We return this morning to a brief look at a most wonderful text in the first epistle of Peter, in chapter one, verses 17 to 21. Last week, I reminded you how important it is to have an ironclad, rock-solid theology of suffering. before you enter into and experience that suffering. The storm shelter of sound doctrine that keeps you grounded in the midst of the hurricane of suffering can't be constructed in the middle of the storm. It needs to be set firmly in place ahead of time so that when the trial comes, second nature kicks in and we can retreat to the haven of biblical truth. We all need to be equipped to suffer well, to suffer according to the will of God, as Peter puts it in chapter four, verse 19. We need to be equipped to suffer well before that suffering comes upon us, because it will come upon us. And in a way, as I mentioned last week, that we have not been used to. It's become more obvious than it's ever been that Christians are pilgrims, those who reside as aliens, as Peter calls us, during the time of our stay on earth. This world is not our home. We are exiles, strangers in this foreign sin-cursed land sojourning to the country of our true citizenship where righteousness dwells. And so it's no surprise that as citizens of heaven we come into conflict with the enemies of righteousness and that those enemies grow hostile to us, we who are unimpressed with all that they hold dear. We who are wholly devoted to the holiness that marked the life of the Lord Jesus Christ whom this world has hated and put to death. And yet while it should be no surprise, we in North America have enjoyed such an abundant measure of God's common grace and kindness that we have come to expect the world to be hospitable to the church. But over these past two years, the way the governing authorities really throughout the world, but even here in our own backyard in Southern California, the way that they have mobilized against people of conscience, the way the culture has rushed so violently into its repudiation of the foundational core truths of the biblical worldview, the way they've rushed into a celebration, a renewed celebration and defense of immorality in every sphere of life, It's convinced me that our commitment to Christ and to scripture will be tested in ways that we have not seen in this part of the world. And because what I want more than anything is for Christ to be magnified in you. for you to glorify and honor Christ in your lives, for you to make Christ look great, to make him look as glorious as he is. I believe one of the most significant responsibilities I have as a pastor is to prepare you to stand firm against persecution in a way that makes much of Jesus. And to do that we have turned for a brief moment these past two weeks, last week and today, to 1 Peter who writes to persecuted believers in the Roman Empire under Nero. Nero who had been, as we mentioned, himself burning various buildings throughout the city of Rome and then telling the public that it was the Christians who did it. Nero who had been impaling Christians on spikes and lighting them on fire to use as human torches. It was as plain as it could be that these believers that Peter was writing to were aliens and strangers in the world and needed to bear up under unjust suffering. 1 Peter functions as something of a traveler's guide to a pilgrim's journey through the land of his sojourn. How are you going to navigate your way through this hostile territory in a way that glorifies and honors your king? Peter answers that in his letter. And after praising God in verses three through 12 for the privileges that we persecuted pilgrims enjoy by grace, he issues three overarching commands from verses 13 to verse 21. In verse 13, he calls them to a life of steadfast hope. Look at it, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. In verse 15, he calls them to a life of universal holiness, but like the holy one who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior. And then in verse 17, he calls them to a life of holy fear. If you address as father, the one who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth. So rather than fearing the wrath of their persecutors, succumbing to the temptation of compromising their faithfulness to Christ amidst suffering, they must fear God, who is not only our accessible Father, but also our impartial judge. And we mentioned that this holy fear of God that strengthens believers to endure persecution faithfully is not the terror that rightly grips the heart of an unbeliever who stands before the bar of God's justice in the nakedness of his own righteousness. No, that's the fear that some of you ought to have, as I said last week. But it's not the fear that believers ought to have. This fear is the fear that sons and daughters have for their father. The fear that desires to please God precisely because we belong to him. Because we love him and don't want to displease or dishonor him. This is the key, Peter says, for the pilgrim to stand firm in suffering. Pass the time of your sojourning in fear, as the King James translates it. And so as we move through verses 17 to 21, we find that Peter gives the suffering believer three considerations to meditate on in order to feed this holy fear of God that will sustain him in his trials. three considerations that will help us cultivate this fear that will preserve us from compromise even in the midst of persecution so that we will be prepared to suffer well. And we saw two of them last week. The first came in verse 17 namely Consider the prerogative of your father. Consider the prerogative of your father. Peter says, your father shows no partiality. He hates sin wherever he sees it. And if he sees it in his children, though his judicial wrath against it has been satisfied by the blood of Christ, he's nevertheless displeased by it. And precisely because he loves you, he disciplines you. And he sends forth his hand of discipline to correct and to chasten us. And so Peter says, conduct yourselves in fear of that discipline. You don't want to displease your gracious father. You don't want to come under his discipline. So conduct yourselves accordingly. And then a second consideration that feeds the pilgrim's holy fear came in verses 18 and 19, and that was number two, consider the price of your redemption. Consider the price of your redemption. Again, verses 18 and 19, conduct yourselves in fear knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your feudal way of life inherited from your forefathers. but with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ." He says the price of your redemption, Christian, was the blood of the spotless lamb of God. It was the blood of God the Son himself. Jesus never even deserved to have blood, let alone for that blood to be shed by wicked men. There is no more precious, worthy, estimable price of anything in the world than the blood of Christ. And so Peter says, if that was the cost of your redemption, out of the slavery of sin, can you treat this blood as such a contemptible thing that you give no thought to living the very life of sin that this blood was shed to redeem you from? See, when you give yourself to the very lawless deeds that the blood of Christ was shed to free you from, you conduct yourself in a way that indicates that you do not believe that that blood was precious. Everything in you ought to shrink back from that thought in fear. You see what he's saying? Conduct yourselves in fear because you know how precious the price of your redemption was. Fear living lives as if the ransom price of Christ's blood was not precious. Well, there's a third consideration that will strengthen and support your holy fear of God during the time of your stay on earth. Not only the prerogative of your Father, not only the price of your redemption, but number three, consider the glory of your Savior. the glory of your Savior. Look at verses 20 and 21. Peter mentions the name of Christ at the end of verse 19, and then he just bursts out in praise. He says, for he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Now this glorious redemption purchased by the precious blood of Christ, this was no afterthought. This was no accident. This was the gracious plan that God determined before the world began. that Christ would appear on the earth as the incarnate God-man, that he would live the perfect life in obedience to the law of God that we failed to live, that he would die to shed his precious blood to ransom his people from sin and then would be raised from the dead and seated in glory at the right hand of the Father in heaven and become the sole source of faith and hope in the one true and living God to everyone who believes. And I love this, Peter, he speaks of the precious blood of the spotless Lamb of God graciously shed to redeem slaves to sin, and his heart is so full, by the time he mentions Christ's name at the end of verse 19, he just can't hold it in. His heart is set ablaze and he erupts in celebratory praise of Jesus that's in so beautiful a fashion that it sounds almost lyrical as you read it. Foreknown before the foundation of the world, appeared in these last times for your sake, raised from the dead and given glory. Through him you believe and hope in God. So this third consideration that will feed the pilgrim's holy fear of God and strengthen us to stand firm in the face of persecution and temptations to compromise is the consideration of the glory of our Savior. And there are at least four aspects of the glory of your Savior that Peter celebrates in these two verses. And we'll devote ourselves to meditating on those four aspects of Christ's glory in the remainder of this sermon. So in the first place, consider his predetermination. His predetermination, verse 20. For he was foreknown before the foundation of the world. this Christ, this spotless lamb of God who has shed his precious blood for the redemption of his people, he is no ordinary redeemer. He is, in fact, the eternally appointed redeemer. The plan for him to rescue sinful man from our futile way of life inherited from our forefathers was a plan that was devised in eternity, before the foundation of the world, Peter says. Now this is astounding because it means that the remedy for sin was planned before mankind had sinned. Before mankind was created even. Friends this is just one of the many passages of scripture that teaches us that God is absolutely sovereign in matters of sin and salvation. That man's fall into sin did not take God by surprise. that the cross of Christ was not an afterthought. The cross was not plan B in response to Adam's thwarting God's purposes in the garden. No, the cross and therefore the sin that made the cross necessary were plan A in God's mind. Before God created Adam and Eve, before he placed them in the Garden of Eden, before he gave them the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and therefore certainly before they disobeyed him and plunged all of humanity into cursed destruction, he had designed our redemption in Christ. That's why the Apostle John in Revelation 13, eight calls Jesus literally the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Not, of course, because the Son of God had literally been slain before time began, but because God's plan to rescue sinners from damnation by the death of Christ was established in eternity past. It's also why in Ephesians 1, 4, the Apostle Paul says that the Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. He uses that same phrase to speak of the Father's unconditional election of individuals to salvation, which took place in eternity past. Before anybody had sinned, before anybody had been created, before anybody had done anything good or bad, God determined that He would create men and women in His own image. He determined that they would fall into sin, and He determined that He would rescue them from that sin in Christ, who is God the Son. That's why Paul says in 2 Timothy 1.9 that God granted us grace in Christ Jesus from all eternity. Now I want you to notice the particular way that Peter speaks about God's eternal plan of salvation in Christ. He says that Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world. Now this word foreknown means so much more than simply knowing beforehand. This is not just that the father somehow looked down the corridors of time and knew before it happened that his son would be the one to redeem sinners. No, if that were the sense of foreknowledge, just to know in advance, we would be constrained to say that God foreknows everything, right? He's omniscient. He could look down the corridors of time and see everything that was to happen. And then what sense would it make to single out any one thing, Christ or anyone else, and say, well, he was foreknown. No, the proper sense of this term to foreknow is, as one preacher put it, the establishment of a relationship with distinguishing love and purpose. In fact, that's how the term is used most often with respect to God's foreknowledge. It is a synonym for God's election for individuals for salvation. And actually that's how Peter uses the term at the beginning of chapter one, at the beginning of the letter. Look back at the first two verses of chapter one. He addresses the believers as those who reside as aliens scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. So you see this connection scripture makes between God's choice and his foreknowledge. That connection's also seen in Romans 8, 29, where Paul says, for those whom he, that is the father, foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son. So foreknowledge is akin to predestination, with foreknowledge emphasizing God's love and predestination emphasizing God's sovereignty. God determines to set his love upon individuals and establish a relationship with them, and in that same moment predestines or predetermines that the end goal of their election will also be brought to fruition, their ultimate likeness to Christ, so that we predestine them to become conformed to the image of his son. And so the idea of foreknowledge, denoted by the Greek term progenosko, both in texts like Romans 8, 29, and in our text in 1 Peter 1, is not just knowing facts in advance. It's loving people in advance. It speaks of the knowledge that characterizes intimate personal relationship. And perhaps that's most clearly illustrated in Romans 11 too, where Paul uses the same word with respect to God's relationship to his people Israel. He says there, God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Now for God to foreknow Israel did not mean that Israel was the only people that God knew about. No, Paul's emphasizing the intimate relationship God established between him and Israel founded on the covenants of promise. Now the Old Testament counterpart to the Greek word progenosko is the Hebrew word yada, which in its most basic form means to know, but many times carries this same connotation of intimate personal knowledge. So for example, Genesis 4.1 says, now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain. This kind of knowledge results in the conception of children sometimes, not merely simple knowledge. Interestingly, the term yada is also sometimes translated as to choose. In Genesis 18, 19, God says about Abraham, for I have known him, literally, but the translations all translate it, choose, I have chosen him so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of Yahweh by doing righteousness and justice. So the knowledge connoted by this term so aptly describes God's personal sovereign election that all the modern translations translate that verse as chosen. I knew him, I chose him. Amos 3.2 uses the term very similar to Romans 11.2. There God says to Israel, you only have I known among all the families of the earth, which again cannot mean that Israel was the only nation God knew about. It means that they alone were the nation upon whom he set his love and bound himself to by covenant. In Jeremiah 1-5, God speaks to Jeremiah about his call to ministry and he says, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations. To know, to consecrate or set apart, and to a point for ministry. These are all these concepts that are at play when Peter says Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world. So in eternity past, in the secret councils of the Trinity, there existed such an intimate personal knowledge between the Father and the Son, that there was established a special covenantal relationship between them, in which the Father set His love upon the Son, chose Him, set Him apart, appointed Him to be the mediator between God and men, and promised to reward Him upon the completion of His task. In John 17, 24, Jesus prays to the Father on behalf of his people that they would see his glory, which the Father had given him. For, Jesus says, you loved me before the foundation of the world. Jesus uses the same phrase as 1 Peter 1 20 before the foundation of the world and instead of saying you foreknew me before the foundation of the world he gives the sense of the term you loved me before the foundation of the world. In Isaiah 42, one, God speaks of his servant and says, behold, my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights and I have put my spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations. My chosen one. In Luke 9, 35, on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father's voice thunders out of heaven saying, this is my son, my chosen one. Listen to him. In Hebrews 3, 2, the author says that Christ was faithful to him who appointed him. The father appointed Christ to his earthly mission. What did he appoint him to do? He appointed him to be the high priest of his people. Hebrews 5, 1, for every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God. And then Hebrews 5.10, speaking of Christ, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. And what do high priests do? Hebrews 2.17, he enters into the holy of holies, into the very presence of God himself, and he makes propitiation for the sins of his people. And how does he do that? through his sacrificial substitutionary death on the cross. Acts 2.23, this man delivered over to you by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. There's that term again. This man, you nailed to a cross and put him to death. And then what was the reward? Psalm 2.8, ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, the very ends of the earth as your possession. Isaiah 52.13, behold, my servant will succeed. He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. Isaiah 53, 10, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days and the good pleasure of Yahweh will prosper in his hand. As a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied. And so Peter calls us to consider the glory of our Savior and first of all to consider his predetermination, that he was foreknown by the Father before the foundation of the world. He was loved, he was chosen, he was set apart, he was anointed, he was foreordained, he was predestined to accomplish this work of redemption for those whom the Father had chosen and he was invested with this sure promise of success and reward and blessing. But what sense does that make in the flow of Peter's argument? Conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your sojourn on earth because you were redeemed by an eternally appointed, predetermined, and foreordained Redeemer. Why does that make sense? Well, consider how these persecuted pilgrims were regarded by the world around them. Think of how you're regarded by the world around you. You're religious fanatics who worship a crucified carpenter you've never seen. You believe in fairy tales because you need a supreme authority to appeal to so you can force everyone to behave the way you think they should. You're narrow-minded, anti-science, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, xenophobic, white supremacist bigots. Anybody hear that lately? You are literally a threat to public health. You, like Peter's audience, have become painfully aware that you have no place in this world. That you are strangers and exiles on the earth. That you are the off-scouring of the world, Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 4, the scum of the earth and the dregs of all things. That's you and me. And what does Peter do? He tells you, not only have you been redeemed by this precious blood of Christ, but there was never a time, not in all of human history, where the Father did not have you on his heart. From before the foundation of the world, God saw your wretchedness. He saw your fall in Adam. He saw all the sins that you committed in likeness to Adam, all the sins of your youth, all the sins of your adolescence. Friends, even all the sins that you commit since becoming a Christian, when one would think we would know better. He saw all of that and apart from anything in you, indeed in spite of everything in you, He chose you for Himself and gave you to His Son. He set apart His own beloved Son in whom He was well pleased and appointed Him to be your mediator, to stand between you and your deserved condemnation and to be crushed under the full fury of the wrath of God for your sins. consider the boundless love of your father to you. This is your standing in the world, pilgrim, eternally graced by so glorious a father who appointed and set apart his son for you before the foundation of the world. How could you ever displease so gracious a God? How could you ever be tempted to compromise faithfulness to Him, even in the midst of the severest persecution, if He has loved you like this? Conduct yourselves in the fear of God during the time of your stay on earth, considering the glory of your Savior in His predetermination. The second aspect of the glory of your Savior comes also in verse 20. Number two, consider the glory of your Savior in his incarnation, his incarnation. For he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for your sake. Now, the term appeared is translated from the Greek word phanerao. It means to make manifest, to reveal, to disclose. And as we've just seen, God the Son was appointed to be mankind's Redeemer from eternity past. He is, as Revelation 13, 8 says, again, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And Jesus is no less the Redeemer of the Old Testament saints than the New Testament saints because the efficacy of His blood that redeems all, it is the efficacy of His blood that redeems all those who were saved. Whereas our faith looks back to Him, their faith looked forward to Him in the types and the symbols and the promises that God revealed to them at that time. And so Christ has always been the Redeemer. He's the only Redeemer the world has ever seen. but he has appeared in these last times for your sake. Now this does not mean that Christ merely appeared to come to earth, that he was some sort of ghost or apparition that appeared to take human form but had no real flesh and blood human existence. Such a teaching was one of the early heresies in the first and second and third centuries. Gnosticism taught, among other things, a radical metaphysical dualism that said spirit was good and matter, physical matter, was inherently evil. And so they rejected the idea that Jesus was genuinely human. He only appeared to be human, but was solely divine. And some early forms of that teaching were already present in the late 80s of the first century, because the Apostle John writes in 1 John 4-2, by this you know the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And so appeared in 1 Peter 1.20 does not mean that Christ seemed to dwell among us. This is referring to the incarnation of God the Son. The eternal word from the Father, John 1.1. Who was with the Father in the beginning, who was himself God in the beginning, this word became flesh and dwelt among us, John 1.14. This is the eternal second person of the Trinity, Philippians 2, though existing in the nature of God did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped but nullified himself. How did he do that? By taking the form of a slave being made in the likeness of men. The Eternal Son made himself of no effect by taking on a human nature, even while never altering or shedding the divine nature. A hundred percent God, a hundred percent man, two full and true natures subsisting in the single person of God the Son. This is the miracle of miracles. This is why we have Christmas. Hebrews 2.14 puts it this way, since the children, that is us, those whom he came to save, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil. The Son of God partook of the same human nature, the same flesh and blood as we sinners have so that he could accomplish our righteousness as a man and bear the curse of death in our place. Fully man and therefore able to stand as man's substitute. fully God and therefore able to satisfy the wrath of God on behalf of the innumerable sinners who come to him in repentance and faith. Behold, friends, the glory of the incarnation. Only God himself could ever atone for sin and yet only man's sacrifice would be accepted on behalf of man. No one ought to pay except man, and no one can pay except God. And so in marvelous wisdom, God conceives of the unthinkable. To reconcile God to man, God would become man. Listen to how Hebrews 9 26 puts it very similar language to our text but now once at the consummation of the ages he has been manifested same word to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. at the consummation of the ages. Galatians 4.4 says, when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son. Our text says it, in these last times. And this is a phrase that refers to the fact that we are living in the last days of salvation history. The end times that people are always so obsessed with began in Bethlehem. with the birth of Messiah. All of history culminates in the appearing, in the incarnation, the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus. 1 Corinthians 10, 11, Paul calls those of us who live in this era of history, those upon whom the ends of the ages have come. And he's making the same point as before. He's saying, you are strangers and aliens. You are hated, suffering outcasts. You who have no home, no place to belong in this foreign land called planet Earth. You whom the world regards as no more valuable than to be impaled on stakes and burned as human torches. Can you fathom the unspeakable privilege that is yours? The whole sweep of human history has been designed by the God of the universe, look again at verse 20, for your sake, for the sake of you who are believers in God. The God of the universe has planned from before time began and he has ordered all of human history, indeed accomplished the most marvelous miracle in history for your sake. by sending his beloved son into the world to bear man's nature so that he could bear man's curse. Back in verses 10 to 12 in 1 Peter 1, Peter told them that the prophets who predicted the coming of Messiah made careful searches and inquiries, longing to know who this Messiah would be and when would be the time of his coming. He says, these are things, verse 12, into which angels long to look. The incarnation of God the Son astonishes the angels who minister before the face of God himself. What a stunning privilege that these suffering believers have. to be the ones upon whom the ends of the ages have come, the ones living in the time of the fulfillment of centuries of prophecy. Colossians 1 26 says it this way, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested, same word to his saints, Christ in you, the hope of glory. And he says to them, as he says to us, Could you throw away all of those privileges by failing to conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth? Could you do that? And once again, this appearing was no mere appearance. As we've said, the incarnation of Christ has a particular purpose. He partook of flesh and blood that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death. Friends, Jesus was born to die. Christmas is simply the prelude to Good Friday. The incarnation meant the cross. The incarnation meant the wrath of God. This is what Peter means when he says he has appeared in these last times for the sake of you. Where else have you heard for your sake like that? 2 Corinthians 8, 9, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though being rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. And that poverty was being stripped of his most precious treasure, communion with the Father, as he was abandoned by the Father. and cried out, why have you forsaken me? As he suffered the wrath that you and I should have suffered forever in hell. I can't resist reading to you a section from John Flavel, which I think does the work of application of this thought better than I ever could. He writes this. Ah, Christian, can you look upon Jesus as standing in your place to bear the wrath of a deity for you? Can you think on it and not melt? That when you, like Isaac, were bound to the altar to be offered up to justice, Christ, like the ram, was caught in the thicket and offered in your place. When your sins had raised a fearful tempest that threatened every moment to entomb you in a sea of wrath, Jesus Christ was thrown over to appease that storm. Say, reader, can your heart dwell one hour upon such a subject as this? Can you with faith present Christ to yourself as He was taken down from the cross, drenched in His own blood, and say, these were the wounds that He received for me. This is He that loved me and gave Himself for me. Out of these wounds comes that balm that heals my soul. Out of these stripes, my peace. When he hanged upon the cross, he bore my name upon his breast, like the high priest. The Bible says it was love, pure love, strong love to my poor soul, to the soul of an enemy that drew him down from heaven and all the glory he had there to endure these sorrows in soul and body for me. And may Jesus Christ be praised for His grace. May God be thanked for His indescribable gift. He says, for your sake, Christian, can you meditate on the glory of your Savior, the glory of His incarnation, and the glory, therefore, of His substitutionary atonement, and not have your fear fed? Remember what the commentator Robert Layton said, we quoted it last week, he said, if you would increase much in holiness and be strong against the temptations to sin, this is the only art of it. View much and so seek to know much of the death of Jesus Christ. The Scottish preacher Hugh Martin said, the secret of being truly and comfortably and usefully strangers in the earth lies in our being no strangers to God. And we have communion with God, we have familiarity with God as we meditate on these truths of what God with us has done for us. But we must move on because Christ does not stay dead, does he? No, the sorrows of Good Friday give way to the triumphs of Resurrection Sunday. And so Peter does the same as he moves on to his third aspect of the glory of our Savior that will feed your holy fear of God and strengthen you to suffer well in this world. Not only his predetermination and incarnation, but also number three, his exaltation. His exaltation. Look at verse 21. for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God. You see, this man was delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. He was nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men who put him to death. That's Acts 2.23. But what does Acts 2.24 say? but God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death since it was impossible for him to be held in its power. Though he was genuinely forsaken by the Father on the cross, the resurrection demonstrates that the Father was satisfied by the son's sacrifice and that since sin had been paid for, the son was restored to fellowship with his father. And not only was Jesus resurrected, but He then ascended from the earth back to the Father, where He now reigns over all things at the Father's right hand. And Philippians 2.9 says, For this reason also God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name. Before his ascension, Jesus himself declared in Matthew 28, 18, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. In the opening verses of the book of Hebrews, the author speaks of the son whom the father appointed heir of all things. When he made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Hebrews 2.9 says Jesus, because of the suffering of death, was crowned with glory and honor. And perhaps the greatest of them all, Ephesians 1, 20 to 22, the father raised Jesus from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also the one to come. And he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church. Jesus is not just head of the church. He's the head over all things and he's given to the church. Now why does Peter call attention to this? Because he reminds the believers, it reminds us that we trust in and follow a Christ who is not unacquainted with suffering. To say he's been exalted, to say he's been resurrected means he's died. He's been humiliated. And of course he speaks of that in verses 18 and 19. The point is, we do not have a never-suffering Savior. We have a Savior that was hated. We have a Savior that was spit on. We have a Savior that was mocked and beaten and killed in the most shameful way that sinful man could devise. But that very same Savior was raised from the dead. He was highly exalted, given the name above every name, seated at the Father's right hand in majesty, far above all rule and authority. Our Savior, you see, was made for another world. He came into this world as a pilgrim, as a stranger, as an exile in a foreign land, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His sufferings were infinitely greater than anything that they or we could imagine, but He did not waver in faithfulness to His Father. He did not compromise. He conducted Himself in fear during the time of His stay on earth because He knew that it was only a temporary stay. He knew that this life was for giving away and that the next life was for rest and reward. And as a result of his faithful obedience he was raised from the dead and exalted to heaven. For this very reason also God highly exalted him because he humbled himself to obedience to death even death on a cross. And so the point is brothers and sisters this is not only our Savior this is our forerunner. He has blazed the trail that he now calls us to walk as suffering pilgrims on a journey to heaven. And if we can fix our gaze on Gethsemane and on Golgotha and think of the depths of the dishonor that he suffered in his life, And then if we can raise our eyes now to heaven and think of the heights of the glory that he enjoys now, that he promises to us as our imperishable inheritance that is undefiled, reserved in heaven, that will not fade away, we will then be able to deny ourselves, to take up our cross daily, and to die to self and follow after him. If we can, like Stephen, gaze into the heavens, and by the spiritual sight of faith see the glory of God and Jesus, see Jesus standing at the right hand of God, then even in our greatest of trials, even in a shower of stones like Stephen endured, we can be comforted that Christ our head has been exalted to glory and that we his body shall join him before long. You see, the very worst that they can do to us is kill us. And we serve a savior who looked at Martha weeping for her brother's death and said, I am the resurrection and the life. And he who believes in me will live even if he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. And then he raised him by the power of his own voice. Lazarus, come forth. I've said it before, but when your heart grabs a hold of that precious truth, that no matter how miserable your persecutors attempt to make your life on this earth, that you will live again. That on the last day, the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will raise your decaying body to life again and will glorify it and will reunite it with your soul for you to live again in the integrity of body and soul in the new earth. When your heart grabs a hold of that reality, you become invincible. You live above the fear of death. You live above the fear of man. And you conduct yourselves in the fear of God. One more aspect of the glory of your Savior that will feed the pilgrim's holy fear and equip us to endure persecution and resist temptation to compromise. And that is number four, his exclusivity. his exclusivity. Let's look at the text again and hear this emphasis starting in verse 20. For he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. And this is just a simple point, but it's so crucial. There is no access to God except by Jesus Christ. There is no access to God except by Jesus Christ. Through Him we are believers in God. Through Him our faith and our hope are in God. There is only one mediator between God and man, The man, Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2, 5. Only He was foreknown before the foundation of the world. Only He was God, a very God from all eternity, who became man in the incarnation in the fullness of time. Only He bore the wrath of God on the cross for sinners. Only His blood was precious as a lamb, unblemished and spotless. Only He was raised from the dead on the third day. Only He was exalted into heaven above all power and authority. And so only He can be the object of your trust for the forgiveness of your sins. And if He is not yet, I call upon you to turn from your sins and trust in Christ for your righteousness before God this morning. Don't sit under the preaching of the gospel of Christ and cling to your sin and to your death. Don't sit listening to the glories of Christ being celebrated while all the while shutting the eyes of your heart against him. Friend, there is a day coming soon when the door of mercy will be shut against you. When you will long to see the glory of Jesus revealed in these words. when you'll ache to hear just one word of the glorious good news that you have sat under this morning and there will be no glory to see. There will be no gospel to hear. The only thing to be seen will be the black darkness of hell. The only thing to hear are the weeping and the gnashing of teeth by those who have been damned along with you for eternity. And yet, friend, you sit here today with the door of God's mercy flung wide open, with the arms of Christ Himself beckoning you to come to Him for rest through repentance and faith, pleading with you to forsake your sin and your confidence in your own righteousness and to come and find rest for your weary soul. Don't delay another moment. Repent and trust in Christ this morning. Don't sit through another Christmas hearing of God with us. God, become man for man and withhold from him the full trust and confidence of your soul. And so mock him unto your own destruction. Come to Christ, he's willing to have you by faith alone this morning. And dear fellow believers, for you who are trusting in Christ here today, Listen, though you may be despised by the world, your faith and your hope are in God. You have reason to hope, says Peter, and your reason to hope is not because you will have won the world's admiration. It's not because you will eventually convince the world of your political views. It's not because you will eventually Christianize the culture. It is not because you will make America great again. No, your faith and your hope are in the God who appointed His Son for you in eternity past and then sent Him into the world to accomplish your redemption and then raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory so that you know that no matter what takes place on earth, the same exalted destiny that Christ entered into awaits you as well. You see, the God of Scripture does not offer us any hope, any solace by setting our minds on this world and the things of this world, but by raising our eyes to heaven, Colossians 3, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Here we have no lasting city. But we are seeking the city which is to come, a city which has foundations, not like here where moth and rust destroy, not this present creation, like Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3, that will dissolve like snow in the heat of divine judgment. No, we're looking for a new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells. We are looking for a city whose architect and builder is God, a heavenly city that will not decay or fade away. We are longing for our home. where we can be face-to-face with our precious Jesus who endured all those things that Flavel talked about for us so that we could sit with Him and talk with Him and walk with Him and to embrace Him and to rest in Him forever. Christian, you may be hated and despised by the world. You may be the special object of the world's derision and even persecution. The storm is coming. I may see you in the gulag, but you be faithful. You magnify the worth of Jesus by the way that you suffer for his sake. You conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth. Because as we sung, soon shall close thy earthly mission. Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days, and hope shall change to glad fruition, faith to sight, and prayer to praise. Let's pray. Father, we feel that we were made for another world, and we confess our own complacency and apathy that makes us familiar enough with this world so that we can mistake it for our home. And we try to be faithful with the stewardship that you've given us to raise a family as disciples of Christ, to own whatever it is that you would entrust to us and pass it to the next generation as we steward it for your kingdom and seek to make this world as great of a place as it can be for the believers in God through Christ. But whether it's through jobs or family or other obligations, we cling to what is fading away and we lose touch with this reality that we are pilgrims. And then when certain events make us realize that really we are out of place, that we are pilgrims in a foreign land, at once we're comforted by the glory that our hope is in heaven and struck with the mourning over our own sin that allowed us to be so comfortable in the first place. Would you press these truths so severely upon our hearts that we were made for another world, that we are to long for our home, that we would conduct ourselves during the time of our stay in fear, that we would live above the fear of death and the fear of man, that we would lay our lives down in sacrificial service to one another and to the world around us, that we would give our lives away in this world like our Savior did because we know that we live for another world. Make us to suffer well. Give us the conviction that that suffering is coming and that it's not just preaching rhetoric but that we may be called upon if we survive long enough to enter into this, would you comfort us and strengthen us and feed that holy fear through considering the prerogative of our father, the price of our redemption and the glory of our savior, his predetermination, incarnation, exaltation and exclusivity. Give us a sense of the great privileges that we have. Let us live the way pilgrims live. Let us live as aliens and strangers in this world. Be glorified and honored in your church, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. For more information about the ministry of The Grace Life Pulpit, visit at www.thegracelifepulpit.com. Copyright by The Grace Life Pulpit, all rights reserved.