Eulogy - His Honor and Praise to God

Introduction: Peter's Greco-Roman Letter Structure and Eulogy

0:03 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, February 22, 1998, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now we turn again this morning to 1 Peter chapter 1, 1 Peter chapter 1, and I shall read in your hearing the first four verses of 1 Peter chapter 1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect who are sojourners of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace be multiplied.

1:06 Blessed be the God. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His great mercy, begot us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you. Well, as we were reminded in the previous hour in the adult class, we need...

1:37 We need the presence of the Spirit who indicted this word and gave it to us from the mind and pen of the Apostle Peter. We need His presence to help both preacher and listener that we may profit from that word. So let us again plead for that needed help.

1:59 Our Father, we have been thankful on numerous occasions for the promise of our Lord Jesus that if we who are evil know how to give good gifts, to our children, how much more will You, our sinless, loving, heavenly Father, delight to give good gifts, even the gift of the Spirit, to those of Your children who ask. And so we come in our felt sense of need, asking that Your Spirit may be given not to make us bark like dogs or to laugh with gales of irrational humor. We have asked for the Holy Spirit, not that we may have exotic feelings, that we may fall into a trance or some mindless state of existence, but we ask for His presence, that He will take the scales from our eyes, the dullness from our hearts, the indisposition from our wills, the coldness from our affections, that He would rip from our hearts the remnants of our wickedness, and that we may know what it is to receive the Word with eagerness, with discernment, with faith, and with a disposition of obedience and desire to do Your will.

3:23 Speak then, O Lord, we plead, and help us for Your name's sake. Amen. Now, many of you know from your experience in this place and in other places where an effort is made to responsibly expound the Spirit of God. You have found the Scriptures that often preachers find a three-point outline helpful in trying to make clear that portion of the Word of God that they are expounding and also to give it some semblance of rhetorical symmetry or balance.

4:03 Well, in the first century world of Greek and Roman culture, it was also the custom to use a three-point outline when you began a letter. And Peter, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, uses this morally neutral cultural fact and begins his letter in the acceptable Greco-Roman fashion in the first century. He begins, his first point is to identify himself as the author and the sender of the letter. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

4:40 Then he identifies the recipients of the letter in their essential designation, they are the elect sojourners or resident aliens of the dispersion. Then he identifies them in their geographical location, naming four provinces in Asia Minor. And then he identifies them in their fundamental spiritual privileges. They are what they are according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, within the orbit of the sanctifying ministry of God the Spirit, and unto obedience.

5:16 And then he gives the ordinariness and sprinkling of the blood of God the Son. And then for his third point of introduction, after identifying himself and then the recipients of the letter, he gives the ordinary conveyance of a greeting of goodwill, here saturated with these marvelous gospel realities, grace to you and peace be multiplied. Now after using that accepted outline and thoroughly Christianizing it and gospelizing it, Peter begins the body of his letter in verse 3. Now since Peter was not interested in composing a literary masterpiece to be admired by professional literary critics, nor was he concerned to compose an artistic letter that would be analyzed by logicians and rhetoricians, it should not surprise us that I have not found any two commentators of the fifteen or more commentaries that I consult in preparing these expository messages, I have found no two commentaries agreeing as to how to outline 1 Peter. Unlike the book of Romans, where there is a good bit of consensus in outlining it, commentators scratch their heads and come up with all kinds of different outlines for 1 Peter. But one thing is clear.

6:43 All of them recognize that when he begins his letter in verse 3, the body of the letter proper, he breaks into this eulogy, this speaking well of God, from verse 3 through verse 12, which forms the very foundation of the entire epistle. Peter writes his compact, passionate, pastoral exhortation, intending not that it would be critically analyzed, but joyfully assimilated by suffering saints. That's the burden of his heart. He says that in chapter 5 and verse 12.

7:23 He says, I have written unto you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast therein. This is an intensely passionate, compact, pastoral exhortation to these suffering saints, marking out the path of grace, the grace of God that will be sufficient for all their trials, the grace of God that brings the pattern of obligation to live and to walk as pilgrims as they make their way to the celestial city. And as I've already indicated, he begins the letter by drawing the attention of his readers away from themselves, away from their distressing circumstances, and fastens the eyes of their souls upon God himself and upon the blessings of his grace. Before he begins to instruct these elect sojourners of the dispersion how they are to conduct themselves in their earthly pilgrimage in an evil world, his desirous of setting before them their great possessions and privileges as those who are foreknown by God the Father, sanctified by God the Spirit,

The Principle: God's Indicatives Precede His Imperatives

8:51 and brought into obedience and sprinkling of the blood of God the Son. And Peter does this because he understands and is applying this fundamental principle of the Christian life. And that principle is this. We must understand and believe what we possess in Christ if we are to embrace and do what is required of us by Christ.

9:23 Now that's not just an effort to turn out a clever turn phrase. Do you grasp the significance of what I've just stated? Peter understands this vital principle of the Christian life that we must understand and believe what we possess in Christ if we are to embrace and do what is required of us by Christ. Perhaps you've heard people say God's imperatives follow God's indicatives.

9:56 That's just another way of saying the same thing. An indicative is a statement of what is. And God desires that we understand what is. What we are in Christ that we might embrace and be enabled to do what is required of us by Christ.

10:15 That is, the imperatives. Peter will have plenty of imperatives. Anyone who's uncomfortable with divine imperatives will be very uncomfortable with the letter of 1 Peter from verse 13 of chapter 1 to the end of the entire epistle. You'll have an irksome relationship to 1 Peter if you don't like divine imperatives.

10:38 Because Peter begins with this. Because Peter begins in verse 13 with imperatives. Wherefore, girding up the loins of your mind, be sober. Set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought to you.

10:51 As children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves, as he who called you is holy, be ye holy, ye shall be holy. Imperative after imperative follows as marching orders for pilgrims on their way to a better place. But undergirding and supporting all of the imperatives and giving flavor and a sweet fragrance of gospel motivation to those imperatives are the indicatives of verses 3 through 12. In this amazing paragraph in which Peter sets before us some of the major dimensions of what we are and what we possess in Christ before he sets before us in very specific ways what is required of us by Christ. And as Peter does this, you'll notice that he does not approach this matter in the cold, calculating manner of someone simply determined to lay out in an analytical way a list of the privileges of a believer in Christ. As Peter is meditating upon those truths that he desires to convey to these elect sojourners of the dispersion, as he turns over in his own mind

Peter's Passionate Eulogy: Blessed Be God

12:18 and his own spirit what he wants to convey to them of their privileges in Christ, of what they are by the grace of Christ, he does not begin with explanation and say, God, who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has according to his mercy begotten us again unto a living hope. He does not take the posture of mere explanation, but as his own spirit feels the friction of the truth and remember who Peter is, this intense, volatile man made what he was made by God's sovereign disposition in his mother's womb, fashioned and shaped by the grace of Christ as we traced out the operations of that grace in many major epochs of his life, with the psalmist Peter could say, while I was musing, the fire burned. And as the fire burned within his own breast, as he meditates upon the truths that he wants to convey to these elect sojourners, already in the midst of suffering, already feeling oppression and opposition, and even more to come, think it not strange, concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, he breaks out in eulogy. And the first word in the body of this epistle is,

13:42 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He breaks out in this eulogy, this blessing of God. To bless God, as you've been told many times, is not to give anything to God, to confer anything upon God, but it is to speak well of God. It is to recognize that in God which is worthy of our praise, that which is worthy of all His creatures to speak well of Him.

14:17 And if you have a New King James Version or the old ASV, you'll notice that the word be is in italics. There is no verb in Peter's eulogy. He breaks out saying, Blessed the God, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And some suggest that we ought to think of the verb to be being supplied in the indicative.

14:43 Some say no. It ought to be an imperative. Let God be praised. Some say it ought to be an optative.

14:50 May God be praised. I'm satisfied that the Holy Ghost gave us Blessed the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's an exact parallel linguistically with Paul's eulogy in Ephesians 1 and verse 3 and in 2 Corinthians 1 and verse 3, showing that this was not some strange and abnormal way of expressing this passionate desire to speak well of God. And as he speaks well of God, it is evident that the central concern that has precipitated this eulogy in his own heart and now comes through his pen is that Peter has been contemplating some of the major dimensions of the great salvation that he, along with these elect sojourners of the dispersion there in Asia Minor, possess in common. For as his eulogy begins, you will notice he says, This is the God who has begotten us again unto a living hope. So let us consider together as time permits, verses 3 and 4 of this tremendous eulogy and plead with God that before we are done something not only of Peter's understanding but of the fire and of the passion of true devotion to God

The Author of Salvation: God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ

16:16 will be kindled within our own hearts. And first of all we are directed to the author of this great salvation. The author of this great salvation. All of the blessings of every facet and every particular aspect of this salvation is to be directed to God himself and to God alone because he is its sole author.

16:45 Blessed the God. But you will notice it is not God in some nebulous, undefined category but he eulogizes that God who is to be identified as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And when we read our English translations we are tempted to think that Lord Jesus Christ are three parts of his full formal identification but to sense the nuance of the original we might render it blessed the God and Father of the Lord of us who is Jesus. Now is that just to be taken as well a convenient way of saying God you can call him the God and Father of the Lord Jesus. You can call him God the creator of heaven and earth. You can call him God who fills heaven and earth.

17:46 No, Peter had a very distinct purpose in saying the God whom I eulogize. The God concerning whom I cannot but speak well. The God upon whom I cannot but heap praises in the contemplation of his salvation is the God who is to be identified as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now what's the significance of that construction?

18:15 Well first of all it is a precise statement of the relationship of these two persons within the Trinity. Trinitarian theology has already confronted us in the greeting of this letter. Peter writes to those elect sojourners as those who have come within the orbit of the distinct foreknowledge of God the Father within the realm of the sanctifying operations of God the Spirit and into a relationship of obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ God the Son. You see the doctrine of the Trinity does not come to us formally expounded on the pages of the New Testament. It is just found strewn there in the religious consciousness of the New Covenant community. And so as Peter begins his eulogy his speaking well of God he has no problem identifying this God as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thereby giving us a precise statement of the relationship of these two persons in the Trinity particularly as God has moved out in grace for the salvation of sinners.

19:44 You see God is not interested in scratching our metaphysical itches. What are the essential eternal ontological inter-trinitarian relationships of the Father, Son and the Spirit? May I say it reverently the Bible could care less about some of those questions. But as God has moved in grace to constitute a community of his people in those four Roman provinces in Asia Minor and Peter writes to them his heart is caught up in this blessing of the God who is their God and his God and he is to be identified as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

20:26 And what does that mean? Well it means that the only God who exists is the God who is both the God of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the very terminology our Lord used you remember in John 20 and verse 17. In John 20 and in verse 17 we have the record of our Lord speaking and he says touch me not for I am not yet ascended unto the Father but go to my brethren and say to them I ascend unto my Father and your Father and my God and your God.

21:08 Here our Lord Jesus unashamedly identifies his relationship to God in this way. He is my Father and he is my God. And a number of the old writers set forth the truth in this succinct little way and I found it helpful. From the incarnation onward God was the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.

21:37 It points to the great truth opened up in passages such as Philippians 2 expanded upon in other dimensions in 1 Corinthians 15 that in the assumption of a true human soul and body the second person of the Godhead the eternal word who becomes flesh voluntarily takes a place of subordination to his Father. He does not cease to be God. God is immutable and unchangeable all three persons of the Godhead. But when the eternal word takes humanity to himself he chooses to take the form of a servant.

22:21 And so throughout his life he continually says I do always the work of the things that please my Father. I don't speak my own words. I don't do my own works. I have come down from heaven to do the will of him that sent me.

22:36 And so in that sense God was his God. He loved him with all his heart mind, soul and strength. He obeys him implicitly with every fiber of his being. And yet as to his deity God was his Father from all eternity.

22:56 You remember in the days of his flesh when he claimed unique sonship. The Jews understood that claim not as a derivation of life but as a communion of life in the very divine essence. They took up stones to stone him because he said God was his Father making himself equal with God. So when Peter writes in his opening words about to shine the flood light on some facets of what these elect sojourners possess in Christ he breaks out in a eulogy addressed to this God who is the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it is a precise statement of this relationship of these two persons in the Trinity. He was the God of our Lord Jesus Christ from his incarnation. He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ from eternity.

24:02 But further this is a compact statement of the only manner in which God is now savingly revealed to men. God's self-revelation has been progressive. You don't look for a clear revelation of the doctrine of the Trinity in the book of Genesis. You may find certain foreshadowing looking back from the full light of the New Testament.

24:33 We have reason to believe that that strange personage who comes early in the Biblical record called the Angel of the Lord may well have been a pre-incarnate manifestation of the second person of the Godhead our Lord Jesus. But we see that looking back from the full light of the New Testament. But now that in the fullness of the times God has sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the law and he has dwelt among us and we have beheld his glory glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth by identifying this author of this great salvation as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter is underscoring that the only manner in which God is now revealed to us in a saving way is in the person and in the work of his Son and in the unique relationship of the Son to the Father and the Father to the Son. This is why our Lord said in words that should immediately come to mind from our recent studies in John 17 this is life eternal that they may know thee the only true God full stop, no and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. What is eternal life? Where is it to be found?

25:57 In the saving knowledge of God and of his Son and there is no saving knowledge of the one true and living God apart from the Son. That's why Jesus could say I am the way the truth and the life no man comes to the Father except by me. Jesus could say in John 5 if you do not honor the Son even as you honor the Father you do not honor the Father. You see there is no honoring of God who has made his full and final revelation of himself in Christ by taking that revelation and acting as though it never occurred.

26:36 And so when Peter eulogizes the one true and living God as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ he is setting before us in this compact statement the only manner in which God is now savingly revealed to any of the sons of men. And remember what these words would mean coming from Peter's pen. Remember the great confession? Who do men say I am?

27:08 This, that and the other? Who do you say that I am? And Peter speaking for the others said you are the Christ the anointed one the long promised Messiah. You are the Christ the Son of the living God.

27:24 So when Peter says all blessing all good speaking of God is the God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ poured into that is all the rich Christology of the Gospel records as it unfolds in that very confession of Peter and the other disciples. To whom else can we go? You alone have the words of eternal life. No wonder Peter in his preaching could say neither is there salvation in any other for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.

28:05 You see in that sense we are not Jehovah's witnesses. We are witnesses of Jehovah Jesus. We are not witnesses of God in some nebulous way but the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in the use of this designation of God it is also a clear statement concerning the only way in which God becomes the Father of sinful men and women.

28:32 What is the only way God becomes the Father of sinful men and women? Peter assumes that these believers know that God is their Father. Verse 17 of this first chapter If you call on Him as Father assuming they do he assumes that when they pray the great name they will use again and again in addressing the deity is our Father who is in the heavens. Well how did God become their Father?

29:05 Well you see by this statement blessed the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't say blessed the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. That would be true. He is the God and Father of the Lord Jesus.

29:23 Jesus said so in John 27. But he said blessed be God the God and Father of our Lord who is Jesus the Christ. Our Lord. We have embraced Him as our God.

29:43 We have embraced Him as our sovereign Savior. We have embraced Him in all the revelation of who He is as Jesus who saves from sin anointed Messiah God's final prophet priest and king. He is our Father because Jesus is our Lord. Blessed.

30:04 Worthy of praise. Ascription of honor to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's the author of this great salvation. And He wants these humble slave Christians some of them oppressed wives who have unconverted husbands some of them.

30:28 Those who are in the midst of a hostile society who think it's strange that they no longer party and carouse with their old buddies. Chapter 4. What does He want them to know? As He breaks out in this eulogy this ascription of honor and praise to God He wants them to be firmly grounded in the reality that the God who is the author of every facet of their salvation is God.

The Source and Pattern of Salvation: God's Great Mercy

30:51 He wants them to be firmly grounded in the reality that the God who is the author of every facet of their salvation is this God who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. But then secondly Peter points them to what we might call the source or the pattern of this great salvation. The author is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. What is the source or pattern?

31:18 Look at the text. Blessed the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who was according to His great mercy has begotten us again. It was according to His great mercy. And the particular preposition that Peter uses if we were to press it to its more definitive concept it means along the line of something by the norm or standard of something.

31:51 So this great salvation which the God of our Lord Jesus Christ is the sole author is one which comes to us taking all of its dimensions and contours determined by the great mercy of God. It is according to His great mercy. Well that raises the question what is mercy? And the best definition I've come across and I find it very helpful is that mercy is pity expressed in suitable action to relieve misery.

32:33 Mercy is pity expressed in suitable action to relieve misery. For example when the blind beggar in the Gospel records hears that Jesus is coming by and he cries out have mercy upon me thou son of David. What does he want? Does he want Jesus just to take cognizance of his miserable condition and to feel something toward him?

33:04 No. He wants the Lord Jesus to be aware of his condition to be moved at the sight of his condition but to put forth his gracious power to relieve his miserable condition of blindness. Have mercy oh son of David turn to me with pity and let me see what you can do to relieve my misery. And so the assumption is that all of these designated as elect sojourners of the dispersion who are what they are according to God's fore-knowledge and the sanctifying work of the spirit unto a life Misery. Misery that needed mercy. But so deep was the misery, it needed great mercy. And so Peter says, His great mercy has determined the shape and the contours of this great salvation.

34:13 Blessed the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy. This is the same emphasis Paul gives in Ephesians 2. After describing what we are by nature, dead, bound by the devil, bound by our sins, bound by the course of this world, he writes in verse 4, But God, who is rich in mercy, according to His great love wherewith He loved us. Titus 3 and verse 5, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.

34:50 By the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. Surely it was reflection upon this reality that triggered the words of Wesley in a hymn I wish we had in our hymn book. Depth of mercy. Can there be mercy still reserved for me?

35:10 Can my God, His wrath forbear, me the chief of sinners bear?

35:17 Depth of mercy. Can there be mercy still reserved? Can my God, His wrath forbear, me the chief of sinners bear? You see, mercy means nothing to someone smug in his own sense of self-satisfaction and innocence.

35:36 Blind beggars who look out with their sightless eyes and see nothing but midnight wherever they look, whenever they look, when they cry, Son of David, have mercy. Mercy means something to one in felt misery. And Peter assumes that when he writes to these elect sojourners there in Asia Minor, the mention of mercy will strike a deep chord within their hearts. No unfallen angel ever pleaded for mercy.

36:07 It needs no mercy. Adam, before his tragic fall, needed no mercy. But all of the subsequent sons and daughters of Adam are utterly without hope, apart from great mercy. Thank you.

The Initiation into Salvation: Begotten Again

36:23 So when Peter has pointed us to that sole author of our great salvation, he then directs our attention to the source or pattern of that great salvation. And then thirdly, he directs our attention to the initiation into this great salvation. The author of it, God and Father of our Lord Jesus. The source and pattern of it, great mercy.

36:52 And how are we initiated? By what means do we actually come to begin to enjoy this great salvation? Well, Peter uses the words, this is the God who has begotten us again. He has begotten us again.

37:13 And those words, begotten us again, are an effort to translate one word in the original. And it's found only here and in verse 23 in the New Testament. Look at verse 23. Having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible through the word of God, which lives and abides.

37:35 Only two places this particular word is used in the New Testament. But it's obvious from Peter's use of it here, and in particular in verse 23, that he's referring to the threshold of entrance into Christian life and experience. And in that sense, it is a word parallel to the word our Lord Jesus uses in John 3 when he said to Nicodemus, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Except one be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

38:13 It is parallel to James' use when he says in James 1.18, Of his own will he brought us forth to be a kind by the word of truth, to be a kind of firstfruits, of his creature. It is parallel to Paul's use of the term new creation. Ephesians 2.10 We are his workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5.17 If any man in Christ, a new creation. Galatians 6.15 Neither circumcision or uncircumcision avails anything but a new creation. Or the term that John uses, being born of God. 1 John 5.1 Or another Pauline term, being made alive together with Christ.

38:57 Colossians 2.13 These are all parallel terms that point us to the initiation into this great salvation. And how are we initiated into it? Peter assumes that no one possessed it by nature.

39:14 No one simply grew into it by the influences of society, religious or non-religious. Or that anyone brought himself, himself into it. No one here borned himself.

39:29 You were born. You were passive. You were brought forth. Your mother gave birth to you.

39:38 And he is eulogizing God who has begotten us again. He's not eulogizing the people because they made their decision for Christ. He's not eulogizing the people because they did King Jesus a favor by not being born again. He's not nodding their heads to Him.

39:58 He's blessing the God who has begotten them again. That is, He has initiated them into this great salvation by nothing less than the gracious, powerful intrusion of spiritual life. You have been begotten again.

40:23 Now I want to make an application here.

40:28 And ask you this question.

40:31 Could Peter assume that there is something about you that defies all explanation? No other explanation will wash but that Almighty God has birthed you with His own Almighty, gracious, life-giving power. You see, God never brings forth a stillborn child that has no heartbeat and has no breathing, has no appetite. All, God's newborn children are brought forth alive and kicking.

41:08 They have a heart that beats with love for Christ. Look at verse 8. Whom having not seen, you love. These who have been brought forth, they have a heart that beats with love for Christ.

41:26 They have lungs that breathe with aspirations to please God. For when He calls upon them, they are not as obedient children. He says now, if eventually you grow enough and you think that God holds out enough carrots, you may decide to take Christ as more than Savior, take Him as Lord and begin to know. He says, as obedient children.

41:49 He says, you are real children of God. You've been brought forth not only with a heart that beats with love to Christ, but lungs that pant and yearn to please Christ. And you've got spiritual bellies that hunger for the Word of God. Chapter 2.

42:05 As newborn babes long yearn for the sincere milk of the Word.

42:12 You see, Peter assumes that this divine begetting is not some little chill and thrill up and down the spine and experience at the front of a church or in a big group meeting where you get some tingles. It is God imparting His own gracious, life-transforming grace into the heart and life of a sinner. This initiation, though it may not have been dramatic in its circumstances, was all-encompassing in its effects. And that's all that matters, folks.

42:47 Jesus said, the ways of the Spirit are like the wind. It blows where it wills. You can't tell where it comes, where it goes, but you see the effect of it. And nowhere does the Bible say that we have a right to set up a complex of circumstances that must attend the divine begetting.

43:06 Psychologically and emotionally, or even how much truth must be known at the point of the divine begetting or whether we ever know precisely when the divine begetting occurred.

43:18 But that there is much about us that defies any other explanation but that we have been birthed by God with graciously imparted spiritual light to be satisfied with anything less is to do so at the peril of your soul.

Feature 1: A Living Hope by Christ's Resurrection

43:35 The initiation they all had into this great salvation, that which caused them now to be identified as elect sojourners of the dispersion, resident aliens whose hearts are no longer wedded to this world, whose true homeland is in another world, those who having been known and loved and marked out by the Father, brought into the realm of the sanctifying influence of the Spirit unto a life of obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ, they were initiated into all of this, by the divine begetting. But then having looked at the author of this great salvation, the source, the initiation into it, now fourthly note with me the two dominant features of this great salvation that Peter highlights. Two dominant features. And what are they? He says that this great and glorious God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, according to His great mercy, begot us again, notice, unto, a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you.

44:56 We are begotten again unto a living hope and unto a glorious inheritance. We are begotten unto something we now possess, a living hope. We are begotten unto something we shall yet possess, a glorious inheritance. The two unto, prepositional phrases set before us, two dominant features of this great salvation.

45:23 Let's attempt to unpack them briefly. First of all, feature number one, a living hope. Now you kids, when you use the word hope, how do you mostly use it? Don't you use it as sort of a strong wish?

45:35 Oh boy, I hope we can do this or do that or I hope we can have, and then you mention your favorite meal, or I hope we can go here on our vacation. What you mean is, I have a strong wish. You have no intimation yet that mom's going to fix the meal you'd like to have. And dad hasn't sat the family down and says, hey kids, when we go on a vacation next year, we've got two choices, this and that and your hope.

45:57 No, you have no basis. You just have thought up in your own sweet little head, it would be really nice to eat that, have this, go there, do that. That's the way we use the word hope. Well, as we were reminded this morning, we must not impose a 20th century, meaning of an English word upon the significance of biblical words and how they are used in the Bible.

46:19 And when we come to the word hope in the New Testament, that concept of hope is far more than strong, wishful thinking or deep desire. Hope in the Bible is nothing less than a confident, patient waiting for a divinely promised blessing. It is a confident, patient waiting, not for something I said might be nice if I could have, or might be desirable for me to attain. It is a patient, confident waiting for a divinely promised blessing.

47:02 Now, Peter says, as a result of the divine beginning, these elect sojourners of the dispersion in Asia, have a hope that is suffused with life. You have been begotten again unto a living hope. It is not a false, deceptive, misty, delusive hope that will end in death, but it is a hope that is suffused with life. It is in the possession of the divine life that you have this divine hope.

47:37 God has declared that there is an infallibility and indefatigable connection between the experience of the new birth and everyone who experiences it arriving in the new heavens and the new earth. There is not a person who has ever known the new birth who will not be resplendent with all the glory of a glorified body and spirit in the new heavens and the new earth. In his second epistle, Peter underscores that truth taught many places in scripture, but in chapter 3 of his second epistle, notice how he expresses it. Verse 13, But according to his promise, not our wishful thinking, not our sanctified yearnings and our mystical flights of aspiration, no, but according to his promise, we look for a new heavens and a new earth. Wherein dwells righteousness. His promise undergirds our looking, and our looking is the looking of a living hope. Having known new birth, I shall know the blessedness of the new heavens and the new earth.

48:59 The God who has effected the one will infallibly effect the other and bring all of his newborn ones into his new heavens and into his new earth. And what lies at the foundation of this living hope? Well, he tells us, and the emphasis has fallen in one of our hymns this morning, notice, what lies at the foundation of that living hope is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He has begotten us again unto this feature number one, a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

49:41 Now remember, who's writing this? Peter. Resurrection was not a philosophical concept to Peter. Go tell the disciples and Peter.

49:53 It's Peter who runs. Peter who enters in. Peter who sees the empty tomb. Peter who is visited again and again by the risen Christ.

50:05 Peter who sees him ascend to the right hand of the Father. So when Peter writes, resurrection of Jesus Christ, he's not writing about a religious concept. He's writing about an empirical fact of human history. And he says that we are begotten unto this living hope in connection with, through, on the basis of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

50:33 Now what's the connection between the resurrection of the Lord Jesus as a historical fact in the history of redemption and a living hope? Well, probably two possibilities and I would not be dogmatic about either. Perhaps he's thinking of the resurrection as the crowning redemptive triumph of the Lord Jesus. So when he says we have a living hope by the resurrection, he's focusing upon the resurrection as that crowning redemptive act of our Lord Jesus.

51:06 Assumed in that as he was put to death. Assumed in that as if he was a true man. You see, to say the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, Jesus Messiah, Son of the living God, is to subsume in that all of his previous redemptive acts. So he may be saying our living hope rests down on the redemptive activity of Jesus Christ, that activity culminated in his resurrection.

51:35 Or it may be that what Peter is saying and thinking is that the resurrection is the crowning redemptive pattern. What is the pattern for our redemption? The pattern is what happened to Christ. He died. He was raised.

51:52 The scripture says he was raised first fruits of them that sleep, 1 Corinthians 15. When you gathered in the first fruits, it was a pledge that the full harvest was coming. Christ's resurrection as the representative of his people was not an act complete in itself. It was complete for him to accomplish our redemption.

52:13 But the redemption he accomplished is not complete until the grave spews me out at the last day. And I am found in the light of 1 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, with all of the saints of all ages, caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. So what is Peter saying? We've been begotten again unto a living hope, a living hope that rests down upon the redemptive activity of Christ culminated in his resurrection.

52:46 Or is he saying our living hope that this world is not all there is, that I have this deep, confident, patient expectancy for all that God has promised in the age to come, and it must be mine because Christ was raised first fruits of them that sleep. In either case or in both cases, for both are taught in the Scripture, there is this intimate connection between a living hope and the resurrection of Christ. Therefore Paul can say, if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, our preaching is a bunch of hogwash, let's go out and party, eat, drink, tomorrow we die. A living hope has an umbilical cord planted in that empty tomb there in Jerusalem. That's the first dominant feature. A living hope. But then the second feature, a glorious inheritance.

Feature 2: A Glorious, Incorruptible Inheritance

53:46 We are not only begotten unto a living hope, but we are begotten again unto an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you. A glorious inheritance. Our present possession, a living hope. Our future possession, a glorious inheritance.

54:06 Now the word inheritance, what's that mean? Well, in the Scriptures, it's used in the way we use it sometimes. An inheritance is goods, money, or property legally conferred upon an heir. H-E-I-R.

54:21 Upon an heir. It's used that way in Mark 12, 7, Luke 12, 13. Remember the man came to Jesus and said, hey, there's been a death in the family, there's an inheritance, I want you to sort out this matter between my brother and me that we divide the inheritance. What was the inheritance?

54:38 It was goods, money, or property legally conferred upon an heir. In this case, apparently two heirs, and one was trying to cheat the other. But remember now, Peter's writing is a Jew, and the word inheritance for the Jew was literally soaked, its tap roots were soaked in the Old Testament. As the Jews were wandering through the wilderness, what was the hope that gleamed in their eye?

55:06 They knew the promise made to their father Abraham, that not only would his seed be as the sand of the sea and the stars of heaven, but there would be a land given. And the land would be given by Yahweh, by Jehovah, God of the covenant, as an inheritance. And if you just take your concordance this afternoon for ten minutes and look up inheritance in a Strong's or Young's concordance, you'll find the word again and again in the Old Testament. Canaan was the inheritance.

55:38 It was that which God was bequeathing to his people. And so that matter of inheritance to Peter surely went beyond the mere ordinary significance in any Greek or Roman home. He's writing as a Jew. And the whole concept of inheritance is rich with these Old Testament connotations.

56:03 But then he wants to tell us the characteristics of these inheritance. And some commentators, and I believe there's something to say for it, they say he deliberately uses words that contrast what happened with Israel's inheritance in the land of Canaan and what will happen to the inheritance in these alien sojourners who have no present earthly dwelling place. But be that as it may, what he does is he uses three adjectives, all of which begin with what we call the alpha privative. You say someone is moral, and if they're not moral, you say they're amoral or amoral.

56:38 He uses three of these. He can better describe the inheritance by telling us what it isn't. And isn't that so often true when we try to speak of things that transcend our present experience? It's better to say heaven is not this and not that and not this than to try to say what it is.

56:55 And that's what Peter does. He says we've been begotten to an inheritance and then he uses these three adjectives. Look at them. He says, first of all, it's incorruptible.

57:04 It is imperishable. Right now, some of you who are sports fans, you know this is called the Grapefruit League time. Major League Ball clubs are gathering at their various places in Florida. And it's also the time when people who have relatives up north like to show their affection and what they're thinking about by sending Florida grapefruit and oranges.

57:28 Now, suppose you had a friend in the Mets training camp down in Port St. Lucie. I think that they still meet there. And he sends you a box of baseballs.

57:36 Well, whatever you'd put on the outside of the box, you wouldn't have to put perishable goods. The baseballs can sit in your basement for years and they may just get a little bit yellow. The leather will yellow a little. But basically, they're non-perishable.

57:52 But if someone sends you a box of grapefruit, you better not leave them there until next fall. They are perishable. They are a commodity that is corruptible. Now, Peter says, our inheritance is incorruptible.

58:08 It has stamped all over it, non-perishable. Perishable goods. He uses the word for perishable in verse 18 of this very letter of chapter 1. Knowing that you were redeemed, not with, here's our word, without that little letter in front that negates it, not with corruptible things.

58:28 And look what he describes as corruptible. Silver and gold. Even silver and gold are perishable and corruptible. You can grind them up into powder and throw them to the four winds.

58:40 Cast them into the depths of the sea. But our inheritance is incorruptible. And this word, incorruptible, in the New Testament is used to describe God in Romans 1.23.

58:52 He's the incorruptible, non-perishable God. The crown that awaits the successful warrior and battler in the Christian warfare and race. 1 Corinthians 9.25 The resurrection body in 1 Corinthians 15.32 And it also refers to the word of God right here. In verse 23 of chapter 1. It is this incorruptible seed of the word of God. That's our inheritance.

59:22 It is non-corruptible. It is imperishable. No wrinkles of time will ever be upon its brow. No seeds of death are in it waiting to sprout and carry it down to the grave.

59:39 It is an imperishable inheritance then it's undefiled. This is a word used of our Lord Jesus as our great high priest in Hebrews 7.25. He ever lives to make intercession for us and what is he in the very essence of his being?

59:55 We are told that our great high priest the Lord Jesus Christ is such a high priest that became us holy guileless. Here it is. Undefiled. Unstained by sin in any way.

60:11 And our inheritance is said to be not only imperishable but undefiled. There will be nothing of sin to stain the glory of it. And then it's called unfading. That's the only time this word is used in the New Testament.

60:27 You've got a sister word or a cousin word used in chapter 5 in verse 4 about a woman's meek and quiet spirit. And it's a cousin to this but this is the only time the word is used. And in seeking to get a handle on it I didn't realize that there is an English word that is a transliteration of it. If you wanted to talk about a mythical flower that never faded you know what you would call that flower?

60:49 An amaranthine flower. And amaranth is just a transliteration of the Greek word. And in ancient poetry there was a flower that never faded. And as I was trying to think what would it be to have a flower that never faded my mind began to go into gear.

61:07 And I said, well, suppose it's only a supposition. I don't think I've ever done this to my shame. A dozen long stem cut roses for her next birthday. I do remember her birthday.

61:20 And she's here to bear witness to that. And you've seen what happens when you get beautiful flowers in the home. They sit there in the vase or the vase, however you pronounce it. And as they open up into their full glory you say, oh, if I only could capture them at that point.

61:39 And you come down the next morning and see and they hold it for a day and then you come the next day and you begin to see a little bit of withering in the outer leaves. And then you may pluck them off so that the inner leaves that are still opening up are the thing that you cut and you pluck off the ones that are dying. But after a week they've had it. Now imagine a dozen long stem roses that came to that peak expression of their beauty.

62:05 And you came down a week later and they were right there. A month later, precisely the same. A year later, no fading, no wilting. Precisely the same.

62:15 Then you would describe it as an unfading process of long stem roses. That's the word Peter uses. And he says our inheritance is unfading. So put the three together and what do you have?

62:31 We have an inheritance that is untouched by death or anything pertaining to it imperishable unstained by evil it is absolutely irrevocably undefiled and it is unimpaired by time. It is unfading. And as though that's not enough look what Peter does. As a capstone over all this he moves from using adjectives and he uses a verbal construction in order to say over all of these things it is an inheritance already and continually reserved in heaven for you. It is one in its fourth characteristic is permanently reserved and the word reserved is used in a wide spectrum of ways in the New Testament to guard, to watch over to reserve, to preserve and the tense means it's already reserved and that reservation continues and will never cease. It is imperishable undefiled, unfading and by the gracious activity of God it is already and continues to be guarded and preserved where? Not here in the place

63:59 where we must say with the hymn writer change and decay in all around I see but Peter says reserved in heaven and then notice what the text says for the first time he uses a second person plural it's reserved for you for you for you. First time he addresses them that way. It's reserved for you all of you elect sojourners of the dispersion there in those Roman provinces you slaves who have unreasonable masters you citizens seeking to live under governments that at times it's difficult to respect and I'm going to tell you to honor the king and I'm going to tell you to render obedience to all have a right to claim that obedience of you you wise who have to live with unconverted husbands with all of their unreasonable expectations and I'm going to call upon you nonetheless to render your duty to them in the strength of Christ with a view that not only will you please Christ but you may be the instrument of seeing them one without the word and all of the things he addresses what does he want them to know that in the midst of all these responsibilities and duties he wants them to know who they are he wants them to understand what they possess

Lessons from Peter's Eulogy

65:27 and he tells them that they possess from the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ according to the contours of his great mercy of divine begetting that has resulted in a present living hope and has put in their hands this glorious unfading undefiled imperishable already and continue to be preserved inheritance in heaven and it's for you well I've attempted to unpack the verses in the few minutes that remain to me what are we to learn from all of this well I hope we've learned something along the way and I've sought to make application but may I just set several very obvious principles before your mind the first stands on the very face of the passage whatever our circumstances may be dear people of God God is worthy to be contemplated and blessed by his people where is Peter he's not on a picnic in the Mediterranean he's in Rome in a short while he's going to be martyred but when he thinks of God and his grace in Christ he can't even take the role of an objective teacher he's caught up subjectively and passionately in praise blessed the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has

66:56 gotten us again unto a living hope as I reflected upon Peter's temperament and the expansiveness of these concepts I thought if the heat of his soul could have reached his quill I'm sure it would have melted on the parchment this is no dispassionate theologian talking about God and Christ and salvation this is the soul of an inflamed saint and he invites us to join him what are your circumstances whatever they are God is worthy to be contemplated and blessed by his people David is stuck in a cave with the riff-raff of Jerusalem when he writes I will bless the Lord at all times his praise shall continually be in my mouth oh how we need to learn from Peter secondly to bless God as we ought we must engage our minds and our affections you see Peter doesn't just say bless God bless God hallelujah bless God mindless non-theological praise no there is a wealth of compact theology in this eulogy but he's not theologizing with the white light of the mere understanding nor is he eulogizing in an abysmal dark room of ignorance just hoping to feel happy about

68:23 God there is an enlightened mind and a burning heart a mind flooded with truth and a heart incandescent with warmth and with holy passion and that's what God wants us to do he's inviting these elect sojourners to join him in eulogizing God in the way he did with the passionate heart and an enlightened mind one cannot read through these opening verses without being struck with how deep and dense is the range of Peter's thought yet in all of that there is the passion of real affection and we learn from that thirdly that a non-doctrinal Christianity is not Christianity but a cheap and delusive substitute for the real thing a non-doctrinal Christianity is no real Christianity but is a cheap and delusive substitute for the real thing in a burst of praise we get the Trinity new birth the fact and implications of the resurrection and the eternal inheritance of the people of God all in a concentrated burst of praise what is a Christianity that is non-doctrinal it's a cheap substitute we learn further that to know God in the saving way is to know him as revealed in Christ four times in the first three verses he says Jesus Christ our Lord

69:52 Jesus Christ verse one an apostle of Jesus Christ verse two sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ verse three the father of our Lord Jesus Christ the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead Peter cannot say his name enough not again in some mindless subjected Jesus solitary no but he cannot think of God and of his saving mercy without seeing Christ as the conduit of all that mercy and therefore if we have the same salvation that Peter did we will likewise seek in all of our reflection upon it to honor him who gave himself for us that we might know that gracious salvation and then finally if you and I are going to be prepared to be the kind of pilgrims we ought to be we've got to use our minds and seek under God to know who we are by the grace of God that's where Peter starts that's where we're starting some would say oh I want to get into section on what's it mean to be holy as he is holy and to call on him his father with a sense of his fatherly love and yet with the reality of holy fear as Peter says how do you fit those together and what no we've got to start where Peter starts by the guidance of the Holy Spirit and ask God to help us to drink deeply of the well of salvation

Call to Pilgrimage and Hope

71:20 that he sets before us in these opening verses and then we learn also in closing that if you don't have this Christ in this salvation you don't have any hope the living hope is the result of the divine begetting and the divine begetting and all the blessings of that salvation are rooted in the redemptive work of Christ you may have some wispy notion that all will turn out fine maybe the hell that's been read about in the Matthew 13 isn't real maybe all that I've heard isn't real that's my hope no that's your delusive wish not a hope and I would ask you to go home my unconverted friend boy girl man or woman with this thought what do I have that will abide beyond the grave what do I have for certain that will abide beyond the grave what do I have worth clinging to that will go with me beyond the grave and into death and onto judgment and on into eternity the Christian can say I have a living hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead I have an inheritance incorruptible undefiled that fades not away and it's reserved and the reservation is inviolable and it's reserved in heaven for me blessed be God for the privilege of being a Christian

72:48 let's pray oh our father we thank you we praise you we worship you with Peter we would bless you as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and thank you that you have begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of your dear son unto this inheritance undefiled incorruptible that fades not away God by the spirit write these truths upon our hearts make some among us jealous to know these blessed realities may they leave their sins and flee to Christ and find in him all that you have treasured up in your great mercy for every sinner who will commit himself to the savior seal then your word we pray for your glory and our good Amen