God's Present Work, For a Future Hope

[00:00:04] Our heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity that we have to come and to remember and to worship. And we ask that you would bless us as we come to the reading and the preaching of your word, that you would expose the sandy places in our lives, what they are, that you would expose the lies through the truth. Lord, help us to see the rock of Christ and to stand on him with full assurance. And, Lord, we ask that you would strengthen the heart of all who are here this morning. Draw us unto yourself, that you might be praised. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. [00:00:44] Please remain standing if you're able. And let's turn our attention to one Peter, chapter one, verses one through nine. [00:00:54] My focus this morning is going to be on three through nine, but especially eight through nine. [00:01:05] One of the things that I want to do, having finished second corinthians and in between books here, is preach two sermons in the mornings on a theme that we discussed at family camp, serving an invisible God in a visible world. And think about that through a couple different passages, and then we'll come to the book of Obadiah. And then after that, I don't know. So you can pray for wisdom. I'm thinking probably something either one Samuel or maybe some more minor prophets for a little bit. We'll see. So I appreciate your prayers. Let's turn our attention to first Peter now, and we have a great word of encouragement this morning, which I pray God will bless us all with. [00:01:57] 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. [00:02:26] Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. [00:02:30] 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. [00:02:55] In this you rejoice, though now for a little while if necessary, you have been grieved with 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. [00:03:17] 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. [00:03:34] Amen. Please be seated. [00:03:59] Well, as Peter writes to these christians, he writes to christians who are a lot like us in a number of ways. For one, they are citizens of the heavenly kingdom, and yet also citizens of earthly kingdoms. [00:04:17] They find themselves having this hope in this kingdom that is to be fully revealed at the last day. They have their hope in things that are coming, things he talks about here. Yet at the same time, this is not fully realized. And as he continues to write through the book, these christians face a lot of the same things that we face. [00:04:42] Internal temptations, external pressures, difficulties within various aspects of our callings, within our families, within our society, all these different practical challenges. [00:04:57] He tells them even that they are to expect, to not be surprised at persecution, to believe, recognize, and be ready for the fact that as christians, they will suffer, that this is a part of their life, that there is trouble with remaining sin. And in the midst of all of this, there are reasons to be or reasons for which we get discouraged and we lose hope. [00:05:28] They, like us, sometimes lose sight of what God is doing in the present and get discouraged about the present and the future. [00:05:41] I know this is true for myself. I can get this way. [00:05:45] There are days, times, moments, sometimes long periods of time where it's really easy to feel useless, to feel weak, to feel overly slow, to have goals and plans and desires, internal, external, that just seem to stay on the to do list forever and ever and ever. Never getting done, never getting better. [00:06:11] Sometimes I'll find I write lists all the time. Sometimes I find old lists from years ago tucked into a book or whatever, and I'm like, shoot, I was writing this same thing for ten years. Right? That can be really frustrating. It can be really frustrating. Sometimes the work that we do feels really minimally effective. Sometimes even when we do the best work that we do, it sort of unravels after we leave a situation. [00:06:50] There are forces outside of us that sometimes seem totally immovable by anyone and certainly by us. Things that are so far outside of our control. [00:07:05] Maybe for you, it's issues surrounding your health or your budget or your workplace or your marriage, or even your own faith. [00:07:17] And when we think about ourselves and we think about the struggles that surround us, there is a measure of truth to all of this. [00:07:28] I am. You are. We are weak. [00:07:33] We are limited in what we can do. We are constantly forgetful and distracted. We have so many capacities and limitations. The scriptures are right to say that we are but dust, and we live in a world that is full of sin, full of misery, full of forces that are constantly, constantly pressing in us and around us. [00:08:03] That's all true, and the Bible affirms it over and over and over again in multiple ways. [00:08:12] But these truths are only half truths if we leave out a lot of other important things. [00:08:21] And these truths are often mixed with lies. [00:08:25] For example, lies like this is all there is, or what happens in this life is all that matters, and I'm completely failing. [00:08:38] Or God is absent, absent, not present from what is happening, or there's no purpose for what I'm going through. [00:08:50] Or God is weak and ineffective. Or a God of the past. [00:08:57] Maybe a God of the future, but not a God of the present. [00:09:02] These are some of the lies that get mixed in with the truths. And when those two things together come together, they form this deadly combination that leads to a lot of despair, a lot of hopelessness. Because if you see your limitations, if you see the limits of your capabilities, and then you look around in the world and you see these giant obstacles and challenges everywhere that are totally outside of your control, outside of your power, and you think that's all that there is in life, if you think God is absent from what is happening, that the work he's doing that's ineffective, that all that is happening right now is all that matters, then you have every reason to despair. [00:09:50] The thing is, what I said about those things is that they're those second list of things. They're lies. [00:09:58] They pervert, omit, twist the truth. [00:10:03] And in some ways, it's not really our suffering that leads to despair. [00:10:08] It's these lies that lead to despair. [00:10:12] They're like these, like a poison, a contaminant mixed into our drink, and we have to filter it out with the truth. [00:10:21] And the truth that God reveals for us today is that he is at work, he is effective. He is present now and in the past and in the future. [00:10:34] What I'd like to do is look at verses three through nine with you, walk you through these, and then draw a few observations. [00:10:43] So let's begin to what does Paul say about the work that God does in verses three through five? Peter, rather, verses three through five, we have a focus on God's work. And then in six through nine, we have the focus on our actions in response to that work. So first, God's work, three through five. [00:11:04] So in verse three, we begin with a blessing, and rightly so, because he's about to tell us some really good news. Peter says, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. [00:11:18] Here we are reminded right away that the God that we are talking about is not just some higher power, some spiritual force, some kind of any man's God to be accessed any way and known. However, we want a God of our imaginations. None of that. He is God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father who sent the son, who is of the Father, the father who sent the spirit, who is of the father and the Son, our triune God who is working perfectly and has been working even before the creation of the world in himself. If you want more on the doctrine of God, come back tonight. I will be answering the question, what is goddess? Or trying to anyway, so you can come for that. We'll think more about that. But here, just notice that God is blessed and that the God that we lean on here is the God of the scriptures. [00:12:18] Next we get into the work of God. Peter says, 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. A little bit of future mixed in there, but we have a sense of the past, what God has done in the past. Something has happened to us as christians. [00:12:45] Something has happened in the past, and it's this God did something in our lives. He caused us to be born again. [00:12:56] He tells us how to what to a living hope and how through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. As we confess this morning in the Nicene Creed, there was this moment in time and space in which the Son of God took on human flesh and was born. [00:13:16] The son of God became man and was born. [00:13:21] And he was born in an exact hour and a minute and in an exact place. We know the town's name, Bethlehem. [00:13:29] And then for the rest of his life he worked in the world toward this end that he might die for our sins, to take away our sins and the sins of the world, and to raise again from the dead. And that's happened as well. [00:13:45] Jesus Christ died and was buried and then rose again from the dead. [00:13:54] Not only did he rise from the dead and this amazing thing which many people saw and witnessed and testified to, but on top of that, he then ascended into heaven with people watching him, blessing people as he goes and promising that he would come again. [00:14:13] There's nothing in the history of the world that even begins to compare with this thing that happened. [00:14:21] There's lots and lots of interesting things. You can read big books and learn all kinds of things, and I would encourage you to do it. But nothing begins to even compare to the importance of this thing that happened. [00:14:39] Because, to be very personal about it, this is how we have been born again. [00:14:48] We live as we read in Romans six, because Jesus lives. If he had died and not raised from the dead, and we are baptized into his death, then we are as good as dead, right? But we are baptized into his death, which led to life. And we are live, and so we live in his life. We have been born again. [00:15:14] And now. So this is what God has done in the past. [00:15:18] Verse three, primarily now. What has God done in the future? What has he promised to do? We've already got a hint at this a little bit. He says he's caused us to be born again to a living hope. That's an amazing thing to say, right? It's not just a wish or a desire, but some. A hope that is alive in some sense. What does he mean there? Does he mean that it's alive in our hearts, right? That it's we have hope in our hearts? It could mean that, I think, though, he's actually talking about Jesus himself, who is our hope and who is alive, born again to him for the obedience to Jesus as we read in a few verses earlier. [00:16:03] Either way, both the work of God in Christ and the work that he is doing in our hearts, these are connected because there's this future thing that's happening now. Verse four. [00:16:16] He says, we have been born again to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you. [00:16:29] There's this thing that God is doing, this hope that we are holding fast to, that is truly immovable. It's imperishable, unfading. It's not going away. [00:16:45] Sometimes people get inheritances in this world. They're not like this. [00:16:51] Sometimes you think you're going to get an inheritance, and then it never really comes. This is very common. [00:16:57] Sometimes you think you're going to get an inheritance and you think it's going to be this much, and it turns out to be this much. [00:17:05] Or you get that inheritance. Maybe it's even more than you thought. And then all of a sudden you say, where did all that money go? [00:17:13] Not true. With the inheritance that we are receiving because of God and through God, he says, it is imperishable, undefiled, holy, in other words, and unfading. And it's kept in heaven for us. [00:17:30] It's being protected there. [00:17:32] It can't be affected. [00:17:36] On top of that, we read about God's work in the present with regard to ourselves. [00:17:42] So we've talked about the past. We've talked about the future. Now, in verse five, we come to the present. What is God doing now? He says about you that he is guarding you by his power through faith. And then a future note for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. [00:18:02] There's this amazing thing that we are waiting for, and God says that he's keeping us for it. In other words, he doesn't just sort of wind us up at the start of the journey and hope. We click, click, click, click, click, click, click. Enough to the end and don't run out of steam. No, he's guarding you by his power. [00:18:23] And there's a lot of things that we choose to guard us, right? Door locks and alarm systems, big men, other things you might think of, militaries who would like to be guarded by God's power. [00:18:41] I'll raise my hand. [00:18:44] Nothing can affect the power of God. [00:18:48] When we reflect on the strength and the power of God throughout history, we could point to the resurrection again. Right? Evil men seeking to destroy the Lord, seeking to put him to death, who indeed did put him to death. And then he raises from the dead the power of God. We can think about Peter himself walking on the water as he keeps his eyes fixed on Jesus. Or Jesus calming storms, or Jesus raising other people from the dead, or healing diseases, or God parting the Red Sea, or sending out plagues. God's power is amazing. [00:19:26] It's infinite. [00:19:28] And that's how you are being guarded now. There's a lie, right? All kinds of them, they say. [00:19:39] Is that really true? [00:19:42] It doesn't feel like it. [00:19:46] You have to decide, are you going to believe your feelings, your experiences, through your own limited perspective, your own capabilities, which we've already admitted to, that we have our own blindnesses and all this? Or are we going to believe the word of God? [00:20:07] We will believe the word of God. We are being guarded by God's power through faith for a salvation that's ready to be revealed in the last time. [00:20:18] So blessed be God who does these things in the past, promised in the future, ready to be revealed, and is now working on us, guarding us and protecting us. What's our reaction? [00:20:32] What's our reaction? Well, in verse six, he talks about the reaction of the believers. He says, in this, you rejoice. Well, of course we do. [00:20:43] Right? Of course we rejoice. In fact, he'll talk about three things here which we'll focus on rejoicing, love and faith. [00:20:55] He starts with rejoicing and returns to it. But we have a little parenthetical comment. He says in this, you rejoice. I'm gonna paraphrase and say, even though you're suffering, and for a good reason. Now let's read what he says, though, for now, for a little while, emphasis on the little while, if necessary. You have been grieved by various trials. That's what's happening. He recognizes that suffering is real. Remember what I said at the beginning. The Bible doesn't sort of COVID over these or sugar coat them. It talks about our suffering. It recognizes it, God knows, but it also gives us meaning and purpose. In verse seven, the Lord says, 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 the praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. [00:21:51] So here we have two things. One, we have the Lord telling us what is going on, why there is a testing that is happening of our faith. A faith, by the way, that is more precious than gold. [00:22:06] More precious than gold. [00:22:09] Even a little bit of faith is more precious than gold. [00:22:14] We should be thankful for it, and it leads to the future. We will be found to result. These actions of the Lord will result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. [00:22:29] I sometimes think of God in this way, as a craftsman who goes about and does his work. He creates us, he makes us, he forms us. He adorns us with all these things, and he brings us to our final end. Now, you who are those of you who are tinkerers and craftspeople and artists, you know that it doesn't always work out. You know what your initial plans are. Things often break. They fall apart in the process. You spill the ink, you draw the line weird, you play the note wrong. This is life, right? This is how part of the work. [00:23:07] God, though, as a craftsman, God, though, who is doing his workmanship in us, he's not like this. We ought not to impose our own limits and problems on him. No. The work that he has begun in you, he is going to bring to completion, to result in the praise and glory and honor of God at the revelation of Jesus Christ. That is going to happen no matter what. God will bring you to this perfect and final end. And simply because he is who he is and he's doing what he's doing, well, you can count on that, because it's based in his work. [00:23:49] So this is what's going on. That rejoicing then, will get picked up in a moment. When he talks about two other reactions that we have. In verse eight, he talks about love. [00:23:59] Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him. And then here we have again and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, finally obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. [00:24:20] What is this love that God is doing in us? [00:24:25] Well, it shows up in a lot of different ways, doesn't it? [00:24:31] Even though we have not seen him, we love him. How does that show up in our lives? [00:24:37] One way it shows up in the lives of christians is in obedience. [00:24:41] John 1415 says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. [00:24:46] Right. [00:24:49] When a child wants to show their parents that they really, really love them, what do they do? [00:24:57] Well, they typically do a couple things, one expressions of gratitude and thanks. I love you. I love you so much. So much. [00:25:06] But also sometimes in works and actions, go clean the bathroom and think, how would mom and dad like this done? How good can I make it? How extra special? If I'm working on my room, can I get even back under the bed? Why? Because I just love them so much. And we do the same thing, right? As children of our father in heaven. When we love him, we want to obey him, and we look for areas in our lives that we can go extra mile and do a little bit more. Why? Well, just because we love him so much. It's a part of what we do. If you love me, he says, you will keep my commandments. [00:25:44] Another way love shows up on our lives is serving our brothers and sisters. I'm going to read a little bit from Matthew, chapter 25. You can turn there with me if you like. [00:25:54] Matthew 25 35 through 40, for I was hungry and you gave me food. [00:26:16] I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. [00:26:27] Then the righteous will answer him, saying, lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? [00:26:45] And the king will answer them truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me, though you have not seen him. [00:26:59] You love him, though you did not visit Jesus when he was in prison. You love him though you did not feed him. You love him though you did not clothe him. You love him. How? [00:27:13] Because I say to you, says the Lord, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. [00:27:20] Isn't that amazing? [00:27:22] One of the ways that we show our love for the Lord is showing our love for those who are his, our brothers and sisters. His brothers and sisters. [00:27:34] Finally, I'll add one last way that this love shows up in our lives is this obeying and serving, even at the expense of selfdevelop in self sacrifice. Luke 923 if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whomever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. [00:28:00] People get really shocked about christians when they see that we love Jesus this much. [00:28:05] Even though we haven't seen him. Even though we haven't seen him. We are so committed to obedience. [00:28:15] Some people get frustrated about this, about christians. It's nonstop. You keep talking about it over and over and over again. You treat these other people in your church like they're your own family, like they're brothers and sisters, as if they were Jesus themselves. [00:28:31] We say, yeah, exactly, because I love him. You're willing to lose money and time and all of these other things because of your love for him. Absolutely. [00:28:44] Did you read verses three through five? [00:28:47] This is what he's done for me. I love him even though I have not seen him, but I know I will see him because there is a coming day which is called the revelation of Jesus Christ. [00:29:00] So this is one of the things that's going on in our lives. The second is faith. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him. Peter says in the Bible, belief in Christ means ongoing trust in him. It means being convinced about his good character, his total competence, his infinite compassion. [00:29:22] It's not just convinced as we might be about ordinary men, but we're so convinced of this that we worship Jesus. [00:29:31] That's a different kind of trust, a trust that says, I'm so dependent on you, I will call you my God and do so not without fear of idolatry, not without fear of being struck dead by the true God, because he is God. [00:29:53] We serve God as we put our faith in Jesus Christ, as we put our faith in the one who has sprinkled the blood for us, as we put our faith in the one who died for us and rose for us. Of course we believe in him because of verses three through five. [00:30:15] It might be that our faith is weak. Our faith is distractible. Our faith is fading, but believe nevertheless. [00:30:25] The same is true for this last one, for rejoicing. And then we'll end with some applications. Rejoice. We rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. [00:30:38] Because we understand something about God. We understand something about what he's done, what he's doing, and what he will do. Because we understand this, because we've been told this and have been made to see, we have a lot of reasons to rejoice. [00:30:55] Rejoicing is what we do, right? When we've obtained something really good. It's different than just being happy, isn't it? [00:31:03] There's a rejoicing in happiness, I suppose. But typically when I think of rejoicing, I think of some sort of outward or almost outward expression of that happiness, right? Of obtain. And particularly for having obtained something good, right? [00:31:22] You got the discount that you were hoping for, or the job, or your friend showed up unannounced to visit you for two days that you haven't seen in a long time. [00:31:34] Or the health bill is all clear, or the debt was forgiven. Yes. Right. Shout for joy. The psalms say, rejoice. Sometimes our joy is so much. Our rejoicing is so much, we hardly even have words for it. It's almost inexpressible how we come to the limits of our capabilities, not in this super frustrating way, but almost in a way that makes us happy. As we run out of words for expressing our joy for the Lord. [00:32:05] The fact that we're running out of words just brings more delight knowing how great he is and how good he is. [00:32:14] This rejoicing with joy that is inexpressible sometimes by us, but also in a way that it's hard to get our arms all the way around our minds, around not just the salvation, but the joy attached to it, filled with glory and then ultimately obtaining something. [00:32:38] This gets us to the future again, because of this thing, these things that God is doing in the present, there is this hope coming, a guarantee in obtaining what is the outcome of all these things. It's not meaningless. This little time will end and something's going to happen. [00:32:58] The salvation of your souls. [00:33:05] So, as we think back on these various lies, as I called them, and rightly so, think about them now, sift through them in light of the truth. [00:33:18] So, for example, there are these comprehensive lies, I'll call them sort of umbrella lies, which cover a lot like this one. This moment is all that there is. False. [00:33:33] Totally false. Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is preparing a place for us. It's ready to be revealed in the perfect time. There is a future. There is something coming. [00:33:47] Here's another kind of umbrella lie. God is absent from what is happening. [00:33:53] Totally false. God has been at work. He is at work and he will continue to work until he brings all things to result in the praise and glory and honor of him. At the revelation of Jesus Christ. [00:34:12] Are you going to accuse God of not being able to do that? [00:34:18] Are you going to look at all the things that God has done, all the power that he has and say, I don't believe that you can actually make this happen. I don't believe that you can guard me effectively. I don't believe that your power is strong enough. [00:34:32] I don't believe that you're actually at work. [00:34:36] These are lies. [00:34:38] We can't believe them. [00:34:41] Or another umbrella lie that I mentioned earlier that the work of God is weak and ineffective. [00:34:48] How is it that we love? [00:34:50] How is it that we have faith? How is it that we rejoice even just a little bit and growing all the time? [00:34:57] It's only because of him. [00:35:00] All of these things the scriptures tell us are gift from him we love. The scriptures say, because he first loved us. No one comes to me unless the father draws him. John 644 says, ephesians two says, for by grace you have been saved and this is not your own doing. [00:35:17] Psalm 162 says, or I'm sorry, psalm 1611 says, you make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand there are pleasures forevermore. [00:35:33] The work of the Lord. The work of the Lord. The work of the Lord. [00:35:37] When we look in our lives, even in the midst of our suffering, and we see and we say, my faith is suffering, remember, your faith is golden. Your faith will prove to be true. Your faith comes from the Lord and it has a purpose and it has an end. [00:35:56] He is making known to you. He has made known to you the path of life. And one day he will bring you fully into his presence where there is fullness of joy and pleasures. Forevermore lies about the past. God's work in the past has no bearing on my future. Really? [00:36:18] What about the resurrection of Jesus Christ? That has no bearing on you whatsoever. [00:36:24] Of course it does. Or lies about the future. There's nothing beyond this or it's all going to be horrible. [00:36:31] Not true. If we put our faith in Christ first. Peter one nine is a gift a big encouraging gift that you should hold in your hearts and study and reflect on and memorize and rejoice in because of what the Lord has done. These gifts that he has given us, not only in his word, but these gifts of love, of joyous joy of faith, these are gifts not only that are from him, but they're gifts, I just want to add, that make life better. [00:37:12] Faith and love and rejoicing, they make life sweeter, more tolerable, more endurable. Is that a word? [00:37:22] They bring further blessings, and of course they do. They come from him. [00:37:28] And so, brothers and sisters, my encouragement to you today is as you look at the work of the Lord in the past, in the future and right now, in the present, in your lives and in the lives of other people, put your faith in him. You are obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. It's guaranteed. Let's pray. [00:37:51] Our heavenly Father, we thank you for your word to us today. And we thank you that you have not left us with confusion and struggle and trials alone. [00:38:03] But you have spoken into the midst of the darkness, into the midst of the confusion, and revealed your light, a light which is shining now and will be fully revealed in the last day. [00:38:15] It is so hard for us to believe that this is just a little while when our bodies hurt so much and our hearts ache so much. But, Lord, help us to believe the truth of your word. [00:38:30] Help us to believe and to put things in perspective that this little time that we are enduring right now does not even begin to compare with the eternal weight of glory that is to come. [00:38:42] Help us to believe it, to rest in it, and to rejoice as christians do, singing and telling others and giving thanks over and over and over again. [00:38:56] Even now, Lord, as we hear the testimony of our sister Luann Robbins, in a moment, the testimony to her faith and what you have done in her life. We ask that you would encourage us through her and that she would be encouraged through us, that this mutual walk, which we walk together, would be one which you are at work in and are pleased to bring to this promised end. [00:39:25] Finally, Lord, we ask that you would guard us by your power and that over the course of the rest of this day and the next week that you would bring comfort and encouragement in all the kind of ways that you do. [00:39:42] We need you, Lord. We are not self sufficient. We are not powerful on our own. [00:39:49] We have great limits to our capabilities. [00:39:55] We are but dust. [00:39:57] But you are the eternal and living God forever and ever. Holy is your name, grace and peace belong to you. And through Christ, we believe they belong to us. [00:40:10] We pray this all in Jesus name. Amen. [00:40:16] I.