What God Has Done • 1 Peter 1:1-5
41:24 Teaching begins
Notes
Peter is writing to encourage followers of Jesus is modern-day Turkey what are suffering for following Jesus. They are scattered, they are a minority in a vast pagan majority. They are being ridiculed and oppressed.
The only way to encourage is with the truth. Good wishes don’t help. Imaginary examples don’t help. You can’t say, well, remember Frodo and Sam, they had challenges that they overcame. They never existed.
Peter’s encouragement is real and true. Look at what God has done.
We think following Jesus is something that we do. Peter says we follow Jesus because of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
I’m reading in 1 Peter 1.
1. If you look at the author and his readers you have to marvel at what God has done.
A. Peter describes himself as an apostle of Christ.
1. His given name was Simon, or Simeon, which name came from one of Jacob’s sons. He was a normal, ordinary guy. He was a tradesman, a fisherman, he was married, he had a mother-in-law.
2. Then Jesus called him to follow Him, started calling him Peter, which means “rock”. He was always first in any list of the apostles.
3. Notice his humility. He could write as “Peter, THE apostle.” He doesn’t put himself forward like he’s Somebody. He is what Jesus made him to be: a servant leader, looking out for others, wanting to strengthen others who are following Jesus.
4. That is the direct result of Jesus working in his life, as we’ll see in a few minutes.
B. He is writing to those who reside as aliens.
1. These people live in various Roman provinces of what is modern-day Turkey.
2. Peter calls them the scattered, and the word used is diaspora, usually refers to the Jews scattered all over the world because of deportation and persecution. But these are believers in Jesus, some Jewish, most of them are Gentiles.
3. They were born natives of their countries, they know the culture. But they became foreign residents in their own countries because they became citizens of heaven. Then their neighbours began treating them like strangers, aliens. The kind that you shun, reject, treat badly because they are different.
C. The only reason that can explain a servant-leader like Peter and natives who become so changed that they are truly foreign to their own families and cultures is: this is what God has done.
2. Peter describes these followers of Jesus. Every description of them is a result of the work of the triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
A. They are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.
1. God selected them having thought it over carefully.
2. Our salvation begins in eternity before there was time, space, matter. It did not start with the fall of man in the garden or at any later time. God thought this over before He made the world. It’s according to His foreknowledge. He chose believers in Christ. Before these people chose Jesus, the Father had already chosen them. Before anyone had done good or evil. God already knew and made His choice.
3. Paul says the same thing. Ephesians 1:3-6 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
B. Peter, the resident foreigners, and you and I are also a result of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit sets us apart from the world to be holy to God.
1. John 6:44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.
2. The Holy Spirit does this work. John 16:8-11 And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.
3. The Holy Spirit convinces us that we have sinned against God and we need a saviour. He humbles us so that we confess our sins and trust in what Jesus has done.
C. And that’s the next description of followers of Jesus: for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
1. Jesus is the Son of God who left heaven and all His rights as God behind. He emptied Himself and became a slave. He served all people in all times and all places by giving Himself as a ransom for our sins.
2. The sprinkling of blood in the Old Testament sacrifices signify that a life has been given. Leviticus 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement. So Jesus made atonement for our sins, bringing forgiveness, redemption, purification.
3. Peter says also for obedience to Jesus. The gospel is a command first: repent and believe. Turn from your own way and your sins, turn to Jesus. Believe means depend on what He has done for you in dying in your place. This isn’t a suggestion or some kind of sales pitch to get you to buy some product. He commands everyone everywhere to repent. You are to obey His command. If you disobey His command there is no forgiveness. The wrath of God against sin still abides on you. If you obey Jesus you will be saved. If you disobey Him you will be lost forever.
D. A normal fisherman became an apostle of Jesus Christ. Regular people became resident foreigners in their native culture. They were transformed through the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
3. Peter’s wish for his readers and us is multiplied grace and peace.
A. The work of God comes from God’s love and mercy, which is grace. the work of God produces peace between us and God.
B. This grace and peace is meant to grow greater and greater in us because it’s the very life of God. Living things grow. We remember that of the increase of Jesus’ government and of peace there shall be no end, Isaiah 9:7.
C. The more we know God, the greater our experience of grace and peace will be.
4. You would think once would be enough, but Peter actually goes through the gospel again! Once again we see that it is the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
A. Peter breaks out in worship of God the Father! The source of our salvation is His great mercy.
1. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, this word for mercy was used to translate the Hebrew word chesed, God’s covenant love. In English the Hebrew word is translated steadfast love or lovingkindness. This love is the foundation of relationship.
2. Our sins against God blew up our relationship. All of our sin is first against God. He made us. He has the authority to say, this is how you live. All of us have gone astray, each to his own way. We sin against God and we sin against each other.
3. Do you know how you feel when your house has been burgled? You have been lied to, been taken advantage of, somebody uses their authority to mistreat you? Someone scratches your car, dents it in a parking lot? That violated feeling?
4. Everyone has sinned against God, and every sin is against God. All of humanity has offended God. He is justly angry. We have done things we should not have done. We have neglected to do what is right. All people fall short of perfection. We are all under God’s condemnation.
5. Though judgment belongs to God alone, and God alone will have vengeance on His enemies, yet He does not delight in judgment. It’s called His strange, foreign work. He delights in unchanging chesed, covenant love.
6. So rather than destroying us by casting us into hell forever, God says, I will restore relationship. I will redeem man out of sin and condemnation. Mercy triumphs over judgment!
B. This mercy is accomplished by begetting us again to a living hope by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.
1. God’s mercy isn’t cheap. He didn’t just forgive our sins and say it didn’t happen. He brought us salvation through justice. Jesus died in our place. All of God’s righteous anger against all sin against Himself fell on Jesus. The wages of sin is death. Jesus’ death paid for our sins.
2. Because Jesus was righteous and holy, He rose from the dead. Death could not hold him, that’s how Peter put it in Acts 2:24. That’s the sign that Jesus’ sacrifice was accepted by God. Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
3. The one who receives Jesus as Lord and Saviour receives Jesus’ resurrection life. A person is truly born again, from the Father above, by the Holy Spirit.
C. Peter calls this a living hope.
1. We use “hope” like it’s a wish. We would like something, but there’s no chance that we’ll never get it. A wish is pretty hopeless.
2. Hope is the expectation that comes from a promise. God says, “I promise that I will do this in the future.” His word would be sufficient because God cannot lie, but God also swore by Himself. So we have two things that are unchangeable. We can have strong confidence that God will do what He says He will do in the future.
D. This living hope is our inheritance, which is incorruptible, undefiled, and does not fade away.
1. Inheritance is that which God has assigned to you that you can keep forever. No one can take it away. You can’t lose it.
2. That’s significant, because sin strips us of everything that we possess. We lose our possessions, our future, our very souls.
3. But here comes the salvation of God the Father and He says, here, this is yours forever.
4. All these adjectives show that the inheritance is eternal and divine. It is pure like God, it is unchangeable like God, it will never wilt, get old, fade, become less, become weak, get tired and blah.
5. This inheritance is to be glorified with the Lord Jesus when He is revealed from heaven. To be transformed from these lowly corrupting bodies to have a glorious heavenly body like Jesus when He was raised from the dead. It is to share the same heavenly nature and existence of Jesus Christ. That’s our inheritance that God promises we will have.
E. But then you think, will I ever get there? What if I make a mistake or sin or do something that messes up my inheritance so I don’t get it?
1. This inheritance is reserved in heaven. It’s guarded there. Nothing can ruin it, no thief break in and steal, no moth or rust destroy. It’s safe.
2. But then we also are guarded by the power of God, kept for that salvation to be revealed.
3. It’s through faith. That means just as you depended on the work that God did to save you, you now depend on His work to guard and keep you. The work of guarding you is God’s work, and He is faithful to keep you.
5. Here’s the main point in all this: salvation is all God’s work, what He has done.
A. He thought this up before He made the universe. He accomplished it in time through Jesus 2000 years ago. He did a perfect job of it. He’s happy with His work.
B. What are we supposed to do? Did you read anything in there about what Peter did? What these believers did? What you and I did? There’s nothing there. There’s no quest, no requirement, nothing that we have to achieve before God will accept us.
C. Except that one word in verse 5: faith. What we do is depend on the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We receive Jesus by depending on His work. We confess our sins to Him, we lay them all on Him. We leave them there with Him.
D. If you haven’t received God’s great mercy listen to His voice. Jesus commands you to turn to Him and depend upon His work.
E. If you have received God’s great mercy then you still depend upon His work in your life. That’s how we live now. We’ll get more on this next week, but this is the foundation, the solid rock we are building our lives upon. All of our lives should be resting upon this solid foundation of what God has done.
F. The great thing about going to church and teaching through the Bible is that you will hear the gospel over and over again. If you stop going to church, if you stop reading, you will stop hearing the gospel. Your life will fall apart if you don’t hear the gospel. You need to keep listening to the fact that God loves you, that He chose you, that He gave Jesus to save you.
G. At the end of the sixth day of creation God rested. He ceased from His own works. As you depend upon God’s work you have entered into his rest.
May grace and peace be multiplied to you as you depend upon Jesus.
Let’s pray.