A Most Encouraging Promise, Part 1

Introduction to Peter's Letter and the Concluding Promise

0:04 Now may I encourage you to turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Peter and chapter 5, 1 Peter chapter 5, and I shall read what in my judgment is a paragraph unit beginning with 5b in which the apostle turns from giving specific directions to elders and then directives to those whom they lead and speaks his final word of exhortation to all within the various congregations in those Roman provinces of Asia Minor with these words, Yes, all of you gird yourselves with humility to serve one another, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your anxiety upon him.

1:07 Because he cares for you. Be sober. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour, whom withstand steadfast in your faith, knowing that the same sufferings are accomplished in your brethren who are in the world, and or perhaps better rendered to give a feel of this particular particle used in your faith.

1:38 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the various congregations in those Roman provinces of Asia Minor with these words, Yes, all of you gird yourselves with humility to serve one another, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. I believe the better manuscript evidence adds a fourth verb, settle you. The God of all grace, who called you unto his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, shall himself perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you to him, the dominion forever and ever. Amen. In the opening words of this letter, Peter addressed the people. He addressed the people of God in these Roman provinces of Asia Minor as elect sojourners.

2:48 As Peter writes, most likely from Rome, called in the end of our epistle, Babylon, he envisions God's people in their identity as elect sojourners. That is, those who were loved and chosen by God before the world began to be the recipients of his saving mercy. But who presently are aliens passing through a country not their own. Once their election became known in their effectual calling, they ceased to be identified primarily as citizens in the Roman Empire.

3:31 They were now citizens of the commonwealth of heaven. And therefore they are to regard themselves in their true light as aliens. As those who have another and a better country. And then it becomes clear in the body of the letter that Peter has two major concerns as he instructs and exhorts these elect sojourners.

3:58 The first concern is that he wants them to know and believingly to grasp all that they possess of redemptive grace in the present. And all that they shall have. And all that they shall experience of that grace in the future. As he thinks of these elect sojourners and asks the question, what do they need as those loved and saved by God, who are in alien territory on their way to their true dwelling place, what do they need?

4:32 Well, it's obvious, particularly in the first couple of chapters, that what they need is to know and believingly to grasp all that they possess of redemptive grace in the present. And all that they possess of redemptive grace in the present. And what they shall possess in the future. And I call those statements in 1 Peter again and again the grand indicatives of God's grace.

4:55 The statements of what is and what they possess. But then Peter has a second burden that is evident throughout the letter. He wants these elect sojourners to know and obediently to embrace all that God requires of them in their sojourn as aliens on their way to a better country. And that's summarized in such statements as 2.11.

5:22 I beseech you as strangers and sojourners to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. And those I call throughout the exposition of them the practical imperatives. God's indicatives always precede them. God's indicatives always precede his imperatives.

5:42 But the imperatives always follow the indicatives. Our privileges in grace lay upon us the serious responsibilities of grace to be fulfilled and discharged in the power of God's grace. Furthermore, all of the privileges and duties, the grand indicatives and the practical imperatives are constantly conditioned throughout this letter by the reality of the present suffering of these elect sojourners and Peter's prediction that suffering will mark them throughout the entirety of their sojourn in this place that is not their country. One writer has said that 1 Peter is a roadmap for suffering saints who are on their way to the celestial city. And what it is and was to them, I trust God has been making it to each of us. Now we come in our expositions of the letter to this passage read in your hearing and in particular to verses 10 and 11 which are really the conclusion of the letter. Verses 12 to 14 are an epistolatory conclusion, a formal addendum, a spirit-inspired p.s.

7:04 in which Peter, following the pattern of first century Romanism, gives some additional information but is really not part of the body of the letter. The letter concludes with this most fitting doxology to him the dominion forever and ever. Amen. And it is preceded by what I am calling a most encouraging promise.

7:27 Now put yourself in Peter's place. He's there in Rome. He has been fulfilling the commission of his Lord. When you are turned again, strengthen your brethren.

7:37 He is concerned for these saints way out in the northeast segment of the existing Roman Empire. He's writing to them. He wants them to know and to believe all that they have in Christ. He wants them to know and obey all that they ought to do for Christ and consistent with their profession of Christ.

8:00 And now he's bringing his letter to a close. What shall he say to them that will, as it were, cause them to leave the hearing of that letter read in the various assemblies? And later on when it would be copied and they would be able to see the mind of God with their own eyes, what is it that Peter wants them to have ringing in their ears, stuck on their eyeballs as they read the letter? Well, it is this most encouraging promise of verse 10 and this most fitting doxology of verse 11.

8:36 And for those of you who have a Bible that indicate that this is a prayer, that has to do with a textual matter again, whether Peter used simple future indicatives or whether he used what's called the optative case. I mean the optative mode. Optative is the form in which you express a wish or a desire. May the God of all grace do thus and thus.

9:05 But this is not an optative. These are not optatives. The four verbs are simple future indicatives. They are a declaration of what God is committed to do.

The Profound Significance of Every Word in the Promise

9:19 And so they constitute a promise. And the God of all grace shall himself perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you. That's the heart of the promise and I am entitling it a most encouraging promise. And as I've sought to understand the meaning and significance of this encouraging promise, it's become very clear to me that this is one of those texts in which almost every single word, including the prepositions, is pregnant with far-reaching significance.

9:59 And I trust you understand, dear people of God, that we're not saying one part of the word of God is more inspired than another. Every word found in Scripture, in the original manuscripts, was inspired by the Spirit of God. Those words in which God gives details of what part of the animal should be flayed and cut out and burned and thrown away, every one of those words is as much inspired as every word of 1 Peter. But not every portion of Scripture is equally dense in its significance or equally important to the Christian life.

10:37 And this is one of those passages in which every word of the text is pregnant with far-reaching significance. It's as though Peter gets inside the heads of his listeners and to us, his readers, and looks back through the letter and anticipates the very concerns and questions that would arise in the hearts of his readers and the listeners and answers those questions. before they can even be framed and articulated. It's as though he anticipates these elect sojourners saying, Peter, Peter, how can I possibly hold before me all of these amazing privileges that you have outlined that are mine as an elect sojourner? How can I remember and believingly appropriate all of the grand indicatives, especially when I'm in the midst of suffering? Peter says, here's your answer. The God of all grace who called you shall himself, shall himself perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

11:47 Look to the God of all grace. It's as though he anticipates the response of some saying, Peter, my problem is not so much holding before me all the grand indicatives in the midst of suffering, but it's holding before me and complying from the heart with all of the gracious imperatives. Peter, you've given us directions about the home and about how to relate to unjust and unrighteous, irascible and unreasonable masters and employers, and you've told us how to relate at the level of the state and how to deal with our own...

12:26 Peter, how in the world can we hold all of this and walk in the light of it? He says, here's my answer. The God of all grace who called you shall himself perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. Here, Peter says, is the promise that is the capstone promise over all that I have written.

The Author and Executor of the Promise: God Himself

12:47 And in giving that promise by the guidance of the Spirit, he has packed into every word tremendous significance. It's going to take me two expositions to open up verse 10, at least two. Now, come with me into this green pasture, and by the still waters of this most encouraging promise that God, through his servant Peter, gives to elect sojourners. And this morning, we'll only have time to consider what our text tells us about the author and the executor of the promise.

13:24 Now, author, you all know what an author is. That's the someone who writes something. Well, who ultimately wrote these words? Who stands behind them?

13:36 Who is the author of the words? And the executor is the one who effects what the words say. The executor is the one who performs or accomplishes. You and I make out a will.

13:50 We are the authors of that will in conjunction with a lawyer, in most cases. And in that will, we who are the authors, we name an executor to administer what is in the will. And in all wills, the one who is the author is not the executor. You don't executor eyes from your grave.

14:12 It's that someone else will administer the terms set out in the will. But when we come to a passage like this, it is the one true and living God who is both the author and the executor of the promise. And before Peter articulates the promise in its specific details, he is passionately concerned, and I use that word not in excessive rhetorical embellishment, but living with this text has convinced me it is indeed a passionate desire that before these elect sojourners attempt to take hold of the very heart of the promise, this God shall himself establish, settle, etc. He wants them to contemplate God himself who is the author and the executor of the promise. Now, why did Peter do this? Well, you say he was guided by the Holy Spirit.

15:13 Yes. But the Holy Spirit did not guide the biblical authors apart from the processes of their own mind. Now, sometimes he took them far beyond those processes and they had to sit down, as Peter tells us earlier, and scratch their heads and say, what in the world did I say and what did I write about? How does it all fit together?

15:31 How does it all fit together? But in the ordinary unfolding of what we have as Scripture, God takes the mental cast of the biblical authors. That's why you have a Petrine style of writing and you have a Joannine style and a Pauline style. The Holy Ghost does not batter and neuter nature.

15:51 He enhances and encompasses and refines and sanctifies and lays hold of nature to make it the conduit of his gracious working. So we ask the question, why did Peter direct attention to the author and the executor before he lays out the details of the promise? And I answer, I believe it's because Peter understood what all of us know. And it is this.

16:18 Our response to any promise made to us will be determined by our perception of the character and the competence of the one who promises. Now think of that for a minute and ask yourself, is it not true that my response to a promise made to me is in direct proportion to my perception of the character and the competence of the one who promises? Suppose some of you had an uncle. He was a big-hearted, kind of a jolly guy, but very irresponsible.

16:56 A man not known to keep his word. And you were visiting, your uncle, on vacation. And your uncle kind of took a liking to you and he rubbed your head and sat you on his knee and talked about how much he liked you and said, well, you know, I'm going to, and then he promised you, that when you reach age 12 or age 16, I'm going to get you a brand new car and if mom and dad will let you have it, the title will be yours. Now, if Uncle John, Uncle Henry, Uncle Harry, Uncle whatever his name is, has a reputation, you've already become aware of it, even though you're only 11, 12 years old, that he just promises people to move.

17:35 It's just part of the way he is. He makes promises, but he doesn't keep them. He is not known to be a man of truthfulness and integrity with his words. And furthermore, because he's been so irresponsible, he drives an old 1979 Clunker held together with bailing wire and coat hangers.

17:53 And you say he neither has the trustworthiness of character nor the competence to fulfill his promise. So you might look up at Uncle and say, well, thanks, Uncle, I'm glad you're...

18:06 But you don't go home and say, don't you know what Uncle John promised me? And we know, everybody knows, Uncle John always keeps his word. And he promised me a car and I know he can do it because he's got three cars in the garage and he gets a new one every year. You see, your response to the promise will be conditioned by your perception of the character and the competence of the one who promises.

18:28 And Peter understands that. That is just one of the givens of human relationships. And because this promise is so all-encompassing, it's as though Peter anticipates the reaction of our residual unbelief, saying, Peter, that's too good to be true. And Peter says, now if you're tempted to do that, remember who the author and the executor of the promise is.

God's Personal Commitment to Fulfill the Promise

18:53 Well, who is he? Peter says, I'm going to tell you. And I want us now to look at three specific things that Peter tells us about the author and the executor of this promise. And the first is this.

19:07 The author and the executor of the promise is God himself personally committed to fulfill it. The author and executor of the promise is God himself personally committed to fulfill it. Where do we see that? And, the God of all grace who called you unto his eternal glory in Christ after you've suffered a little while, now notice, shall himself perfect you.

19:46 Since Peter writes, as he is conscious, in chapter 1 and verse 1, as an apostle, as a duly appointed, uniquely equipped mouthpiece of God's revealed will to his church, among other things, that's what apostles were, the words Peter writes are the very words of God. But you see, he's not content to write and the God of all grace perfect you, but just before the four future indicative verbs telling us what will be done, he puts the intensive pronoun God himself. He didn't need it to make good grammar. He needed it to make good theology. That these elect sojourners would realize that in the midst of the suffering, in the midst of the misunderstanding, in the midst of the opposition, in the midst of trying to lay hold of all that they have and are in Christ and to be all that they desire to be and God requires them to be in Christ, they need to understand that the God who's brought them into this orbit of concern is committed personally to effect the very things that are promised in this temple. Seeing the words

21:14 of God himself, they are the words of the God who cannot lie. You kids in your catechism have learned that God can do all, but there is something God cannot do. Hebrews 6.18 says, God who cannot lie.

21:37 Paul writing to Timothy, says, God cannot deny himself. It's a wonderful thing to know that our God is the God of omnipotence, all power, but his omnipotence is bounded by his truthfulness. Now think of that for a minute. Let it sink down into your soul.

22:00 God can do anything, but his omnipotence is bounded by his truth. He cannot deny himself. And the flipside of that is, he's the God whose truthfulness has omnipotence as its servant. So that whatever he says in truth, he has the power to effect.

22:28 I was struck with this in my Old Testament reading this week, in those marvelous chapters in Jeremiah, where Jeremiah 32.27, God says, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me? And the answer is obviously no.

22:47 Jeremiah confesses, there is nothing too hard for you. So when we contemplate the one who gives the promise, the author and the executor of the promise, is this God whose omnipotence is bounded, I say it reverently, is limited by his truthfulness. God cannot lie. God cannot violate his own word.

23:11 And yet his truthfulness, whatever it explains, whatever it expresses, has omnipotence as it serves. Now, when a God like that says something, you and I do well to say, this ain't old Uncle John who just promises you to the world and gives you a handful of animal crackers. This is no Uncle John who promises big and doesn't deliver, who's all mouth and no performance. This is God.

23:39 This is God, the Lord, the God of all flesh. And when the biblical writers want to emphasize to the believers a given act of God being God's own act personally, intimately, involved with his people, they add this little intensive pronoun. For example, in 1 Thessalonians 5 in verse 23, you have a parallel usage. Look at it with me.

24:06 1 Thessalonians 5 in verse 23. And the God of peace, Paul could have written, sanctify you wholly, may your spirit, soul, and body be preserved. But no, he says, and may, and the God of peace himself, himself, he will be involved personally, intimately, actively in this matter of sanctifying you wholly. So at the very outset, the promise that the readers are going to receive is one that they must view against the fresh awareness of the contemplation of the God who gives it.

24:49 To grasp that he will do what is promised personally, individually, by his presence and his power. We need a fresh to focus our minds upon him as both the author and the executor of this promise. John Brown has captured the spirit of this in his commentary when he writes, such a promise from the most accomplished of men, from the highest of angels and the highest of angels and the highest of angels from all good men and all good angels together would sound like bitter mockery. Suppose Peter had written, and all the good men in the apostolic church and all of the holy and elect angels shall in their combined influence establish you, strengthen you, perfect and settle you. John Brown says all of this would sound like bitter mockery. But it is God who by the mouth of his holy apostles declares that he will perfect and establish, strengthen and settle the Christian combating with his subtle, active, cruel and powerful spiritual adversary. He has just said, Whom resist?

25:59 How can I resist the devil and so resist him that he will flee from me? God of himself, the God revealed in Jesus Christ. And deeply as the Christian feels how much is lacking in him for the conflict, how ready, how sure it left to himself to turn back in the day of battle, how powerless he is in the grasp of the strong man, the terrible one, how much in danger, so far as depends on anything in himself of being permanently moved from his steadfastness and torn from that rock of salvation on which the whole fabric of his holiness and spiritual enjoyment and hopes rest. This is enough to sustain and encourage him. God can do all he has here promised. He is infinite in power and infinite in wisdom. No enemy so powerful but he can restrain and subdue him.

26:58 No enemy so crafty but he can circumvent and disappoint him. No Christian so weak but that he can make him strong. No Christian so foolish but that he can make him wise. Is anything too hard for the Lord?

27:13 He can do it for he is infinitely powerful and wise. He is disposed to do it for he is infinitely kind and compassionate. He will do it for he is inviolably faithful. He can do all things but he cannot lie.

27:32 Nothing is impossible with him but the denying of himself. Now I can't go home and meditate on this for you. I've tried to lead you in to the pasture. You've got to burp it up.

27:49 You've got to ruminate over it. When we come to the amazing promise in those four future verbs of what God is committed to do not in the age to come as a surface reading of the text might lead us to believe but in the midst of the suffering in the midst of the devil who goes about like a voracious beast seeking to grasp us and chew us up and swallow us down in the midst of all of that it is God himself who will perfect us establish us settle us. No wonder he breaks out in the doxology to him the power to him the kratos the might the divine energy committed in grace to do exactly what God has promised in that passage. When you find your faith in the promises weakening almost invariably it's because of the God who is the author and the executor of his promises. Now what happened to Peter? At one point what are the billowing roaring foaming waves it's my Lord walking on the water Lord bid me come to you what's the law of gravity what are the waves what are the winds that's Jesus Lord of heaven and earth out of the boat he comes

God's Identity as the God of All Grace

29:18 and he's a walker he's alright long as he remembers who's the author of his ability to walk on water when he fixes his eyes on the circumstances nothing in Jesus changes but everything in him changes and everything around him changes he's going down to Davy Jones locker why why nothing changed in Christ but his faith gaze toward Christ and confidence in Christ was weakened by what he saw see the point Peter says I'm gonna make an amazing promise and the God in whose name and on whose behest I make it so I want you to know before you get taken up with trying to grasp and by faith apply and work out the promise fix your gaze on the author and the executor God himself but then secondly he points our attention to him the author and executor is God in his identity as the God of all grace look at the text he could have written and God himself will I like the old distinction second and third person shall speaks of not mere simple futurity but determination and commitment God himself

30:46 shall perfect establish strengthen and settle you have been a wonderful promise but he doesn't do that he writes and the God of all he's the only penman in scripture who was ever described God as the God of all grace it's an absolutely unique designation of God now you're saying pastor is the only place you find grace of course not the grace of God and God's graciousness is found from Genesis to Revelation God's grace is everywhere in scripture his undeserved favor and goodwill to hell deserving men that undeserved goodwill in favor that actually confers upon them the opposite of what they deserve that's grace and grace is found everywhere in the Bible but you may use any concordance you like and you will not find God described anywhere else from Genesis to Revelation as the God of all grace it was left to Peter to have the privilege to designate God as such a God a parallel passage perhaps already come to some of your minds the second Corinthians one three where Paul writes the God of all

32:15 comfort similar construction you have all but not grace comfort who comforts us in all our tribulation I think the meaning is quite easily to grasp easy to grasp in that passage he's writing and he's saying wherever there is comfort to a suffering child of God it ultimately is traced back to the heart of the God who is the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our tribulation and he wants the Corinthians to trace back every single ounce of divine comfort they've ever known or spiritual comfort to its source in the God who is the God of all comfort all true substantial grace has its origin in the heart of him who is the God of all comfort so in the same way when he is designated as the God of all grace Peter is saying that all the goodwill in favor of God to hell deserving sinners with all the benefits provided and conferred upon those sinners comes out of the infinite storehouse of grace that's why we sang of him fountain of grace rich full and free what need I

33:44 that is not in thee so you see what Peter's doing he is the great realist he knows what he did when the heat was on oh your speech betrays you you're one of those guys hey I think I no no not me I'm not one of them short time later hey aren't you one of them third time in the name of the God of heaven may he strike me dead if I am one of them and he takes oaths of self malediction and says I have nothing he knows what happens when human frailty meets opposition to Christ and to identification with Christ unsupported by divine grace he knows that those people are made of the same stuff they have all the weakness they have all the potential for denial that marked him and he wants them before he gives them this marvelous promise God himself shall perfect strengthen establish settle you he said I want you to contemplate who this God is that I'm going to tell you is committed to do some wonderful things for you in the realism of your life he said I want you to know

35:12 that the God who is author and executor of this promise is the God of all grace the God of all the God of all grace and you see grace is not just an emotional thing it is an emotional thing it is an emotional thing in the heart of God grace is his disposition of goodwill and kindness to hell deserving sinners that gives and confers precisely what those sinners need that's why God could say in Christ to Paul my grace is sufficient for you my strength is made perfect in weakness grace and strength are linked what is God to you my servant Paul is such that though you think this physical weakness is an impediment to your usefulness I see it as essential to your usefulness your weakness will keep you consciously dependent and what you lack in strength my grace will make up in a humble trustful heart whereas I resist the proud and only give grace to the humble my grace was not

36:42 just God's disposition it was the disposition with all that omnipotence can bring to bear upon the situation of need now go back to the text and the God of all of all do you feel yourself smothered by all that I've given you in the grand invocatives Peter says there's a God who in his grace can expand your capacity Mercy and saving kindness is done for you. Do you find it hard to grasp that you've been begotten again unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that faith's not a way reserved in heaven? There's a God of grace who can expand your heart. And when you find your faith faltering before the marvels of His grace, you can cry, Lord, increase my faith! And in grace He will do it. And when we read that hereunto were we called, Christ suffered for us, leave an example, we should follow His steps, who when He was reviled, reviled not again.

37:53 When He suffered, He threatened not, committed His cause to Him who judges righteously. We say, Lord, I can't do that! I can't take it anymore! The slander! The lie!

38:03 God says, yes, you can. My grace is sufficient for you. And you go back through 1 Peter and every command that seems impossible, stamp over. God of all grace.

38:17 God of all grace. God of all grace! God of all grace. He can.

38:25 John Brown says He will fit for the combat. He can. He will sustain during the conflict. He can.

38:33 He will make victorious in the conflict. He can and He will reward after the conflict. But then Peter's not done. He's not done.

God's Activity and Purpose in Our Calling

38:47 Look at the text.

38:49 Not only are we pointed to the author and executor of the promise as being God Himself, not only God in His identity as the God of all grace, but now look in the third place. The author and executor of the promise is God in His activity and purpose in conjunction with our calling. See the text? He could have written, and God...

39:18 He could have written God Himself perfect or God of all grace Himself perfect. But no, He's piling up another pointer to the author and executor and the God of all grace who called you onto His eternal glory in Christ. Before you grab it, the promise I want you to consider it's God Himself who's the executor as well as the author. It's God in His identity as the God of all grace.

39:53 But furthermore, Peter says, He is God in His activity and purpose in connection with your calling. He is the God who has called you unto His eternal glory in Christ. Now the word call and calling in the New Testament rarely mean what we mean when we use the word call. Johnny?

40:18 Didn't you hear Daddy call you for supper 20 minutes ago? What do we mean? Did you hear Daddy's voice summoning you to come home to supper?

40:28 We use the term broadly as a summons. There may be but one or two places where it's used in that way in the Gospels. But in the epistles, uniformly, calling is never a mere announcement of something that God is declaring to us or a mere invitation. Calling is God's summons that, that actually secures the salvation of His people.

40:53 Calling is a distinctive experience of the people of God. That's why Peter can write and say, this God who is committed to the promise I'm about to give you is the God who called you. He not merely summoned you or invited you, but He has effectually and powerfully brought you into the orbit of His salvation which has as its goal nothing. That's the eternal glory that is the people of God, that the people of God will share in union with Christ.

41:27 That's how he used it earlier in the epistle. And I go over this ground that is familiar for some because we have new folk all the time for whom this is a new concept. And I want to take enough scriptures to demonstrate that I'm preaching the truth. In chapter 1 in verse 15, Peter writes, Like as He who called you is holy, be yourselves also holy in all manner of living.

41:54 When Peter writes, He who called you, is it just the one who summoned you? No, these are people who have embraced the summons. They are the people of God and they are now being directed to pursue a life of universal holiness. Chapter 2 in verse 9, where he is describing the privileges of the new covenant community of God's people under rich Old Testament language.

42:17 Verse 9, you are an elect race. A royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession that you may show forth the excellencies of Him, here we are, who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light who in time past were no people but now are the people of God. The people of God are without exception called ones. Not all who are summoned are the people of God.

42:47 There are some of you who have sat in this building, for years, and almost every Lord's day, without exception, you have been called, you have been summoned to stack arms, to turn from your sin, and to run to God as revealed in Jesus Christ, crucified, buried, and risen from the dead. There have been entreaties and pleas and warnings. That's what men designate the general call of God in the gospel. The next chapter in our confession, we'll come into that matter of God's sincere, well-meant invitation to sinners.

43:27 Oh, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. That's God's general call. The Spirit and the Bride say, come. Let him that is athirst, come and take of the water of life freely.

43:41 Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That's God's general, sincere, well-meant, indiscriminate call to all where the gospel comes. But then there is that effectual call, that call of God that causes the sinner not only to hear, but to run toward the God who summons him to repentance and faith. And that's why in a passage like Romans 8, 30, being called is nestled in between the eternal dimensions of God's saving mercy to his people.

44:19 Look at Romans 8. Verse 30. Whom he foreordained or predestined, that's our salvation with its anchor in eternity past. Then he also called.

44:32 Now notice, that brings our salvation into time. He called whom he called. Then he justified. No one is called in this calling who's not justified.

44:45 And all who are justified, now notice, then he also glorified. There's the other anchor of our salvation. In eternity future. Predestination, glorification, and in between, calling and justification.

44:59 Four unbreakable links in the chain of God's saving purpose and God's saving activity. So now, having established, I trust, for any who are willing to yield their minds to the Bible, when Peter writes, the God who's going to fulfill this promise is the God that you believers there in Asia Minor, as this letter says, you must think of him particularly, not only that it is God himself, God is the God of all grace, but what he has been to you and what he is in terms of your being called unto his eternal glory in Christ.

The Goal of Our Calling: Eternal Glory

45:41 Now there are two things about the call. We've defined what the call is. It's God's efficacious putting forth of the arm of his power to bring us into saving union with God. With his son.

45:53 Now two things about that call in the text. First, we have the goal or the wonderful end of the calling. And then we have Peter describing the sphere or the spiritual context in which the call takes place. Look at what our text says about the goal or the wonderful end of the calling.

46:13 The God of all grace who called you not merely unto the present possession of forgiveness, justice, justification, adoption, the gift of the Spirit, peace, joy. All of that would be true. But he says your calling has a distinct goal and wonderful end. He has called you unto his eternal glory.

46:43 God's call has as its specific and immutable end that all who are called would be brought, brought to what Peter describes as his eternal glory. Now what does that involve? You want to feel your earthiness. Ask that question of yourself sitting at the desk and saying, how do I preach that?

47:10 Called us unto his eternal glory. We know what it doesn't mean. We're not going to be made into gods. That we know.

47:19 The creator creature relationship will be sustained through all eternity. God lost nothing of it. God himself when he made us, he lost nothing of himself when he redeemed us. He adds nothing to himself.

47:34 He is God and we are the creature. Yet it says we are called unto his eternal glory. His glory is the outshining of his perfections. We are called unto his eternal glory.

47:47 Whatever outshining of his perfections will be eternally fixed, not temporally manifested. The glory of Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. The glory of Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. The glory of Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration.

47:58 Was a momentary burst of glory. But then it was veiled again. This is a glory that is eternal. Ionia, unending.

48:07 This is eternal glory. In what does it consist? Well, some would suggest it will be beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's what he prays in John 17, 24.

48:21 Father, I will. I will that those whom you have given me be with me where I am. And that they may behold my glory which you have given me. There is a unique glory that Christ will have.

48:35 Follow me closely now. As the incarnate Redeemer who lived, died, was buried, and rose again, and in his exalted, glorified humanity is back in heaven in a form that he did not have when he left heaven. He took something in Mary's womb. That will be his for all eternity.

49:02 And that human nature, joined to the divine nature, has been glorified. And he says, Father, I will that they behold my glory which you have given me. See, this is a glory given. He had an inherent glory that was under-rived and un-given that was his as the eternal Word.

49:22 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Isaiah spoke these things when he saw his glory. That was his essential, pre-incarnate glory. But he has another glory that comes as the reward of his sufferings.

49:38 Wherefore God hath highly exalted him. The glory which you have given me. Could it be that what Peter is saying, God has called us, and the end of our calling will be in the language of John? We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

49:57 That could be. But it doesn't satisfy me that that's what the text is saying. He said, he's called you unto his eternal glory. Not to behold it, but he's called you to it.

50:11 Well, the Bible does teach that we ourselves, in the consummation of our redemption, are going to experience something that's called what? Glorification. Isn't that what we just read in Romans 8.30?

50:23 Whom he predestinated, whom he also called. Whom he called, he justified. Whom he justified, he also what? Glorified.

50:32 Glorified. He endows us. With glory. And what will that glory be?

50:40 I believe the Romans 8 passage is closest to answering it. And I would not dogmatize, but I think there's a strong case for it. Turn there with me now as we try to pull these two things together. Romans 8, verse 29.

50:57 Whom God foreknew, that is, set his love upon beforehand, he also foreordained, or predestined, now notice, to be what? To be conformed to the image of God. To be conformed to the image of his Son in order that our total conformity to the image of Christ has another end in view. That Christ might be manifestly seen as the firstborn, the preeminent one, the rightful heir of all among many brethren.

51:29 So when God set his love upon us, that love moved forward to an ultimate end that we should be conformed to the image of his Son. To another and higher end, that Christ would be the elder brother with all his family gathered around him, reflecting his light. The glorified God-man, supreme above all others, but glorified father of hell, transformed into his moral and physical likeness. For Paul says in Philippians 3, verse 21.

52:09 He shall fashion the body of our humiliation, like unto the body of his glory.

52:23 That doesn't get you shouting happy. I don't know what will. I will be given a body. That body will house a soul from which every last stain of sin has been eradicated forever.

52:44 And Christ, the firstborn, the rightful heir, the chief, the elder brother among his family, will look down and see the fruit of his sufferings and see nothing but glory. And we'll all look up at him and see nothing but glory. And we're enveloped in glory. And it'll never have, but then it is eternal glory, forever eternal.

53:15 If your sons then heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him in order that we may be what? Glorified. Glorified together with him. I didn't write it.

53:30 The Holy Ghost did. Romans 8, 17. Glorified together with him. Will we become little Christ?

53:40 No. But will we be glorified together with him? Yes. Will that make any difference how you regard the promise?

53:52 You're in the midst of suffering. You're trying to keep your head sorted out. Who am I as a Christian? What do I have in Christ?

53:59 What awaits me? And then I think I've got to relate to my wife this way, and got to relate to my husband this way, and to the state this way, and how can I keep it all sorted out? And then people begin to malign me, and people begin to slander me, and begin to oppose me, and speak evil of me. I'm using language out of 1 Peter.

54:15 How in the world can I press on believing that the best is yet to come? Well, remember who God is. This is the God who is committed to perfect you here and now, not with sinless perfection. We'll see what the words mean.

54:30 We'll see what the words mean, God willing, next week. To establish and settle you, foundationalize you would be a rough way to try to translate the final verb. Well, this is the God who one day is going to so work on who and what I am in my spirit. How can I say it in a way that shocks you into remembering it?

54:52 I couldn't sin if I wanted to. Okay? I couldn't sin if I wanted to. There will be nothing in a part of the soul.

55:00 The mind, the heart, the soul. There will be nothing in a part of the soul. The mind, the heart, the soul. Yes.

55:04 It is sin. That's a sin. I said as it were a sin. The mind will come previously that I also said a sin.

55:08 Come again, come again. It's a sin way. Then it harbors a sin, a sin. It is the act of sin and that is the wit of sin.

55:14 Do I promise悼it to come? Yes. I promise悼it. I don't say enough.

55:18 I don't organize the existence of a sin for a sin, but I promise it will come with us who we are experiencing. This is the root of sin, it's a sin. I promise, the sin is not the Fel夜, the God of our heart is the God of ours, and the God of this world is theeri Карim, the God of our minds, and the one that ordained alles in the heavens. thousand now. They're all vying to get your eyeballs under the laser.

55:30 No pyreless pills. Did I take my morning ones? Did I take my night ones? A body like under the body of His glory. Now if a God can do that, is that kind of God able in the midst of your remaining sin and the vicious devil in an unsympathetic world, is He able to supply that which is lacking in you? That's what the word perfect means, to supply what is lacking. Is He able to establish and strengthen and foundationalize you? You say, what a stupid question.

56:09 If that God's going to make me into the likeness of His Son in a context of eternal glory, surely I can trust Him to supply what is lacking, to establish, to strengthen, to settle me and enable me to finish my pilgrimage in a way that brings glory to the One who called me unto His eternal glory. That's the first thing about the calling. The goal of the end, sharing His eternal glory. But the second thing is this.

The Sphere of Our Calling: In Christ

56:43 The sphere or spiritual context in which the call takes place. Look at it. The God of all grace who called you unto His eternal glory, but He doesn't stop there. He called you to His eternal glory in Christ.

57:00 For there's strong textual evidence for the fuller name, Christ, Jesus. It's all the same. There's only one Christ, and that's Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus of Nazareth is the one Christ. So nothing's lost if we don't settle the textual debate. He's called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus. That's the sphere or the spiritual context in which the call takes place. The glorious end is to share in His eternal glory.

57:28 But the sphere or the context in which the call takes place is in Christ. Now do you see why I said every word is pregnant? Because that little prepositional phrase, in Christ, in Him, in whom, is used more than a hundred and fifty times in the New Testament. It is the most significant phrase pertaining to God's salvation.

57:54 Because it tells us that all of God's saving acts are accomplished for sinners by Christ. And that all of God's saving work is accomplished in sinners by uniting them to Christ. And if you let go either of those realities, you don't have the salvation taught in the Bible. You got that? It points to the fact that all of God's saving acts are accomplished for sinners in Christ. Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save. Faithful is the saying worthy of all acceptation in Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. All of God's saving acts are accomplished for sinners by Christ.

58:45 And if you think you have salvation in any other, you're deceived, for there is no other given name given under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved. But don't miss the second truth. All of God's saving work is accomplished in sinners by uniting them to Christ. So He's called us to His eternal glory where? In whatever you may profess about being a believer in Christ, if you are not united to Christ, you are deceived. And if you claim to be united to Christ, then you've not become a new creation in Christ. And His workmanship created in Christ unto good works, you are equally deceived. To be in Christ is not a positional notion.

59:39 I'm in Christ in some positional way. No, no, you're in Christ in a vital life union so that He can say, I am the vine, you are the branches. The same divine life that is in me has now come to you in Christ.

59:56 In Christ, united to Christ. United to Him in faith, in submission, in love, in obedience. And Peter, before he spells out the details of the promise, he wants them to know that the God who is author and executor is not only the God who Himself personally will fulfill the promise, who will fulfill that promise in His identity as the God of all grace, but in His activity as the God who called us with a call that has as its wonderful end, His glory, and as its sphere or spiritual context, union with Christ. I will have to leave till next week the setting and circumstances in which the promise is to be fulfilled. After you've suffered a little while, time is gone. I want to close on that note that I've just sounded. It struck me afresh in meditating upon the significance of the phrase in Christ. That sitting

The Two Men: Adam or Christ

61:00 here this morning, whoever would be here, God alone knew. I could anticipate who many of you might be, but God alone knew that I can say something without any fear of being contradicted, no matter who showed up here this morning. In a very real sense, God, looking into this congregation this morning, sees only two men.

61:21 Two men. Only two. Adam and Christ. And He sees every one of you in your relationship, not to both at the same time.

61:34 One or the other. And when we read Romans 5, 12-21, 1 Corinthians 15, to be in Adam is to be in guilt, condemnation, and death. As in Adam, all die. Wherefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death passed upon all men, for that all sin. Through the one man condemnation came upon all. To be in Adam, and that's where you are by nature, is to be in the state of guilt, of condemnation, and of death. To be in Christ is to be in a state, not of condemnation, but of forgiveness. Not of guilt, but pardon and acceptance. Not of

62:23 death, but of life. And every one of you, this day, right now, I can't discern it, only God can, but God infallibly discerns. You're in Christ, you're in Adam.

62:39 Where are you? If necessary, you better spend the rest of your life wrestling with that question. Because in the day of judgment, it will be infallibly revealed when all who are yet in Adam will be set as the goats upon his left hand. And all who are in Christ will be set as the sheep on his right.

63:01 And then shall he say to those, on the left hand, depart from me you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. He shall say to them on the right, come, you blessed, enter the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world. You may have been able to sit there this morning and say, that crazy old preacher, he's getting all excited about this stuff. It leaves me absolutely cold. My friend, you know why it leaves you cold? You're still in Adam. You're dead. You can set the most delicious, well-prepared gourmet meal before a dead man. He doesn't salivate one drip. You don't salivate, because you're dead. You're dead dead. But my friend, you don't need to remain dead.

63:52 There's one who is the resurrection and the life. And he bids you to go to him and find life in him, to find salvation in him. And dear people of God,

Call to Meditate on God's Character

64:05 maybe it's good to turn off the television for a week. All the time you normally spend there, just take these words. Meditate upon them. Assimilate them. And the language of Maurice Roberts' wonderful book, worth the price of the book, just to have the first essay on the thought of God. This crazy generation doesn't give us time to think about anything, let alone think about God. Peter says, you want to be a stable, elect sojourner? Think about your God, or his most wonderful words of promise will fall to the ground, ineffectual in your life, because you haven't seen them flowing out of and fastened to the integrity and power of this God, who himself shall make up what is lacking. Establish,

65:02 strengthen, and settle you. Our Father,

65:14 we confess in your presence that when we are given to see as it were but the edges of your ways, we do acknowledge afresh that only a glorified mind and body could be given to take in what it will mean to be glorified. But we thank you that you have set before us this glorious inheritance, and we are ashamed that we could ever be dazzled or attracted by the trinkets and toys of this world. Forgive our earthiness. Forgive our wretched unbelief, the fruit of our failure to contemplate who you are.

65:56 We worship you, O Lord, that you have set boundaries to your omnipotence, that your truth is that boundary, and yet we thank you in your truthfulness you have omnipotence as your servant. And we do believe, O God, we do believe that as the God of all grace who has called us unto your eternal glory in Christ, that you can fulfill every promise you have made. We pray for those who know nothing of this hope, of this confidence, O Lord, give them no rest till they too are in Christ. Until vitally joined to him, they know the blessed realities of which we have meditated this morning. Seal your word then to our hearts and dismiss us with your blessing. We plead in Jesus' name. Amen.