Sermon Transcript
Good morning, everyone. Glad to be with you. Continuing our series in the book of 1 Peter. If you have a Bible, you may want to turn there. Have you ever thought about how powerful words can be sometimes?
Sometimes just one word has the power to change our emotions. Think about the difference between the word Monday and the word Friday.
The fact that we’re nearing the summertime, the word summer carries great encouragement for some of us, maybe the word vacation, maybe the word weekend. You hear that word and you perk up a little bit. Yesterday morning I went out and went running in the neighborhood, and it was warm. And I came home and told my wife Shannon, because she was gonna go exercise after me whenever I got home, and I said, it’s hot outside, and she just perked up. She gets all excited.
Now, some of you here that it’s hot outside, or you hear that it’s warm, and you go, oh my goodness, you know, I’m not going to go on outside. Shannon perks up. She hears that there’s sunshine, she perks up. She hears the word beach, she perks up. Sometimes words have the power to do that.
You contrast that with words like traffic or stress or sleeplessness.
Work. Those words are heavy. Trials. You hear a word like that. I remember last August, on August the 6th— actually, August the 4th, I remember— the word cancer became a part of our family story whenever Shannon got her doctor’s report that she was diagnosed with cancer.
And just that word just changes everything, and words have the power to do that. So far, this is, I think, our 4th week in the book of 1 Peter. We’ve been introduced to certain words that have some power, and I just want to remind us of them as we look forward to what God is going to say to us today. We were first introduced a few weeks ago to the word exiles.
Some of us in our Bibles have the word strangers or aliens, and it’s a reminder that if you are in Christ and you’re a Christ follower, that word exile or stranger or alien has meaning to it. It’s a reminder that you’re not home yet, that this world is not your home. Amen. You are not supposed to feel at home here, that we have a home that we’re looking forward to, and we have the opportunity to experience various things here in life, but it’s not going to compare to what our future home will be like. And so if you ever feel that tension of, I’m here, But there’s this disconnect between what I’m experiencing in the world, and I’m looking forward to something out ahead.
The word exiles is for us, that we are strangers as Christians living in a hostile world where we don’t always feel welcome. We’ve also talked about the word hope. Throughout the book of 1 Peter, there’s the word hope. We learned in verses 3 and 4 and 5 that We— if you are in Christ, if you are a Christian, you have received a new birth into a living hope. This is not a dead hope.
This is a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That this hope that we have received, this gift of salvation that was provided for us through Jesus, this word hope has special meaning because that we have received, Peter tells us, an inheritance. And it’s not like the inheritance that your grandmother or your grandfather or your predecessor has passed on to you. This is an inheritance that can never perish or spoil or fade. And so that word hope carries great meaning for us.
We’ve talked about the word trials. Last week Pastor Dave talked about how many of us are going to go through or are going through or have been through fiery ordeals and trials in our life that are just a normal part of life. Trials, even in the midst of these things, we can have hope. But these trials are given to us by God and allowed by God to prove the genuineness of our faith, to test us, and to try us, to make us more like Jesus. We talked about that word trials.
We also introduced the word that really should be the most reassuring, most comforting word in all of human language, and that’s the word salvation. That’s where I want to place our focus today. Pastor Dave introduced it last week, this word salvation that we hear in Christian circles, but the more you hear it, the more that it loses its impact over time, especially if you’ve been a Christ follower for any period of time. We hear the word salvation and we forget about what it really means, and Peter’s about to remind us of the greatness of what this word salvation really means, whether it’s The word salvation connected to rescue from physical harm, that can have great impact on us. If you have a child or a grandchild and they go on a trip and you want to know that they’re going to return safely and you take a deep breath once you know that they’re safe.
I can think of numerous stories of my children when they were little and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time where Perhaps we’re stepping into the pool and it gets a little bit deeper, and I remember my youngest son CJ, just grabbing him out of the water as he— you know, had I not been there, I don’t even want to think about what could have potentially happened. And I think about the different accidents that can sometimes be derailed by a parent or another adult being there. That word salvation makes us feel better as we think about it in the physical world, but salvation has even greater impact in an eternal sense, to be rescued from sin and death and hell.
I was thinking about that as we were singing through that song, To God Be the Glory, that old hymn. That second verse we just sang a moment ago, O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood, to every believer the promise of God. The vilest offender who truly believes— who’s the vilest offender? You are.
It’s not someone else. It’s you.
It’s me. The vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus, that moment, not future tense, that moment that the vilest offender, you or I, who fall short of the glory of God. Our sins separate us from God. That moment, from Jesus, a pardon received. We were in debt, and we needed someone to pay that debt, and Jesus paid our debt.
That’s a great piece of news. And so, Peter is wanting to remind his readers here in 1 Peter about the greatness of their salvation, because they were going through trials and ordeals, like many of you right now are going through trials and ordeals, and he’s saying no matter how bad things get, no matter how difficult the trial, no matter how significant the persecution you may be going through right now as a Christ follower, it pales in comparison to the hope that you have because of the greatness of what Jesus has done for you. And that should be foremost on our mind, but I’ll be honest with you, I think that many of us, that word salvation has lost its impact and it’s lost its meaning for us. If you’ve been a Christ follower for any period of time, or perhaps you’re the type of person who doesn’t feel that you’re that vile. And the further away that you get from the moment of salvation, the less that you remember how vile our sin really is to God.
And we take it for granted, and we simply look at the grace of God as just a little boost to somebody who’s decent and basically churchgoing. That’s not what salvation is. That’s not what God’s grace is. It’s unmerited favor. God rescued us by providing a sacrifice in Jesus.
And that should bring us incredible joy. And Peter puts it like this. We talked about it last week in verses 8 and 9. He says, though you have not seen Him, Jesus, just yet, you love Him. And even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.
And I’m wondering if that word salvation fills you with inexpressible and glorious joy this morning, if you woke up this morning saying, thank you, God, that you’ve made salvation possible.
And it should fill us with inexpressible and glorious joy because he says you’re receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. What is the end result of why we even pursue God in the first place? It’s we want to be saved. No matter what the religion, no matter what the faith practice in our world, people want to know, how do I get made right with God? How do I have assurance of eternal life?
And there are various approaches to that, and Scripture says that this should fill us with inexpressible and glorious joy to know what Jesus has done for us, because you and I are so vile in our sin that we need someone else to pay that debt for us. And somebody did. And so, we’re receiving the end result of your faith. We now have the answers of, can I know that I’m right with God? Can I be saved?
How do I be saved? Jesus has made that possible for us. And so, Peter is now going to continue talking about salvation, starting in verse 10, and he puts it like this, of chapter 1, verse 10 of 1 Peter. Concerning this great salvation, concerning this salvation, that gives you hope, concerning this salvation that fills you with an inexpressible and glorious joy, concerning this salvation that is the end result of your faith, concerning this salvation, verse 10, the prophets— who’s he talking about here? Well, he’s talking about the prophets in the past, which would have been the Old Testament prophets.
They didn’t know what the Old Testament was back then. They didn’t know the difference between the Old and the New Testament. They just knew that prophets in the past Spokespeople for God had spoken of a message, and these prophets concerning this salvation spoke of the grace that was to come to you.
And they searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and the circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when He predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. Verse 12, it was revealed to them, these prophets, that they were not serving themselves but you when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. Who are these prophets? It’s not the, the minor prophets, you know, those 12 books there at the end of the Old Testament— Obadiah and Amos and Habakkuk and Hosea and these minor prophets.
It’s not merely the major prophets that we Think of Isaiah and Jeremiah. It’s anyone who’s a spokesperson for God. It was anyone who was given a direct revelation from God in the past and spoke of it. And so concerning this salvation, one of the things Peter wants to know is that— wants us to know is that the prophets predicted it. Concerning this great salvation, the prophets predicted it.
They looked ahead into the future. They spoke of the grace That was to come to you. That was the focus of their message. They— the prophets predicted it. They looked ahead and they saw that grace was on the horizon.
They didn’t just— this wasn’t wishful thinking on their part. The Holy Spirit, it says, inspired them. These people who were separated by years and by centuries and by many, many miles, these people, these prophets of old, looked ahead into the future and the Holy Spirit put in them that there’s going to come a day when a Deliverer The Messiah will come. And what they wanted to know, it says there, is who and when. Who is this Messiah going to be, and when is this Messiah going to come?
When is this Deliverer going to come to deliver us from our sin? And so, they looked ahead, and they searched intently and with the greatest care. Do you see that there in verse 10? They searched intently. They were looking through all their prophetic writings, trying to figure out, when is this Messiah going to come?
They knew it was going to happen, and they knew that there would come a day when there would be grace. It wasn’t that grace didn’t exist at their time, because God’s always been gracious. His nature is always the same. But this grace that has come to them was something that the prophets predicted, and the Holy Spirit put it within them to look ahead out into the future and say, there’s coming a great day. And it wasn’t that these prophets weren’t, quote-unquote, saved.
It wasn’t that they didn’t have salvation. It’s that they were going to experience it in a different way. And so these people made these prophecies that God, the Holy Spirit, put in them. More than 300 prophecies we see in the Old Testament about who this Messiah will be. Will be born of a virgin.
Will be born in Bethlehem. This Messiah would suffer. This Messiah, the government would be upon His shoulders. These very specific prophecies about Jesus that were all fulfilled in Jesus. They just— Jesus hadn’t come yet.
It was as if they had little pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and this person over here, this prophet, had these pieces, and these— this prophet had these pieces, and this prophet had these pieces, and nobody had all of the pieces of the puzzle. And so they didn’t have full understanding of what they were prophesying and what they were predicting. Well, how could they? Jesus hadn’t yet come. Yet concerning this salvation, the prophets predicted it.
Peter’s wanting us to know that the importance of what the prophets have done, they spoke of this grace that was to come. And you think about that, how privileged we are to live in the time that we live in. Everybody has a hazy memory of the past, and perhaps you’re like me, we all think about the past and we think it was better than what it really was. And we’ve all uttered those 4 words, back in my day.
A loaf of bread cost whatever it cost at that time. A gallon of gas used to cost this. Back in my day, we had 3 channels. We didn’t have hundreds and hundreds of channels. Back in my day, we didn’t have these cell phones.
Back in my day, whenever you wanted to get on the internet, you had to get off your phone because you had to use this dial-up modem. And there was this thing called dial-up, and all of these different, back in my day, back in my day, back in my day. The other day, my wife Shannon took our oldest son Tate to the grocery store to buy some stamps. He’s graduating in about a month, and so he was sending out a graduation announcement and about plans for his future. And so he bought stamps with his own money.
And Shannon had forgotten about how expensive stamps are. And so she did the back in my day, Well, back in Shannon’s day, some of you would have said, well, stamps were even less expensive. We all have this view of the past that is different. The past wasn’t better.
And Peter is saying the prophets predicted this incredibly great salvation, this salvation that fills us with an inexpressible and glorious joy. How privileged and how advantaged we are to live when we live. Because we now have the fuller picture. The pieces of the puzzle have come together in such a powerful way that we can experience something that the prophets longed to experience. What’s Peter trying to say here?
He’s trying to say, your salvation is not an afterthought.
Your salvation is something that the prophets predicted, and they longed to experience in a fuller way. Praise God. For what Jesus has done for us. And praise God that we get to live in this time. So, concerning this salvation, the prophets predicted it.
But concerning this salvation, his second point is the ambassadors for Christ proclaimed it. Ambassadors for Christ proclaimed it. Did you see it there in verse 12 when he was talking about the prophets spoke about it in the past, and now this grace that they spoke of that was to come to you, verse 10? This grace has now come to you. What is salvation?
That’s a great description of salvation. Grace has come to you.
And at first, after Jesus came, it was the apostles, those who were eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life and His death and His resurrection, Peter included. But then that message spread to others, people who gave their very lives for this message. Who received this message, their life was changed, they passed it on to somebody else. And ambassadors for Christ, praise God, have proclaimed it for centuries. They gave their life.
And it wasn’t that this was something they drummed up in their own mind and in their own heart. The Holy Spirit, it says, inspired them to write what they wrote, to give their life, to speak what they’ve spoken. Some of you after a message will sometimes write me or come up or tell me or one of the other pastors, man, that message was just for me. How did you know that I needed that message today? We don’t know.
The Holy Spirit inspired this message. Sometimes you read something in the Bible and it just comes off the page and it speaks to you in a very special way at that time. How did God know? It’s the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit inspired these ambassadors for Christ just as He inspired the prophets, and these individuals have proclaimed it.
How did you come to faith? If you were a Christ follower, How did you come to faith? It was definitely because of the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t your choice. You didn’t choose God.
God chose you, John 15 tells us. You are His elect child. We saw in verses 1 and 2 at the beginning of this 1 Peter series. God chooses us. And the Holy Spirit laid that upon our hearts that we need to have a Savior.
No longer can our good works save us, and so we need someone to rescue us. So, Ambassadors for Christ have proclaimed this, but it was also that God has placed other people, most likely, in your path, that at some point, God used that individual or those individuals. It could have been a Sunday school teacher. It could have been another pastor. It could have been a family member.
For me, I think of the influence of my older sister, Cheryl, when I was younger. She made a decision to follow Christ, and she told me I should make a decision to do that, too. So I did. God used her. She was an ambassador for Christ as someone who was about 9 years old at that time.
She was an ambassador for Christ. And she was faithful to preach that message, to proclaim that message. I’ve had youth leaders and teachers and gospel writers and people who God has used. And I don’t know who God has used to bring you to a place of salvation or to a place of faith. But this is something that we have to remember, that these ambassadors for Christ have, through the Holy Spirit, been used of God to proclaim this message, this— the greatness of salvation.
And God has given you the very same commission. You, if you are in Christ, are an ambassador. 2 Corinthians 5 tells us, you are an ambassador for Christ. You are His representative here.
To share God’s love and the message of the good news in word and in action with those around you so that they, too, can experience that.
Concerning this salvation, the prophets predicted it. Concerning this salvation, ambassadors for Christ have proclaimed it. And Peter says, concerning this salvation, angels ponder it. They marvel at it. They long to know more about it.
Do you see that there in verse 12? They long to look into it. That word long there in Greek means to stretch forward your head, to bend. It’s the same word that was used when Peter and John were at the tomb of Jesus, where they knelt down and they bent down their head because they longed to see what was inside this empty tomb. They longed to see for themselves.
And it’s saying even angels long. They’re stretching forward their head to bend down to look into how great salvation is. And we take salvation as if it’s no big deal, but it’s a great— so great that even angels long to get in on this. Why are they longing to get in on this? Because they can never experience salvation in the same way that we can.
Holy angels of God don’t need to be saved. They don’t need salvation. They have no sin. Fallen angels cannot be saved. They cannot receive salvation.
So we get to experience something that even angels— isn’t that amazing? They long to look into. They want to experience. That’s how great salvation is. Angels who are before the throne of God want to know more about salvation.
It’s like trying to explain a trip that you’ve just taken to somebody who wants to know how your trip was, and you try to paint it in the most descriptive way that you can, and yet that individual just can’t relate. They don’t know what it’s like to have been where you were, and the angels are longing to get in on this. That’s how great salvation is. The angels rejoice, Luke 15 tells us, whenever a person makes a decision to follow Jesus. Whenever a sinner comes to the Heavenly Father and is rescued, the angels rejoice, and they long to look into that.
So, in light of this great salvation, in light of this inexpressible and glorious joy Verse 8 and verse 9, we saw there, that comes because of the saving of our souls. In light of the great things that Jesus has done for us, what do we do with this? Verse 13, therefore, he says, therefore, drawing upon all these truths that the prophets predicted, inspired by the Holy Spirit, that the ambassadors for Christ proclaimed, Inspired by the Holy Spirit, that angels long to look into. Therefore, verse 13, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming. He’s saying, therefore, first of all, be alert.
Be alert. Be ready. Be focused. The King James Version says to gird up the loins of your minds. This idea of the girding up of your loins was an ancient idiom that described a person who would wear a long tunic shirt, type of a dress back then in the ancient Middle East.
And before they needed to get wherever they needed to go, sometimes they would tuck in this tunic into their belt. They would gird up their loins so that they could move more freely, so that they could move someplace in a hurry, so that they were alert, so that they were ready for whatever it was that needed to be done. So this idea of girding up the loins of your mind is essentially like rolling up your sleeves. Be alert, be ready, be focused. Therefore, as you go through various trials, be alert, be focused, be ready on this grace that is to be brought to you, verse 13 tells us.
This grace that will be brought to you when Jesus comes back. Be alert. Be ready. Be ready for the Lord’s return. It could happen any day.
That’s the focus of so many of Jesus’ parables. Be ready. Don’t be caught off guard. Be focused. Be ready.
Be alert as you go throughout your day. We’ll see in chapter 3, verse 15, There, 1 Peter, where he says, always be prepared. For what? Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have. If you are in Christ, you have a hope, and you have a reason for putting hope in Jesus.
And somebody may one day ask you— I hope that they do. This is why we are to have spiritual conversations with as many different people as possible. They may one day want to know, how do you have hope? In the midst of this trial that you’re going through, and you’re able to point ahead to something that God has done supernaturally in your heart and in your life, this inexpressible and glorious joy. Always be prepared to give a reason for that hope.
Be alert. Be ready. As you go about your day, as you encounter trials, as you look ahead to Jesus’ return, he says, have a mind that is alert. Recognize that the enemy, Satan, is going to try to discourage you. He’s going to try to take your eyes off of how great this salvation is.
Wake up.
Wake up, he’s saying, with a mind that is alert. Then he says, with a mind that is fully sober. Be sober-minded. Be sober-minded. What does it mean to be sober-minded?
It means to think clearly. It’s the opposite of being intoxicated. When you’re intoxicated, you are careless. You lose your mind. He’s saying to be sober-minded, to be able to think clearly so that you can reject unsound doctrine, because we live in a world that has many different messages of salvation that offer something that is not the true gospel.
Be sober-minded. Think clearly. Reject unsound doctrine. Don’t be careless.
Don’t be drunk with wine. Be filled with God’s Spirit and be sober-minded. And throughout 1 Peter, we’re going to see these 2 imperatives: be alert, be sober, be alert, be sober, be alert, be sober. Take note of that whenever that comes, because it’s a reminder to wake up. God’s salvation is so great that we’re to think about the gravity of it.
We’re to consider it, this great salvation that we have received. And then he says, be alert, be sober, be hopeful. Set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming. What is the object of our hope to be? It is not to be on a better day, just that’s vague and indefinite and nondescript.
The object of our hope is to be when Jesus returns, that we will have this confident expectation. That’s what hope is in Scripture, this confident expectation that when Jesus comes, we will receive grace. If you have been saved, if you have salvation, that we will receive grace, not wrath. Praise God. He’s saying place your hope in that.
This is not the same hope as saying, I hope it doesn’t rain this week, or I hope I do well on this test, or I hope that I get money back from my tax return this year.
Those are things that we can hope to see happen, but those things are based on some type of uncertainty. There’s no guarantee of those things. The hope that Peter is speaking of is something that is based on a previous event that has already taken place. That’s how confident our assurance can be, because Jesus has already died. He’s already risen again.
He’s already taken our sins upon Himself. He’s already made the perfect substitutionary sacrifice for us. He’s already made that payment. So you place your hope in that, the grace to be brought to you when Jesus returns, that you will receive grace, not wrath. That word grace is so powerful in these few verses, verses 10 through 13.
You notice that the prophets spoke of this grace to come to you. You notice that the ambassadors for Christ have proclaimed that grace has come to you, something that angels long to look into. And now, Peter is saying, in light of these things, look ahead to the grace that will come to you. This grace that will be brought to you whenever Jesus returns. I wonder where you’re placing your hope this morning.
Some of you have come in heavy and burdened and need some hope and some encouragement, and I can try to pat you on the back and say everything’s going to be okay, but there’s a much stronger, more confident expectation of hope that we can have That comes from only one place, and that is the message of Jesus Christ.
When was the last time that you have been filled with inexpressible and glorious joy at the greatness of salvation? When was the last time that you said, thank You, God, for saving me and rescuing me and doing for me what I could not do?
Where is the object of your hope?
That grace will one day come to you, but that grace has also already come to you if you are in Christ. And if you don’t have that hope today, and no matter how much I tell you that you need to have this hope, if that doesn’t fill you with hope, it’s possible that you’ve never made that decision to follow Christ. Maybe you think you’ve made that decision, or maybe you’re not sure, but it’s possible that you’ve not made that decision. And why not nail that down today? Why not leave here today with a firm hope and assurance that comes from knowing that one day you will get to be in heaven, but that eternal life can begin today?
Even here on the earth, you get to experience eternal abundant life and have that peace of mind so that no matter what the trial and no matter what thing that you may go through, you’re filled with this inexpressible and glorious joy because you’re receiving the end result of your faith. Something we all long to be, and that is the salvation of our souls. Something we all long for. You can receive that today. A person often wants to know, how do I come to faith?
How do I come to Christ? It’s the Holy Spirit that works in us to bring us to that place. And again, maybe other people have been used by God too in your life, but you simply say yes to Jesus’ invitation to receive eternal life. Tell God, God, I want to be filled with the hope that comes from eternal life, the hope that comes because of what Jesus has done. Would you cleanse me and forgive me of my sins that I might be filled with that hope and that eternal life?
Would you change me today? And you can receive that today. And if nothing else, if you’re here today and you are already in Christ, give thanks for that gift. Because you have the hope that fills us with an inexpressible and glorious joy. Let’s bow our heads.
Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we come, and I confess to you that that word salvation has often lost its meaning for us, and I pray that this morning we would be alert, that we would wake up and recognize how privileged we are to live in this time, That we get to experience something that prophets of old longed to experience, that we get to experience something that angels want to get in on. Thank You, God, for the greatness of salvation. May we never take that for granted. May it be our first thought when we get up in the morning.
May it be our last thought as we go to bed at night. May it be a message that we proclaim as You put us in situations and circumstances where we can have a spiritual conversation with someone else. I pray that we would be Your ambassadors and would be faithful to share that message as You open doors before us. God, I pray for anyone here that does not have that hope of salvation. I pray that today that they would receive that.
Thank You, God, that we can turn our eyes on You and not on our trials, that we can fix our eyes on this perfect redemption, as we sang about earlier this morning.
That the vilest of offender can receive. And all of us are those vilest offenders. We thank You, God, that in that moment, we receive pardon, as the hymn tells us. So we say, praise the Lord. May the earth hear Your voice.
To God be the glory for the great things that You have done, are doing, and will do in the future. Lord, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
