Devotional on 1 Peter 1:3-12, Part 2

by John Young

Good morning, Beloved! Yesterday we began thinking about the beginning of Peter’s letter to the Gentile Christians dispersed throughout all the provinces of Asia Minor at the time. They were undergoing persecution and difficulty and lacked encouragement because they were unable to fully realize the work the Lord was doing in their midst. But what we considered yesterday was merely the beginning of the letter! We hadn’t even gotten past the greeting!

Today, I’d like us to think for a few minutes on verses 3-12. Peter offers encouragement found in the Believer’s beginning, middle, and end.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

The Beginning: God has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

This is a new birth rooted not in anything we’ve done but solely the work of God "according to his great mercy”. (v3) Some may read that “born again” and think, “Wow, God’s given me a do-over! What a blessing that is!” And that may be a blessing, but it would be a very short-lived blessing as we would mess that do-over up as well, and the next, and the next, and the next…and then tomorrow’s do overs as well!

Instead the Father has caused us to be born again. He’s given us a new disposition. We talked about that new disposition yesterday in the book of Ezekiel and we find that promise reiterated later on in Ezekiel 36:25-27:

25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

And so the Father has not just given us a better life…he’s given us the certain hope of an eternal life…a living hope that doesn’t begin when we get to heaven, but instead begins now with a new disposition: a new heart, a new hope, a new life…cleansed from our impurities and idols.

But this isn’t rooted in our ability to do it…it’s rooted in God’s mercy. The Father has caused us to be born again and this new birth is accomplished for us in Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead. And so our encouragement in the faith doesn’t come from us looking at our own lives and spiritual accomplishments. Rather, our encouragement and confidence comes from an empty tomb. Jesus Christ never sinned and yet he died…he was punished in the place of sinners, sinners like you and me who have acknowledged their sin and turned from it in faith toward Jesus Christ, resting in him alone. He took it all…he took all your sin, there’s nothing left for you to pay for. But proof that that sin had been paid for came three days later when Jesus was raised from the dead. The punishment has been accepted. Paid in full. Oh, and by the way…the one writing this letter to us is one of two who ran to the tomb and found it empty. He knows what he’s talking about.

The Middle: God’s power guards you through faith for salvation.

It’s interesting, in v3, we see God the Father causing us to be born again. Here in v5-7, it seems as though the Holy Spirit is the one at work here. He is God’s power who is guarding us through faith…He is keeping us to the end. Through the Holy Spirit we have the mind of Christ and that new disposition and will. He grants us joy in this life and encouragement in the faith.

But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t subject to difficulty…we truly are. We are grieved by various trials…we are in one right now. But the Spirit holds us and keeps us and encourages us while the genuineness of our faith is tested. This sounds like God is testing us to see if we’re the real deal…but rather he’s testing us to ensure and to refine us to make us the real deal. He’s removing all that is foreign to faith the way that dross is removed from silver or gold. So we can look at the experience that we are in today confidently, knowing that we are held fast! We are being sifted so that all that remains is Christ…created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

The End: Christ has stored up an inheritance for us that will be revealed when he returns.

Christ is preparing for us an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. And it is a guaranteed inheritance for we have been given the Holy Spirit as a deposit (Ephesians 1:14) and the salvation that we value so much will finally be revealed at the last time…the return of Christ.

Yes, now we have an inkling of our salvation and we think about it often but we really don’t understand it. I often wonder if we could go back to our lives before our regeneration and just observed the things we thought about that occupied our minds…I think we would be amazed at the effect of the Holy Spirit on our minds and motivations. But that is nothing compared to the day when Christ returns…

1 John 3:2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we  shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

These are indeed great encouragements for our souls but I think the greatest encouragement is God’s motivation for doing this for us. It isn’t because he loved us SOOOOO much that he did this for us…because what happens on those days when I am unlovable? The motivation for God doing what he does not have anything to do with us, but rather it is solely out of his regard for his own glory that he does what he does.

We see it in our passage: in v3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! These things that we enjoy are meant to bring praise to God in heaven. In Ephesians 2:1-7, when Paul talks about how God has made us who were dead alive, he mentions WHY God does what he does in v7 which begins with SO THAT…in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ. And in Ephesians 1:5-6, why did God predestine us for adoption as sons? To the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

We see it again in our 1 Peter passage—why does God through his Holy Spirit guard us and refine us and keep us to the end? So that our faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ!

And Peter gives us some encouragement that the Spirit is at work in us as we think about v8-9: The love we have for the one we have not seen but believe in by faith gives us encouragement that the outcome of our faith will be a reality: the salvation of our souls.

One final note for this Easter week: As we look at v10-12, we understand that our salvation is dependent upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So much of our faith is theologically informed by the Old Testament writers. They didn’t understand how this would work, they couldn’t understand how a suffering servant could come and save his people. Take the riddle of the Old Testament, as God describes himself to Moses in Exodus 34:6-7 “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty…” How does the Lord forgive iniquity and transgression and sin by who will by no means clear the guilty? How can God be both merciful and just?

The events of this Easter week show how that can be…the sinless suffering servant dying in the place of sinners and being raised from the dead so that those sinners may walk in the newness of life…in a righteousness not their own but imputed to them by the Son of God.

These are truly things into which angels long to look…and they are our reality.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Devotional on 1 Peter 1:1-2, Part 1

by John Young

I was blessed by a phone call from Pastor Geo yesterday and we talked about how we are struggling in the midst of the lack of contact and the cares of this world and he mentioned in passing how we are dispersed throughout the area and my mind immediately turned to this passage:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

Obviously, the thing that drew me here was the thought that Peter is writing to the elect exiles of the Dispersion. I’d like to briefly consider those three words today and then we’ll consider the remainder of the passage tomorrow. Let’s take these words in reverse:

Dispersion- Peter is writing to a people that are dispersed. They aren’t together. This is a recurring theme in the Old Testament where Israel is scattered “in seven directions” (Dt 28:25), and “their outcasts are in the outermost parts of heaven” (Neh 1:9). 

We can relate to that. We are very mindful of the dispersion. While we are grateful to have this time God has given us, we are definitely aware of the reality that we are not together, God’s people are not together. Sure we may share experiences by listening to the word preached or see each other via a Zoom call or text or call, but we are not together. We truly look forward to that day when we can hug a neck and be together again face to face. But that longing is pointing us to a greater reality.

Israel wasn’t always dispersed, that same verse, Neh 1:9 says, “Though your outcasts are in the outermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen to make my name dwell there.” And this reality is further carried to fulfillment in Jesus when he comes again as he explains to his disciples in Mark 13:26-27 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

That sense of connection that we have with one another is the tip of an iceberg that encompasses all the people of God and the glorious union we will have with our God when we see our Savior face to face—free from double mindedness, free from rivalry or jealousy, enabled to fully love one another in purity and humility, and delight in Him for Whom we were created. Instead of looking for ways to insufficiently slake the thirst of unity, it would do our souls good to instead allow that yearning to draw our hearts and minds heavenward and the hope there that awaits us.

Exiles- When we think of exiles, we think of punishment, a divine time out. Exile for Israel meant that they were removed from God’s land for a period of time and had the creature comforts of God’s blessing removed from them. This led Israel to the realization that things were not as they should be. But God promised that this would not always be the case.

In Ezekiel 11:16-17 God says through Ezekiel, “Thus says the Lord God: Though I removed them from far off among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for awhile in the countries where they have gone.” Therefore, say, “Thus says the Lord God: I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.”

Now, I am not saying that Coronavirus is punishment from the Lord. The connection I would like to make is that the Lord has done a remarkable thing for us in removing so many of these creature comforts and connection points to the earthly world. Right about now, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that this world is not our home. The things we love sit empty: Disneyland is locked up; nary a sport is being played; a playground is not available; the bar is closed; you can’t even go to a store and buy a new outfit! The Lord has kicked away the crutches from our lives and we are dependent upon Him alone.

But our hope is not in things getting back to normal, but rather, our hope is found later on in that Ezekiel 11 passage in verses 19-20, when he brings us to himself, he “will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove their heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statues and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people and I will be their God.”

But what comfort do we have that we will be included in that number? That’s our final word to consider this morning…

Elect- He’s writing to the elect. The elect who owe their status to nothing but the Trinity which we see alluded to in v2: According to the foreknowledge of God the Father…in the sanctification of the Spirit…for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.

God the Father set his covenantal affection upon you before the creation of the world. Not because of anything done by you but strictly in accordance with his divine will (Eph 1:5) for his glory.

But this love goes beyond that to include the Holy Spirit in the work of sanctification. Therefore, we can never say that salvation is God’s work and sanctification is our work. No, God is working in our sanctification as well.

And it is a sanctification that comes about in our obedience to Christ which is brought about by that Holy Spirit work in accordance with that Ezekiel 11:19-20 passage above. That cleansing new heart and spirit we read about is granted by the sprinkling with the blood of Christ. 

Indeed these are all hopes that we have yet to realize in our awareness but it is a hope that can buoy us during these days of exile and dispersion. Praise God for the work of Christ.