No audio is available for this sermon.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a British pastor during the mid to late 20th century said “that it is through preaching that God conveys the Truth to people, brings them to the realization of their need and thus reveals to them the only satisfaction of their need…By this men and women are brought to a knowledge of the truth.” This is my goal and my prayer for our time together. That God would use my meager words along with His perfect Word and bring us to the knowledge of the truth.
“Who do you think you are?” This is a question that can be asked in two different tones. It can be asked in an inquisitive tone: who do you think you are? Or, it can be asked in an accusative tone: who do you think you are. As I’ve read through and prayed through the passage before us, I’ve become convinced that this question can (and should) be asked in both senses when we consider our identity as ambassadors for Christ.
Think about it. Don’t we need the reminder, in the form of a question, asking “do you realize you are an ambassador for Christ?” And don’t we need, in a way, the confrontational question, “how can you possibly think of yourself as an ambassador for Christ?” Considering both of these angles on this one question I believe will help us to capture both the power and the privilege for us to be called an ambassador for Christ.
In order to approach the answers to this question, I want to look at the verses that immediately precede Paul’s declaration that we are ambassadors for Christ in 2 Cor 5. I want us to see three overarching things.
• First, Paul lays out in very clear logic that our status as ambassadors is not something that is optional or questionable. It is not something we can lose or tarnish or destroy.
• Additionally, Paul shows us that as Christ’s ambassadors, we have been given both a ministry and a message. This is not an optional extra, but part of who we are in Christ.
• And, Paul also makes it transparently clear that there is both a responsibility and privilege in our calling as ambassadors for Christ.
Reality 1: We are Christ’s ambassadors.
We really need to start with the fact that whatever identity we claim as believers in Christ, it is explicitly tied to who Jesus is and what He accomplished on our behalf. I start here, not because that’s the theologically correct thing to do. I start here because the biblical writers, front to back start here. Only a strong, robust appreciation of Jesus can undergird and support who we are in Christ.
Look at verses 14 and 15. The love of Christ controls us. Or as the NIV says it: The love of Christ compels us. Why? This is the love that sent Jesus to the cross. This is the love that set aside the riches of heaven and compelled Jesus to humble himself and give his life as a ransom for many. This is the love that looked at our sin and rebellion and indifference and idolatry and vanity and rescued us anyway. This is the love that has claimed us as ambassadors.
One thing I admire about Paul is that he never assumes the main points of his arguments. In the second half of verse 14 and on into 15, he continues to stress that our identity is bound up with Jesus’ death and resurrection. If Christ died for us, we are owned by him, but because He lives we now live. And we are freed to live for Him. So whether we see ourselves as dead to sin or if we see ourselves alive for Him, we are belong to Christ. We live as Christ’s ambassadors.
As Paul moves on, he reminds us that Christ’s death and resurrection accomplished the tremendous achievement of reconciling us to God. This is his point in verses 17, 18 and 19. But I think we zip by this truth almost too quickly. How often do we ponder what it means to be reconciled to the infinitely Holy God? How big of a sacrifice was required to cover every one of my sins, the white lies, the lustful thoughts, the harsh words, the divisive conversation, the greedy motives, the anger, the jealously. (And that was just yesterday.) And that doesn’t even consider my broken heart that really wants the universe to revolve around me.
We really don’t see God for how great and glorious He is. Does Rev 4 really say that no one in heaven or earth could approach His throne? And we really don’t see the sinfulness of sin. We don’t see (or want to admit) that even our smallest rebellion and idolatry deserve an eternity in Hell. And what makes our self-illusion complete is that we actually enjoy our little, petty, private sins.
I stress this point because if we see God as He is (read Isa 40 or Ps 33 or Job 26 or Rev 4) and we see ourselves as we are (read Rom 1:18 – 3:20 or Isa 64 or Jer 7 or Mt 23) we will see more clearly the incredible value of the reconciliation that Jesus bought with his own blood. And when we begin to grasp the magnitude of this reconciliation we will begin to understand why the love that drives and sustains this reconciliation is the same love that must compel and control us. We are ambassadors of the living, loving, reconciling Savior.
Paul lays down one final truth regarding our identity in Christ in verse 21. Read it carefully with me. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” This is what many call the Great Exchange. But, I plead with you; don’t lose the power of this verse in its familiarity. Christ became sin for us. The righteous replacing the unrighteous. Jesus is taking on our identity. Can we grasp that? Not just the penalty of our sin. Not just the just wrath of God. He became sin. He became what we were.
But wait! There’s more! Not only did Jesus take on our identity, but we received His identity. We the sinful, unrighteous, traitors are now holy and righteous and absolutely forgiven. Nothing can stand between us and God because we in are in fact righteous in Christ. So, in a very real sense, we are ambassadors of Christ. We are redeemed by Christ. We are compelled by Christ. We are reconciled by Christ. We are righteous in Christ. Everything we are is from Christ, to Christ and in Christ.
Reality 2: We are ambassadors for Christ.
As I mentioned at the outset, there are three aspects to the reality that we are ambassadors. There is the reality that we are ambassadors because Jesus has rescued and redeemed us. But in addition to that, there is also the reality that we are ambassadors on His behalf. Paul has been making this argument alongside his statements of our identity in Christ.
He started by laying the ground work in verse 14. Christ’s love compels us because we are identified with Him. But Christ’s love compels us to what? We are initially left hanging, but consider verse 15. “he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” Christ’s love, demonstrated in His death and resurrection, compels us to live not for ourselves but for Christ.
This, of course, only pushes the question down one layer. What does Paul mean when he says we will live our lives for the one who died and rose for our sake? Does he mean we should be cleaning up our lives? Living morally upright, crossing every T and dotting every I? Does he mean we should all be great students of theology, preaching sermons, witnessing on street corners and praying all night? Does he mean we should sell our houses and cars and move to Africa or Asia? It could mean any or all of these things, but it could also mean none of them. You see, when Paul speaks of living for Christ, he is not envisioning some set of external criteria, but rather the whole of a life that is more and more emulating Christ. And, it will be different for each of us.
Such a thought brings us full circle, since the essence of who Christ is tied up in what He accomplished for us on the Cross. He put the desires of his Father first and He gladly submitted himself to the Father’s will to redeem a people for Himself. And while we cannot save anyone, we can certainly expend our lives on behalf of Christ to serve others, both spiritually and physically.
But Paul goes on. He wants to hammer into us this one reality: Being in Christ fundamentally changes who we are. We may look the same on the outside, but on the inside we have been remade. We may still see each other by our physical appearance or how we act or by any number of external characteristics. But the call on us as believers here in verses 16 and 17 is to not see based on the external, but based on the internal. And, in Christ we are a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come.
All of this stressed for a dual purpose. One is, as I’ve already mentioned, to undergird our identity in Christ. It is to remind us (again) that we are in fact absolutely and unequivocally new in Christ. But the other purpose is to show us the ministry we have been given. Paul states this bluntly in verse 18. We have been given the ministry of reconciliation.
As soon as I’ve said this I sense some of you, or maybe all of you, are objecting in your minds. You are saying, my ministry is teaching, my ministry is administration, my ministry is service, my ministry is hospitality. I could go on and list a hundred different things that we would rightly consider ministries. And yet Paul’s point, really the Holy Spirit’s point, is that whatever the presenting ministry, the real, root level ministry must be about reconciliation, the reconciliation between man and God. And that, my friends, is the essence of being an ambassador for Christ.
I think it is important at this point to take note of what an ambassador’s role was back in Paul’s day. Much like today, ambassadors were the connecting point between kingdoms and nations. But the main role of an ambassador was as an emissary of peace. Whether two nations negotiated their peace or one nation conquered the other, the ambassador would be the one who would proclaim peace and he spoke with the authority of the king.
And so it is with us. Notice how Paul states it is verse 19. Christ is at work, reconciling this fallen world to a holy and just God. And we have been given a message. This message, this good news is the message of reconciliation. It is as if we are God’s emissaries. We are the proclaimers of God’s “peace treaty” with a fallen, sinful rebellious world.
Reality 3: As ambassadors, God is making his plea through us.
At this point, I need to ask a question that I hope you ask often as you read and study God’s Word. The question is this: “What’s the point?” Why has God preserved these words, these thoughts, these ideas for us to consider and ponder? Is it simply to give us deeper insight into our identity in Christ, which, by the way, is incredibly important? Or does he have something more for us? Is He trying to push us beyond where we are to where He wants us to be?
Consider this: we have a ministry of reconciliation v 18. Consider this: we have the message of reconciliation v19. Given these two realities, what is Paul’s point in verse 20? What is he driving us to? “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
His point is simply and profoundly this: As believers, as God’s redeemed, as disciples of the risen Christ, we have been given a mission and a message. The message of God’s grace. The message of Christ’s love. The message of the Spirit’s power. God has entrusted this message to us. God’s plea from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation is this: Be reconciled to me.
You may be asking, what does this look like? How might this play out in your life and your ministry? The short answer is, I don’t have a clue. God can do a thousand different things a thousand different ways. But, I think He gives us snapshots of possibilities within His Word. For example, in Acts 16 Paul and Silas come to Philippi and have three very different encounters. One is aligns with what we would consider ministry within the church. Another is very confrontational ministry against the culture and its effects on people’s lives. And the third is essentially life style ministry with Paul and Silas ready to give an answer for the hope that they have in Christ.
So, brothers and sisters, I ask you, as I ask myself, how are we doing? Do we see this as our ministry, our calling from God? Are we pleading, appealing on behalf of Christ? Is the love of Christ compelling us not just to worship (as great as that is), not just to live a good life (as important as that is), but to be an ambassador for the One who gave his life so that we might both the reconciled and the proclaimers of the reconciliation that Christ purchased with the shedding of His own blood? Do we consider each ministry opportunity, however obscure, as a chance to allow God to make His appeal through us?
As I close, we need to remember this one thing. If we claim Jesus as our Savior and Lord, we are His ambassadors. But we are not alone in this task. The message of reconciliation which He has entrusted to us and the pleading that we are called to set forth to a lost and dying world, does not start or end with us. Think of the Great Commission in Mt 28, “All authority has been given to me, therefore go”. Yes we need to be pleading and proclaiming, but we are doing so in the authority of Christ and the power of the Spirit.
And the message of reconciliation, spelled out on the pages of God’s Word has a power and authority of its own. We need only look to 1 Pt 1:23 “you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” or Heb 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” or Isa 55:11 “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it”
In the end my friends, we are ambassadors because of 3 things.
• We are ambassadors because Jesus has claimed us as His own.
• We are ambassadors because God has given us the ministry and message of reconciliation, the unbridgeable gap between God and man has been bridged in Christ.
• We are ambassadors because Christ’s love compels us to plead with our friends and neighbors and all who the Spirit brings into our lives: Be reconciled to God.
I think it is fitting to close with the words from Isaiah. Despite the cultural decay and spiritual apathy around him, he continued to plead for reconciliation on God’s behalf:
Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
To God Alone be the Glory
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Our Inheritance in Christ – 1 Pet 1:3-9
(Note: audio of this sermon can be found here)
Richard Baxter, a 17th century English pastor and writer, often said, “I preach as a dying man to dying men.” And that’s where we are today, isn’t it? We are all smart enough to know that we are only one car accident, one house fire or one cancer diagnosis away from the grave. So my goal, as a man who is dying and who does not know the number of his days, is to proclaim to you the glorious inheritance prepared for the children of God. And, my prayer has been that you, as people who are dying, may see more clearly the majesty of what Christ has purchased for you. May we all be moved to no longer cling to the stuff that can never satisfy us and pursue that which is truly life.
I need to admit at the outset that there is more in this passage than can be adequately covered in one sermon. So, my approach today is to first look and the arc of what Peter is saying to his 1st century audience and, by extension, to us. Following that, by God’s grace, we will drill down into just a few of the deep anchors Peter lays for us in these verses.
As we begin, we need to remember that Peter was writing to a collection of persecuted churches. While we don’t know the extent or the severity of the persecution, a few things are clear. Peter’s original audience had fled their homes. They were exiles for the gospel. In addition to that, Peter saw the warning signs and the seeds of doubt in the goodness and faithfulness of God.
Think about it. How often have our expectations of God failed to line up with the reality of God and resulted in our disappointment, maybe even the beginnings of our own doubt? I thought God really wanted me to get that promotion. I thought God really wanted us to get married. I thought God loved children. If we can be transparent for moment, (we can do that in church, right?) we would have to admit that we do this a lot. And it betrays that our vision is not focused on the right object.
Undoubtedly, Peter’s audience had similar problems. We’ve trusted in Christ and now we’ve lost our homes. We’ve lost our jobs and our friends. Not only that, the government is looking to arrest us. How can following a dead man possibly be worth all of that? How can we possibly go on?
This is the pastoral problem that Peter is speaking into as he starts his letter. Note his choice words as he begins to redirect our vision. In Christ we have:
• A living hope (v3)
• An inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading (v4)
• God as the guard of our salvation (v5)
• Necessity of trials (v6)
• A tested, genuine, precious faith (v7)
• A faith the results praise, glory, honor for Jesus (v7)
• An inexpressible and glory filled joy (v8)
• A salvation is ours (forever) (v9)
If we take these truths as a package, the question we should ask is this: how do these truths overcome and overwhelm our tendency to lose sight of God’s faithfulness in our circumstances? How do they take us from looking at what we want or expect and re-orient us so that we are looking at what God’s doing and what He wants for us? In dealing with this question, Peter provides the answer in four parts.
First, we have a living hope. How often in the New Testament do we see the writers not simply stress the death of Jesus, but his resurrection as well? Christ died as a propitiation, a wrath absorbing sacrifice to God, but he also rose again as a clear testimony to God’s acceptance of that sacrifice. Paul makes this case profoundly in 1 Cor 15:17 when he states “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins”.
Peter’s point here is that Jesus did rise, that he is alive and that the hope we place in him is not static or fixed (like my hope of retirement), but rather it is alive and dynamic. Also, implicit in Peter’s statement here is that a living hope is a sure hope. If Christ had simply died, we could say he paid for our sins and that we have peace with God. But how could we be sure? However since Christ died and rose again we can clearly see that all of God’s promises are “Yes” in Christ.
The second part of Peter’s answer is that our inheritance is being secured by God. I’m not sure why, but it seems our human tendency is to think that when things are the toughest, God is the furthest away from us. Even the Psalmist thought so (read Ps 22:1-2, Ps 74:1 or several others). And yet Peter states clearly, as does the rest of Scripture, that God does not abandon his children.
The Psalmist says it this way in Psalm 121:1-4“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”
Jesus says it like this in John 10:27-29 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.”
Paul makes a similar claim in Rom 8:38-39 “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
And Peter states here that we are being guarded by God for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last days. Peter is not simply talking about what we often refer to as our conversion. He is talking about that and everything else tied up in Jesus presenting us spotless and blameless before God’s throne.
On top of that, look at the adjectives Peter uses to describe our inheritance in Christ in v4. Imperishable – it will never spoil and will always be good and useful. Undefiled – sin will never tarnish it and it will never let us down. Unfading – the general effects of the curse (a world that doesn’t last) are now reversed for those who are found in Christ.
Each of these biblical authors, along with others I didn’t have time to reference, underscore the simple but profound reality that God is preserving us. He is protecting us. Jesus has secured for us an eternal redemption so the Father, the Son and the Spirit are always near us and working for us no matter how we may feel.
There is a third aspect of how Peter addresses our easy distraction from God’s vision when troubles come upon us. He reminds us that our trials serve as a test of the genuineness of our faith. And, as much as we may not like the idea of being tested, tests have a purpose. I think if we take a Christ-centered perspective on the testing we may find ourselves agreeing with Peter that the results are more precious than gold.
Perhaps we can think of it this way. Since our faith is in the finished work of Christ and our salvation depends upon the gracious gift of God and our comprehension of what we’ve received is through the enlightening of the Holy Spirit, then the test is not really directed at us but at God. In a very real way, God uses struggles and trials in our lives to demonstrate to us that the faith we have received from Him is genuine. And a genuine faith that secures our eternal redemption is more precious than gold. Let me expand that: it is more sure than gold, which Peter reminds us, perishes even though it is also tested by fire.
A fourth antidote to the ease at which we replace God’s vision with our own vision is that Peter reminds us of the magnificence of our salvation. It has been said that we under value our salvation because we both under estimate the seriousness of our sin and we over estimate our own righteousness. Peter cuts through that mirage by clearly stating that our salvation rests exclusively on Christ. Anything else would result in glory going to someone other than Jesus. And it would result in a shaky and unreliable salvation.
But Peter is clear. Our salvation is secure and it brings glory and honor and praise to Jesus. On top of that, it produces a joy that is inexpressible. And this joy, this inexpressible joy, is what replaces our desire for the fading and fleeting things of this life. Since joy is one of those words that are often vaguely defined, I want to share one man’s description of joy. Thomas Watson summed up Christ-centered joy in this way:
• Joy is a delightful passion. It is contrary to sorrow and the perturbation of the mind, and it overcomes the heart that is perplexed and cast down.
• By joy, the soul is supported under present troubles. Joy stupefies and swallows up troubles; it carries the heart above them, as the oil swims above the water.
• By joy, the heart is fenced against future fear. Joy is the antidote by which the fear of approaching danger is blocked off. "I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me."
At this point, I would be remiss, if I didn’t underscore the fact that everything Peter is proclaiming, both to his original audience and to us, hangs on one inescapable reality. We must be born again. Peter states it directly in verse 3 and comes back to our salvation in verse 9. He also sprinkles in references to salvation and faith in Christ throughout the intervening verses. Thus, he leaves us no other choice than that the hope, the joy, the security and the preciousness that we have been promised is intricately tied to our salvation in Christ.
I want to stress this because I think it is very easy for each of us to focus the entailments of our new life in Christ and neglect the foundation. It would be similar to driving in a fancy suburb and admiring a magnificent 3rd floor deck while forgetting that the house and the deck only stand because of the sureness of the foundation. We dare not think in our minds or in our hearts that we somehow outgrow the gospel and move on to its implications. Instead, as Peter says in chapter 2 verse 2, we must grow up into salvation.
At this point I want to address myself to anyone who may not believe that Jesus died as a payment for their specific sins. I need you to listen very carefully. You need to know you are in a very dangerous place. To put it bluntly, you are headed to Hell. But the good news is that Christ has died. The price has been paid. The gift has been offered. Will you not repent and believe? You need to know that none of the good and glorious promises in the Bible apply if you reject the salvation that God has freely and graciously provided. In the words of Ezekiel I would plead with you, “Turn! Turn! God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. O that you would turn from your way and live.”
I also want to speak directly to those of you who would call yourselves believers, Christ-followers, disciples. I have one question for you: What place does the gospel have in your life? Is it one among many important things? You want to work on your marriage and your parenting. You want to be diligent and productive at your job. Perhaps you want to excel at a craft, say singing or karate or preaching. And of course you have the gospel to make everything fit.
Or perhaps you have the gospel first on your list. All the other things have their place, marriage, parenting, job, hobbies and interests, but gospel is always first on the list of all the important things in your life.
Or, is the gospel the list?
If we take a serious look at what Peter has to say, not just here, but throughout both of his letters, we can’t escape the fact that he saw that the gospel is in a category by itself. In chapter 1, his call to holiness is grounded in the gospel. In chapter 2, his view of the church and suffering flow from the gospel. In chapter 3, his call to prayer and to witness, even in the face of persecution depend on the gospel of a savior who suffered for those who deserved to suffer.
We can add to this Paul’s relentless pursuit and proclamation of the gospel and Jesus unwavering drumbeat of His kingdom transforming our lives. At the end of the day we are forced to stand back and admit that the gospel drives everything. We cannot have the gospel in our heads only. We dare not keep it on a shelf like some piece of treasured china. We must allow it to own us, to mold us and to shape us, to propel us and to sustain us.
As I said at the beginning of this message, I wanted to drill down into just a couple of the deep anchors that Peter is laying to strengthen and solidify our faith. The anchors I want to focus on are not more important than the ones that I’m passing over. They are simply the ones I sense are perhaps more neglected than the others. But, I would encourage each of you, young or old, new believer or senior saint to take some time, either this afternoon or this evening or maybe tomorrow and slowly, reflectively, prayerfully reread this passage. Allow the Holy Spirit to sink all of His anchors deep into your soul.
Anchor number 1 is found in verse 3. Look at it again. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” There’s a ton packed into that single verse, but I want to zoom into the very basic statement that is being made. God caused us to be born again. Let me say that again. God caused us to be born again.
Brothers and sisters, this goes beyond the concept that most of us have of election. I would dare say that most of us see God’s election like picking teams on the grade school playground. God chooses who He wants on His team. If we think about it hard enough and long enough, we would probably admit we don’t have the skills to play the game we’ve been picked to play. On top of that we are the most antisocial kid in the school. Yet God picked us anyway.
But, what Peter is saying goes deeper than that. God did choose us. God did pick for himself people who were the most unlikely followers and set His affections on the most rebellious of people. Yet Peter insists that God not only choose us and set His affections on us: He caused us to be born again. This is not just a selective action. This is an operative action. He didn’t just declare us not guilty by some act of divine fiat, He worked in and through His Son to cause our sins to be absorbed by the body and blood of Jesus. He strained to take the righteousness of Christ and set it on us and locked it in place, never to be moved again. He groaned through the compassion of the Holy Spirit to awaken our spirits to the truth and the reality of everything that He has done and continues to do for us in Christ.
My friends, God saved us. And He continues to sustain us in that salvation. That’s Peter’s point in verse 5. And to top it off, God will ultimately, finally and completely save us when we stand before His throne. Nobody expresses this truth better than Jude in verses 24-25: “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”
What is our response to this great God? How do we even begin to express our love and gratitude? How can we hold back when He lovingly commands us to obey? How can we doubt His love and mercy and grace and power for us who believe? Should we not proclaim with Jeremiah: “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”
The second anchor I want to focus on in the time that remains is the preciousness of our faith. Peter points to the breadth of our faith in verses 5 and 9, but verse 7 is the key verse that I want to drill into. “so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Peter states clearly that our faith is more precious than gold. As good, Bible reading Christians, we may intellectually agree with this statement. But do we believe it practically? Do really see our faith as being that valuable? Or have we lost sight of what is really precious, what is really valuable?
It should be noted that from beginning to end, the Bible consistently paints God’s economy as totally different often antithetical to ours. Our economy is always based on work and resources, our work, our resources. It results, if we work hard and have the right resources, in our wealth. The problem is, our work doesn’t last, or isn’t enough. And our resources never last and are often the wrong ones at the wrong time.
God’s economy is also based on work and resources. However, His work is perfect and His resources are infinite. But what makes God’s economy totally different than ours is that it is outward focused not inward focused. We work for money for food or clothes or rent for ourselves or our family. If we are really altruistic, we give some our stuff to ministries we support. God, however, does everything for the benefit of others, even those who hate Him. He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust. He sent Jesus to die for a rebellious and sinful people. He delays the day of Christ’s return so more people can hear the gospel and believe. And he ties our salvation to faith so that it can be made secure in Christ and result in praise and glory to our Savior.
The bottom-line is this: God secures our salvation through faith. Any works on our part and our salvation would rely, at least in part on us. If this were the case, we would have reason to doubt, since we could never be sure if we did enough or if we did it correctly. This is the religious heritage in which I was raised. But thanks be to God that we are saved by grace through faith and that faith itself is a gift from God (see Eph 2:8), so there is no room for doubt. God secures our salvation, He gives it inestimable value and He brings it to completion in Christ.
There is one thing about our faith that must be made crystal clear before we conclude. As precious as it is, as secure as it is, as God glorifying as it is, it is only as good as its object. D.A. Carson tells a story of two Israelites talking at the well on the morning before the first Passover. One man is quite anxious and asks the other what he thinks of all the plagues. The second man replies that they have been traumatic and frightening, but he has confidence in God and so far everything Moses has said has borne out. The first man, still quite nervous presses. What about this sacrifice of a lamb? And the spreading of its blood on the door posts and frame? He only has his one son. He can’t lose him. How can a lamb’s blood stop the angel of death? It doesn’t make any sense. The second man responds with calmness. Everything Moses has said about the plagues has been true. Everything he has said about God matches what the elders told us from Noah and Abraham and Joseph. I don’t how a lamb’s blood can avert the angel of death, but I will do what God told us to do and trust Him. The first man, still nervous, leaves shaking his head and wringing his hands, saying, I just don’t get it. I’m just not sure. Yet, that evening both men followed Moses’ prescription, sacrifice their family lamb and spread the blood on the door posts and frame.
Then Carson asks this provocative question. Which first born son was saved?
The answer is that both boys were saved. You see it is not about the quality of our faith nor is it about the quantity of our faith. The preciousness of our faith, the genuineness of our faith and the sureness of our faith is found in its object: Jesus Christ.
As I close, ponder the words of Charles Spurgeon: “Consider this, believer. You have no right to heaven in yourself: your right lies in Christ. If you are pardoned, it is through his blood; if you are justified, it is through his righteousness; if you are sanctified, it is because God has made Him your sanctification; if you shall be kept from falling, it will be because you are preserved in Christ Jesus; and if you are perfected at the last, it will be because you are complete in him. Thus Jesus is magnified-for all is in him and by him; thus the inheritance is made certain to us-for it is obtained in him; thus each blessing is the sweeter, and even heaven itself the brighter, because it is Jesus our Beloved ‘in whom’ we have obtained all.”
To God Alone be the Glory
Richard Baxter, a 17th century English pastor and writer, often said, “I preach as a dying man to dying men.” And that’s where we are today, isn’t it? We are all smart enough to know that we are only one car accident, one house fire or one cancer diagnosis away from the grave. So my goal, as a man who is dying and who does not know the number of his days, is to proclaim to you the glorious inheritance prepared for the children of God. And, my prayer has been that you, as people who are dying, may see more clearly the majesty of what Christ has purchased for you. May we all be moved to no longer cling to the stuff that can never satisfy us and pursue that which is truly life.
I need to admit at the outset that there is more in this passage than can be adequately covered in one sermon. So, my approach today is to first look and the arc of what Peter is saying to his 1st century audience and, by extension, to us. Following that, by God’s grace, we will drill down into just a few of the deep anchors Peter lays for us in these verses.
As we begin, we need to remember that Peter was writing to a collection of persecuted churches. While we don’t know the extent or the severity of the persecution, a few things are clear. Peter’s original audience had fled their homes. They were exiles for the gospel. In addition to that, Peter saw the warning signs and the seeds of doubt in the goodness and faithfulness of God.
Think about it. How often have our expectations of God failed to line up with the reality of God and resulted in our disappointment, maybe even the beginnings of our own doubt? I thought God really wanted me to get that promotion. I thought God really wanted us to get married. I thought God loved children. If we can be transparent for moment, (we can do that in church, right?) we would have to admit that we do this a lot. And it betrays that our vision is not focused on the right object.
Undoubtedly, Peter’s audience had similar problems. We’ve trusted in Christ and now we’ve lost our homes. We’ve lost our jobs and our friends. Not only that, the government is looking to arrest us. How can following a dead man possibly be worth all of that? How can we possibly go on?
This is the pastoral problem that Peter is speaking into as he starts his letter. Note his choice words as he begins to redirect our vision. In Christ we have:
• A living hope (v3)
• An inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading (v4)
• God as the guard of our salvation (v5)
• Necessity of trials (v6)
• A tested, genuine, precious faith (v7)
• A faith the results praise, glory, honor for Jesus (v7)
• An inexpressible and glory filled joy (v8)
• A salvation is ours (forever) (v9)
If we take these truths as a package, the question we should ask is this: how do these truths overcome and overwhelm our tendency to lose sight of God’s faithfulness in our circumstances? How do they take us from looking at what we want or expect and re-orient us so that we are looking at what God’s doing and what He wants for us? In dealing with this question, Peter provides the answer in four parts.
First, we have a living hope. How often in the New Testament do we see the writers not simply stress the death of Jesus, but his resurrection as well? Christ died as a propitiation, a wrath absorbing sacrifice to God, but he also rose again as a clear testimony to God’s acceptance of that sacrifice. Paul makes this case profoundly in 1 Cor 15:17 when he states “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins”.
Peter’s point here is that Jesus did rise, that he is alive and that the hope we place in him is not static or fixed (like my hope of retirement), but rather it is alive and dynamic. Also, implicit in Peter’s statement here is that a living hope is a sure hope. If Christ had simply died, we could say he paid for our sins and that we have peace with God. But how could we be sure? However since Christ died and rose again we can clearly see that all of God’s promises are “Yes” in Christ.
The second part of Peter’s answer is that our inheritance is being secured by God. I’m not sure why, but it seems our human tendency is to think that when things are the toughest, God is the furthest away from us. Even the Psalmist thought so (read Ps 22:1-2, Ps 74:1 or several others). And yet Peter states clearly, as does the rest of Scripture, that God does not abandon his children.
The Psalmist says it this way in Psalm 121:1-4“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”
Jesus says it like this in John 10:27-29 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.”
Paul makes a similar claim in Rom 8:38-39 “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
And Peter states here that we are being guarded by God for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last days. Peter is not simply talking about what we often refer to as our conversion. He is talking about that and everything else tied up in Jesus presenting us spotless and blameless before God’s throne.
On top of that, look at the adjectives Peter uses to describe our inheritance in Christ in v4. Imperishable – it will never spoil and will always be good and useful. Undefiled – sin will never tarnish it and it will never let us down. Unfading – the general effects of the curse (a world that doesn’t last) are now reversed for those who are found in Christ.
Each of these biblical authors, along with others I didn’t have time to reference, underscore the simple but profound reality that God is preserving us. He is protecting us. Jesus has secured for us an eternal redemption so the Father, the Son and the Spirit are always near us and working for us no matter how we may feel.
There is a third aspect of how Peter addresses our easy distraction from God’s vision when troubles come upon us. He reminds us that our trials serve as a test of the genuineness of our faith. And, as much as we may not like the idea of being tested, tests have a purpose. I think if we take a Christ-centered perspective on the testing we may find ourselves agreeing with Peter that the results are more precious than gold.
Perhaps we can think of it this way. Since our faith is in the finished work of Christ and our salvation depends upon the gracious gift of God and our comprehension of what we’ve received is through the enlightening of the Holy Spirit, then the test is not really directed at us but at God. In a very real way, God uses struggles and trials in our lives to demonstrate to us that the faith we have received from Him is genuine. And a genuine faith that secures our eternal redemption is more precious than gold. Let me expand that: it is more sure than gold, which Peter reminds us, perishes even though it is also tested by fire.
A fourth antidote to the ease at which we replace God’s vision with our own vision is that Peter reminds us of the magnificence of our salvation. It has been said that we under value our salvation because we both under estimate the seriousness of our sin and we over estimate our own righteousness. Peter cuts through that mirage by clearly stating that our salvation rests exclusively on Christ. Anything else would result in glory going to someone other than Jesus. And it would result in a shaky and unreliable salvation.
But Peter is clear. Our salvation is secure and it brings glory and honor and praise to Jesus. On top of that, it produces a joy that is inexpressible. And this joy, this inexpressible joy, is what replaces our desire for the fading and fleeting things of this life. Since joy is one of those words that are often vaguely defined, I want to share one man’s description of joy. Thomas Watson summed up Christ-centered joy in this way:
• Joy is a delightful passion. It is contrary to sorrow and the perturbation of the mind, and it overcomes the heart that is perplexed and cast down.
• By joy, the soul is supported under present troubles. Joy stupefies and swallows up troubles; it carries the heart above them, as the oil swims above the water.
• By joy, the heart is fenced against future fear. Joy is the antidote by which the fear of approaching danger is blocked off. "I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me."
At this point, I would be remiss, if I didn’t underscore the fact that everything Peter is proclaiming, both to his original audience and to us, hangs on one inescapable reality. We must be born again. Peter states it directly in verse 3 and comes back to our salvation in verse 9. He also sprinkles in references to salvation and faith in Christ throughout the intervening verses. Thus, he leaves us no other choice than that the hope, the joy, the security and the preciousness that we have been promised is intricately tied to our salvation in Christ.
I want to stress this because I think it is very easy for each of us to focus the entailments of our new life in Christ and neglect the foundation. It would be similar to driving in a fancy suburb and admiring a magnificent 3rd floor deck while forgetting that the house and the deck only stand because of the sureness of the foundation. We dare not think in our minds or in our hearts that we somehow outgrow the gospel and move on to its implications. Instead, as Peter says in chapter 2 verse 2, we must grow up into salvation.
At this point I want to address myself to anyone who may not believe that Jesus died as a payment for their specific sins. I need you to listen very carefully. You need to know you are in a very dangerous place. To put it bluntly, you are headed to Hell. But the good news is that Christ has died. The price has been paid. The gift has been offered. Will you not repent and believe? You need to know that none of the good and glorious promises in the Bible apply if you reject the salvation that God has freely and graciously provided. In the words of Ezekiel I would plead with you, “Turn! Turn! God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. O that you would turn from your way and live.”
I also want to speak directly to those of you who would call yourselves believers, Christ-followers, disciples. I have one question for you: What place does the gospel have in your life? Is it one among many important things? You want to work on your marriage and your parenting. You want to be diligent and productive at your job. Perhaps you want to excel at a craft, say singing or karate or preaching. And of course you have the gospel to make everything fit.
Or perhaps you have the gospel first on your list. All the other things have their place, marriage, parenting, job, hobbies and interests, but gospel is always first on the list of all the important things in your life.
Or, is the gospel the list?
If we take a serious look at what Peter has to say, not just here, but throughout both of his letters, we can’t escape the fact that he saw that the gospel is in a category by itself. In chapter 1, his call to holiness is grounded in the gospel. In chapter 2, his view of the church and suffering flow from the gospel. In chapter 3, his call to prayer and to witness, even in the face of persecution depend on the gospel of a savior who suffered for those who deserved to suffer.
We can add to this Paul’s relentless pursuit and proclamation of the gospel and Jesus unwavering drumbeat of His kingdom transforming our lives. At the end of the day we are forced to stand back and admit that the gospel drives everything. We cannot have the gospel in our heads only. We dare not keep it on a shelf like some piece of treasured china. We must allow it to own us, to mold us and to shape us, to propel us and to sustain us.
As I said at the beginning of this message, I wanted to drill down into just a couple of the deep anchors that Peter is laying to strengthen and solidify our faith. The anchors I want to focus on are not more important than the ones that I’m passing over. They are simply the ones I sense are perhaps more neglected than the others. But, I would encourage each of you, young or old, new believer or senior saint to take some time, either this afternoon or this evening or maybe tomorrow and slowly, reflectively, prayerfully reread this passage. Allow the Holy Spirit to sink all of His anchors deep into your soul.
Anchor number 1 is found in verse 3. Look at it again. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” There’s a ton packed into that single verse, but I want to zoom into the very basic statement that is being made. God caused us to be born again. Let me say that again. God caused us to be born again.
Brothers and sisters, this goes beyond the concept that most of us have of election. I would dare say that most of us see God’s election like picking teams on the grade school playground. God chooses who He wants on His team. If we think about it hard enough and long enough, we would probably admit we don’t have the skills to play the game we’ve been picked to play. On top of that we are the most antisocial kid in the school. Yet God picked us anyway.
But, what Peter is saying goes deeper than that. God did choose us. God did pick for himself people who were the most unlikely followers and set His affections on the most rebellious of people. Yet Peter insists that God not only choose us and set His affections on us: He caused us to be born again. This is not just a selective action. This is an operative action. He didn’t just declare us not guilty by some act of divine fiat, He worked in and through His Son to cause our sins to be absorbed by the body and blood of Jesus. He strained to take the righteousness of Christ and set it on us and locked it in place, never to be moved again. He groaned through the compassion of the Holy Spirit to awaken our spirits to the truth and the reality of everything that He has done and continues to do for us in Christ.
My friends, God saved us. And He continues to sustain us in that salvation. That’s Peter’s point in verse 5. And to top it off, God will ultimately, finally and completely save us when we stand before His throne. Nobody expresses this truth better than Jude in verses 24-25: “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”
What is our response to this great God? How do we even begin to express our love and gratitude? How can we hold back when He lovingly commands us to obey? How can we doubt His love and mercy and grace and power for us who believe? Should we not proclaim with Jeremiah: “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”
The second anchor I want to focus on in the time that remains is the preciousness of our faith. Peter points to the breadth of our faith in verses 5 and 9, but verse 7 is the key verse that I want to drill into. “so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Peter states clearly that our faith is more precious than gold. As good, Bible reading Christians, we may intellectually agree with this statement. But do we believe it practically? Do really see our faith as being that valuable? Or have we lost sight of what is really precious, what is really valuable?
It should be noted that from beginning to end, the Bible consistently paints God’s economy as totally different often antithetical to ours. Our economy is always based on work and resources, our work, our resources. It results, if we work hard and have the right resources, in our wealth. The problem is, our work doesn’t last, or isn’t enough. And our resources never last and are often the wrong ones at the wrong time.
God’s economy is also based on work and resources. However, His work is perfect and His resources are infinite. But what makes God’s economy totally different than ours is that it is outward focused not inward focused. We work for money for food or clothes or rent for ourselves or our family. If we are really altruistic, we give some our stuff to ministries we support. God, however, does everything for the benefit of others, even those who hate Him. He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust. He sent Jesus to die for a rebellious and sinful people. He delays the day of Christ’s return so more people can hear the gospel and believe. And he ties our salvation to faith so that it can be made secure in Christ and result in praise and glory to our Savior.
The bottom-line is this: God secures our salvation through faith. Any works on our part and our salvation would rely, at least in part on us. If this were the case, we would have reason to doubt, since we could never be sure if we did enough or if we did it correctly. This is the religious heritage in which I was raised. But thanks be to God that we are saved by grace through faith and that faith itself is a gift from God (see Eph 2:8), so there is no room for doubt. God secures our salvation, He gives it inestimable value and He brings it to completion in Christ.
There is one thing about our faith that must be made crystal clear before we conclude. As precious as it is, as secure as it is, as God glorifying as it is, it is only as good as its object. D.A. Carson tells a story of two Israelites talking at the well on the morning before the first Passover. One man is quite anxious and asks the other what he thinks of all the plagues. The second man replies that they have been traumatic and frightening, but he has confidence in God and so far everything Moses has said has borne out. The first man, still quite nervous presses. What about this sacrifice of a lamb? And the spreading of its blood on the door posts and frame? He only has his one son. He can’t lose him. How can a lamb’s blood stop the angel of death? It doesn’t make any sense. The second man responds with calmness. Everything Moses has said about the plagues has been true. Everything he has said about God matches what the elders told us from Noah and Abraham and Joseph. I don’t how a lamb’s blood can avert the angel of death, but I will do what God told us to do and trust Him. The first man, still nervous, leaves shaking his head and wringing his hands, saying, I just don’t get it. I’m just not sure. Yet, that evening both men followed Moses’ prescription, sacrifice their family lamb and spread the blood on the door posts and frame.
Then Carson asks this provocative question. Which first born son was saved?
The answer is that both boys were saved. You see it is not about the quality of our faith nor is it about the quantity of our faith. The preciousness of our faith, the genuineness of our faith and the sureness of our faith is found in its object: Jesus Christ.
As I close, ponder the words of Charles Spurgeon: “Consider this, believer. You have no right to heaven in yourself: your right lies in Christ. If you are pardoned, it is through his blood; if you are justified, it is through his righteousness; if you are sanctified, it is because God has made Him your sanctification; if you shall be kept from falling, it will be because you are preserved in Christ Jesus; and if you are perfected at the last, it will be because you are complete in him. Thus Jesus is magnified-for all is in him and by him; thus the inheritance is made certain to us-for it is obtained in him; thus each blessing is the sweeter, and even heaven itself the brighter, because it is Jesus our Beloved ‘in whom’ we have obtained all.”
To God Alone be the Glory
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