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The One Who Knew Him Best - 1 Peter 1:1 - 2:3

The Weekend, October 10 –

We’ve come to the weekend and another New Testament book in our quest to read through the New Testament in a Year. This weekend we’re reading from 1 Peter 1:1 – 2:3. After you’ve finished, please return here that we might walk through it again, and Thanks!

 

Without a doubt, Peter was the most prominent of the disciples of Jesus. He was always willing to step to the front of the line whenever Jesus asked a question, or in some cases, when he thought he knew better than Jesus – look at Matthew 16:13 – 23 to see both together. Jesus had told Peter that “Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you” (Luke 22:31-32). Peter had a heart bursting with energy, and he wanted so badly to please Jesus, but he wasn’t always prudent in what he said or did. Still, Jesus loved Peter. When the death of Christ took place, it was Peter, along with John, who ran to the empty tomb, and although they were baffled, they didn’t dismiss it. It was Peter, after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus to heaven, who, newly filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, proclaimed Jesus as risen Savior and Lord. It was Peter who God called to evangelize the first Gentiles in Cornelius’ household (Acts 10). Peter was ordinary, a fisherman. He had worked hard to build a fishing business, and then Jesus came one day, looked at him, and said, “Come follow me and I will make you a fisher of men” (Luke 5:1 – 11). From the day Peter heard those words to the time he wrote this letter, thirty or more years have passed. Yet Peter has not lost his zeal, passion, or love of Christ Jesus, and his letter makes that clear.

Peter introduces himself in 1:1 as “an Apostle of Jesus Christ”. Even at the onset of his letter, there is a humility that Peter has learned over the years of maturing in the faith. He does not say, “I knew Jesus, I was his right-hand man”, instead, he stands alongside all of the other disciples as “apostollos” - ones sent out to represent Jesus Christ. His letter is sent to “exiles in the Dispersion” – Jewish believers scattered all over Roman-ruled Asia (modern Turkey). Peter writes to encourage them, give them instruction, and remind them of things they already had learned. There is a deep sense of Peter understanding that God is sovereignly at work in these scattered believer’s lives -

“…elect exiles of the dispersion… 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” (1:1b-2).

Foreknowledge is God’s sovereign providence and their salvation is rooted in God, as well as their sanctification, which always leads to obedience in Christ, because of God’s grace and peace (shalom) to all who are his. The basis for God’s foreknowledge and sanctifying grace is His love, which is demonstrated in sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to shed his blood for the remission of our Sin. It is the Spirit of God who does this in our hearts and in our lives.

His theme at the outset is to remind them/us of who they/we are in Christ Jesus. It is their (and our) identity as Christians – those redeemed by the work of Jesus Christ. This identity is what he wants to remind us of, and in a brilliantly crafted style, he proclaims it all in theological and practical ways -

“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” (1:3-5).

God’s great mercy is based on God’s great love, and it alone is why any of us can proclaim to be “born again” (John 3:3-8). Our new birth is a “living hope” – not a wishing hope, or uncertain hope – but a hope as alive as Jesus was when resurrected from the dead. It is a hope that is confident in our status as God’s children, co-heirs with Jesus Christ. Lastly, he reminds us that God guards all of us in first giving us grace, and then in supplying faith that is our fortress and defense in our salvation – past, present, and future.  The beauty of grace, mercy, faith is that it operates in all areas of our lives, at all times, and in both good and bad times. This is Peter’s point as he reminds them that even in suffering – which by now many of them had experienced – they can have confidence in God -

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 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. 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, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1:6-9).

For every believer down through the ages, including us today, the fact is that life in a sinful fallen world for a redeemed believer in Jesus is not always easy. How do we maintain faith in the midst of suffering, circumstances that are difficult, pain that is never diminished? We rejoice! We learn to praise God who knows us, called us, given us new birth, and asks us to trust Him. This is the “the tested genuineness of your faith” he speaks of. We are God’s witnesses of God’s power, glory, and grace, and even though we have never seen Jesus, we believe, and we rejoice with joy, proclaiming his glory in worship and praise because we believe he has saved us, he is saving us, and he will save us into eternity. Difficulties in life are never fun, and suffering is even worse. Yet they are part of the “testing of our faith”, and are never capricious, or without purpose.  The fact that we have never seen Jesus is not a barrier to faith in Him if we but consider that before Christ came, the Old Testament Prophets were in the same place (1:10 – 12). The words in verse 12 are especially interesting, as he says that salvation in Christ was so unique that even the Angels in heaven were, as it were, “looking, longing to see how it would occur”. The Angels were as if “standing on their tip-toes”, peering over the landscape to see how it was going to work out (Ephesians 3:10). 

Now, having reminded them/us of the great work God has done for them (us), he calls them to live it all out in obedience, with grace as their source, to live holy lives (1:13 – 15). The particular call to our lives in Christ is summed up with the words, “… as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1:15-16).

Trying to tell someone to “be holy” in our present culture is filled with questions. “What does it look like to be holy?” “What are the practices of being holy?” “Will I stand out as someone who is trying to be too serious, and not fit in with others in normal life?” Peter says it starts in our minds –

“preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:13).

We begin to see that living holy is living thoughtfully, by grace, looking discerningly and looking forward with the end in mind when Christ is revealed to us in heaven. If this were the way in which we lived – on a daily basis – we would see that holiness is practical, and not another world. To be holy, biblically, is to be “set apart for God’s purpose”. It is the same the thing Paul said to the Romans when he wrote them –

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (12:1-2).

To be holy is to live life with God in view in all that we do, or say. It is to live purposefully, with the awareness that our lives are not our own, for we have been redeemed by God, through Christ’s shed blood for us on the cross, for God’s purposes, to the glory of God –

“knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (1:18-21).

Peter knows personally how Jesus Christ can change a person’s life – he experienced it. He also knows how grateful he was for what Christ Jesus did for him, and the sacrifice of Christ changed the entire world giving all who would turn to Christ a “faith and hope (that) are in God”.

Now that we know, what do we therefore do? We live out our faith in genuine love for others (1:22), and with live out our faith in an awareness that what we have been given by God, in Christ, is a gift – a gift that we did not deserve, and a gift that gives us a new perspective on what life is all about – and how that must spill over into our lives personally. He says this at the end of chapter 1, and the first few verses of chapter 2 -

“Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you, So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1:23 – 2:3).

Living for Christ Jesus is not possible apart from Grace – the awareness that God loves us, and demonstrated that love by giving us his Son who died for us, shedding his blood, for the forgiveness we now have received. Now, having been born from above, how do we let the above take over the below? The higher nature of faith is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, etc… the produce of the Spirit, fruit! Our lower nature though is not yet eradicated but can change. We are like grass and flowers, destined to die; but the word of the Lord never dies, and so we are called, in holiness, to leave behind the lower part of our nature (malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander) and “grow up into salvation”. It is a process, not an immediate action. We don’t gain it by spending an hour on Sunday in a church service. It is at the heart of our faith that God is at work in us twenty-four seven, three hundred and sixty-five (or six) days a year!

Peace

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