Well I sat in a car on the Roosevelt Expressway that had just been destroyed in an accident, trying to make sense out of my life, asking those questions that you ask in those moments. I guess I was doing what we all do. Somehow, someway, everyone in this room is an investigative reporter. You ask tough questions about your world. Maybe you ask those in a moment of financial difficulty. Maybe you ask those in a moment of physical sickness. Maybe you ask those in a moment when you face the rejection of another person.
The Capacity to Ask Questions
Maybe you ask those when a dream dies. But you ask those kinds of questions; it's human to do. You want to know; you want to understand that capacity to ask questions, that desire to know, that desire to have some kind of inward security, something that makes sense out of your life. You will never escape that because it's part of who you are as a creature made in God's image. And the way you answer those questions really does shape the way that you respond to life, and shaping the way you respond to life really sets the direction of your life.
You could say that that moment, for me, was a hermeneutic moment (hermeneutics is the science of interpretation). That's an interpretive moment; somehow, someway, I'm going to make sense out of that moment, and the sense that I make is terribly important. Now one of the problems is that this is so natural to us and so spontaneous and so much a part of who we are as human beings, we can have this function going on, profoundly important as it is, and not realize that we're doing it, not realizing again and again and again you're stepping out from your life, and you're seeking to make sense; you're a philosopher, and you're a theologian, and you're an investigative reporter in ways that are more frequent and more influential than you may realize.
That's one of the chief purposes for the Word of God, that you would have a basis given to you by the God who created it all, who knows everything from origin to destiny, you would have a basis for generating valid interpretations of life, interpretations upon which you can build, you can stake your life. So, how are you doing? What were the interpretations you made this week? What were you saying to you about you, about life, about God, about grace, about your world? Now this is exactly what's taking place in these first three sections of First Peter that you have there in your Order of Worship.
Peter is writing to people who are experiencing various kinds of difficulties. They're suffering, and you know often when you suffer, you hit those moments where you ask those questions you may not have been asking, and often you can lose your way. And so Peter does three very important things, three foundation stones he lays down. If you're going to have stability in those moments, first of all, you must know who you are. And so Peter wants to root these believers in their identity in Christ; you see that in the first two verses of this letter.
And so I'm not getting my identity from my circumstances, my possessions, my job - I'm getting my identity vertically, and so that identity isn't challenged by the difficulty that's going on around me. Second thing Peter does is he tells us that we must understand what it is that God is doing in the here and now. We tend to have a fairly clear understanding of salvation past. We tend to understand salvation future and the eternity we will have in the Lord, but we may have a gap in the middle of our Gospel.
We may not understand what it is that God is doing in the here and now, and Peter points us to the theology of uncomfortable grace - 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. Tonight, it's the third piece, and what Peter wants to do is get us to step back and consider how awesome, how great, how amazing this salvation is that we've been given. He wants us to live with a deep sense of joy, a deep sense of gratitude, a deep sense of privilege, gratitude that is so deep it can't be rocked when things that are difficult come into our lives.
Not Always a Grateful Person
Now I think that you would probably confess with me that you're not always a grateful person; some of you are smiling. You don't always look at life thankfully. And so what Peter has to say to us here is very important. Now look, if you would, if you have a Bible there, and those of you who don't, I will tell you: the first word of verse 13 is the word 'therefore.' That tells you that, based on these three foundation stones, Peter is now going to call these people to action. I don't know if you remember this when we first began to open First Peter: I said to you this is much more than a letter of comfort.
You would think that if Peter is going to write to people who are suffering, he's going to write a letter of comfort. And he does that; but as a wise pastor, suffering people need more than comfort. They need direction; they need marching orders; they need to be told what to do. One of the worst things for sufferers is inactivity, because you tend to be all too focused on what you're going through, and as you are focused on what you are going through, you have a great ability to trouble your own trouble.
And so it's a loving thing, as part of the comfort, to call these people to live in a radical way, and we're going to see as we go through this letter, this is a call to drop dead radical living, surprising living based on your identity in Christ, your understanding what He's doing in the here and now and your great salvation. Now let me just read again these short verses for you beginning with verse 10: "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 preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which the angels long to look." (1 Peter 1:10-12, ESV) Look at verse 11. Talking about the prophets, he said, "...inquiring what person or time (now notice this phrase) the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories." Now here's what he's saying: the prophets, as they very accurately and with specificity, predicted exactly how God would provide the salvation that you and I so desperately needed - those prophets were guided by none other than Christ Himself.
It was the Spirit of Christ who was guiding those prophets to make those predictions. Jesus didn't do what He did to fulfill the prophecy; the prophets prophesied what they did because the Christ who would do it told them what He was going to do. It wasn't as if Jesus had homework the prophets gave Him and He needed to make sure that He kept His homework. It was Jesus who was in charge of the whole plan. Think about that! This almighty Son of God, Lord of Lords, King of Kings, was now speaking to these men about the kinds of things that He was willing to suffer for you and for me.
How amazing is that? Hundreds and hundreds of years before, God was in charge of the process, and those things would be done, not because the prophets had predicted them, but because Christ had decided that this is what He would do for you and for me. Your salvation doesn't go back to the Cross; it goes back far beyond the cross into a plan of a sovereign God who had decided to deal with this horrible dilemma of sin, and He would not be defeated. How amazing. And notice what it says here: "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."
Prophets Who Did Not Fully Understand
These men, raised up by God, were directed to write such an incredible, unbelievable, awesome account of redemption that they didn't fully understand all that they were writing. Who would have thought that God's answer for the human dilemma - sin - would not be a set of instructions, would not be a set of techniques, would not be a theology, would not be a philosophy? It would be Himself; what God gave us was Himself. And Jesus came - it's amazing to think about - left the glories of eternity, almighty holy God, Creator, Sovereign, willing to subject Himself to the hardships of life in a fallen world: hunger, temptation, human rejection, injustice, torture.
And not only subject Himself to that, but being willing to die in order that the wrath of God would be satisfied, and we would be accepted as the children of God. Do you understand what you've been given - that a sovereign God was harnessing the forces of nature; He was controlling the events of human history; He was Lord over every situation, every location, every circumstance for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years? Nothing was happening outside of His will. All of it was controlled by Him so at a particular point in time, Jesus would come!
Why? Because God had placed His love on you and me. They talked about God's suffering, but they talked about the glories that would follow. Oh surely that means the glory of the resurrection and the glory of the ascension, but it means the glory of this explosion of the Gospel around the world that is a result of the powerful, transforming grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. There will be a day when we stand before the canvas of the glory of God's grace - people of every period of history, every ethnic group, every language group, every point in the globe, men, women, boys and girls - and when we see the full glory of the grace of God, we won't be able to do anything but worship.
Our worship will be so exuberant, it will be like the cracks of loud thunder, like a mighty rushing rapids, like standing next to Niagara; you can't hear yourself think. We won't be able to do anything but worship! And Peter wants you to taste a little bit of that today. I would ask you: are you a celebrant of the grace that you have been given? It says something also amazing here, verse 12: "It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit."
God was raising up these prophets so that, through their ministry, you would have this Book that so clearly witnesses to the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God," and that work of the prophets was not for them; it was for you. Imagine: Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Amos, raised up for you so that you would have a Book that reveals the Lord Jesus Christ, reveals His grace, reveals His deity, reveals His plan so that your faith could have soil in which it can grow, so that you can be sure.
"The things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven." I'm convinced that when Peter uses the word preach here, he's using it in its most general sense, that part of the work of salvation is that God, in His Spirit, has raised up people for us who somehow, someway, bring this message of salvation to us. Can you think of that person for you? Can you think of the names of the people that the Holy Spirit used in your life to bring the message of salvation - do you have names?
The Company of Names
Maybe that was your parents. Maybe it was a friend. Maybe it was a coworker, maybe a relative, maybe somebody previously unknown to you. What an amazing thing. Isn't it amazing the company of names that we could now recite, wouldn't that be beautiful if, all at once, we called out those names? That was not just a person with missionary zeal; that was God's Spirit completing the process, bringing the Gospel of grace to you, and then God's Spirit was doing something else: God's Spirit was opening your heart to it because your heart was dead to the truth, and it needed to have life breathed into it, so the Holy Spirit is working in them, and the Holy Spirit is working in you so that, at a certain point, you would believe.
Wow! I sat with a dear friend a few years back, and I knew him very well, but I had never heard the story of his coming to Christ. And I said, "How is it that you came to know the Lord?" He said, "You won't believe this." I said, "Well, try me." He said, "Through an obituary." I actually think that's a pretty good way. He said, "Somebody had dragged me to a Sunday morning worship service. There was nothing that I loathed more than having to go there, but I couldn't get out of it. I walked in with the bulletin in my hands, and it was a multipage bulletin.
I figured what I would do is, if I could slowly read the bulletin, maybe I could get through the service without hearing much." And he said, "I came to a paragraph that was announcing the death of a lady who was one of God's dear children, and it talked how she had died well, and she had died with utter joy in her heart and a smile on her face. I began to weep. I said to myself, 'I want to die this way.'" Now that, in case you hadn't figured it out, is not fate; that's the Holy Spirit of God using the words on that page to burst into the heart of that man.
That's the Holy Spirit of God opening the heart of that man. He said, "I couldn't wait till the service was over to talk to the person next to me about what I needed to know, what I needed to understand, whom I needed to know, what I needed to do in order to die that way." Praise God. You see, it's not just that Christ, hundreds of years before, spoke of His death, spoke to prophets who would give us the legacy of the Word of God. It is the Spirit of God who now propels that Word through the mouths of human beings who carry it, and the Holy Spirit of God who opens the heart of us so we're able to hear it.
Who could conceive of a plan like this? All because, before you were born, before the world was created, God placed His love on you. And then as a bit of an addendum, Peter says, "...things in which the angels long to look." There is a gallery of beings who are watching with amazement the transforming power of redemption, watching those connections made, watching the Spirit work through the Word, watching someone begin to understand their deep need, watching people grasp the glory of the suffering of Christ, watching people grab a hold of God's grace, watching a heart be transformed, watching sanctification take place.
The angels are peering over the wall of redemption looking in at this amazing thing that's happening. The Bible says, "The angels rejoice over one sinner that repents." Hear the applause. Hear the gasps and the sighs. The angels are being amazed at God's awesome work of redemption. Are you amazed? I am very concerned with the fact that we live in a culture that has a worldview that doesn't include Christ, has an identity that doesn't include sin, has a view of change that doesn't include redemption.
Katie Couric and Bill O'Reilly
Katie Couric, Bill O'Reilly - they never talk about your need to be redeemed. They never talk about the transferring power of grace. We're fed a view of 'what is,' a view of history that is an outrageous heresy. It is a deep and abiding lie. This is a Christian worldview: the greatest event in human history is not the discovery of the New World, not the formation of this amazing nation, not placing human beings on the moon, not the creation of the computer and micro-technology. The greatest event in human history is the incarnation and suffering of Jesus Christ; it is the epicenterdefining event of all that is.
You cannot understand the world unless you look at it through the lens of the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that greatest event addresses the deepest need of humanity. The deepest need of humanity is salvation. We were created for relationship with God, and sin has separated us from God, and sin has made us dead, unable to move toward Him. We have a deep dilemma inside of us that we can't solve, we can't fix. It's not just education that we need, not just universal healthcare, not just economic equality; in all those things that we hear; there is a deeper, more profound need.
We need to be redeemed! And there is no such thing as an accurate view of 'what is' that does not have a Redeemer at the center. And then third, we must have a view of 'what is' that includes and celebrates God's sovereign grace that He places His love on you, and no one can stay His hand or say to Him, "What have you done?" His will will be done! And that grace will find you, and that grace will speak truth to you, and that grace will redeem you, and that grace will win in your life. And the one who was called will be justified and sanctified and glorified - praise God.
Am I excited? Yea, I'm excited because, listen, it will be bumpy along the way. There is an enemy who will get you to question the grace that you have received, who will want to call into question God's wisdom, His faithfulness, His love. There'll be circumstances that don't make any sense to you. There will be moments where it doesn't seem like you're being loved. And you need to have the stability and security of this view of life. You have been, you are, you will be Christ's if you're His child and nothing can take that from you.
Maybe you're here this evening, and you say, "Paul, I don't think that I've ever heard and understood this message in this way." I would encourage you, right in this moment, bow your head, and pray that God would open your heart, open the eyes of your understanding to the grace that you so desperately need. There is not a day in your life where you should not sing: Redeemed-how I love to proclaim it! Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; Redeemed (by) through His infinite mercy, His child, and forever, I am.
Redeemed, redeemed, Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Let's pray: Lord, thank you for the beautiful, beautiful truths of this passage. Christ predicted it. The prophets prophesied it. The prophets examined it. Christ came and did it. The Holy Spirit preaches and applies it. The angels, the great gallery, look into it with amazement. How great is our salvation! Thank you; we thank you; we thank you. In Jesus's name, Amen.
