The God of Heaven and Hardship

Text: 1 Peter 1:1–2 ESV

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. May grace and peace be multiplied to you.” (1 Peter 1:1-2 ESV)

So far, we have heard two sermons on the book of 1 Peter in our series “Hope in Hardship”, and next week, Don will jump into chapter 2 of first Peter. But right now, we are going to rewind back to verses 1-2 of chapter 1. Why? Because there is a lot to glean from a greeting in a New Testament letter. And oftentimes our gleanings can be greater and deeper once we’ve been in the book a little, to gain some proper context before we excavate all that is in the Greeting. 

We will look at two of the three parts of most typical Biblical greetings—the author and the audience. My hope is that the God behind the Greeting is greater and more gracious than you previously realized. This is a typical trajectory of all maturing Christians, isn't’ it? That the greatness and graciousness of our God grows in grandness as we mature. The old movie, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, was in my mind and at the start, there is a scene that shows his deflated and sickly, apathetic and cold heart. But then, on Christmas Day, his heart grew three sizes, and he had the strength of ten Grinches, and he lifted the sleigh that held all the stolen gifts of The Who’s of Whoville over His head. That is what I want this morning: I want your heart to swell in size and strength because of your increased realization about the greatness and graciousness of our God! I want it to break the frame that encloses it so to speak. 

The Cross Chart

Let me capture this point with a quick illustration. I call this PAC-Man diagram. It starts with two diagonal lines showing the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man over a spectrum of time. At the start of one’s Christian rebirth our understanding of sinfulness is dreadfully low. We have no clue to the extent of the deadness, dreadfulness of our depravity. At each and every stage of my life, single, then marriage, now as a parent, I understand another layer of my evil impulses. It takes time, doesn’t it? Time to encounter hard people, engage hard life situations, time to mull over God’s Word and allow God’s spirit to overhaul you until you learn as Paul did that you are a real piece of work. And let me tell you…the trajectory of your understanding should not be a better view of yourself, but a more dismal one. You know you are growing when you are repenting more, seeing more of your sin, apologizing more, confessing more, tearing up more…this is not because you are sinning more, but because you are seeing your sins more. And you are to grow in a more accurate self-assessment and in actual diagnosis of your true condition—that you are not as great or grand as you once thought and you are in need of much more grace that you ever first realized. The trajectory of a God-ward life is one that mimic’s the apostle Paul’s who, in Ephesians 3:8, admitted he was “the least of the apostles” but in 1 Corinthians at little later in his journey claimed “he was the least of the saints…” and then by the time of his death and the climax of his walk with God said, “I am the worst of sinners…”. We should all be the worst people we know. We ought to know no one more deranged and depraved than we are. 

However, as a Christian’s view of self lessens, his view of His God’s greatness and graciousness enlarges. The righteousness of God and his justice, morality, Word, prophecies and promises grow holier, holier, and holier. Three times is the word “Holy” recited by the angels and is the only title recorded in the Bible given to God that recited thrice! The otherness of God and the perfection of God is heralded in the heavens. We too, as we near glory should Mimic that proclamation too. 

And as the chasm widens—our view of self and our view of God we cannot help but see a need for the cross to grow!! As the chasm widens, the cross cannot stay the same size of importance and role in your life. It must grow, widen, and broaden to cover the gap that grows at every step of a maturing Christian life. So, if you are maturing, then your view of self should be minimized, your view of God maximized, and the cross beams in your life should multiply in length ten times over. The God of this cross is the God behind this greeting and the God behind the great gospel that makes Peter who he was, that makes Peter’s audience who they were, and makes us who we are! So, just as the God of this Greeting is greater and more gracious than you first realized, so is the God who greets you greater and more gracious, and so is the gospel He has given greater and more gracious than we ever first realized. So, don’t sit stagnant on this spectrum satisfied that your chasm is wide enough. It’s not, it must increase if He is to increase. You must decrease, if He is to increase.

Jumping into the text

Now, every New Testament letter we come upon we immediately have an opportunity, and some might say it’s a Biblical necessity to accurately understand a letter. It’s called an author and audience study. So, every time you begin a study of a book of the Bible it is wise to ask questions and understand more about the author and the audience

First, the author

PETER—the first name of some of these men who wrote these letters should blow you away. Peter was a fisherman, no training or education, and very ordinary. Paul, a persecutor turned preacher. Again, we must see the God behind these greetings. That He is much greater and much more gracious than we would ever first realize. Now, Peter was from Bethsaida, around the Sea of Galilee, he was a fisherman. What do we remember about this Peter? 

Here are the words that come to mind with regards to Peter: brazen and bold (preached mighty sermons after the resurrection and was the first to identify Jesus as the Christ), proud (said he would never deny or desert Christ), ignorant and foolish (when Jesus called Him Satan and said get behind me…”). Peter was personally confronted for gospel hypocrisy in Galatians when he let the fear of Pharisees determine who was suitable to eat with or not. Peter was tested and refined by Jesus and handed over to be sifted like wheat by Satan—Peter knew something about God’s hard providences, but also he knew Christ’s promise—when your turn strengthened the brothers. Peter was the first in the tomb and he was the first one out of the boat when Jesus visited him post-resurrection on the shore. Peter’s death was forecasted by Jesus and we know from 2 Peter that He assumes his martyrdom is very, very clear. So, when we get Peter talking about suffering, persecution, and hardship he is not doing it from a ivory protected fortress, but one who saw the suffering of the Savior and penned down the truth Christ relied on, and the truth He will rely on in his own coming hardship and hurt. 

Second, the audience

The church, the individual, location, date of writing, what issues are present, what is encouraging, how did they come to faith (as you rightly understand the audience you can therefore rightly apply it to yourself).

When it comes to 1 Peter, Peter wrote it most likely in the mid 60’s (about 30 years after Jesus’ life and resurrection, and Peter was most likely writing at the time of Nero’s persecution of Christians). Now, why were they called the dispersion? Well the word “dia” means ‘through’ and ‘spersion’ means ‘sow’ or ‘scatter seed.’ Well, they were dispersed or scattered all over Turkey, probably not mainly by persecution to begin with. You see, this audience is not mainly Jews living outside of Palestine—not talking about their ethnic or national homeland, but Christians living outside of a heavenly kingdom—their eternal homeland. Why have they been scattered? We don’t really know. It could have been some persecution but that is probably not the main reason. Some commentators think they scattered to take advantage of plentiful trade routes and business and, though this was their purpose, God’s Providence had them there for other reasons. It was a little like our men’s gathering in McCall. Why is there this 100 year old that testifies of the gospel faith today? Because over 100 years ago a bi-go farmer left his homeland in search of better land and lumber and prayed that God would grow a church out of his home. He was dispersed, probably thinking it was for land and lumber, but God would spread life to the Long Valley in McCall because of him. But let’s get back to these lands… where were they and what were they?

1. Pontus – by 100 AD it had a well-established church network and was a springboard for getting the gospel to Syria, Armenia, Iraq and Iran.

2. Bithynia – had a well-known city named Nicea, and in 325 it penned the Nicean creed which is an excellent orthodox Creed of the Christian faith and doctrine. 

3. Galatia- was one of the early Christian communities and Paul’s letter to the Galatians has been called the Magna Carta of Christian liberty. 

4. Cappadocia— the city that was a safe-haven for persecuted Christians during the Byzantine era. They formed caves to hide the church in during raids. 

Whatever the case, they were all spread out as lights amidst the darkness and vulnerable to a world and a prince of the world that hated them and was hostile toward them. They were exiles (not living in their homelands) but put there by the powerful providence of God. Providence implies purpose, not just power, as does sovereignty. God’s elective providence has great purposes for these provinces. In fact, what went on in these provinces has now affected the entire planet. Let us not be those who despise seemingly small providences because they can contain great purposes! 

Exiles

When my family moved to England, the goal of our lives was to contextualize, learn, and identify with our new culture. We were to become all things to all men so that we might win them for the gospel. We understood the trunk of a car to be the boot, and trash to be rubbish, we wore trousers and not pants. We drove on the left side of the road and not on the right. We always had tea in the kettle and learned to be more risk averse and speak warmly of the socialized society and medicine of which we were a part of. So, our lifestyle was to be contextualized, but our conduct and morality was to become Christlike. We were to stick out like sore thumbs, not because we were Americans, but because we were Christians. Christians don’t contextualized in conduct, worldview, behavior, or belief. Not in how we talk, how or why we vote, why we speak up, or how we handle our money. We are to be set apart and to stand out like the sun shining at night! 

But the question remains like it did for 1 Peter’s audience: why are you an exile in this life? An exile has been forced out of their homeland against their own will due to some outside force like war or disaster. But what has made you an exile? Why are you living counter-culturally in this earthly land and life? Was it self-choice? Because God elected you to. To put it another way, He chose you. He handpicked you and plucked you from your earthly citizenship and pulled you away from this deadly and finite homeland with no future and no hope. God has elected us to a new citizenship ceremony and given us all the rights, privileges, hope, and inheritance that come with this new title!

You were not different

And some of you say, no, I was already a little different, I was on my way to apply for a new citizenship when God accepted me, or God picked me because I was qualified or I was grandfathered in because of previous family members. BUT that’s not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches us that you were not more lovely, not more desirable, not wiser, not godlier, not closer, nor more accepting. The Bible teaches that each of us was no closer or farther than another to God, regardless of our physical proximity to a person of faith. Each of us had our heads deep in the well of the world and stuffing ourselves in the trough of sin, and if it had not been for the hand of heaven you would have engorged yourself and drowned yourself in depravity. That is precisely why God is great and gracious. He has himself forced you in exile away from a land that you loved, but was slowly and secretly strangling you. You say, but no, I was different. And Ephesians 2:1-3 lays a blanket reality upon us all!

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (Ephesians 2:1-3 ESV)

You, I, we are no different. We are all dead in the sea of sin. You are not fighting to swim or to keep your head above the tide of transgression. You had to be elected and handpicked because you were dead. Dead people cannot swim and cannot save themselves. You say, my life was a little different, and it wasn’t. It was following Satan as a soldier of hell. Your spirit was the same spirit that at work now in the sons of disobedience and rebellion. Your life may have looked or appeared better, but it was just as bad. If you had not been pulled from the carnage and Christlessness of your life, you would have received wrath, just like every other man. You were no different. You see this is called grace, not just because you did not deserve it, but it’s getting what you didn’t even know you needed or wanted. 

The Great Savior God chose you from the abyss and battlefield and breathed life in your lifeless corpse and has made you an enemy of the enemy in his own territory. God has made a rebellion rise up in the enemy’s own backyard. The Christian movement is now turning against the Devil and his deadly henchmen and we are exiles on earth, and no longer earthly!!

The question we all must answer

Have you ascribed to God the totality of responsibility for your Redemption? Let me be clear, you did not enlist for the ranks of heaven, but you were drafted. You were chosen, you were elected, you were predestined. Let’s let the Bible speak for a moment. 

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9-10 ESV)

“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,” (1 Peter 1:3 ESV)

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us b for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,” (Ephesians 1:3-5 ESV)

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out….And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day…No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:37, 44 ESV)

Why is this so hard for us to swallow? I believe it’s really a question of posture, position, and pride. It’s a matter of starting place really. A broken, lowly, and humbled person has no problem with this theology because he has empty hands—he brings nothing to His God and he can do nothing for Himself—he’s hopeless and helpless. If he is stranded in the sea of sin and drowning in a whirlpool of wasteless living, then His only chance is for the one who walks on water to whisk him up and return him back to land. Therefore he is not ashamed to call Christ his Savior, Rescuer, and Redeemer—that the subject of our salvation carries out the salvific action irrespective of the object. But he does not do it apart from Him. God does not save apart from a personal and conscious trust in the sacrifice of the Son of God. One of my pastors said in a recent book, “when God turns the human will, there is a mystery to it that causes a person to experience God’s turning as his own preference—a responsible act to the human will.” So, God doesn’t need to, but He chooses not to work apart from you. 

But, the one who comes with handfuls and has something to offer usually has a problem with this line of thinking. Not because He wants to limit God, but because he or she will not limit themselves. We must boast in Gods’ elective power and His elective love. This it’s precisely why Jesus is called the author of our salvation. So, in sum, God is completely, comprehensively, and totally responsible for our redemption from beginning and, as we shall see, to the end. 

The Trinity at work in our redemption. The 3 Steps of Salvation

Now, as we look to verse 2, I want to note for us some observations:

1. This is the only verse in the Bible to my knowledge that contains the Trinity for one and the work of our salvation carried out by our Triune God. 

2. We will answer three questions by these next three phrases:

1. The WHAT —what has God done?

2. The WHERE/HOW — where/how Has this act taken place?

3. The WHY — Why has God done this?

First, foreknowledge — God does have pre-knowledge. There is nothing wrong or inaccurate saying that God has pre-knowledge. But God has much more than this. He does not simply and passively know what is going to happen. He has ordained, ordered, prescribed, willed, and works all things into existence, being, and reality. God could have only pre-knowledge about which humans would and could choose Jesus one day, but the Bible just doesn’t ascribe that sort of ability/morality/objectivity to the human race. If the Bible spoke of a more ableness of humankind then God would only need fore-knowledge as some of you think he has. But if man is hopelessly and helplessly adrift, aimless, and against the God of the universe then that requires much more of a Biblical view of foreknowledge. The foreknowledge that acts, accomplished, achieves, and applies salvation to a lost and saintless soul. God has a foreknowledge that does not just observe as an onlooker, but a player and actor in the battle for destinies and eternities. 

1. The prepositional phrase here is “according to” - how are you elected and given eternal life? Well, it’s “according to” which in root form means “down” or “domination”, so you were elected by the dominating foreknowledge of God. Another way to understand this is that God’s foreknowledge completely and utterly owns this election process. 

2. But how do we know this is not only pre-knowledge? Well, there is only one other place in which the noun form of this word “foreknowledge” is used: Acts 2:23. The context is Peter’s sermon talking about the eternal counsel/definite plan/foreknowledge of God. You see, God the Father’s knowledge was not limited to just knowing what would happen to Jesus, His knowledge determined what happened to Jesus. And it's the same with our salvation…God’s deliberate judgment, counsel, and foreknowledge went into selecting you. 

3. We do not spend near enough time thinking, “Why me?” Why in the world is my ransomed life the product of God’s foreknowledge? I cannot tell you that. But I can tell you this, it was not because of you, but completely because of Him. The God of the greeting is greater and more gracious than you ever realized. And in case you just cannot buy that now, all the saved will buy it on that great day because when you get to heaven there are at least two things you will not say, first, “is this it?” And second, “yeah, I deserve this.” If you did not believe in foreknowledge before, you will then. 

Next, “in the sanctification of the Spirit…” the phrase “in the sanctification of the Spirit” is a grammatical classification of location. What has God’s foreknowledge chosen? He has chosen you to be sanctified (or to be set apart) So, God has chosen and elected you for the setting-apart work of the Spirit. And what is the setting-apart work of the Spirit—well it's one of justification and sanctification. Justification meaning you were judicially right with God and sanctification you begin to act like and look like the God you were created to image. 

1. The sphere of the Spirit’s setting apart work is always attached to Jesus (“for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with His blood”). God the Spirit is not detached from or disinterested in God the Son. Not in this verse and not in everyday life. The Spirit isn’t on his own island seeking to fill people and fulfill them apart from Jesus. The spirit exists to glorify Jesus. He’s not mainly about tongues, prophecy or worship, He is about the lamb of God. You kind of don't know he’s there because He’s too busy making a good ruckus about Jesus. How do you know when someone is filled with the Spirit— they have the fruit of the Spirit which means they have a Christ-like life! The setting apart work of the Spirit has its purposes in the person of God, Jesus Christ. 

2. This Spirit does two things: he gives you faith so you are justified and then he gives you fruit so you are sanctified in His image. 

So, let’s get to these last two purposes that God’s knowledge has elected you for. Here is the last step of salvation. We know what God has done, where/how it is done, and now why? 

1. To obey Jesus—We often think of the gospel call as an invitation, but it's much more. It's a command. As we have been working through the New Testament, I have been struck by all the preaching Jesus is doing and his call to repent and believe is not so much an invitation as a command. In Matthew 4:17 Jesus said, “repent (not if you want to or if you choose to, but straight up REPENT, for the kingdom of God is here.”

2. There are other places where this obedience of Belief is carried out: Acts 6:7 -”and the word of God increased, and the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and even the priests became obedient to the faith.” What we see in God’s foreknowledge is that the least likely people obey Jesus when God’s knowledge elects. They would have never enlisted, it took election. 

3. And finally the phrase “For sprinkling with His blood…” When God chooses you for salvation, and God the Spirit gives you the act of faith, you can be assured that God the Son has sprinkled you clean. The image of sprinkling is one Peter takes from the OT priest sprinkling the body with blood as a cleansing ritual. Well, now we have a remembering ritual. And Jesus said it's not wine or the blood of goats and bulls that makes you clean. You cannot wipe it on the outside and be okay because that’s not the problem. My sprinkling goes on inwardly and cleanses the heart. That is why we drink because we remember the sacrifice of Christ that washes us inwardly. It cleans us from the inside out. 

4. So you ask, Am I chosen? Well, put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of all your sin and for the fulfillment of all his promises and eternal life and God will save you. Then you will know that God the Father elected you, God the Spirit brought you to faith, and God the Son has cleansed you once and for all. Amen!

We remember God’s foreknowledge not only in our election unto salvation but in the crucifixion of His son unto damnation for us! God’s foreknowledge is indispensable for our salvation and the salvation of the world in Christ!