1 Peter 1:6-7

March 22, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 18:40 in the audio file.

Or, A Test for Exiles

When our elders talked last Tuesday I asked them what they thought would be an appropriate subject for today’s sermon. They mostly agreed that I should preach about whatever I thought I should preach about, but they also agreed that perhaps the appropriate time to return to our study of Revelation would be when some kind of rhythm is reestablished. Maybe that will be a rhythm in livestream services; we can hope that is not the case. But as we evaluate what we can and should do for our worship services week-by-week, I am returning to another Scripture passage that is on my “Read in case of Emergency” list.

1 Peter 1:6-9 was the benediction for our liturgy last Lord’s Day, but the first time I remember drinking from its comfort was in the first few months of 1995. I was twenty years old, and had just had back surgery over Christmas break. The surgery was for a broken vertebrae; the doctor chipped bone from my left hip and fused L2 and L3, holding it all together with some screws and short rods. I was wearing a quarter-of-an-inch-thick plastic brace that extended from my neck to my pelvis, my second season of wearing it. The hope at that time was that I would be able to return to playing sports, but I was months away from finding out if the surgery really worked.

I was in my junior year of college, and during that semester I was enrolled in an upper level Greek class where we diagrammed every sentence in 1 Peter and wrote our own commentary, two or three verses at a time. I loved the whole study, and still have the stack of my handwritten yellow sheets. It was then that God used 1 Peter 1:6 as a brace for my inner man.

I was still in pain, yes I had regained most of the feeling in both of my legs. Though well enough to take classes, nothing was convenient (other than securing a temporary handicap placard for parking on campus). In particular, I continued to deal with the possibility that one of the things I cared about the most on earth was something I might never do again: play baseball. I had been on athletic scholarship for baseball when the pain and numbness of the fracture debilitated me and, though the surgery was intended to help, I didn’t yet know if it would. It was an individual-sized trial, but it was not only disruptive to my plans, it was redirecting my future in ways I couldn’t predict.

While studying 1 Peter I read what is still my favorite sermon ever, titled “The Christian’s Heaviness and Rejoicing” by Charles Spurgeon. I’ve shared that sermon with some of you, I’m guessing around 12 or 13 years ago, and I’ve preached on this passage before, but never for us at TEC. For today I didn’t even look at my notes from previous sermons because my heart has enough to say as it is.

This passage is for exiles, for Christian pilgrims, those for whom this world–in its current condition and systems–is not their home. Some translations call this group “aliens” (NASB), “strangers” (KJV), or “sojourners.” When God chooses a people for Himself, He elects them not only to eternal life but to a unique identity on earth. As we’ve talked about many times before, He does not immediately remove His people to heaven; He elects for us to stay, and sometimes He elects for us to suffer, and sometimes that suffering involves submission to unjust rulers (as Peter describes in 1 Peter 2:18-25).

The triune God is sovereign in our salvation. Verse 2 says that we are elect (and elect exiles) because of the Father’s foreknowledge, that the Son purchased our atonement, and that the Spirit makes us holy. God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ be blessed (!) for the mercy shown to us in causing us to be born again to a living hope. He brought us into relationship with Himself; He is our Fathe[...]