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Well, I'm excited about this year we're going to spend together doing the gospel one chapter at a time. This year, we're going to spend in 1 Peter, and I just love, love 1 Peter. I mean I actually love the whole Bible; but there's something particularly sweet and important about this passage of Scripture for our generation of believers. Maybe I’ll say it this way, I am absolutely convinced you will find yourself in 1 Peter; you'll find your questions in 1 Peter; you'll find your struggles in 1 Peter; you'll find some riches that maybe you didn't know were yours in 1 Peter. In many ways, I think that this little letter is very modern, contemporary. Here's why.

Peter’s writing to Gentiles, Gentiles living in regions; if you put them together are now what we would call, Turkey. And these Christians are suffering. There's no evidence that they're suffering government-decreed persecution or persecution that’s physical. But they're in a place and a culture where their faith is misunderstood, where they're facing religious discrimination, feeling under threat, mocked and verbally abused. And I think that's much like the conditions we're living in now where Christianity is largely misunderstood, not respected, and it feels like it's under threat.

And in that kind of culture, Peter is addressing the question, “What is the most dangerous thing for a Christian living in this kind of culture?” And you would think his answer would be, “Well, it's an increasing threat against Christianity.” That's not his answer. His answer is the most dangerous thing is “identity amnesia.” The most dangerous thing for a Christian living in that kind of culture, the one that we're living in, is that you would forget who you are in Christ and forget what you've been given in Christ, because you haven't just been forgiven, you've been given a brand-new identity. And so, Peter wants you to understand the value, the importance, the radical transforming power of understanding your identity in Christ.

And so, this little letter is marked by ten identity statements:  elect exiles, living stones, holy priesthood, spiritual house, chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation, people for God's possession, sojourners, Christians, then, in Christ. Now, if you want to understand the importance of those, well, 2 Peter, chapter 1, really tells you. Peter is asking the question, “Why are people ineffective and unproductive in their knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? Why don't believers have the full harvest of the fruit of faith in their lives?”

And his answer is, these are interesting words because, “They're near sighted and blind, having forgotten that they've been cleansed from their past sins.” (Paraphrase.) Peter says, “They're not producing fruit that you would expect to be in a life of believer because they've forgotten who they are.” If you're going to live well in this generation, you need to be living out of your new identity in Christ. You need to know who you are, and in knowing who you are, know what you've been given in Christ. I think it's terribly, terribly important.

I'm so excited that we can go through this portion of Scripture that has, as a central theme, this issue of this new identity that is ours in Christ. Peter has a whole lot of other things to say to us, but they're all connected to, “This is who you are as a child of God.” I hope you'll hang in with me for this next year as we work our way through the treasures that are in this little letter.

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Well, I want to read 1 Peter 1:1 and 2, and then tell you what we're going to look at.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 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.

I want to just think of these four awesome blessings of God's grace that Peter wants to root these people in. If someone asked you who you are, what would be the first things you’d say? How would you describe what you're about? How would you describe why you do what you do?

Well, here's Peter’s description. Again, he wants them to know that with this new identity comes these blessings that we have been given between ‘the already and the not yet.’ Now, if you get ahold of these blessings, they can quiet your worry, quiet your fear, quiet your discouragement, quiet your shame, quiet your aloneness, quiet those feelings of being overwhelmed. I have been really sobered in the last couple of years by the amount of my brothers and sisters who are just overwhelmed, who are oppressed with worry, who are discouraged. And I know we've been through hard things. But that's why it's so important to know what you've been given.

The first thing he talks about is God's foreknowledge. Long before the world began, if you’re God's children, listen to what I'm about to say, “Your story was written into God's Book.” He knew you in that way because He chose you in that way. I love this that my little story, the little story of Paul Tripp, has now been embedded in the larger story of redemption.

Now why is that important to understand? It's important to understand so I would live, not just with a ‘My-Story’ mentality, but with a ‘God-Story’ mentality. How does God's story encourage me? How does God's story define me? How does God's story give me a purpose for living? How does God's story give me hope?

He says, “by sanctification of the Spirit.” Wow, wow, wow! We could talk for days about this; that God knew that it was not enough to forgive me because even in forgiveness, there is still sin living inside of me; that He needed to literally unzip me and get inside of me by His Spirit, to not only empower me to do what is right, to progressively defeat sin, and transform me into the image of His Son. That means God is at work doing His work inside of me, even in those days when I don't have the sense enough to recognize it. God's active for your spiritual benefit.

In obedience to Christ that I've been given a purpose. I've had right and wrong defined for me, but not only that, I've been given the power to obey. Think about this. Every command that God has given me is accompanied by His empowering grace. I can live in a new way. I don't have to give way to that old way.

And then by “the sprinkling of blood.” I love this. This is the cleansing power of God's work. Sin is an irremovable stain apart from the cleansing blood. So, I don't have to live in shame. I don't live in fear. I don't have to hide. I don't have to deny my sin. I can run broken and failing as I am and know that there's cleansing for me, there's forgiveness for me. Don't ever resist confession, don't ever resist conviction.

I mean, think about this. I've been written into God's story. God is actively working on transforming me. I've been given an understanding of what is right and the power to do it. And there's cleansing for me until this heart is pure. That's who you are in Christ!

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Well, I would title the first verse of 1 Peter, “The Grace of Being An Exile.” Listen to what his greeting is, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” Now, that probably doesn't jump off the page at you. But Peter wants to start in the beginning saying, “The Christian life, your walk with God, is not just about being forgiven, but it's about being a new person in Christ, having this brand-new identity leading to a new way of living.”

And so, you see that in Peter’s introduction of himself. When we say “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,” it's just so easy to say, “Yeah, right! He was an apostle,” and move on. But think of what is packed into that little phrase. Peter is putting his writing forward, not based on what he's accomplished, not based on what he knows, but he's saying, “Look what I've been given.” I mean, just consider Peter’s story. He was the disciple that just didn't seem to get it right, arrogant, impulsive; and even though he was warned, he ended up denying Christ. Shocking! Shocking moment!

Now, you would think, at that point, Peter is done; he's done. That's the ultimate, to deny your connection to Jesus. But this amazing Savior of forgiveness wasn't done with this man and restored him to Himself and set him on his ministry mission. The last person you think would be an apostle, writing this rich, wise, practical, encouraging gospel, would be Peter. Peter stands as a powerful example of saving, empowering, calling grace. And the authority he is putting forth as an apostle is not his; it's Christ’s. Man, if God can use Peter, there's hope for all of us! How encouraging just that first phrase is.

And then consider Peter’s introduction of his audience. They’re elect exiles; that's us too. Here's part of your identity, “You've been chosen by God to be different.” You've been chosen by God, not to fit in to the secular world, you've been chosen by God to be misunderstood. That's not God turning His back on you; that's God claiming you as His own, separating you out from the mass of humanity by His grace. Sure, you're different, and he says that you're “elect exiles.” That means this is not your final home; life is not about the stuff that you build here. This is a passage to your final home. You have a different citizenship, not just in the kingdom of this world; but you've been invited by grace into the kingdom of God.

You have a different set of values, not my wants, my needs, my feelings. But there's One who has a purpose for me, different goals, and hopes. I mean, the ultimate goal in the Christian life is not my success, and my power, and my affluence, but it's God's glory.

A different set of hopes. You serve a different King. By grace, these Gentiles have inherited the Covenant Promises made to Abraham. And they will never ever be the same! C.S. Lewis says, “If you struggle fitting into this world, perhaps it's because you were made for another world.” Elect exiles!

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So, what we're going to do next is going to take a little bit of explanation. I want to start by reading verses 3 through 9 of 1 Peter, and then make my explanation.

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, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you (greatly) rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 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.

Well, I'll stop there. Verses 3 through 9 are a plot summary of the redemptive story. I'm going to have to say more about that. But before I look at that, I want to pull out three fundamental concepts out of this passage, look at them first; then we're going to look at the plot summary.

The concepts are hope, safety, and faith. I would ask you, “If you had a piece of paper, or you're typing into your phone or whatever, and I asked the question, ‘What is hope?’ What would you write?” In verse 3, he says, “We've been born again into a living hope.” What does that mean? Well, you've been hardwired for hope. That means every day, in some way, you are hooking your hope to something, whether it's your marriage, or your job, or your finances, or your children, or yourself, or your faith. Here's what hope is, hope is a desire, plus an object, plus an expectation.

I want to be successful. So, I put that hope on my boss, with the expectation that he'll be good to me and advance me and my career, that's how hope operates. And what Peter wants us to know is that we have a living hope, we have a hope that's very different than the horizontal hope so many of the things that we hope in horizontally end up failing us in some way. This is a hope that's alive, this is a hope that's active, this is a hope that's productive because it's not the result of your effort, your wisdom, your control, your righteousness. It is the result of God's mercy, you have hope, hear what I’m about say, because God exists, and He's your Father by grace. I’ll say that again, you have hope because you exist, because God exists, and He's your Father by faith. It's sort of like a street child who has no hope at all that's adopted into a family, and he now has hope because he has a new father who will care for him.

What is that mercy? God has unleashed His almighty power for the good of His children! Scripture tells us that hope in God will never ever fail us. That hope is written, rooted in His presence, His power, His grace. And you can have the expectation that God will do everything He has promised you; He will not fail in any of His promises.

That hope should propel you in your marriage. What should give you hope in your marriage? Not your husband or your wife, but your Savior. What should give you hope in parenting? Not your husband or your wife, but your Savior. What should give you hope in your struggle against sin? Not your wisdom or your righteousness, but your Savior. You have reason for hope because God exists; and by mercy, He has made you His children!

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So, I want to talk about spiritual safety from 1 Peter 5. Listen to these words, “Who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Where is spiritual safety to be found? Look, here's the picture of ‘right here. right now.’ Sin still lives inside of me, and it still rears its ugly head. I'm still susceptible to temptation. There are idols everywhere around me. My heart, sadly, is still “Prone to Wander.” I live in a culture that has repudiated surrender to the Lord of lords. I attend a church that proves itself to be imperfect. The Christian life is hard. Christianity is misunderstood and under attack. We all have messy marriages and disappointments in friendships.

Where do you find a sense of spiritual safety? Well, Peter says it's not based on your wisdom, or your righteousness, or your performance. If you base your spiritual safety on your performance, you are not secure, you know you're not secure! We do not have the independent power to keep ourselves safe. We just don't. We need help. We need rescue!

Yes, you should obey. Yes, you should have a rich devotional life. Yes, you should involve yourself with a good Bible-believing church. Yes, you should study the Word of God. Yes, you should confess your sin. Yes, you should seek counsel where appropriate. But safety is found in these seven words, “Who by God's power are being guarded.” God exercises His almighty power to secure the spiritual safety of His children. Let me say that again. God willingly exercises His almighty power to assure that His children are spiritually safe.

Now, He uses means; but ultimately, my salvation is secure because God Himself guards it and me. Let me say that again. Ultimately, my salvation is secure because God Himself guards it and guards me. Wow! It's just amazing to think that my spirituality is not at risk. Yes, I'll blow it. Yes, I’ll have stupid moments of rebellion. Yes, there are moments where I am foolish enough to think that I'm smarter than God. Yes, there'll be moments where I will resist conviction, where I need the support, encouragement, and confrontation of the Body of Christ, and I won't seek it. Where I’ll sit and listen to a sermon, and rather than apply it to me, be thankful that somebody else in the room is hearing it. But in all of that, God is at work! There's a guard over my soul! There's a guard over my heart!

And I don't have to be afraid that, somewhere, God is going to look on me with disgust; He's going to turn His back on me; He's going to remove His love from me; and He's going to walk away. Because Peter says, “No! No! No! No! No! In all of your struggles, in all of your failure, you are being guarded for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time!” So that, you will have a place in that forever, where righteousness and peace will reign forever and ever and ever! You won't get there because you're righteous; you will get there because God is faithful to His promise, and He has guarded you every step of the way. And He will welcome you into that final kingdom because He is faithful!

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So, we've looked at the concept of hope. We've looked at the concept of spiritual safety. And then we want to finally look at the concept of faith. This is verse 9 of the first chapter of 1 Peter, “Obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” I am so glad that we can spend these months together in 1 Peter. This letter that is so current, that speaks with such power to the experiences we're having in this particular generation of Christianity.

And what is this thing, ‘faith,’ that Peter is talking about, “Obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls?” I think there's so much confusion around faith. I know in these studies, I've given this example before, but I was speaking on faith to a small group, and I decided to ask the question from somebody. I said, “Just define faith for me.” Someone said, “Well, it means to trust.” I said, “Well, what does it mean to trust?” Someone else said, “Well, it means to believe.” I said, “What does it mean to believe?” And somebody said, “Well, it means to have faith.” We’d just come full circle.

Let me define faith for you. ‘Faith is a radical heart commitment to entrust myself and my life to God, that results in a radical change in the way that I live my life.’ I love Hebrews 11:6, it says in defining faith, “We must believe that he exists.” That's the heart’s conceptual aspect of faith, and that “he rewards those who seek him.” That's the living aspect of faith. Notice the description here in verses 8 and 9, I just love this. “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, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of our souls.”

Five things about faith. First of all, it's not based on what you can see. We serve a God whom we can't visibly see, and we can't audibly hear, we can't physically touch. Faith involves the love of your heart. Your life is shaped by what you love the most. And it says here, “Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” Though you haven't seen Him, you love Him.

It's expressed in joyful gratitude, “rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.” I would ask you this question, “Do you celebrate more than you complain? Do you give thanks more than you grumble?” Faith is joyful because it's rooted in the awesome, amazing gift of God's grace in His Son. “Obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls;” the epicenter of faith is God's saving work and saving promises. I believe that I am His both now and forever. I believe that I've been forgiven. I believe that I'm indwelt by the Spirit. I believe that I'm being transformed by His grace. That's the epicenter of my faith.

And then it's convinced of the outcome. Even though in between ‘the already and not yet’ is messy and confusing, I know God will be faithful to His promises.

Now, if you're going to exercise that kind of faith, you need to be in His Word, and you need to embrace His work because His Word and His work is what faith is about. The life of faith is a life of joy, ultimately involving my surrendering my glory, to the glory of this One who is so loving, so giving, so merciful, so powerful, so faithful, and He has unleashed all of that, for my good. Faith is a radical commitment of the heart that radically changes the way that you live your life!

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So, we're working our way through 1 Peter, and we're going to look at 1 Peter 1:3-9, and I have entitled this, “The Plot Summary.” Let me read it again.

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, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who, by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 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. 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, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

What Peter is doing here, is like what a great novelist does. Let's say you're reading a novel that's 5 or 600 pages long, and as you get into the details of the story, the details of somebody’s description, you can lose sight of the larger plot. And so, what a novelist will do is they will create a way of reminding you of the big plot, the big sweep of the story. Maybe it's two old guys sitting on a bench. And they're having a conversation about the span of their life. That's the novelist reminding you of what the story is about.

So, because Peter is going to say many practical things, he wants to root all your understanding of those practical things in the larger plot of God's story; Scripture is dotted with plot summaries, and this is one of those.

So, this passage has a ‘then, then, now’ shape to it:  ‘then’ of the past, ‘then’ of the future, and now. Peter’s interest is now but he knows you won't fully understand now, you won't fully understand who you are now, you won't fully understand what you're doing now, you won't fully understand what God is doing now, unless you have the larger plot in place.

So, here's the ‘then’ of the past. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” God has caused you to be blessed with resurrection life. The same power by which Jesus was raised from the dead is now yours as the children of God. If you wonder, as you stand in front of that empty tomb, if your mind is blown, welcome to your life as a believer because that same power is now yours in Christ. You have been given resurrection power, that's who you are. That's the past.

Here's the future, “…to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” So, you are not only secure because God has caused you to now being imbued with resurrection power, but you are secure because your future is utterly secured by Him. You have a mind-boggling inheritance that's kept for you. And you are being guarded between the two ‘then’s’ to make sure that when that final day comes, not only will the inheritance be ready, but you will be ready.

Life in this middle is hard. But it's made less hard when you realize what you've been given, resurrection power, and what you're heading toward, an inheritance beyond your wildest imagination that'll be yours forever and ever and ever! Now you're ready to understand ‘now.’

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If you haven't asked this ‘now’ question, you're probably not breathing or you're seriously comatose. And here's the question, “What in the world is God doing?”

I mean, if you look at this pandemic that we've been through you think, “What in the world is God doing?” If you hear of suffering in people's lives, “What in the world is God doing?” Maybe in your own life, as you face disappointment, you say, “God, where are you? What are you doing? Why is life so hard? Why do so many unexpected things happen? Where are you? What are you doing? Why the trials? Why the hardship? Why the difficulty?”

Well, let me read Peter’s description of ‘now.’

In this you rejoice (those past and future things), though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 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.”

There are three words that come out of the pen of Peter that ought to alert you to what is going on now. Fasten your seat belts:  grief, trial, test. Those are his descriptors of every Christian's life between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet.’ Three words that you don't want in your life:  grief, trial, and test. And by the use of those three words, Peter is intending to change our thinking about ‘now.’ Please hear this. ‘Now’ was not intended to be comfortable; ‘now’ was intended to be transformational.

If God's intention was that ‘now’ would be comfortable, He's a massive failure and you should turn from Him. And His book isn't worth reading! It's not meant to be comfortable; it's meant to be transformational. And he says, “So, God will bring trial into your life to test you.” Now you’ve got to understand what this means. And to help us, Peter uses this very provocative word picture. It's a word picture of metallurgy. When a metallurgist mines a precious metal, he finds it in an ore state. Ore is not very usable or attractive because it has imperfections in it. So, he has to add a catalytic agent and white-hot heat to liquefy that metal, boil out the imperfections, so that metal reaches its highest state of beauty and its highest state of usability.

Now, hear what I'm about to say, “When you come to Christ, you are an ‘orific’ Christian. I didn't say horrific, I said, “orific.” You have imperfections in you that rob you of your beauty and rob you of your usefulness. God would not be a faithful Redeemer to leave you in that state. So, God, in His grace, will boil you. He will bring the heat of trial into your life, not because He's punishing you, but because He loves you, and wants you to reach a higher state of beauty and a higher state of usability.

Hear what I'm about to say, “God will take you where you have not intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own.” God will take you where you haven't intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. Often, when we're wondering where the grace of God is, His grace is most active. But it's not the grace of release; it's not the grace of relief; those are coming. It's the grace of transformation! And transformation is hard!

Yes, you will face trial. Yes, you will face the unexpected. Yes, you will face difficulty because all those things are a workroom for transforming grace. ‘Now’ isn't meant to be comfortable. ‘Now’ was meant to be transformational and that's a good thing because we are not yet all that we could be in Christ!

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Well, I have a confession to make, and the confession is that I think I complain way more than I ever should! I’m sure I am not alone. I would ask you how much is complaint; how much is grumbling a normal part of your world of talk? How dissatisfied are you, how discontent are you, is doubt of God a struggle for you?

Maybe the way that I should ask this is, “Do you live with joy?” I’m not talking about that temporary, situational happiness when you’ve just had a great meal, or somebody’s given you a great compliment, or some situation has worked the way you want it to.

I’m talking about something deeper and fuller than that. What I want to look at with you as we continue in 1 Peter, 1 Peter 1:9, about joy that is there no matter what. Talking about God’s work in our lives, Peter says this, I’ll start with verse 8, “Though we have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.” Inexpressible and filled with glory! Wouldn't you like this kind of life?

And wouldn't every human being say, “I want to wake up with joy so deep I can't express it; joy that is glorious?” I mean, it's the life that somehow all of us dream of. It's the kind of joy when you've been given the best gift ever, one that you know can change your life, and you stand there and you say you're so filled with something deep inside of you, what you say is, “I don't know what to say.” You are literally unable to express what's inside of you.

Now maybe this will shock you. Peter’s arguing that that should be a normal experience for a believer; that there's something deep and beautiful that should root inside of us; that a bad day, a disappointment, a hardship in a relationship, a rebellious child, a cantankerous boss, traffic, should not be able to take away from us.

And so, the question that this begs for us is, “Where do I get this kind of joy?” He says this, “…you believe in him and rejoice with an inexpressible joy, one that's filled with glory, because (Now listen to this.) you're obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (Paraphrase.) He's saying this, “You have that joy when you realize the thing in life you most need, the thing in life that most human beings need, the ultimate gift of giving that needs to be given, I have been given.”

Something I could have never earned and never deserved is now mine simply because God has placed His love on me. It's like being born into an ultimately rich family. You've done nothing, but you have lavish possibilities in front of you because you've been born into something that you could have never deserved, never earned, never achieved. And so, you get up every morning and you say, “I've got it. I've got the best thing ever. I may not have a lot of money. I may not have a lot of friends. I may not even have physical health, but I've got the best thing ever.” Put it on a 3 x 5 card and stick it on your mirror in the morning so you see it every morning, “I have been given, in Jesus, the best thing ever, the salvation of my soul.”

And when you wake up in the morning and say, “No matter what's going on, I've been given the best thing ever,” you'll have joy!

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So, this may sound strange to you, but I want to propose that you can be very serious about your use of the Bible and be using the Bible unbiblically. You can have a regular relationship with the Word of God, you can be serious about it and not be using the Bible in the way it was intended to be used. And so, I want to look at this next section in 1 Peter and ask the question, “What in the world is the Bible?”

Let me read these verses to you, 1 Peter 1:10-12:

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, 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.

Wow! Peter is saying some radical things about the Word of God and how we've arrived at this Book that we now hold in our hands. Pretend someone comes up to you on the street and says, “What in the world is the Bible?” How would you describe the Bible to them? Is it a collection of real helpful moralistic stories? Is it a collection of theological truths? Is it a collection of wisdom principles for daily living? What a different description of God's Word is in this passage.

The matter of fact is your Bible is essentially a story. It's not a collection of stories; it's one single story with a lot of phases and a lot of chapters. The Bible is the story of redemption. And it has one single character, Jesus. But I want you to get something in this passage. It talks about the prophets, “inquiring what person or what time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ.”

Listen to this. He's saying that the Bible is an autobiography. Jesus wrote His own story. And it tells us that the prophets didn't understand it. The angels looked into it. Nobody was capable of writing the story that we now have here. The story of everything that was needed to lead up to Jesus, Jesus’s life, Jesus’s life interpreted for us, and the final culmination of the work of Jesus, no one was able to guide that story but the central character Himself; I'm holding the autobiography of the Savior in my hands. He guided the writing so that every element that was necessary would be in His story. So, every explanation necessary would be in His story. So, we would understand beginnings and destiny, so it would be in His story. How exciting is that! This is the story of Jesus.

Because the hope of the entire world rested on a single shoulder, history marched toward the incarnation of Jesus. Jesus’s life marched toward the cross and the resurrection. The epistles look back on the work of Jesus. Those who are on the other side in Revelation celebrate the work of Jesus, this is the story of Jesus! There are not a whole lot of dramas where the central character is the author, but that's the case with the Word of God. And that's why it's trustworthy because the One who is the hope of the universe guided His Book so we would have, in that Book, everything that we need for our life here and for life to come.

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It is incredible to me, as I've studied my way through the first 12 or 13 verses of 1 Peter, how it seems that Peter is intent on laying this just strong foundation for these people. I mean, there are so many fundamental elements of the Christian faith that Peter's just throwing out, one right after another, as if he's laying bricks on a foundation that these people need to understand.

Now remember, these are people who are suffering. They're suffering because what they've given their life to is misunderstood and mocked. They're suffering mistreatment because of their faith. And it's like Peter wants to get at “This is what it means to live in this culture as a believer,” but he first wants to lay down this foundation that they will get. And I want to look at another element of that foundation; I want to ask the question, “Who in the world is the Holy Spirit?” Peter throws out this phrase, “Who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.”

Well, I'm reading along, I'm thinking, “Why? Why was the Holy Spirit sent from heaven?” I think that many believers understand who God is, understand who the Son is, but are confused about this Holy Spirit person, the third member of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit was sent from heaven. If I arrived at your door and I said, “Jefferson Hospital sent me to you,” what would your next question be? “For what?”

So why was it necessary in God's plan for the Holy Spirit to be sent? What is the work of the Holy Spirit? What was He sent from heaven for? Let me name some things? Well, clearly here we're told He's sent to be a guide so that God's Word would be properly laid down and preserved for us. Scripture says, “Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” He was sent to empower the preaching and teaching of God's Word. No human being is capable of representing God's Word well apart from the Spirit's work. The Spirit is sent to illumine our understanding of God's Word; I need help if I'm ever going to understand the Word. Jesus said as He was leaving that He would send “another teacher who would guide His disciples into truth.”

The Holy Spirit is given to convict us of sin. It's the Spirit who’s able to break through our spiritual blindness and to help us to see ourselves with accuracy through the Word of God. The Holy Spirit is sent to empower us to obey God's Word.

Now, notice a theme here, to guide the writing of God's Word, to empower the teaching of God's Word, to illuminate our understanding of God's Word, to convict us of sin through God's Word, to empower us to obey God's Word. What is the chief work of the Holy Spirit? To enable this Book to give us life! Everything that the Holy Spirit does is attached to the Word of God.

Why is this necessary? Well, although my sins have been forgiven, I'm not yet sin free. In between ‘the already and the not yet,’ I don't just need forgiving grace, I need illumining, convicting, transforming, empowering grace. So, God sent His Spirit. So, between ‘the already’ of my conversion and ‘the not yet’ of my home-going, this dear Book would bear obvious and continual fruit in my life. Be thankful that the Holy Spirit was sent from heaven for us!

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Well, we move to a section in 1 Peter that has a bit of a different feel. And maybe I should introduce it this way. You would expect, since Peter is writing to people who are suffering, that this would just be a letter of huge hope and comfort, encouragement, dressing the spiritual wounds of these people. And that material surely is here. But what impresses me is that 1 Peter is a call to action, it’s marching orders.

And there's a sort of redemptive psychology to that. If you have a suffering person, if you want a suffering person to be depressed, get them to focus on their suffering. The more you focus on it, the bigger it gets. If you want to help a person suffering, get them thinking outside of themselves. Get them moving, get them active, get them realizing that their suffering isn’t ultimate, God is. And that's the mentality of Peter, don't just see who God is, don't just see what He's done, don't just see who you are as His children, don't just see what He's gifted you with. Now get up and move. And so that's where the next part of Peter goes.

“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Now, I want to talk about the problem of Christian passivity. There is no such thing as a passive, healthy, Christian life. Yes, we are welcome to rest in our Savior, but we are also welcomed out of our spiritual sleep.

Here's Peter’s view of the Christian life in five words: prepare your minds for action; prepare your minds for action. For Peter, passivity is hugely spiritually dangerous. Why is that? Because I live in a fallen world; it's not operating the way God intended. And that fallenness will enter my door. The Bible says, “the world is groaning, waiting for redemption.” Because the world is fallen, there's evil around me. And so, I will regularly face temptation.

Let me go further. It's not just that there’s evil outside of me; there's evil still inside me. Sin still lives inside of me. I could add to that, and I'm not done yet; I'm not a baked cookie. I'm dough, still being worked on, still in God's oven of grace, the process is still going on. And so, think of the action words that are all over the Word of God.

Follow, trust, obey, confess, repent, sacrifice, wrestle, fight, persevere, resist, worship. There's action word, after action word, after action word. And so, Peter says, “You need to get your mind in gear for the life you've been called to.” You're not called to just between your conversion and your home going, wait for whatever God's going to do next. That will never ever work. You're called to pursue the one who is pursuing you and to look for every way to grab ahold of what God has given you. Wait–waiting in the Bible is an action. May that characterize our lives, preparing our minds for action!

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So, let me read 1 Peter 1:13 again, “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” What does it mean to be sober-minded? Well, I could ask you, “Are you serious?” I mean, if I watched the video of your last six weeks, would I say this is a person who takes life seriously; is that what it means to be sober minded?

Let me talk about what sober-mindedness is not. It's not the lack of ability to have fun, to laugh, an absence of sense-of-humor. Sober-mindedness is not taking yourself too seriously. We all have done that and have been around people who do that. Sober-mindedness is not being legalistic and judgmental. Sober-mindedness is not reaching the state of “theological-always-rightism,” where you sort of hold your theology proudly. Sober-mindedness is not being one of those scary unapproachable Christians that you would never think of being open with.

Sober-mindedness, according to Peter, means living with a single-minded focus. What is that focus? “Being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” It means this; sober-mindedness is living with eternity in view.

When you live with eternity in view, here's what you find yourself doing. You begin to eavesdrop on eternity, and you begin to listen to the voices that are on the other side, and you begin to hear what they celebrate.

They don't celebrate great jobs. They don't celebrate big houses. They don't celebrate personal power, a nice wardrobe, that they were physically attractive. You listen to the saints on the other side, they celebrate one thing. You did it! You did it! You did it! You fulfilled every one of your promises; You redeemed us!

Now hear this, I need that values clarification today because what happens is things that are not important rise in levels of importance. And they begin to claim my heart and claim my behavior, they claim my emotions, and my life gets diverted. I need the values clarification of eternity to continue to remind me what is truly important.

But it's not just values clarification, it's hope and motivation. Because think about this; the glory of living with future grace in view is that future grace is at once a promise of present grace. Because if God is telling me that I have a place in eternity, then what He's telling me is I also have every grace I need in order to finally get there. Future grace is a promise of present grace.

And so, when I live with eternity in view, even though I won't understand what God is doing, and even though I'll face hardship, I know that I have hope. And that hope gets me up in the morning and enables me to do the hard things that God calls me to do; it enables me to prepare.

You say, “Paul, I don't understand.” Think about this. A father comes to his children, and he says, “We're going to Disney World.” He takes them to the computer; he shows them all those entertainment glories of Disney World. And the kids live that year, they keep asking, “How many days till we go to Disney World, is it almost ready?”

But there’s something else that happens. They come to him, and they say, “Dad, can we buy this, can we go out to eat, can I get a new skateboard?” What does Dad say? “No, no, we can’t do that because we’re saving money because we are going to Disney World!” And they say, “Oh yeah, that’s right!” And they are able to deal with those hardships, and they are able to be motivated to keep going because they are focusing on the glory that is to come. That’s what sober-minded is.

Sober-minded means you are focusing on the grace that will be revealed in Jesus Christ; you’re living with eternity in view. And because of that, your values are clarified, and you live with motivation and hope.

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Well, we're on the final stretch of the first chapter of 1 Peter. I have felt such a personal blessing that I've been able to go through this material. Maybe I could say it this way. 1 Peter, chapter 1, is one of the best gospel rants in all of Scripture. It is just like Peter is putting out the material so fast. It's like he can't get the words out fast enough; he's so excited about the gospel he wants these suffering people to get. And right now, we want to talk about passions, the problem with passions.

We want to think about this messy world of passions. So, let me read from 1 Peter, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.” A passion is a motivating emotion, and we really couldn't do anything in our lives if we hadn't been given the gift of passions. I’ve seen it even in my granddaughters. My granddaughter, Lilly, for some reason, is deeply passionate about Star Wars. She comes home from school, and she immediately puts on her Darth Vader helmet, and is in character until she goes to bed. And she finds such joy in doing this.

Our ability to be passionate is really one of God's good gifts for us. Every commitment, every calling, every achievement, requires passion. You could sort of talk about passion this way. Passion is desire, plus motivation, plus joy. That's passion. The problem is that we can't be ruled anymore by our passions because sin has made our passions, at best, a mixed blessing. I like the way Peter talks about this. He says, “Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.” What is he talking about?

He means before you knew God, before God is the central focus of your life rather than whatever your heart wants to do, the question is, “What would God want me to do in this situation?” Before your former ignorance, before you knew His Word, because His Word needs to be a greater guide in our lives than this combination of desire, motivation, and joy. It's just not biblical, although I hear Christians say this all the time to say, “Well, just follow your heart.” That's not good advice because your heart will take you places that you should not go.

Think about this, and this is what Peter is arguing, this is Paul Tripp’s way of saying this, “Your heart is only as trustworthy as what controls it.” Your heart is only as trustworthy as what controls it. If God controls your heart, then your heart is trustworthy. If the Word controls your heart, then your heart is trustworthy. If the glory of God controls your heart rather than self-glory, then your heart is trustworthy. But your heart is not always uniformly trustworthy because passions for things that are outside of God's will, even if in a moment, will grip us.

Peter wants us to know that passions, shaped by God, shaped by His grace, shaped by His Word, are a beautiful productive thing. But watch out that you are not ruled by your passions, but you're ruled by God's presence, His power, His grace, and the clear tracks that you're to run on of His Word. Place your passions under God and His Word. And that's a very good place to live!

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Well, there is a term, a category, significant and important, that has sadly almost completely fallen out of usage in human culture. The abandonment of this category has had untold and tragic consequences. The term is ‘holy.’

Think about this for a moment. You never hear the word ‘holy’ on the news. You seldom hear it in politics, education, entertainment, government, on the street. Yet holy is the standard for living for every human being who God has ever given breath. Everyone was designed to quest for holiness. That is what Peter makes very clear in this passage:

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

If holy is the standard, then God is the standard because He alone is the Holy One, perfect in every way.

I remember when I was a young kid going to a private Lutheran School, and we were using Luther’s Small Catechism. There was a question, “How is God holy?” I love this answer. In everything He does. God is perfectly holy, all the time, in every situation, and in every way. That's the standard.

Now if you don't find that overwhelming and discouraging, you're not getting it. Think how utterly distant that standard is from all of us. I wish I could say that in God's eyes, everything I think, everything I desire, everything I say, everything I choose, everything I do, is holy in every way. But I can't, yet that's the standard, “Be holy, as I am holy.”

Now, here's one thing it means. We just have to stop comparing ourselves to one another. The problem with comparing yourself to another human being is you're always able to find someone who's worse off than you are. Comparison to other human beings is a quick road to self-righteousness and self-congratulation and self-aggrandizement.

When God stands as your standard, it's deeply humbling; it's deeply convicting, and it's deeply revealing of how far you are away from what God wants. I think of how quickly a flash of irritation will come into my mind, even if I don't express it, how much I can think about things that I just should not be thinking about.

You see, there's grace in this call because this call of holiness is meant to bring you to the end of yourself, that's its purpose. And in bringing you to the end of yourself, it drives you toward God and toward His forgiving and empowering grace.

Listen, as long as you trust yourself, as long as you think you can pull it off, as long as you think you're okay, grace doesn't mean anything to you. There's grace in the impossibility of this call because it reveals my inability, it reveals my hopelessness, it reveals how deep my need is for forgiving and transforming grace. You see, this call is like the call of every one of God's commands; every command to us is accompanied by His grace. He not only calls you to something, but He gives you the grace to do it. “Be holy, as I am holy!”

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I don't know how much you've thought about fear; we all have the capacity to be afraid. But fear can be the enemy of faith. Fear can hound you; it can paralyze you; it can rob you of your motivation and joy. It can make you, rather than want to live life, to want to escape from life. But there is a wholesome, life-producing fear that Peter talks about. Let me read for you again from 1 Peter 1, verse 17:

And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. (Again) And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.

I literally adore the way that Peter handles this topic of the fear of the Lord; I think it's incredibly helpful. And I think as I was studying this passage, I saw this clearly for the very first time. He's clearly not talking about a terror of God's condemnation. The fear that God would turn His back on you, the fear that He would throw you out of His family. Now how do I know that? Because Peter puts two titles together that, for the Christian, ought to always be together. He puts Father and Judge together. God is for the believer, not just our Judge, He's a Father-Judge.

Now, what does that tell you? It tells you that the one who watches over you, the one who holds you accountable, does that with the spirit and the heart of a father. It means you're already in His family. He's already made you an object of His love. You already bear His name. You're already the object of His loving protection and provision, His fathering care.

And so, it's like having a loving father, but who is an authority in your life. You're not afraid that He's going to hurt you. You're not afraid that He's going to pack your bags and throw you out of the family. But you know that there will be consequences to not obeying Him. That's exactly the picture he's talking about. Consequences are not condemnation. Hear what I’m about to say, “The consequences are God's discipline. God disciplines those whom He loves.” It's just wrong to think that since I'm God's child, and since I'm the object of His grace, there'll be no consequences for my sin. The Bible just doesn't teach that.

In fact, it says if God loves me, He couldn't possibly not discipline me. Discipline without love is not discipline, and love without discipline isn't love. And so that's so beautifully presented here as Peter says you fear Him like a child would fear a loving father; you have deep awe and respect for His authority. And so, you want to live in a way that pleases Him; that's the picture here.

I would ask you, “Does your life picture this kind of fear that you really want to live in a way that pleases this One who has loved you so; and you don't want to constantly be placing yourself under His loving discipline?”

I love that Peter brings together Judge and Father. We don't have the terror of His condemnation; but we have deep respect for His authority in our lives. We know He loves us, but we know how important it is to obey Him!

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Well, there's a misunderstanding of God's gorgeous gift of grace that crops up again and again. This misunderstanding seems to never die, although it definitely needs to die. And it's addressed here in Peter and many other places in Scripture, but Peter does a wonderful job.

And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

This misunderstanding of God's grace basically says this, “If I'm saved by grace, if all of my sins are covered, past, present, and future, it doesn't matter how I live.” I once had a person say to me, as I was questioning a choice they were going to make, “Ah! God will forgive me anyway.” That is a horrible misconstruing of the nature of the operation His grace. The Bible never teaches such a thing.

There's an old name for this; it's not used as much as it was. It was called ‘Easy-believism.’ “As long as I believe, I'm the object of God's grace, and between ‘the already and not yet,’ nothing else makes a whole lot of difference.” But it does matter; and after Peter’s talking about the Father-Judge, he says, “Here's why it matters, how you live.”

 And he talks about two things. First of all, he says, “You were ransomed from your sin.” God worked to intervene because sin is just that serious. He harnessed the forces of nature; He controlled the events of human history, so at a certain time, His Son would be born. You can't look at the birth of the Messiah and conclude that sin is just sort of okay. Then he adds on to that. He said, “Don't you understand the terrible cost of that ransom? It was the precious blood of Jesus.” Jesus suffered a horrible, cruel death, taking our sin on His shoulders. That's how serious this is.

Think about this. It required the death of the Messiah. But he adds more. It also required a substitutionary sacrifice; it had to be an unblemished lamb. Someone had to come and, in every way, live as a completely righteous human being. Now, that's a whole lot of effort invested in something that we're tempted to say is not such a big deal. Peter argues, “You cannot look at the radical intervention of redemption, the radical birth of Christ, the radical life of Christ, the radical death of Jesus Christ, and not see sin as a serious thing.”

You see, here's what happens even though we don't know it. Every moment in our lives, where we minimize sin, we devalue the righteous life and acceptable sacrifice of Jesus. Every time you argue within yourself that you don't really need to confess because that was really not a sin, you were just feeling bad or you were just busy or whatever excuse you give, you denigrate the cross of Jesus Christ. You devalue this radical intervention! The birth of Jesus, the righteous life of Jesus, the death of Jesus argue that sin is serious and because it is, it makes a difference how I live!

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I don't know about your experience, but mine is usually when I hear the word substitute, I think, “Ahhh, not as good as the original!” I can remember in high school, I will make this confession, that we had a good time with substitutes. Because we knew that a substitute didn't know all of the ropes, and we would get away with things we would never get away with our teacher. Or think, you've bought ridiculously expensive Broadway tickets, and you open your Playbill only to realize that the main actor you came to see won't be appearing that night, a stand-in will. You never say, “Yeah!” You say, “Ahh, I can't believe it!” The one night I'm here on Broadway and I get a substitute?

Well, God has a substitute plan that is not like that at all. Let me read 1 Peter 1:20.

He (Jesus) was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

God looked at His fallen creatures and realized that there's nothing we could ever do to make ourselves acceptable to Him. There's nothing that we could ever do to bridge the sin gap. And so, from the foundation of the world, hear these words–this is so amazing, God devised a substitute plan to provide for us a substitute in His Son. This time, the substitute is infinitely better than we would have ever been.

The only way to bridge that huge gap, the separation that sin made between us and God, was for Jesus to stand in our place. What does He do? Well, we've talked about this multiple times already in this wonderful chapter of 1 Peter. He lived as we could not live. Don't ever discount the important contribution of the life Jesus lived before the cross.

Often when we talk about salvation, we want to run to the cross. But every moment of His life, every word He spoke, every choice He made, every righteous thing He did, was done for us. He’s standing in our place. Then He died in our place; that sacrifice was substitutionary. It was Jesus taking on Himself the penalty that we deserved. And then He rises on our behalf, doing what we would never be able to do. He has the power to conquer the power of death. It is an amazing story of God's grace, this plan to provide for us a substitute.

I like what it says, “…who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.” He showered glory upon His Son, and that glory now gets showered down on us by grace. It is the most beautiful plan you could ever consider. That substitute plan wasn't a last-minute jerk-reaction–God said, “Oh, these people are worse than what I thought they were going to be; I better do something.”

Peter says, “…before the foundation the world.” God said the only thing that will ultimately end with what I want eternity to be like, is a sinner substitute. I'll send My Son and He will stand in every way in your place. He will reach my standards. He will satisfy the demands of My anger, and He will pour His glory down on My children. Now that's a plan!

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Well, I live here in Center City, just in walking distance from this studio, and I live in a building that was a former garment factory and it's now turned into lofts. And our building is a secure building. You just can't get into this building without a key fob, without a cell phone app, or without a code. And the building is publicized as a safe building because of that.

So, I want to ask and address the question from 1 Peter, where is security to be found? Where is true, human safety to be found? Now for our building, the most dangerous thing that the builders were concerned about is people who don't belong in that building, entering that building and maybe robbing somebody or breaking into a loft. Well, what is the greatest danger to a human being?

Well, prepare to be humbled. The greatest dangers in life don't exist outside of you. If the greatest dangers of life existed outside of you, all you would need to do is change locations to a safer place, quit hanging around with those unsafe people. But the Bible teaches us that the greatest danger in human life lives inside of me, not outside of me. It's this thing called sin because sin is always destructive, it's always deceptive, and it ultimately leads to death.

But here's the good news. Although sin is something we should be deathly afraid of, the house of God is a secure building. Let me read for you.

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Now, what Peter is saying is, “The thing that you should be most afraid of, the thing that is most dangerous that has the greatest power to destroy your life, destroy your relationships, destroy your righteous hopes and dreams, God has dealt with in His Son.” It means that God provides the safety for you from this dangerous thing that you could never provide for yourself.

Parents, you want your children to be safe from sin, but you better know you can't do that. If you're in marriage, you want your husband or wife to be safe from sin, but you better know that you don't have the power to create that. Only God has that power! Again, that's why He sent His Son to conquer sin. That's why He gives us, according to this passage, hearts to believe. It's not natural for me to believe. God's got to provide intervention. I need grace to believe in grace. And He showers, as I said before, His glory on His Son. Why?

Because sin is about self-glory! And He puts before us a greater glory than we would ever find in ourselves. So, you can feel safe putting your faith and hope in His hands. It's never a dumb thing, it's never an unwise thing, it's never an unsafe thing to place the entirety of your life in the hands of God because the house of God is the world's most secure building.  All of His ways are right and true; everything He asks of you is good; everything He promises you is the best; everything He delivers you from is the worst. There's nothing but safety and good in the house of God. Living in God's house is by far the safest place on Earth!

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I think Peter must understand how hard-hearted we can be, how dull our ears can be, how we don't always hear what God says the first time He says it. If you're a parent, you know that you know how many times you repeat the same things to your children. Sometimes with a little bit of irritation, you say, “How many times am I going to have to tell you that same thing?” Well, God's very patient and very kind and, through Peter, repeats themes here, and you see Peter going after the same thing in a different way, giving us a different way of understanding it and hearing it anew.

I want to talk about living like you're born again. And I would ask you this question if you would get out your iPhone or iPad and you would type into it, basically, your best portrait of what a life of a believer should look like, what would you put there? Let me read this helpful and convicting passage.

Having purified your souls by…obedience to the truth for sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.

And I'll stop there. Again, I like how Peter has this ability to combine things for us in a way that is clarifying. Remember, he combined Father and Judge in a way that clarifies the kind of fear that a believer should have? Well, he puts three things together in this passage that are very helpful. Here they are, obedience to the truth, sincere brotherly love, and the living and abiding Word of God. We must hold obedience and love and the Word together. That's the Christian life.

The Christian life is not just about obedience. It's about obedience that produces a life of love. And it's not just about a life of love. It's a life of love that's just defined by the clear teaching of the Word of God. What names itself as love isn't always love. What names itself as obedience isn't always loving. And so, I find it both helpful and convicting that Peter puts obedience, love, and God's Word all together; you have to hold those together.

If you're obedient to the truth, you will live a life of love. Let me say that again, if you are obedient to the truth, you will live a life of love.

I think of Paul saying, “The goal of our instruction is a love out of a sincere heart.” If you love God's Word, you will live an obedient life. If you're committed to love, you'll want that defined by God's Word. This is the Christian life.

Truly loving people are obedient. Truly loving people love God's Word. Truly obedient people love to love. Truly obedient people love God's Word. People of the Word love to be obedient. People of the Word become people of love. Love, obedience, Word; love, obedience, Word; love, obedience, Word; love, obedience, Word; love obedience Word–that is the Christian life.

You can't love your way; God defines love. You can't say you're following God, but you're a graceless, unloving person. You can't say you're obedient if you don't love. You can't say you love God's Word if it doesn't produce a heart to obey and the heart of love. Love, obedience, the Word held together–that's the Christian life!

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So, we find ourselves at the last section of 1 Peter 1. I want to say again how deeply helped I have been both at the revelation of my own heart and my need for grace, and just the growth of my confidence in the beauty of God's redeeming plan in 1 Peter.

We've really slowed down. We've done 21 editions of this Bible study just out of 1 Peter. Now, 1 Peter is 5 chapters; we're doing this for a year, so that's 52 of these. So, you're wondering if we're ever going to get done with 1 Peter? Well, we're going to take bigger chunks from here out.

I just thought that as Peter felt, these people are suffering, they're suffering mistreatment and misunderstanding, needing to celebrate the depth and completeness of God's work of redemption in His Son. And so, Peter packs a tremendous amount of gospel content in 25 verses. And there's a way in which the rest of 1 Peter is just, “Okay, how do I apply this gospel content in the context of the world that I'm now living in?” And Peter is very comprehensive in his applications, as we'll see.

Well, I want to talk about the permanence of God's Word. Let me begin by reading.

For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

We all know that some advice, some counsel gets outdated; it just doesn't apply as it once did. In fact, I don't know if you've ever seen this, but occasionally an article will come up on the internet with some old city laws that are still on the books. There are hilarious laws in Philadelphia that just don't make any sense anymore that, at one point in time, were important. But Peter wants us to know that's not true of God's Word. God's Word is eternal.

Now, that doesn't just mean that it will last forever; it means that it never fades, it's never out of date, it's never unwise. God's Word will have as much saving, transforming, guiding wisdom, way down the road, as it did when it was first written. But there's something else, if God's Word applies to every cultural setting of generation after generation, then what Peter is celebrating is not just its eternality, but its universality.

I have experienced that in my travel and ministry. It's amazing that I've never been in a culture where the Word of God didn't apply. I can remember telling a rather American story to a group of Indian believers, and I was sort of apologizing for the story. And at the end a lady came up to me at the break and said, “You don't have to apologize because, at the heart, we're all the same, and we all need the same thing.” She's exactly right!

My confidence in the Word of God is, I pick it up and I know to whomever I'm going to go to it with, wherever I'm going to go, however old they are, however young they are, whatever culture they're in, this Word will always apply. And at the heart of that Word is the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.

God's Word is eternal; it will never be outdated. It's universal; there will never be anyone in a cultural situation that won't need the redeeming gospel. That is the heart of God's Word. It is eternal–and that is the best of News!

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So, Peter is going to take us in a new direction for the rest of this little letter that we're looking at. He's laid this gospel foundation, but Peter wants us to understand the gospel is not just the narrative of God's work of redemption; it's meant for us ‘right here, right now’ to form a lifestyle, to be the way that we look at, understand, and respond to everything in our life. It's not an overstatement to say that the gospel changes everything. It really does.

Let me read these verses for you.

So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation–if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

The Christian life is really shaped by saying, “No!” and saying, “Yes!” And you better know where to say, “No!” and where to say, “Yes!” If you're going to live a consistent, gospel-shaped life, you better be good at saying, “No!” And Peter doesn't mean saying, “No!” to external evil or saying, “No!” to other people. He's talking about saying, “No!” to yourself. And the reason we have to say, “No!” to ourselves is because we're not yet grace graduates; we're not yet sin free.

There are passions inside of us that we need to resist. And he mentions five things actually: malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. All of those things are first sins of the heart before they're ever sins of behavior. Peter does not believe that you should follow your heart. He believes that there are moments where we need to do war with our own hearts. You know that you'll have raging emotions and raging anger at places that will lead you in dangerous directions–and you've got to say, “No!” to those. And we're able to say, “No!” because the Holy Spirit now lives inside of us and empowers us to say, “No!” to us. Are you committed to saying, “No!” to you?

But we also need to say, “Yes!” to say, “Yes!” to what? To God's gift of constantly giving us all the spiritual nutrients that we need in order to grow in our relationship with Him. The word picture Peter uses is a newborn infant, that ravenous hunger of that crying infant, that he will not relent until he gets the milk that he's hungry for. That's where we should say, “Yes, yes, yes, yes! I want everything that helps me to understand the depth of the life changing wisdom of God's Word, I want to be a student of God's Word. I want to be biblically literate; I want to be theologically knowledgeable, I want, I want, I want, I hunger for that. And I hunger for anything that will help me to understand God's truth and how it is all the spiritual nutrition that I need.”

Now, what's the motivation for that? Well, I like what Peter says here. I think it's the bottom line, “…if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” The motivation is that God is good? How could it be that anything in this book would be anything less than good because the God who ordained and guided this Book is perfectly good all the time and in every way. God is good!

And so, everything God calls me to is good. And I think that bottom line also sets up everything Peter is going to say for the rest of this book. All the hard calls that we will hear in 1 Peter are based on the fact that God is good.

I want to ask you, are you good at saying “No!”? Are you committed to saying, “No!” to you? Or do you just go wherever your feelings lead you, wherever your passions lead you? And is there a ‘yes’ inside of you that makes you ravenously hungry for nutrients of God’s Word that will continue to grow you in your faith and in your love and service for the Lord?

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Well, Peter moves from yes and no to again reminding us of our new identity and our new potential as the children of God. But he's not doing that in a theoretical way; he's doing that in a way that is meant to be intensely practical in the way that I think about who I am. You are always assigning to yourself some kind of identity. You're always living out of that identity.

Listen to these words:

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

And we'll stop there. He begins by saying, “As you come to him,” Peter’s view is that we are committed to ongoing fellowship, ongoing communion with our Lord. It's not just that He comes to us. By grace, He does that, but that we are pursuing the One who is pursuing us. That's the picture here. Does that describe you? Are you in constant pursuit of your Savior? I mean, that's a real thing. That's a daily activity. That's a regular commitment. And who is this One?

Well, Jesus is a living stone. That's important too, because he's saying, “Hey people! He's not dead. This is the risen, reigning Lord. His mission was not aborted because He was rejected.” Why is that? Because He's precious in the sight of God. So I serve, I commune with a victorious, ascendant Savior, precious in the sight of God, now sitting at the right hand of the Father.

Then Peter does something that is a theme for him. There are two word-pictures that he wants us to understand to shape our identity. The first one is temple, and the second one is priesthood. You’re God's temple; you’re being built together as the place where God, in His glory, dwells. The Body of Christ is the fulfillment of the Temple of Solomon. The Body of Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament priesthood. That's pretty amazing!

You have no greater honor in your life, I don't care what you've accomplished, I don't care how much money you have, or how much power you have, than you are now a stone in the temple of the most-high God–that you are now His priest. You have entrance into the Holy of Holies–God's very throne room! It's mind boggling. So, I'm not just Paul Tripp, bumping around with all the difficulties in this life, hoping I can make it. I've been chosen by God to be part of His eternal building; I've been chosen of God to now have access to Him. I don't have access to the mayor of Philadelphia, let alone to the governor or my president. But I can walk into God's presence, and I'm accepted there because I'm one of His priests.

And what does that mean? This is amazing to me! I'm able to offer spiritual sacrifices that God accepts. Where do you make those sacrifices? He's not talking about formal religion here; he's talking about your daily life. You make spiritual sacrifices in your marriage. You make spiritual sacrifices in your parenting. You make spiritual sacrifices in your friendships. You make spiritual sacrifices in your sexuality. You make spiritual sacrifices at your workplace, in your neighborhood, as a citizen. What does that mean? I surrender my will to God's will in every one of those areas. If you're not making spiritual sacrifice, then you have a bad marriage, and you’re mistreating your children, and you’re misusing your money, and you’re pursuing sexual immorality. Everything God calls you to, He calls you to make spiritual sacrifices, and He accepts those by grace!

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So, Peter is not done with his temple metaphor, helping us to understand who Jesus is and helping us to understand who we are. Let me read these words:

For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become a cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

Peter begins with a quote from Isaiah 28:16, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” (From 1 Peter) It's very clear from these words, this prophecy is not about the temple in Jerusalem, but it's about Jesus. He is the cornerstone of the great, eternal house of God. We are stones being fit in and together with all of the saints, together with all believers, now united as one in that temple.

And he says this, that there's “…honor…for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone…whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’” Belief in Jesus, a life committed to follow Jesus will never put you to shame. Why does Peter say that?

Because, we have these moments where we think, “Is God, right? Is this really the best thing to do? Maybe I shouldn't speak kindly to this person who has mistreated me. Maybe I ought to go rip his face off. Maybe that would, that would be better. Is this really what I should do in my marriage?” I think there'll be moments where we wonder about God's will and God's way until we're on the other side. And so, Peter says, “Never, never, never, will God lead you in a bad direction! Never, never, never will He put you to shame!”

And then he makes this contrast. This stone that is the cornerstone is a stone of honor, and a stone of stumbling. It's honor for all of us who now understand that we are being built in this temple; we have the privilege of being part of this amazing thing that God is doing. But it's a stone of stumbling. The gospel is offensive to some; Jesus is offensive to some. They see His Messiahship as foolishness, His cross as meaningless, His resurrection as a myth, His Word as irrelevant; mockery of Jesus is quite regular. And isn't it amazing that it really is not abstract theology that's the dividing line. The fault line is Jesus.

There are only two ways to respond to Jesus. You recognize that this is the Son of God, and you surrender your life to Him; or you mock His existence, and you walk away from His work and live life however you want to live it. There's no in-between. The great fault line is Jesus.

But I want to talk about how this passage ends, very quickly. It says, “‘A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.’ They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.” Those are hard words for some of us to hear. But understand what Peter is saying. Peter is saying, “It's never right just to say, ‘I don't have a chance because God ordained me to not have a chance.’” That's not what Peter is writing.

He's saying they stumble because they disobey the Word. Again, here's the theology of the Word of God. God exercises His sovereignty, His ultimate rule through the validity of the choices of the people He created. It's never the sovereignty of God or the responsibilities man. It's always both. And so ultimately, I have to say, I walked away because I chose to walk away. I can never say that it's all God's fault because God expresses His sovereignty through the validity of the choices that I make.

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So, I have some questions I'd like to ask you. If you had to get out your iPad or a piece of paper and with a pen, how would you describe yourself as a Christian? What would that paragraph be? How would you then describe the life that you've been called to? And what is it that gets you up in the morning? Be honest, what motivates you?

You know, when you hear the message of the gospel so powerfully presented as Peter has, maybe the next question is, so now what? So, what do I do with this? And what Peter does in these next verses, is gives us three perspectives on the Christian life. They may not jump off the page to you; I'm going to organize them for you.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you've received mercy.

So here are the three perspectives on the Christian life: security, identity, and calling. What's the security of a Christian? Here it is, “But you are a chosen race.” Here it is, I am what I am by God's choice! I'm not here because I behaved well. I didn't earn my way into this, and hear this, “I do not keep myself secure by my obedience. I'm secure because I was chosen before the foundation of the earth. And God never turns His back on those He's chosen!” That's my security. I love this, “You are a chosen race”–God's people by God's choice.

What's my identity? Here comes these word pictures, again, royal priesthood–priests of the King of kings, invited into God's presence, a holy nation, the new Israel of God, the people of God, citizens of a greater kingdom.

Listen, when you're facing the chaos of the kingdom of this world, and look around, there's chaos everywhere, sometimes it's so discouraging. Remember that you are now a citizen of a greater kingdom, and this kingdom will live beyond the sadness and suffering of sin. That's who I am. A people for God's own possession. I don't belong to me anymore. I belong to my Lord. I don't own my mentality, I don't own my emotionality, I don't own my physicality, I don't own my relationships, I don't own me–God owns me!

Security, identity, and then calling. What am I meant to be doing between the ‘already of my conversion and the not yet’ in my home going? Proclaiming the glories of the One who called you from darkness into light.

Listen, I hate when we call people in full-time Christian ministry ‘ministers’ because it separates everybody else from that. Listen, you are called to be a minister of the gospel. Maybe that's to your children, maybe that's to your husband or wife, maybe that's to your neighbor, maybe that's in the workplace, maybe that's at your university. But all of us are called to look for opportunities to point to the glory of the Lord. Psalm 145 says, “One generation shall proclaim Your Excellency to the next generation.”

Now, that just reminds us that there's a glory war. Will I live for my glory, or will I live to point to the glory of my Redeemer? And for that, I've been given mercy, that's where the passage ends. I once didn't have mercy, but now I live with the new mercies of my Lord every day!

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So, Peter wants us to know that there's a great spiritual war, and that war is fought in us and around us every day. Maybe this sounds like bad news. But this isn't peace time; peace time is coming. You're guaranteed to live in peace and righteousness forever and ever. But this isn’t peace time, and you can't live with a peace time mentality, or you'll get yourself in trouble.

You know, when the world's not at war, what do we do? We build bigger houses, we eat better meals, we binge on Netflix; we're not in peace time right now, this is war. And that battle is fought on three fronts:  the inward front, the outward front, and the upward front. Life is war.

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

So, this is very similar to themes we've looked at before, but it’s organized, I think, in a helpful way. What's the inward front? The inward front is just keep reminding yourself of who you are; you're a sojourner and an exile–this is not your home! The goal now is not to see how comfortable you can be, how pleasurable life can be, how many people love and accept you. If you pursue all of those things, you will erode away your relationship with God. You have to understand there are ways in which you're not supposed to fit because this is not your home. If this home feels uncomfortable to you, it is because you were designed for another home. If this culture feels weird and uncomfortable to you, and you feel more and more an alien, that's because you were designed for something else. And part of that inward thing is again, to not give way to passions to take you somewhere else. This is the third time Peter has discussed passions in a little over a chapter. That's how much he knows that there's a war going on inside of us. That's the inward front.

There's the outward front–live honorably, live in a way that silences accusers because they have to stand back and ultimately say, “This is a good person. This is a good, loving, kind person.” What do you give yourself to? Do you give yourself to what is holy in the eyes of God, not just what would satisfy your pleasure or satisfy somebody else? Are you committed to live an exemplary life, a life of honor, a life that's good?

Are you aware the world is watching? And what you do and say, no matter where you are, means something, it's important! Life has value, your choices have value, they're important. And you're called to be an honorable representative of the One who is perfectly good and perfectly wise and perfectly holy. Your life is meant to point to Him. This is important stuff.

And then the upward front. What do you do? Why you do all of this? No, not so people like you, not just so you'll be successful, have lots of praise and applause! No! It's so that God will get glory, ultimately, God will receive praise. So, there's a battle going on.

There's an inward battle-that tendency to forget who I am and be caught up in the culture of the world. There's an outward battle between what I find pleasurable, and what's honorable to God, and being committed to live in a way that's honorable and silences the accuser. And then there's upward battle, whose glory will I live for? Now, I want to say, “There's grace, glorious grace for these battles!”

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We're going to enter a long section of Peter where the theme is, “being willing to be subject to authority.” It's a life of servanthood. And I have to say again, “I don't always love authority.” You know that authority is hard for us.

If you're a parent, you know, a child will fight you because you want to put a certain healthy food in their mouth. Now, this child hasn't read a diet book but decided they want to eat a certain way. What they're fighting is authority, “My body belongs to me, and I will choose what I put in my mouth.” Or a child who's clearly sleepy who will fight you when you try to put them to bed. You have got to know that there's something inside of us–sin is fiercely rebellious; sin is fiercely independent. And so, we fight authority, we fight being subject to anything.

And that's why Peter wants us to know this is a principle aspect of the Christian life, the life that God has called us to. It’s a life of willing subjection to the authorities that God has placed in this life. And what Peter says is:

Be subject…to every human institution, whether to an emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God.

These authorities are sent by God. Human authority is a visible representation of the authority of God. So, God is the ultimate King, He sends kings to make His invisible authority visible. That's the model. And so, this life of submission is God's will for me. I love this. In this discussion of submission, which is introducing a whole section of 1 Peter, he also talks about freedom.

Now, we tend to think freedom is freedom from the need to submit to anything. “I'm free!” That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about a freedom that is a result of being willing to live as a servant of God and subject to the authorities He puts in my life. And Peter is going to make this practical.

Look at where he ends, “Honor everyone.” If we took that seriously, Christian social media would be immediately purified. I read so much dishonoring communication from believers to believers, things that should never be communicated. “Honor everyone.”

“Love the brotherhood.” This cranks it up–a particular affection for the family of God that would cause me to treat my brothers and sisters with tenderheartedness, with mercy, with patience, with forgiveness, with humility.

“Fear God.” This is this life shaping awe of God's; it’s not terror of God, it's a life-shaping awe of God, that everything I do is shaped by the fact I live in awe of this One who is my Savior and my LORD.

“Honor the emperor,” that I should treat those authorities with respect.

Now, I just have to say these four things are such a solution for the tribal and political nastiness that's all around us. “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor,” and you can do this, because God's grace doesn't just call you; God's grace empowers you to do what God has called you to do. Every command of God is accompanied by His grace!

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Well, here's another thing that is important to understand about the practicality of street-level gospel, the gospel that shapes the way I live. I'm not just comforted to celebrate the victory of this risen Christ, the Cornerstone, the King, but I'm also called to follow Him in His suffering. And so, I want to read this passage; some of you will find these words hard to hear and understand, so I want to make an explanation and then talk about the passage.

Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

Hard, hard words! The first thing I want to say is that it's very important to understand that the Roman institution of bondservant was fundamentally different than the chattel slavery that went across Europe and North and South America. In fact, the New Testament assumes that trafficking in human beings is a sin. 1 Timothy 1:10 lists alongside of the sexually immoral…liars and perjurers, enslavers. So clearly, this is not a passage that says slavery, as we have come to understand it, is okay because the Bible names that as a sin.

What Peter is doing is applying a principle that has been a core gospel principle as he's applying the gospel to every everyday life. That I am meant to live how I live, not because of how I'm being treated, but because I'm a child of God. There's an internal motivation that needs to be inside of me, no matter how I'm being treated, no matter how unjustly I'm being treated. Mistreatment doesn't change the moral rules. Let me say that again. Mistreatment doesn't change the moral rules. The moral rules for me, remain the same.

And what Peter does for our help is chooses the most outrageous example; because if that outrageous example is true, then how much truer it is for us who are not facing things this hard. If it's right for a servant, when he's literally being beaten by a bad master, to respond in ways that are good, how much more right is it for us, in whatever mistreatment we're facing, to not allow the internal moral rules of our heart to change?

What are the gospel principles? Constant life of submission to God, constant commitment to honor human authority, constant commitment to do what is good no matter what, being willing to suffer–you have to be willing to suffer because if you're not willing to suffer, you're going to be a depressed and angry person, and remember God's empowering and rewarding grace. There's where the passage goes.

Now, that doesn't mean that we don't fight injustice. But it means I always do that, in submission to God, always do it in the way that honors human authority, and I do not let go of my commitment to do what is good no matter what.

I want to ask you this question, “Are you willing to suffer? Are you willing to go through things that are hard, unjust, mistreatment, for the sake of the honor of your Savior?

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So, I don't know if you've understood the foundation of this second chapter of 1 Peter which we're going to complete. But Peter wants you to know if you're God's child, your life doesn't belong to you anymore.

There are two principles that shape everybody's living:  a principle of ownership and a principle of servanthood. I either live like my life belongs to me to do with it what I want to do, or I understand that I now am God's possession; my life belongs to Him and needs to be shaped by His will for me. And to end the introduction to that conversation, because he's going to extend it in the next chapter, Peter takes us back to the person and work of Jesus.

Jesus is the foundation of this new way of living; it’s the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ; it's Jesus preeminent in all things.

He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

Jesus is our example. But praise God, praise God, praise God! He's not just an example. What’s the example? Jesus is the ultimate example of never returning evil for evil. You know, sometimes I'm rejected because I do bad things; never the case with Jesus because it says that “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.” The sinless perfection of Jesus is taught here. The perfect, righteous Son of God, in the face of insult, He did not insult in return. In the face of abuse and anger, He wasn't abusive and angry.

And why was He not that? Because He really believed in the perfect justice of His Father! And we believe that, ultimately, justice will win. Ultimately, the meek will inherit the earth. When you choose not to take justice into your own hands, you are marching with the move of the kingdom of God where, ultimately, the One who is justice will win, and His justice and His righteousness will reign forever and ever and ever.

Jesus is a shining example of living that way. There was never a just accusation made against this One because He was perfect. But thankfully, Jesus is not just our example, because if He was just our example, we could never reach that example. The standard would be too high. He is our substitute.

First of all, He committed no sin; He lived the righteous life that you and I could never live. He bore our sins in His body; He paid our penalty as the ultimate sacrifice, the Lamb of God. Why did He do that? So we can live between the ‘already of our conversion’ and the ‘not yet of our homegoing’ righteous lives. His grace is not so we can just go on sinning, knowing that we're forgiven. But His substitution for us is so that we can live righteously and, ultimately, know that we will finally be healed from the ultimate disease of disease, the disease of sin. Your deliverance from the ultimate disease is guaranteed as a child of God. May you grab a hold of Jesus as your example; may you grab a hold of Jesus as your substitute, and may, because of that, you live a righteous life in His eyes!

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Well as we launch into 1 Peter 3, I want to take a moment to talk about the goodness of God and His commands. I think there are places in 1 Peter 3 where many of you who are watching or listening will struggle with what God is asking you to do. And so I think it's important to frame this next portion of 1 Peter, 1 Peter 3. It's important that you remind yourself that God is perfectly good in every way, all of the time! And if you embrace that, if you remind yourself of that, then the logical conclusion is that what He asks of us is good for us. It's impossible for God to ever command you to do something that's evil or harmful because that's not actually in His nature. He's perfectly holy, He's perfectly good, and so He will never ask of us anything that is not good.

In fact, it's important that we remind ourselves that His commands themselves are a grace to us. I hate the contrast that we often set up between God's law and God's grace. God's law is actually an expression of His grace. You say, “What do you mean by that?” Well first of all, His law ‘rescues us from us’ because it puts boundaries around us that we wouldn't know we needed apart from God's law. It's sort of like a child; a child is born into a world where there are all kinds of danger. And if a parent didn't set boundaries for that child, the child would hurt himself. So, God our Father sets boundaries for us because He loves us.

There's another thing about ‘His commands are grace;’ He always meets us with enabling grace. All of God's commands are accompanied by His enabling grace; He doesn't command us and just walk away. But He enables us with both a desire and to do what He's called for us to do.

And then I love the fact that God's commands give all of us wisdom tracks to run on in our daily lives. There's so much that we know that we should do and so much that we know that we shouldn't do that it lifts the burden of, “What do I do now?” in so many situations of life. It's such a sweet thing that we're not left to figure it out on our own, but God lovingly guides and directs us.

There's one other thing, and it is that if you're God's child, your life has been welcomed to have a higher purpose than personal happiness and fulfillment–your definition of comfort and pleasure. In fact, I am deeply persuaded if your highest goal in life is your comfort and your pleasure, you will probably not experience those in the way that you wish because you'll always find something to complain about; you'll always find something that is unpleasurable; you'll always encounter something that's uncomfortable. That's not a way of living a peaceful, content, and joyful life. And so throughout scripture, and surely in 1 Peter, we have these phrases “for the Lord's sake, in the Lord, as unto the Lord.” Those are reminders that I am now welcomed into an agenda that's vastly bigger than the agenda I would have set for myself. We get to participate in God's glorious plan for humanity, and what an honor, what a blessing that is! A good God couldn’t possibly ask you to do anything that wasn't good for you. A good God wants his children to thrive, thus His commands!

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Well, I want to read for you the first several verses of 1 Peter 3.

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external–the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear–but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.

I want to begin by saying two things. One, for every institution God created, He established an organizing structure, a government if you would, that's true in marriage; that's true in the church; that's true in the human community. That organizing structure is a visible representation of the authority of God. That is an independent authority; it's an ambassadorial authority.

And this passage that I've just read is also not a gender value rating passage. It's not that wives somehow are less valuable and less important in the eyes of God than a husband is; there's nothing in this passage that would ever communicate that.

There's a third thing; this passage cannot be reduced to just a ‘who's in charge’ passage because it's so much more than that, way more. Really what this passage is, is about God's plan for the character of a wife's heart.

Listen to what it talks about. First of all, she's meant by God to have heart of willing submission; that God has set up an organizational structure in the family, and He's called the woman to participate willingly in that structure. Here's the thing about some submission. If you have to force submission, it means the person is not submitting. Submission is always a willing, joyful expression of my heart.

One of the words in the New Testament that’s used for submission is actually defined by ‘a willingness to be persuaded.’ I love that, that I don't always have to have my own way; I don't always have to be in charge; I'm willing to be persuaded by the leadership of another.

There's a second thing, it's a willingness of the heart to be part of God's redemptive work in the life of your spouse, that I want to live in such a way that God's truth, God's gospel, relationship with Jesus is made attractive. So, it's a call again for the wife to live with a higher agenda than her own personal happiness. It’s an emphasis on the heart versus appearance, that I don't define myself just by how I look. And we live in an appearance-obsessed culture, and this warning is so good that God doesn't just look on the outside appearance, He looks on the heart.

And I just want to say that when it talks about a “gentle and quiet spirit,” He’s not asking you to be a ‘mousy woman.’ Those two words (gentle and quiet spirit) are used to define Jesus too. Jesus was gentle; Jesus had a quiet spirit, “When threatened, He did not threaten return.” This is a woman that hopes in God; bottom line for what she's hooked her life to is God. She's committed to do good no matter what.

And she is “free from fear.” Now, I think that's a beautiful set of characteristics, willing to be submissive, willing to be part of God's redemptive work, more concerned about the character of the heart than the appearance of the body, hopes in God, committed to do good, freedom from fear. Wouldn't you like to be that person? Well, I want to say there's grace for this!

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Well, let me read verse 7 of 1 Peter 3:

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers be not hindered.

Why does he start with ‘likewise?’ Because the same core focus that Peter had for the woman is for the man, and that is a focus on the character of the heart of the husband. These two sets of directions to husbands and wives are all about the heart, the character, the heart. Now we know this, that the heart is the core directional system of your personhood–where the heart goes, the body will eventually go. So, Peter has that heart focus.

Notice, husbands, that the command here is not to lead. The command is to love, to live with your wife in an understanding way. It’s very interesting, the same is the case in Ephesians 5. You would expect if the wife is called to submit, the husband would be called to lead, but that's not the command. The command is to love. Maybe that is because God understands our tendencies, and what we really struggle with is not ‘being in charge.’ What we struggle with is self-sacrificing love. And so that's why that command.

“Live with your wife in an understanding way.” I would ask you, “Are you a student of your wife: to know her, to know her emotional and spiritual gifts, to know her emotional, spiritual, physical weaknesses, so that you can live with her in a tender, loving, encouraging, supporting, helping way?”

He says, “Showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel.” I don't think that he's teaching that, somehow, women are innately spiritually weaker than men. We see women of incredible spiritual strength in Scripture.

I think he's actually talking about physical things here. It's that you're not meant to be a demeaning, intimidating, threatening presence. It's so easy for a man, in a moment of anger, to loom over his wife in a threatening way even if he doesn't touch her with his hand; you're supposed to honor her rather than intimidate her.

Another heart issue is that, as a husband, you would care about the mystery and glory and beauty of your spiritual union with your wife. You know, if you're a Christian couple, you have the deepest form of union you could ever have.

Think about this, husband, the Spirit of God lives in you, and the Spirit of God lives in your wife, and the Spirit of God will agree with the Spirit of God if we get out of the way of trying to force our own way. There’s just this deep beautiful union as being “joint heirs of the grace of life.” You are objects of God's grace; “Before the foundation of the world,” God chose, for both of you, to be the recipients of His grace, and your marriage ought to be a celebration of that shared grace that God has given you. And listen, when the core union of a marriage is that you are joint heirs of God's grace, that marriage is going to go someplace wonderful.

And then here's the warning. You can't have consistent marital sin and vertical spiritual health. That's why the prayer issue at the end of this passage. You see my love for God is actually depicted by my love for the people in my life. How can you say that you love God if you don't love your brother or your sister in Christ? May God help us, whether a wife or whether a husband, to offer our hearts to God for His purpose and His using!

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Well, I want to talk about living with a God-focus because that's really where Peter goes next. He's describing for us a life that's not driven by my personal hopes and dreams, not my will for my life, not what brings me pleasure. Now, that's not a one-time decision I make; that's a daily commitment even in the most mundane situations of life. That means I'm not going to argue with my wife over something that's just stupid, doesn't make any difference. There's something in us; we want to win, we want to have our way, we want that pleasure of that moment. And that's just one illustration of how we grab our lives back; we act as if they belong to us, and we do what we want to do in the way that we want to do it. Let me read for you.

Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of Lord is against those who do evil.”

You know, the core of this passage is there in this quote from Psalm 34, “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous.” I live with this recognition, there is a God. This God who exists cares for me and He's adopted me into His family by grace. This God who lives knows what's best for me. This God who exists actually hears my cries. That's just an amazing thing that God listens to me. And His way is the good life.

If you desire to love life and see good days, then follow God because following God is the good life. I've said this before, I have to say it again, “God wants His children to thrive.” So, what does that look like? Well, “unity of mind,” do everything you can to be an agent of unity, not conflict. Live a sympathetic life. How important that is that we are willing to enter into the experience of another person and offer them God's mercy. Brotherly Love, tenderheartedness, humility–this is just such an amazing passage. Never repay evil for evil, never vengeful, no evil talk, no deceit, committed to do what is good, seek peace.

Now, I wish that Paul Tripp could say, “I always love unity more than winning, I'm always sympathetic, I always live in brotherly love, I'm always tender hearted, I'm always humble minded, I'm never vengeful, I never use my mouth to say something I shouldn't say, I'm never deceitful, I'm always committed to do good, I always seek peace.”

That's a standard so high that you and I, in independent strength, will never reach it. I am convinced that passages like this, if you allow yourself to stand for their conviction, drives you to God for His grace. May God give us the desire and the power to live this way because this way of living opens the doors to the good life for us. The Good Life is not your dream; the Good Life is God's plan for you. But that way is high and it's hard, and so He meets us by His grace and says, “You follow Me, and I will give you the desire and the ability to do what I've called you to do!” Won't you follow Him?

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Well, I want to get you to think for just a few moments about moral preparedness. I would ask you, “What determines the choices you make in those little mundane moments where you live every day, the reactions that you have, the things you do or say?” Now, remember the context here of the verse I'm about to read is a culture of mistreatment, accusation, misunderstanding for these Christians. Verse 13, through 17, of 1 Peter 3:

Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous to do what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.

The moral bottom-line of this passage is, “…in your hearts honor Christ as Lord.” It immediately makes me ask the question, “In my marriage, in my work, in my friendships, with my neighbors, with my money, with my sexuality, do I honor Christ as Lord? Does my heart functionally belong to Christ as Lord?” This means, again, my moral choices, those little moral choices that make up the direction of my life, are not shaped by what is going on around me, or what is being done to me, or what attracts me out there, but in my allegiance to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

So, this means two things. First, I'm willing to suffer even when I'm doing good. I don't know about you, but I don't like to suffer. I have never prayed, “Lord, won’t you send more suffering into my life? I know if you would do that, you'd love me.” I have surely prayed from relief for suffering, and that's not a wrong thing to do. But you can't honor Christ as Lord of your heart and refuse to suffer, because following Him will lead you into suffering somehow, someway. If you're not suffering now, you will someday, and if you're not suffering now, you're near someone who is.

But it also means something else. It means I'm ready to answer your questions when people come to me and ask me, “What makes me tick?” “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope of this in you.” I love this. This is a different form of evangelism. I'm not chasing this person saying, “Can I talk to you about Jesus? Can I talk to you about Jesus?” This is a person who has seen the beauty of my life, seen me having hope in places where other people don't have any hope, seen my tenderness, my love, my joy, my sympathy, and they want to know, “Why?” And because of that, I have an opportunity to talk about this good God and salvation through His Son.

How do I do that? I don't do that proudly, and arrogantly, and aggressively; I do that with gentleness and respect because I understand the only thing that makes me different than that person who is now asking me these questions is grace. And here's an opportunity for me to be a part of God's operation of grace in that person's life.

I would ask you the question, “Is your life so attractive, so beautiful, that people come to you and say, ‘Tell me what's inside of you, tell me why you do the things you do, tell me what you have that I don't have?’” What a beautiful thing. That's moral preparedness. I'm prepared to suffer.

And I'm prepared to live in such a way that my life is attractive and that gives me gospel opportunities. What's my motive? He ends this way, “God's will and God's honor.” If your heart is owned by King Christ, you will care about God's will, and you will care about God's honor!

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Well, we just looked at 1 Peter 3:13 through 17, but I want to look at just one phrase of one verse, I think it's so important. It is about values right here, right now. If I would watch the video of your last six weeks, I know that's scary to think about, what would I conclude are the values that orient you, that motivate you, that stimulate the way that you live? I love this phrase, here in 1 Peter 3:16, “having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may put to shame.”

“Having a good conscience before God;” do you care about having a good conscience before God? A good conscience in my marriage, a good conscience in my parenting, a good conscience in my friendship, a good conscience in my responses to my neighbors, a good conscience in the way that I use my physical resources, my money, a good conscience in the way I approach my sexuality, a good conscience with regard to everything in my life? It's more important to me than human acceptance and respect. It's more important to me than my definition of comfort and pleasure. It's more valuable to me than power and control. It’s a greater treasure to me than money and success. It's better than winning arguments or having my way.

You see, this is a call to run away from the idols that grip our hearts. Listen, you are only free of idolatry when your Lord owns your heart! And there's going to be idol temptations around us continually until we're on the other side. And so, I'm an alien and a sojourner because what animates me more than anything else is I want a heart that's right before God. I treasure that, I pray for that, I cry out for that, I weep when that's not the case. I'm broken when I've sinned again, and I immediately want to make horizontal and vertical confession because I want a clear conscience before the Lord. Do you care?

If you take anything from internet pornography, to nastiness in a marriage, to material greed, all of those can't live in our lives when we are living with the highest value being a clear conscience before our Lord.

Good conscience living means I'm aware of a watching world. Good conscience living means I'm aware of God's will and God's honor. Good conscience living is a call to higher agenda living– I'm living for the glory of God. And I'm saying, “No!” to all those other glories that could rule my heart. I find, personally, this phrase deeply convicting because there are moments when I'm having the third piece of chocolate cake that I don't actually need. I don't care about a good conscience before God, all I want is my pleasure. Or, when I'm having an argument with someone just because I want to be right, I don't care about a good conscience before God; all I want is my pleasure. May God help us. And in this culture where we find joy in taking the person down on Twitter, or we get our identity out of how many followers we have on Instagram, how important is it to hear this call. May we value, may we treasure a good conscience before God!

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This life of knowing that God is good, and what He calls me to is good, and I want to follow His commands, and I want to be morally prepared, and I want to have a good conscience from Him, can really go in a wrong direction if it isn't rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ and all of the comforts of the gospel. My hope is never my independent righteousness. My hope is the righteousness of Jesus lived on my behalf. And so, immediately after this tough set of directives, that's where Peter goes.

He reminds us of Christ, our example, and our substitute:

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds with this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

 Now I know, you've heard me read this passage and you're thinking, “What in the world is this talking about? About Christ’s speaking to the spirits in prison and days of Noah, and…” Well, you're in good company. Martin Luther said, “This is the one passage in scripture he absolutely did not understand and did not how to know make sense of.” Calvin said many of the same things. John Calvin offered some possibilities.

What I want to say about this passage is you don't want to get trapped in the mystery of portions of the passage and miss the point. The point is that Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves. Here in seven words, He presents to us a Savior who is the ultimate example and substitutionary hope. “Jesus also suffered once for sins.” Jesus also suffered once for sins; Jesus conquered sin in His life and His death and His resurrection. That's why on the cross He was able to say, “It is finished,” the work is done on our behalf.  

And so, as we're struggling to obey Him, as we're falling down and failing, as we realize that in this moment we do not have a good conscience to God, we don't have to beat ourselves up; we don't have to hide in shame because Jesus suffered once for all for sin. I love the phrases here that explain saving grace, “…the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, to put to death the flesh but made alive in the Spirit…” (Paraphrased.) What beautiful phrases, the righteous One gave Himself for the unrighteous. Why did he do that? So that He might bring us to God. And this One who actually died for us, was made alive by the power of the Spirit. What amazing grace!

My understanding of the mystery part of this passage is that He is actually talking about the days of Noah, that earlier Peter talked about Christ’s speaking to the prophets, Christ speaking through Noah. But I want to say again, don't let a confusing part of a passage detract you from Peter's point, your hope is not your obedience! Your called to obey, but your hope is not in your obedience; your hope is in your substitute Savior who gave Himself for your sin, to bring you to God and rose again, conquering sin and death so that we would rest in the righteousness of Christ given over to our account.

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I love how Peter, as a good, tender-hearted pastor who understands the people that he's speaking to, ends with reminding us that we serve a victorious, reigning Savior. He says in verse 18, it talks about the resurrection, at the end of 21, “…through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who (Christ) has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”

I love this. This means there is never a situation, there is never a location, there is never a relationship that I'm ever in, that isn't ruled by my Savior, King Christ. And Peter wants you to understand this, this is where Christ is our example and our encouragement that as Jesus suffered, and then ended up in glorious vindication; we suffer, and one day we will experience, with Him, glorious vindication.

Elsewhere in Scripture, it says when we look back at our moments of suffering, from the vantage point of eternity, we will name them as light and momentary afflictions. Your Savior sits at the right hand of the Father; He intercedes for us.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul characterizes His work, this reigning savior is now putting enemies under His feet. He's working out the spoils of the victory He accomplished in His life, death, and resurrection. That final enemy under His feet will be death, and when that enemy is conquered, He will say, “Beloved, enter into my presence, all things are now ready.”

The cross was not a defeat. The cross was a glorious victory! The death of Christ was not a defeat. The resurrection was a vindication! He now sits at the right hand of Father. And so I have reason to be hopeful, ‘right here, right now,’ because the one who controls everything is my Savior. I am in His family. He loves me; He cares for me! We've already heard that His ears are attentive to my cry. He rules not just for His glory, but He rules for my good. I love the ‘right here, right now’ hope of this passage.

And Peter, again, is writing to people who are facing very hard things. As he's written to them, he's laid before them the difficult commands of the Lord. He's called them to a heart that's ruled by the Lord. He's called them to moral preparedness. He's called them to a good conscience before the Lord. He’s called them to be willing to follow their Savior in suffering.

Now, I imagine it would be pretty easy for these people just to be overwhelmed. And so he wants to say, “Don't you understand?” This One who willingly gave Himself for you is now sitting at the right hand of the Father. And He rules things for your benefit. He intercedes on your behalf. He hears your cry. He is with you, and He is for you. You can have hope in Him. Yes, you will face hard things. Yes, you will fail. You are never your hope. Your reigning savior is!

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Well, we're going to look at 1 Peter 4, and if I were going to put a title on the whole chapter, I would entitle it, “Past, Present, and Future.” Although Peter’s continuing interest is to help people to understand their lives between the ‘already of their conversion, and the not yet of their home going,’ he can't do that without referencing the past and focusing on the future. Let me read just the first two verses of 1 Peter 4.

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.

I would ask you, again, at street level, where you live every day, what is it that you're living for? Peter only proposes two options here; it's, you're either living your life shaped by human passions, that is your desires and your emotions and your motivation; or for the will of God. And what Peter wants us to understand, and this is hard for some of us, but living a life shaped and directed by God's will, inescapably means a willingness to suffer.

He said, “arm yourself,” that means prepare and protect your heart with Christ’s thinking. Let's think about what he's talking about there. Jesus knew what His job description was, and He was willing. Let me let me read some verses for you.

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief… Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted…he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned–every one–to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; and like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

That was Jesus’ job description; that was a prophecy of Jesus in Isaiah 53. He knew what He was facing, and He was willing. So, Peter says, “If you're going to live for the will of God between the ‘already and the not yet’ you've got to take on the thinking of Christ.”

This humble, determined submission to do the will of God is where the defeat of sin begins in your life. That's what he means in “cease from sin.” The more you're committed to do the will of God, the more you're committed not to give way to your passions; and the more you're willing to suffer for doing what is good, the more temptation doesn't have power in your life. It really is true that obedience always begins, hear what I’m about to say, with a submission of your heart to the will of God. Your body will always go where your heart has already gone. And so, the battleground is this battleground of “Am I willing to do what Jesus did?” Jesus said, “I came to do the will of my Father,” and no matter what that means, I will do His will.

I don't know about you, but I don't like to suffer. I don't like discomfort of any kind. I don't like to wait in traffic. I don't like people disagreeing with me. I don't like physical pain. And so, if I'm ever going to live this life that is God's plan for me between the ‘already and not yet,’ I need rescuing, empowering, transforming grace. Because this way of living no longer dictated by my passions, but shaped by the will of God, even if I suffer, is counterintuitive for me. It only ever happens by means of God's grace, and Jesus died so that grace ‘right here, right now’ would be ours!

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Well, I want to read 1 Peter 4:3; and if I could title this verse, I would title it, “Just Let The Past Be The Past.” Listen to these words:

For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.

I think the way Peter talks about who we are and where we are in God's plan is incredibly helpful here. When Peter talks about living like the Gentiles, that's his way of talking about unbelievers, living as an unbeliever. And he said, “That is something that should remain in your past, let the past be the past.”

His call is to live in the present and think about this, if you are God's child, here's what's happened to you; you have been transported from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. You have been rescued from the kingdom of self to the kingdom of God; you have been given the power to resist the will of man and to live for the will of God.

Now let's think about this for the moment. All of that, that amazing work, is the incredible miracle of redeeming grace. God has literally set this plan in motion before the world was began. God literally harnessed the forces of nature and controlled the events of human history so that Jesus would come, live the life that He lived, died the death that He died, rose again conquering sin and death, so that you and I, right here right now, would have this present reality in our lives, that we have been rescued from darkness, we have been rescued from selfishness, in the real sense of that word, we have been rescued from our bondage to our own will and delivered to the kingdom of life, the kingdom of God, the will of God. That is the miracle of redeeming grace!

And Peter said, “Why would you want to go back to Egypt? Why would you want to go back to slavery? Why would you want to go back to bondage? Why would that old way ever be attractive to you, when you have been given what you could have never earned, never deserved, glorious, redemptive realities that are yours right here, right now?”

Well again, living in the present means a life shaped by what God says is best, what God says is right, what God says is true, what God says is good, what God says is holy. It is so easy to give way to the temptation to have a life shaped by personal pleasure, personal comfort, personal desires; and doing that, as I said before, is analogous to the children of Israel, turning back and going back to Egypt and saying, “Pharaoh, we'd like to be slaves again because slavery is more attractive to us now than this life that we’ve been rescued to.” If you saw anybody who has been released from slavery, saying, “I want to go back and I want to live in bondage,” you would say that person has gone crazy. Living for your past is spiritual insanity. Going back to Egypt, spiritually, is spiritual craziness. Don't allow yourself to lose your gospel mind.

This past present thing is spiritual warfare. Again, you and I need rescue. I don't need just rescue from an evil world; I need rescue from me! I need rescue for a mind that actually has the power to make me think that bondage is better than the liberty that I've been given. May God help us; may He meet us by His grace!

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Well, I want to read verses 3 through 6 here in 1 Peter 4.

For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

I love this passage! Well, I love the whole Bible, but sometimes passages just jump out at you. Peter makes it very clear here that a gospel-formed worldview tells us that nobody gets the last word but God; God gets the final word! By the world’s standard of normal, normal, that means you are free to do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it, whoever you want to do it with, by the world’s standard of normal, it's assumed that you and I would join them in doing whatever pleases us to do. So, it will surprise the people around us that we say, “No, we don't want to live that way.” What is normal to the world is not normal to us; God has given us a brand-new standard of norm–we've been talking about that.

And so, you'll be maligned, you'll be mocked, you'll be misunderstood. And so, how do you deal with this? How do you deal with the fact that your neighbors won't understand you, that people at work may mock you, that your choices that are actually holy in the eyes of God will look evil to the surrounding world? Well, Peter says, here's how you deal with this.

Remember that the mocking world never has the final word, God does! There will be a final judgment; there will be a final judgment because there is an ultimate Judge, and evil will be punished, and God's children who have faced mockery and mistreatment and misunderstanding and rejection will be given a crown of honor and will reign with their King forever and ever and ever in utter peace and utter righteousness and full acceptance forever. God gets the final word!

Listen, this period of misunderstanding that every believer is going to face because the world assumes things about us and when we don't participate, they deride and malign and mock, is just a flash of time in comparison to the honor and glory that awaits us in eternity because the One who is your Savior is the ultimate Judge, and He gets the final word!

I want to say something about this statement that “the gospel was preached to the dead” that has created a lot of controversy. And people think, “Well, does this mean the dead have a second chance?” All Peter's arguing is, it's always been this way, that the gospel has always been God's means of bringing people to Himself. It always meant the preaching of the gospel, that no one is able to earn or deserve or work his way into relationship with God. So, all those people, believers who are dead, they came to God in the same way by His grace, just like we do. That grace meets us now, even in this moment of hardship, and that grace is a big finger pointing to the fact that God gets the final word, and honor and reward and glory is to come!

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So, I'm going to read a bit of a longer section from 1 Peter 4, because it's both a single topic and very helpful.

The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one as serves by the strength that God supplies–in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him, belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Well, at the epicenter of this gospel worldview, that we have been considering, is the reality that this moment that we're in is not all there is. This is not our final destination. If this present world is our final destination, then the gospel is a delusion, and our faith is in vain. There must be a final, ultimate defeat of sin; there must be the creation of a new heaven and a new earth, or all of this just has been a massive waste of religiosity.

So, that's where Peter begins. He says, “The end of all things is at hand.” What he means is this is the final epic of God's narrative. We're in the final chapter of God's narrative of redemption. And so, his counsel to us is to live with that destination in view, live with eternity in view. Live knowing that this is not all there is; life is not about great big houses, and lots of money, and all those things you could live for as if the pleasure of this moment is all I have, so I want to get as much pleasure as I can get. There was a beer ad that used to say, “You only go around once, so do it with all the gusto you can do,” what a horrible ad!

So, what does that look like, this living with eternity in view? Well, Peter says, first of all, it means being self-controlled–you don't give way to that pleasure-mindedness that says, “This moment's happiness is all that there's worth living for.” Be “sober-minded,” think seriously. Man, if the Bible teaches us anything, it is to take life seriously. And then he says, “Above all this (I love this.) be determined to live a life of love. Give yourself to love, love one another.” It's not enough for him to say that; he says “earnestly,” work at it, be committed to it, make sacrifices for it, that's earnestness. What does that mean? It means be hospitable. And then again, Peter is a good pastor; he adds a prefix “and don't grumble.” Be hospitable, do it with joy.

And then he says, “use your gifts as an instrument of God's grace” Whether that’s speaking or serving, do it for the purpose of being used as an oracle, an instrument, a tool of God. And then he finally says, “All this is for God's eternal glory in Christ.” Self-controlled, sober-minded, earnest love, hospitality, gifts surrendered to God's purpose is Christological living–it's Christ-centered living. It's living in order that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. I live my life with Christ in view. Living for eternity means I live right now with Christ in view!

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Well, this final section of 1 Peter 4 is a return to focus on a theme that goes throughout this book; it’s a theme of suffering. And I think Peter, again, is just showing that God has worked in his life, and this brash man has become a tender-hearted pastor.  And he just knows how hard suffering is for us and how we can lose our way in suffering.  So, he says:

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

For the believer, this side of eternity, suffering is both the norm and universal. I've said this many times, “If you're not suffering, now, you will someday; and if you're not suffering now, you're near someone who is.” And so, Peter says, “You should not be surprised.” There are four reasons that the New Testament gives us that we should not be surprised that we suffer.

First of all, by God's plan, between ‘the already and not yet,’ we're living in a fallen world that doesn't operate the way God intended, and that brokenness will enter our door.

We suffer for the purpose of our spiritual growth. Peter says that here, “God is testing you”–he doesn't mean Pass-Fail. He means tempering you so you're stronger and more beautiful and more usable.

We suffer because it qualifies us for ministry; that's 2 Corinthians 1, “If we suffer, it's for your sake, so that we may give you the same comfort that we have received.” (Summarized.)

And we suffer because the world will reject us because of Christ-like living. Those four things mean that somehow, some way, I have to accept, by grace, that suffering will be part of my life, between my coming to Christ and my going home to be with Him.

But Peter makes this important point, he says. “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's suffering, that you may also rejoice and be glad…” That part of the sentence that begins with “that” is a purpose clause. It says God has a purpose for this right now, “So that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed.”

Now what he's saying is that the suffering that we're going through right now is preparatory. We're not ready for the other side, and what God is doing is He's using our suffering to deepen our desire for eternity, to deepen our readiness for eternity. I always think of that when I think about camping that, you know, living in a tent for a few days, makes you desirous and more thankful for home. That's what he is saying here; that God is using this to bring in us an expectancy, a hopefulness, a readiness, for the glory that will be ours.

What tender love that God doesn't just allow us to feel singled-out or abandoned when we go through hardship, but it says, “No, these are the reasons you will suffer. And here's what I'm doing in the midst of your suffering.” In those moments, God is for you, and He's with you, and He's in you. And He is doing things in your heart that need to be done in order for you to let go of the pleasures of this world and open your heart to what is coming so you live with longing and expectancy and joy as you realize that this is not all there is–there is glory to come!

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Verse 14 says this, “If you're insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rest upon you.” I don't know about you but when I'm insulted, I don't first think, “Wow, what a blessing this is. I am so blessed right now. I wish I were insulted more.” But there are sometimes when being insulted is a blessing. I think the title for 1 Peter 4:14 should be “Blessed Insults.”

Perhaps there is something that Peter is exposing here. Perhaps all of us live too much in fear of man. Perhaps all of us work too hard for human approval. Do you ever have a negative comment by somebody just wreck your day? Because after you walk away, you rehearse that over and over again. Or somebody vehemently disagrees with something that you thought was one of your best insights, and you carry on that argument the rest of the day even though they're not with you, and you mount better arguments for your opinion. Of course, you have! We've all done that.

Peter is flipping the script to us, and saying, “There are moments when mockery and insult is a sign of blessing.” What does he say? “If you're insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and God rest upon you.” Imagine that person who is insulting you doesn't understand it, but they are recognizing glory. They are recognizing the presence of the Spirit of God in you. They're recognizing that you have been lifted out of the mass of humanity and drawn to God's presence and filled with His Spirit and had His glory poured in on you. That's why you're different. That's why you make the choices that you make. They're recognizing something beautiful; they don't understand that, but that's what's happening. And that's why their insults are actually a blessing because it's another indication of the work of God in you.

Have you ever wondered, “Is God with me? Is He really in me? Does He really care for me? Has He really done for me what He says He's done?” This is a bit strange but maybe the insults of the world are God saying, “Yes, yes, yes, I am with you, I am in you. My glory does rest on you. That's why this person can’t handle you. They can’t handle how different you’ve become because of My grace!” Blessed insults.

Eternal honor–this kind of eternal honor is only ever yours by grace; it never ever comes by the result of human effort. So, here's the spiritual faultline. Will we live for present, always temporary, human approval, the glory of human respect and human acceptance? Will that be what we treasure? Will that be what we work for? Or for the eternal glory of living for the honor of our Savior and knowing every time we're maligned, every time we’re rejected, every time we're insulted, it's just another sign of the blessing that's been poured in on us by God's amazing grace; I'm going to say it again that we could have never earned, achieved, or deserved. Sometimes being assaulted is just a huge, glorious blessing!

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“But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler.” If I could name this verse, I would name it “What You Bring On You.” Suffering is not always an indication of new life in Christ. The hardship that I face in suffering is not always a blessing. What Peter says next is a very, very important qualification; and it's also incredibly humbling. Not all suffering is a blessing because there is a kind of suffering that we bring on ourselves.

Let's step back and think about when God's Law was given. After God had redeemed the Children of Israel from slavery, that means He had already placed His love on them, they were already His children, they didn't have to earn or deserve that, He leads them out of Egypt, plants them in front of Mount Sinai, and He gives them His Law. That Law was not a means of them earning favor with Him. That Law was a gift of His grace because these people, who for over four-hundred years, had every choice of life pre-made for them by their masters, had no idea how to live.

God's Law is a product of His love; He wants His children to thrive. And this is the Creator who knows the world He's made. He knows now the nature of its fallenness, its brokenness. He knows us; He knows our struggle with sin, and so He gives us tracks to run on because He loves us. So, God's way of living is always the right way. It's the way of thriving. It's the way of peace and life and happiness and joy. So, when we step out of His will, this is very important to get, there will always be some degree of negative consequences.

Listen, you will never ever win a debate with God on what's the best way to live. It's impossible! And any time you step outside of His will, you're stepping into danger; you're stepping toward some kind of hardship, some kind of negative consequences. So that means you'll suffer, but you're suffering not because you're doing what is right and the world is mocking; you're suffering because you've stepped out of what is right, and there are natural consequences to those wrongs.

I would like to think that all of my suffering is gospel heroism, but it's not. I have the potential to make my life so painful, and so difficult, and so hard. Maybe that's just a harsh word to Luella, my wife, that hurts her feelings and introduces a tension in a moment in our relationship. And maybe we're someplace where we should be enjoying ourselves; and all of a sudden, we're not enjoying ourselves, and we're not enjoying our surroundings–that’s just brief momentary consequences. What is it? I'm not suffering because I done what is right. I'm suffering because I stepped out of God's will.

Now this warning to us, reminds us that we do not battle alone, that God battles for us. And so, He's walking before us and He's warning us, “Just remember sometimes your suffering is a result of stepping out of My will and My way!”

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Well, we end with the final few verses of 1 Peter 4. I must say, I'm a bit sad because this chapter has been just incredibly convicting and encouraging for me, and I hope for you as well. Verse 16:

Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And

     “If the righteous is scarcely saved,
          what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”

Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

Well, in the chapter that has talked about God's judgment, where Peter concludes, is a bit surprising. I think of what I would say to struggling, suffering people as I'm getting ready to close down my communication to them, I probably wouldn't have said, “Oh, by the way, God's judgment begins with His house, His family.”

Now, that may be confusing to you because you may be thinking, “Now, wait a minute, Paul. The whole message of hope in 1 Peter is that Christ took our judgment on the cross; He bore our penalty so we will never ever face condemnation, penalty for our sin. How is it then that God's judgment begins with His house, His children?”

Well, let me give you an illustration here of what he's talking about. Imagine you have a circuit court judge in Philadelphia, and he has criminals before him every day before his bench. But he has three children at home that he loves, guides, protects, and disciplines. How much scarier is His work of judgment behind that bench before those criminals who committed those crimes, than it is to those children that are part of his family that he loves? That's the distinction that's being made in this passage. We're now in God's house. We're now His children. It's never the judgment for our crimes; it's the loving discipline–Fatherhood-judgment of those who are His children. Yes, we will face His discipline, but we never have to be afraid that we are like the ungodly and the sinner who are not part of His house, who have not surrendered themselves to Him by His grace who are not His children.

And He ends by this, “Let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator by doing what is good.” We don't have to be afraid even though life is hard because we have a faithful Creator. What is he talking about? God remembers His covenant promises to His children. They go back to the garden to that moment when Adam and Eve disobeyed, and God said, “I'm going to send One who will crush the head of the serpent.” That's a finger pointed to Jesus who would provide defeat of sin and eternal life for His children. Don't be afraid; God will remember His promises!

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Well, we're in our final stages of our year-long study of 1 Peter. We’re in 1 Peter 5, and 1 Peter 5 is directed to elders. Elders are God's appointed leaders of His church, and Peter humbly says, “I want to speak to you as a fellow elder.” But although this material is primarily written to elders, there's so much gospel helpfulness in this passage. And I actually love the way he begins. There’s a hymn that we used to sing growing up, it was, “I Love to Tell the Story.” And it was a hymn about the amazing gospel story. Well, Peter does one of the best summaries of the gospel story in verse 1 of 1 Peter 5 that you could ever read.

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed.

If you are looking for a two-word summary of the entire biblical narrative, here it is–suffering and glory. Those themes are everywhere throughout the biblical story. We know from the prophecies of Isaiah that Christ's life was going to be a life of suffering, “despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” But Christ's life was also one of amazing glory, the glory of the resurrection, the glory of His ascension to the right hand of the Father.

Our lives are suffering between the ‘already and the not yet.’ We live in this fallen world where suffering is everywhere around us. But every day we are blessed with the glory of redeeming grace. The world that we live in is suffering, broken, groaning. But there's glory to come, the new heavens and the new earth. Suffering is what sin causes and has ushered into the world; glory is what grace is able to do. Suffering is your address now; glory is your guaranteed destination. Suffering is God's tool of transformation in your life; glory is God's promise of a final consummation of His work.

It really is true that this story is this constant coming together of suffering and glory, suffering and glory, suffering and glory, and reminds us that God is not satisfied with our condition, or the condition of His world. I find hope in realizing that I serve a dissatisfied Redeemer who will not give up, who will not relent until every microbe of sin is delivered from every cell of every heart of every one of His children. He will not give up until this world is finally and fully renewed.

Now, that story of suffering and glory is meant to be the story that gets shaped that animates your life. And I would ask you these questions, “What story shapes your living? What is the story that you tell yourself that makes sense of everything you face every day? What's the story that brings you joy? What's the story that brings you sadness? What's the story that is the thing that interprets everything that goes on in you and around you?”

Well, here's the story, suffering and glory. Sin brought untold suffering into this world, but there's a God of awesome glory, who pours into that world the glory of His grace, so that at some moment, sin will be no more, and we will reign in peace and righteousness and glory forever and ever and ever. Now, that's a good story!

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I think culturally in the church, we are in desperate need of a fundamental transformation of our view of leadership, our view of authority. We have created a generation of big personality, loud, domineering, sometimes bullying leaders. And I'm just impressed when Peter begins to define what a leader is in Christ’s Church, his definition is the polar opposite of anything like that. Let me read for you (1 Peter 5:2-4).

Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

I don't know how much you know about the culture into which this is written, but ‘shepherd’ was not a prized occupation. Shepherds were lowly and it was an unremarkable, smelly, lowly job. A shepherd is a servant title. Remember, he doesn't call these people “kings of Christ’s Church; he calls them “shepherds.” And if you study the culture of a shepherd, it would be hard to find a more fundamentally other-centered title than “shepherd.” Shepherd lives, breathes, exercises his gifts for the sake of the health of the sheep. And so, that's Peter’s view of a leader.

And he lays out, first it means exercising oversight. This is not domineering, this is not controlling, but it's that huge responsibility to care for the souls of people–to guide, protect, feed, and nurture.

He says that you’re to do that willingly. And I like how he puts, “as God would have you.” See, God knows that humble leadership always starts with the heart. God's focus is on the heart. We know that from the qualifications of elder; it's those qualifications are character, character, character, character.

He says, “…not for sinful gain.” Authority is not for you! The people, whom you lead, are not there to build your reputation, to build your power, to build your position, to build your economic position. And in that way, ministry is always this war between the kingdom of self and the kingdom of God.

He said, “…not domineering.” How important that is. There is a Lord, there is a Chief Shepherd, and it's not me! He says rather than be domineering, be an example of the self-sacrificing, patient, gentle, gracious love of the Savior.

And then he says something that I just love. He says this life of sacrifice will be rewarded. Now think about this, I'm given a gift I couldn't have worked up myself, I'm given a calling I couldn’t have deserved on my own, yet I'm rewarded for using that gift and that calling.

Authority for Peter is a life of servanthood. It's a life of suffering. It's a life of willing, joyful self-sacrifice.  It’s not domineering, it’s not controlling, it's not self-centered. Elders are not the kings of Christ’s Church; elders are the shepherds of Christ’s Church. They're there to represent His work in the life of His people for whom He died!

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Well, as we begin to look at 1 Peter 5, verse 5, my question for you is, “Do you value humility?” If I would watch the video of your last six weeks (I ask this question all the time.), would I see somebody who values humility? Are you impatient with others? Do you have to be in control? Do you like telling your story more than hearing the stories of others? Do you complain the minute life is a bit uncomfortable? Do you get mad when somebody decides to disagree with you? Is your life a life of humility?

Peter says this:

Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. (Then he says this.) Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

I love that, “Clothe yourself.” It's that physical image of deciding what you're going to wear, these external garments that you put on to go out and matriculate in the world. He says, “Clothe yourself…with humility.” Here's, the humble self-view of the Christian life.

Here's number one: I am my biggest problem. There's no bigger problem in life than I am to myself because of the sin that lives inside of me.

That leads to a second humble admission: I cannot solve this problem on my own; I've got a problem that I can't solve with all of my wisdom, with all of my experience, with all my personality and personal power and mentality and emotionality–I can't solve my biggest problem.

Third humble confession: That means I'm in desperate need of rescue. The very word rescue means whatever situation I find myself in, I can’t get myself out of it on my own.

Fourth humble admission: I am not wired to live well in isolation from others. I am not wired to live well in isolation from others.

Which means fifth: I need the wisdom and experience and insight of others. That admission basically means personal spiritual insight is the result of community–it's hard to get it by yourself.

Further humble admission: At no time before I cross over into eternity will I ever be a grace graduate. Grace is a school that I will never graduate from!

Seventh humble admission: All of this means in my life, I have no room for boasting because every good and perfect gift, everything that's worth celebrating, every blessing–I didn't deserve, I didn't achieve, I didn't acquire on my own; it is a result of God's grace and God's blessing and God's provision in my life.

Now, here's what's important to understand; pride is the mortal enemy of grace. If you're proud, you're telling yourself a different story than the humbling story I just repeated. That's the Pharisee in the temple who's looking at other people, and he's saying, “I thank God that I’m not like these people.” He's basically saying, “Here I am God; I just want to announce to you I don't actually need you because I'm not like everybody else.” The more you are in awe of you, the less you'll be in awe of God. The more you tell yourself you're okay, the more you will devalue His grace. Be honest–do you value humility?

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So, I have a great affection for the way that Peter ends his letter. It really does tell me that somewhere between the denial of even a relationship with Jesus, and the renewal that Jesus brought to him by His grace, and the writing of this epistle, Peter has become a tender pastor and a good teacher because what he does is he ends his letter with five directives. These directives really do define for us what living looks like that is shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ. And in that way, it provides a wonderful summary for everything he has said so far. And it's going to take two of these Bible studies for us to work through these five directors. So, this is a “Final Directives - Part 1.”

Here's the first one, there is a king, and He is not you. 1 Peter 5:6, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so at the proper time he may exalt you.” That mighty hand of God is nomenclature that has to do with royalty and authority and power. It's saying there is a powerful, authoritative, sovereign King on the throne. And there are writers who think that mighty hand is actually getting people to think back in early biblical history, to the display of power when God was delivering Israel from Egypt, just how God unleashed His power to create these awesome mind-bending plagues.

So here's the lifestyle. There are only really two lifestyles you and I can live. There's one of submission to a greater authority than ours, His wisdom, His call, His will, His way; or some degree of self-exultation, my will, my way, my rules, what I want, when I want it, where I want it, who I want it from. And we're always feeling the tension, the war between those two things. And actually, what Peter is saying to us right now, and I think it's so important to hear, is that the gospel is the death of self-exultation. The Gospel is a death of self-exultation!

Here's the second directive, rest in your Savior's care, “…Casting all your anxieties on Him, because he cares for you.” You and I, because we're in Christ, inherit the covenant blessing made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that's the argument of Galatians. So, rest for us is not found in our understanding because we won't understand everything, rest is not found in our control because it's impossible for us to control all the things that we'd like to control, rest is not found in our wisdom because our wisdom has limits, rest is not found in our righteousness because our righteousness has limits, rest is not found in our money or our power or our position. Rest is found in this one thing, by awesome activity of grace, we are now the objects of God's care!

The King of kings, the Lord of lords, the One who sits on the throne and rules everything, cares for us. And so, Peter says, “Don't be anxious, don't be afraid, bring your cares to Him.” Before the foundation of the world, He chose us to be sons and daughters of Him. And because of that, to be the object of His constant love, His constant care. Do you rest in your Savior’s care or is your life one of fear and anxiety, desire for control?