I'd like you to turn your Bible with me to First Peter some weeks ago, and Pastor Doug was ill. I began preaching through First Peter, and as I have an opportunity and am asked to preach, I will continue to work through this text with you. 1 Peter chapter 1, as you're turning there, allow me just to give you a very short report of the work in South Denver. We're very pleased with what the Lord is already bringing to pass there. We've had two Bible studies on Sunday evening, and the first week, besides my wife and I, had 10 in attendance, and last week had 12, and very encouraged by what we're hearing in terms of input, and would ask you to all continue to pray with us as the Lord continues to bring increase in the hearing of God's Word there. 1 Peter 1, we talked about reading God's Word earlier and how important it is as we read this text. I'm going to read verses 1-5 and we'll be commenting on verses 3-5. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood. May grace and peace be yours in fullest measure. Now, don't miss this transition. It's like a bomb in Peter's mind that is going off. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. So we heard Mason's read a few moments ago from the psalmist. The psalmist says, you've loosed my bonds and I give thanks to thee. I can't help but give thanks and praise to thee. And that's the same kind of thing that's going on here as Peter contemplates the greatness of our salvation. As I mentioned last time in dealing with that passage in terms of the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit in verse two, we were chosen by God by his great decree. And how I talked about the importance of realizing that the doctrine of election is never to be a sterile doctrine that we allow to go through our minds and think about in an academic sense, but rather the doctrine of election in scripture ought to lead us to a proper response of praise and worship to God as we realize the implications of what God has done. Now, all of us at one time or another in our lives, all of us were dead in our trespasses and sins. But if we've been given the gift of faith in Christ, We've been made alive together with Christ. We know what a joy we ought to know what a joy it is to express our praise to God for his glorious salvation. But think about Peter for a moment from his own perspective. He walked with Jesus. He talked with Jesus. He was rebuked by Jesus. He was encouraged by Christ. He watched as the Lord walked on the water and he walked on the water to Christ. He was saved from the fearful depths of the water by looking unto Christ. He followed the Lord Jesus with a particular passion, and he swore up and down that he would never abandon him. But that's exactly what Peter did in those final hours. He abandoned Christ. In his hour of trial, in the heat of the moment, out of the fear of man, he rejected Christ who had come to save his soul. Now, all of us have great reason if we truly comprehend the gravity of our sin against God. All of us have great reason to give praise to God for the greatness of our salvation. But think about How Peter must have felt as he contemplated having been with the Lord, having gone through all of those emotionally charged highs and lows to realize after all of that, even after he had abandoned the Lord in the Lord's hour of trial, that the Lord had not abandoned his soul to death. I heard one commentator commenting on John Owen one time in dealing with this passage and that which speaks of Peter being raised up, saying that Peter was running headlong into destruction and Christ snatched him from his way and saved him from his despair. And so, as Peter really tells this story again of the matchless grace of God, how God snatched him from his own disobedience and rebellion against God, his own doubt. As he tells this story again, he can't help. As he thinks about verses one and two, as he thinks about God's choosing of him and choosing of us by his foreknowledge, by the sanctifying work of the spirit, by the sprinkling of Christ's blood, he can't help but well up with joy and exclaim to us and to God how blessed, how wonderful is the name of God. Peter recognizes in this hymn of praise, not one ounce of glory for our salvation can be given to us. All glory must be given to God, for he alone has done these wondrous things. In Psalm 113, the psalmist reminds us that he raises the poor from the dust. He lifts the needy from the ashy to make them sit with princes. the princes of his people. Peter, seeing the reality of this, gives glory to God and praise for our salvation. Notice that he begins with this word blessed. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this is a different word that is used in the Beatitudes. You remember in Matthew five, where over and over, Jesus speaks of us as being blessed or blessed. There, the word blessed means something like full or happy. Happy is the man. And so on. Here, the word is different. It is the word from which we get our word eulogy, which means to be well spoken of or praised. Here, it certainly means more than just that and is a tremendous expression of praise and adoration. Well, we notice first, by way of introduction, that Peter once again makes reference to the triune God in his praise. He praises God the Father. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. who is the father of the son and who causes us, as he has already told us in verse two, that we might be made regenerate by the work of the spirit. And we also notice that Peter's praise is on account of God's great mercy. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, has caused us To be born again, Bernard said, great miseries need great mercies. And Peter recognizes the misery of his own soul. He recognizes how wretched he is, how he cannot come to God on his own strength and his own merit, how he's already abandoned the Lord Jesus Christ, how he himself would have fallen into perdition were it not for Christ who snatched him from his way. So he realizes and exhorts us to think about the great mercies of God, not just mercy, but a great mercy, a mega mercy that God shows towards us. We can't know the great mercy of God unless we know the depth of our own depravity without Christ, unless we know the depths of our own sinfulness and our own proclivity. to shake our fist at God and to declare our independence from him. Unless we know how we have broken the law and thought word and deed as we read each week together in our confession of faith and our confession of our sin, how we sin against God, not only by sins of omission, what we don't do, but rather by sins of commission, what we do. our evil thoughts towards our neighbors, towards one another and towards God, and how we don't love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength, how we don't love our neighbor as we ought. And so we realize how sinful we really are and how much we are in need of God's great mercy towards us. And this is the theme of Peter's hymn. How true it was for Peter, how true it ought to be for us as well. So in these few verses, we're compelled with Peter to give praise to God for three things. Principally, one, we ought to praise God in verse three for the newness of life. Secondly, we ought to praise God for a never ending inheritance. And thirdly, in verse five, we ought to praise God because of God's power to bring it about. Now, first, Peter praises God and exhorts us to do the same for the newness of life. We ought to praise God for the newness of life and that God has caused this to come to pass. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, if you're reading from the King James or the New King James, you'll notice that the text says that God has begotten us again. The word that is used here is a compound word. It comes from the word that means to beget or to give birth to, and it is combined with the word again. These words are used together to be given birth to again. Now, the Greek text literally says that God has given birth to us again. But you'll notice of my reading the text that the New American Standard and also the English Standard Version say that God has caused us to be born again. Now, the question that may be in some of your minds is where did this word cause come from? How is it in the text that God has caused us to be born again? Well, look down with me at verse 23 of this same chapter, chapter one. This word is actually only used two times in the New Testament, and both times the word is used by Peter. The second instance is in verse 23. You'll notice. For you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God. Now, in this verse, in verse 23, the form of the verb of being born again is a perfect passive participle. In verse 23, Peter is speaking of the transaction of the spirit that took place in the past. with every one of us when we were born again. God, through the work of the Spirit, caused us to be regenerate, to be made born again. He regenerated our hearts. He gave us a heart transplant, as it were. He took our heart of stone and gave to us a heart of flesh. Now, in other words, in verse 23, Peter is speaking about the event itself. That moment of regeneration, when God opened our eyes, he took away the blinders. He caused the sinfulness and the rebellion, which is in our heart, to be melded away. And he gave to us that heart of life, that desire to follow him, that joy of seeing Christ. for the first time. And so in verse 23, that form of the verb speaks of the event itself of regeneration. But back in verse three, the verb is in a different form. It's an active verb. And it speaks to us primarily of the person that brought it to pass, not the event so much as the person. What brought this to pass? What made us to be regenerate? And so I believe the NASB and the ESB are correct in translating the way they did here, because this is speaking of the work of God, that God has made us to be regenerate. We did not regenerate ourselves. We did not in our own cleverness or in our own hearing of Christ say that makes sense to me. And we came to Christ out of the desire of our will. But rather, the text is clear here that something else outside of us gave to us this desire to be born again. It was the work of God by the work of the spirit. God caused us to be born again. He made us to be so. Peter is pointing to us, not just to our salvation, but he's pointing here. He's pointing us to God who brought it about for his own glory and praise. God is the wellspring of our salvation. And although we drink it deeply and with great delight and refreshment, we must never become confused as to the source of it. We delight in our salvation, but we must never forget that we did not bring it to pass, but rather God himself. How could we? But we were dead in our trespasses and sins. But as we delight in it, Peter says, it does produce a result in us. And that result, Peter says, is that we have been born again to a living hope. Through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Paul uses this same imagery in several places in Ephesians 2 in particular, he reminds us that though we were dead in our sins, But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Now, we need to note here that It is because of the resurrection of Christ that we're able to possess a hope that is a living hope. It's a hope that is alive and a hope that is vibrant. Because our hope is in Christ, our hope is not in what might happen at the end of the age and what events might transpire. But it is in the person of Christ himself who has been raised from the dead. And so we look to Christ with this living, vibrant hope at his return that we might see him as he is alive. from the dead. We're looking forward to this day, as Pastor Doug has been preaching, when we will physically be raised up with Christ. We will be raised up together with him. Paul says we've already been raised up in a sense. We've already been raised up in our minds spiritually. We have been raised up and seated with Christ in heavenly places. This is our position in heaven. We're with Christ. We've already inherited what he's going to give us by the work of the spirit, by the down payment of the spirit, which has been given to us. But one day we will physically possess it. We will physically go to be with Christ, our wondrous savior. And that's the day of our hope. That's the day we're looking for. longing for, and it is to this inheritance that Peter turns, notice in verse four, as he gives praise to God for our everlasting inheritance. Notice the comma at the end of verse two that we've been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I'm sorry at the end of verse three from the dead to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away reserved in heaven. for you as to the nature of this inheritance. Peter speaks of its enduring nature and its undefiled nature. Deuteronomy 1912 tells us that God gave the land of Israel to his people as an inheritance. John Brown comments in his commentary. that when God made ancient Israel his children, when he brought them into a covenant with himself, he gave to them an inheritance. That inheritance, like the administration to which it was belonged, was material and temporal. It was the large and fertile land of Canaan, which they were to possess in security and peace. There are a great many so-called prosperity preachers today that make the mistake of mixing up the inheritance of physical Israel and the inheritance of the true Israel, which is Christ and his church. The inheritance of physical Israel was in the form of land, which could be conquered, it could be settled, it could be planted, harvested, inherited, and so on. The inheritance for the church is not always visible. In fact, Peter says, notice this inheritance is what reserved where in heaven. For you. And it's not yet been fully revealed. In 1 John 3, 1 through 3, John says, See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God and such we are. For this reason, the world does not know us because it did not know him. Beloved, now we are the children of God and it is not yet appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that when he appears, We shall be like him because we shall see him just as he is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself just as he is pure. We must be careful not to adopt what many have called an over realized eschatology. that God's promises are to be given to us in completion on this earth, in our present journey, in our present pilgrimage. Rather, we have a hope. We ought to have a hope that it's fixed on this eternal, undefiled inheritance that will only come with the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Brown recognized a common thread that seems to run through these passages and others like them. is that our inheritance consists of a true knowledge of God and His holiness, a purity in our person as He is pure, and a happiness that results from these things. Our true inheritance begins now as we are seated with Christ in heavenly places, as we come to a more thorough and true knowledge of God the Father, a purity in our person as he is pure as expressed in the perfect obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ and a happiness that results. We can be happy and fulfilled and living at peace when we live our mundane lives of obedience to God in anticipation of the completion that is only to come at the parousia when Christ returns and gives to us the final full expression of the inheritance that is already ours in him. And so from this, we're able to see what Peter meant when he said that the nature of our inheritance is It's not only eternal, but rather it is undefiled. In numbers 3534, God said to the Israelites, you shall not defile the land in which you live in the midst of which I dwell, for I, the Lord, am dwelling in the midst of the sons of Israel. We heard this morning from Deuteronomy 28 how Israel constantly defiled the land, how they constantly disobeyed the covenant. that covenant that we listen to every week and say yes and a man just like the children of Israel and turned right around and disobeyed the law and did not keep the law. And in so doing, they defiled themselves and defiled the land in which they live. You shall not defile the land in which you live. Ezekiel 37 23 tells us gives us the gospel proclamation, pronouncement, as we think about how often we defile the land, as we think about how often we defile our Christian state, how we think thoughts that are horrendous in the presence of God, how we do things that we ought not to do. How often do we defile our sanctification? And how wonderful are these words from Ezekiel 37, and they will no longer defile themselves with their idols or with their detestable things or with any of their transgressions. But I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned and I will cleanse them and they will be my people and I will be their God. This is the inheritance to which Peter speaks. It is a holy inheritance. It is an inheritance in which forever and ever, as we live in the presence of God, as we constantly and daily learn more and more to love the purity of our Savior, that we will never again speak a cross word to one another. We will never again worship God in a way that is displeasing to him. We will never again bring any of our atrociousness and our depravity into the presence of God. We will be undefiled in the likeness of our Savior. Our inheritance is not just living happy forever and ever in heaven and doing the things that we like to do, but rather it is being fully and completely conformed to the perfect, pure image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do we look forward to that, Saints? Do we live for that and long for it and desire it and pray for it that God would give to us in this very day as we are seated with Christ, as we come into the presence of God in this very moment to worship him through his son? Do we long for hearts that are undefiled? This inheritance of living our lives as being completely pleasing to God. This is the inheritance of which Peter speaks. As believers, we look forward to a new heaven and a new earth to remember those words in which righteousness dwells. It will not and cannot be defiled by our own sin. Well, then Peter speaks of the obtaining of this inheritance and says in the last part of verse four, notice that it will not fade away. It's reserved in heaven for you. The word that is used here for reserved means something like to preserve, to be kept aside. If you take fifty dollars a month and you put it into a savings account and you save that money for an emergency that you might have, then you're reserving, you're preserving that money for some future use. And that's the idea here. When God saved you, he reserved an inheritance for you in your name. Now, what is the nature of an inheritance? When you receive an inheritance from a parent or an uncle or grandparent, it's the free gift of the giver, is it not? An inheritance is not something like our paycheck, which we earn. We go to work, we give so many hours a week, and our employer gives us a paycheck. It's a gift that's given to us that we cannot earn. There isn't any one of us who can earn not only our salvation now, the present tense of our salvation, but there isn't any one of us who can earn the glories, the greatness of our salvation that is to be given to us in Christ in the coming eternal age. As a boy, I remember hearing an illustration that attempted to deal with the biblical doctrine of predestination. In one version of the illustration, salvation was likened to a ship that was sailing for the port of heaven. Everyone who gets on the ship, this person said, is predestined to reach that port. In this particular illustration, the preacher said that there is nothing that will keep a person from abandoning the ship, if that's what he also desires to do. In this illustration, the man or the woman or the child who gets onto the ship and stays on the ship by necessity, by the nature of the case, receives some glory for their salvation. After all, it was their sensibility or their intelligence or their wisdom that got them on the ship and kept them there. But God says he will not share his glory with another. Whether it be for his predestination and calling and regeneration and justification of your soul, it is the same which is true for the sanctification, preservation, perseverance and glorification of your soul. All of our salvation has been given to us as a free gift of God. The psalmist says in Psalm 44, 1 through 3, O God, we've heard with our ears our father. Fathers have told us the works that thou didst in their days and the days of old. Thou with thine own hand didst drive out the nations. Then thou didst plant them. Thou didst afflict the peoples. Then thou didst spread them abroad. For by their own sword, they did not possess the land and their own arm did not save them. By thy right hand and thine arm and the light of thy presence, for thou didst show them grace. Thou didst favor them. In the case of our salvation, the whole of it, whether it is that which God has done in the past or that which God will do in the future, not only is our inheritance being preserved, but also we ourselves The ones inheriting the salvation are also being preserved. Notice in verse five. This inheritance in verse four, which is reserved in heaven for you. Notice again the comma and verse five who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. When it comes to the doctrine of the perseverance of the Saints, I believe this is one of the greatest and most God-honoring texts in the entire Bible, because it says that not only is our inheritance preserved, but also that God is preserving us to receive that inheritance. You've Surely heard it taught that the doctrine of perseverance is like two sides of the coin on one side. God is preserving you. He is snatching you like Peter from running headlong in the direction you would go if it were up to you. God is preserving you in order that we may what persevere to the end. The verb that is used here for kept Some translations, protected or guarded in the King James, shielded in the NIV, are all indicative of the strong military term that it is. The idea that Peter develops here is that of a fortress being defended by a garrison of soldiers. Unlike most fortresses that could fall to a superior army of greater strength. In this case, the fortress of our inheritance in Christ is impenetrable. It cannot be scaled. It cannot be brought down because the one who is doing the guarding is God himself. The one who is our wall, the one who is our tower of strength, the one who is our rock. is the very one who is preserving us. There is nothing that can penetrate this impenetrable force. It is God himself. Who is guarding us so that there is no question, no question, believe. That we will make it to safety. to receive the inheritance that he has laid up in store for us. Well, how does God accomplish this? How does God accomplish this work of preservation? Peter says that faith is the means that God uses to accomplish this end to which he has predestined us. We are protected by the power of God, not through some mystical transaction. It isn't some lightning bolt that comes down and strikes us as we think about God or walk down the street, but rather it is through the means of grace and through faith. As Peter puts it here, it is through this means of belief of constantly stirring up in our hearts the truths that are proclaimed here, that indeed were it not for God, I would be but dust were it not for God's great mercies. I would be fallen in my sin. But rather, we believe in the merits, the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this is the means that God uses to bring us to the end. And this is why it is so important that we're stirred up, as Paul said, by way of reminder that we're constantly stirred up in our faith by hearing the word of God and thinking and diligently applying it to our lives. walking in obedience to the word as we hear it. We must be stirred up in our faith. For this is the means that God intends to use to bring us to the very end. Faith is steadfast trust that grows as a result of a confident belief that God's promises are true. When the object of our faith is our abilities and our strengths, We have good reason to question our perseverance. We have good reason to question whether or not we will endure till the end. We have good reason to question whether or not God holds us in his hand. If we believe that it is our duty and our doing that brings us to the end. If we believe that it is by our keeping of the law that we are brought safely to the celestial city, then we have good reason to doubt whether or not God is preserving us and we are persevering. But when our faith is in the finished and glorious work of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we are at the bottom In our despair of our sin, when we know the miseries of our own inadequacy, it is then at that moment and we turn to Christ and we know that Christ persevered to the end, that he ran the race without faltering, that Christ is both the author and the what? The finisher of our faith. When we look to Christ alone, and trust in his merit, his work on our behalf. It is then and only then that we can have a sure confidence that God has given to us this new heart. He's caused us to be born again, that he is giving us this faith to persevere to the end. And he is giving us a joy and a hope and a longing for the inheritance that is ours in Christ. It is then we know we are protected by the power of God. In other words, if God is the one who has truly saved you, you can be sure that God is going to give you faith and trust in him. You will. Persevere. Finally, Peter says the last of verse five, that we're being protected by God for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, literally in the end of time. Now, this does not mean in any sense that we need to wait until the end. Some teachers are teaching that today. You can't be sure that you're saved until the final judgment. That's not at all what Peter intends here. Peter seems to mean here in this context is that the completion of our salvation is ready to be revealed. And that is synonymous with our inheritance must always remember that salvation isn't just past tense and it isn't just present tense, but it is also future tense. It is all of these that God, I'm sure, as you have heard, has saved us in the past from the penalty of sin. When we trusted in Christ. And the penalty of sin that was against this was nailed to the cross. God delivered us from the penalty of sin, and in the present tense, you are being freed this very day from the power of sin in your lives through the sanctification of the spirit by the means of grace. We are being freed from the wrath of God, which is to come in the very present tense. As we grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, but there is a day coming believers, we will not only be delivered from the penalty of sin and the present, the power of sin, but also from the very presence of sin. And this is what Peter intends, I believe. The salvation It's ready. To be revealed in the last time, why is it ready, why is addressed, why is it ready to come through the door, through the gates of heaven and deliver us, because Christ is ready. Christ is prepared to deliver his people. He has delivered us from the penalty, hasn't he? and the power of sin in our lives. We can live lives in faith this day with trust in Christ and walk obediently, walk victoriously in this life. The day is coming when the clouds of doubt. And the sin that still is so familiar to so many of us will be gone. And we will be delivered from it completely and finally. In the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, because he's ready. He's ready for the day when the father says to him now. I will take my people unto myself, go and take them, bring them to me. What a glorious day that will be. What a glorious salvation this is that Peter reveals to us. A salvation which ought to cause every one of us, when we think about it, to stop in our tracks as Peter did. And to say to God, that eulogy speaking well of him, that exclamation of praise. Oh God, blessed, blessed, how wonderful, how glorious is your name, oh God. You've not only delivered me from death, you've not only delivered me from the power of sin and through sanctification, you're making me to be like Christ. One day, oh God, you're going to free me completely from these chains. How blessed is your name? How God is to be praised in our midst. Do we praise him with that kind of intensity? I don't. I don't think any of us do. But we ought to pray that God would give us that kind of intensity in our thinking, that when we think about where we've come from, the deadness of our hearts toward God, the filthiness of our sin. The endurance of our sin. We think how God has already delivered us from it and will finally deliver us over in that day to Christ. Blessed be the name, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are indeed struck by our complacency. No, I am. Father, I pray that salvation would never become a boring thing to us, that the glorious doctrine of election and predestination how you caused us to be born again. How we would have been stillborn dead in our trespasses, but how you gave us new life in the womb of your spirit and caused us to come forth. With the vibrancy of Christ. Oh, God, I pray that we would look to him every day of our life and indeed every morning that we awake and every night that we retire, our thoughts and our minds would be one of praise to you. For giving us so great a salvation. For not only causing us to be born again, for not only delivering us from the filth of our sin and our activities of life and our daily obedience, but the blessed hope The return of Christ and the love of that day, the love of your son. Will deliver us finally and completely from sin's awful presence. Oh God, thank you for preserving us. Thank you for guarding us that we don't fall. We may give in to sins. We may be clouded by doubt. We may even for a time have the light removed from us as our confession says. Father, we know that you will finally and completely, because of Christ, deliver us into his hands. And we thank you for that in his name. Amen.