would you take your bibles now and turn to the book of first peter our new series which basically I have, which you'll never necessarily see in writing, entitled, Our Marching Orders, begins at 1 Peter 1, verses 1 through 3. And we will, as we get into it, explain why I felt like 1 Peter was exactly where we needed to be. Let us give attention now to the reading of God's Word in preparation for the message. and Apostle of Jesus Christ to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with His blood. May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. May the Lord bless this hearing as well as the reading of His holy word. As I said, we're getting into a new book. I think I was still a teenager when we started in Mark, but hopefully I won't be an octogenarian by the time we finish with 1 Peter. you know, but before we can attend to the marching orders that we've been given by our Lord and Divine Commander Jesus, we need to lay the foundation for those orders. We need to understand the authority upon which those orders will stand. And so it's important that we look at our relationship with Him and explore that just for today. We learn from the passage in Hebrews 10 that we read a few minutes those orders in a general sense. If I may summarize that passage, and if you've still got it open in your Bible, that would be great. But with the confidence that comes from our eternal relationship with God through Christ and the great high priest in Jesus, we are to draw near with a true heart. You may remember that phraseology. We are not to have competing loves. We are not to have divided loyalties. We are to have a true heart as we draw near to God in Christ. And then we are to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. We are to have a commitment to and a working knowledge of the confession of our hope. Now we're not talking about the Westminster Confession here, we're talking about the Scripture. Our confession of our relationship to God, His relationship to us in salvation, and why we do what we do because of that relationship. And then we are to consider how to stir one another up to love and good works. It's interesting that most people will take that passage in Hebrews and use it to say, you ought to be in church. Well, that's true. You ought to be in church anyway. You don't need Hebrews to tell you that. Okay? And by the way, when you were growing up, did your folks expect you to be at supper? Yeah. Right? That's what families do. They still gather together. And the reason is because it's not only a time of fellowship, but it's a time of nourishment and nurture. And so the church of Jesus Christ is no different. And when believers get together, that's exactly what happens. But that's not the point of Hebrews. Think about that. We are to gather together to love one another and to urge one another on to faith and good works. That's what people are abandoning when they stay home. They are not loving one another. They are not encouraging one another to faith and good works and to love each other. They are abandoning their responsibility and God knows that and God withholds His blessings. In other words, when we neglect to encourage one another and we isolate ourselves, we are forfeiting blessings that God has for His people. as the writer of Hebrews does in one form, so also Peter gives us the foundation for why we are to do these things. And so many more as you go through the book of Peter, so that's what God hopefully will enable us to understand as we begin our study of 1 Peter and see, let's see where God leads us. Maybe there are some blessings there. The author is plainly identified. He is Peter the Apostle, and no one has really seriously questioned that. It must have been towards the end of his ministry in life, because we know that the primary source of Mark was Peter. And we just got through studying Mark, and that was written as one of the earliest Gospels. And now a few years later, Peter comes along and writes a general epistle to all the churches. And so we find right there where these people are. And the recipients are, it's a little more difficult to determine since the areas mentioned all consist of what today is called Turkey. So Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, That's all present-day Turkey, and there's very little in the way of Christian churches there now. But nevertheless, there was no one person, there was no one church. But they had a few things in common, and one of those things was that they were all in one way or another, to one degree or another, under some kind of persecution. And it didn't have to be an outright persecution. It could have been just a simple harassment of Christians. But the other thing that we're going to find about 1 Peter is it's not really an easy, it's not an easy book to outline. He sort of jumps around. And so, you'll have to forgive me if I seem like I've lost my way. It's probably because I have, but that's easy in 1 Peter, okay? There are common factors and they enable us to benefit from this letter along with the original recipients. These factors are twofold. We find them in the phrase, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion. Now, the dispersion, as a word, it was thought to be the scattering due to persecutions in the times of the early church. And it was described as a comparison to the scattering of the Jews in the Old Testament. You see, the dispersion was called at that time, the dispersion to a Jew meant the ten lost tribes and the tribe of Judah, which was long since gone. You could trace your family heritage, your family lineage, but there was no longer the tribes and the tribes of the elders in that sense. Okay, so the early church, when it was described by many, was described in the comparison to the scattering of the Jews in the Old Testament. And so they were called the exiles of the dispersion. However, some would also see that term to be the worldwide church as it is spread across the globe. So today there's no overt persecution of Christians in the United States, but there is in Pakistan. There is in North Korea, but there's none in England. It's harassment perhaps. It's a social collar about the neck for some, but there's no persecution, so it varies from place to place. One thing is for sure though, believers, true believers in every age and in every culture the true church of Jesus on this earth, have always in one form or another, to one degree or another, endured persecution. And that makes 1 Peter applicable to us. Jesus said as much would happen, and if he was saying that this would happen to other Christians, we're not exempt. He said in John 15, if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, then the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. I am sometimes amazed when people are upset or caught by surprise when persecution arises. What did you expect? Did you think that we were exempt from this word from our Savior? Well, no. For whatever reason, though, there is another commonality that remains that Peter used, and he wrote his letter to Christians, to the elect. Those chosen and enabled by God to be His children through faith in His Son Jesus." This is something that we have, by the way, with all true believers in every age. So you want to know that, realize that the faith that you have in Christ to save you is the same faith that Abraham had that one day a Messiah would come and he believed that that Messiah would save him. Same faith. It's not works related, it's faith related. And so we find that these two commonalities exist in the recipients of the letter of 1 Peter, but also today. And that is persecutions, harassments, if you will, and being elect. All right, so for that reason, we're going to get our marching orders as the people of God as we find them concentrating in 1 Peter on the first thing of the greatest importance, our foundation. In other words, if you go into the military, you have a certain foundation. Does anybody know what the foundation is if you go into the military? It's the same thing that you find when these folks that are nominated to be cabinet positions, they are approved. What's the first thing that they do? Push-ups. Mentally. They take an oath. And that oath is pretty standard, isn't it? You notice that? That oath is standard not only for the Secretary of Defense, and the President of the United States, but for the lowliest private in the Marine Corps, Army, Navy, or any other branch of the military to defend the Constitution. That's the foundation, the Constitution. And so what is the foundation? It's the Word of God. And this is what we're going to be looking at today, the foundation of our faith so that we know who we are, where we are, as we live our lives as believers in a very lost world. Now, I know politically we've all taken a turn to the right as far as a nation is concerned. That's one thing. One thing we need to continue to pray for is, as we prayed before the election, we need to pray for the repentance of this nation from sin. and a turning in faith to God to save them. We need to continue to pray for that, to continue to pray for our leaders, but we need to also recognize our position in relationship to the world has not changed. And so we are still citizens of heaven first, then we're citizens of the United States, and we need to know how we are to conduct ourselves. And this is what 1 Peter is going to tell us. We read that the elect are such according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. This word, according, means literally in conformity with. Okay? So, I change the oil in my car, which you know good and well that I can't and won't do that, but let's just say I'm changing the oil in my car, I go to the owner's manual, I do everything that the owner's manual says to do, or YouTube, and then I have done all according to the owner's manual, you see? So, it is in with, is the general meaning of this word at this point in time. And so, what then is the foreknowledge of God? You know, we are the elect according to the foreknowledge of God. What does that mean? Well, many think that God's foreknowledge is very much like our own foreknowledge. For instance, I know that my grandson has a birthday on Friday. That would be Valentine's Day. And I have a, I think one of our elders has a grandson who has also a birthday on the 14th of February. So that's Valentine's Day, right? I know what's going to happen. Do you know what's going to happen? They're both going to have parties, right? But my foreknowledge of that is, I guess, number one, It's a hope, number two, because I'm not going to be in Augusta and I'm not going to be in Nashville or Atlanta for any of that. And I'm not paying for it, so I can't enable it to happen. So my foreknowledge of this is just a hope, you see? But our foreknowledge is not like God's foreknowledge. God is not like us in that respect. Many people think that He simply looks down the corridors of time and He determines who will be His own from those who choose Him. Well, now, there are two problems, of course, that we have with that. The first thing is, that's not the way it happens, because we never find in Scripture that that happens. And the other thing is, is because we know from Scripture that no one chooses God. On His own, dead people don't choose to go to the left or the right, because they can't go anywhere, and they don't know anything, and they are dead. So we know that God's foreknowledge is different. But this only makes out God to be in a sense that He's not in control. And so anytime somebody says that God does that, they are diminishing God in their own mind. It denies His omnipotent nature and it diminishes His omniscience. Now, what is omnipotence? Omnipotent, all-powerful. Omniscience is knowing all things. So, just as a little rabbit trail, let me blow your mind on that one. You ready? Okay, everybody hold on to your ears. God not only knows everything that is possible, but He knows everything about all of the alternate possibilities. So we've had a lot of science fiction folks talk about alternate universes. You may have heard of that. God knows all about everything that could happen if every decision ever made was different in every possibility. Now that will blow your mind. You just think about that for a while. Okay? And when you get your headache, then you can take something for it and stop thinking about that. But the truth of the matter is, our God is omniscient and He is omnipotent. He is in control. He does have complete control over what is. He does give us a limited ability of determination. For instance, you decided today what you're going to wear to church. that's within your ability, he gave it to you, and then he gives you that option within that narrow, narrow scope to determine what you're going to wear. We couldn't function in the world if we did not have that kind of self-determination, okay? But if we're honest, we would quickly discover how very little we're really in control of. All I have to do is go to Publix and wait long enough for a mama with three children to find out how little control she's really in. Okay? That's all it takes. Anytime something gets out of your comfort zone of what's going on, you're not in control. And we're often there. Okay? I see this when I drive down the highway and there's somebody driving like this. because they figure holding the steering wheel closed makes, but they know they're not in control because, well, they're going real slow on the right lane and they're going to get off as soon as they can because they can't stand being on the inner state where people go fast. I understand that. I really do. But it is a symptom of not being in control. That's what it is. And so, we are really not in control. As self-confident as we may be, it doesn't take long for us to be put into a position of realizing that, well, we're not really in control. God is in control, but we're not. So, God's control over all things or the exercise of His omnipotence determines His knowing ahead of time what will happen. Now, this is important because He does not know that all things will happen beforehand because He's like us, but because He's God, He ordains all things that are to happen. And therefore, He knows that they will because He has made them to happen, all right? Now, there are small ways in which we could illustrate this, but none are adequate to an infinite God that is in control of all things. And this is what we read, by the way, in Ephesians 1-4, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. Which came first? Us being holy and blameless or Him choosing us? You see, when God Almighty chooses, then that's what happens. So, before anything was made that has been made, God created those who would be His people into eternity out of all of those who have ever been born. It has been asked by millions of Christians, why me? I had that asked of me this week. And my honest answer is simply this, I wish I knew. I wish I knew, for my own salvation as well as for yours. But nobody knows. That's not the issue. By the way, how fruitful is it for you to ask why you were born into the family you were born into? How fruitful is that? Can you change it? No, you can't change it. And the point is, is that would you change it? Not necessarily. You wouldn't change it because, well, you couldn't change it, so you decide, well, this is exactly what it's going to be, right? So, in order to understand how we relate to God being in control, we simply accept it. Now, as Christians, let me give one more thing that we need to be aware of as we recognize God's being in control. God loves us. God loves us. If I was not a Christian and I came to the understanding that God, Almighty God, the judge of all people, is in control of everything, I would be scared half to death. because I know which side of that fence I'm on. But as a believer, when I can come and say, God is in control and He loves me, then what happens is I can rejoice because not only is He in control, but He's protecting me. You see? So, if you are asking why God chose you, I can't answer. My only advice would be to say, thank you, Lord, for choosing me and loving me into your kingdom. We just acknowledge the truth of it and give thanks humbly and continually. Okay? Let's not miss the Trinitarian nature of Peter's greeting either. Okay? I may not mention this again, but the work of the Father was in choosing and ordering all things according to His own plan. That's never changed, by the way. And we should bow in awe of a mighty God as He has allowed us to call Him, Abba, Father. We should be very, very thankful. that God Almighty would allow us to call Him Father? Really? Peter next points out the work of the Holy Spirit who works in God's people's sanctification. We read Paul's words in Philippians 2, 12 through 13, "'Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, "'so now not only in my presence, but much more in my absence, "'work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, "'for it is God who works in you, "'both to will and to work for his good pleasure.'" In other words, we're to be active in our salvation and our growing in grace, but we're also to recognize that God is the one at work in us. So what made you decide that you wanted to get up and come to church today? God. God did. And I hope that when you go home today, you can say, I met with God today and He taught me something and I'm thankful for that and the fellowship of the saints. But you see, it is God that is in control, it is God's Spirit that is at work in us, and as we submit to God's Spirit, then He blesses. It's the Spirit that brought us to the point of deciding to follow Christ. Think about this, though Peter doesn't mention it, it was the Holy Spirit doing the will of God that brought us to salvation. Why did you come to salvation? Why did you accept Jesus? What was it about the relationship with Jesus that was offered to you that you decided that you wanted? Who told it to you? It was the Spirit. doing the will of the Father, bring you to salvation. And now the Spirit that indwells each of our hearts is working in us to open our ears to what we're hearing and to apply them in our lives so that we can look back and we can say, God is the one that has done this. Okay? So, this was our justification, or our being born again into Christ. This is what the Spirit did initially. He brought us to Christ, and then we believed, and He then washed away our sins through the blood of Christ, and we were born again. Okay? It is the Holy Spirit that shows us our sin today and urges us on to confession and repentance. It's the Spirit that shows us the right thing to do. So it's not just a negative, let me show you that you've sinned, but here's what I want you to do, and by the way, I'm going to give you the power to do it. This is a positive thing. So this is our sanctification, that the Holy Spirit is working from the inside out to make us more like Jesus. And we are to cooperate with that work to accomplish God's will in our lives. Now, I know there's such a thing as retirement. One day I may actually learn how to spell it, and that's okay. But I want you to understand something. Even in retirement, God has something for His people to do, right? And so that being the case, Are we looking for those things that God would have us to do? Well, if we are, it's because the Spirit has reminded us of those things. And if we see those things, it's because the Spirit has shown them to us. And if we're able to accomplish them, it's because the Spirit has prompted us. And because of a love for Jesus and all that He has done for us, we want to do the things that the Spirit leads us to do. And by the way, you don't have to be retired for all that. That ought to be the way of our lives every day, retired or otherwise. This is sanctification, that the Spirit is working from the inside out to make us more like Jesus, and we are to cooperate in that work by simply submitting to God's will. It's the Spirit that clears our guilty conscience with the atoning blood of Jesus, so that when we read Hebrews 9, 13 through 14, that we understand it. What does that say? the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh." That's an Old Testament rite. Okay? Outlined in the Law of Moses, that is what was supposed to happen on the Day of Atonement. How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? If you understand that, it's because the Holy Spirit is helping you to understand it. And then the Spirit gives us the desire and the ability to cooperate. If you had any thought this week of doing something that pleased God, any thought at all, it's because the Spirit gave it to you. If you then turned around and followed through on that and did something that you knew you should have done, it was the Spirit that gave you the strength. Just as the Father has the central role in choosing us and working out all things in order for our salvation to be accomplished, so the Holy Spirit is the one that implements God's plan at every step, bringing us to salvation, our justification, and growing us up as God's children. preparing us for heaven, that's our sanctification, and it will be the Holy Spirit that one day takes us home. So upon occasion I'll have somebody say, do you believe in the rapture? And understand that when they say that, I quite often can properly identify that what they're talking about is the passage in Revelation that the church is going to be raptured. Okay? Now, that's a different issue. But then I'll tell them, well, sure I do. And I point them to 1 Thessalonians 4, and I say, well, why shouldn't I? Because if rapture means to be lifted into the air, and Thessalonians is telling us that all of us are going to meet Christ in the air, then I can't say it doesn't exist or won't exist because the Bible says it will. So, I believe that I and you as true believers will be raptured in the air. The question is, are you going to have anything to do with that? I mean, can you take a running start and get halfway there? You see how silly that is? So, it'll be the Holy Spirit that takes us away, that raptures us into glory. In other words, our justification, our sanctification, and our glorification will all be accomplished by the Holy Spirit in accordance with God's plan, the Father's plan. So we need to recognize the importance of the Father choosing us and the Spirit indwelling us. But, of course, the linchpin in the whole of God's redemptive plan was the work of Jesus. And this is what Peter then lays out as well, his coming to earth as the God-man, his perfect obedience, his undeserved death, and his resurrection from the dead. All this is to be summed up by Peter in writing to a group that was largely Jewish in background by simply saying, for sprinkling with his blood. That's what it's referred to. As we have just concluded a long series in the book of Mark with an examination of the suffering, death, and resurrection of our Savior, so we're going to look at the terminology used by Peter here. He refers back to the Old Testament sacrificial system of which the epitome was Passover. As a matter of fact, we're going to take the Passover in the New Testament version today. The Passover was the Old Testament sacrament. Remember, if you'll remember what they did with the blood of the lamb, they put it on the doorpost and the lentil in the shape of a? Somebody know? Cross. Okay? And what did that blood say? This person has obediently partaken and the angel of death passed over their house. Thus the judgment that was coming was not visited on them." Okay? The undeserved death of one for the sins of another is called an atoning sacrifice. And the one so forgiven is said to be redeemed. The Jews in the early church which was most of them at the time of the writing of 1 Peter would have understood this sprinkling of blood terminology very quickly. If the wages of sin is death, then when a substitute or redeemer is killed, the dead is forgiven. Isn't that right? Okay. And when the substitute is the Son of God, become man, then the dead is forgiven into eternity. In the Old Testament, the priest would symbolically sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the people. Here, Peter is simply saying that when we were born again, we were sprinkled with the blood of Jesus by the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, thus forever declaring that we are gods by right of redemption. right of redemption. This is why in 1 Corinthians 7, 23, we read these words, "'You were bought with a price. Do not become bond servants of men.'" Dear ones, we need to never settle for the lie that Jesus was simply a good teacher. He was, by the way. He was the best. or that he was the leader of a failed revolt against the Jewish leaders and the Romans. He wasn't. He was in total control. He never failed in anything. He came to die for the sins of God's people in order to fulfill the requirements of God's plan. And he did. And he did it perfectly, successfully. We need to recognize what we are looking at here, okay? With all this being said, what then is the foundation of our faith? Have you ever thought about that? What is the foundation of our faith? Before we speak of this though, let me caution us using two illustrations. Whenever someone says salvation, We need to ask ourselves, what is properly meant? Now, I talked about three things, justification, sanctification, glorification. So, when you read the word salvation in Scripture, you need to ask yourself, okay, are all of these what they're being talked about, the whole process of salvation? Or are they talking about one part, two parts, which parts? And so we have to look at the context to make sure that we know. So in doing that, we will avoid any difficulties, okay? And when we avoid those difficulties, we then avoid heresy and error, and that's a good thing. The same caution applies when we speak of God. God, our God is a triune God. Now, what does that mean? It means we have one God in three persons. Not one God revealed in three persons, but one God, three persons. No, I can't explain it. I'm sorry. My pay grade is not high enough. Okay? And so, when we read the word God in Scriptures, we need to ask ourselves, is it referring to the Father, to the Son, to the Holy Spirit or all three. This is a dangerous discussion for it may lead to all kinds of misunderstandings and errors on who God is. As a matter of fact, the first 300 years of the history of the early church involved not just discussions about the nature of the Trinity and the nature of... but people went to the stake Because sometimes other people thought they got it wrong, and they did. Okay? So we need to recognize that when we read the word God in Scripture, we need to ask ourselves those questions. The Father is God, just like the Son is God, and just like the Spirit of God, it's the same God, but in three distinct and separate persons. I had to rewrite this section in my notes three times before I got the terminology right. Okay? To my satisfaction. I wish I could explain it better, but clarity will help us function with the knowledge that we do have. And so when we see the word God, for instance, when Jesus prays, is He praying to God? Yes. Is He praying to Himself? No, He's praying to God the Father. Was Jesus entwilled by the Holy Spirit? Yes. Why? Because we are indwell by the Holy Spirit and he had to perfectly obey the Spirit so that we would get the credit for perfectly obeying the Spirit. Not a one of us indwell by God's Spirit perfectly obeys the Spirit. But we get credit for it because Christ did. But who's the one giving the credit? Not Jesus, not the Spirit, the Father. We have a very Trinitarian God. Clarity will help us to avoid error, and asking those questions will also help. So simply put, what is the foundation of our faith? The foundation of our faith is God Himself. That's the foundation. It is all of God's doing. It is all to His glory. He is the originator. He is the means. He is the facilitator. He is the protector of our faith. We read in Hebrews 12, 2, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." It was God's great mercy rooted in His infinite and perfect love. It was, is, and will always be our great triune God that determines everything about the people who are being born again, their growth in grace, and their eternal place with Him in heaven. And upon this, we can rest assured. Upon this solid rock, we can build our lives. Upon this sure promise, we can grow in Christ. At the end of 1 Peter, actually at the end of 2 Peter, we're going to find Peter's parting words. You know, I use them all the time. You may not even realize it. These were Peter's parting words. We'll go over it again eventually. You know what they were? grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. A command to grow. We start a better understanding of that right now. Let's remember what we read in 2 Timothy 2.19. But God's firm foundation stands, bringing this seal. The Lord knows those who are His. and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity." Let's pray together, shall we? Father, thank you that you gave to Peter words for us. We thank you that your Spirit opens our eyes to these things. We thank you, Father, that as we now come before your table to participate and partake of the Lord's Supper, that indeed you will be with us by your Spirit. Help us, Father, that we would bring glory to your name and that we would indeed be excited to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. These things, Father, we pray in His precious name. Amen.