So, we're actually done with 1 Peter, and it's been a wonderful, convicting, encouraging experience for me. I feel a great sense of privilege that God chose me to spend a year in this beautiful piece of his book. But I want to do something; I want to stand back from 1 Peter, all the content that we worked through in all the chapters there, and ask the question, "What is the gospel to Peter?"
When you walk through chapter one, and two, and three, and four, and five, and it's gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel, and you stand back from that, what would you say the gospel is to Peter? Well, I want to give the 'not,' and then I want to say to Peter, "The Gospels are surely these three things." For Peter, the gospel is profoundly more than an entrance and an exit. Yes, he understands the essential, vital, glorious importance of our justification, our reconciliation, our adoption. And he understands that glory that is to come and how that's a final culmination of all things. But for Peter, the gospel is a 'right here, right now' thing. If there's anywhere in Scripture where you get a sense of what I would call the "now-ism" of the gospel, it's 1 Peter.
That means three things. For Peter first, the gospel is an identity. There are so many identity statements in 1 Peter; listen to this one in chapter 2:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his (God's) 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 have received mercy.
You have been given a brand new identity; live out of that new identity that you've been given.
Second, for Peter, the gospel is a lens. It's a way of viewing and understanding everything. For Peter, the gospel is the ultimate hermeneutic. Hermeneutics is the science of interpretation; it is the means that God has given us to make sense of who we are, and what we are meant to be doing, and what life is about, and what is the moral fabric for everyday living in, and how do we conduct ourselves in relationships, and what do we say 'yes' to, and what do we say 'no' to-the gospel is a lens for understanding everything.
You look at suffering through the gospel, and it changes the way you think of suffering. You look at marriage through the lens of the gospel, and it changes the way you think about marriage. You look at authority through the lens of gospel, and it changes the way you look at authority. You look at all these things through the lens of the gospel. The gospel is an identity; the gospel is a lens.
And then third for Peter, the gospel is a lifestyle. It's a radically different way of acting, reacting, and responding to the stuff that everyone faces in life. The gospel actually gives you lifestyle tracks to run on.
The gospel is an identity that tells me who I am. The gospel is a lens, making sense out of life for me. The gospel is a lifestyle giving me moral tracks to run on, whoever I am, wherever I am, whatever God has called me to. And all this is only possible by grace. By grace, God gives us a brand-new identity. By grace, God gives us the ability to make sense out of life. But God, by grace, God removes our insanity and causes the live in a way that makes sense. May we love the gospel of Jesus Christ!
