Our Father, we come before you this morning and we confess to you that there is no other God in all the world besides you. You are the truth, the living God. You've always existed. Your Word says that you reward those who diligently seek you, and our purpose here this morning is to seek you diligently with our hearts, with our minds, with our bodies. With all that we are, we desire to know you, Father, to grow in our knowledge of you. We want to hear from you this morning as we come to this room, to read your Word, to sing your Word, pray according to your word, to teach your word. We are wanting to be guided by that which you have said in scripture. And our desire and our need is to be addressed by you, the living God. We come confessing our sins against you. Lord, sin is mixed with all that we do. We understand what Paul meant when he said the things that he doesn't want to do, he does. and the things that he longs to do, he's indifferent toward. And we agree with him at times when we think about the sin that remains within us, that we are wretched people who need to be delivered. And we pray that you would help us not to trifle with sin that remains in our lives today, not to whitewash it in our thinking, not to pretend or play like we are something we're not, but that we would see ourselves the way that you see us, the way your word exposes us, and that you would teach us to quit trusting in ourselves. to quit hoping in our abilities or our resolve, that we would renounce all of our efforts to make ourselves good enough for you, that we would admit our absolute dependence upon your grace and your power, and that we would look to you and come to you with all our hearts, with all that we are, and entrust ourselves wholly to you as a faithful God, as one who has demonstrated his love and mercy for sinners in Jesus Christ. We thank you that there is a Savior for sinners today. We praise you that the Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood for the likes of us, that he came into the world and willingly accepted the limitations that were imposed upon him by your law, willingly endured all of the opposition, animosity, hatred, persecution, and ultimately death itself, in order to take our place as lawbreakers before you, our just judge. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for going to the cross, for enduring the cross, despising its shame, Seeing the joy beyond the cross that was set before you. And being willing to endure your Father's wrath for our sakes. And we ask that you would remind us of what you have done. That you would keep our hearts tender before you. Oh God, we are so quick to be distracted by a thousand things. And to forget the most important thing. And so we come to You and we acknowledge these things to be true. We believe Your Word. Yet, Father, we confess that we need You to strengthen us to believe more simply and sincerely with greater determination day by day. Father, we have great needs in this body. Several of our brothers and sisters are enduring physical trials that are unusual and painful. Some can't even be here today. We ask, oh God, that you would uphold them and encourage them, strengthen them in their weakness. Help them to know that by your grace operating in their lives, when they are weak, they really are strong. And enable them to find your help in their time of need and help us to stand with them and to encourage them and to serve them. Lord, I pray that you would teach us in this church how to love one another more deeply, more sincerely. That we would quit just living for ourselves and thinking of what is convenient. That we would learn to lay down our lives for one another as Jesus Christ has laid down his life for us. And that I pray for those that wish their pain was only physical. but have broken hearts, disturbed minds, peace that has disappeared. And Lord, the burdens of their souls are so great, they don't know even how to express them. They're struggling and wondering. when the light of day will break upon their hearts again. I pray that you would sustain your people in the midst of sorrow and suffering that is emotional and relational and spiritual. That you would reassure them in their darkness that you are there and that you have good purposes even for these kinds of trials in the lives of your children. Father, I pray for those that this morning are weeping over loved ones who have run into the far country, turned their back on what is right, good, and true. Over children that are indifferent to the things of God. Family members that scorn that which we love and we delight in. I ask that you would bear your people up in the midst of such difficulties and such pains and sorrows and uncertainties that we might be enabled to live by faith and to remember your promises and to see Jesus Christ exalted in heaven to believe that you intend to work all of these things together for the good of your people, those who love you and are called according to your purpose. Oh, God, please help your people to bear such testimony that you are faithful and your word is true and that they might be able to display to others that your grace really is enough. And I pray for those that are enslaved to sin. Father, we have friends and neighbors, people we work with, people in our family. They think so many things are more important than You. And they give their lives to so many things that really don't matter. And they're exactly the way we used to be. You rescued us from that. You caused us to see the truth. You revealed Jesus in us. And You're transforming us day by day as you renew our faith in Him. And we're asking you to do for these we care about the same thing that you've done for us. Oh God, open their eyes. If you would just give them a glimpse of Jesus, just a glimpse, they couldn't help but run after Him. They couldn't help but renounce everything they've been building their lives on and entrust themselves to Him as a great Savior of sinners. Lord, I pray You'd do this. It's beyond our reach. We cannot open their eyes. We're pleading with you to do it. We're asking you to take your word and show the authority of your word through the ministry of your spirit by transforming lives. We long for you to do it here today in this room. We long for you to do it in our other spheres of life, at work, in our homes and neighborhoods. We long to hear reports of you doing this around the world. And particularly, O God, we bring to You the nation of Zimbabwe. We pray for the pastors that are going out to plant churches in that troubled land, for the churches that are there. Lord, Zimbabwe belongs to You. The social difficulties there are beyond government, beyond military, beyond all the non-governmental organizations that can be packed into that land. But it's not beyond the power of your gospel. And so we pray that you make a name for yourself in Zimbabwe. Oh God, would you not raise up even from this church those that would be willing to forsake the ease of living in America to go to a place like Zimbabwe and carry the gospel of Jesus. Lord, wouldn't you burden some of our young people to forsake the American dream and to take the gospel to places where it's hard to live, where people are dying without Christ, not having heard the Gospel. Our eyes are upon You this morning, Lord. We have nowhere else to go but You. And You deserve to have people who are looking at You intently and desiring to know You more intimately and wanting to follow You more faithfully. And we would be such people. It's our longing and we pray that you would come to us and draw near to us. Manifest your presence among us this morning in worship. Cause us to see and believe all that you've done for us in Christ and to find joy that is inexpressible and full of glory in Him. We do love You, even though we've not seen You. And we do believe the things that You've said in Your Word. We are praying to You this morning to strengthen us against unbelief. Receive our prayers and our praise. Be honored among Your people in worship. Be honored even by these huge requests that we bring to You. Because no other God in all the world could even entertain such huge requests. But you alone, the living God, are able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we are able to ask or even to think. So, Father, it's for your glory that we come, that we pray, that we sing, that we give, that we hear your word. that we've joined together today, so be glorified among your people, we pray. For Jesus' sake, Amen. We want to work our way through this book over the next several months and hopefully commit to memory all 105 verses of it. If you don't make it to all 105, maybe you'll make it to 50. If you don't make it to 50, maybe 20. If not 20, maybe 5. And if you make it to 5, that's 5 more than you would have made it to otherwise. So let me encourage you to just stay on the course, commit yourself to this program of Scripture Memory. I want to read this morning the first five verses. We're going to focus on verses 3, 4, and 5 for our study. Hear the Word of God as I read beginning in verse 1 from 1 Peter. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the pilgrims of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and the sanctification of the Spirit. For obedience and strength in the blood of Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and it does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. As Peter begins his instructions to his fellow Christians who are scattered throughout the provinces of Asia Minor, he does so wanting to establish them in the true grace of God to enable them to stand firm in light of all that is happening and all that will yet happen that he sees on the horizon. Persecution is already beginning to break out a little bit from Rome, and it's going to spread, and he knows that it's going to intensify. But already, some in Asia Minor are enduring various hardships because of their faith in the Lord Jesus. Wives are living with husbands that don't obey the Word of God, and so Peter wants to encourage them to stand firm in the faith. There are slaves that have harsh masters that are mistreating them, and Peter wants them also to understand the grace of God more intimately and personally, that they may stand firm. And then there's going to be official persecution that will come to them, and some of them will be called upon to give their lives for their faith in the Lord Jesus. And Peter wants to encourage and help his brothers and sisters in such circumstances to be able to stand firm in the true grace of God. So how does he start? Well, he starts in these opening verses that we've read, verses 3, 4, and 5. by calling upon his fellow believers to bless God, to praise God, and specifically to praise God who out of abundant mercy has blessed them in incredible ways. And so he enumerates several blessings in these opening verses that cause him to praise God and ought to cause others to praise God as well. Four blessings in verses 3, 4, and 5 ought to call forth the praise of God's people. The first is the blessing of the new birth. You see that in verse 3 when he says, that according to His abundant mercy, He's begotten us again. The second is this living hope that comes from this new birth. The third is an incorruptible inheritance in verse four. And the fourth is an eternally secure salvation that is on reserve for us and for which we are being preserved in heaven. Now all of these blessings come from God's abundant mercy. And they should provoke a life of praise, worship, and adoration, and thanksgiving, even in the midst of trials. even in the midst of uncertainties and difficulties. So when life gets difficult, when trials seem overwhelming, we are to remember the blessing that God has given to us in Christ and to stir up our hearts to respond in praise. That's what Peter instructs his readers to do in these open verses. It's what he does himself in verse 3, as he blesses God and he is leading others to do the same. Now when he says, bless the God, or literally just bless God, Peter is calling upon a very familiar pattern of Old Testament worship. This was found in the temple worship of the Old Testament believers. They would regularly call upon one another to praise God by saying, bless the Lord. Bless thee God, bless the Lord of my soul, as we read from Psalm 103. But in order to make sure his readers understand that he's not just picking up an old form of Jewish liturgy. Peter tweaks it a little bit and makes certain they understand who it is that he has in mind when he calls upon them to praise and to bless. And the one he has in mind is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only God there is. The God who is Father, Son, and Spirit. The God who alone is worthy of our praise. Well, what does it mean when we read these words and are instructed to call out, bless the God? When God blesses us, He bestows something on us. He gives us something. He grants us favor. But the reverse certainly isn't true. We don't add anything to God when we bless Him. It's not that we bestow something on God, because God doesn't need anything. He has all things necessary for His eternal blessedness. Rather, in the words of Ed Crowney, what we are doing when we say, blessed be God, is seeking God's favor for Himself. We are ascribing blessedness to God, and calling upon God to manifest that blessedness to the whole world. It's much like we pray in the Lord's Prayer, Hallowed be your name. Well, his name is Hallowed. But we want to have that declared. We want the Lord to so work in the world that people see that his name is Hallowed. That people recognize, as Peter puts it, that he is indeed the blessed God forever. Now, verses 3 through 12 of 1 Peter actually form one long, complex sentence, as Peter originally wrote it. Our English translation divides it up into four sentences so that we can understand it a little more simply. And we're going to look at the first of these four sentences, or the first section, verses 3 through 5, in elaborating the four blessings that I've called your attention to in these verses Peter doesn't set them out in parallel fashion. He doesn't say there's the blessing of the new birth, the blessing of the living hope, there's the blessing of this inheritance, there's the blessing of salvation. But rather it's like a stair step. There is this new birth that comes from God and his mercy that results in a living hope that sets its intentions upon this eternal inheritance that is kept reserved in heaven for us by God who is protecting our ultimate salvation that will be revealed when Jesus Christ returns. And so one builds upon the other. Let's look at these blessings in the order that they appear in these three verses that comprise our text. The first is, as I've said, The blessing of the new birth, God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again. The New American Standard, the English Standard Version, renders that phrase, caused us to be born again. Or the NIV says, who has given us new birth. This new birth is one of the two great blessings of the New Covenant. It is that which God does in us, that which happens inside of us, along with the other blessing that comes to us in the New Covenant, that which God does for us. He justifies us in changing our status before his law, before his courtroom. But he also works internally within us to change our nature here. Our record in heaven is changed, that's justification, but our nature, our personal lives here on earth is changed, and that's this new birth. or regeneration. And here, Peter focuses upon this internal work of God's spirit. This is what was promised in the Old Testament as the New Covenant was envisioned and prophesied. For example, in Ezekiel chapter 36, the prophet speaks to the Lord when he says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments to do them." This is God's work in changing a person. Turning someone from being a bored, apathetic, indifferent person regarding the things of God into a worshipper of God. Turning someone from being a stranger who doesn't know God to becoming a child that is welcomed into the very family of God. It is a change in attitudes and values It results in a change of desires and a change of choices so that when a person is born by God's Spirit, his life is transformed so that he's not the way he used to be. And things that used to cause him to find great joy no longer have that same attraction to him. Things that he formerly was bored to tears about and didn't care about, he suddenly still wanted him. And what is that? That is God at work changing our nature. This is something that Jesus made very plain to Nicodemus in John chapter 3 verses 1 through 8. When he takes this man who was a religious leader, he was a part of a religious community, and he says, you know what Nicodemus? Being a leader in a religious community is not enough. You, personally, must be born again. And that's true for everybody here. It doesn't matter how many churches you're members of, how many different experiences you've had religiously, it doesn't matter your background, it doesn't matter your plans for the future, it doesn't matter who you associate with, things you've accomplished or you've done in your religious life. The necessity of the new birth applies to you personally. You must be born again. This is necessary because of our sin. Sin makes us spiritual slaves, and we must be set free. Jesus said in John 8, verse 34, that if anyone sins, he is a slave to sin. And you may not like to think of yourself that way. You may think, I'm not a slave, I'm free. I do what I want to do, go where I want to go. I set my own agenda. But Jesus says, if you sin, you're a slave to sin. And you might think that your freedom is genuine liberty. But Jesus says that what you're thinking of as freedom is really enslavement. And until you are set free by what Jesus himself has accomplished for sinners, you will never experience real freedom. Sin has left us spiritually dead. We need to be made alive. Paul makes this very clear in the opening verses of chapter 2 of Ephesians, when he elaborates what we once were before we were made alive by the ministry of the Spirit. This is the way he puts it. Ephesians 2 verse 1. And you, speaking to Christians, he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which he once walked according to the course of this world, according to the principle power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh with the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. Paul says, you were under the dominion of the devil, you were dead in trespasses and sins, you certainly were not free, you were enslaved, until God came and by the power of Jesus Christ made you alive. The reality is this. For the cause of sin, we come into the world enslaved, we come into the world spiritually dead. We are dead men walking until God comes to us and reveals in us the truth about ourselves and the truth about Him, and by the powerful working of His Spirit, grants us this new birth that Peter refers to here. And as Peter thinks of it, he says, blessed be God. Praise God. This is God, who out of abundant mercy has begotten us. Well, how does this experience that is analogous to physical birth, how does it take place? Well, you notice that Peter refers to God who has begotten us. In other words, he sees us who have been born again as being passive in that activity. You don't born yourself again. You don't give yourself new birth. You receive new birth. New birth is God's action on you. Now, there are actions that we must be engaged in in conversion. You must repent. God doesn't repent for you. You must believe. God doesn't believe for you. But while you must be born again, you cannot give yourself new birth. That is something that God sovereignly must act upon you. How does he do it? Well, he does this. through the ministry of this Word. Peter's going to talk on this, or touch on this, in chapter 1, right at the very end of the chapter, where he speaks about the Word of God. In verse 23 of chapter 1, he says that this Word is what operates to bring new life. He says, having been born again, Not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, through the Word of God, which lives and abides forever. Because all flesh is as grass, and all glory of man is as flower grass, and grass withers, and its flower falls away. We are born again through the ministry of God's Word. That's what happened at Pentecost, when Peter preached. He takes the Old Testament Scriptures, He expounds on scriptures, he explains, and he shows how Jesus has come in fulfillment of those Old Testament prophecies, and that Jesus, whom they've seen crucified, has been raised from the dead, he's ascended into heaven, he will come again, and this Jesus sitting in front in heaven has sent his Spirit. And as the Spirit comes in power at Pentecost, The Spirit owns the teaching of Peter concerning Jesus Christ, and by the ministry of the preached word, through the power of the Spirit, God gave new life to those people. That's why they cried out. They were cut to the heart, Luke 6. They said, what must we do? What do we have to do? That's a result of the Spirit working and bringing them to this point of seeing their desperate condition, their only hope in the Savior, and granting them this new birth. That's what happened with Lydia. In Macedonia, when Paul went there to down these women by the riverside and the prayer meeting and he begins to teach them God's Word, Luke says that the Lord opened the living heart to believe the things that Paul said. That's the New Birth. That's why we do this. That's why we talk to people about what the Bible says. It's why we are concerned to try to help people, you, to understand what God's revealed in His Word concerning Jesus Christ. This is because we want people to be born again. We want people to come to experience this blessing of transformation. And that can't be coerced. That's why we don't manipulate it. That can't be manufactured, that's why we don't play games and we don't film dog and pony shows. It comes through the ministry of the Spirit as the Word of God goes forth. And as the Spirit owns that Word, it may have come to you a hundred times before and meant nothing to you. When the Spirit comes and owns that Word in your ear and plants it deep into your life, it is like His two-edged sword that pierces into the thoughts and intents of your mind and your heart and your spirit and your soul, causing you to see and believe the truth of Jesus Christ. That's our desire. That's what we want to see happen to you. Not because we believe that everybody needs to be religious. We understand this is the only way to life. This is the only hope that people like us have of being reconciled to God and experiencing the freedom, the liberty, the joy, the life that Jesus came to give to sinners. And so I want to ask you, have you experienced this? Do you know anything of this new birth? I'm not asking if you've been religious, sir. You've been an officer in church. You've accumulated religious rewards from different activities. I'm just asking this question. Have you experienced anything spiritually that is analogous to a physical earth? Do you think that's radical ever happened to you? Can you see your life being lived now? differently than what it would have been apart from what God is teaching you and revealing to you concerning Christ? If not, then be clear on this one point this morning. You must be born again. Apart from that, there's no hope for you in this world, or in the world to come. But with that, there's great hope for you. This experience that God grants, this new birth, everything can become new. It doesn't matter where you are, where you've been. It doesn't matter all the baggage that you have in your life and background. You can be made a new person through the ministry of God's Word and His Spirit. Well, how does God thank this new birth in the lives of unbelievers? How is he able to do it? The last part of verse 3 tells us, He does this through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, the resurrection of Jesus was not a myth, either. You may have heard about this documentary that James Cameron is putting on tonight. It's a cable TV channel. It's based on ossuaries that have been found with boxes that contain the phones of dead people. In Jerusalem, Cameron believes that they discovered the lost tomb of Jesus, they call it. And so they've got this supposed documentary that's coming on tonight, and granted I've not seen it, but I've read their press releases, and I've read articles concerning the evidence that they are reporting to the set forth tonight, evidence that's over 20 years old by the way, it was discovered 42 decades ago, that says they found the family tomb of Jesus. And they got Jesus' ossuary, and his wife, or if not Mary, his lover, Mary Magdalene's ossuary, and then their son, Judah, in his ossuary. DNA testing and all the other things they say, they are making a case that these are the remains of Jesus. Well, I tell you, if Dan Brown's fictional account of the Da Vinci Code hadn't made so much money, we wouldn't be hearing about this document. But because of that myth that garnered so much money for so many different people, this was now being taken out of the closet and dusted off, and there's this new supposed documentary coming out. But you know what? The myth here is not that Jesus was raised from the dead. The myth here is that people would like to ignore the overwhelming evidence to suggest that he didn't come back from the dead. substantiated event in ancient history is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it's just simple unwillingness to look at the evidence that would cause someone to run down a path and say, well, that never happened. Peter knew. He was there. Peter saw Jesus crucified and witnessed his crucifixion with the guilt and the shame of having betrayed him. And imagine what must have been going on in his mind as the uncertainty of what all this would mean for the future is just hanging heavy on him because the last thing that his Savior ever saw him do was to call down curses and deny that he even knew Jesus. And their eyes met. And now Jesus is being taken to a cross and he's being nailed to that cross. And Peter's there and he sees this. And his hopes are gone, dashed. And he and his fellow apostles lock themselves in an upper room and they're scared. Because if they did this to our master, our rabbi, what are they going to do to us? And Peter even goes back to fishing. He thinks this is a good thing to do. I'm just going to go back out on the boat. I'm going to fish. And then, on that Sunday, the news comes to him from some place. What time is it? Peter, John 1. Peter doesn't hesitate outside. He goes in and he looks. And he sees His entity. And the message comes to him and to the other apostles that Jesus Christ is alive. And on that seashore, when they were out in their boats, this resurrected Christ appears and starts cooking breakfast for them. And Peter jumps out of the boat, swims to the shore, and there's that dynamic moment when master and servant who has betrayed him are together, and Jesus so tenderly, lovingly, pointedly restores them. And he had warned Peter that these events were going to transpire. He had admonished him that he should anticipate such failure. But Peter, even being warned, fell miserably into denying his Lord and Savior, but his resurrected Lord and Savior restored him. And Peter was transformed. The apostles were transformed. How do you account for them going from hiding in an upper room to standing up in the face of imperial authority in Rome and the Jewish authority in Jerusalem and saying, we don't care what they did to us. We're going to tell you the truth about this man that you crucified, whom God has raised from the dead. And Luke tells us that even when they were beaten, they didn't whine, they didn't go hire a lawyer. They rejoiced because they counted worthy to suffer for their Lord who was raised from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus Christ ushered in a new era in human history. For the first time, a man overcame death. Think about this. Death has been universal, and those who have tasted death have stayed dead until Jesus Christ. And with Christ, there is now this breaking into history, the realities from eternity, that indicate there's something more to life than just being born and living and dying. There is life after death. And Jesus proves that. Paul says he's the first fruits. God raised him from the dead never to die again. And based upon that miraculous ushering into this world eternal realities of life that never ends. God, by the ministry of His Spirit and Word, grants new birth to those who come to faith in Jesus Christ. It is through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead that God's Spirit empowers us to turn from sin and entrust ourselves to Christ. The new reality the new spiritual dynamics that the resurrection of Jesus made plain come to us, and we ourselves begin to experience that in the new birth. That's how we are able to experience this. This new birth is the first blessing that Peter mentions. It's the first step that leads to and results in a living hope, which is the second blessing that calls us to praise God together with the Apostle Peter. Blessed be the Lord, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his mercy, abundant mercy, has begotten us again to a living hope. Now this is biblical hope. It's different than the kind of hope we've used in just our typical jargon, you know, I hope it rains, I hope it doesn't rain, just wishful thinking, you don't really have any control over it, you have desires, you have longings, but those longings and desires are just a reflection of your own attitudes, they're not rooted in anything that is objective and unchanging. That is not biblical hope. Biblical hope rests not on uncertainties, but on It is the present assurance of future certainties that we are right now confident of that which in the future is guaranteed but hasn't yet been fully manifested. That's what biblical hope is. Hope is expressed by Peter in 1 Peter 1 13 when he tells us to rest our hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The coming of Jesus Christ again to the world is a certainty. And Peter says, rest your hope fully upon this certainty. He calls it a living hope. Much like James speaks of a living faith that is in contrast to a dead faith. A dead faith can't result in the things that living faith bring forth as fruit. Similarly, a dead hope can't produce the kind of fruit that a living hope can produce. Living hope results in a different way of thinking, a different way of ordering your life. This is hope that has power to change life. It brings confidence. It brings joy. Even when things seem hopeless. Even when circumstances offer you no reason for joy, no reason for hope. being begotten again by God to a living hope enables you to rest in this joy that comes from knowing there are future promises that are guaranteed, they are certain, and by faith I lay hold of those future promises and I bring them into my present experience and it transforms the way I live. This hope doesn't depend on what is taking place around you. Because it's not based on what might happen. It's based on what will happen. What God himself has promised. On future certainties. Certainties that are guaranteed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Well, these sermons comprise the third blessing Peter lists. It's in verse 4. A secure inheritance, as he puts it, an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved, intended for you. In the Old Testament, the people of God were promised and given land as their inheritance. And as they traveled through the wilderness those 40 years and then entered into the land of promise and conquered the people in that land, then the tribes had apportioned to them their respective inheritance that God had promised to them. And every tribe except Levi received a portion of the land as inheritance. It became theirs by divine right. Well, now in the New Testament, the people of God, those who are born again, followers of Christ, we receive an inheritance too, but it's not an inheritance that has anything to do with real estate, but it's an inheritance in the eternal city of God. In other words, Peter's telling us we have a stake in the eternal kingdom of God. We have become heirs of God through the ministry of God's Word and Spirit, bringing us to faith in Jesus Christ. And so what God has promised and what Christ has secured becomes ours by inheritance. It is reserved for us. This future inheritance is secure, unlike the Old Testament inheritance. That inheritance of the land became defiled through their ongoing sin and bringing in pagan practices. It became insecure through the letting down of guards and the overrunning of enemy forces. It became something that ultimately was taken away from them in judgment by God as the Babylonians came and conquered and the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom. But our inheritance in the New Covenant is secure. Peter uses these four descriptions in verse four to give us a sense that this security is incorruptible. That is, indestructible. It has the ability to withstand the strongest forces on earth, which is certainly different than any earthly inheritance you have. You can put your earthly inheritance in a vault, you can invest in the most secure schemes of return, and yet Despite your very best efforts, there are events, there are forces that can come and rob you of your physical inheritance. Not so with this eternal inheritance. It's undefiled, free from corruption and defilement. Nothing can cause it to be undermined or to be wasted away. It is unfading. Crops can fail. but your inheritance in heaven can never be diminished or lessened. It is kept in heaven, reserved in heaven for you, perfectly secure. This is our life after death, this is our eternal salvation, perfection, all that heaven is, has been guaranteed to those who are following Jesus Christ. And that's what makes our hope a living hope. He himself guarantees its eternal preservation. But God not only preserves our inheritance for us, He also preserves us for our inheritance. That's what verse 5 makes clear. It gives us a fourth blessing. It comes from God's abundant mercy. He says, this has been reserved in heaven for you. And then verse 5 elaborates to that you is you who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. This verse promises that God will keep safe every one of his people for the end. You who are kept by God. We are kept. That word kept is a word that comes from the world of the military. It means to protect or to guard or garrison a city. It was used to describe the work of soldiers whose job it was to go to an outpost and to make certain that that outpost was secure because it was the most vulnerable to the enemies in whose territory it was formed. In 2 Corinthians 11.32, Paul uses this word to describe the conduct of those in Damascus who were seeking his life. They were guarding the city with a garrison, Paul says. Luke tells us of that event, Luke 9, 24, that the men were watching the city gates day and night. And so the image that Peter here conjures up to our minds is this. God serves as the centrum of his people. He has a garrison surrounding his people, and just like the guards surrounding the city that were looking for Paul, were conscious of who would come in and who would go out. So God, keeping his people, is determined not to let any enemy come to us that would destroy us, as well as determined not to let us go. Do you ever feel like sometimes you're not sure you've made it? Do you ever wonder sometimes, boy, I don't know if I can persevere. I don't know if I can make it. Some people hesitate coming to Christ. They hesitate in entrusting themselves to Jesus Christ because they understand some of the demands of the gospel, that this is a call to take up your cross and follow Christ, and it requires diligence, it requires obedience, it requires faith that perseveres, and they look at that, and they see themselves, and they measure themselves, and they say, I just don't think I've got it. I don't think I can make it. I've got to wake up stronger. Because that's the wrong way to think. Because our perseverance is not dependent upon our being able to screw up enough courage or ability or strength in ourselves. It's dependent upon the God who has promised to keep his people to the end. We are kept. We are preserved. Peter's saying that the Lord watches him, keeps him, cares for his people throughout all of their lives. And the way he words this could be rendered more accurately through our being kept, who are currently and in an ongoing way constantly being guarded by God. Again, to just underscore more of the certainty of this keeping work with God, he says we are being kept by the power of God. The power of God. Meditate on the power of God. What can God do? What has God done? We're still trying to rebuild a little courtyard. from what God's comrade in Bailey said to my brother's church two years ago. He came from Zambia. He said, you Americans have so much technology, so much power, and yet with all of your abilities, when you see a hurricane coming to your shores, the only thing you can do is give it a name. And it's true. We don't have a name. to match God's power. The Lord sits in heaven and does whatever He will. We make our plans. We plot our courses nationally. or personally, or as a church, and yet, at the end of every day, we have to say, if the Lord wills. If the Lord wills. And that power is what Peter has in mind, and wants us to have in mind, as we think of God's preserving activity. He employs sovereign power to keep his people. Now, Peter is simply writing here what he heard Jesus himself teach on Solomon's Forge when Jews were gathered around on that occasion and he was teaching them about the distinction between those who are simply religious and those who aren't the sheep. One of the things he said in John 10 has to do with the preservation of God's own people, by God Himself. Listen to what Peter would have heard Jesus say, My sheep, you're My boys and I know them. They follow Me and I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. There's the image. Jesus says, I have sheep, I have people, I give them life. They're going to be begotten again to a living hope and they will be in My hand and nobody gets them out of My hand. And then he goes on, and he says, my Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. We're in Jesus' hand. We're in God the Father's hand. There's no way anybody's going to take us away from God. God has a vested interest in his people. When he calls you, when he gives you new birth, when He establishes you in a relationship of righteousness to Himself, having sent His Son, the Son of His love, to shed His blood for you, and now having brought you into a living hope by faith in Jesus Christ. God has an interest in your preservation. And He Himself is going to guarantee that you are kept to the end. He just exists as being a great grounds for hope and for praising God. You know what happens when believers go through seasons of trial. Those trials become prolonged. Difficulties just seem like one weight after another, maybe with your own heart and soul, maybe with your job, your spouse, your child, your parent, whatever it is. When you're enduring these types of just weight after weight after weight, try what seems to happen. What are those implications? Discouragement, isn't it? You begin to wonder, Lord, is this ever going to end? Can I ever wake up one morning and not have one of my first calls of duty? I wonder what's going to happen to me. I wonder how much worse it's going to be. Lord, I don't know if I can go on. We're tempted sometimes to wonder if we will emerge from trials victorious. Bunyan understood this so well in Children's Proverbs. And so he includes in the journey that horrible place called Doubting Castle, with that horrible, beamed, giant sphere. And he has Christian hope a lot in Doubting Castle, where their hopes are eclipsed and doubts begin to float their minds. The giant spirit comes with his big old club and just beats the fool out of him, just beats him, beats him. So there they are, battered, beaten, almost lifeless in this stinking dungeon, and the giant spirit encourages them to commit suicide, and they're entertaining that possibility. And Bundy's just being realistic about Christian life. He's just telling us, it can get that bad. And when it gets that bad, What do we need to do? What is the antidote? How do we persevere? If you look to yourself and say, you know, I've been strong in the past. I can be strong again. I don't have any alternative. I just have to keep living because if I don't keep living, then everything else is going to fall apart. If you just look to yourself, you're not going to make it very far. But if you can remember what God has promised to do and what he's promised that he is doing, and recognize that God has wrapped up His glory, His interest in your welfare, and by clinging to those promises like 1 Peter 1, that He keeps us by His power, you can find strength to stand up, not in your own abilities, but in the abilities of your God, and pursue Him. That's what happens in Christianity. They remembered the key of promise, and they took it out every day of the week, and they were able to escape down in Chastity. In these kinds of times, we need to be remembered. We need to remember and be reminded that we are a preserved, kept people. Philippians 1.6 says that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in the day of Jesus Christ. That's a great promise. If God has come to you and changed your heart so that you love Christ, you trust in Christ, you want Christ, then brothers and sisters, believe it, He will not let go of you. He will not give you over to a pathway of destruction. just as the accomplishment and initiation of our salvation is God's work, so is the completion of it, the preservation of it. But notice how the Lord keeps His people by His power. Verse 5 says He does it through faith. Through faith. He keeps His people by keeping their faith alive. The promise of eternal salvation and the incredible blessing of eternal security that teaches that once a person becomes a follower of Jesus, he will always remain a follower of Jesus. He will be eternally safe. That promise must never be perverted into a teaching that says, well, you know, once you're saved, you can go out and live however you want to. You're always safe. The Bible does not teach that. We are kept by the power of God, but it is through faith. Listen to how one erroneous teacher of the last century misconstrued this. R.B. Thiem wrote this, It is possible, even probable, that when a believer out of fellowship falls for certain types of philosophy, if he is a logical thinker, he will become an unbelieving believer. Yet believers who become agnostics are still saved. They are still born again. You could even become an atheist. But if you once accept Christ as Savior, you cannot lose your salvation even though you deny God. That's lunacy. It's not biblical Christianity because we are kept by the power of God through faith. The preserving power of God keeps us persevering in faith. Listen to the way the promise of the New Covenant put this in Jeremiah 32 40. God says, I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from doing them good. That's God's promise. I'm doing this. I will never cease doing good. I will keep you by my power. Listen to the second part. But I will put my fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from me. How does God preserve his people? By keeping faith alive. By strengthening us to continue to believe, even when faith might grow dim at times. Now does this mean that Christians, sincere Christians, will never fall? No, it doesn't. Does it mean they'll never fall into grievous, horrendous sin? No. It doesn't mean that either. There are possibilities and sad examples of believers falling into grievous, serious, tragic sins. The author of this letter is an example. He denied his Lord and Savior. And Peter lived with the awareness of what sin was capable of doing in his life the rest of his life. Calling down curses upon himself when challenged. Yes, you do know him. You were with him. You're one of us. Do you remember when Jesus warned him? In Luke's account of his warning Peter that this is going to happen, we read in Luke 22, Jesus said, Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has asked you that he might sift you as wheat, but I pray for you that your faith should not fail. And then listen to this, but when you have returned to me, strengthen your breath. Yes, it's possible for believers to fall, but believers who fall will be restored. And when they are restored, they're in a position to strengthen others because they know more of their own weakness and the temptation and power of sin, as well as the preserving and restoring power of God. It is a restored apostle that strengthens his brethren with these words, you are kept by the power of God through faith. This faith is that which brings to us salvation. And Peter describes it here as salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. He's not talking about the initiation of salvation and the rebirth here. He's not even talking about the ongoing experience of salvation. He's talking about salvation in its future tense. The salvation that is drawing near every day as Jesus Christ comes one day closer to returning to the earth, the completion of his work in his kingdom. God will preserve his people until that great day. Fire of faith may burn low, it may threaten to go out. Satan, our sin, this world will do everything they can to throw water on it, to douse it, but there is a secret supply of oil that our God provides for his people with sustained faith, even through the most difficult trials. Well, why does God do all this for us? Is it because we're deserving? Is it because we're so pitiful? No, it's not for any reason in us. God does all this according to Peter, according to his abundant mercy. Who needs mercy? Pitiful people need mercy. Helpless people need mercy. Guilty people need mercy. People who don't have any ground to stand on before the judge, they're the ones who need mercy. Do you know that to be true of yourself? Do you see yourself as a child of mercy or as a person who needs mercy? If so, then take heart because it's according to His abundant mercy that God bestows all of these incredible blessings upon people who do not deserve it. He is full of pity. The Bible says, one of the most amazing verses in the whole scripture, in Micah 7, says that God delights in mercy. He delights in showing mercy. We read it in Psalm 103 earlier. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. You sometimes feel like dust will take heart. The Lord knows that. He is full of pity, compassion, and mercy. This is what strengthens our hope and undergirds our faith. The Lord whom we serve is full of mercy. Peter thinks that these great revisions of God's mercy to sinners will be an encouragement to his readers to persevere, to stand firm in the grace of God. And so, as he enumerates them, he does so by saying, bless God, bless God, praise God. Brothers and sisters, we who know God, we who have been given this grace, we who are experiencing this salvation, We, of whom it is true that God is keeping us in heaven now, surrounding us as an armory with soldiers fully equipped to preserve His work of grace begun in our lives. We, more than anybody in the world, have reason to praise God. On our worst day, we have more reason to rejoice than an unbeliever on his best day. And Peter instructs us as pilgrims here in this world to think about our future, to think about our eternity, to think about what God has given us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And while you may not have much of an inheritance in this world, you have an inheritance that is eternal, incorruptible, undefiled, does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. by this God who has promised to keep you, to sustain you by His power, through faith, through salvation that is ready to be revealed at the last time. That belongs to us. And as believers in Christ, we need to lay claim to that and let that be the cause of our standing before the Lord praise, adoration, and thanksgiving. This will be a way of perseverance for us. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have given us such great promises in Jesus Christ. And we thank you that you have not left us to our own reserves, our own streams, our own abilities. We thank you for revealing your great mercy and love for sinners. God, I pray that you would stir up the hearts of your people to be full of hope and joy, strength and faith to remember and take these things to heart that we have seen from your word today. We pray to Jesus.