This is exciting. This is my first time preaching from this pulpit in this building. I wanted to take a moment and apologize for technical difficulties we've been having, been learning new things and finding new issues and seeking to work through them. and our media team has been doing a great job at that. But we are still a church plant, and pretty much everything we're doing here is a work in progress. But the good news is we have a solid foundation from which to build off of, and by God's grace, we'll continue to do that. If you have a bulletin, inside you'll find your notes. That's going to be our macro outline for today. And you'll notice it's 1 Peter, chapter one, verses three to 12. And some of you may be wondering, will Joey be able to get through all of that? And I'm wondering the same thing. I kind of have to. Because next week, Pastor Beer's going to be preaching. So open your Bibles also with me to First Peter, chapter one. First Peter, chapter one. I'll go ahead and pray. We can jump in. Father in heaven, you are glorious. You are holy. You are good. And we praise you that in your goodness, you have richly poured out mercy upon us. That you would even care to look upon us knowing that there's nothing desirable in us. Anything that we have that is good is a gift from you. And all that we have and are that is sinful is due to our own divisiveness, our own devising. And we praise you for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, our only mediator, And we ask that you would send your spirit in a special way to fill each one of us here. That we might know you. That we would grow in knowing you. That truth would come to our heads and penetrate into our hearts and that it would become part of us. That we would grow from one degree of glory to another as we behold you through your son by your spirit. Help me to speak your truth clearly, accurately, and help each one of us to sit under and to feel the weight of your word, while at the same time, as only your word can do, being a sharp two-edged sword that is living and active, would you lift us up with your word too? We know that your word both cuts and convicts, while at the same time heals. And so we ask you, for your name's sake, may those aspects of your word not return void to you, but may we be grown to look more like Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen. For the Christian, the mind is a battlefield. I'm not talking about arguing with other believers, there's a place for that. Our own minds, that's where the battle rages. It's taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. And one thing that you will find in the Christian life is that the Christian will only have as much joy in his life as he has true light of the knowledge of Jesus Christ in his head and in his heart. It's not enough to have just the intellectual ability. You might have a photographic memory and be able to remember every scripture and every systematic theology, and you still will not be as intelligent as Satan. You still will not have love for Christ unless the Spirit unites that truth to your heart. And the more that we sinfully dwell on situations in our head, the more we take counsel from our own flesh and repeat these things to us in our own minds, thinking that this is a safe space for us to vent our sins, the greater our misery will become. And it will manifest itself in one of two ways. If you are a strong personality, then it will manifest in anger. If you have a weaker personality, it will manifest in self-pity. Your holiness will diminish. You will impact others around you and bring them down. And as your holiness diminishes, so also will your happiness. Because true happiness is a byproduct of holiness in pursuit of Jesus Christ. Now, not only will you become a dull instrument in the hands of God, you'll not have the righteousness that you're meant to have, you will not be a weapon of righteousness for either the left hand or for the right, the Master will not have good use of you, but you will not just become dull, but you will also become sharp. You will become a sharp instrument in discontent, perfectly attuned for Satan's uses. Peter knows this. Peter knows this not just theologically. Peter knows this personally. He promised never to desert Christ. Others will, but I won't. But he denied Him three times. And then later in life, being succumbed with that same base sin of fear of man, self-preservation, He denied Christ again with the Judaizers. But Peter, having lived through so much, having been ministered to directly by the Lord Jesus Christ, having been restored in all tenderness by the Lord Jesus Christ before His ascension, having seen the Lord Jesus Christ not only transfigured in His glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, but also seeing Him ascend to the right hand of the Father, does not come and spend His time to tell us about personal experiences. He's not appealing to us on the basis of personal experience. Rather, what He does is He sets before us this rich, this glorious, this joy-filled truth that flows out of the truths that are supernaturally revealed by the Holy Spirit as He reveals to Peter and to us the beauty of Jesus Christ, the supremacy of Jesus Christ, the value of Jesus Christ. In short, What Peter does in our passage is he lays down three very basic but profound and indispensable truths so that we might resolve our hearts and our heads to live in light of eternity, to take our gaze up off of the world that we live in and to look to the goal, to look to the prize, to take every step with an eye on Christ. In three swift movements, which encompass time and eternity, Peter lays the groundwork for us to fix our eyes on future grace. And when you hear me talk about, or the other pastors talk about, or you see in the Bible, future grace, I don't want you to think distant future. I want you to picture yourself standing in a river, and the water is coming toward you. And you can see, not very far off, a package floating down the river, heading directly towards you. You can see it. You can see the distance that's being spanned. You can see it moving closer to you. This is that future grace. It is just several yards away. It's almost there. That's what I want us to picture as we think of this future grace. And these three truths are listed for you in your notes, and we could summarize them as follows. Verses 3 to 5 of 1 Peter, a promised provision. Verses 6 to 9, a proper perspective. And verses 10 to 12, a privileged position. A privileged position. This whole section, indeed this whole book, is rich food for our souls. It's fuel for our minds and it enlivens and invigorates and causes our hearts to exult with joy. It all flows in seamlessly to this joyful, holy, happy obedience as we're drawn into Christ to pursue Him. Not a list of rules of things that we want to do But those are off limits. Not a list of commands of things we'd rather not do, but we know we have to. That's not the Christian life. That's a form of legalism. The Christian life has no room for fake it till you make it. The Christian life is about a changed heart. And with that changed heart, there's a changed nature. We are new creatures in Christ. And when He recreates us, everything changes. Have you ever noticed when God first saved you, the joy that you had? You could scarcely think of anything else. My sin, not in part but the whole, my sin has been nailed to the cross. I don't carry that burden anymore. I have Christ. I have His Spirit. And there is a joy that permeates through your entire being to where all the problems of life seem almost like a dream. They don't touch. You see them, you know they're real, but they don't penetrate into your heart. And then God removes serious habitual sin from your life like that. Maybe you don't even desire it anymore. Maybe it was what it was for me. I had a lot of anger and I had a very foul mouth. And instantly he took that away. And when I would find myself in situations, because I got saved in prison, where I would want to push to say something I did before, my conscience was reactivated. And I knew before it came out of my mouth that it was wrong. And I was just so ecstatic. And I thought that all of sanctification would be like that. And I quickly found out, no. And of course, there's poor discipleship in prisons. So you hear a lot of let go, let God kind of stuff, which is not in the Bible. And that doesn't work. He said, no. If by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live. And so this is food to encourage you. This is fuel to motivate that pursuit of Christ and holiness. Now, recall what we learned last week from Pastor Hornbaker. This is written to exiles, exiles that are scattered across a geographical territory. And one of the things that he pressed in that I hope you spent time considering this week is, do you consider yourself an exile? Do you consider yourself, living here in Clark County, an exile? I'm not talking about you moved from another state. But this earth is not your home. Though you sojourn temporarily here in Clark County, you're homesick. You're homesick for heaven. One of the dangers of living in our world, especially the country in which we live in and the time we live, is the luxury that surrounds us. And I'm sure you found out it makes us comfortable and complacent. And if you haven't found that out, you might need to re-examine your life. Are you too comfortable? What are you reaching out for and seeking? If I just have this, if I get this job, if this stock just goes up a few more points, if I could just get this, if my wife would just respect me, if my husband would just love me, if this, if my kids would just obey me, then, then, then. But all of that is still. looking to things of the earth. And not recognizing that we are exiles in a strange land will inevitably cause us to leave our first love. And it's not just leaving your first love for something ethereal, to where now you have no love. No, it's replaced. Those voids will always be filled. You will love this present world. And ever so subtly, You will find yourself not being homesick for heaven. You will find everything a little bit more and a little bit more challenging as your joy diminishes. You will find yourself wondering, why are you so down? Why did I respond with such a short temper to that person? Why does this bother me and make me angry? I never did before. You've taken your heart and you've set it upon the world. And so now, rather than being conformed to the image of Christ, you're being conformed again to the world, which is not your home. You recall, Lot and Abraham. And they came up on a mountain, they were looking over the plains, and Abraham let Lot choose. And he saw the fertile valley. surrounding Sodom and Gomorrah, and remember, they had to split up because they were so wealthy, they had so much livestock. But the next time we see Lot, he's not sojourning. He's not outside the city on the plains. He's inside the city. But that's not originally where he went. He was going to sojourn outside the city, in the fertile land. But somehow, and I think we know how, we don't know the timeline, but one incremental step after another, he finds himself in the heart of Sodom and Gomorrah. And we see how that impacted not only him, but his family. We start seeking for security in things seen. Our hope and our joy, our happiness, it will diminish because all of these objects diminish. Even if it's your spouse, you're setting a burden upon your spouse that is unbearable. If they are to be the one that fulfills you, you have an infinite hunger. Only Christ can fill that void, because your hunger increases and increases and increases. There's only one that can satisfy, and this is what we were made for, to find our delight and our satisfaction in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now it may seem, or it may not seem obvious at first, but there is a spirit of babble among us, among you, A spirit of Babel. You remember the command was given in Genesis two times, before and after the flood. Be fruitful, multiply, scatter across the earth, rule over it and subdue it. But what did they do in Babel? Hey, let's band together and let's build a tower so that our name may not be lost, so that we won't be scattered. Let's make sure that we're not obedient to the command of Yahweh. And let's make a name for ourselves. And I love the narration there. So God had to come down to see this tall tower that they were building. It was so tall to them, but God had to stoop down to be able to see it. In the very next chapter, just as a side note, we see God call Abram. And what does he say? I will make your name great. It does not depend on the one who runs or the one who wills, but on God who has mercy, calling Abraham out of a pagan land. But for us, there's a spirit of Babel among us. Rather than scattering and subduing all under the authority of Christ, all authority has been given to me, he says. And the command isn't go in Matthew 28, that's actually a participle. Going therefore, because what else would you do? The Lord of heaven and earth, who holds you together by the word of his power, is saying, I have accomplished my mission. My authority has been restored to me. I don't have a lot of authority, I have all of it. Going, therefore, because it's expected, make disciples of all nations. And we see this theme of be fruitful and multiply take on a slightly different direction. As the people of God, those who belong to the church in this church age, we are to be fruitful and to multiply in discipleship as we're going But instead of scattering, going, and subduing everything under Christ's authority, there's a spirit of Babel. We become idle and we integrate. A little this won't hurt you, everything in moderation. And while that's true, a little of most things won't hurt you and aren't bad for you and should be received with thanksgiving and rejoiced over and done to the glory of God, It doesn't stop there, does it? It's not objectively a sin. And so we do it again, again, and again. And we deceive ourselves into thinking that we still have control, that we're using this as a slave, that it hasn't mastered us. And we don't even see the hooks that it has into our souls, into our affections. But consider this, when a king wants his message proclaimed, he doesn't send a group, he scatters heralds. When a man wants his house to be bright, he doesn't gather a bunch of lamps into one spot and light them all up, he spreads them and scatters that light throughout the house. When we're salting a piece of meat, which many of us will be doing this summer with barbecues and other things, Do you just take a handful of salt and drop it all in one pile? You scatter it all over. We are salt. We are light. Not to be salt and light. Christ says that for those that follow after Him, that's what we are. How is your light shining? How is your salt preserving? We are Christ's heralds, we are light, we are salt, and we're sent out under the authority of and for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has all authority. All the world around us is destined for corruption. Everything you see and everything you touch will perish. All the world around us is becoming increasingly defiled. And each generation, oh, this is so bad. Oh, this is so bad. Oh, this is so bad. I'm not trying to say it's good. Where are we looking? All the world around us is fading. Do you feel yourself a stranger here? Not just today, but on Mondays and on Tuesdays and on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, do you feel yourself a stranger here? Or have you become comfortable and complacent, idle and integrating? Are you maturing? Is that homesickness for heaven growing and growing and growing? Because if it's not, it's not remaining neutral. Maybe you have to face yourself and come to that hard reality that you are comfortable here. Far too comfortable. Maybe there was a time when you were homesick. Maybe you've just been beaten down too many times. You stopped looking unto Christ, and you started looking to pastors and other Christians. And over time, you see them fail. You see them fall. And you lose hope because you placed it in man, not in the God-man. Maybe you've said yes, I can do this, yes, to too many idols. And maybe they didn't even start out as idols. But somewhere along the way, and you can't pinpoint it, they became idols for you, good things. But became idols. And maybe you've lost your fire, your zeal, and with it, your joy. And you're just going through the motions, hoping, that God will zap you and maybe it might come back. Loved ones, Peter is speaking to all of you. Peter is speaking to all of you. You, whom we learned last week, you, whom God the Father has loved from before the foundation of the world. You, who have been brought out of darkness into his marvelous light by the Holy Spirit. You who have been washed by the blood of Christ and who have been enlisted among the privileged of all creation as his redeemed ambassadors. And that brings us to our passage. Let's look at the first portion, starting in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and unfading having been kept in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. And I love this. It was really interesting because I was doing the block diagram in Greek of this, and it's like, Peter, just start something, and then goes into this parenthetical rabbit trail, and then comes back and finishes it, and he just keeps doing that. And I was talking with Justin Bieber yesterday, and he said, yeah, like you do. And it clicked. I was like, oh, yeah. Hey, I think I like this guy a little bit more. But when he said that, it really did click. I was like, that's what he's doing. You need to know this, but in order to comprehend it, you need to know this thing too. So I'm going to throw this in there. And then you need to know this, but in order to understand that, you've got to get this too. So I'm going to throw that in there. And that's how he's doing it. Because it really reads, when he's talking about being born again, it says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again. It starts out like the one who, hold on, little rabbit trail, but you need this, according to his great mercy. Now, the other thing that you might find as odd is that Peter's writing to a group of persecuted and suffering Christians, and he doesn't start out with, hey, I understand what you're going through. Hey, I'm sorry you're going through this. My heart is with you, I'm feeling you. He doesn't start out like that at all. He starts out with a blessing. He starts out by having our heads and our hearts brought into praise and worship. And loved ones, this is how we're made firm in the truth. Peter's the guy that loves to say, hey, I'm here to stir you up by way of reminder. Because he knows his Old Testament and he knows that remembering is an act of worship. Remember, remember. I want you to put these blue things on your clothes so that as you walk around, You'll remember. I'm gonna have all of these men circumcised so that every time you need to use the restroom, you will remember to whom you belong. I want you to stack these stones up so every time you're passing through here, you will remember and you will teach this to your children. Remember, remember, remember. And this glorious praise of Peter's begins like a song. And it's so cool the way he structures it, because it's directed to God, The Father of our precious Lord Jesus Christ. So he's going through Christ to get to the Father. He's exemplifying that for us. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. There's so much that we could go, there's actually probably 20 sermons in this. But we have one. Jesus. Joshua. That's what Jesus is. It's Joshua. And I remember the first time when I was translating the book of Hebrews from Greek into English, and you have the section in chapter 4 about Jesus and Joshua. And it was really confusing at first, because it's just Joshua, Joshua, Joshua, Joshua. It's like, whoa, what's going on here? But Joshua means Yahweh saves. Yahweh saves. He's also called Christ, which is Messiah, the anointed one, even as we read today about the servant in Isaiah 49. He's Lord, all authority, heaven on earth, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And not just Lord, but our Lord. He's talking to us. who have willfully and joyfully bowed the knee, recognized in this life the authority and supremacy of Jesus Christ. What a glorious provision that is, that God has given to us, that we would be able to anticipate this great joy of the visible exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there are some of you here that will not share that same joy, because you're outside of Christ. And that day when Christ does come, and you do bend the knee, and against your very own will, your mouth opens to herald Jesus Christ is Lord, that will be an angry or fearful time for you. But for those of us who are in Christ, this is a beautiful anticipation of ours. Because we know when that day comes, Christ will be making all things right. Now when God blesses us, He's conferring something to us. We're getting something that we didn't have before. Something for our good, something we lacked. But when we bless God, we're not giving Him anything or adding anything to Him. Like when we give glory to God, we're not saying, I know you've got a lot of, you've got like seven gallons of glory right now. Here's another pint of glory. No, we're ascribing to Him, we're recognizing it, we're declaring this affectionate truth about Him. And it's upon our receipt of divine knowledge that we then in turn respond with praise, blessing, honor, glory. And notice, we've already been primed to praise God in the first two verses, haven't we? Peter speaks of the believer's divine election in three ways. He says, you were elected on the basis of the Father's foreknowledge. Now, what does that mean? It's not foreseeing events of the future. A lot of people, for whatever reason, I think I know, it's because they conform the scripture to their theology, they make it fit what they want it to say. We'll say this is God looking down the corridors of time. He knows the future. He knows that you're going to choose him and chooses you on that basis. Pastor Hornbaker did a good job showing that's God taking counsel and he's learning and then responding. But if we look even at verse 20, we see that Christ was known and loved before creation. So how does that work? Before creation, before time, God looks down the corridors of non-time. to know Christ and to see that Christ, who is eternal, loves him? No, no, no, no. This is a relational term. In 1 Corinthians 8, verse 3, it's so helpful. It's a little harder to find because you don't see that phrase explicitly, but you see the concept. And you see a cognate of it. It's like a sister word. Instead of known before, it's just known. But it's used in a certain tense so that it's an action that happened in the past and the effects continue to the present. And he says this, but if anyone loves, present tense, if anyone is loving God right now, that person has already been known by Him and is continuing. We love because He first loved us. this is a prior intimacy of knowledge this foreknowing and the second way that we see about our election is by means by means of the holy spirit separating us unto holiness and then the third that we saw is we're elected for a purpose we're elected unto obedience and cleansing in and by the lord jesus christ knowing that grace from and peace with, as he concludes verse 2, God will continually increase in our life. May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Isn't this more than enough to flood our hearts with praise for a thousand lifetimes had we the opportunity? These three truths But Peter doesn't stop here because God is an overflowing fountain of goodness. And so we have revealed for us even more blessings for our soul to feast upon. And they all are flowing. Directly from our father's heart. And they're all flowing from his heart through his Son. And they're all flowing from his heart through his Son, and effectually applied to us, united to us, made part of our Constitution by his Holy Spirit. Now let's look at these together. In breathtaking fashion, Peter shows us this cascading effect. He says, the one who has caused us to be born again according to his great mercy. Now we've spent a number of weeks going over this doctrine of being born again, the new birth, being a new creature, regeneration. And so I commend those sermons to you just from a few weeks ago. But I'm compelled to remind us here today that no one is born a Christian. None of us are born Christians. We're all born in Adam. We're all born guilty. We're all born dead in our sin. We're all alienated from the life of God. And we're all born with hearts of stone. In fact, we're born at enmity with God. He is an enemy to us. We are enemies to him upon our birth. Because every single one of us that's born in Adam, we're born under the fatherhood of Satan. Stop and think about that for a moment. When you were born, when your children are born, when your grandchildren are born, when your parents were born, when Cain and Abel were born, all the way until now, every single one of us is born under the fatherhood and the authority of Satan. And we go straight into the kingdom of darkness from birth. And all of us, as a result, are children of God's wrath because of the enmity. And everything that flows out of our being is despicable to God. Now, you may recognize parts of this. Undoubtedly, some of you don't like it and don't agree with it because you don't like it, not because it's not true. because you don't like the concept, which means you're still placing yourself as the authority. But you may make many reforms in your life because you may see some of these sins. And for whatever reason, you make reforms in your life. You may learn decorum, morality. I need to tame my tongue a little bit more. I need to be a little bit more responsive and nice and pleasant. I'm going to learn various forms of kindness and generosity. And you may even curtail all signs of visible sinful fruit in your life. But at the core, even with 10,000 lifetimes to do those things, at the core, you're still wicked. At the core, you're still wicked, you're still corrupt, you're still sinful, you're still evil, you're still villainously opposed to the lordship of Jesus Christ. You must be born again. You don't even get to see the kingdom unless you're born again. You don't have control over being born again. But your dead heart must be regenerated. You must be transformed into life by a work that only God can do. You have to have someone outside of you come and breathe new life into your soul. You must be changed, or you will surely die in your sin. Despite your best efforts, run as you might, Labor as you might will as you might. Apart from this rebirth, when you die. Your soul will go into prison. Until that final judgment, when you will be cast into eternal conscious torment with a body fit to never deteriorate under that and a heart that it now can never be regenerated. There's only one who brings about this change, but you're not worthy of it, and you don't deserve it. There's only one who can bring about this change, but you have nothing of value by which to bargain with the Almighty. There's nothing that you can give to Him. And when you die in your sin, unregenerate, His eye will not pity you, not in the least, When the last drop of sand from your hourglass falls, the hourglass of your life, God's patience and all the mercies and all the grace that you've experienced in this life will be washed away and whisked away in a flash, and pure and perfect justice will be poured down your throat straight into your soul, and you will feel the wrath of the Almighty God. If you're outside of the life and lordship of Jesus Christ, you have no hope, you're still dead in your sin. And though you may, from time to time, turn your bed into an ocean of tears, your sins will remain, along with God's wrath. There's no tears that you can cry. that can wash away your sins. Only the blood of the resurrected Jesus Christ is able to take away sins. Esau sought repentance with tears, and it availed him nothing. If you're outside of the life and lordship of Jesus Christ, you must suspend every pursuit in your life. Every plan that you have, Every pursuit, every endeavor must be placed on hold at a minimum, because you must be born again. You must be born again. But this isn't all Peter has to say. Peter goes on to reveal that the basis of our new birth is the great mercy of our Father. And then he gives us, underneath that, three results behind our new birth, and they're inseparably linked, and they cascade into each other. And they're these, these three results. Born again, so that with the purpose and the goal that we would have a living hope. Born again, so that we would have an inheritance. Born again, so that we would have a full salvation. And this is very clear in the original by the way he structures it and it's coming right out of the text Born again to a living hope To an inheritance And then it's the same word. It's not four in verse five. It's unto just like it is in verses three and four unto a salvation So that's where i'm getting this from And what Peter does is he's expanding, as we said, on each one of these, as he's also advancing them and connecting them together and showing how they're interrelated. It's really fascinating. So what I want us to do is let's savor these rich truths together right now, and let's unpack a little bit as we're able. The basis of our new birth, and then we'll get into the three results. The basis of our new birth. It's the great mercy of God. Now, we would expect something else, wouldn't we? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has caused us to be born again. Many people would want it to say, according to your faith, because of your faith. But he doesn't say that. That's not something that's said in scripture. In fact, we remember from 1 John 5, 1 that faith is actually a fruit of regeneration. If you are presently believing, it's because you have already in the past been born of God, and that new birth continues. And the fruit of it is that you're exercising faith. But there's perhaps no word So sweet to the ear of us born dead in our sin into the kingdom of darkness, children of Satan, as even Jesus says to the Pharisees, you are of your father, the devil. Because there's only two families. What word would be so sweet for traitors like us to hear? No other word but mercy. Mercy from the one who has the power and the authority to grant that mercy. And that's exactly what we find here. Mercy. You must be born again. You need the mercy of God. You cannot do this in your own strength. You cannot make yourself worthy. You have nothing that I want. You have nothing of value. You are a pauper. And you have rebelled against an angry king. You've already burned that bridge in Adam, and your life has just been spent glorying in the fact that that bridge is burnt by willfully sinning against God. You've rejected His authority in every area of your life and placed yourself there. You've cursed His name daily on account of your rebellion. And one of the most basic things of all that we would never do to another human We neglect to thank Him. We neglect to thank Him for His manifold provisions in your life. And I know that because you're still here and you're still breathing. And you're borrowing His breath. And every time you borrow something, and don't give it back, but use it, that's called stealing. At best, you've ignored the glorious and majestic one, at best. And why did you ignore him? Because you have a throne and you have a kingdom, you have a battle that you want to build in your own name, according to your own ways, according to your nature, according to your desires, according to your affections. Maybe you don't want a huge kingdom, but you just want one that's all yours. But what beautiful melody does this apostle sing to us in these opening verses? Mercy, mercy. Even though with each breath we've been sucking in the mercy of God, this is a different kind of mercy that he's giving. This is greater in degree and extent. He's the God who dispenses an abundance of mercy because he's the God of great mercy. Think about that. I don't think we comprehend. We say, yeah, great mercy, okay, I get a lot of mercy. It would be easier to drain this planet of all the water and then use that water to seek to blot out the light of the sun than it would be to diminish a fraction of God's mercy. This is the extent of how great His mercy is towards sinners. Consider for a moment some of God's other relations to us, some of His other attributes, as they would meet with us apart from this mercy. Since we're by nature sinners, His justice condemns us, and rightfully so. His holiness, His moral purity and separateness from sin would despise and abhor us. His power in that state would crush us, His truth does nothing more than confirm our damnation, and in time, His wrath will fulfill it. It's only the free mercy of God that changes our disposition. We are beggars, and when we go and we proclaim to others the good news of Jesus Christ, all we are is one beggar telling another beggar where he can find bread. We were defiled with a copious debt of sin and our souls were there placed in the guillotine. Executioner at the ready and nothing but the free mercy of a benevolent God stayed out our rightful execution. As it is proclaimed, mercy. From the king of kings. Mercy on that sinner. Mercy free. And unbounding. What's more, He's a God that delights in mercy. So if you're here and you're outside of Christ, why? Why should you leave this place sorrowful and dead when there is a God who abounds in mercy and delights to show mercy? Why would you not, even in this very moment, repent? Come to Him, humble yourself, and say, God, I know You are a God of mercy. I know I cannot do this on my own. I know only You can. I know I must be born again. I know I don't deserve it. I've done nothing to earn this whatsoever. But I know You, You are rich in mercy. You are a God that delights to show mercy. And so would You please, though I don't deserve it and though You don't have to do it, but for the glory of Your great name, for the glory of Your mercy, would You please, Have pity on me. Now for those whom God has caused to be born again by this great mercy, let's look at those three results. Result number one, born again so that we have a living hope. This is just beautiful. Not an empty hope. Not a fleeting hope. Not a transitory, temporary hope, no. Though our existence on earth is transitory, our hope is secure. Hope is a confident expectation. This isn't a wish like we use it today. This is a confident expectation. Though we're exiles here, we have a home. And on that day we will be welcomed, arms wide open. Well done, good and faithful slave. Enter into the joy of your master. Our hope is living. Because it's grounded in the work and the life in the person of Jesus Christ and he is living never to die again And note this it says through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead This isn't unique to peter paul says in first timothy one paul an apostle of christ jesus according to the commandment of god our savior and of christ jesus who is our hope Our hope is embodied in this person. Despite every trial, despite every temptation, every sorrow, every failure, every loss, every battle, every distress, every affliction, this hope does not change. This hope remains a living hope for us. We may lose friends. We may lose family. We may lose health. We may even lose Life itself. But you cannot lose this hope. You cannot lose this hope. It's impossible. You may be stripped of your titles. You may be stripped of your good name. You may be stripped of your bank account, your freedoms. You can strip everything away from the Christian, but you cannot strip him of his living hope in Christ. This hope is the anchor. of our souls. Think about that picture, an anchor of our souls. Though darkness may surround us so that we cannot see anything and all we can feel is being tossed to and fro by the waves, the anchor holds us secure and we will not drift. Though the waves should thrash about us and move us here and there roughly and violently, the anchor holds us so that we will not be lost. And those storms should keep other ships from seeking to come alongside and to bring us aid, whatever may befall us. Still this anchor holds. And so I want to encourage every one of us as soldiers of Christ, take heart. Take heart, soldier of Christ. Let there not be any tears that fall from your eyes that are not saturated with this living hope, because we still will feel pain. We will be sorrowful, yet rejoicing. Don't have that sorrow unto death. Don't weep as those who have no hope. Let every tear that you have Because of your grief, because of the pain, because of your suffering and obedience to Jesus Christ, let it be saturated with this living hope, fresh in your minds. Think about this. Already the sun is setting on our lives. The battle is almost over. Someone else will come and take the torch unless the Lord returns. If you stop right now and you rub your eyes for a second and you look, you can see the finish line. And if you look just behind the finish line, you can see Christ standing there in His glory with arms outstretched, ready to receive you. This is how close you are to finishing this race. He's calling to you. My son, my daughter, finish the race. Finish the race. Don't quit. Don't give up. I'm here. You're almost there. You're almost there. Result number two, born again so that we have an inheritance. Peter just marches onward and gives us these results of God's provision as they're multiplying and multiplying. He reminds us God's caused us to be born again unto a living hope and unto an inheritance. An inheritance. Peter lays out four facets of this inheritance. Four facets of this inheritance. Number one, it's incorruptible. Incorruptible. What does that word mean in Greek? It means incorruptible. It's impervious to any kind of corruption and or death. It's not able to be corrupted. You're not going to wake up one day, as you might have done as you look at your stocks or your portfolios, and go, it's gone. No moth will destroy, no rust will destroy, Nothing can touch this inheritance because if you look through the scriptures you see God is the gloriously incorruptible one, Romans 1.23. That we have been born again of incorruptible seed because we come from that incorruptible one, 1 Peter 1.23. And we run with the hope of receiving an incorruptible crown, 1 Corinthians 15.52. And so Paul is able to say, in no uncertain terms, no sleight of hand, no trickster is Paul. He says, therefore we do not lose heart. But though our outer man is decaying, undergoing corruption, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. Second, it's undefiled, unstained, unpolluted. Have you ever thought about that? You must have no more stain of sin. No more stain of sin and inheritance that you will receive from this living hope of eternal life where there's no stain of sin. Can you imagine? Every word will be pure. Every affection will be pure. Every desire will be pure. Every time you sing. It will be pure and holy and beautiful. Not a shadow of sin. All our worship will be pure. All our thoughts will be clean. All our relationships spotless. Every one of our hearts sinless. Third, it's unfading. This is a really cool word. It's used of a mythical flower that never wilts, but always is in full bloom. So picture your most favorite, most attractive flower in full bloom. Picture it, see it, the vibrancy of the color, the beauty of it, the size, the shapes that it brings about, the way the light dances off of it as you lean in to smell it and the richness of the smell. And know, know that your beauty will exceed the beauty of that flower more than when the sun comes out and it expels the light from all the stars because of its radiance. And it's because of this inheritance. It will not fade. It will not fade. And then fourth, it is secure. It is secure. It says, having been kept in heaven for you. This is a blood-bought inheritance, loved ones. It's already been and still is preserved. It has been and continues to be preserved. God's watching over it, literally, for your benefit. So that His promise will remain, so that it will not be corrupted, it will not be lost, because He's holding on to it. Think about, if you knew of some precious jewels that were kept in the cabinet of a king somewhere, you would go, those must be so precious, that He keeps them safe and secure in the heart of His castle. Our God and Father keeps this precious jewel safe and secure, perfect for each one of us. He will not suffer you to lose it. He will not. His name is on the line. And not only does the passage say that he's preserving our inheritance, which is gloriously wonderful and far beyond anything that we deserve. First Peter 1.5, he says, you who are the ones who are protected by the power of God through faith. Your inheritance is safe. It is secure. It's not going to fade. It's not going to be defiled. It's not going to diminish in any way. It can't be corrupted in any way. And you're also being protected. Right now. Your whole life. God's hand has been on you even when you were a child of wrath outside of Christ. He was protecting you. He was working all things together for your good to bring you to that point when he would say, now, this is the time. And he sends his spirit to unite that word into your heart to give you life. And until you reach that inheritance, still, He is and will be guarding over you. This is a military term, this protecting. It's a military term. Think about that. The God who never sleeps, the God who never grows tired or weary, actively guards you with His immeasurable power. And as we've learned in weeks past, this is the power that even death and the devil had to submit to when God used it to raise Jesus Christ from the dead, and it's being used to protect you. to keep you so that you won't be lost. This is the God of whom David boasts. He prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies. Have you ever thought and meditated on that passage? You don't have a table meal on the battlefield. That's not something you do. You bring a sack lunch and you eat when you can, but not God. He wants to flaunt His power and to show His protection over you. And so He prepares, as David says in his boast, a table for me so that I can sit, meditate on Him, relish in His provision and His security, even while I'm surrounded by enemies. Because what can mere man do to me? I belong to the one that upholds their very life at this moment. This is why Paul boasts, and we should boast with him. For I know in whom I have believed, and I'm convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. Some of you, faint of heart, A little hesitant, maybe wondering, exactly how is it though that God will keep us? But didn't we already read it? Didn't you already see? He says, through faith. Through faith. This is the beauty of sound doctrine. God is the agent. He is the omnipotent general. It's by His power He orders all aspects of creation, all of His providence to fall out for your good. And the instrument that He uses to keep us and to secure us is faith. Because He works it in us. This is going to help make so much more sense of the rest of the passage too. And you'll recall this, Peter, Satan has requested to sift you like wheat. You told him no, right? No, I didn't. I'm going to let him do it. But I've got something better. I prayed for you so that your faith would not fail. You're going to grow through this, Peter. It's going to be glorious. You're not going to fall away. I won't let you. Peter's faith faltered, but it never failed. And neither will yours, Christian, because you're being protected by God. He will cause you to persevere. He's not gonna remove the trials. Stop asking. He's gonna cause you to persevere. Do you see how we can live boldly in any situation? It doesn't matter if it's sickness or if it's slander. Not fearing men, not fearing the devil, but with stout conviction, singing from our souls, I'm confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in me will bring it unto completion in the day of Christ Jesus. I know this. I sing this. This is true. Result number three. born again so that we have a full salvation. God has caused us to be born again unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. So even when your candle of faith begins to dim, and you even see smoke lift up, it's expired. Look to Christ. Look to Christ, your champion, and remember who He is, and remember the power that He has and the ministry He has. A bruised reed He will not break, In a smoking wick, he will not extinguish. He will breathe life back into it because he will not allow your faith to fail. Peter experienced that in his life. And rather than telling you about the experience, he's telling you about the Christ behind that experience that kept him. Because he doesn't want you just to say, that's really cool that that happened to you, Peter, but this is what God does for his children. And this isn't just any salvation that he's talking about here. As Pastor Hornbaker talked about last week, there's different kinds of salvation and degrees to salvation. But this is one that is ready. That's a really cool word. It's been prepared for a certain purpose. to be revealed, to be made known in the last time. So what he's saying is God's not just going to see you safely through this life to where you die and you get to heaven, because there's more to salvation than that. There's a resurrection from the dead, some perishable, some imperishable, some to life, some to death. There's a sheep-goat judgment that will take place while Christ will divide all of humanity into two groups, destruction and living hope realized. That final salvation of having a new body, made under the glorious nature of Christ's human body. That's the full salvation, ushered into the new heavens and to the new earth. That's ready. You see now why Peter says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is not a glorious God. Worthy of our praise. Worthy of our trust. worthy of our hearts and our allegiance and our adoration. These truths should be springing up within you even now. And you should have renewed hope, ready to conquer any situation, because Christ will not leave you or forsake you. He will not leave you as orphans. He will come to you. He has given you His Spirit. You will not be lost. He's given you His Word. Unite that with His Spirit and be filled with it in your inner being. Armed with this helmet of salvation. The pastor Martin Luther wrote about a time that he was sorely vexed and tried by his own sinfulness, by the wickedness of the world, and by all the dangers and attacks that beset the church. And one morning, he saw his wife, Katerina, dressed all in black, dressed all in mourning. And he was really surprised, because he knows what's going on in the life of the church, of which he's an undershepherd. And he says, Katie, who died? And she said, do you not know? God in heaven is dead. And Luther retorted, Katie, how can you talk such nonsense? How can God die? He's immortal and will live through all eternity. Katie asked him, is that really true? Luther replied, of course that's true. And yet, she said, though you do not doubt that, yet you are so hopeless and discouraged. Luther realized then the contradiction of his belief with his behavior, and overcame, by God's grace, his anxiety. In light of these beautiful truths that we've just looked at, and we've only had time to scratch the surface, are you living your life in a contradiction? Are you taking situations and problems that are temporary, that are of this earth, and placing them up on the altar of your heart that belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. Friends, we have to repent. There's forgiveness with Him. We have to put this living hope, this inheritance, this ready final salvation back where it belongs by placing Christ back on the throne of our hearts. Well, this promised provision in 3-5 leads into and causes us to have a proper perspective, verses 6-9. 1 Peter 1, 6-9. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And though you have not seen him, You love him, and though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls. What a rich, beautiful section. So when he says in verse six, in this, It's because of this. What's this? It's the whole promise provision that we just covered. It even includes his introduction. It's a bracket. In light of all of this and because of all of this, y'all, because it's plural, y'all greatly rejoice. This word is exalt, you're overjoyed. It's used about feeling extreme happiness. But notice this. I want to make this explicit. It's not a command. He's not commanding everybody to exalt. It's a statement of fact. It's a reality that wells up from within. That might strike you as a little odd, but stop, think, and feel with me for a moment. as we barely exposed some of these beautiful truths from three to five. You felt joy, didn't you? You felt the joy that you didn't have when you first walked in. I could see it on your faces. A slight smile with a slight tear in your eye, balancing and weighing out the sorrows and the joys, and the joys taking control within your heart as you're looking unto Christ. I saw it. Did I command you to feel that? Did anybody command you to feel it? No, you just did. It was natural. All you had to do was see Christ. All you had to do was see the living hope. And it's natural. It happens within you. You just had to push away all the fog and all the shams of life. And then this stream of eternal happiness floods into your soul as you look in the love and the provision of your father through his son. Peter knows this. Peter knows this. He gets us. And he loves us. And more than that, he loves Christ. So he reminds us. So he reminds us. And see? what he says works. It's the same kind of concept that Paul goes through. We read we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day, because our momentary light affliction is working out for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, because when we do that, We're going to fall into despair. It's going to suck the joy right out. But we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen. Because one's temporal, and one's eternal. We see this same kind of concept exhibited by the prophet Habakkuk. Later today, read through that short book of Habakkuk. It's only three chapters. And if you read through it, Especially when you get to that third chapter he starts out and he's telling God this isn't I kind of need to do your business I'm gonna help you God Then he gets corrected He says I heard in my inward parts trembled because God's saying Destruction is coming Destruction is coming which is not dissimilar to what we have to look forward to here in this earth. I My inward parts tremble at the sound of my lips tingled. Decay enters my bones, and in my place I tremble, because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no produce on the vines, and though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields yield no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, though everything that's supposed to be working for my good does not work for my good as it ought, and though everything that my livelihood is based upon should fail, yet I will exult in Yahweh. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation, because He's placed my feet Like Heinz feet. He is my strength. He makes me tread on high places. He's the one that keeps me safe. He's the one that keeps me secure. And so what Peter's doing here is he's not calling us to some kind of willful blindness. He's not saying, hey, don't worry about anything that goes on in this earth. That's not what he's saying. He's not encouraging us to close our eyes to the world around us. He's not even minimizing the pain and the suffering that we experience. No, He's not doing that. What He's doing is very practically helping us to have a proper perspective. We're redeemed people. We live between two worlds. One, we're here by necessary consequence for the glory of Christ. One, we want to be in, and our hearts and our affections are set upon, and we're growing towards that place. So it's easy for us to lose sight of the goal. It's easy for us to become discouraged when we get too caught up in the here and now. You've been there. I know you've been there. Maybe you wake up late, didn't get a good night's sleep, something, you've got a lot to do that day. and the pressure of having to do all of those things, or the importance of whatever it might be, and you skip communion with God. But you promise you'll do it later in the day, but you don't, and you never do. And you tell yourself, if I don't do it now, it's not going to happen. No, it will this time. But it never does, does it? Unless it's just a little touch and go to try and ease your conscience. You may even walk away going, that was so amazing, I love that. What would you learn? I was reading the Bible and just had a great time. With what? And when we take our eyes off, we forget God's design and His purpose and His goal for us. Now listen to me very carefully. This is something that you need to learn and practice every day, every single one of us. This doesn't just come, hey, right when you need it, let go and let God. It's gonna zap us. No. Your joy and the glory of Christ through your witness depend upon it. And when you set Christ before you in truth by exposing the truth in His Word and meditating on those truths in His Word, He's all satisfying, is He not? Does He not satisfy us? To where certain sins that otherwise might pull us, might occupy our thoughts, appear ugly, grotesque, because my soul is satisfied. Now, what Peter does is he says, let's practice. I want you to hold on. to what we just saw in 3-5 with that living hope and that inheritance, that final salvation. I want you to hold on to that, that savoring of what the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished for you. And now let's look again at 1 Peter 1-6, and notice these two worlds coming together. In this, all of this, you greatly rejoice, even though now you've been grieved by various trials. but it's only for a little while. You've been grieved, you've been sorrowful, you've been made to experience pain, but not physical pain of the soul more than anything, but physical pain is involved in there at times, as caused by manifold, various trials and tests. But this pain, so I say stop saying, take it away. This pain is part of this age, because this is part of the curse. Our word here, Sorrowful, grieved, pain. Goes all the way back to Genesis 3. Then to Adam God said, because you've listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you, and here's our word, in pain you will eat of it all the days of your life. Until the curse is reversed, that's part of our life. Now, think about that. You're not a child of wrath anymore. You've been shown abundant mercy. You've been given a hope to look forward to now also. He's taken care of everything behind, He's taken care of everything in front, and He's protecting and preserving you right now. There's no stinginess. There's no cruelness. It's only mercy upon mercy upon mercy that we've been shown. So don't allow that little temptive thought to enter into your heads. Could God take that away? Yes, He could. Did He? No, He didn't. So what does He want me to do about it? He wants me to glorify Him in the midst of it and put His name on display. That's what He wants. And it's for my good, because no good thing does He withhold from those who love Him and who walk righteously. And think about this. Why would you continue to look on things of this earth when you've done that so many times? Things of this age, to try and feel your joy, and it never works. Oh, I'm going to go do that, I'm going to get a boba, or I'm going to get this, I'm going to play this game, I'm going to watch this movie, this song is going to help me, whatever it is. But it never has lasting effect. Never. Note also that these trials, these tests, what are trials and tests? Examinations. They're exams. You're in Christ's schoolroom. They're seeking to ascertain the true nature of something. That's the idea behind it. Testing to ascertain the true nature of something. Of what? The purpose is given in verse 7. So that the proof, that word proof, That's the purpose. The genuineness of an item as the result of having been tested. That's what that word proof means. The genuineness of an item as the result of having been tested. He says that's what's done with gold, which is the most precious earthly item at that time. But he says that's what's done with faith, which is more precious. And then later he'll get into the purchase price, which is more precious than gold, the blood of Christ. Gold, he says, is perishable. And what he's not saying, but the thrust of it is saying, your faith is not perishable. If we do this with gold, which is perishable, to test it, why would not our good God do that with our faith, which is not perishable? You could mess up and lose some of your gold in the testing. You're not going to lose your faith. You're not going to lose your faith. Tested by fire. The idea behind this is drawing a conclusion of the worth or value on the basis of this testing. So there's all these words for examination, for testing, for looking for the genuineness and authenticity, and it's used in military settings. Like David, when he's going to fight Goliath, and Saul says, Before you go in there, first of all, what great discernment and wisdom, right? You're gonna let a kid go out there you don't even know? It's the king you want. He gives him his armor. And what does David say? I can't take this into battle, I have not tested them. God is making sure that our faith is battle-tested. He's making sure that it's battle-tested. So that he can say, and that we can ask, and that we can grow in, is this trustworthy? Is this genuine? Okay, re-examining this trial I just went through, where are the flaws? What are the weaknesses? Where did I fail? Where did I falter? This is all part of growing. In any area of life, we do this, don't we? It's what coaches do in sports. They're not just there to go, hey, yeah, great job, yeah, yeah, oh, no, yeah, you're perfect. Hey, you're doing this wrong, you need to do it this way. You did this wrong, you need to do it this way. You did this right, but you can do it better. And they're going and they're helping you excel. That's what trials are doing. They're our coaches. They're our schoolmasters to lead us into conformity of Christ. They're good things for us. And we want to embrace them as such. Because we're being grown in Christ. And think about it. We already have a living hope. We already have an inheritance that's secure. We already have a salvation that's ready. It's ready to be revealed. We're just waiting on the time. Notice the phrase that I skipped in verse 6. If necessary. These trials only come if they're necessary. If you need your faith to be built up or to grow in a certain area, you'll get a trial. But God's not just going to throw a purposeless trial your way. He doesn't do that. God is extremely efficient in the way that He works. You ever look back on God's providence and realize, that one event in my life caused this cascading event of results throughout my life? I can see how this ties back to that and this ties back to that. And I never knew that in the moment. But the more I reflect on His providence, the more that I see it. There are no purposeless trials in the life of the Christian. Not one. They're only when it's necessary to grow us, to look more like Christ, so that we can be assured that we will take hold of that inheritance. It's part of the plan. So if we brought all this together, we can see and learn six truths about trials that Peter gives us, and I would encourage us to hide these away in our hearts so that we can be faithful, Christ-honoring soldiers in battle, while at the same time feeding our souls and being satisfied in Christ because of the battle. Number one, they are short in duration. a little while. Number two, they're only part of this age, now, for a little while. Number three, they're going to come in all shapes and sizes, various manifold trials. Number four, they're necessary according to our loving and merciful Heavenly Father. Number five, they prove the authenticity, the genuineness of our faith. You want that, don't you? Because when the non-believers going through trials, what happens? I don't want this. I thought the Christian life was going to be like XYZ. I don't want this. This isn't what I signed up for. But those that are in Christ will persevere. We're still looking towards the goal. Yes, we fail. Yes, we fall down. Yes, we sin. But we continue the pursuit of Christ. And that is a sure sign that God is preserving your faith, and that your faith is genuine. That you're not just sprouting up on rocky soil, really excited, really quick, and then you die away at the trial. But He preserves you, and you're growing through the trials. You're bearing fruit. You're bearing fruit week by week, month by month, year by year. You can look back and see, I see Christ more clearly. I love him more. I have less of an affection for things of this earth. I can't wait to go home. Your fruit is growing. And six, the suffering that these trials generate will have eternal and incomparable results. Look at what he says, result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. This is not praise, glory, and honor to God. Yes, we give that to God, but that's not what this passage is teaching. This is ours. Think about that. This is our praise, glory, and honor that Christ will confer upon us. This is Peter's way of saying, well done. Good and faithful slave. You have been faithful with a little. I will put you in charge of much. Enter into the joy of your master. This is his way of saying that. Those words we long to hear. And then in 1.8, it reads a little different than you may have. I'll show you what Peter's doing. Because there's no and there. It's in whom. At the end of 1.7, Peter is saying, look, you have this forward look to receiving your inheritance and entering into the joy of your master, Jesus Christ, with praise, glory, and honor that he's going to confer upon you for what he's worked in you. But then the beginning of verse 8, he switches to present. Christ is not seen by his audience with their physical eyes. Peter saw Christ. And he recognizes what it's like to not see and believe in the importance of that. So Peter says at the end of 1-7, Jesus Christ, beginning of 1-8, whom you have not seen. You haven't seen him at all with your eyes. And we can't but help and be reminded of a certain disciple, can we? Thomas. And Jesus said to him, because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are those who did not see and yet believed. And that's these people. And that's us. Now again, here in verse 8, as in 1-6, this joy, this exaltation, rejoicing with joy, it's not a command. It's a fact. It's just the result of beholding the beauty and the glory of Christ. That's what it does to us. Now imagine if we spent our days and our waking moments and all the little side moments that we had, fixing our eyes and our gaze upon the glory of Christ, meditating upon his word, pulling out these truths and rolling them over in our head. And the joy that we've experienced in this short time together will grow and grow and grow. So rather than taking one step forward and three steps back, we'll be taking three steps forward, one step back. Three steps forward, one step back. Growing. These believers that Peter's talking to and about, and by extension us also, because we fall into that same category, they haven't seen Christ, but they continually love Him. And then he says, you're not seeing Christ now. but they're continually exercising faith. Now notice, when we tie these three things together that we've looked at from verse 3 on, we have faith, hope, and love, don't we? We have faith, hope, and love, not laid out the same way Paul does, but faith, hope, and love nonetheless. And what do they produce? Even in the midst of fiery trials, you rejoice with joy inexpressible. and full of glory. There's a weight to this joy. It's not passing. Not like how we tend to use the word happiness or wish, where it's fleeting. There's a weight to it. This happiness, we feel, and it lasts, and it's heavy upon us, and it pushes out the pains of grief. There's no room for the pains of grief. We're still grieving, but it doesn't get to our soul. We're learning to live between two worlds. Because it's our same word from 1-6, exalt overjoyed, feel extreme happiness. Why do they have this experience? How can you have that great of joy that's even inexpressible? I can't even put words to it. I'm just so elated. And not on circumstances or happenstances, but because of Christ's truth from his word. How can they have this? Even though, as we'll see, they're suffering unjustly. They're suffering for doing the right thing by a government that's supposed to protect them. Even though life is not treating them fair, even though they're watching their loved ones being picked off and executed and tortured unto death. To give you a perspective of the trials, I'll give you two little snapshots of the emperor at the time, Nero. What he would do with adult Christians is he would take them, and he would impale them, and he would tar them, and he would light them on fire as lamps for his garden parties. Many of them were still alive. What he would do with the children is he would tie them up to a stake, and he would put fur all over himself, put himself in a cage, and have somebody lift the cage, because he'd dress up as an animal, and he'd eat their groins. This is what he did to Christians for fun at the time Peter is writing. Do you go through trials anywhere near that? And how much more ought your joy to be inexpressible and full of glory? It has far less grief and sadness to drive out and to overpower. But even if we do face that, this joy will overpower that grief. Which is why we need to start practicing now. We need to start living this life now. Because with varying degrees of this kind of wickedness, perversity and depravity by the state towards Christians, history always repeats itself. The state is always the one that attacks Christians. And we have certain responsibilities that we don't just get to seek vengeance whenever we want. We leave that to God, and we continue to trust that He's going to work through this, and maybe even bring some of those wicked men to Christ like He did us who are wicked. Make us alive. But they found the ability to rejoice. How could they do this? They had their hope fixed on the promises of God. They had their affections and their love and their trust focused on Jesus Christ. Now, obviously, they were living in the here and now, I mean, you can't experience that kind of pain and just say, well, I'm disconnected from reality. No. But they didn't put their focus on situations. How that kills us so much. And then running over things that we didn't like or ways we were treated in our head over and over. It's not what they did. It's not what Peter did. That's not what we're instructed to do. That's not where the joy is going to come from. It has to be fixed on Christ. This doesn't happen by accident. It is a lifestyle. So even us, Even today, even the world that we live in, we can experience this transcendent joy that words can't express, that's so pure, so unstained by the world, by sin, by earthliness, it's as if we're already in the throne room of God. And then in 1-9, it says, Receiving as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls. There's not only a joy here, but a sure, final, lasting salvation in Christ as the result of that faith, that we take hold of and becomes ours that God is preserving and working in us. Isn't that awesome? He's working it in us to make sure we're not lost and we're taking hold of that faith and we're making it our own. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. This is how we do that. And then finally, He starts with a promised provision, 3 to 5, a proper perspective, 6 to 9, finally a privileged position, 10 to 12. Now concerning this salvation, the prophets, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, made careful searches and inquiries, inquiring to know what time or what kind of time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he was predicting the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow, It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, and these things which have now been declared to you, through those who proclaim the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. So very simply, what he's saying, and if you want to know what some of these things are, you want to stick around for Doctrine and Doxology, because Pastor Hornbaker is going to go over some of these prophecies, but it goes all the way back to Genesis 3.15. There's a seed. That's why we have all these genealogies that you like to skip over in the Bible. Because they're looking for Him. They're fixed on Him. They're waiting for Him. And they're trying to piece together these scriptures and tie them together. And it's the Spirit of Christ within them as they're investigating and searching out and digging into. And the thing we want to notice from this passage is this. They're digging hard. They're laboring over the Word. to try and find out this information about the Messiah that's going to benefit someone else. And if they're laboring this hard for our good, how much more ought we to be laboring for our spiritual good, and those of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and those that if the Lord tarries will come after us. And these are things into which angels long to look. Prophets of old are longing to find this out. Angels are longing to find this out, and you have it. You have it. History, natural, supernatural, all working together, and you have it. What are you doing with it? Are you cherishing and relishing it? Are you rejoicing in it? Or are you saying, I can get another one. I could just repent, my sin will be forgiven. I don't want to be crazy Christian, live radical for Christ or anything like that. I just want to live enough so I don't go to hell. And the sadness and the travesty of that is you will. because you still are Lord of your heart and of your life, because you're doing all of these things for yourself, not for Christ. And so I would say to you, professing Christian, you must be born again. You must be born again. You have to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow after Him, But isn't it beautiful? Isn't it worth it? The sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow and the beautiful aspect of that is there's no more sufferings of Christ other than the sufferings that we do on behalf of the body of Christ. But there are glories, glories to follow. And they're coming at us in this future grace, that if you look just up the stream, you can see it, and you're about ready to take hold of it. Martin Luther was well acquainted with grief, having lost his beloved daughter, Magdalene, when she was just 13 years old. When Luther's friend, Justice Jonas, lost his wife in 1542, he wrote to him with this letter of comfort. Grace and peace in Christ, who is our salvation and consolation, my dear Jonas, I have been so thoroughly prostrated by this unexpected calamity that I did not know what to write. We have all lost in her the dearest of friends, her bright presence, her eye so full of trust, All drew forth our love, especially as we knew that she shared both our joys and sorrows as if they had been her own. The deep longing after one so distinguished by piety, propriety, and amiability makes me weep. Therefore, I can easily imagine your feelings. Temporal consolation is of no avail here. One must look solely to the unseen and eternal. Mourn, therefore, as you have good cause to do, but at the same time, comfort yourself with a thought of the common lot of humanity. Although according to the flesh, this parting has been very bitter, nevertheless, We shall be reunited in the life beyond and enjoy the sweetest communion with the departed as well as with him who loved us so that he purchased our life through his own blood and death. It is very true that God's mercy is better than life. What does it matter though we should suffer a little here when there we shall partake of joy unspeakable? God who has tried you will comfort you now and forever. Amen. There is no substitute for loving, hoping, and trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, but there are benefits that according to his grace and his mercy we receive even now. Let's pray. Father, we come with our hearts lifted and at the same time convicted. Thank you for answering My prayer at the beginning of this sermon for even allowing me to sit under the word and for aiding me in communicating it. Forgive me for not doing it as I ought. Lord, you are magnificent. And you know how to work through broken vessels because that's all that there is. So please work through this one. that each one of us may grow and bear fruit that would remain. Let us be diligent to put into practice this kind of lifestyle that results in joy inexpressible and a joy not transient, not based on things of this earth, but full of glory, pure and undefiled, as if we were in your throne room itself. because in some sense we're already there, because that salvation is already ready. You have caused it to be ready. Cause us not to shrink back, but to look upon Christ and to take hold of the life that is found only in him, knowing that we have this sure and steady anchor, that our souls will never be lost in Christ. And for those who are here who are outside of Christ, O Lord, open the floodgates of your mercy. If they will not humble themselves, Lord, they are rebels, they are sinners. Cause them to be humbled, but glorify your great name through their salvation. And for those who profess to know Christ, but by their deeds deny him, Take away the blindness and the bewitching of self-deception, and let them see before it's too late that they are almost a Christian, but yet not. May your mercy be poured out upon them, and your glory be magnified through their salvation as well. For Christ, our champion, for his kingdom and his glory, amen.