I Peter 1:3-9

Is that not encouraging how much God has done for you? A wonderful goal He set before us, the inheritance that He says that He will give to us. It is just wonderful! What God has given us and promised us is priceless and truly unfathomable. It is hard to understand, hard to comprehend that we could be given these things and He will do these things for us. And so he rightly says here, Peter does, we rejoice in them, and we give Him all the credit and all the glory for our almost unbelievable election and blessing upon blessing.

But Peter does ground us back in reality here, reminding us that in this little while of our human lifetimes, our time of sanctification, we are grieved now and then by the trials of life which test our faith, which test, as I said as we were going through there, whether we have a genuine character. Sometimes those trials are indeed fiery, but their aim is to mature us, perfect us, to test us like a metal, to see if we are pure, whether our faith is indeed genuine, that we are growing in Christlike character that will not waver under duress.

And it is made all the more difficult, he says, because God is invisible to us. We cannot see Him. We know He is there. We can see the results of His work in our lives, but we are human. Seeing is believing, right? It is not actually true in every circumstance, but we are so fixated on our own senses that we often need to have some tangible proof of something before we will do anything about one thing or another.

But God is invisible. We have to take certain things on faith, we have to believe that the Bible is His word, we have to believe that it has been transmitted to us as His Word, as the pure words that He says it is composed of. We have to believe what Jesus says about how we should live, and the things the apostles teach and the prophets as well, that it is the truth. And on and on it goes. There are a lot of things that we have to believe even though we do not see things, feel them, hear them, touch them. Things of God that the people in this world without the Holy Spirit reject because they cannot see them.

So it feels like half the time that we are going through life at least partially blinded because we do not see. But if we are in full union with Him, we rejoice, despite all of this, and glorify Him for the salvation He is working out in our lives. If we are sensitive enough, maybe that is not quite the word, if we are thinking enough, if we are in tune with Him enough, we can see more than we think we can, because we, by the Holy Spirit, see connections and understand things more, better as we go through our lives.

What Peter is kind of telling us is that we go through life with this wonderful calling, all these wonderful promises, with the assurance of God that He will save us, that we can be in that first resurrection, that we can rule with Him, we can inherit all things. But in this physical life, because it is a physical life, because this world is still ruled by Satan, that our days are full of joy and grief. We live with hope, and also the painful realities of life. We enjoy the blessings, and we hate the trials, but they are there, both the good and the bad, the positive and the negative.

But we do this, we keep our chin up, we keep hoping, we keep rejoicing, we continue thanking God for the blessings that He has given us, all in expectation that Christ will return and all these things will come to fruition. We say with John in Revelation 22:20, "Come, Lord Jesus!" But we know that that day is not today, it is not even next year, and truth be told, a lot of us are old, we may die before it happens. So we must fill the time with faith and virtue, growth and fruits, to please the Father and the Son. Yes, Christ is coming, thank God for that! So what do you do in the meantime? That is the question for today.

I Peter 1:1-5

First of all Peter reminds us of whom we are. And that term "elect" is the very ground of our comfort. Do you know why? Because it means (when connected to the foreknowledge of God) that God knows us personally. We meet a lot of people who would like to know that the President of the United States knows them personally.

Or let's come down a level or two. They would like it to be known that they are known by some other personality that they respect very highly. They would like to be able to tell their friends, "Oh, I know him and he knows me. We went to school together," or, "we did this together." Whether the person is a millionaire or a billionaire, or whether they are a well-known athlete or entertainer, somebody well known in the area around wherever you happen to be, we like to drop names. Peter just said, "If there's any name you want to drop, drop God's. He knows you." That's something.

Before God called you, He watched your life. He did it because He wanted to make sure that He and you would be able to work together and that He wouldn't lose you. And He's sure that with His help, you can make it. You can be prepared for the opportunity, for the job, or whatever it is, that you're being prepared for.

That is the ground of your hope, right there. God knows you and because He knows you, He's going to do things for you. He's in the position to be able to do it. All He has to do is give the word, just like the great personality we might know in society. They can open doors for us, whatever it might be. God can open any door anywhere for us. And He will do what is right for us.

He goes on in verse 3 that He is the author of an act of mercy by which He has given us a sure hope of being brought into our inheritance.

"He has begotten us again to a living hope." Do you know why it's living? Because Jesus Christ is alive! He is our High Priest. And He loves us in a way that we can't even begin to understand. He loves us so much that He gave His life for us. He loves us so much, that He is willing to do whatever is necessary to ensure that we will be in His Kingdom. You have access to the highest of all places. You have friends who have names and power that are so awesome there is nothing greater.

We don't need to fear what is coming in the way the world is going to fear what is coming, because God is able to bring us through it. If we had to face it ourselves, there would be no hope for us. So God is the author of this act of mercy by which we are given a sure hope and we will be brought into our inheritance (verse 4). It is incorruptible. The contrast is being made between Canaan, Palestine, and the Kingdom of God. Which is better? Well, there's no doubt which one is better.

One more thing here. It is "undefiled and that does not fade away. It is reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation." That word "kept" can easily be translated "guarded," "surrounded," "hedged in." God is watching out for you in a way that He is not watching out for this world. But because we are the apple of His eye, and because He is preparing us for something, Jesus Christ is going to discharge His duties as High Priest in our behalf and He is guarding us and protecting us from the worst of what is going on around us.

That ought to be encouraging, that if He were not doing what He is doing, it would be far worse already for us.

I Peter 1:3-5

Now God has called us into the richest, most wealthiest Family in the entire universe. It does not get any bigger. He has established His covenant with us and given us His Word to serve as a guide on how we are to live our lives. He has told us what to get rid of in this life and what to hold on to and given us a glimpse into the heavenly inheritance that He has for us that is incorruptible, undefiled, and will not fade away.