Sermons – Grace Evangelical Free Church // Wyoming, MN

1 Peter 1:13-16 Therefore, 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. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

INTRODUCTION

In 1 Peter 1:10-12, as we saw last week, Peter writes about the glorious grace of God that brought about the fruit-producing salvation of God described in 1:3-9. It is a grace so amazing that the prophets, apostles, and angels searched for and inquire of it, proclaim it at the cost of their lives, and long to see it respectively.

Peter invites his readers to consider that marvelous grace. You can almost feel him pleading with them to recognize that God’s saving grace is far, far greater than they have ever imagined—no matter how great they’ve imagined it to be. 1 Peter 1:3-12 is meant to inform the minds and stir the affections of those in the Church as they seek to suffer faithfully.

The grace of God is truly a remarkable idea to ponder. And so godly men and women will spend a good deal of time doing just that: working hard to think rightly about, and consequently be appropriately awed by, God’s glorious, saving grace.

However, as is the case with all of the great doctrines, we’re never meant to merely think about them. Rather, all good doctrine is meant to lead to good practice. Orthodoxy (right thinking) must always lead to orthopraxy (right living). Indeed, the more remarkable the truth about God and his work, the more remarkable our resulting action must be.

For instance, imagine the husband who loved considering the idea of taking his wife out on a date on their anniversary. The thought of getting dressed up and going to a nice restaurant to eat before walking and talking and praying together late into the evening was one of his favorite past times. He knew he was married to a godly, beautiful, strong, intelligent woman. He knew that she was worthy of his love. And he knew that he should desire spending time to her—particularly on their anniversary. He even told his wife and kids and friends about all his thoughts and plans.

But imagine then, that every year when their anniversary came he’s simply slip out into the garage and tinker on his cars or plop down in his favorite chair and read a book or watch TV. Clearly, there’s something wrong with this picture. There’s something very wrong with his understanding of things. In fact, in light of his actions (or inactions) we’d be right to question whether or not he really did know anything about his wife or the nature of God-honoring marriage. If he really believed the things he claimed he would certainly do the things he planned to do.

Again, this silly example is meant to highlight the simple fact that certain knowledge requires certain action—especially when it comes to knowledge of God and his gospel.

Peter, understanding this, follows the glorious doctrines of saving grace in 1:3-12 with glorious application in 1:13-16. He makes this transition clear in v.13 where he writes, “Therefore…”. In light of everything I’ve said concerning the grace of God which led to your salvation, there are certain things that you must do. In other words, Peter writes, because of the reality of God and his gospel, you must act. If you really love God and believe his promises, you will live differently than if you didn’t. Specifically, because of these things, Church, you must do the good works of hoping fully in grace and being holy.

Let’s pray that God would grant us a right understanding of, and appreciation for, his grace in Jesus Christ and a right response to it in our actions.

HOPE FULLY IN GRACE

Again,

Psalm 67:1-7 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, Selah 2 that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. 3 Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! 4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah 5 Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! 6 The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, shall bless us. 7 God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him!

INTRODUCTION

Welcome, once again, to missions week. For several years now we’ve chosen to carve out a week each year to highlight the call of God to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. Today is the beginning of that week.

Among the various things we do to highlight the need for missions is to preach on missions. That is, we want to make sure to lay out a biblical case for bringing the gospel to other tribes and tongues and nations. If it weren’t for such a clear divine mandate, missions, with its exceedingly significant financial, logistical, political, social, and safety challenges, would be nearly unimaginable and utterly overwhelming. But with God’s charge and accompanying power, missions is to be in the bloodstream of every Christ-follower—it is a part of who we are and what we do.

Therefore, to that end (to the end of making the divine missions mandate clear), from Psalm 67, I’m going to preach on one aspect of missions this week and another next week. Specifically, this week I want to help us all see the connection between the blessing of God on the people of God and missions. And then, next week, I want to help us all see the effect of God-honoring missions on the nations.

Please pray with me that God would make his Word clear to us and empower us to live it out.

GRACE, BLESSING, AND PLEASURE

If you knew that God would grant you anything you asked for, what would you ask for? A shopping spree? Health for someone you love? Wealth enough to live comfortably for the rest of your life? Unlimited video game time?

There’s at least one example in the bible of God directly offering to do just that. In the familiar story of Solomon, David’s son (recorded in 2 Chronicles 1), God offers to grant Solomon anything he asks for. Solomon, instead of riches or honor or military victory or long life, asks God for wisdom—which God gave abundantly, along with riches and honor and military victory and long life.

In the opening lines of Psalm 67, the psalmist makes not one, but three requests of God on behalf of Israel:

1. Be gracious to us.

2. Bless us.

3. Make your face shine upon us.

Before we get into the meaning of these specific requests, please note the fact that the requests are all corporate. That is, while many of us might ask God to bless us personally, or perhaps someone very close to us, the Psalmist asks God to bless all the people of God. He doesn’t merely ask God to be gracious to him, to bless him, and to make his face shine upon him; he asks God to grant those things to all of Israel.

Grace, would you consider freshly the corporate, communal nature of the Christian life? Would you consider whether or not you’ve made Christianity into an individual pursuit—your faith, your spiritual growth, your wants, your needs, your sin, your perseverance, your salvation—when it is in reality, from Adam to Christ’s first coming, to Christ’s return, to the new heavens and the new earth, always about God calling a people to himself?

Would you consider freshly the need to think corporately, pray corporately, serve corporately, fight sin corporately, worship corporately, and obey Jesus corporately, because that’s what it means to be Christian.

With that,

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

 

INTRODUCTION

In my experience the world around us defines faith as something people choose to believe in spite of significant contrary evidence. To word it slightly differently, the modern notion of faith is belief in something that is unlikely.

When you despair because your favorite team is down by 30 points with 15 seconds to go, your fellow fans might chastise you for your lack of faith. When your house is on fire, burned nearly to the ground, a comforting neighbor might tell you to have faith that your family photos are safe. When everyone around you tells you that belief in God is silly, you acknowledge the truthfulness of their assessment but let them know that you just have faith.

This type of faith—worldly faith—is of little value. It almost never proves right. It almost always proves wrong. Having this kind of faith is more akin to burying your head in the sand than anything else. More often than not, faith in this sense is simply a way to ignore reality and to dismiss all evidence in order to make yourself (or someone else) feel better in a difficult situation. When there is nothing solid to build hope on, it is said, we must have faith. Again, this type of faith is virtually worthless.

There is, however, another kind of faith. A faith of supreme value. A faith more valuable than all the gold in the world. This morning we’re going to look at the nature, reason, source, and outcome—the preciousness—of that kind of faith. Please pray with me that God would grant us all such faith.

 

THE NATURE OF BIBLICAL FAITH

As we just heard, 1 Peter 1:6-9 speaks of a kind of faith that is “more precious than gold” (v.7). If worldly faith is unreasonable, wishful thinking, what is biblical faith? The most straightforward definition comes from Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

From this, in simplest terms, it seems to me that there are three essential components to biblical faith: 1) Certainty in 2) an invisible 3) promise of God. So certainty, invisibility, promise are the three essential components of biblical faith.

The type of faith that Peter writes about—the kind that is God-honoring and more precious than gold—is not wishy washy. It is certain. It is assured. It flows from well reasoned, evidence backed, deep conviction, truth. It is not something we make up in a moment of difficulty or despair.

The faith of Peter’s readers had this certainty. That’s what allowed them to rejoice even in their great and various trials. Their faith had been tested and found genuine. Their faith produced love (v.8) and belief (v.8) and inexpressible and glorious joy (v.8). That’s not wishy washy. That’s assurance and conviction.

It is also, however, by its very nature, certainty in something that is invisible to us. One popular Christian song from a while ago had the line, “I will walk by faith even when I cannot see”. Do you see the problem with that line? It’s the word “even”. Get rid of the word “even” and it’s fine. “I will walk by faith when I cannot see.” We can only have faith in something we cannot see. If you can see it, it isn’t faith.

Again, as v.8 makes clear,

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

INTRODUCTION

Some of you have heard of the Igiby family. They are the main characters in Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga. The tale begins as Peterson describes a number of challenging situations the Igiby kids are forced to endure. For instance, they live under the oppressive rule of some pretty vile creatures known as fangs. Their mother requires them to do extra school work which none of their other friends have to do. The oldest, Janner, is constantly expected to be responsible for his extremely irresponsible younger brother, Tink. Perhaps hardest of all, their father died when they were all very young—too young to remember him at all—but their mother and grandfather won’t tell them anything about him, including his name!

What makes matters even more difficult is the fact that the kids don’t understanding why the things around them are as they are. In many ways the Igiby children’s entire lives are marked by questions and mystery and uncertainty and frustration. Virtually everything about them is controlled by something invisible to them—they know it’s there because they feel it at every turn, but they cannot see what it is. Eventually, though, the Igiby children learn the reasons for these things and it all makes sense. What was once confusing and burdensome becomes glorious and joyful.

In some ways that’s the context of 1 Peter as well. In it Peter teaches that the knowledge of Jesus and his work is meant to control every aspect of a Christian’s existence, even though he is invisible to them. Like the Igiby children, Peter writes, Christians are to live their lives based on things they cannot see.

Again, that’s Peter’s point in 1 Peter 1:8 when he says, “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…”.

Peter’s letter calls his people to live their lives based on something invisible to them—Jesus Christ.

What we find in vs.6-7, then, is an example of just this type of faithful response. Because of vs.3-5, where Peter briefly describes the nature and saving work of Jesus (the one who they cannot see and have not seen), God’s people are overwhelmed with joy. They are rejoicing in the fact that God is their Father, that Jesus is their Lord, that God’s mercy is upon them, that they have been born again, that they will be resurrected from the dead, and that they will receive an inheritance in heaven that is beyond imagination. That is, they have chosen to live their lives not based on the visible, challenging circumstances around them, but based on the invisible person and work and promises of Jesus.

It is my hope that God would use this sermon to grant all of us the will and strength to live in the same joy based on the same invisible realities even in the face of the same suffering. And it is my prayer that we too would live by faith, understanding some of what we experience through the bible’s explanations, but not all of it. Let’s pray.

REJOICE EVEN IN TIMES OF SUFFERING

Remember, this entire letter is mainly intended to encourage the Christians under Peter’s charge (and then the Church at large, and then us) to remain faithful even in the midst of persecution and suffering.

Habakkuk 3:1-19

A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth.

O Lord, I have heard the report of you,

and your work, O Lord, do I fear.

In the midst of the years revive it;

in the midst of the years make it known;

in wrath remember mercy.

God came from Teman,

and the Holy One from Mount Paran.                                  Selah

His splendor covered the heavens,

and the earth was full of his praise.

His brightness was like the light;

rays flashed from his hand;

and there he veiled his power.

Before him went pestilence,

and plague followed at his heels.

He stood and measured the earth;

he looked and shook the nations;

then the eternal mountains were scattered;

the everlasting hills sank low.

His were the everlasting ways.

I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction;

the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord?

Was your anger against the rivers,

or your indignation against the sea,

when you rode on your horses,

on your chariot of salvation?

You stripped the sheath from your bow,

calling for many arrows.                                                         Selah

You split the earth with rivers.

The mountains saw you and writhed;

the raging waters swept on;

the deep gave forth its voice;

it lifted its hands on high.

The sun and moon stood still in their place

at the light of your arrows as they sped,

at the flash of your glittering spear.

You marched through the earth in fury;

you threshed the nations in anger.

You went out for the salvation of your people,

for the salvation of your anointed.

You crushed the head of the house of the wicked,

laying him bare from thigh to neck.                                        Selah

You pierced with his own arrows the heads of his warriors,

who came like a whirlwind to scatter me,

rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret.

You trampled the sea with your horses,

the surging of mighty waters.

I hear, and my body trembles;

my lips quiver at the sound;

rottenness enters into my bones;

my legs tremble beneath me.

Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble

to come upon people who invade us.

Though the fig tree should not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the deer’s;

he makes me tread on my high places.

To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.

 

Two weeks ago we saw that Habakkuk was complaining of God’s idleness and silence to wickedness. We saw last week from Matt’s sermon that the judgement of God on sin is certain and the knowledge of it is a strange comfort to those who live by faith. This week we will see that Habakkuk’s perplexity in God’s judgement is overcome by his joy in God’s salvation.

It is inevitable that as you grow older, life changes you. Physically, mentally and spiritually you are a different person that you were ten years ago. Next month I will be 34 years old. I can remember moving to this area ten years ago and have reflected on the type of person I was than and am now. I’m different.

Physically I have a lot less hair than I did ten years ago. Mentally, I’ve gained more knowledge and experience in understanding people and how they act. Spiritually, I have grown in my understanding of and love for God’s Word and his ways....

Habakkuk 2:2-20

And the Lord answered me:

“Write the vision;

make it plain on tablets,

so he may run who reads it.

For still the vision awaits its appointed time;

it hastens to the end—it will not lie.

If it seems slow, wait for it;

it will surely come; it will not delay.

“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,

but the righteous shall live by his faith.

“Moreover, wine is a traitor,

an arrogant man who is never at rest.

His greed is as wide as Sheol;

like death he has never enough.

He gathers for himself all nations

and collects as his own all peoples.”

Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say,

“Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own—

for how long?—

and loads himself with pledges!”

Will not your debtors suddenly arise,

and those awake who will make you tremble?

Then you will be spoil for them.

Because you have plundered many nations,

all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you,

for the blood of man and violence to the earth,

to cities and all who dwell in them.

“Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house,

to set his nest on high,

to be safe from the reach of harm!

You have devised shame for your house

by cutting off many peoples;

you have forfeited your life.

For the stone will cry out from the wall,

and the beam from the woodwork respond.

“Woe to him who builds a town with blood

and founds a city on iniquity!

Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts

that peoples labor merely for fire,

and nations weary themselves for nothing?

For the earth will be filled

with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.

“Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink—

you pour out your wrath and make them drunk,

in order to gaze at their nakedness!

You will have your fill of shame instead of glory.

Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision!

The cup in the Lord’s right hand

will come around to you,

and utter shame will come upon your glory!

The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,

as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them,

for the blood of man and violence to the earth,

to cities and all who dwell in them.

“What profit is an idol

when its maker has shaped it,

a metal image, a teacher of lies?

For its maker trusts in his own creation

when he makes speechless idols!

Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake;

to a silent stone, Arise!

Can this teach?

Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,

and there is no breath at all in it.

But the Lord is in his holy temple;

let all the earth keep silence before him.”

When my neck and back are out of alignment, I know something’s not right. I experience pain, muscle spasms and lose range of motion. I know I need to get to the chiropractor to get my bones back into alignment, I need them to be put back into their proper place so my body can function the way it was intended.

Laying on the chiropractor’s table I also know that the adjustment and the violent twisting of my neck and back is going to be painful for a brief time,

Habakkuk 1:1-17

The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,

and you will not hear?

Or cry to you c“Violence!”

and you will not save?

Why do you make me see iniquity,

and why do you idly look at wrong?

Destruction cand violence are before me;

strife and contention arise.

So the law is paralyzed,

and justice never goes forth.

For the wicked surround the righteous;

so justice goes forth perverted.

“Look among the nations, and see;

wonder and be astounded.

For I am doing a work in your days

that you would not believe if told.

For behold, iI am raising up the Chaldeans,

that bitter and hasty nation,

who march through the breadth of the earth,

to seize dwellings not their own.

They are dreaded and fearsome;

their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.

Their horses are swifter than leopards,

more fierce than the evening wolves;

their horsemen press proudly on.

Their horsemen come from afar;

they fly like an eagle swift to devour.

They all come for violence,

all their faces forward.

They gather captives like sand.

At kings they scoff,

and at rulers they laugh.

sThey laugh at every fortress,

for they pile up earth and take it.

Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,

guilty men, whose own might is their god!”

Are you not from everlasting,

O Lord my God, my Holy One?

We shall not die.

O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment,

and you, O zRock, have established them for reproof.

You who are of purer eyes than to see evil

and cannot look at wrong,

why do you idly look at traitors

and remain silent when the wicked swallows up

the man more righteous than he?

You make mankind like the fish of the sea,

like crawling things that have no ruler.

He brings all of them up with a hook;

he drags them out with his net;

he gathers them in his dragnet;

so he rejoices and is glad.

Therefore he sacrifices to his net

and makes offerings to his dragnet;

for by them he lives in luxury,

and his food is rich.

Is he then to keep on emptying his net

and mercilessly killing nations forever?

Have you ever accidentally, or maybe purposefully, come across someone’s personal diary, or journal, or secret note that revealed their innermost thoughts? I’m thinking of the real, honest, and raw emotions that someone has taken the time to put down on paper, revealing an experience they are having that you didn’t realize was happening. It could be the brother that digs out the diary of his sister that she hid in the bottom of her dresser drawer. It could be an email with sensitive content that wasn’t meant to be sent to you. Whatever it may be, when we come across these types of communications, there is an interest we have that spikes in reading it. What will we find out? We are about to read something secretive that we didn’t know before.

The book of Habakkuk is like that. We are entering into his conversation with God and hearing his real, honest, raw complaints to God about his situation. Habakkuk was prophet of God, yet in this journal of his, he is struggling to understand what God is doing. He doesn’t have it all figured out and his soul is a wreck because of the confusion he is feeling.

This type of dialogue between man and God is unusual for a book written by a prophet in the Old Testament.

1 Peter 1:3-5 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, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

INTRODUCTION

This morning I want to share with you all a biblical perspective on what it means to be born again.

From my time as an undergrad I remember a man known as “The Wells Hall Preacher”. Wells Hall is a building on the campus of the school I attended. The Wells Hall preacher was a man who stood outside of it most days. What made this man notable was that he wore a sign naming numerous sins, declaring that those who commit such sins were going to hell and that he was constantly debating students who didn’t agree with him.

The two phrases I most remember hearing from him were “you must repent” and “you must be born again”.

In my experience the Wells Hall preacher’s understanding of what it means to be born again is pretty typical. In general, people think of being born again as a charge for non-Christians to decide to turn from the world and trust in Jesus. This common understanding has at least two significant errors.

First, most people (including the Wells Hall preacher as far as I could tell) think of being born again as something that happens after someone places his or her faith in Jesus. That is, most people believe that once someone initially trusts in Jesus they are subsequently born again. As we’ll see shortly, this is not what Peter or any of the NT authors mean by “born again”.

Second, most people seem to understand being born again as something we must choose to do. The Wells Hall preacher certainly did. As I said, he was constantly calling people to make that decision. But again, this is not what the NT means by “born again”.

1 Peter 1:3-5 speaks indirectly to the first error and directly to the second. In addition, it paints a remarkable picture of the cause, source, and result of new birth. I want to help you see each of these things from the text and then I mean to close by helping you see how it ought to shape our evangelism.

Let’s pray, then, that God would help us to understand his work in our lives in order that we’d live accordingly and share it rightly with others.

THE MEANING OF NEW BIRTH

Perhaps you noticed that 1 Peter 1:3-5 does not speak directly to the meaning of being born again. Peter just sort of assumes his readers understand what he means. He describes various aspects of being born again, but does not define it.

Before we get to the things this text does speak directly about, then, I want to remind you of the meaning of the new birth (and therein address both of the common misunderstanding concerning it). More than once I’ve preached on this in the past year so I won’t belabor it here. Again though, I do want to quickly make sure we’re all on the same page.

The bible clearly and repeatedly and consistently teaches that all of the sons and daughters of Adam are born spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1-2). We are conceived with Adam’s sinful nature (and consequently, quickly share in his sinful choices). The wages of our sinful nature and choices is death—immediate spiritual death and eventual physical death. That is, we are born alive physically, but dead spiritually. We are not born spiritually sick, we are born spiritually dead.

This is a significant problem because, in addition to causing us to be spiritually stillborn our sin has also caused us to become enemies of God. Worse still, the only way to be reconciled to God is through faith in the sacrificial,

1 Peter 1:3-5 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, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

 

INTRODUCTION

Have any of you ever been in a conversation that went something like this:

Parent: Good afternoon, Johnny. How was school today?

Johnny: It was OK. I got an A on my science paper, I moved to my new locker, math class is still hard, I don’t think Mrs. Stephens likes me very much, I was suspended for a week for driving my car through the school’s front door because Brian dared me to do it, and I need you to add some more money to my lunch account.

Do you see what happened there? In the middle of some important stuff is some really important stuff.

That’s what we have in a certain sense in our passage for this morning. In my silly example the really important stuff was sandwiched in the middle of the important stuff by Johnny in an attempt to hide it. This is, of course, not what Peter was doing in his letter. And yet, Peter teaches several important things in the middle of teaching several really important things that would be easy to miss if we aren’t paying attention.

Remember, the main thrust of this passage (the really important stuff) is a charge from Peter for God’s people to worship God first and most in all circumstances (including times of significant persecution and suffering). Having preached on that a few weeks ago, we’re circling back around to look at several key phrases in this same text (the important stuff).

To that end, last week we considered the biblical teaching that God is the Father of Jesus and God is the Father of all who believe in Jesus. Peter just sort of asserts that at the beginning of v.3. And again, if we’re not careful, we’ll miss it. Similarly, in the same verse Peter refers to Jesus as “our Lord”. This too is remarkable important (especially in our culture) and easy to miss. Therefore, to keep us from missing it, I’m going to preach on it today.

Please pray with me that God would cause us to see the greatness of our Lord Jesus and all of his commands, such that we’d delight to submit to him as Lord in every area of our lives—even in times of great difficulty.

JESUS IS LORD

Peter’s first letter begins by acknowledging the Lordship of Jesus. He writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” Interestingly, his second letter ends with the same acknowledgment in a prayer for the saints. There he pleads with them to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…” (2 Peter 3:18). Peter’s letters are bookended with the Lordship of Christ.

In addition to his letters, in the Gospels, when Peter lived and ministered with Jesus, he referred to Jesus as “Lord” over and over again (Matthew 14:28, 16:22, 17:4, 18:21; Luke 5:8, 12:41, 22:33; John 6:68, 13:6-9, 36-37, all of chapter 21, Acts 2:36).

One significant example is found in Matthew 14:27-30. In this passage Peter and the disciples were sitting in a boat as Jesus had instructed them. As they waited for Jesus he came to them, walking on the water.

“Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.’ 28 And Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ 29 He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me.'”

1 Peter 1:3-5 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, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

INTRODUCTION

Last week we saw from this same passage (1:3-5) that our first and main duty in all circumstances (including times of significant persecution and suffering) is to worship God. This was Peter’s first charge to the persecution-scattered saints to whom he was writing. He wrote, in your suffering, in your fear, in your pain, in your loneliness, in your ignorance, in your uncertainty; before you feel sorry for yourself, before you call on your fellow Christians for help, even before you pray to God for deliverance, praise God, worship God, bless God’s name. Acknowledge and declare, Peter said, “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We then went on to see Peter’s reasons for this: 1) God’s glory is infinitely greater than all of your difficult circumstances, and 2) Your difficult circumstances don’t diminish or effect God’s glory in any way.

Now, for the next few weeks, I want to back up a bit and look at a few crucial phrases in this same text. The first of which is found in v.3. In it Peter refers to God as the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. This week, then, we’re going to consider the fatherhood of God.

Recently, from someone I respect very much, I heard it said that understanding and experiencing God as Father is the most important thing you can understand and experience about God. I’m always a little skeptical when I hear claims like that (how would you measure or quantify or judge such a thing?), and yet even to have it mentioned as a possibility for such things demonstrates its significance.

Please pray with me that God would be pleased to help us grow in our understanding and experience of the fatherhood of God.

GOD THE FATHER OF JESUS

Again, very clearly 1 Peter 1:3 teaches that God is the Father of Jesus. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” 1 Peter 1:3, however, is not the only NT passage, and Peter is not the only NT figure, to teach such a thing.

Paul teaches the same thing in Ephesians 1:3 (and Romans 15:6 and 2 Corinthians 1:3). There he writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places…”.

More significantly, perhaps, Jesus himself refers to God as his Father many, many times throughout the gospels. In fact, “Father” is far and away the most common title Jesus gives to God.

John 6:40 provides one such example, (Jesus speaking) “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Of this, R.C. Sproul writes,

“In all existing books of the Old Testament and all existing books of extrabiblical Jewish writings dating from the beginning of Judaism until the tenth century A.D. in Italy—there is not a single reference of a Jewish person addressing God directly in the first person as Father. There were appropriate forms of address that were used by Jewish people in the Old Testament, and the children were trained to address God in proper phrases of respect. All these titles were memorized, and the term Father was not among them. The first Jewish rabbi to call God ‘Father’ directly was Jesus of Nazareth. It was a radical departure from tradition,