We are continuing on with 1 Peter chapter 1. We will
cover verses 10 – 12 today, but we will start reading from verse 3 to remind us
of the context of the scripture.
1Pe 1:3 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,
1Pe 1:4 to an inheritance that is imperishable,
undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
1Pe 1:5 who by God's power are being guarded through
faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
1Pe 1:6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little
while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,
1Pe 1:7 so that the tested genuineness of your
faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may
be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus
Christ.
1Pe 1:8 Though you have not seen him, you love him.
Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is
inexpressible and filled with glory,
1Pe 1:9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the
salvation of your souls.
1Pe 1:10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who
prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired
carefully,
1Pe 1:11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of
Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and
the subsequent glories.
1Pe 1:12 It was revealed to them that they were
serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to
you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent
from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
As you may recall last time I spoke we covered verses 6
through 9 about how faith is considered more valuable than gold. We looked
briefly at the gold refining process and how faith increases in purification
and gold decreases as it is purified. It was a continued encouragement from
Peter that our trials can be for our benefit and that we are to look to our
full and final salvation.
A question that I would ask you today
is… Is that enough for you? Is the promise of a full and final salvation enough
for you to endure and persevere even when things seem at their worst?
There have been many times in my life that if I were to
be honest I would have to say no. My joy and hope has not always been in my
salvation and even still if I allow my flesh to control my body I still
struggle in that area. Praise God, by His grace, I struggle much less. But,
none the less, I still find myself from time to time looking to my family or my
wife or my job or my possessions or even my vacations for my hope and joy. Not
that these things, in themselves are bad. But I look in hope to them as a
requirement for my joy. There are even times when I feel like I have no hope
and no joy. I disregard the wonderfulness of my salvation and what salvation
really is and how if understood properly is everything that we need to overcome
adversities.
As Christians
what should give us our hope and joy of course is our relationship with Christ
and our hope of our full and final salvation. Out of this hope and joy it can
and will affect all of those other areas in a positive way, but only if Christ
is the center and the focal point. Jesus is the foundation, or as He is
described as the chief cornerstone, which if that stone is removed the building
will crumble. But as long as He remains as the foundation the rest can be torn
down and rebuilt or improved upon repeatedly.
Sadly, there are many Christians who
have never really realized the splendor and glory of their salvation. They just
see salvation as that necessary thing to gain access into heaven and it stops
there. Salvation, they will say, is important but they don’t see their
relationship with Christ as their cornerstone or as being their hope and joy
both now and when we experience our full and final salvation.
If we
can recall Peter has explained to us how God works in us to increase our faith through
our suffering and make Christ not just another god but THE GOD the creator and
sustainer of our salvation. God does this through the trials and challenges in
our lives. When our chips are the lowest, so to speak, we as Christians should
be able to focus more clearly on what really matters. We typically begin to
consider what am I living for? It forces us to contemplate that age old
question of “What is life all about?” Those that are on death row or those with
a terminal illness often become born again on their last days. Why? Because
they have come to a point where they have to face the truth of their sins and
the punishment becomes more “real”. Of
course those that don’t know Christ as their savior or refuse to believe, have
no hope and will usually medicate themselves with drugs or things of the like
so that they don’t have to face the truth of where their life is leading them.
Peter was writing to people enduring
affliction in a strange land, in some cases suffering persecution. I am sure
that some of them wondered at times, if they didn’t I am sure that I would have
wondered…Is it really worth it? Peter’s encouragement, and mine to you today is
to look beyond your suffering to a salvation that is so great that it is
indescribable. A salvation so great that the prophets of old struggled to
understand and that which angels long to look as our text says. It is worth it!
Peter spends some time trying to show
us the greatness and the certainty of our full and final salvation and the joy
that should give us now in the midst of our trials. How wonderful it is
to have promised to us something so wonderful that even the wise prophets and
angels have not fully grasped.
All of us would agree that we are to
live the example that Christ was for us. Not that we can be perfect as He was,
but our end goal that we strive for should be holiness. Just as Christ suffered
on earth and then was glorified, so we also should expect to suffer for His
sake with anticipation of the glory ahead of us. If we put all of our weight on
the cornerstone knowing that it cannot fail, then we can rest in Him and
joyfully endure trials, knowing that no wind, rain, fire or flood can destroy
our position and future in Christ.
Is this hope of salvation
really worth it? I want us to look a little deeper into our salvation. If we need
to return to the joy of our salvation as Psalm 51 says then we should
understand why His salvation for us is so significant.
As we look at the text we are going to
see five ways that salvation is significant.
The first that we
see is salvation is significant because it points to God’s grace.
As we grow in Christ we see more and more how desperately
we need a savior. We see ourselves as more and more deserving of punishment and
hell which shows us how incredible a God we serve that made a way for us to not
serve the sentence that we deserved. Like the pendulum that JD talks about the
more I see my sin as an atrocity to God the more I am amazed and see the love
of God in His provision for forgiveness. So salvation is so significant because
it shows God’s grace to me and to others. There is hope for all sinners.
Salvation
is so significant because it points to God’s longevity and security. It has
stood the test of time.
We discussed last week about the fact that our salvation
was predestined before we were even born. He offers a salvation so significant
that even these great men of old spent their lives looking for it, studying it.
We have seen and heard of people trying to disprove Christianity almost since
the beginning of time. Many people question God when a national type disaster
happens. How could God allow something like this to happen? Perhaps God does
not even exist. What if I am suffering for nothing? Peter is reassuring us that
salvation is so significant that it is rooted in prophesies that were made
hundreds of years before Christ ever came. The prophets may not even have
understood what they were writing about, but they were accurately predicting
what we now call the past. Salvation is significant because it has withstood
the times and scrutiny of a depraved society.
Salvation
is so significant because it points to God’s guidance and comfort.
Salvation is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us.
It is our comfort
and our instruction, in us to cause us to grow in sanctification and obedience.
Just as the Bible was penned by men filled with the Holy Spirit so are we who
are in Christ today. The same Holy Spirit that was the divine inspiration of
the writing of scripture is in you prompting you to preach the gospel so that
God will be revealed to all men. Salvation is significant because it allows the
Holy Spirit to work within us.
Salvation
is so significant because it points to Gods magnificence, so magnificent that
angels long to look at it.
Many people think
of angels as gods but this proves that they are not. They obviously know a lot
about God; they are in His presence and sent out to do His will. They have
tremendous power and authority and yet even the angels long to have the
privilege that we have in our salvation. Salvation is significant because it
shows God’s magnificence.
Most importantly, salvation is so great because it points to God’s son, Jesus Christ, and
how glorious of a Savior He is.
Our salvation is a tangible proof that Jesus is real,
that the word of God is real. We can see in the text that this is all about
Christ. Our salvation is the fruit of Christ’s work, from the beginning of time
to His time on the earth, His dying on the cross for our sins, His resurrection
and His rising up to heaven, even His return to earth to gather His saints. Our
salvation is significant because it portrays the glory of Christ.
Peter is encouraging us that our
salvation is so great that whatever we must endure for Christ’s sake is
absolutely worth it. We may have trials and hardships in this life but we can
draw strength on our hope and joy of our salvation, both, our salvation now and
our full and final salvation. Have you ever had a moment where you just saw how
magnificent God was and been so grateful for your salvation that you couldn’t
hardly do anything but weep? Not out of sadness but out of an awe and reverence
for God with a solemn joy that you can’t even explain. We all need to be searching
for that. We have incredible strength to endure and press on toward the goal
for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
I pray that today you would find a
refreshing in your soul as you grow in experiencing the joy of your salvation.
I pray that you would find your salvation “worth it” remembering how
significant your salvation really is.
No comments:
Post a Comment