joy when ye
fall into different kinds of testing.
Count it joy when you're tested.
Why?
You cannot have joy without a preceding faith,
for until you acknowledge the fact that this
is God at work in your life and
you believe that God is using this thing
to accomplish his purpose, there can be no
joy.
Don't try to get the joy and then
believe if you have the joy.
You believe and then you'll receive the joy.
But the third response is given to us
also in this 8th verse, Whom not having
seen, ye love.
Faith, joy, and love.
When one receives the love of God, the
natural response is to submit to the authority
of the object of our affection.
When we receive his love, we love in
return, and we do not question that which
his love directs and dictates for our experience.
And so Peter, writing to those who have
been born unto a hope and born unto
an inheritance and are under the keeping power
of God, even though they must live out
their days in suffering, in hardship, must realize
that this is God at work to conform
them to Jesus Christ, and they can know
joy and love for God as they believe
that God is at work.
Peter's generation was not the only generation to
undergo testing.
There really has been no generation from the
time of Christ to the present time that
has not had its measure of rejection and
persecution in one way or another.
And while the persecutions or rejections or trials
may come from some different source today than
they did in Peter's day, yet our assurance
is the same as that which Peter gave
to his flock.
We have been born unto eternal life.
This hope is absolutely certain and secure.
God's purpose is to bring us into that
fullness of life in his presence as those
who have been conformed to Jesus Christ.
So God is going to spend the years
of our sojourn here, sculpting us to make
us into the likeness of Christ.
Since God is at work, since God holds
the chisel, since God controls the mallet, since
the abrasives are in God's hands, who are
we to exalt our wisdom against the wisdom
of God and say, I know better how
you ought to work with me than you
know how to work to conform me to
Christ.
God asks us to believe him.
Believing him entails trust.
Trust entails submission and love.
And when one trusts and submits, then he
knows the joy of God because he sees
God at work in his own experience.
God will not try to remake someone else's
children into his own image.
Those who have never been born into his
family, God leaves alone.
And what a tragedy it is to be
let alone now, to be exempt from God's
sufferings now, when that exemption means we're not
his.
One becomes his by receiving Jesus Christ as
his or her own personal Savior.
Maybe life has been very easy for you,
and you don't know what Peter is talking
about when he talks about enduring the testing
and the persecutions of unbelievers.
The reason is because you've never come into
God's family.
You don't have this living hope.
And I say to you as a minister
of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that Christ
died for your sin.
Christ offered himself to God to pay the
price for your indebtedness.
By his death, he has paid your debt.
But his death avails you nothing unless you
accept him personally, and you trust his death
for your salvation.
This you may do right now, if you
will accept Jesus Christ as your own personal
Savior.
He died for you, but have you ever
trusted him?
We pray, our Father, that the Spirit of
God who has revealed the hand of God
and worked in our lives through these things
that are in our experience each day, may
give us faith in an infinite God and
a love for him, that we might know
joy even in the midst of testing.
Open up these truths to us, that we
might live with joy the experiences through which
thou dost take us in the days ahead.
Dismiss us with the riches of thy grace
and mercy and peace upon us.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.