Good morning. Thank you, everyone, for helping lead us to worship the Lord this morning. Really blessed by those songs, and I'm going to try to be singing those this week in my own time with the Lord, so I encourage you to do that as well. The songs talked about our hope and endurance And those are things we're going to be considering today from our passage in 1 Peter. So I invite you to open your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter chapter 1 this morning. I'm going to read verses 1 through 9. just to give us our context, but our focus this morning is gonna be on verses three through five. So 1 Peter chapter one. I'd invite the congregation to stand once again, please, in honor of God's word. Let's hear the word of God together. 1 Peter 1.1. 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. 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. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we do love you. And we praise you for giving us the eyes of faith to see you. And one day we know we will see you with our physical eyes. And today we pray now by your spirit as we sit under your word. We pray that you will give us eyes of faith, that you will help us see you, see you for who you are, our living hope. And may you encourage your people, Lord, as they rejoice in the great salvation that you have provided. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Please be seated. Last week, we began our series through 1 Peter that I'm calling Following Christ in a Fallen World. The Holy Spirit led the Apostle Peter to write this letter to believers who were scattered throughout Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey. And we mentioned last time that Peter wrote to encourage and equip these Christians as they were facing increasing hostility from the world for their identification with Christ. And last week we saw that Peter addressed the believers as elect exiles. And that's such an important heading or title for us as believers, elect exiles. God had graciously chosen to save them and in doing so God had called them to be in the world but not of the world. Peter also taught the believers that all three members of the Trinity had graciously participated in bringing about their salvation. God the Father planned their salvation by setting his love on them before the foundation of the world. God the Son purchased their salvation by living and dying and rising in their place. God the Spirit then applied their salvation by giving them new life and uniting them to Christ through faith. And so, you know, even just as we went through the kind of the intro verses one and two, I trust we were moved to praise what a gracious and loving God that all three members of the Godhead have been planning since before the foundation of the world to bring about our salvation and the great lengths that they went to to accomplish that. What a gracious and loving God we serve. to think that the triune God freely chose to save us, and to think of the immeasurable blessings that are ours in Christ. And we want to continue to think about that. And even as Peter, again, is being led by the Spirit to write this letter, even as he's just introducing the letter and kind of identifying his recipients, it's like his heart is moved to praise. His heart is already overflowing with praise. And so that's what verse three is. a doxology in verse three, and actually verses three through 12 is one long sentence in the original, but he just bursts forth with this praise. Verse three, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Right, what an appropriate response in light of what he's just said, that since the foundation of the world, the triune God has been working to bring about your salvation. What else could we say? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he would save us even though it cost his own son his life, even though it meant his own son becoming sin for us. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then he continues, 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 Again, that's our text this morning, verses 3 through 5. So Peter, it's like he's praising God for the salvation that he's already talked about and rejoiced in in verse 2, but then He's also continuing to praise God and continuing to describe our salvation, and specifically our future salvation, the salvation that awaits us. That's what he's describing in verses three through five. So I entitled the sermon this morning simply, Praise God for Saving Us. All right, sometimes I think there's a refreshingness in simplicity, right? Praise God for saving us. I mean, if you can leave this morning and just have that on your heart, then that'll be a good thing. Praise God for saving me. Again, that's what Peter's doing in our text. He's praising God for saving him. He's praising God for saving the believers he's writing to. And now as God has preserved that, we're praising God for saving all his people, including us here today. Peter is praising God and he's calling on the believers to whom he's writing to join him in praising God for saving them. And again, that's my goal this morning. I pray that as we study verses three through five, I'm really praying a couple of things. One, that you'll be encouraged as you consider the blessings and the certainty of your salvation. And then that your hearts will then overflow with praise. to God, to the triune God who has freely chosen to save us for his glory. Encouraged and then turn that into praise. So we're gonna work through verses three through five under two headings. You see that in your bulletin there. The grounds of our salvation and the guarantee of our salvation. So first let's consider the grounds of our salvation. What are the grounds of our salvation? You say, well, what do you mean by that? What grounds? We don't talk that way very often, right? Well, how would you finish this sentence? I am saved based on blank. What would you put in the blank? I am saved based on what? Or, I am saved because of blank. What would you write there if you were filling in that blank? Our worthiness. I'm saved based on my worthiness. I'm saved based on my potential of what I bring to the table. I'm saved based on my receptive heart that cried out to God. No, we know those are not the right answers. I heard someone say grace. That's the right answer. And that's basically what Peter says here. Look at verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again. There, Peter identifies the grounds of our salvation. It's the mercy of God. We owe our salvation to the fact that God showed us mercy. All right, this is my story, this is my song, right? If you ask me, why are you a Christian? How are you saved? Grace, mercy, God's grace, his mercy, his love. What is mercy? Mercy denotes having pity and compassion on an individual. It means that God looked on us in our sin, in our deadness of heart, and he was moved with pity. He was moved with compassion. And so rather than treating us as our sins deserve, God chose instead to save us. That means he showed us mercy. The Greek word here in verse three is Elias. And the person who said grace was right on track because the word actually means gracious mercy. Both ideas are tied in there, gracious mercy. It's a powerful, it's a beautiful word. In fact, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this word is used to translate steadfast love, hesed, right, in the Hebrew. And if you're familiar with hesed, that's God's covenantal, faithful, never-changing love for his people. And so it's hesed in Hebrew, but when they translate it in Greek, they use this word right here that Peter uses, mercy. So it's his gracious mercy. It carries this idea of mercy and love and grace. And again, thinking about the connection there to hesed, his faithful, steadfast, never-changing love. When we think about God showing pity and compassion on us, this is not like maybe how sometimes we are, right? You know, we see someone in need, maybe it's a person asking for money or something on the street corner, or we see someone else in dire straits, and maybe we're moved with pity and compassion, and maybe we're moved to do something, and so we give them a couple of bucks, and then we go on our way. That's not what this is, right? No, this is God seeing us in our desperate need, yes, being moved with pity and compassion, and then graciously setting his love on us, committing himself to us in an eternal covenant. It's not just a momentary help, a momentary act of compassion, it's you're in desperate need, now I'm going to commit myself to you. My covenantal love, my never-changing grace. So again, let us be sure and remember and understand and rejoice in that you and I are saved not because of anything in us, but because of God's mercy, because of God's grace, because he chose to love us. Right, last week we considered election and because he called us elect exiles and we talked about foreknowledge. It's like God, God for the, simply out of his good pleasure, to highlight the glory of His grace, chose to save people like you and me. Even though we didn't deserve it, even though we could never earn it, even though He didn't need us, He chose to show us grace and mercy. And so Peter is, again, overwhelmed with praise as he considers this, right? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to His mercy He has caused us to be born again." Notice that it says, His great mercy. Have you ever noticed in Scripture that oftentimes when the Bible is talking about God's grace or God's love or God's mercy, it often highlights the immensity of it? Right? Think about it. Ephesians 2.7 says, the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Or how often in Scripture do we see, talking about God, He's abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. And here again, it's not just mercy, it's His great mercy. So again, this should cause us to praise God. Praise God that He is a gracious God, that He's a merciful God, that He's a loving God, and that He abounds in those things. He doesn't just give us drops of mercy. He opens up the floodgates of mercy. God is no miser to us. He does not begrudgingly save us. Rather, when we think of God, we should think of generosity. He is so generous to us. He's so kind to us. He is generous in His love, mercy, and grace. He delights to save us for our eternal good and for the glory of His name. So today, as we consider several aspects of our salvation as we go through verse five, let us remember, again, that this is according to His mercy. We don't deserve it. The grounds of our salvation is God's great mercy. So that was our first heading. The rest of our time will be under the second heading, the guarantee of our salvation. Because again, Peter's continuing, he's already been talking about salvation in verse two, but now he's continuing to talk about these aspects of our salvation, and by and large, he's honing in on the future blessings of our salvation. And as he does that, he's going to be emphasizing the certainty and the security of the salvation that we've been given. That's why I called it the guarantee of our salvation. And this is all under, this is all part of this doxology. This is all part of praising God for doing this for us. We praise God for the beauty of our salvation, for just the the sheer blessing that it is, the immensity of the grace that he's given us. And we praise God that as we rejoice in those things, as we rejoice in those blessings, we know that they are certain, that they are secure. They're not something that, like, oh, that sounds really good, but I'm worried that it's gonna be taken away. No, they're guaranteed. And that's the emphasis we're gonna see today. So as we study these verses, I wanna highlight four key terms to you. that again will be pointing us to the guarantee of our salvation and the certainty and security of it. First term is born again. We're just going to go right through the text here. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again. And we know the Bible teaches we were dead in our transgressions. We were separated from God. We were headed for eternal destruction. We were dead. Unable to save ourselves, unable to move toward God. But again, God had mercy on us. He saw us in our desperate situation, and He took pity on us. He did something for us, knowing that we could not do anything for ourselves. He took the initiative, setting us apart by the Holy Spirit, as we saw last week in verse two. In other words, the Spirit of God took the word of God and made us alive in Christ Jesus. We know Ephesians 2 fleshes that out in detail, doesn't it? God in his great mercy, God in his powerful grace, reached down into our lives and gave us the new birth. And of course we know Jesus taught the same thing, right, in John 3, that none of us, unless he is born again, can see the kingdom of God. None of us, unless he's born again, can enter the kingdom of God. And what a helpful metaphor to use, because it shows us that this is all of God, that we contribute nothing, right? Because think about your first birth. How much did you and I contribute to our first birth? Nothing, right? And likewise, we bring nothing, there's nothing we do to bring about our new birth, our second birth, our salvation. And so that's why all the praise is being directed to God. Verse three, according to his great mercy, he, God, has caused us to be born again. And so he's saying, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, because he has caused us, according to his great mercy, on the basis of his gracious mercy, he's caused us to be born again. He's given us this new birth. And this new birth then, initiated by God the Father, results in new life, right? We were dead, now we're alive to God in Christ Jesus. We have new life. We're reconciled to God now. We have new life, a life that's free from the penalty of sin that we deserve. We have a life now that's united to our Lord Jesus Christ through faith. We have a life now that's indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. We have new life because he gave us the new birth. And this new life then brings about a new identity. Again, think about it. Again, Ephesians 2 is a great parallel passage to this, right? We once were strangers. We once were far off from God. We once were aliens to the promises of God. But now, we who were far off have been brought near through Jesus Christ. We once were strangers, outsiders, Yes, even enemies of God. But now through Christ, who are we? We are adopted. We are beloved sons and daughters of God Almighty. And so with this new life and this new identity comes a new hope. We have new hope. And Peter calls it a living hope. And so that's our second term. We've had the first one, born again. Now our second term is living hope. 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. And again, many of you have probably heard this before, but it's important that we understand that hope in the Bible is not a vague wish, like we use it in our terminology, right? I hope this happens, but I'm not sure that it will. Hope in the Bible is a certain expectation of a future event. Hope is a certain expectation of a future event. So our hope is pointing us to our future. Our hope is what's in store for us in the future. And even a maybe more accurate or simpler way to say it is not Our hope is not so much what is in store for us, but our hope is who. Our hope is a person. Notice, Jesus Christ is our hope. Our hope is to be made like Jesus Christ and to be with him forever. That's our hope. Our hope is to be in the presence of God and reigning with Jesus Christ. to be raised from the dead in a glorified body like Christ, and to spend eternity with Jesus in the new heavens and the new earth. That is our future, loved ones. That is our hope. And again, this is certain. You know, these things sound great. They sound obviously marvelous. Who wouldn't want that, right? But a lot of us may feel jaded, right? We're used to things sounding too good to be true, or we're used to something that we look forward to Not panning out, right? But Peter's emphasizing, the Bible emphasizes the certainty of this. It's not just pie in the sky, I hope this happens. This is our certain future. Why is it so certain? Well, because it's based on the promises of God. God has promised and God does not lie. And Peter then even kind of takes it a step further or develops that a little bit and says, Our hope is certain because it's through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He's emphasizing the certainty of our hope by calling it a living hope. And that word living highlights the certainty and the permanence of this hope. Don't you love that word, living hope? This is not a dead promise, this is not some dream that's gonna kind of fade away and die. No, this is a living hope that is sure. Our promised future with Jesus, it's alive, it's definite. Our promised future with Jesus is sure and certain, again, because it's grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Verse three, that's what he says, right? 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. So you see the certainty of that? Christ has already secured our future salvation through His resurrection from the dead. In other words, Christ's resurrection is proof that God's wrath is satisfied. Christ's resurrection is proof that our sins have been paid for. Therefore, at the end of history, we will indeed be welcomed into the eternal presence of God. We know that to be true. It's already certain. It's a done deal because Christ has been raised from the dead. First Corinthians 15 says that Christ's resurrection is the first fruits of the great harvest of resurrection that is to come. That at Christ's return, all who are united to Christ through faith will be raised in glorious bodies just like Jesus' glorified and resurrected body. And so, you see, our resurrection is sure, it's certain. Matter of fact, our resurrection is already in motion. I mean, the harvest has already begun. Christ is the firstfruits with the promise of more to follow. And not only that, but our resurrection has already begun in the sense that we have already been born again. The new creation has already begun in us through the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Spirit has given us new life in Christ. And that's simply a down payment with promise of the future and total payment to come. And so because we've already been indwelt with the Holy Spirit, given new life, set free from our old natures, then we know that we will be raised with Him in the end when Christ returns. Because of Christ's resurrection then, we have the sure hope of our own resurrection. And so Peter calls this a living hope. Think about that. Because of this living hope, we no longer need to fear death. And then think about who Peter's writing to. Because of this living hope, we no longer need to fear death, and especially then, we don't need to really fear persecution. Jesus said, don't fear the one who can kill the body, right? I mean, what does death bring for a Christian? Death merely ushers us into the presence of the Lord Jesus. The worst persecution can do to us is kill us. And again, I don't say this glibly, recognizing there's brothers and sisters around this world right now who are under persecution, and I'm sure none of us really are eager for that. But the truth of the gospel is the worst persecution can do to us is kill us, but that will merely usher us into the presence of the Lord Jesus, and we know that a future resurrection awaits us as well when Christ returns. And so this is a hope, right? And the world talks a lot about hope, and let us, loved ones, be quick to claim the the hope in the biblical sense, right? And let us claim it not only for our own encouragement, but let us use it as a witnessing tool, right? As Peter will say later in 1 Peter 3, be prepared to give a reason for the hope that lies within you, right? We have a living hope. This is a hope that the world cannot snuff out. No matter how much they're persecuting, no matter how much they're rejecting Christ, no matter how much we're dealing with the trials and tribulations of living in a fallen world, It doesn't change our hope. This is a living hope. Our hope is to be made like Jesus and to be with him forever in the new heavens and the new earth. And our hope is grounded in the resurrection of Christ, because again, Christ's resurrection is the kickoff to the new creation. We know these things are true. We know these things are gonna happen because Christ has been raised. Romans 8 makes that point regarding creation, How yes, all creation is groaning under the curse of sin, and so we see the effects of the fall even on creation. But that creation itself is waiting for the day when Christ returns to rid this world of the effects of sin. So we know that because Christ has been raised, that one day we will be with Jesus in perfect bodies and in a place where there's no more pain, no more sorrow, no more sin, and no more death. And we know all that to be sure, not only because God has said it and God doesn't lie, but because we can look back and see he's already raised Christ from the dead. Things are already in motion. Christ indeed has defeated sin and death, and he's already kicked off the new creation that is to come. So I hope you see how certain, how guaranteed our future salvation is, that it is a living hope. And may we, by God's grace, daily live with that in mind, right? And that's again why we have to preach the gospel to ourselves. And we have to, yes, look for opportunities and pray for opportunities to be useful today for God's glory, but we do have, we are looking ahead, right? We are longing for His return. We're longing to be with Him. We're singing those songs, When We See Your Face. We're singing the songs we sang this morning about He's gonna keep me until the end. Because we're awaiting our future salvation and we know it's coming. And so that gives us hope, that gives us strength to endure the difficulties that we face every day as we walk in fellowship with the Lord. All right, so our third term then is secure inheritance. Right, Peter's talking about our salvation and now he describes it in terms of an inheritance, which if you think about, that's kind of appropriate to the flow of the passage because he's already said we've been born again, right, so he's already been been kind of painting that picture of, you are children of God now. And so what do children typically have? They typically have an inheritance from their parents, right? So look at verse 4. He says, here I'll read verse 3 to get the flow, right? 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, verse 4. to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. So again, we're looking to praise God, praise God for the certainty of our salvation, praise God for the beauty and the glory and the immensity of our salvation, and Peter's highlighting that fact, just how certain, how beautiful of a salvation of an inheritance that awaits us. And right now, in verse four, he's emphasizing the security of that inheritance. We've already been talking about what it consists of. It's to be with Jesus forever in a glorified body in the new heavens and new earth. That sounds great, but is it secure? Is something gonna happen to that inheritance? Is it gonna somehow lose its value? Is it gonna somehow get changed? Is there gonna be a bait and switch here somehow? No. We are God's children with an inheritance that Christ has shared with us. We are fellow heirs with Christ, as Romans 8 says, and this inheritance is secure. We will be in the presence of God forever with Christ in his perfect, eternal kingdom. And again, think about what an encouragement this was to the people Peter's writing to. I mean, it should be to all believers, right? Because we're all exiles, we're all strangers in this world. But we said, especially the original recipients were feeling that, right? They were scattered. Many of them had probably been displaced and put there by the Roman Empire, right? Dislodged from their homeland, dislodged from maybe what they had considered their inheritance. And of course, for those who were Jewish, I mean, that's all been Messed up for quite some time now, being under the rule of different Gentile kingdoms. But even for the Gentile believers, they knew that they were in this world but not of this world. They were experiencing firsthand that, wow, this world really doesn't have anything of lasting value to offer me. Matter of fact, this world keeps pushing against me, right? And so now they're hearing that we have a heavenly inheritance. or that our hope, our pursuit is not to be fixed and focused on an earthly inheritance. No, we have an inheritance being kept in heaven for us. And so yes, believers, even if you've lost your earthly home because of persecution, you have a home in heaven awaiting you. You're sojourners now, but one day, you're gonna inherit the earth. Right? Jesus taught that in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5.5, blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. You will reign with Christ in the new heavens and the new earth. And so by describing our salvation as inheritance, Peter reminds us that, yes, we already enjoy some of these blessings of our salvation now, praise God. We already get foretaste of it now with the indwelling spirit, with reconciliation to God, with entrance into God's family in the body of Christ. But those are all just tastes. Those are all just down payments. Much of our salvation is still to be experienced in the future, and again, it's certain. It's not like an earthly inheritance, right? I don't know if, you know, if this has happened to you or if you've heard it happen in your family, but earthly inheritances can lose value, can't they? Right? Maybe, you know, the stock market plunges or maybe the land property goes down or something happens and What looked like a big nest egg ends up kind of dwindling down to not very much. Maybe medical bills and things, you know, go on and on for years and years. Earthly inheritances are uncertain. They can be lost, stolen, depleted, or lose their value. But Peter assures the believers in verse 4 here that our inheritance in Christ is secure. Notice how he describes it. It is imperishable. It's undefiled. It's unfading. It's being kept in heaven for you. It's secure, it's in like a safety deposit box, nothing is gonna happen to it, it's in heaven. Nothing about your inheritance is gonna change, nothing about it's gonna lose value, nothing can be stolen or destroyed, nothing can tarnish it. It's secure. Think of what are the implications of that for our lives today? What should that be producing in us? Right? Praise, right? I mean, that's kind of the overarching theme. Praise God for doing that for us, for giving that to us, for lavishing that to us, and also knowing that it's secure. How should that impact our pursuits here on this earth? We shouldn't be looking to things of this world for our security, right? We shouldn't be chasing after the things that the world chases after for security. Oh, our health, you know, we gotta just do everything we can to preserve our health. And I understand being good stewards, that's fine, but, right? Our security's not in our health. Our security's not in our wealth, our nest egg. Our security's not in the state of our country. And again, we pray for our country, we pray for our leaders, as David did today. We rejoice in the freedoms we have. That's not where our security lies. Our security is in Christ, and it is indeed secure. All these other things fade and are perishable, but our inheritance in heaven does not. And so, again, this should be producing in us hope. This should be encouraging us, and that hope should affect the way we think and affect what we dedicate our lives to. Remember how Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, using very similar language, you know, no doubt the Spirit was probably bringing these words to Peter's mind as he wrote his letter. Matthew 6, 19, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So again, the things of this world pale in their security compared to what we have in our earthly inheritance. And the things of this world, even if they are secure, even if you inherit that whole nest egg that your parents leave you, those things pale in the comparison to the beauty and the eternal worth of what we have in Christ. So I hope a work that God does in us is, I mean, let us not gloss over the way Jesus ended that teaching. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. What are we treasuring? What are we, again, where are we finding our security? You know, as I'm trying to, you know, with God's Word, describe our heavenly inheritance, and I know, you know, through the foolishness of preaching, I mean, how can words even describe what it's gonna be like to be in a glorified body with our Lord risen and exalted and glorified Lord Jesus Christ in the new heavens and new earth? I mean, you know, how can we even describe that? But yet, even as I describe that, I wonder if some of us are kind of bored with that, or not that excited about that. Because our hearts are daily, hourly, what are our hearts longing for? It's the things of this world. It's the comforts of this world. It's the approval of this world. It's the glitter of this world. And so we condition our affections that way, and that's what we're treasuring, and so that's where our heart is, and so then when we describe what our real treasure is, it's kinda like, huh. And see, may God help us to daily be being sanctified so that what we're treasuring is Jesus, right? He's our hope. God is our inheritance. And so may we be spending time with the Lord and enjoying our fellowship with him that we have already. And then that will just get us all the more excited for his return. Jesus, we long to see you. I read about you every day. I walk with you, I pray with you, or pray to you. I know that you have saved me. I can't wait to see you someday, to personally fall at your feet. to reign with you, to just, you know, I don't know what all that's gonna be like to just talk about all the things that, you know, that, what are salvations like to experience that? One more term for you. Protected heirs. We've talked about how secure our inheritance is, that it's being kept in heaven for us. Nothing's gonna change it. It's not, nothing's gonna defile it or perish, cause it to be perishable. But what about us? It's kinda like that's the last piece here that Peter goes to. Okay, we have this inheritance and that's secure, I hear you, that that's in heaven for me, but how do I know I'm gonna get to heaven? Right? You know, if that's the destination and I know that it's there, how can I be sure that I'll make it there? That's the final, piece here that he discusses in verse five. We'll begin in verse four to get the context, too. An inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who, he's talking about believers, right? Who, by God's power, are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. So you see, he's been talking about the beauty of our future salvation, how secure it is, And now he says, we ourselves are being protected. We are the heirs and we will be protected to the end so that we will actually inherit that salvation. We are being guarded by God's power. Look at that in verse five. Who by God's power are being guarded. That's the same term that's used in Philippians 4, talking about the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. You know that's a military term, right? He's talking about what you think of when you think of guards. He's saying you yourselves are being guarded, not by human power, not by our willpower, by God's power. That's big power, isn't it? I mean, this is Almighty God. This is Almighty God, as we heard this morning in the prayer, who there's no one else like Him, who spoke this world into existence, who stretched out the heavens. It's by His power that we're being guarded. Notice an important piece of what this looks like. We're being guarded by God's power through faith. That's how we know we'll secure our salvation. God's power, God's grace is sustaining us through faith in Christ. This is the perseverance of the saints. Those whom God has chosen will continue to believe to the end. They will continue by God's grace, by his enabling to believe and follow Christ to the end. By God's grace, we will keep on believing the promises of God. By God's power, we will keep on believing the gospel. By God's enabling, we will keep following Christ, even though it brings persecution. Even though it's by faith and not by sight. And there's so many things in this world that lure us with the sight. And again, we won't do this perfectly at all. We will stumble and fall and get distracted almost every day. But by God's grace, we'll keep fighting that good fight of the faith and we'll keep repenting and turning away from the wiles of this world and following Christ because it's God's power that's guarding us. So be encouraged, Christian. You will persevere to the end because Almighty God is guarding you through faith. And yes, we know that this world has many temptations. And yes, we know that we face an enemy of our souls whose craft and power is great. And yes, we know how even our own deceitful hearts are prone to wander and become discouraged. But be encouraged that Almighty God is guarding you. And his power is greater than anything this world can throw at us. Right? Greater is he who is in you than he who is in this world. And so as we follow Christ in this fallen world, we know we are being guarded and protected. Jesus said in John 10 that no one can snatch his sheep out of his hand or out of his Father's hand. Praise God. Jesus also then said later in John 17 that he would not lose any of those that the Father had given to him. And so 1 Peter 1.5 here says, We will make it to the end, not because we're so committed, not because we're so determined, but because it's God who's guarding us to the end by his power. And so again, this just points us back to praise God, right? He saves us, he sustains us, he will keep us to the end. Everything that God has promised will be fulfilled. We really will be with God forever in heaven. We really will enjoy glorified bodies with no more sin, right, and no more pain. And I know we look forward to that, but oh, the no more sin part, right? Like we sing in that song, when we see your face, when all the demons that we've been fighting, both without and within, we're gonna stand in victory over those someday. we really will be with the saints worshiping our Savior forever. And so praise God. Again, this is a doxology. Praise God for his love that he set on us before the foundation of the world and that he demonstrated by sending his son. Praise God for his mercy, as Peter says, and not treating us as our sins deserve, but rather in having compassion on us. and praise God for his sovereign grace in lavishing these amazing blessings on us and for preserving us until the end so that we will enjoy those blessings for all eternity with him and with all the saints. Let's pray. Father, we do praise you. Lord, we praise you for these blessings, and we know how, and we ask even for your help today and in the days to come to just rehearse these blessings, Lord. We know many of them are familiar to us, and sometimes familiarity breeds contempt to where we We kind of take them for granted or we don't really meditate on them like we should. And so Lord, please help us to just meditate on these blessings of our salvation. And again, help us to believe your promises and to embrace these by faith, even though we can't We don't see Jesus yet, we love him and we know one day we'll be like him. And even though we can't see the new heavens and the new earth yet, or we read about it in scripture and we long to be in that eternal kingdom with all the saints and with Christ. And so encourage your people today. Encourage them, Lord, with this living hope And may this living hope impact how they live and how we live, how we live and think and how we handle the challenges of this fallen world. And may you continue now even as we conclude our worship service to stir our hearts to praise you for these blessings. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen, let's stand together and sing.