This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. Alright, open up your scriptures to 1 Peter. 1 Peter. And we'll be picking up in verse 1 again, but this time going through verse 5. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the elect, who are exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. According to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and for sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. This is the reading of God's Word. Would you join me in a quick prayer? Our Father, we pray for your blessing now. Please make your Holy Spirit mighty among us. Mighty for dull hearts and tired bodies, tired minds. Mighty for a weak and feeble voice to proclaim the mighty things of God. We pray you would be with us now. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So where are we left off? We left off with this idea that Christians are both the chosen, the elect, you recall, but we're also exiles in this world. And that's actually where Peter is going to keep going with us. Peter is going to dive deeper into what he means by that. He gives us three phrases, picking up in verse two. I figure we covered verse one and we're really starting in verse two now. Picks up in verse 2, he talks about that we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience and for sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ. He gives us three phrases, three phrases for what it means that we are the chosen, the elect of God. So he starts out, we are elect according to the foreknowledge the foreknowledge of God the Father, right? What's that mean? What does he mean when he says foreknowledge? It's basically this. It's God's covenantal love from before time began. That's how he's loved us. That is what it means that he's foreknown us. When it comes to our election, it is God's complete sovereignty in our salvation. choosing us for maternity past. Peter is saying that God had a plan for his people before he had even created his people. That's something to stretch your mind a little bit. He planned for each one of us here before time had even begun. So then we're the chosen of God and cast out of society because of the plan of our loving God and father. elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father." He goes on, he says, we elect by the sanctification of the Spirit. And this is one you want to unpack just a little bit. When we say sanctification, there's some of us who will just not know what we're talking about, and there's some of us who will read a very specific meaning into this, right? Sanctification just basically It's us being made holy. It's us being set apart for God. That's that basic idea there. When we talk sanctification, most of the time, what we tend to be referring to is that process, that process whereby God makes us holier and holier and holier, more like Jesus, more like Jesus, more like Jesus. That's actually not what Peter's focusing on here, right? Peter's explaining their election, right? Keep it grounded in that. He's explaining their election before time and eternity began. which just by definition comes before a process can start whereby we grow in our holiness, right? You have that little bit of a clue already there. Peter's explaining, excuse me, and the Holy Spirit's work then is applying that election of God. Holy Spirit's work is applying that election of God the Father. So, I mean, in human terms, I mean, I think we're sort of talking about this from eternity's perspective. In human terms, the way we would experience it, when that person hears the gospel and actually has the faith to believe it, that's the Holy Spirit working. That's the Holy Spirit taking one of us, setting us apart to join the people of God. That is the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. We are chosen by the Holy Spirit's work. And he goes on, we are elect for obedience, he says. A lot of your translations probably say for obedience to Jesus Christ. You'll notice I read something different there. Trust your Bibles, your Bibles are great, but it's just for obedience. We can talk about them more if you want. Come on up, we'll talk grammar, right? But we are elect for obedience. God has chosen his people, he's elected his people so that they would be obedient. And I mean, again, talk about just such a glamorous gospel we have sometimes, right? Obedience is something that people shy away from. Obedience feels cold. Obedience in the context of God's grace and God's election, it just feels distant sometimes, right? But obedience is not some dirty word. God shows us for obedience. He intends for us to be obedient. And the clarification you always make at the start is we are obedient in faith, right? We are a believing people before we are an obedient people. That is the priority given. We know why we are believing. We know who we believe before we obey, right? You get that right at the start, you have to, but faith leads to obedience, doesn't it? A faith that doesn't lead to obedience is not the same kind of faith that the gospels are talking about. Obedience has nothing wrong with it. You don't have to fear you're being a legalist as soon as you talk about it. Our faith is meant to lead us to obedience. God did not choose us in exchange for our obedience, right? You have that straight. But he certainly chose us expecting our obedience. He commands our obedience. God chose us to be his obedient people. And this carries right into the next thought, and we'll tie this all together when we get there, but we're elect also for the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. We're elect for the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. We are those chosen to be set apart and cleansed by Jesus's blood, by Jesus's sacrifice. Being chosen had a precious price tag. Being chosen was a costly, costly thing. I mean, haven't we been tempted? We're talking about these ideas of election, of eternal election, right? One of these staples of kind of a Calvinistic view of the scriptures. Have you not been tempted to think that this is just a cold and distant topic? Like, it's like, ah, do we have to talk election again, right? I mean, that's certainly how critics of the way we view the Bible would look at it. There's just this cold theology, right? This cold man-imposed theology. That's all election is. We imagine God sitting around uncaringly drawing names out of a hat. I'll take this one. I'll take this one. I'll take this one. Is that what the scriptures talk about? Is that the gospel we believe in? I mean, it's not, not at all. election, God's choosing. It's a lot more like this. It's a lot more like God saying, I will spill my son's blood for this one. I will spill his blood for this one. I will spill it for this one. There was nothing distant about it for God. This is a precious choosing. God chose us. He chose us. Election was dear to our Father. So this is when you want to bring those two together for obedience and for sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, right? Is that a phrase anyone uses? It's not. You don't go around talking about obedience and sprinkling. Where this finds its root, where it finds its vivid nature is when you go back again to those Old Testament scriptures. I'm actually loving this. You're going to find Peter just demands you are constantly going back to the scriptures to understand fully what he means. So when he says obedience and sprinkling, we're going back to the Exodus. Exodus chapter 24, three through eight is when the Lord is inaugurating his covenant with Israel. Again, we're back to these formative times. In a nutshell, this is what that kind of ceremony looked like. The people pledged their obedience to God, to the God of the covenant, right? Moses responds with this. This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you. And he sprinkles the blood on the people. Obedience, sprinkling. Peter's describing Christians entering into covenant with their God, with two ideas, an obedient response to the gospel and a sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ. The Spirit's work brings us into that new covenant founded in his blood, only made possible because of his blood. Our foreignness in this world is because we are members of that new covenant. I think it's helpful to read this book, always connecting what we suffer in this world is always connected to some blessing of God. It's never just by itself. If you have to summarize this whole spot, it might feel technical, but this is what it is. We are the elect people of God, lovingly foreknown from eternity past, set apart by the work of the Holy Spirit, to be obedient members of the new covenant established in Christ's blood. There's a lot there, isn't there? You know, I'm, believe it or not, I find theology daunting. Reading books of theology is actually quite a challenge. I mean, does anyone amen that? Yeah. Don't tell Brian, right? Edit this out of the sermon. I find theology daunting sometimes because you're just looking like, that's hard. And I don't know what you're talking about sometimes, right? You might feel that way right now. Do you know what Peter's reaction is to this though? What Peter's reaction to this section that might feel like just technical textbook theology? Verse three, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You talk theology with Peter, you talk about the wonders of God, the truths of God, and he wants to praise him. He wants to worship him. I think when we are daunted by theology and we don't actually have our hearts turned to praise him, when we read it, when we study it, I think of it like that dry soil in the desert. It gets a downpour and it just doesn't know what to do with it, right? So all the water runs off. In some ways, our hearts are like that and we just have to give ourselves the time to let that spiritual water, that living water, sort of sink into our heart. Because if you understand what Peter's talking about, we should have the exact same reaction. Praise God. This is what he's done? I want to worship a God like this. Peter says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, because he has caused us to be born again, he says. You're going to find, I have to sort of chop up this sermon in more parts than I would want to for just the sake of the single thought. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the lead off sentence that unifies the next nine verses. Three through 12 are one big sentence. All flowing out of blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. All being grounded in this idea of worship. Knowing your God brings you to worship. Knowing what he has done brings you to worship. That's what this all flows out of here. But the most immediate thought Peter wants to give is, praise God, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope, right? According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And we pause there. born again. You remember that idea most famously taught John chapter three, right? Jesus interacting with Nicodemus. And at one point he says, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Just flabbergasting Nicodemus at the moment. Jesus tells Nicodemus, he tells us all, you will only enter the kingdom of God by a radical act of God. Anyone who would follow God needs the life that only God gives. Anyone that would follow him needs the birth that only God can cause. Peter rejoices that he is one of those, that they are those who have been born again because of a merciful God, he says. It's according to his mercy we've been born again. Why mercy? Why mercy is look in the mirror, right? Look at who he starts with. Look at who he would cause to be born again into his family. Rebels, criminals, and scum. That is who we are. Welcome to the fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is who God picked. Is that who you'd want in your family? If people wore labels of their personalities, rebel, scum, criminal, would those be the people you just walk on by? Those are the people God chose. That is who he wanted to be born into his family. In an earthly sense, we find so much of our identity in our parents. Our ethnicity is drawn from them. Our socioeconomic class is drawn from them. Our citizenship is drawn from them. on and down the line, right? All these things that we find in our earthly parents. Now we find our identity in a heavenly father. We draw who we are from who he is and who he has made us to be. We describe God as our father. This is something to be clear on. We describe God as our father because it was him who caused us to be born into his family. It's actually very clear. It's not like he's our father. He is our father. When people wonder why we think we get to call God father and they don't, it's because we would say we've been born again into his family. We've all been created by him. We've all been given his image, but there are only some who have been born again into his family. Only some have been given the privilege of truly calling him father. He has granted that to his blood bought children. God is the father to those who have entered into this new covenant in Jesus's blood. We suffer in this world because God chose us for his family. You see, you have to keep those things together. We suffer here because God chose us for his family. And we've been born again, Peter says, into a living hope. A living hope because Christ rose from the dead. Think living hope. To understand that, I mean, just to put that in contrast to what the world has. To what the world has to offer. When Paul wanted to describe the state of the world, Ephesians 2.12, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. He would describe it again when he's counseling the Thessalonian church. They're grieving over their dead and he tells them, don't grieve as the others do who have no hope. Dead and futile hope, that's what the world offers. Think of the false spirituality that is everywhere, that proclaims a salvation without knowing who their savior is. Think of the empty naturalism that's all around us, striving for meaning until that day that they just cease to be. The world has no hope. The world offers no relief. The world offers no justice. The world offers no peace. God alone offers us hope. In contrast to the dead and futile hope of the world, Christians have more than an empty wish. They have a true and living hope, grounded in a true and living Savior. That's why there is hope. The resurrection of Christ. was the rising of the sun on the people of God. Our hope and all of our blessings completely depend on that very first Easter morning. It all depends on having a resurrected Savior. And we have been born again to an inheritance, he says. We have an inheritance. You know you're a true member of the family when you've got an inheritance with that family. We've been born again to an inheritance, Peter says, that is imperishable. We're in verse four. Imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Imperishable, free from death and decay. Undefiled, free from uncleanness and moral impurity. Unfading, free from the natural ravages of time. One commentator said it this way. He said, our inheritance is untouched by death, unstained by evil, unimpaired by time. It is constituted of immortality, purity, and beauty. You go into this and you can't help but remember Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew chapter six, starting in verse 19, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. Our inheritance is exactly the kind of treasure that Peter was talking about. And our inheritance brings to mind again, these vivid Old Testament pictures. What was the inheritance of Israel? It was the land, right? And it was a volatile inheritance at that. It was so based upon their performance, their faith, whether they would in fact obey their God or not. And as we mentioned, they obeyed very infrequently. Israel's inheritance was not kept for them. It was taken from them in exile. It produced rewards that decayed. Its glory faded. Our inheritance is in a new heaven and a new earth. It is a new life. It is a glory that will never ever fade. God took us from a dead and defiled and unreliable hope to a living hope and an inheritance kept in heaven by God himself. That's what he promises. Verse five. talking about us, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. It's not just our treasures that are secure. We are guarded as well. We are kept as well. God cares for us as well. In his power, he guards us a picture like a military sentinel watching over a city. So our God watches over us. We've talked so much about his power lately. There's God who can speak existence into being, and he watches over us. That is a power that means there are no doubts. There are no doubts that someone can defeat him, that someone can outmaneuver him, that someone can overpower him. When the Lord guards you, when he keeps watch over you, you are as safe as can be. And he guards us using the faith that he gives us. Our faith itself is the protection. The faith that alienates us from the world is the faith that also protects us from the world. Again, you find the things we suffer for are our very blessings. By faith, we find peace in God. By faith, we find the strength of God. You remember this morning, we talked just briefly about that shield of faith whereby we extinguish those flaming arrows of the enemy, right? This is a point to make here. When you're in battle, you've got a shield and they're just raining arrows down on you. How long do you hold your shield up? You hold it up as long as they're shooting, right? You hold it up as long as the battle is going until they stop. You do not hold your shield up once and say, I'm good. They're going to keep shooting, right? You hold that shield up as long as it takes to reach the end safely. Peter presents our faith in a very similar way. We cling to our faith until the very end. You don't believe once and then tell God, I'm gonna call it a life now. That's all the believing I'm doing. That's not gonna get you anywhere until the end. Until the very end, we cling to our God. We cling to his promises until the very end. That faith is your lifeblood. Until the end, he alone is our refuge. And I will confess that sometimes I think that sounds exhausting. Cling to God until the end. I find the Christian life to be really tiring sometimes. Can anyone amen that? It's just one constant battle to trust him, to not go with my foolish heart and the world's terrible influences. I think it is supposed to be exhausting. I think the rest that God promises is supposed to sound beautiful because this world is exhausting. But the good news is, is that our God will sustain us He will sustain us with that universe-creating, life-giving, death-conquering power that He alone possesses. He will guard us for a salvation that is ready, is ready to be revealed. It's ready because Christ has already done His work. Christ has already won. Salvation is just ready to be revealed. Unfortunately, that salvation means very little about being protected from the things of this world. The world is going to get its blows in. I couldn't be a faithful preacher to you and not prepare you for that. The world will do us harm. But the salvation we look forward to is more important than that. It's bigger than that. It's deeper than that. It's the salvation from the judgment that every single man, woman, and child is going to face someday. We will all stand before him on that last day. It's a salvation from a lifetime of crimes against our King, of filthy hearts and filthy thoughts, of evil deeds, of betrayal and deceit. That's the salvation we need most of all, is it not? Peter dives into this letter in full worship mode. He is so awed by the things he gets to talk about here. Why? Look at what our God has done. If you ever don't feel like worshiping, look at what our God has done just here in the space of five verses. That's all we've covered so far. Five verses, he has shown mercy to the wicked. He offers hope in a hopeless world. Jesus, we saw him, he conquered death and he lived. He lived to tell the tale. We have an inheritance granted to us, us criminals, in God's own family. And our God, our Almighty God says he will watch over us until the end. Brothers and sisters, how can we not praise such a God? Let's pray. Our Father, we pray that you would continue to give us the faith we lack. Give us faith in the promises you've given us. Give us faith in the hope you have given us. Give us faith in who you are and how every trial of this world on the other side of eternity is your blessing waiting for us. Give us faith to trust you and to walk in your ways when a world would pull us every other way besides your way. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.