Amen, turn your Bibles to 1 Peter 1. First Peter chapter one, I'm especially excited about the series this school year, Exiles with Expectant Hope, Expositions of First Peter. God's given me the opportunity to teach through this book over this last year at our church across the street at White Oak Baptist Church, and it's made such an impact on my own soul and my life. It's been a great encouragement to me, and I hope it'll be an encouragement to you as well as we study through this together here this school year. Hugh Latimer was born in 1485. He's the Bishop of Rochester. After his death, he became a famous Protestant martyr. Latimer was born into a family of farmers. I don't know about you, but I'm the first one in my family to get a college education. And so you feel like, you know, I was born into a blue-collar working family, and they were a blessed family, wonderful parents, and was able to have the privilege to come to school. Well, Latimer had the opportunity to study at Cambridge, and he was known as a good student. He became a solid Roman Catholic. At the time, he was opposing Lutherans of the day, but his views soon changed because of a friend of his, Thomas Bilney, convinced him of the right doctrines of Protestantism. In 1510, you see his professional life rise and fall and rise and fall. And through the whole thing, he seemed to be very faithful to God in his doctrine, in his preaching. He became a university preacher at Cambridge in 1522. He became noted for his reformist teaching. This attracted the attention of the authorities during King Henry VIII's reign. He was imprisoned twice in the Tower of London, and then he was again restored to favor under Edward VI as the English church moved in a more Protestant direction. And then, if you know your church history or your world history, Queen Mary came to power, Bloody Mary she was called, and he was tried for his beliefs and his teachings at Oxford. He was in prison, and then in October of 1555, he was burned at the stake there outside of Oxford. A Latimer was executed beside Nicholas Ridley, and he was quoted famously, you've probably heard this quote, as saying, as the flames consumed them both. And there's a woodcut of that scene, that awful scene. He said, be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out. It was really the start in what would become the English Reformation, and God used his faithful testimony. Sometimes we look back at testimonies of martyrs like that, and they are certainly inspiring. They're encouraging to see their faithfulness, and we see them as something historical, something in the past. But today, some have said there have been more martyrs in the last century than there was in the whole history of the church combined. And today, according to opendoors.org, North Korea is, for instance, the most dangerous place for a Christian to live. being discovered as a follower of Christ means you will die. In 2023, the country strengthened its border with China. So, you know, this seems ironic to us. Christians have a hard time fleeing from North Korea to China, as if that's a greater freedom. Algeria has gone up four places on the world watch list when it comes to persecution of Christians. There were 47 Protestant churches in the country of Algeria. That's a North African country, a Muslim country. And now, according to statistics, only four churches remain in the country. They're under intense pressure and persecution. Of course, China has a history of persecution of believers, as well as a flourishing of the gospel and an undercurrent of house churches. But at least 10,000 churches were claimed to have been closed in the year of 2023 in China. Many of them were house churches, but even official churches are under pressure to preach the doctrines of communism. The government promoted new regulations that said churches must display a sign that says, love the Communist Party, love the country, love the religion. Of course, in that order. Digital surveillance is growing and Christians are persecuted once again. 13 Christians a day were killed for their faith. in 2023 on average. Nigeria may be the worst of the countries involved. They're the deadliest place to follow Jesus. Statistically, 82% of those Christians killed are killed in Nigeria. Violence only eased during their elections, but it's still terrible. 14,766 churches and Christian properties have been attacked, burned, or destroyed around the world. These attacks on Christian-run schools, hospitals, church buildings are up sevenfold compared to 2022. In 2023, it's been driven by mob violence, particularly in India. where we've heard reports of much violence against established churches, but also church closers in China, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, and other countries. Well, about 300,000 Christians have been displaced recently. When countries are destabilized by war or dictatorships or drug cartels, Christians are always at risk. In 2023, the number of believers forced to flee their homes more than doubled. Across the most dangerous countries for believers are those in Sub-Saharan Africa for about 3% of all the Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa have been displaced because of Christian persecution. Needless to say, we still live today in a world where Christians are not welcomed. Christians live as exiles. My goal is not to be alarmist. We can be thankful and grateful that God has given us many freedoms in our country to worship as many times as we want to, or as few times as we choose to in places where we can own property. It's a blessing. It's a grace. We shouldn't feel guilty about that. We should be glad for that. But we should also support the church around the world in praying for these believers that face this persecution. And we need to be ready for it ourselves. Here in 1 Peter 1, the apostle Peter knows well the status of believers in his age, and the Spirit knew well the status of believers in our age. What we would need to be encouraged by, the truths we would need to latch onto, how we would need to desperately sing the song we sing. He will hold us fast. God will take care of us. Christ has us in his hand. The Spirit is at work. The gospel will prevail. We have no need to worry, but we do have need to endure. And God has given us promises, and particularly in this epistle, that are so encouraging for our life here. Let's look at 1 Peter 1. I'm only gonna cover verses one and two. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion, in Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. And I hope that as a result of what we preach during the school year, that grace and peace will be multiplied to you, to me, to all of us here today. Peter's audience, of course, are those who are dispersed. They're called exiles. They're not at home. They're living where they may not choose to live. They're treated like they would not choose to be treated. They're displaced. Their diasporic status, as one writer says, is bleak. But paradoxically, Peter begins immediately to interpret suffering and ostracism in essentially hopeful terms. He wants to inspire hope within them as they live in difficult circumstances. And our theme, what I've chosen as our title is God through Peter calls us to live in this world as exiles with expectant hope. We are exiles, but we have expectant hope. We have hope that we can live lives in this world to the glory of God. We have hope that we can live lives while distressed, while displaced, while persecuted for the progress of the gospel. We have hope, ultimately, in final redemption. All the things that are wrong with this world, that are wrong with ourselves, will be solved when Christ comes at last and we are with Him and made like Him. What a blessing to look forward to Christ's return. I was thinking, boy, So I was putting these words in the slide. I was like, it'd be great if Jesus came before I preached this message. I want a blessing. It'd be great if he'd come after I preached the message. Might wake some of you up. What a blessing. What an expectation of hope we have. God is good to us, isn't he? As we look at this, God calls us to live with expectant hope. Who is the author? Who's the author? We start with this author, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. Peter, of course, is an apostle. He's an authoritative messenger. He's not just giving an opinion as an old guy, but he is called as an apostle representative of God to share God's word with us, to interpret the gospel and apply it to the churches, to encourage believers as they fulfill the mission. These are binding apostolic words for the church, as Tom Schreiner says. He calls himself later in chapter five, a fellow elder and witness of Christ's suffering. Says in 5.13, he calls Mark his son. And of course, Mark was his son in the faith. He had a close relationship with Mark. And so we see the author being Peter, the apostle of Jesus Christ, the very disciple of Jesus Christ. Some have doubted he wrote this book because the language is pretty good for a fisherman, right? And there's a lot of ways to answer that. The early church accepted it as written by Peter, the apostle, the disciple of Christ. So they had confidence in that. But I could imagine if I spent three years with the perfect man, Jesus Christ, my grammar might improve as well. You ever think of that? When you do a lot of this linguistic study and it gets into the weeds a long ways, and I'm like, you know, if I was sitting at the feet of Jesus, I probably would have some corrections to make. Those of you that have taken English 102 know that. Possibly he had a scribe. Silvanus, he says in chapter five, verse 12, a faithful brother as I regard him, was one who carried the epistle probably and read it to the churches, but may have also helped pin the words that Peter gave. And he was probably an educated as well. And so we see Peter as the author and Like all the scriptures, all the books in the Bible, in all scripture, there always is this combination of history and humanity with divine sovereignty. The word comes in a particular place from a particular person to a particular people, but it comes through the Holy Spirit with intentions to be used by God's people of all ages. And so we find Peter to be just like this. We find Peter to be very applicable to our day today. We find Peter's biography to be very encouraging to us, don't we? Peter's known, of course, as the one who denied his master three times. At his most desperate time, when his master was on the cross. He humbly received Christ's forgiveness in return. He boldly preached at Pentecost and saw the greatest movement ever of the Holy Spirit in the gospel as the believers were gathered into the church of Jerusalem, hundreds of believers. And now this same apostle failed, forgiven. You could say the preacher, the biggest megachurch in the world at the time, shows concern for scattered individual believers, small churches throughout Asia Minor. He doesn't get the big head, he's humble. He learns humility through his opportunities and interactions with his Savior. He turns his attention to these hurting, isolated, harmed, but faithful believers in Asia Minor. So don't miss the fact, even in this little introduction, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, Don't miss the fact that God is the God of the big, God is the God of the small. He's at work in large movements of the gospel, and he's concerned with his sheep and the remotest pastures of the world. That includes you and I. He knows your heart. He knows your struggles. He knows your failures. He knows your pains. He knows your circumstances. He certainly knows your weaknesses, but he knows your value. He sent these words to us. Peter, the apostle through the Holy Spirit sent these words to us. God wants to encourage our hearts today in our mission today through these words of Peter. What kind of letter is this? Simply, it's a letter of exhortation meant to be read to the churches in Asia Minor. Lists several churches, maybe that list might not be comprehensive, but may have laid out a trail of where Silvanus was gonna take the epistle to read it, but it was a letter of exhortation. He wants to exhort and encourage the church with the words that he has sent. Chapter 5, verse 12 says, I've written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it. He started by saying, grace and peace be multiplied to you. And he finishes by saying, this is the grace of God. Stand firm in it. Don't forget it. Read this often. I kind of wanted to read the epistle out loud because that's the way it happened, right? They took, Sylvanus would have taken this to one church and he would have said, okay, everyone, I've got a letter from Peter. Let's read these encouraging words. And he would read the whole thing. I timed it. I was like, I could probably do it in 13 minutes. Okay, but. You guys would have been like, he just didn't prepare. Okay. But it would have been good for us. But I want to encourage you to take some time and read through the whole pistol as we prepare our hearts for these, these lessons throughout the school year. One writer says, a rhetorical and didactic nature, didactic meaning the teaching nature of the letter may reflect the fact that it was intended to be read aloud and read carefully and studied by congregations. And of course, it was a circular letter going to all of these churches, and all these churches are in what we would call modern day Turkey, and Asia Minor encompasses, Turkey covers most of Asia Minor. Who is the reader, who is this letter for? It's for dispersed Christians, or I might say exiles in the dispersion. There is some debate about what this means. Are these Christians dispersed by persecution from Jerusalem out, perhaps? But sometimes the timing of that doesn't always figure. I think it's probably a little more figurative, and feel free to disagree if you want to, but I think it's probably Christians who now, in their newfound faith, find themselves in a world that doesn't welcome them. all over the place, in all kinds of cultures, in all areas. While there are some references to things that Jews should know about, and there were Jews dispersed there as well, many of the things that Peter talks about are clearly written to Gentiles with a pagan background. And so I think what we have here is we have Christians who are dispersed abroad as they came to faith in the gospel, who lived in Asia, but whose home was clearly somewhere else, and that is where the Lord is. But they're called to be here for now. Also, I think there's probably Christians that were dispersed by the mission. After all, didn't Christ give the, not the okay commission, it was the great commission. He said, go into all the world and make disciples, right? And so there were Christians that were maybe not dispersed by persecution, but were dispersed by the mission. And they went and planted churches. God only knows the untold tales that we have now of how these churches are established. but they were established. And he uses the word exiles. It's written to God's pilgrim people. They're exiles in this world. It's world exiles translated in the ESV exiles. It's translated, I think, in the New American Standard, aliens. It's only used a few times in the New Testament. It's used also in Hebrews 11, 13. that hall of faith that says, and these died in faith without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance or a far off, as the King James says, having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth, right? People with great faith knowing this world is not their home, but while they live here, they have a mission. We're not called to isolate, to insulate, to remove ourselves from the culture. We're called to penetrate the culture with the light of the gospel while living distinctly as those who don't belong. There were churches throughout Asia Minor. These were Christians in whom and for whom and through whom God spoke in a very special way. Peter goes on to call them chosen, or ESV says those who are elect exiles, elect exiles. These are Christians in whom and for whom and through whom God is at work in a very special and very personal way. They are the chosen. They were called that before the TV series began. They were elect. God picked them for his great purposes and for their greatest good. And he placed his sovereign attention on them and his sanctifying affection through the spirit upon them. And he provided a sacrificial atonement through his son for them. They were chosen. On one hand, it's this view of yourself needs to be humble. It needs to be submitted to the truth of the scriptures about ourselves. But on the other hand, God encourages us with these jewels, these nuggets of encouragement. He calls us chosen. He says he has chosen us to be his children. I could have added to the title, elect exiles with expectant hope if we wanted another E in there. But it's such an encouragement that we are, as Peter says later on in his second epistle, we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people for God's own possession. And the following prepositions we see in verse two kind of fill out what it means for God to have chosen us. It says here in verse two, 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. What a blessing that God brings to bear the full Trinitarian force of the Godhead upon our salvation and our growth and our mission. You wonder if the Trinity's mentioned in the New Testament anywhere. This is a place. It's mentioned very clearly here, as in other places. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all at work in the elect, the chosen believers. We are, first of all, foreknown by God the Father. We're foreknown by God the Father. Tom Schreiner says foreknowledge does not only mean that God foresaw they would be his elect aliens. It's not just that God looked down the quarters of time and saw the decisions we would make and the choices we would make to align ourselves on his team, but foreknowledge should be understood in covenantal terms. Those foreknown are those upon whom God has bestowed his covenantal favor and affection. God chose us. Think of this in terms of adoption. Some friends of ours adopted a couple orphans from another country overseas. And I remember them telling me about their choice. You go to, I mean, it just breaks your heart. You go to some of these places and there's a bunch of kids that need parents, right? How do you choose two or one? How do you just choose one or two? Well, they chose two. They had the opportunity to choose two. And I remember them telling me about seeing one baby that was just rocking back and forth in the crib, banging his head against the crib and just continually, that's all the baby did. And these parents set their affection upon that child and they decided and determined to take him and pay the money for the adoption and raise him and share the gospel with him and work through the challenges with him all those years until he grew up. He's an adult now. They set their affection on their children and they committed themselves to those children. And is it not a glorious thought that God looked at us, us as a whole for sure, but each of us, he looked at us with our failures, our weaknesses, our unfaithfulness. He looked at us spiritually orphaned children. We were dead spiritually. He looked at us, we were ugly. And God said, I promise to take you and love you and save you and raise you, sanctify you. And I want you to be mine for all of eternity. And you're gonna accomplish my mission and I'm gonna help you do it. I'm gonna be faithful to you. You can live with an expectant hope of God's faithfulness. He will hold us fast from the beginning to there is no end, right? There is no end. He'll hold us fast from the beginning to forever. He loves us, what a blessing, it's a glorious thought. We're sanctified by God the Spirit as well. We're sanctified by God the Spirit, the focus here is probably on their conversion, that positional, we sometimes say positional, sanctification, but it's an actual sanctification, we're made holy when we're in Christ. We're made spiritually alive by his regenerating work. We enter into the sphere of the Holy, as one writer said. We're united with Christ and we're united with God's people through the work of the Spirit's baptism. We're placed and empowered on the pathway of holiness through the Spirit's ongoing sanctifying work. Even though this is primarily talking about our initial sanctification, our salvation, our conversion, it certainly includes the promise of ongoing sanctification to be like Christ. We're sanctified by the Spirit of God. God does not leave us alone. He equips us for the task of gospel work. He equips us for the experience of persecution and suffering. He is with us through every step of the way. The Spirit is with us. We're sanctified by that Spirit. And third, we're saved by and purposed for obedience. by God the Son, this is a bit of a tricky phrase when you read it, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. What I believe is at work here, I've studied this some and there are some differences of opinion by what is meant here, but I think it's again talking about our conversion and our obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ, our belief in that. Similarly to what Paul calls the obedience of the Gentiles in Romans 15, 18, it's the response to the gospel by the power of the spirit and the work of God in our lives. And that sets us on a course to be used by God. And also the sprinkling of the blood, talking about the atoning work of Christ. This was a common metaphor in the Old Testament. Animals would be sprinkled. It was an act of purification. It was a symbol of their purification. And so by the work of Christ, we have been called to Him to obey the call of the gospel and believe the message of salvation. And we've been purified by the blood of Christ. The Son has done this work in our lives, such an encouraging work. We're saved by and purposed for obedience to the work of Christ. We are certainly weak and often failing people, but we do not remain in our brokenness. We can rise in confidence and accomplish the mission Christ has called us to because we are foreknown by the Father. We are indwelt and saved by the Spirit, and we are made pure by the Son, His sacrifice, His atonement. And what we will see throughout this series, I believe, is that the expected hope of the Christian, it's not merely a hope in final redemption, but it's a hope in the work of the gospel in and through us. We are purposed for continuing obedience It is in this that we can live our lives in a difficult place, in the midst of suffering for the glory of God. Let me just mention a couple of writing purposes of the writing themes that we'll see discovered. One writer Barclay said this is one of the easiest epistles to read because it appeals straight to our heart. Edmund Hebert says, First Peter is preeminently an epistle of triumphant faith amidst suffering. Tom Schreiner says the purpose of this letter is to encourage believers to stand fast while they endure suffering and distress in a present evil age. And I liked his longer statement in his New American Commentary. He says, they're encouraged to persevere, knowing that a great award will be theirs in the day of salvation. Such perseverance is exhibited by living a godly life, We'll see messages on each one of these themes. Living a godly life, living as good citizens, living as model slaves or employees, living as gentle, quiet wives, and understanding husbands. And when believers live in such a way, they indicate they're placing their hope in God, rather than the joys and comforts of this world. Another way of describing first Peter is to say that those who hope and trust in God and in his future reward will have the strength to endure whatever comes their way in the present. If our ultimate hope is in God, in final redemption, we can endure by his grace, with his peace, whatever God brings our way in this life. And so, in summary, Christians are to live as exiles here on mission, living distinct lives of holiness and love, enduring suffering, all for the testimony of Christ, and an expected hope of eternal redemption to come. This has already encouraged my heart greatly. I think it'll be a great encouragement to you as we live our lives. Your persecution right now may be your class. It might be your family. It may be your neighbor who you've tried to share the gospel with or coworker. I don't know what God has placed you in and the circumstances he has around you. but we can hope in his grace and in his peace. And we can certainly hope in final redemption and we can endure accomplishing the mission that he has called us to accomplish as exiles with expectant hope. Let's pray. God help us. God help us. Help us to be the kind of people recognizing that we're exiles, recognizing we don't fully belong here. There's always a dissonance in our heart about living in this world. There's always a dissonance about enjoying the blessings that we do enjoy, even in our country, and yet being called to be on mission for the gospel. God help us. to reconcile these things by your spirit. Help us, God, to endure difficulty in your grace. Help us, God, to be encouraged by the work of you, God, the Father, in our lives and choosing us, and God, the Spirit, and generating us, sanctifying us, and God, the Son, and thank you for your sacrifice, purifying us, we didn't deserve it. Help us to live with an expectant hope that you'll use us while we remain here as exiles for the sake of the gospel, for the building of the church. And help us all, especially God, to have that expectant hope for final redemption. It's such a blessing, I look forward to that. The return of Christ when all things will be made right, when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. God, thank you. Thank you for saving me. God, thank you for calling each of us to be in your harvest field. Help this series to transform us through the power of your word and spirit, in Jesus' name, amen.