The last few weeks we have been talking about sanctification as described in Peter’s first epistle. Though Peter doesn’t refer to it as sanctification per se, he does state his thesis as “Be holy, even as I am holy.”  Holiness is sanctification.  Sanctification means to be set apart for a sacred purpose.  The Apostle Paul said in 1Thess. 4:3 “For this is God’s will, your sanctification.”  Hebrews says as well in chapter 12:14, “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.”

So sanctification is the purpose for which we live now that we are saved.  However, just to be clear, it’s not a means of justification.  In other words, it’s not a bunch of things we do in order to be justified before God.  We are justified by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  But sanctification is the response of one who has been saved, who has been given new life, transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God.   We are to be holy, even as He is holy.  And as holy  people, we serve God as priests to God in His temple, offering our lives as a holy sacrifice unto Him.

Holiness then is the way we are to live.  We live by faith. And holy living requires faith.  Holy living is the works of faith. As James says, you show your faith by your works.  It take a lot of faith to live holy, because it goes against our nature.  It often goes against human reason.   It takes faith, for instance, to do right when the world says it makes more sense to do wrong. It takes faith to let the Lord be the judge and your defense when being ridiculed for your faith.  And so a lot of things that we see in this section are counter intuitive to human reason.  But it’s walking by the Spirit and not in the flesh.  It’s walking by faith and not by sight.  It’s acting like God wants us to act, instead of how we would like to act.

So the title of my message then is Sanctification through Submission.  Submission is not a very popular word today in our culture.  Our culture believes in standing up for your rights.  Our culture admires independence.  It’s popular today to be an activist, to rebel, to resist. To claim what you think you deserve.  But as we will see today, sanctification comes by way of submission.

I want us to look today at six steps to submission, on the path to sanctification. Sanctification is a process between justification and glorification. In between is the process of becoming holy as God is holy.  And the first step Peter gives us can be categorized by the word  separate.  As I said a minute ago, sanctification means set apart.  Peter said in verse 9 that we are a chosen race, a royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, called out of darkness into His light. 

So in light of our calling, though we are in the world, we are not to be of the world.  Much in the way a ship may be in the water, but it’s not of the water.  The boat may be in the water, but the water is not in the boat.  

Peter likens this separation to us being aliens and strangers in the world.  Vs.11, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.” Abstain, or separate yourselves from the lusts, or love of the world.  We shouldn’t love the things the world loves.  Consider your calling, as strangers and aliens in the world, and don’t participate in the lusts of it.

John said in 1John 2:15 “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”  As citizens of another kingdom we don’t participate in the works of darkness as the world does.  Peter says the lusts of this world wage war against the soul. War is destructive.  And the lusts of this world are destructive.  They promise to satisfy, to make you happy, but instead they destroy and deceive and make you enslaved all over again.  

The lusts of the world attack your mind and bring it back under subjection to sin, and sin destroys.  I’ve said it before, the spiritual battleground is in your mind. The soul; that is the mind, the heart, the seat of our emotions and will is the battleground between the Spirit and the flesh.  We are to walk after the Spirit, and not by the flesh.  So control of the soul is the source of addiction, captivity.  And all sin is addictive.  And all sin destroys.  So the first step is to separate yourself from the world. You’ve been set free from sin and washed by Christ’s blood, continue in that holiness by abstaining, fleeing, moving away from those sins which would seek to enslave you again.

Secondly, the next step Peter says, we are to be superior. That doesn’t mean to be snobby or conceited.  It’s means our behavior is held to a higher standard than that of the world. Peter says in vs12 “Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.”

What Peter is getting at here is don’t respond to slander, to accusations, to insults, or to injury from the world with a tit for tat. Don’t stoop to their level.  Don’t answer insult with insult.  But here is the counter intuitive will of God – do good to those who mistreat you. Jesus said in Luke 6:27-30  “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either.  Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back.”

Now that really goes against our nature, doesn’t it?  Somebody steps on our toes, somebody treats us unfairly, what do we do? Our nature tells us to let them have a piece of our mind, doesn’t it?  We aren’t going to let someone get away with treating us like that.  So we take our own revenge.  But Romans says, “‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.”

Peter says rather than retaliate, our goal should be that by seeing our good works they might turn to the Lord and be saved.  Overcome slander by superior behavior and deeds, so that they might give glory to God when Jesus comes back for His saints.  That means that they will be converted as a result of our actions when they mistreat us.   You know, according to Fox’s Book of Martyrs, one of the amazing things about martyrdom was that many times the people witnessing the way the martyrs went to their death immediately responded by committing their lives to Christ as well, even knowing that it insured their own death.  And they did so because of the incredible testimony of those saints while being persecuted. Our greatest testimony is often how we act, our behavior.  It’s not necessarily because we witnessed verbally to someone at some point, but through the testimony of our behavior and our good deeds, in spite of the attacks from the world.

The third step to submission is simply to submit.  Submit is not something that comes naturally, as I said earlier. In fact, the whole principle of submission is looked upon even by many in the church as something patriarchal, or legalistic, or even masochistic.  But in fact, submission is a key doctrine of the church that the Bible teaches is essential to God’s will. 

Peter says starting in vs13, “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.”

First of all, notice that he says submit for the Lord’s sake.  That’s the key.  Submit as unto the Lord. Our rationalization of whether or not we have to submit is that we compare people to our own personal standards and then if they don’t match up, if we deem they are not worthy, then we believe we are justified in opting out.  

But God says submit to them as unto Him.  And first on the list is to submit to the government. When Peter wrote this, Nero was Emperor in Rome.  Nero is one of the most evil dictators the world has ever seen.  He married a castrated teenage boy in a public ceremony.  He burned Jerusalem and blamed it on the Christians.  He tied Christians to poles and lit them on fire in order to light up his garden parties.  He was ultimately responsible for beheading both Peter and Paul.  And yet Peter says under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, submit to the king and to the governor.  

Peter’s going to say in the next chapter “In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.” That kind of knocks a lot of the objections of women to staying with our husbands right out the window, doesn’t it?  Compare your husband to Nero.  

So we submit to the government, we don’t resist.  We submit, we don’t rebel.  We don’t stage a revolution.  I’m sorry if I offend the founding fathers.  We submit.  God has not given us license to rebel. We submit for the Lord’s sake.  Submit as unto the Lord.  The ruler may be a crack pot.  He may be a jerk. He may be an atheist.  But we submit to them not because of their merits, but because their authority comes from the Lord.

Notice that we have a Lord that we obey, and He has told us to submit.  Lord in this verse is kyrious in the Greek, which means, he to whom a person or thing belongs, about which he has power of deciding; master, lord; the possessor and disposer of a thing, the owner; one who has control of the person, the master.  That doesn’t leave a lot of room for argument, does it? If Jesus is actually your Lord and Savior, not just your puppet, then you will obey Him because you belong to Him.  Your will is not your own.  Ultimately, we are to submit to the Lord.

The fourth step of submission is silence.  We silence the objections or criticisms of the gospel by doing right.  Peter says that when we submit, even to foolish men, we silence them by doing what is right.  Vs.15, “For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.”  Notice most importantly that Peter says this is the will of God.  Submission is not negotiable.  The opposite of submission is rebellion, and if you are to submit as unto the Lord, then when you rebel you are rebelling against the Lord.  You’re not rebelling agains the human authority, you’re rebelling against the Lord.

Doing right.  I hope that needs little clarification.  Peter’s whole epistle here is really about how to live right.  How to live holy lives.  How to act like Christ.  I went to a Bible college once that had pithy sayings by the founder on the wall in every classroom.  One of them was “do right until the stars fall.”  Just that simple.  Do right. No matter what the world is doing,  what everyone else does, Do Right.  Another saying related to that was, “it’s never right to do wrong in order to get a chance to do right.”  

Well, when we submit, when we do right, we silence the critics of the gospel.  We silence the critics of the church.  The biggest complaint of each generation is that the church is full of hypocrites. We say one thing in church and do another outside of church.  Peter says, do right outside of church.  Do right in the world.  Do right when everyone around you is doing wrong.  Your right actions will silence the critics, and convict the world of their sin.  That’s God’s will.

The next step to submission is to be a servant.  A servant, or a slave, is the key word.  Wow, this is just going from bad to worse, isn’t it?  Well, let’s try to understand God’s perspective on being a servant.  Sanctification is becoming like Jesus, isn’t it?  What did Jesus do?  Paul tells us in Phil. 2:5-8 “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,  who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant,  being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” 

 Jesus was equal with God but submitted to the Father.  Then He took the form of a bond servant and became a man like us.  And after that He even humbled himself to submit to death on a cross. And yet we resist the idea of being a servant?  Is a servant greater than His master? Is it ok for Jesus to be a servant, but we are not?

Peter says you are free, you’ve been set free from the captivity of sin and the devil.  He says in verse 16 “As free men,  do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God.”  A bond slave  is one who was set free by their master, and yet who chose to stay in that servant relationship because he loved his master.  That’s what Peter is saying we are to be like.  Like freed slaves who willingly choose to serve their master for the rest of their life, because they love the Lord.

So we love the Lord more than our freedom.  We choose to serve the Lord.  And Peter gives the negative here; which is don’t use your “freedom” that you received by grace as a covering for continuing in sin.  Jude speaks of such people in the church in vs  4 saying,  “For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”  He doesn’t mean that they deny that Jesus is the Christ, but they deny Him Lordship over their lives.  They have never truly renounced their sin and made Jesus Lord of their lives, to live for Him, to serve Him, and as such they are still in captivity to sin.

Peter recaps if you will who we are to submit to with a servant’s heart; “Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.”  To honor is to give preference to. To put them first.  That  is the attitude of servanthood. Honor, love, and fear or reverence are all the attitude of a bondslave of the Lord.

That attitude we are to have then is respect to those in authority over us.  Notice vs 18, “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.”  Peter has been indicating this principle all along.  It’s not a reciprocal relationship that he’s talking about. It’s not when they are deserving of your respect.  It’s irregardless of whether or not they are good, or honorable, or deserve anything.  Notice the word translated unreasonable literally means perverse.  Peter isn’t giving us a way out, is he?  Give honor to perverse people.  Actually, the original says give fear to perverse people.  Give reverential fear, that’s what honor means there.  A holy fear as unto the Lord.

By definition, grace came to you when you didn’t deserve anything.  And we are to be gracious even as God is gracious. Look at the next verse and I want you to notice the word grace in that verse.  19, “For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly.”  The word favor there is charis, which means grace.  Notice also the word “finds” is in italics, which means it’s inferred, its not in the original language.  So if we read it again we might read; For this is grace, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly.” 

I find hope in that rendering that God is going to be gracious to those who suffer unjustly.  God sees, and God will reward each man according to his deeds, whether good or bad.  So trust your soul to a faithful, gracious Master who will render justice on that day.

And in that context, Peter gives us the last step to submission, which is suffer.  Suffering is the refining fire which produces holiness.  Suffering is a necessary part of sanctification. Peter says suffering finds favor with God.  Again the word means literally grace.  Suffering finds grace with God. What may have been intended to you as evil, what may have caused you to suffer, God will use for good.  Rom. 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to [His] purpose.”

Jospeh when he was unjustly mistreated by his brothers and sold into captivity, later found himself in a position as the second in command of Egypt.  And one day his brothers came to beg bread during a famine, not recognizing him at first.  When he finally revealed himself to them, they expected him to take revenge upon them.  But what did Joseph say?  “You meant it for evil, but God used it for good.”  And Joseph’s response was to do good for his brothers, and feed them and exalt them to a status of favor in the kingdom. 

Peter says, vs.20 “For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer [for it] you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.”

There it is again, when you do what is right.  Do what is right.  This is God’s will.  This kind of behavior finds grace with God. Suffer in submission, as unto the Lord.  The Lord sees.  The Lord will take vengeance.  The Lord will one day judge justly.  In the meantime, let us be gracious to others, even as God was gracious to us even when we were in rebellion against Him,  in hope that by seeing our good works, they will be converted and bring glory to God in the day of His visitation.

Heb. 12:14 stresses the essentiality of sanctification.  It says, “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.”  Sanctification is the purpose, Paul says, for which we are saved. 1Thess. 4:7 “For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.”

Now Peter never uses the word sanctification, per se.  He does however refer to the sanctifying work of the Spirit in us, back in chapter 1vs2.  But I believe that the general thrust of Peter’s epistle is the subject of our sanctification.  His central thesis is found in the first chapter, vs 16, “Because it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy.”  Sanctification is simply holiness.  They are synonymous.  To be sanctified is to be holy, set apart, for good works.  Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  That is the goal of our sanctification, that we should be fit for service to God.

Last week we looked at a list of motivations that Peter gave us for sanctification. Now this week I believe we can find another list, Peter’s 12 step program, if you will, for sanctification.  And as I said, the purpose for our sanctification is that we might be of service to the Lord.  So without further introduction let’s look at Peter’s 12 steps to sanctification as presented in the first 10 verses of chapter 2.

The first step in our sanctification is love with a pure heart.  Peter has already referenced this in the previous chapter in vs 22, saying, “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.”  And as I said previously, the KJV and other translations include the word “pure” heart.  That indicates that Christian love is not possible without sanctification.  That it has to be unhypocritical love.  It’s really a shame how modern society has redefined the idea of love.  They have exchanged love for lust.  They have debased love to the point of lusting after self gratification.  But true Christian love is something you do for others, not for yourselves.  It’s sacrificial, not selfish. 

Paul says in Romans 12:9-13 “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor;  not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord;  rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer,  contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.”  That’s the kind of love, the kind of devotion we should have towards one another.  

So therefore in pursuit of such pure love Peter says, in vs.1, “putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.”  All those attitudes are antagonistic towards Christian love.  That reminds me of something else beneficial in the KJV, when it talks of agape love, or sacrificial love, it often uses the word charity.  That’s an old fashioned word perhaps, but it indicates that Christian love is focused on other’s benefits, not towards our own selfish ends. And all these attributes that Peter gives are signs of a selfish, self centered love of self first and foremost. So sanctification involves learning how to love like Christ loved the church, sacrificially, putting off selfishness and envy and hypocrisy and slander.

Number two in our 12 steps to sanctification, Peter says, is long for the pure word.  He actually says in vs 2, “like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word.”  Back in the previous chapter in vs 23, Peter had told us that we were born again by the seed of the word. “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.” 

Now he says, as new born babies long for the pure milk of the word that you may grow.  Many years ago when I was a kid, there was a trend in society for women to not breastfeed babies and instead to give them formula.  Perhaps it was an attempt to make women more independent and be able to go to work and so forth which was the goal of the women’s liberation movement at that time.  But over the last couple of decades, more and more research has come out which shows the tremendous nutritional benefits of breast milk. Nothing science or dietitians have come up with can compare with the benefits of breast milk.  In fact, as bizarre and gross as it sounds, it’s a trend among body builders to buy breast milk today because of the tremendous nutritional benefits which it has.  I don’t believe that is something that ought to be done, but nevertheless it shows the tremendous nutrients in breast milk.  

In the same way, there is an inherent benefit in the word of God which cannot be found in psychology, in self help books, or in science.  It has the ability to give life. Jesus said, “the words that I have spoken to you, they are spirit and they are life.” On another occasion, Jesus refuted the devil by quoting from the scripture, “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”   The word of God is authored by the Spirit, it is life to the soul, it is bread for the body, and it will keep you from sin.  Psalm 119:11 says, “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” So a proper diet of the word of God keeps you from sin which is directly related to  holiness.

Thirdly, Peter says the next step of sanctification is to grow up.  Now our text makes it clear that our maturity is closely related to eating of the word of God.  “Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”  Maturity, or growing in your salvation, is essentially sanctification.  Sanctification is the maturing process of becoming conformed to the image of Christ.  The goal is that we do not stay babies, or even children, but we become mature.  We grow up in Christ. 

Paul speaks of this in Ephesians 4:14-16 “As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;  but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,  from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”

The problem with the church today is that it is full of spiritual infants.  They have a doctrine which is a inch thick and a mile wide.  They get their teaching from self promoting television preachers and you tube prophets.  The doctrine of the scriptures has too often been reduced to a sentimental ditty sung to a modern rock tune which repeats again and again and again, without any substance. Peter and Paul are saying, you need to grow up.  Stop being deceived by every wind of doctrine. Stop being swayed this way and that way.  The gospel doesn’t change according to the winds of the culture. It is founded upon a rock which is Christ, who is the Word of God made flesh and we have beheld His likeness as we meditate on HIs word.  And that is how we grow as we spend time studying Him, copying Him, following Him.

The fourth step in sanctification is we are to partake of His goodness.  Peter says in vs3, “if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.”  This is sort of a difficult verse to exegete, but I would say that Peter is talking about partaking of the goodness of the Lord.  The idea follows the previous principle in which we drink of the pure milk of the word.  Now Peter speaks of tasting the goodness or kindness of the Lord. So the eating of the word is what is being spoken of here.  He is doubling up on the exhortation to eat of the word, to taste of the word, so that you might grow in sanctification.  If you don’t eat, then you will be malnurished, you will be under developed.  So the goal is to grow, and the means of doing that is to eat the good things which the Lord has given us to eat, the bread of life, the pure milk of the word.  Psalm 34:8 “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusts in him.”

Number 5.  The fifth step in our sanctification is to go out to Him. Peter says in vs4 “And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God…”  Listen, if we are going to be like Christ, if we’re going to follow Christ, we’re going to have to go out to Him.  Go out to Him who is outside of the camp, outside of the out of the religious centers, out of the political centers, out of the intellectual centers of society. Jesus did most of His ministry outside of the political and religious centers of His day.  He was an outcast.  He was rejected by the mainstream religious leaders and political leaders.  Being a true follower of Jesus wasn’t popular then, and it’s not popular now.

Paul said in Romans 12 “be not conformed to this world.” The opposite of being conformed to this word is to go out to Christ.  Hebrews 13:13 tells us, “So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.” Jesus himself said if we were going to be His disciples we must take up our cross and follow Him. I think we go a long way in our process of sanctification if we would just get over the idea that we want to be popular, we want to be accepted by the world, and instead we identify with Christ.

The sixth step in our sanctification Peter says is we are to build up the church.  Vs4-5 “And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God,  you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

First of all note that a building is not the temple of God, but our bodies are.  Paul says in 1Cor. 3:16 “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

I like how Peter refers to Christ as the chief stone, the foundation stone, a living stone, and we also are living stones built on the rock which is Christ. Peter realized that he was not the rock upon which the church was built, but Jesus was.  Peter was just a living stone, built on Christ the cornerstone. Our identity is in Christ, and He is in turn identified in us by His Spirit which lives in us and through us.  But the idea that God dwells in houses built by men is not a principle taught in the New Testament.  Rather, we are being built into a holy temple; a Spirit filled congregation of saints. 

And so we must recognize the importance and the need for other stones in this temple.  We are designed to be in assembly with other believers in the church, corporately forming the temple of God.  And so Peter is saying in our sanctification there is a need to build up, or edify the church.  That is the whole purpose of spiritual gifts.  Spiritual gifts are not for self edification, which the charismatics teach, but for the edification of the body.

Paul says in 1Cor. 14:12 “So also you, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church.”  So your gifts are for building up of the church.  He speaks specifically of some of those gifts in Rom. 12: 6-8 “Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching;  or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”   So use your gifts to build up the church.

The next is closely related to that.  The seventh step in our sanctification is to offer spiritual sacrifices.  Peter says, “you also, as living stones,]are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”  One of the primary duties of priests in the temple service was to offer up sacrifices and offerings.  And so in the new covenant, in the new temple not made with hands, we as priests to God offer sacrifices as well.  But not the sacrifices of bulls and goats, but our own bodies, our own lives in service to God.  We are to be sanctified for service to God.

Paul says in Romans 12:1-2 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  So holy living is a spiritual sacrifice.  Paul says service is worship.  Worship is not in what we say, but what we do.

Jesus said in Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.”   Be holy as God is holy.  That’s the sacrifice that is acceptable and pleasing to God.

The eight step to sanctification in Peter’s 12 step program is to trust in the Lord. To believe in the Lord is not just an intellectual assent, but it’s a commitment of your trust, to do all that He says, and to be all that He is and claimed to be.  Vs6 “For this is contained in Scripture: “BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHOICE STONE, A PRECIOUS CORNER stone, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.”  This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER stone.”

To believe in Christ, to have faith in Christ, is the  basis of our justification. Rom 10:9-11says “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;  for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.  For the Scripture says, “WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.”

But not only are we justified by faith, but we are sanctified by faith.  The scriptures say in four different places that the just shall live by faith.  We trust the Lord as we do what He commands us to do, and find that He will supply our needs and our strength to do His will as we step out in faith.  And God promises that if we trust in Him we will not be disappointed.  By the way, Peter was referencing a quotation from Isaiah 28:16, a prophecy concerning the Messiah which says, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, A costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed.”  Jesus is the Rock which we can depend upon as we live by faith, doing what He commanded us.

The ninth step in our sanctification is to fulfill your calling. Vs 9, one of my favorite verses in Peter’s epistles says, “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

What I like about Peter is he is constantly reminding us of the glories of our salvation.  He doesn’t hold back from giving us the hard or difficult parts, but at the same time he is encouraging us by reminding us of our inheritance.  Look at what God has called us to be.  A chosen race; called and chosen to be sons of God. A royal priesthood.  We are given a dual title. Thats better than the priesthood of Levi.  We are priests and kings to God.  Revelation 1:6 says, “and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father.”

Revelation 5:10 reiterates that promise, saying, “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.”  But the interesting thing is that this is something we are to be engaged in now.  Paul said to Timothy in 2Tim. 4:5 “But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”  Be about the business of the kingdom.  That is our calling, our duty, our commission.  We all have a calling, we all have a ministry. And fulfilling that calling it is the path to sanctification.  

The tenth step in our sanctification is closely associated with that ministry, and it is to proclaim His gospel. Vs. 10, “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”  

Our primary ministry is to proclaim the good news of the gospel. Our primary calling is not to be a carpenter, or a banker or a doctor or lawyer, but to be a witness; to testify to the world the truth of the gospel. Jesus said in Mark 16:15 “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”  He is recorded as saying in Matt. 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  It’s easy to think that witnessing is someone else’s job.  The pastor perhaps, or a missionary; it’s their job.  Someone else should go, but not us.  Someone else might witness, but not us.  But Jesus commissioned you to be His ambassadors, to bear witness of what He has said and done. And we cannot be like Him, unless we bear witness of Him to the world, even as He faithfully bore witness of the Father.

Closely related to that is the eleventh step, which is to be a light in the darkness. “So that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”  What is the light which we are to shine in the darkness?  It is the light of the world; the truth of Jesus Christ as revealed in the word of God.  The Psalms say, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. And so in the same respect, we are to be lights in the world.  Jesus said in Matt. 5:14-16  “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;  nor does [anyone] light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”  That’s how we let our light shine.  By our good works, and by proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.  Both are necessary if either is to be effective.

Lastly, the 12th step in our sanctification is that you remember who you are.  Peter says in vs10, “for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.”  You are a child of God.  Act like it.  Remember who your Father is.  Be careful not to bring shame upon the name of Christ.  Don’t be arrogant in who you are.  Remember Paul said in 1Cor. 1:26-29 “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble;  but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,  and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are,  so that no man may boast before God.”

But on the other hand, remember your calling, remember you were chosen, you were justified, and that you have been been a promise of inheritance.  Remember you are a royal priesthood, created to serve the kingdom of God.  You are a citizen of a chosen nation. A light set on a hill. You are the people of God.  Stand in that promise.  Stand in that reality.  Stand on that Rock which is Jesus, our cornerstone. And be holy, even as He is holy.

Last week, we ended our study in the preceding verses by expounding the text found in vs 16, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”  This is God’s command to the church, as it was His command to the Israelites.  God first said it in Leviticus 11:44.  Then Peter updates it under the new covenant to the church, so that it becomes the commandment for our sanctification.  We are made holy and righteous positionally due to our justification.  But then we are becoming holy practically through the process of sanctification.  Sanctification is the practice of becoming who you are created to be.  It is the process of becoming conformed to the image of Jesus Christ as we walk in His footsteps, according to the pattern which he laid for us.

Peter speaks about this pattern of sanctification in chapter 2:21 saying, “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.” The word in the Greek for example is “hypogrammos”, which means a writing copy, including all the letters of the alphabet, which was given to beginners as an aid in learning to draw them.  We still give school children such things today, letting them trace over the letters so that they may learn to write.  In the same manner,  we are to live in such a way that we follow the example laid down by Jesus, so that we might be conformed to His image.  In this way, as we are obedient to His word, so we become like Him. That is the process of sanctification that Peter is referring to here; that we may become holy in all our behavior, even as He is holy.

So in preparation for the rest of the epistle’s emphasis on holy living, he gives us a staccato-like list of reasons in which we should find motivation to become sanctified. 

Now his whole epistle is really that, teaching us and instructing us how we are to live, how we are to become like Christ. And in these last verses of the first chapter, he is particularly going to present some reasons to us in order to motivate us to be sanctified.  Because the process of sanctification is not all a bed of roses.  Peter has already alluded in vs 6 to the fact that suffering trials is often part and parcel of the process of sanctification.  

It’s kind of like working out.  We all know the benefits of working out.  We know that it’s the means of staying healthy and fit and being energetic and having a productive life.  But we also know it’s something that takes discipline, it’s hard work.  It’s not always fun.  But the end goal makes it worth it.  That same mindset is applicable to our sanctification as well, when we work out our salvation with fear and trembling.  As Paul said in Phil. 2:12-13 “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;  for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for [His] good pleasure.”

I don’t know about you, but I find that I need motivation in order to stick with my work out regime.  I sometimes find that motivation in reading certain books, or watching videos or something on you tube in order to motivate myself to keep going.  And I suppose that Peter adds this list for the same effect; hoping to motivate us in this process of sanctification, and remind us of the benefit in store, that we might not fall short of our calling.

The first motivation for our sanctification he gives is because God is our Father.  He says in vs 17, “If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth.”  Our motivation to become holy should be because we are sons and daughters of God.  God is holy, and as His children our desire should be to please our Father and be like our Father.  And as  our earthly fathers are wont to do, our Heavenly Father will bring discipline to bear in order to correct us when our behavior does not meet His expectations.  

There is a lot of push in evangelical circles today to make the fear of God into something less onerous, something more in the way of awe or respect.  And awe and respect  certainly are a part of the fear of God.  But when you look at the way the word fear is used in the vast majority of cases in the New Testament,  it means more than that.  The Greek word is phobos, which is the word we get phobia from.  And it means terror, dread, reverence.  For instance, when the disciples were on the sea in the storm and the waves terrified them, it is phobos.  So there is a real fear that should come from realizing the holiness of God, and that He is our Father who will discipline us for our good, according to Hebrews 12:10, that we might share in His holiness.

Listen, when I was a kid, nothing struck fear into my heart and kept me in line than my mother saying, “Wait until your father gets home. I’m going to tell him what you’ve been doing.”  I knew that my Dad would discipline me.  But contrary to all the psycho babble that you hear from parenting gurus today, that discipline did not make me love my Dad less. Nor did I ever believe after I had been on the receiving end of discipline that my Dad did not love me. Proper discipline is an expression of love.  In fact, Hebrews tells us that whom God loves He disciplines, and if you are without discipline, you are not really His child.  So a healthy fear of God produces sanctification in His children.

There is another type of fear though that should be mentioned.  And that is a fear of bringing shame upon Him.  If you have a holy reverence for your Father, you would be careful not to ever do anything by which you might bring shame upon the family name.  I remember my Dad telling me when I was a young boy, that the Harrell’s may not have much, but they did have a good name, and I should never do anything to bring shame upon that name. That kind of attitude is the attitude we should have towards our Lord.  So our first motivation for sanctification should be because God is our Father.

Second reason for motivation Peter says is because our citizenship is in heaven.  He says, “conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth.”  What he’s saying, in reality, is that we don’t live here, we are just resident aliens.  Some of the other translations may say it better than the NASB, such as the KJV which says “the time of your sojourning.”  NIV says, “as foreigners.”  The RSV says the “time of your exile.”  

I remember a movie I saw 30 years ago or more, in which the main character was referred to by someone as a “prince in exile.”  That phrase always stuck with me for some reason.   That’s what we are to live like.  Paul said in Phil. 3:20 “For our citizenship is in heaven.”  He expands on that idea in Col. 3:2 “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.”  Because heaven is our home.  We’re just passing through here. We belong to a different kingdom, we live by a superior constitution, a better heritage.

The third reason for our motivation for sanctification Peter gives is because of the price of our redemption.  The priceless cost of our ransom should motivate us to be sanctified.  If you have ever purchased something extremely valuable, or been given something extremely valuable, then you should understand that because of how much it cost you are very careful in the way that you handle it. I used to sometimes have that experience in the antiques realm in which I used to work.  I was notorious for damaging things soon after I got them.  Something could have survived in perfect condition for a hundred years, but an hour after I got it I broke it.  

But if I bought something that was extremely valuable, that had taken all my money and then some, I handled it very carefully.  I would put it where it would not be touched, where it would be safe, because I understood it’s immense value.

In a similar respect, when we come to know the supreme cost which Jesus paid to effect our redemption, the price that He paid to pay our ransom, then how careful should we be to handle our salvation. We certainly would not want it stained and soiled by the world. Paul said in 1Cor. 6:19-20 “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit [who is] in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?  For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” 

Notice how Peter describes our redemption as from the futile way of life inherited from our forefathers.  What he is saying there is that our lives before our redemption was empty, it was meaningless.  Like Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, our lives were vanity, chasing after the wind. Our lives were purposeless.  There is nothing more empty than chasing after the lusts of the world.  They never satisfy you.  You never get enough.  Whether it’s money, or sex or alcohol or houses or cars or whatever this world has to offer, it’s never enough.  Only God satisfies.  Only God is able to fill the hole in your soul.  

Notice also the price of our redemption.  You cannot put a price on a life, can you?  When someone is killed in an accident, and it’s someone else’s fault, they may find themselves in front of a court that will determine the monetary compensation for the loss of life.  And usually it is in the millions of dollars when someone has lost a life. 

But the price of our redemption is even harder to fathom.  Peter says it was “with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.”  The word precious there was commonly used in reference to precious stones, things of great value.  The price of our redemption required first of all that the substitute would be holy, blameless and spotless.  The price required a human life.  But also it required a Deity.  If there can scarcely be a value determined for a man, how can you put a value on the very God Himself who took on flesh? How can you put a value on the supreme innocence of a Holy God?

Think of it! The only Son of God died for sinners.  The innocent suffered for the guilty. The King of Kings offered His life for peasants.  The perfect for the imperfect.  The spotless for the stained. How can we consider such a cost paid for our penalty and not be motivated to live for Him?

The next motivation for our sanctification is because it is the eternal plan of God. Vs 20, “For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you.”  At some unknown time long before the creation of the universe, the Godhead agreed together as to the plan of salvation.  God did not convene a meeting several hundred years after Noah and say “hey, we need to think of some way to fix this mess.”  But in the omnipotence and sovereignty of God the Trinity designed a plan long before the world was formed.  The word world there is kosmos, which indicates all the stars and planets.  

The idea of foreknowledge there in relation to Christ may be better understood as predestined.  It was determined beforehand which of the Deity would become flesh and offer themselves as a substitional sacrifice for man’s sin.  Jesus Christ volunteered to leave His glory in heaven, and forever become human. 

Notice that Peter says this was done for us.  For you. For your sakes, he says.  God made this grand plan to bring about your salvation, foreknowing and predestining those who would be saved.  And knowing that we are a part and the purpose of this grand design should motivate us to be all that God has designed us to be.

Another reason Peter gives for our sanctification is that we might love one another.  Vs 22, “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.”   Jesus said that a new commandment He gave to us, which was to love one another. But our sanctification enables us to love one another as we ought, and that is because sanctification purifies your heart.  

Some of the other versions include the word pure in the last phrase, so that it would read; “love one another fervently with a pure heart.”  See, love that does not come from a pure heart is hypocritical love.  It’s love for show. It’s love for an ulterior motive.  But love from a pure heart is one in which there is no guile.  It’s love in which there is no jealousy.  No anger, strife. 

Paul said this is pure love of the brethren; “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant  or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends. (1 Cor. 13:4)

Only by sanctification can we love like that.  That’s why Peter says in vs 22, that we must in obedience to the truth purify our souls so that we might have a sincere love of the brethren. Sanctification is the sacrifice of self for the sake of Christ.  And only in that way can we be sincere in our love for one another, with a pure heart, without selfish motives.

There is another reason Peter gives that should motivate us in our sanctification, and that is because you have been born again. Vs 23, “for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.”  Born again means that we are a new creation, old things are passed away, and all things have become new.  Born again means we have a new nature, a new spirit, a new hope, a new perspective, a new reason to live, a new life in Christ.

This present body was born of perishable seed.  My father died, as his father died, and his father before him.  This body of mine will die. But when I became born again, I received eternal life and the promise of a new, glorified body some day when Jesus returns.  I received this eternal life by promise.  It is written in the Bible, God’s word.  It was proclaimed by Jesus, that whosoever believes in Me will never die. 

What Peter indicates here is that the word of God is the imperishable seed by which man is born again.  Paul said in 1Cor. 1:21 “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”  

I’m sure you all are familiar with the parable of the soils that Jesus gave.  He spoke of man sowing seed, and some fell on rocky ground, some fell beside the road and were eaten by the birds, some sprouted up but were choked out by weeds, some fell on good soil.  And when the disciples asked Him to explain the parable He said that the seed was the word of God. Peter must have been thinking of that parable when he wrote this verse.  The imperishable seed is the word of God which endures forever.  

There is another reason for our sanctification that bears mentioning, and that is because this life is soon past.  Peter quoting from Isaiah 40 says, “ALL FLESH IS LIKE GRASS, AND ALL ITS GLORY LIKE THE FLOWER OF GRASS. THE GRASS WITHERS, AND THE FLOWER FALLS OFF.   James said something similar in James 4:14 “whereas you do not know what [will happen] tomorrow. For what [is] your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”  

There was a saying that I heard my mother repeat many times growing up.  I don’t know who the original author was, but she used to say, “Only one life will soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”   Why would we waste this life, purchased at such a great cost, chasing after the things of this world which will soon be over.  I’m just amazed at how quickly life is passing by.  Each year goes more swiftly than the last.  Yesterday it seems I just got married.  Now last week I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary.  

Only one life will soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.  I want to use what time I have left to serve the Lord, to do those things which are pleasing to Him. I’m going to see Him one day soon.  I hope that I will be found faithful when that day comes. On that day, my time of sanctification will be complete, and God will complete that which He began in me.  1John 3:2 says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

There is one final motivation for our sanctification, and that is because the word of the Lord endures forever.  The word of God is given to be our rule and guide for this life.  But it will also be the rule and guide for eternity.  How much then should we even now be living in obedience to the word of God?  Remember what Peter said back in vs 22?  In obedience to the truth purify your souls.  Sanctification comes through obedience to the word of God.  It’s not through some sort of ecstatic experience.  It’s not through ritual, or ceremony or keeping the Sabbath or some other religious holiday.  But it’s through obedience to the truth.  Because the truth is the word of God, and it endures forever.  It is the imperishable seed by which we live by faith.   It’s the means by which we walk by faith. 

Listen, sanctification is simply living by faith in the word of God. Day by day, moment by moment.  We are saved by faith, and so we live by faith.  We trust and obey every day, relying on the truth of God’s word for every word and deed.  Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  His word will not fail you. 

As we began our study of 1 Peter a couple of weeks ago we first looked at the surety  of our salvation in vs1-5, as Peter tells us we are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven, and protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  What a tremendous salvation has been granted to us by faith in Christ, that is promised by the Father, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and signed with the blood of Jesus Christ.   The surety of our salvation.

Then in vs 6-9 we looked at the sanctification of our salvation, brought about by the proving of our faith, even through sufferings, as we are tested by fire, that our faith might come forth like gold.  Now today, we look at the sanctity of our salvation, in which the Spirit of Christ working in us, and through the scriptures, we become holy even as He is Holy.

So Peter continues to by expounding the sanctity of our salvation in vs 10 saying, “As to this salvation…” And though it may seem superfluous when preaching to the choir, I should make sure that everyone understands what salvation is.  The word salvation in both natural and spiritual applications means very simply deliverance from peril.  In human terms, if you were at the beach, and wading in the water and suddenly a great wave came and knocked you off your feet, and then the outflow from that wave caused a rip current to pull you out to sea, and you could not swim, you would be in very grave danger of drowning unless someone came to save you. Someone who was capable of not only out swimming the current, and contending with the waves, but someone who was able to also carry you back to safety.

I’m sure you have heard of people who had some sort of similar escape from death, perhaps they even went so far as to have a near death experience, and afterwards they believed that they had a new purpose in life.  They certainly had a new perspective and from that day on they lived differently.  

I suppose in many respects you could say spiritual salvation is like that.  But in the spiritual realm, the Bible teaches that all men are lost, swept up in the current of the world and held captive by sin, and in real danger of eternal death.  Our salvation comes about by calling upon the name of Jesus, who is able to save, who has overcome the world and sin and death, and so He is able to save us as well.  But His purpose in saving us is not to just deliver us from death, but to give us new life.  And like the person who had the near death experience, our experience of salvation gives us a new perspective on life, which causes us to live differently from that day forward.

Theologians tell us that salvation has a three fold purpose; to deliver us from the penalty of sin, to deliver us from the power of sin, and to deliver us from the presence of sin. And make no mistake, sin is the antithesis of life.  Sin causes death.  Sin destroys life. So salvation delivers us from the penalty, the power and the presence of sin so that we might have life and have it more abundantly. 

 Now those three phases are often spoken of in theological terms as justification, sanctification, and glorification.  In justification, when we by faith believe in Jesus Christ and trust Him as our Savior and Lord, we are delivered from the penalty of sin, and given new life.  In sanctification, we are delivered from the power of sin. Sin no longer has dominion over us, but the Lord is our new master.  Paul speaking of this in Romans 6:18-19 says, “and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.  For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in [further] lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.”

And then the final phase is glorification, when we are delivered at either the resurrection or at Christ’s second coming from the presence of sin.  We will be given a new, glorified body without a sin nature, to live in a new world without sin. That aspect of our salvation is still to come, as Peter mentions in vs 13 saying, “fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  As you can see, there is a past, present and future tense to grace as well. Grace is God’s gift of salvation in all it’s effects. As the scripture says, He gives us “grace upon grace.”

Now this grace was made manifest by proclamation.  Peter says, it was proclaimed to you by the prophets of old.  “As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.”  He is speaking of the Old Testament prophets.  And he is saying that their proclamation came by inspiration of the Spirit of Christ.   What’s interesting is that Peter says that the Spirit of Christ prophesied of His own sufferings and the glories to follow.  And another point he makes is that they did not fully comprehend all that the Spirit was saying through them, but they came to understand that they were speaking to us in the future who would know.  

It’s almost as if they were adding pieces to a puzzle that they could not see finished.  But generation after generation, the prophets were given inspiration in a continuous progression of truth, so that the picture began to be filled in more and more.  I think he’s indicating that they looked and studied previously written scriptures in order to try to understand what the Spirit was saying. Hebrews says something similar in Hebrews 11:39-40  “And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised,  because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.”

Peter speaks to the same idea in vs 12 saying,  “It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven–things into which angels long to look.”

That last phrase indicates that the angels also are seeking to understand the intricacies of the gospel.  Salvation is not a grace that is given to angels.  And so it speaks of our better position than that of the angels.  Hebrews chapter 2 says we were made lower than the angels for a little while, but at the consummation of all things, Jesus said we will one day judge angels.  And so it would seem that our salvation is of great interest to the angels and they are observing the prophecies come to fulfillment even as we are.

You know, the Apostle Peter said something to Jesus one day in response to His question if they were going to leave Him too, and Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.”  And that understanding is fundamental to our salvation, and to this life we have been given.  That’s why it’s so important to recognize what Peter says about the inspiration of the scriptures, it comes by the Spirit of Christ.  I think he uses that title intentionally to signify the unity of scripture.  That the same Spirit spoke in the Old Testament that spoke in Christ in His ministry, and still speaks to us today through the epistles of the apostles.  

The gospel of salvation was foreordained before creation.  The gospel of salvation was manifested by typology and allegory and metaphor from Adam to Noah, to Abraham to Moses and so on through the prophets.  It’s the same gospel.  And it’s a gospel of salvation from death to life.  The word of Christ is life.  Jesus quoting from Deuteronomy said, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  Folks, you want to have the abundant life that Jesus spoke of, then you need to live by the word, you need to obey the word.  That’s the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit which Peter referred to in vs2, when he said, according to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit that you may obey Jesus Christ.   

This is the Word of Life.  Eat it and live.  Some of us are starving ourselves to death for a lack of spiritual food.  And aren’t you glad that the prophets of old wrote it down?  Aren’t you glad we don’t depend upon oral tradition?  Every word, every syllable has been meted out by the Holy Spirit and tried and tested and is true.  Psalm 12:6, “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.”  Peter is going to say in the beginning of the next chapter, 1Peter 2:2 that we should, “like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”  Because the new life of salvation is intended to grow from infancy to maturity, as a continuing process of sanctification.

Now this necessity of our sanctification is what Peter really wants to drive home here.  He has laid down the foundations of our faith, the calling of God, the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that we might obey Jesus Christ who has sprinkled us with His blood.  He has established the authority of scripture as the guiding light of our life.  And now he wants to tell us what our responsibility is as we live this life which has been given to us.  

And he indicates that first of all it starts in our minds.  He says “Gird your minds for action.” The word “gird” references an old phrase which was to gird up your loins.  What that is speaking of is the robes that were worn in those days were very long and somewhat cumbersome.  And so if you were going to work, or going to run, then you would tuck the robe under your belt to free up your legs so you wouldn’t trip or be hampered from moving.  

Now he uses that analogy in regards to our minds.  Our spirit has been born again, but in this new life our minds have to now become subject to the Spirit instead of the flesh.  And that’s why the scripture is so important to us.  It is the means of renewing our minds. It changes the way we think.  By meditating on the word of Christ, we gain the mind of Christ.  

Paul speaks of this need for renewing our minds in Romans 12:1,2, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, [which is] your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

What this indicates is that what we put in our minds has a spiritual impact on our life. It’s actually harmful to feed your mind on a steady diet of the culture of the world.   The movies, the songs, the television shows, the pop stars we follow on social media, all of that leads to a mind fettered by the world.  Peter says we need to clear that out of the way so we won’t be hindered, so we don’t fall, so we don’t get tripped up.   Prov. 23:7 says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”  If you are constantly putting the world’s perspective and morals and mannerisms in your mind, then it shouldn’t be surprising when your spiritual life is practically nonexistent.  It’s not surprising that you have no appetite for spiritual things.

I would also point out the obvious, that the Christian life requires action.  Faith requires action. The Christian life is not just some sort of intellectual exercise that we do once a week.  But we apply the word of God to our lives. Peter says in chapter 2 vs 2, “We work out our salvation with fear and trembling.”

Then Peter says, we are to keep sober in spirit.  To be sober is not talking about alcohol or drugs necessarily, though it certainly includes that.  But it’s referring to an attitude, a perspective of watchfulness, of seriousness, of carefulness. Peter refers to this again later on in his epistle in chapter 5 vs 8, “Be of sober [spirit,] be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”  

Ah, now we understand perhaps better what he is getting at.  The devil takes opportunity through your mind, especially a mind that is undisciplined.  A mind that is not focused on the task ahead, but is at ease, or more interested in entertainment or amusement. There is nothing wrong with having fun or being entertained.  But we need to gird up our minds, be disciplined, what Paul calls “taking every thought captive to obedience of Christ.” (2Cor. 10:5) The battleground of our souls is in our mind. 

Peter refers to this need for mental focus in the next phrase, “fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  The past grace was when we first believed and our sins were forgiven.  The present grace is by which we now stand.  But the grace to come is the grace that will be given to us at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is coming soon.  Or I will be going to Him soon.  But one way or another, there is soon coming a day when we will be face to face with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  We should live our lives in anticipation of that day, looking forward to it, and making each day count for Him until that grace appears.

Next, Peter likens the church to obedient children.  I don’t know if he is being deliberately sarcastic there or not.  I’m not sure I would characterize most Christians today as obedient children.  I think he’s using reverse psychology there.  Kind of the way the Lord named him the Rock.  He wasn’t really a rock, but God wanted him to become one.  Maybe that’s what Peter is trying to do here.  Calling us what he hopes we will be.  

But the point is that if we are saved then we are children of God. And if you are indeed a child of God, then it is expedient that you are an obedient child of God.  If we as imperfect parents discipline our children, then how much more will the perfect Father in Heaven discipline His children so that they may share in His holiness?  Hebrews 12:9-11 says, “Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?  For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He [disciplines us] for [our] good, so that we may share His holiness.  All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

That’s why suffering and trials are such an essential part of sanctification.  It’s the way God instructs us and teaches us and produces in us the fruit of holiness.  So Peter says, in obedience to God do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in ignorance. In other words, you should know better than that now.  Don’t go back to the former things.  Remember Romans 12:2 which we quoted a few minutes ago, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” 

We recently got a new puppy as many of you know.  We all should have our heads examined.  One of the many duties we have is to keep the puppy clean. He’s a house dog, and so he needs to smell decent and not bring mud and dirt and who knows what into the house.  So my son has given him a couple of baths.  But he’s a puppy.  He’s a dog.  And it’s a dogs nature to get into every smelly, stinky, dirty thing that they can.  It’s their nature.  

And we have an old nature as well.  When we were saved we got a new nature, but the old nature is still there.  We just aren’t supposed to listen to it anymore.  We are supposed to obey our new nature. And the starvation of the old nature and the obedience to the new nature should cause the old to pass quietly away.  But how sad it is to see a Christian still living in the old nature.  

Peter speaks of this old nature in chapter 4 vs 3, “For the time already past is sufficient [for you] to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries.”  He said, be sober, remember? Don’t go back to that stuff anymore, it only leads to destruction. It’s not the new way of life which we’ve been given.  In fact, he says in the previous verse, “so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.”

So now we know how not to live, how then the logical question is how are we supposed to live?  The answer is in vs15 “but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all [your] behavior;  because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”  

What does holy mean?  I think that’s a reasonable question. The word holy is overused today in contemporary Christian music so much that I think all the meaning is lost.  But holy means consecrated, set apart, righteous, pure, undefiled, perfect.  God is all those things. The hymn we sang earlier, “Holy, Holy, Holy” says the eye of sinful man cannot see God because of His holiness.

Isaiah saw a vision of the Holy God in Isaiah 6 and it says this: In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.  Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.  And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”  And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.  Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”  Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs.  He touched my mouth [with it] and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.”

Listen, a proper view of God’s holiness results in a holy life.  We must be holy because God is holy.  We are in our new creation made holy, set apart, and so we should be holy and live not conformed to this world, but be conformed rather to Jesus Christ.  I’m going to deal with these next verses more next week but in the context of the holiness of God and our responsibility to Him I would read them now:  vs17 “If you address as Father (that is if you are a child of God) the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay [on earth;]  knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,  but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, [the blood] of Christ.”  

Jesus was holy, blameless, the spotless Lamb of God who died to make you holy and blameless.  Our standard of holiness then is to walk like He walked, talk like He talked, act like He acted.  He was obedient to the Father in all that He did.  And by the Spirit of Christ that lives in us, we can live like Christ.  We are to be like Christ.  Paul said it well in Phil. 2:5, 12-13 “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, … 12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;  for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for [His] good pleasure.”

May God grant you His grace to live by the Spirit and do not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.  Amen.

I have titled today’s message the Proof of Your Faith.  It comes directly from our text today, in vs 7 in the NASB.  Other translations render it “the trial of your faith,” or better, “the genuineness of your faith.”  Others have called it the character of your faith.  I think I could add one more, which is the evidence of your faith.

I have often found myself as a pastor, thinking of an individual who may have given a profession of faith at some point in their life, but yet I find myself wondering if in fact they really are saved. And let me quickly say that I am unable to determine whether or not a person is saved or not.  I can examine their fruit, and make a deduction, but I cannot see their hearts.  Only God can do that.  So I dare not try to usurp God’s omniscience.  

However, I think there is a deadly problem today in evangelicalism to reduce salvation to a formula by which we attempt to get people to agree to, to verbalize by some sort of prayer, and then “presto” they are saved.  They instantly escape hell and are guaranteed salvation.  They are set free from any possible punishment for sin.  And yet, oftentimes when you consider the way their lives are lived, there is very little evidence to support that they have indeed become a new creation in Christ.

And yet, as I alluded to a couple of weeks ago in a previous message, at it’s most simplest, the gospel promises that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you shall be saved.  To believe is to have faith in who Christ is and what He has done.  The conundrum is faith is simple enough for a child to do, but complex enough  for an adult to miss it.  I think that the simplest way for me to express salvation is to say, that you have faith as a child, simply believing in what God’s word says, but then a willingness to continue to believe all that God reveals.  Perhaps that’s what is meant by the great number of Biblical references which say “if you continue to the end,” or something to that effect.

I’ll give you a couple of examples; John 8:31 “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, [then] you are truly disciples of Mine.’”

Rom. 11:22 “Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.”  

Let’s do a couple of more from Hebrews, which should be fresh in your mind; Heb 3:14 “For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.”

Heb. 10:38 “BUT MY RIGHTEOUS ONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; AND IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM.”  There are many more, but that should suffice for now.

Now to be fair, I don’t think that all cases in which we fail to see much evidence of faith is an indication that a person is not saved, but rather an indication that they are unfaithful stewards, or that their love has grown cold, or that they are what we used to call back in the day, just plain old backslidden. 

But nevertheless, Peter has been addressing the reality  of our salvation, and last time we looked at his salutation which was full of affirmation and the promise of a glorious inheritance.  I think it is impossible to read the first 5 verses and not be uplifted and encouraged by the promise of what God has planned for those who have faith in Him. 

But now starting in vs 6, there is introduced a new aspect of our salvation, which while still finding reason to rejoice, is nevertheless one that involves suffering.  Peter indicates that suffering and trials are a part of our journey of faith, and you might even go so far as to say it is a necessary part of our salvation.  Peter says that suffering or trials is the proof, or evidence of our salvation.  It is the fire that results in the purified gold.  And so let’s look at how Peter delineates this evidence of faith.

First note that in vs6, there is a continuation of thought from the previous passage.  He says “In this you greatly rejoice…”  And of course we must ask what is referred to in the phrase, “in this…”  I would suggest that it is our salvation which is stated in vs 5; “you who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”  So “in this” refers to our salvation. 

Peter indicates without a lot of argument, that faith results in salvation.  And as I alluded to earlier,  faith at it’s most basic is simply believing in Jesus Christ.  Believing that He can help you, believing that He was who He said He was, and believing in what He came to do. You may not initially understand all of it, but you believe in Him. You trust in Him. And then you continue to believe and trust as you follow Him and as He reveals truth to you through His word.

So Peter says, in this salvation you greatly rejoice.  I think we have already amply examined the reasons for rejoicing in our salvation most thoroughly in our last study covering vs 1-5; i.e., because we have been elected by God, sanctified by the Spirit, and purified through the blood of Jesus, our inheritance reserved in heaven which cannot decay, or erode, or be taken away, promised the hope of resurrection,  our entry into the kingdom paid for by Christ and secured by the deposit of the Holy Spirit.  That’s something to rejoice about.

But now he introduces another element of our salvation which is usually viewed as antagonistic to rejoicing, and that is suffering.  He says, “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials.”  There is a great error today in some regions of evangelicalism which want to say that suffering never has to be a part of the Christian experience.  That kind of theology obviously appeals to a lot of people, but that flies in the face of what the Bible says.  Jesus said, “In this world you will have tribulation.” 

In fact, Peter uses this word translated “trials” in two other places in his epistles.  Look at 1Peter 4:12 “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing (which is the same word in the Greek as trials) as though some strange thing were happening to you.”

And then the other is 2Peter 2:9, which says, “ [then] the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, (that’s the same word rendered trials elsewhere) and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.”

So just from Peter’s writings, we can learn that trials can be interpreted as  suffering, or  temptations, or  testing. All types of trials are permitted by God, though not all trials are produced by God. Notice Peter describes them as various trials.  Some trials may come from Satan, some may come from just the cares of this world, some may come from the weakness of our flesh. They may  cover a wide range of difficulties.  But God superintends all of our troubles and uses them for His glory. Rom. 8:28 says, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to [His] purpose.”  And it goes on to say in the next verse that His purpose is to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ.  So all things, all trials, are used to make us like Jesus Christ. 

And He has another purpose in our trials.  And that purpose is to reveal our faith.  Now God knows the extent of our faith, so it’s not that He allows trials to reveal our faith to Him, but to reveal our faith to ourselves and to others.  Peter says He allows trials in our lives “so that the proof, or evidence, or character, or genuineness of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  

In other words, our trials reveal the nature of our faith to us and to others.  You may have heard the expression, the test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is looking.  Well, perhaps you could add to that, the test of a man’s faith reveals what he is to himself and to those who are watching. 

So suffering in trials through faith that doesn’t waver, that doesn’t buckle, that doesn’t give in, that doesn’t give way, that doesn’t give up trusting in Jesus, is evidence of saving faith.  It’s indicative that your salvation is genuine.  And it’s proof to yourself, and proof to a watching world.  And it’s a testimony that results in praise and glory to God.  We make much of praise in the church nowadays.  But all too often it is only the empty praise of the lips.  It’s praise that costs us nothing, that’s offered without sacrifice.  But to be steadfast in faith in the midst of suffering or trials will bring praise to God from others who see your steadfastness.  And it will produce praise in your own life as you see the faithfulness of God in your trials.

Peter also makes the point that trials are the refining fire that purifies your faith.  In the hymn, How Firm a Foundation, the writer says “the flames shall not hurt thee, I only design, thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”  I’m sure he was thinking of this very text when he wrote that line. 

Peter says that this proof or evidence of your faith is more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire.  This tested faith has more value than gold.  I would suggest that faith through the fire is a means of laying up treasure in heaven. Our steadfast faith in the midst of trials  will result in eternal rewards in heaven.  And just as fire refines gold by burning out the impurities, so does testing refine our faith by revealing that which is true and burning up that which is impure.

Now regardless of what type of trial we go through, the evidence of our faith will be seen in three ways.  Peter says, 1, you will love Him who is unseen, 2, you believe in Him who is not seen now, and 3, you greatly rejoice.  Now let’s look at each of those evidences briefly.

First, the evidence of your faith is that you love Him who is unseen.  What does it mean to love Jesus? Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”  Now that’s a Biblical definition of love.  Obedience is a manifestation of love.  Love isn’t just an emotion, or a sentiment, but a commitment.  In fact, to love God is a commandment, which Jesus said is the foremost commandment.  Furthermore, Jesus said in Luke 6:46  “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” 

I will tell you this.  When the Devil comes to tempt you, to try your faith, the area in which he will most likely tempt you is in the area of loving God.  He will try to get you to love the world more, to love money more, to love your family more, to love your grandchildren more, to love your freedom more.  And I’m sure all of us, even if caught in the act of putting others before Christ, would still protest, even as Peter protested, “Oh Lord, you know that I love you.”  

But the Lord knows the hearts.  And if you love Him, then you will obey Him and put Him first in your life.  Three times when Peter protested to Jesus “I love you,”  Jesus responded with “Then feed My sheep.”  The church is His sheep.  And I think Jesus was saying that one way our faith is evidenced is by our love for Christ’s church.

Even more to the point though our love for Christ is evidenced by obedience.  When temptations seem to offer a better, more natural, more rational option, but it’s not in accordance to God’s word, then I must choose obedience.  When it would be easier to fold to the world’s expectations than to remain faithful to God, I must choose obedience.  Obedience is the evidence that I love the Lord.  Not by my singing, not even my praises, but my obedience. 

In this verse, Peter gives us such a great description of what faith is.  He says, “and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him.”  That really hits the same notes as Hebrews 11:1, which says, “Now faith is the evidence of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  

Listen, the problem with the word of faith movement is that they are attempting to make faith the evidence of things seen.  They proclaim that if you just have enough faith, you can see God evidenced in your life by giving your what you want; the so called blessings of God, such as health and prosperity.  But it’s evident in these verses that the faith that God desires is a faith in Him despite the fact that we don’t see what we want to see.  It’s a faith that is obedient despite the fact that it might even include suffering through trials.  

The second evidence of faith, Peter says, is you believe in Christ, even though you don’t see Him now.  I think the idea of believing here is speaking of trusting God in the midst of trials.  When grief strikes, when calamity comes, when the prognosis of the doctor is exactly what you didn’t want to hear, when your spouse leaves you, when your children desert the faith, whatever happens, you still trust the Lord. That’s the hardest part of trials, is believing that God sees, when we can’t see God.  Believing that God cares, when circumstances would seem to indicate the opposite.  But faith endures to the end.  Faith keeps on believing, keeps on trusting our souls to a faithful creator.

And the third evidence of faith, Peter says,  is to greatly rejoice in spite of trials.  Notice how twice in this passage he uses the phrase, “greatly rejoice.”   The first is in vs 6, and now again in vs 8; “you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.”  To be honest, I don’t think I often do that.  I think it must be a supernatural gift of God that comes to us in our trials.  Maybe it comes in the midst of trials, maybe it comes after the outcome of our trials, I don’t know. I would imagine that it varies, just as the trials are varied.  But Peter is emphatic about the idea that we can rejoice in trials.

In chapter 4 which is another text which Peter talks about these fiery trials, he has some things to say which may help us know more precisely what he’s talking about.  1Peter 4:12 says “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you;  but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.”

First he says, to the degree that you are sharing in the sufferings of Christ.  That qualifies our suffering.  Not all suffering may be joyful. Heb 12:11 says “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” 

But it is possible to have joy when you share in the sufferings of Christ.  How?  I think it’s because as we come to suffer with Him, we come to know Him and have fellowship with Him in a more intimate way.  Paul spoke of this in Phil. 3:10 “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” 

Listen, to know Him is to love Him.  And to love Him is to come to know the kind of joy that is inexpressible.  And we come to know Him most intimately when we are conformed to His sufferings, and conformed to His death, when we die to sin and die to the world.  In that way, we become conformed to His image. In other words, we live for what He lived for.  We die for what He died for.  We suffer for what He suffered for.  And when we do those things,  we will we also share in His glory.

Now these proofs of our faith, Peter says, results in “obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.”  I think that when he says this, he is referring to more than just the moment that you are born again.  Salvation speaks of more than that.  In fact, I think vs 8 is speaking of this, there are three phases of our salvation.  There is the point at which you believe, which is justification. Then there is the process by which you are sanctified, or  being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, that is called sanctification.  And then there is the final stage of salvation which is when we are translated into glory, what is called glorification. And all three phases can be referred to as salvation.  But I think that the Bible teaches that all three are essential components of salvation.

We are justified by faith as indicated in vs 3.  We are sanctified by obedience through the Holy Spirit according to vs 2. And we are glorified to our inheritance according to vs 5.  And all of this results in the outcome; the salvation of our souls as promised in vs 9.  That is indeed something to rejoice in.  No matter the depth of the trial, or the heat of the refiner’s fire, it will be worth it all in the end. 

It is said about Jesus in Hebrews 12:2 who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. The suffering of the cross may not have been something at that moment of crucifixion to rejoice about, but He considered the joy set before Him, and willingly went through it knowing what was in store on the other side.  The same promise is for us as well who endure to the end, who endure the suffering, who persevere through the trials of life, who are not ashamed of Him, but willing to forsake all to be with Him.  There is laid up for us a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge will award to us on that day. 

I don’t want in any way to trivialize whatever suffering or trial you may be going through today.  But I do want to assure you that God sees your trials, and He has promised to be with you to the end. I want to encourage you to be faithful, to trust Him, to obey Him, to love Him, and I can assure you that in that process, you will find His presence and power to be with you in an intimate way that is able to sustain you and give you strength to endure.  May you be found faithful when He comes.  God’s purpose in all of our trials is multifaceted beyond our comprehension sometimes.  But though we can’t see His purposes, we love Him and believe in Him. And one thing is clear from this scripture; God uses such trials to refine our faith, so that we may come forth like gold.  But this gold is not just precious to man, but also to God. And He will be faithful to perform His promises to you as well, when He comes to receive His own.

As we begin this new study in the epistle of 1st Peter, I want to forego a lot of the preliminary background information that might be customary when beginning a new book.  Peter is a very practical book, and though there is a tremendous amount of important doctrine contained in it, it is not presented as was Hebrews, for instance, with chapter after chapter of doctrine and then a small amount of application at the end.  Peter’s epistle presents doctrine and immediately application, which is kind of a reflection on his personality.  Peter was a man of action.  And there are problems which he wants to address and to help the early church to overcome.  So his style is more direct, addressing the issues, and then presenting the remedy.  

And so I want to reflect his style in my address as well, and as I said, forego a lot of background information. I”m sure you all know who Peter is.  He needs little introduction. He was an apostle of Jesus Christ. He was the chief elder of the church in Jerusalem. He was a man filled with the Spirit, and yet often weak in the flesh.  And in that regard he is very much like most of us.  He’s probably writing just a few years before his martyrdom, before the fall of Israel and the destruction of the temple, but during a time of increasing persecution of Christians.  He addresses the church which he says is scattered abroad in what was known as Asia Minor, which was under Roman occupation.  Today that area is known as Turkey.  [And so I hope that his message resonates with many of you here, seeing that there are a number of turkeys in attendance today.]

Now he is writing to the church to fulfill his apostolic commission to strengthen the church and to tend and feed the flock.  They are undergoing or about to undergo trials and tribulations which would seem to include persecution.  And so it was important to get to the point and offer them help.  

So even in his greeting he is beginning to lay a foundation to that effect.  Notice that as he identifies who he’s writing to, he also lays down a series of facts which are intended to shore up their faith, to assure them of the outcome of their faith, and their security in Christ.  And that confidence is essential as a Christian encounters trials in their lives.  The first question when you are faced with trials is why would God allow this to happen? To ask, where is God?  Does God really care?  Has God forsaken me? And the devil is right beside you in those times to try to push you into despair, to tempt you to think that God doesn’t care what you’re going through, and that He has abandoned you.

So look what Peter does. As he addresses the church, he lays down a series of facts, or doctrines, which are intended to offer the church hope and assure them of their security in the Lord.  First he says he is addressing  those who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.  Included in this statement are the doctrines of election and foreknowledge.  These are doctrines that far too often cause confusion, discouragement and fear in the church because it is something that our finite minds cannot comprehend.  But that is not the intent of Peter.  He’s stating these doctrines to show that God has chosen according to His foreknowledge who  will be saved. The emphasis on these doctrines is not intended to be exclusionary but to show the unchangeable purpose of God to include in the kingdom those who believe in Him. And so the fact that we are saved is not according to our abilities but according to God’s ability.  God is able to bring us to salvation according to His divine sovereign will.  As Jonah prayed, “Salvation is from the Lord.”  Hebrews 12:2 says He is the author and finisher of our faith.  And because of that principle, we can rest assured despite whatever circumstances the devil may use to try to make us think otherwise.  The election and foreknowledge of God should be a great encouragement to us.

Notice also Peter says that our election is of God the Father.  In fact, we see here that the entire trinity is involved in our salvation.  We are chosen by the Father, sanctified by the Spirit, and cleansed by the blood of Christ.  All three members of the trinity are at work in our salvation.  The sanctifying work of the Spirit means to be set apart by the Spirit, to be brought under conviction, to be led by the Spirit through the word of God and to be holy through the Spirit.  Our sanctification is brought about it says through the Spirit.  It’s not through self effort, through ritual, through ceremony.  It’s a work of the Spirit in us.  

And then the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus speaks to the work of the Son in His crucifixion.  He is the better sacrifice spoken of in Hebrews, the all sufficient sacrifice through which the payment for the penalty of our sin was made.  And by whose stripes we are healed of the disease of sin.  And this work of all three of the members of the trinity provides us with a three fold assurance of our salvation that secures us through the trials and tribulations of life.

Peter concludes his address by saying that through this three fold assurance we are given grace and peace to the fullest measure.  Grace is not given stingily.  Grace is not measured by the drop.  But it is poured out, mashed down, running over. John 1:16 “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.”  He has lavished grace upon us.  And because we have received the grace of God, we have peace.  Both peace with God, and peace by God.  We have peace with God because we are made citizens of His kingdom, made members of His family, transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light by the grace of God. And we have peace within because we have no fear of death and we have the forgiveness of sins.  

Notice how this unlearned, rough and tumble fisherman who has been transformed by the power of God, who has been filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, is moved further to praise the Lord even further for His salvation, which should also serve to move us to praise God as we consider the wonders of His mercy towards us.  He says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”  

The word blessed when used in regards to God means to praise God. Peter praises God the Father and Jesus Christ, for causing us to be born again.  This hope of our salvation, which is being born again, is founded upon the fact that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died on the cross, and was resurrected by the power of God.  Remember that Peter personally knew Jesus as a man of Galilee.  He knew Jesus in all His humanity.  And in that human form, Jesus was completely a man.  He wasn’t a superman.  He had no stately form or majesty.  He had no angels attending his every move.  He had no outward signs like a halo to indicate His being deity. So for Peter especially, it was a life changing truth to recognize that Jesus was the Son of God.  

Remember when Jesus asked the disciples who do men say that I am?  And Peter responded, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.”  That was the moment of believing in Jesus which resulted in His salvation. In being born again, not of a corruptible seed, but an incorruptible seed, which is the word of God. Down in vs23 Peter says,  “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God.” But there was another moment when Peter’s faith was made more sure, and that was at the resurrection.  That’s when his joy was complete.  That’s when God confirmed the gospel message. That’s when God made public that Christ’s sacrifice was complete and sufficient for all men.  Christ’s resurrection by God was proof that our salvation is guaranteed.  The resurrection proved that God found Christ’s atonement satisfactory.  And by that atonement, we are saved and assured of our salvation.  That is worthy of our praise.  

I want to make sure that you don’t miss the phrase “has caused us to be born again.”  To be born again is to be given new life.  I was discussing this question the other day when my wife and I were driving back from the airport in DC; what constitutes salvation?  And I was addressing that on the basis of what is the very least that must happen to ensure salvation.  At what point is there a new birth?  What must be done in order for that to begin?  Because there must be a starting point to birth, to new life.  

And yet I was aware as I was discussing this, that the question is not the best question because it’s based on determining this new life by it’s lowest denominator.  It’s like planting a seed in a jar of earth and setting it on the windowsill, and watering it and making sure it gets sunshine.  And waiting to see when it starts to grow.  There must be four factors involved simultaneously.  There must be a good seed.  There must be good ground.  There must be water.  There must be sunshine.  And if those four things are there, then you can count on the seed to metamorphosis into a plant, to begin new life. Now that is just for life to begin.  In order for the life of the plant to reach fulfillment, to reach maturity, and to bear fruit, there often needs to be many other factors as well in addition to those needed at the beginning.

And I suppose that can be an analogy of salvation.  There must be certain things which happen in order to for there to be new birth.  We’ve already seen in salvation the choosing of God, the sanctifying work of the Spirit, and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.  The only ingredient that is left is faith on the part of the believer.  The jailer asked Paul and Silas, “What must I do to be saved?”  And the answer was, ““Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”  And Acts says they spoke the word of God to them. 

Now there is more to salvation, but it is the maturing, or growth that happens as a result of the new birth.  But there must be a new birth.  Being spiritually born again. And that happens simply by believing that Jesus has died for your sins and receiving forgiveness.  There doesn’t have to be a full theological understanding of all the doctrines and theology.  Just call upon the Lord to save you.  Coming to the end of yourself and calling on God to have mercy on you and save you.  And if you do that, He will do it. 1 John 1:9 says when we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  That’s when we are born again, we receive a new nature.

And because we are born again Peter says we now have a living hope.  What does that mean?  It means that we have a living faith.  We have a new life by faith.  It’s a live faith.  It’s a living faith. It’s faith by which we live. Faith is hoping for, believing in what we cannot see.  Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

This faith is not just in the past work of Christ on the cross, but the present work of Christ in heaven and the future work of Christ when He comes for His own.  That’s why it’s a living hope.  It’s a faith that trusts in what Christ did at the cross, confirmed by the resurrection, but it’s also faith in this new life we now live by faith.  As it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”  It’s a faith that can endure trials and tribulations now because we believe in the power of God to raise the dead and give life to the dead.  And so our faith is that God will one day resurrect us, and this new life will be joined to a new body, and a new realm and dimension that cannot now be understood or even conceived of.

That inability to be able to comprehend what Peter calls our inheritance is because “heaven” is indescribable.  And so Peter, as well as many of the other gospel writers, doesn’t try to describe this inheritance, other than to say what it is not.  Notice what he says it is not.  It is not perishable.  This eternal life will never die. We will never die.  Jesus said, “He who believes in Me will never die, do you believe this?”  Our inheritance is imperishable. Because we will never die we ought not to ever be afraid.  “What can man do to me?”  What can Satan do to me?  I am a child of God and I am immortal.  This body will pass away, but my soul and spirit will live forever and I will receive a new immortal body as part of that inheritance.

Secondly, our inheritance is undefiled. I have been credited with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  I did not receive a little bit of righteousness.  I received an eternal measure of righteousness.  1 Cor. 5:21, “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” We have the undefiled righteousness of God abiding in us, forever.  Our penalty has been paid in full, forever.

Thirdly, our inheritance will not fade away.  Have you ever hoped for something and you waited a long, long time for it?  And the longer you waited and hoped for it, the more unlikely it became that you would ever get it.  Your hopes start to fade, and then one day you realize that there is no more hope.  Well, Peter is saying that our inheritance is not like that.  It is guaranteed and promised by God, ratified by the blood of Jesus, and secured by the Holy Spirit.  As Hebrews told us, God has made a unilateral covenant with Himself.  Heb. 6:17-18  “In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath,  so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.”

This inheritance which has been defined by three things it is not, is reserved in heaven for us.  God has made a reservation for us.  It is guaranteed by the Father. It has been paid for by the Son.  And it has been secured by the Holy Spirit. And it has been reserved for us, who Peter says, are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation to be revealed in the last time. So not only do we have a reservation in heaven, but that reservation is protected by the power of God.  There is no power in heaven or on earth that can affect our reservation. Jesus said nothing can snatch you out of My Father’s hand.  Sin cannot defeat me.  The devil cannot stop me.  The world cannot overcome me. No person can discourage me.  Nothing can take away my inheritance.  Jesus died on the cross, and written in God’s will by the blood of Jesus Christ  I have been bequeathed His inheritance, and it is more secure than if I had the last will and testament drawn up and deposited in Fort Knox. Fort Knox might be secure, but it pales in comparison to being kept in heaven under the watchful, powerful eye of God Almighty.  

Then Peter says in vs 5 that this inheritance will be revealed at the culmination or the consummation of our salvation in the last time. He’s going to go on to speak of those last days as we go further along in the book.  He says in chapter 4 vs 7 “The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober [spirit] for the purpose of prayer.”  If it was near in the days of Peter, how much more in our day?  

He goes on to say in his second epistle, 2Peter 3:8 “But do not let this one [fact] escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.  The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I am convinced that we are living in those last days, like the days before the flood, like the days before the fire and brimstone fell upon Sodom and Gomorrah.  I believe the most significant and telling mark of the end of the age is not the world market’s financial meltdown, nor widespread plagues or diseases, nor natural catastrophes such as earthquakes and hurricanes, nor wars and rumors of war.  The most significant indication that the end of the ages is near is the degradation of morality.  This was the telling sign of Sodom and Gomorra’s impending doom.  It was the telling sign of the days before the flood. It was the condition in the land of Israel before it was taken into captivity.  It was the predominant condition of the Greek and  Roman Empire before their fall. And though the world has seen all sorts of tribulation in the last 2000 years, the present degradation of morality as evidenced in the western world is  to my mind the most telling that the time is at hand.  Paul said in 2Tim. 3:1-5 “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.  For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,  unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,  treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

Peter said in as a follow up to 2 Peter 3:8, speaking about the way the earth and it’s works will be burned up in the last days, he said in chapter 3 vs.11 “Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,  looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!  But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.  Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless,  and regard the patience of our Lord [as] salvation.” 

Listen, do you have that peace with God?  Do you believe in Jesus Christ and His atonement for your sins?  Have you been born again into this righteousness which will live eternally with God?  God is calling you today.  The Holy Spirit is convicting you.  The Lord Jesus has shed His blood for you that you might be spotless and blameless before God, and inherit all the things which are promised to those who are born again. The only thing preventing you today from being born again is your reluctance to call upon Him to save you.  I pray you repent of that unbelief today, and call upon the Lord in the day that He may be found.  Jesus said, all who come to Me I will never cast out.  Come to Jesus today.  Call upon Jesus in faith today. 

Today’s message is the last in our study of Hebrews.  It’s been about 7 months since we began the study of this tremendous book which is so rich in doctrine, and in some ways, I feel that today’s message is sort of anti-climatic.  It’s sort of ironic that it took us 7 months to exegete this epistle, and yet if you sat down and read it in one sitting, you could read it in an hour.  The author, who we have not tried to conclusively identify, says in vs 22, that we should bear with this exhortation, because he had written to you briefly.  Exhortation is another word for preaching.  So, as I’ve said before, this book was really a written sermon, which was intended to be read to the churches. 

I must say that the audiences of yore had a much longer attention span than audiences today.  Today we live in the age of twitter, where if you don’t get it said in 240 characters, which I believe is the limit, (though I don’t tweet) then the implication is that it doesn’t need to be said. Well, though I don’t twitter, though I do however exhort, and my messages tend to be around 40 minutes long.  I don’t think that God twitters either, so I believe I’m in good company on that score. 

It’s also interesting that at the conclusion of this book, we finally see the author mention himself.  For thirteen chapters he has not mentioned himself that I am aware of, but now he refers to himself in the plural in vs 18. And he mentions himself in regards to asking the readers to pray for him.  That’s a very telling indication of his humility, something that is sorely lacking in a lot of preaching today.  Far too often in the church today we end up with a personality cult, of which the pastor is the star, and much which is said on his part is intended to glorify himself in that regard.  It’s a seductive thing that all pastors need to be on guard against. Preaching should always glorify Christ.

So though we are starting at vs 18, we must remember that this is a continuation of a sermon, and even more to the point, it’s part of a greater context which includes vs 17.  And if you notice in vs17 the idea he was expressing was that you should obey and submit to your leaders, that is your leaders in the church.  And I believe that context of leadership is important in understanding this desire he has for the readers to pray for him.  He was a leader, an elder, a pastor who had written to this church over which he had oversight. 

And my take on this verse is that in some way or another he had suffered some sort of extradition  or even incarceration on behalf of the gospel and had been taken away from them.  There is no indication that he was now incarcerated, as he later says that they had heard that Timothy had been released, probably from prison.  And if he comes soon, then he would come to see them with Timothy.  That would indicate that he was not incarcerated at that point.  But he obviously was estranged from them, and it seems to be against his wishes as he indicates as the reason for asking them to pray for him.  He wants them to pray that he might be restored to them the sooner. And I think that the word restored there indicates that his former position was at this church and he was hopeful that he would be restored there soon.

I think there is another point that needs to be emphasized here about not only the humility of the author but the humanity of the author as well.  We sometimes idealize the apostles and early church fathers and envision them as some sort of pious super saints who were above the trials and tribulations of normal people.  Perhaps we might even imagine some church leaders today in the same degree. What comes across in this last couple of paragraphs in this text is the humanity of the author, the pathos of his situation, his yearning for his Christian family.  

And it’s a reminder that the great men of the Bible were all men of like passions as we are.  Even Jesus became a man, suffering in all points as we do, yet without sin.  Men like Peter, or Paul, got sick, fell into depression, were lonely, afflicted, persecuted.  Paul said in  2Cor. 11:24-28 “Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine [lashes.] Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep.  [I have been] on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from [my] countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren;  [I have been] in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.  Apart from [such] external things, there is the daily pressure on me [of] concern for all the churches.” 

I guess we can all appreciate the fact that Paul and the other apostles suffered persecution, but the part which we tend to gloss over is when he said,  “[I have been] in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.” Those are things that are common to many of us, aren’t they?  And church leaders, especially this author, suffer such things as well. 

I appreciate the fact that God uses common men for uncommon purposes.  Not many noble, not many mighty are called.  But God calls men who are beset with weaknesses, that the glory might go to God and not to men.  And because they are weak, they are in need of prayer support from the saints.  I know I need prayer, because I know I am weak, and the devil knows my weaknesses. 

Prayer is such an important aspect of the Christian life. I could have said such an important doctrine.  And yes it is.  But it is also so important for our spiritual survival.  It’s essential to our spiritual life. Did you know that the spiritual aspect is just as important to the body as food, water and shelter?  I used to have a series of handbooks when I was a young boy on wilderness camping.  I was really into hunting and camping from a very early age. And in this one series of booklets on surviving in the wilderness it identified the essential things that you needed to survive in the wild.  And in addition to listing food, water and shelter was spiritual.  There is a need in the human soul for a spiritual connection to God which is essential for well being.  And I think one of the reasons that society today is so despondent  is that society has tried to tell them that God isn’t important.  That life can be perfectly fulfilling without God.  Well, every society that has removed religion has not fared so well in the long run.  I think history proves that the societies which held to religion and particularly to Christianity have made more progress in regards to the advancement of civilization than those cultures which have been agnostic or  pagan.

So why pray?  That’s the question I found myself asking God the other day.  Ironically, I had to pray to ask Him that question.  But the point I was inferring was why pray if we don’t or can’t expect an answer?  Why pray if we shouldn’t expect help? Psalm  46:1 tells us that “God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble.” In the scriptures we are told to pray at all times, to pray without ceasing, to be devoted to prayer.  To seek the Lord while  He may be found and call upon Him while He is near.  And we are promised that He hears our prayers.  That our Great High Priest stands at the throne of God interceding for us, and that the Holy Spirit within us prays for us with groanings to deep for words. We should pray, expecting help, because God has promised to hear us, and to help us in time of need.

This author says in Heb. 4:16 “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  The unqualified assurance he gives is that we may receive mercy and grace to help in time of need.  It is a benefit of being a child of God that our heavenly Father is interested and wants to help us.  In fact, the Lord desires that we live in a dependent mode, always looking to Him to supply every need.  

So the author is asking the church to pray for him, and he indicates that there is some difficulty which has prevented him from being with them.  But as to this difficulty, he professes his innocence.  Notice, “for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things.”  That doesn’t mean that he has never done anything wrong, but that in regards to what he has been accused of, he is confident that he has a good conscience.  

I suspect his situation is similar to what Peter referred to in 1Peter 3:16-17 saying “and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.  For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.”

Well, whatever the author of Hebrews was suffering for, he is saying that his conscience is clear and that he has acted honorably in all things. That should be the confession of all who claim Christ.  Our conscience is clear because we act honorably in all things.  There is a standard of conduct that is to be expected of a Christian.  Just ask your unsaved friends.  Unfortunately, we tend to judge others more strictly than we judge ourselves.  We tend to presume too much upon the grace and mercy of God and act more like the devil than we act like Christ. But being a Christian we should imitate Christ in our behavior.  We should be holy because He is holy.

But notice that he fully expects God to answer  their prayers saying in vs19 “And I urge [you] all the more to do this, so that I may be restored to you the sooner.”  We can expect a result to prayer.  Prayer changes things.  We may not understand how, and we may not dictate to God the terms or the timing, but the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much as James assures us in his epistle.  And this author fully expects God to respond to their prayers and speed his return the sooner.

So having asked for prayer for himself, the author in turn then prays for the church starting in vs 20.  He is actually giving a blessing, or a benediction to the church through this prayer.  I was telling someone just last night that sometimes in the Bible we learn more by examples than by commandment. In other words, God doesn’t always speak explicitly concerning every thing, but offers through the scripture examples which we are to follow.  And I think that this prayer offered by this writer is a worthy example that we can learn from and imitate.  

Notice that there are several things that are stated here before he gets to his petitions.  He starts off, as would be expected, by addressing the Lord.  And his address is a little different than we hear today.  He invokes God as the God of peace. Particularly at Christmas we hear the term peace being frequently used.  It was used in the address of the angels to the shepherds.  They said “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”  

What is this peace that is being spoken of?  I think most people in the world today when hearing this phrase would associate it with the absence of war.  Or the hope that everyone would just get along.  But I would suggest that is not the type of peace which the angels spoke of, nor is it what this author is speaking of either in addressing God as the God of peace.    The angels and the author are both speaking of the same thing, incidentally.  And that is the peace which is offered to man through the good will of God by the redemption  purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ.

In other words, man is by nature in rebellion against God, even, the Bible says, at enmity with God.  Man was created to live in righteous fellowship with God, but instead he choses to live in the rebellion of sin.  That rebellion has caused a breach with God, resulting in enmity with God.  But God so loved the world, that He sent His Son to die on the cross and pay the penalty for our sins, that we might be redeemed, so that we might be reconciled to God.  That’s the good will towards men the angels spoke of.  We who were far off, have been brought near.  Eph. 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

So the origin of this peace  comes from God and is offered to man.  God has sent His Son, the Prince of Peace to offer peace to those who will believe in Him and receive Him, so that we are no longer estranged from God, but we have peace with God, and may be transferred into His kingdom.

Notice also how this peace was procured. “Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord.”  This peace comes through the blood of our Great Shepherd Jesus Christ as He died on the cross for the lost sheep, was buried and resurrected to the right hand of the Father.

The author of Hebrews said back in chapter 9:22 “And according to the Law, [one may] almost [say,] all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”  Now that may offend 21st century sensibilities to say that there must be a shedding of blood, that someone must die for the penalty of sin.  But that is the law of God.  That was established at creation, that if they ate of the fruit of the tree they would surely die.  Romans tells us in the New Covenant that the wages of sin is death.  This is God’s law, irregardless of man’s sensibilities.

It’s essential that we are unequivocal in our explanation of the gospel.  There is no gospel without the blood.  And there is no need for the cross if there is no sinner to be saved.  The gospel is not negotiable, or redefinable.  It is a declaration from God.  It’s not a social gospel.  It’s the gospel of salvation from sin which has condemned men to death.  

There is an attempt in liberal Christianity to redefine the gospel.  To take away the blood.  To not speak of sin or judgment.  The co founder of Westminster Theological Seminary, a man named J. Gresham Machen wrote a book called Christianity and Liberalism back in the 1920’s.  And he had this to say: “Here is found the most fundamental difference between liberalism and Christianity–liberalism is altogether in the imperative mood, while Christianity begins with a triumphant indicative; liberalism appeals to man’s will, while Christianity announces, first, a gracious act of God. It is no wonder, then, that liberalism is totally different from Christianity, for the foundation is different. Christianity is founded upon the Bible. It bases upon the Bible both its thinking and its life. Liberalism on the other hand is founded upon the shifting emotions of sinful men.”  

You might say to that, well I’m not a liberal.  Well, I would say a liberal is someone who defines reality according to his own opinions. That fits our modern culture pretty well.  We want to define God, define sexuality, define morality according to what we think.  And as a result we end up worshipping a god made in our image. The problem of course is that sinful men don’t want to think of themselves as sinful, and so they use religion to try to make themselves seem good enough or better than others. But the fact is that the Bible says “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  And the only way sinners are reconciled to God is through the blood of Jesus Christ. 

I find another interesting title in the author’s prayer, and that is that he calls Jesus the Great Shepherd of the sheep. Psalm 23 says the Lord is my Shepherd.  And then goes on to give a long list of the blessings that come upon his life because of that relationship. A shepherd in the Near East was responsible for watching out for enemies trying to attack the sheep, protecting the sheep from attackers, caring for the wounded and sick sheep, finding and saving lost or trapped sheep, loving them, tending the sheep and feeding the sheep.

 It’s an amazing thing that the Great Shepherd laid down his life for his sheep. Jesus said concerning Himself in John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”

Shepherd is the word we get the title pastor from.  I referred last week to pastors as being under shepherds.  Now we see that the Great Shepherd is Jesus our Lord.  To be an under shepherd then is to take your orders and relay the will of the Great Shepherd.  That’s the job of the pastor, to faithfully explain and convey the word of the Great Shepherd.  And then the congregation may submit to the word of the pastor, knowing that it is the word of Christ.

Just a word about the eternal covenant which he mentions in his prayer.  A covenant is a binding agreement.  And so he is speaking of the binding agreement between the members of the trinity.  It is a unilateral agreement that God has made.  The promise of God is not contingent upon man, but it is contingent upon God to fulfill it.  And so we take comfort in that, knowing that God is the author and finisher of our faith. What he has begun, he will bring to completion.  And He will complete His covenant concerning our redemption because He cannot deny Himself.  So the author in His prayer calls upon that covenant as the basis for his petition.

Now as to the petition; vs21, “[may He] equip you in every good thing to do His will…” The word that is translated equip is used in the original language to speak of mending nets.  God is not only able to use that which is perfect, but He is able to fix that which is broken.  That’s really the good news.  He is able to take this sinner, saved by grace, this selfish, weak, sometimes mean spirited person and equip me to do His will.  

And even more good news, He will give you what is necessary so that you can do His will.  God will provide what we need to do His will. There is no excuse for not doing the will of God.  God has promised to provide all our needs according to His riches in glory.  He has given us the Spirit of God to empower us to do His will.  He has given us a new heart that we might desire to do His will.  In Ezekiel 36:26-27 God says, ”Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”  God equips us to do His will.

So when we have this new heart, and a new spirit within us, then according to his prayer, God is able to work in us His will which is that which is pleasing in His sight. His will is not necessarily that we be happy, but to be holy.  Notice that working in us comes through Jesus Christ.  How?  Through the Spirit of Christ and through His word He leads us and guides us into righteousness.  Thinking again about Psalm 23 we read “He leads us in paths of righteousness  for His name’s sake.”   To follow Him, to be like Him, to please Him, to serve Him and live for His glory.  That is how he concludes his prayer; “to Him be the glory for ever and ever.” 

It’s practically counter intuitive to think that I can be happiest, I can be most fulfilled, I can be most blessed, I can find my best possible life, not in living out my dreams, or in fulfilling my ambitions, not in doing my will, but in living my life for the glory of my King.   In living for the glory of God I will find my the greatest expression of my life, I will gain the greatest use of my life.  But that’s the opposite of what the world is seeking.  It goes against the grain of what psychologists and therapists will tell you.  But the source of all truth, the eternal word of God declares that in dying to yourself and living for God you gain the greatest blessing possible in this life.  You gain nothing less than life with God, both now and forever.  

I hope and pray like this author prayed, that our Great God and Lord Jesus Christ, would equip you to walk in such a way as to be pleasing to God.  And if you are here today and you have never accepted Jesus as your redeemer, for forgiveness of your sins, then I pray that today is the day of your salvation.  Jesus has purchased your redemption that you might have peace with God and receive the life of Christ and the Spirit of Christ in you.  I pray that you do not reject so great a gift and believe in Him as your Savior and Lord today. 

I don’t apologize for not giving a typical Christmas message today as is the custom in many churches. Though I fully embrace the holiday and plan on celebrating the birth of Christ with my family, we are never told in scripture to celebrate the birth of Jesus. We are however, told to celebrate the Lord’s death until He comes again. And we will do that today, particularly in observing the Lord’s supper. But I hope that our continuing study in Hebrews will inform us as to why Jesus came to earth, and what He came to accomplish. Simply to celebrate His physical birth may have sentimental value, but to understand what He accomplished as our Savior through His death has eternal value.

Last week in our study we established that the church is the visible manifestation of the kingdom of God on earth. To say it another way, the kingdom of God and the church are synonymous. Thus the writer of Hebrews says to the church in chapter 12 vs 28 “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe.”

Now the church’s service to God is what the author has been speaking so far in chapter 13. But in order to really grasp the full significance of this service, it’s necessary to understand our position in the kingdom. In the old covenant, with Israel, God initially ruled the kingdom through the priesthood as a theocracy. That was the divine plan for the government of Israel. In the new covenant, God rules the kingdom as a theocracy as well which is carried out by a new priesthood. And in that regard, the author has previously spent a great deal of time establishing that a new high priest after the order of Melchizedek has become the Great High Priest, who has offered a better sacrifice, once for all, and now sits at the right hand of God in the Holy of Holies as our Intercessor.

Now in our text we read that Jesus is our Great High Priest, who has offered Himself as the ultimate, once for all sacrifice, at an altar which was outside of Jerusalem, outside of the temple, outside of the Judaistic system. And as the eklesia, the church, the called out ones, we are to go to Him outside the camp, and like Him bear the reproach that He received, and offer to God acceptable services and sacrifices as priests to God. Not only did Christ offer a sacrifice, but we are to offer sacrifices as well. But it is within the context of a new covenant, which is not governed under the old laws and regulations of the temple which were merely a type, but we serve in a better covenant, by which we may offer up sacrifices to the Lord.

Peter spoke of this new position as the priesthood of believers in 1Peter 2:4-5 saying, “And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Peter continues in vs 9, “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR [God’s] OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

In that last verse, notice that there is a dual position that is assigned to us, we are a royal priesthood. That speaks of a different priesthood than the priesthood of Aaron. We are given the responsibility to rule and to reign with Christ and to serve as a priesthood unto God. So the plan of God in the new covenant is to establish the called out ones, this chosen race as Peter describes us, as priests and princes with God. We that have become saved have already been anointed to this royal priesthood. We are now receiving this kingdom, but we do not yet see it come into it’s fulfillment. The fulfillment will happen completely when we are caught up to be with the Lord at the coming of His consummation. But it is something that we already are to be in possession of, and already be serving in.

Three times this promise of our position in Christ’s kingdom has been reiterated in the book of Revelation. Listen to how John speaks of this; Rev. 1:6 “and He has made us [to be] a kingdom, priests to His God and Father–to Him [be] the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.” Rev. 5:10 “You have made them [to be] a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.” Rev. 20:6 “Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.”

Now this position is our inheritance, but it is also ours now. And the Lord has given the responsibility to us to serve Him now as priests unto God and to offer sacrifices. However, there is no further need for penal sacrifices for sin. That sacrifice of full atonement has been completed once for all in Christ. But there is a responsibility to offer up sacrifices which serve the kingdom of God as it is carried out on earth. However, the service we offer is not like the service of the priests in the temple. Notice in vs.10 he says, “We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.”

What he means by that is the priests who were serving the temple under the old covenant were not qualified to serve in the new covenant. They were once useful in picturing a typology of the kingdom to come through Christ. But now there is a new administration of the kingdom of God. We have a new altar, and they serve the old altar. The new altar is the altar of the cross, whereupon Jesus offered the perfect sacrifice. There is no more need for sacrifices for sin, which were done morning and evening, day after day under the old covenant. We have no requirement, because the perfect sacrifice has been given once for all at Calvary. So consequently, there is a new priesthood, which offer different sacrifices and services in the church, which has replaced the tabernacle of the old administration.

I would just add a note here, that those who insist that the sacrifices must begin again and the temple of Jerusalem must be rebuilt in order for Christ to appear at His second coming are trusting in a flawed theology. God destroyed the temple and removed the sacrifices in 70AD as prophesied by Jesus. And if Jesus has perfected for all time the sacrifice for sin, then why would God need to resurrect the temple and sacrifices again? The whole point of the new covenant is that God has done away with the old covenantal system. To reestablish it would indicate that there was something lacking in Christ’s atonement. That cannot be.

The same principle applies to the injunctions of Jewish dietary restrictions, feast days, sabbath days, circumcision, etc. The author made the point in vs 9 that the dietary laws did not give any spiritual advantage to the Jews. Paul said if you eat meat, or if you don’t eat meat, neither will commend you to God. False teachers and especially cults always seem to want to take the church back to Jewish laws and ceremonies and rituals. But as Paul said to the Colossians in chapter 2 vs 16 “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day– things which are a [mere] shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”

So there was an old altar, an old temple, an old priesthood, and they served as a type of better things to come in Christ. But in this new covenant, we are a royal priesthood, serving a new altar which is the cross, in the new temple in which our bodies make up the greater body of Christ, which is the church, of which Christ is the head. Someone well said, “God’s head of the church is at his right hand, but His hands and feet are down here.”

Now speaking of the old altar under the old covenant, the blood of the atonement was sprinkled on the altar and the mercy seat, but the bodies of the animals were taken outside the camp and burned. Under the Jewish law, no part of the sin-offering was to be eaten, but all must be burned outside the camp. So according to that typology, the author says if they are still subject to that law, serving the old tabernacle, they cannot eat at the gospel altar; for that which is eaten there is furnished from Christ, who is the great sin offering. The Lord’s supper is not our altar, but it is furnished with provision from the altar. Christ our passover is sacrificed for us (1 Co. 5:7). The Lord’s supper is the feast of the gospel passover. The error of the Catholics and other so called orthodoxy, is that they crucify Christ again and again in taking the mass, thinking that eating His physical blood and flesh sanctify their bodies. But Hebrews tells us that Christ died once for all, as a final sacrifice for sin. In the Passover feast, they did not experience deliverance from death year after year, but they remembered the single event in yearly commemoration.

So the author says that Jesus in His atonement suffered outside the camp, that is outside of Jerusalem, outside of the temple, taken out of Jerusalem to the mount Golgatha. And He did so, in order to sanctify His people from their sins. And in light of our observance of Christmas, even his birth illustrated that we must go to Him outside the camp. Jesus was born not in Jerusalem, in the capital of Israel, where the leaders and the priests and the temple were, but He was born in the tiny village of Bethlehem, not in a royal palace, but in a barn, not in a crib, but in a manger. His whole life was marked by reproach, as He was contemptuously referred to as a Galilean. His life was marked by being an outsider.

So in like manner, as His select priesthood, let us go outside the camp, identifying with Him, bearing the same reproach as He bore. In other words, especially to the Hebrew audience, he was saying we must abandon the temple and the rituals and ceremonies of the old covenant and go out to the place of crucifixion, where we take up our cross and follow Him. Though we cannot offer sacrifices for sin, yet we still can offer sacrifices which are pleasing to God.

In thinking of the crucifixion and the sense of abandonment that accompanied Jesus, I am reminded of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus who were described as secret disciples. I’m afraid that there are more than a few secret disciples of Christ in the church today as well. We are afraid to let people know that we identify with Christ. It may be socially acceptable to let people know that we are religious, to claim some measure of faith, but to actually identify with Christ and share in His reproach is something that we dare not do. And so we come short of the grace that was given to us. We come short of the purpose God has in making us a part of the royal priesthood which Peter said was given “so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

Instead of the church being the called out ones, the eklesia, we are too often trying to reap the benefits of this world, while claiming the benefits of the next. Like those secret disciples of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimatha, we want to hold onto to the security and the prosperity and the pleasures of the world we live in and yet still inherit the treasures of heaven. But as Peter says, the earth is destined for destruction, and all it’s works will be burned up. 2 Peter 3:10-13 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”

This new heaven and new earth is no less than what John calls the New Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven. The present Jerusalem, Hebrews says in vs14, is not a lasting city. In fact, just a few years after this letter Jerusalem and the temple as they knew it would be destroyed and the priesthood killed or scattered with the rest of the population. But we are looking for a new Jerusalem, a lasting city in which we shall be forever with the Lord. How foolish then it is to serve the present city, this present world, which has no lasting value. Let us go outside to join with Christ, which may cause temporary suffering, but which will result in an eternal weight of glory.

Though Him then, vs 15 says, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. In the old covenant, thanksgiving was a form of peace offering. And in the new covenant, we may still offer a sacrifice of praise. Not by offering an animal, but by the fruit of our lips. I believe this indicates much more than offering up hymns or songs of praise, though that certainly plays a part. But I think it indicates proclaiming the wonders of His love and grace to a world in darkness. We offer praise to God to the nations of the great work of Christ in salvation. This praise is what Peter called the proclamation of the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light. The testimony which we offer to the world of God’s salvation to us is the sacrifice of praise which we offer to God. It’s the acceptable service which we render to God because He has transferred us into the kingdom of God.

To the sacrifice of praise the priests of God in the new covenant must also add the offering of works of righteousness, that which the author calls doing good. And closely aligned with that is what he calls sharing. This is the working out of brotherly love which we talked about in our earlier study. Good works do not earn our entry into the kingdom of God, but as priests of God we serve the body of God through good works. Paul said in Eph. 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” So we were created in righteousness so that we might walk in good works, even as Christ did on earth.

So also Paul said to Timothy to instruct the church to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.” [1Tim. 6:18] Sharing is a part of good works, and when it is offered up in the name of the Lord, it is a sacrifice with which God is well pleased. Sharing is speaking of those who according to Paul are rich in this world’s goods, that they should share with those in need. James says the same thing, James 2:14-17 “What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for [their] body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, [being] by itself.”

And Paul, speaking to the Philippians is even more explicit saying that the financial gifts and offerings he received from them was “an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God”, using almost identical language to our text in vs 16.

This sacrifice of sharing in financial means brings the author back to the subject of leaders in the church, who are worthy not only of support, but a certain measure of honor, requiring the sacrifice of our submission. Vs. 17, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.”

Now he has already clarified the fact that worthy leaders are those who preach the word to you, back in vs.7. “Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.” Now to the injunction to remember them, and to imitate them, comes even more explicit commands to submit to them, and obey them, being understood that is contingent upon their faithfulness to the word of God.

In the story of Christ’s birth, the gospel of Luke records that there were shepherd in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And that same word picture is used here to describe the under shepherds who keep watch over the souls of the flock in their charge. It indicates a sleepless state of watching, or more expressly, that of being on the alert on behalf of their flock. Pastors, or shepherds, are responsible for the souls of their sheep, to guard them against the schemes and deceit of the devil, the false teachings, wolves in sheep’s clothing.

And the author encourages us to follow their guidance, so that the pastor may not suffer that stricter judgement that will come to teachers of the gospel, and that you may not live an unprofitable life.

There is a profit to living godly. Paul said in 1Tim. 6:6 that “godliness [actually] is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.” And contentment is found in submission to the authority that God has established for our benefit. Contentment is also found in doing the will of God, doing the things which are pleasing to God. Contentment is found in performing our service to God in the role that He has prepared us for. And God has prepared us to be a royal priesthood, proclaiming the excellencies of Him who has called us out of the kingdom of darkness into His marvelous light. Let us do so with praise, with service, and through sharing, being subject to the authority of the church of God and His shepherds, that we may fulfill the measure of grace that was given to us.

I think in Christianity today we tend to have too low of a view of the church. The church is the visible, physical manifestation of the spiritual kingdom of God.  The kingdom of God is the church. There are those who are looking for the kingdom of God to appear some day in the future.  But Jesus said, the kingdom of God is near you, it is in your midst.  Jesus came preaching and teaching the kingdom of God.  He referred to the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven dozens and dozens of times.  He spoke of the church only rarely.  The church is eklesia, the called out ones.  We have been called out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God. 

Now that’s important to understand.  Because Christianity has evolved and formulated many various traditions and ideas of what we think constitutes a church.  And yet very few of those traditions and ceremonies and procedures really characterize the church according to the Bible. Jesus could say the kingdom of God was at hand because He was the King of the kingdom.  And so where He is, the kingdom is.  And by the same standard, Jesus is the head of the church.  And so where Jesus is, the church exists.  We need only to study the ministry of Jesus to understand the ministry of the church.  If our church today looks different from the church of Jesus Christ then we have added superfluous and potentially detrimental ceremonies and rituals and traditions of men, rather than of God.

Some time ago I ended up in a debate with some pastors in our area concerning church membership.  They believed that in order to have a Biblical church you had to have church membership which involved all sorts of procedures and checks and classes and so forth in order  to make sure we don’t have people in the church who are not believers, or who do not practice church doctrine. I was told by one sanctimonious pastor that if there is no church membership, then there is no church. 

However, my view is that church membership as practiced in most churches today is a man made invention.  And while it may arguably be useful to some degree from a managerial aspect, it can be harmful in others.  Furthermore, I don’t believe anyone can enter into the spiritual kingdom by earthly means.  Membership in the church is the same as citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.  You have to be born into it.  You have to be born again and that enrolls you into the family of God, the kingdom of God, the church of God. So God does it, not man.  And that’s why we don’t practice church membership in this church.  Only God knows if you are HIs child or not and whether or not you are a part of His kingdom. 

Now understanding this doctrine of the kingdom of God is important because chapter 13 is primarily practical application of the doctrine of the church.  At the end of chapter 12 vs 28 the author says, “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe.” And so from that point on, chapter 13 tells us how we as the church can render acceptable service. And in vs1, we are told that this acceptable service to God in the church starts with brotherly love for one another.  And flowing from that brotherly love is a series of injunctions which we are to take note of as we live out our duty and responsibilities as members of His kingdom.

Now the most important aspect of being in the kingdom of God is that we recognize the nature and character of our King and our responsibilities to Him.  And so in that respect, in order to be sure that we are submissive to our King and doing the things that are pleasing to Him, God has set up under shepherds, or pastors, leaders of the church to be our guides. 

Notice how he speaks of them in vs7; “Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.” Now the way the NASB which I just read from translates this verse, it sort of diminishes the position to some degree.  The King James Version renders it “Remember your rulers…”  Most of the modern translations say “Remember your leaders…”  

The consensus of most theologians is that this is speaking of church leadership.  And we can differentiate between church leadership and political or civil leadership because it says “who spoke the word of God to you.”  It’s hardly likely that civil leaders are speaking the word of God, or that we would be told to imitate their way of life.  Our political leaders seem to advocate the “do as I say, and not as I do” theology.  They make rules, but they don’t live by them themselves.  God’s rulers or leaders, are supposed to be examples to the flock.

Four aspects of the church’s responsibility in the realm of church leadership are mentioned here at the end of this epistle.  It’s obviously of some concern and importance to the kingdom of God. He says again in vs 17, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.”  So first remember them, and then imitate them.  Then obey them, and submit to them.  

One commentator expanded on this verse by saying it this way; “Christ’s church is a kingdom, and he is King in it; pastors of churches are subordinate governors; who rule well when they rule not in an arbitrary way, according to their own wills, but according to the laws of Christ, with all faithfulness, prudence, and diligence. The word may be rendered “guides” or “leaders”; for such point out the way of peace, life, and salvation to men, and direct them to Christ; and guide them into the understanding of the Scriptures, and the truths of the Gospel; and lead them in the paths of faith and holiness, and are examples to them.”

Now there are many examples in the past of pastors and leaders that have abused the leadership and authority that God has given to them.  And so Peter warns pastors in 1Peter 5:1-4 “Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as [your] fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed,  shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to [the will of] God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.  And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”  So Christ is the Chief Shepherd, who has appointed under shepherds or pastors, who are to exercise oversight over the flock, and be an example to them, but not lording it over those who are allotted to our charge.  That is written to pastors.

But in the Hebrew text before us today the author is speaking to the church, to remember their leaders, and all that entails, which would include providing for them.  Paul says in 1Cor. 9:14 “So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.” And then the responsibility of the church is to imitate their leaders, or to follow them as their guides, then to obey your leaders, and them submit to them.  

Now there are two very important caveats that are included here.  First he says follow or submit to leaders who spoke the word of God to you.  The faithfulness of the preacher to speak the word of God accurately and truthfully is paramount.  Because the pastor is the under shepherd.  He is the governor, whereas the Lord Jesus is King.  The pastor simply conveys the Chief Shepherds word, faithfully and accurately.  What it’s saying is that the pastor’s leadership is shown to be legitimate by his faithfulness to the word of God. 

Secondly, it says, considering the outcome of their life, or considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.  You know, there are a lot of pastors or preachers out there who are just in it for the money or who are on some sort of power trip. And they are clever enough to speak enough of the word of God to sound legitimate, but their lifestyle, if you scrutinize it, reveals that they don’t live by the word. A good example is these faith healers that fly around the country in their private jets preying on vulnerable people.  There was a pastor of a church in South Carolina who made the news yesterday who bought his wife a new $200,000 Lamborghini.  And he was getting some flack for it.  Well deserved I would think.  A lavish, worldly lifestyle is hardly compatible with the example of Jesus.

So considering their conduct, their faithfulness to the word, then imitate or follow their example. How are they running the race,  or in the case of those who have passed, how did they finish the race?  I have a Bible at home which was my main Bible for many years but it’s now falling apart.  But in the margin of this verse I have a question mark. And I remember writing that in my Bible many years ago, maybe 30 years ago as I thought about my dad’s life and particularly how it ended.  My dad had a church which he started, and he helped to start many more in that area of North Carolina.  But the end of his life his health failed. And along with that my mother left my father and eventually divorced him.  She took all his money out of the bank while he was away at a series of meetings.  She sold all the furniture at a yard sale. When my dad came home, at a time when he was in very bad health, he came home to an empty house, no wife, no car, no money, nothing.  And I remember reading this verse and wondering about my dad’s life and whether or not that was ever something that I wanted to imitate, or follow in, considering the outcome.  So many preachers I have known have had some sort of similar misfortunes at the end of their life.  So I don’t think we can look at a pastor’s life from a human standpoint and judge whether or not things worked out as we think they should have or whatever.  But in that he was faithful to be obedient to the calling of God, he was faithful to preach the word accurately, and he lived according to how God tells us to live.  And in those respects, we then can imitate them.  Just like we would imitate the faith of Job.  None of us would want to partake in the circumstances of Job’s life, but we should imitate his faith.

This passage in Hebrews then is speaking of our responsibility to the leaders of the church, and their responsibility to the Lord Jesus Christ to be faithful to His word and His design for the church.  Then in vs.9 we see a contrast to the faithful leader.  And that contrast is those leaders who distort and misrepresent the gospel. Listen to vs 9, “Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.” 

I’ve already said some things about those pastors or preachers that use the gospel for the sake of personal gain.  And we are to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves in that regard.  We need to be as the Bereans and study the scriptures to see if those things are so which they are teaching.  Particularly as it pertains to false teaching.  Here false teaching is described as varied and strange teachings. As far as the enemy of the church is concerned, I believe Satan’s intent is to subtly distort the word of God.  It is much more palatable to swallow a half truth than a whole lie.  And I believe the Devil is adept at scheming up doctrines which consist of partial truths. As I have said many times before, only a one degree error in your compass when setting on a trans Atlantic ocean voyage will end up taking you hundreds of miles off course before you complete your journey. 

 I am constantly amazed at how a lot of Christians start off hot, and end up cold.  And unfortunately I think it’s due to believing faulty theology most of the time.  The problem in the church today is that a lot of people are getting their doctrine from the wrong sources.  They neglect the God appointed and ordained pastor and his teaching, because they think they like better the sermons on television, or online.  They eschew the leadership of a Bible teaching preacher because they prefer the stirring melodies of a so called worship music and contemporary musicians. They disregard the daily study of the Bible in their quiet times in exchange for the latest Christian self help books found in the bookstores.  And as a result, their theology gets subtly distorted.  They end up believing strange teaching.  They start off thinking they are hot, but instead they are getting colder and colder because they are drifting further and further away from the refining fire of God’s word.

So it is incumbent upon the church to avoid such leaders as that.  In the case of the Hebrews, one of the characteristics of these deceitful leaders was that they were trying to enforce the Jewish diet rituals on the new Christians. And so that’s the emphasis that the author puts on this warning, to beware of those who were trying to reinstate the dietary laws of the old covenant when we have this new covenant of grace.  The ceremonial laws were done away with at the cross, because Jesus fulfilled all the types which those laws were supposed to be teaching.  And he says, those who practiced such laws were not benefitted by them.  The cermemonial laws were supposed to separate the Jews from the world, so that they might be a light to the Gentiles.  But because their hearts were not sanctified, the outward ceremonial laws that they practiced did not help them in that regard whatsoever.  And it’s interesting that today in many evangelical circles there is a desire to go back to traditions, to ceremonies, to rituals, to candles and incense and liturgies which have the appearance of spirituality, but have no spiritual value.

The heart, the author tells us, is better strengthened by grace. What is grace?  Grace is the gift of God, sending Jesus Christ to be our Savior.  Grace is the repentance and faith that comes from the conviction and quickening of the Holy Spirit.  Grace is the forgiveness of our sins, and the Spirit of God who is given to us as an inward witness and help. These aspects of grace strengthen the heart, the soul, that we might have a change of heart, new desires, and find strength to carry out the desires of God.

This grace is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.  And that grace is still available today for those who believe in Him.  And so we focus our attention on the One who is unchangeable, immutable, Jesus Christ the Lord.  Vs. 8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”  Though earthy leaders may come and go, though denominations rise and fall, though some stay faithful and some fall away into apostasy, the Lord Jesus Christ remains the same.

Let’s notice first the preeminence of His name.  Jesus is HIs given name. It means Jehovah saves.  No Hebrew could say the name of Jesus without realizing the significance of that name.  When the angel spoke to Joseph he said, “And you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.”  He came to earth to be our Savior.  He came to seek and  to save those that are lost.

Are you lost today?  Have you come to that conclusion?  It’s necessary to recognize that you are lost before you can be saved.  Recognizing you are lost is coming to the point of confessing you are a sinner, you are hopeless, that you are helpless, coming to the end of yourself.  Recognizing that all your efforts at directing your life has been faulty, and coming to the point of believing that Jesus Christ is your only hope.  He will save you, if you will recognize that you are lost and  believe that He is your Savior.

Notice also the word Christ.  Christ is not His surname.  Christ is His title.  It is the Greek word for Messiah which means anointed one. Kings were anointed. Priests were anointed. Prophets were anointed, all three. And our Lord holds all three of those offices. And, particularly, as we have been alluding to, the office of King. So He is the Anointed One and that suggests his office of kingship.  

The author of this epistle has referenced that kingship in chapter 1 in verse 8, where he says these words, citing from Psalm 45. “But to the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness above Your companions.’” So he is the Anointed King.

Well, if God has anointed Him and appointed Him to be the Savior of sinners,  why is it that people object to having Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? If God has anointed him to be the Anointed King and Savior of sinners, it seems to me that the right response of human beings is to bow down before him and acknowledge him as their Lord.  And that of course is the reason that they refuse Him.  Because they do not want to surrender to Him as Lord.  I would suspect that it’s possible some would even be wiling to have Him as their Savior, but not their Lord.  They are willing to let Him  pay for their sin, but not to have Him as Lord over their lives.  But both are necessary.  He must be both Savior and Lord.

And then the author speaks to the immutability of Jesus Christ.  He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is unchanging.  In the first chapter again, vs.10 he says, “ And, “YOU, LORD, IN THE BEGINNING LAID THE FOUNDATION OF THE EARTH, AND THE HEAVENS ARE THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS;  THEY WILL PERISH, BUT YOU REMAIN; AND THEY ALL WILL BECOME OLD LIKE A GARMENT, AND LIKE A MANTLE YOU WILL ROLL THEM UP; LIKE A GARMENT THEY WILL ALSO BE CHANGED. BUT YOU ARE THE SAME, AND YOUR YEARS WILL NOT COME TO AN END.”

Our faith is founded on the unchanging, immutable Word of God, who became flesh and dwelt among us, and who has ascended to the right hand of the Father where He ever lives to make intercession for us.  Our citizenship in the kingdom of God is not dependent on denominations or creeds or people or rituals or ceremonies of religion, but our security is in the eternal, unchanging,  immortal God, Jesus Christ the Lord. 

As I was working on preparing for the Christmas party this year, I think it’s about 14 years now that we have had it.  And thinking of the years we have had the Luau, and all the people over the years who we have ministered to.  Some who are still with us and many more who are no longer here.  It makes me realize the changeableness of our church.  People come and go.  The congregation changes.  People get hot and cold. The church changes.  I have changed. I’ve gotten older.   But Jesus Christ remains unchanged.  He is the same, forever. His word, His person, His gospel, His salvation endures forever.

And I will say one more thing about His unchangeableness in regards to doctrine.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.  That means if we want to know what the church of Jesus Christ is supposed to look like today, then we look at what the church of Jesus Christ was like when He was on earth.  When you want to know what the life of the Christian is supposed to look like today, then look at the life of the Chief Shepherd whom we are to imitate.

His unchanging nature provides the standard for all Christian conduct, particularly in the preaching of the word and in worship. Just because we live in a modern society we should not expect something completely “new” as if there is an Old Covenant God and a  New Covenant Jesus.” The nature of God as it is manifested by Jesus is the same in the old as in the new. And the nature of Christian conduct that we see in the Bible  should be the same which is seen in the church today.

And let me add that the nature of the Holy Spirit is no different than the nature of Jesus Christ.  As Jesus Christ is the exact representation of the nature of the Father according to chapter one vs.3 which says, “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature.”  Jesus said of the Spirit in John 16:13-14  “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose [it] to you.”

So, that’s the Oneness of God, the unity of the Trinity.  Jesus is the exact representation of the Father.  And the Spirit is the exact representation of Jesus.  So in the church we have unity in the truth, first and foremost.  The Holy Spirit is not going to be glorifying Himself.  He is not going to be acting in a way that is incompatible with the way Jesus acted when He was on earth.  And the leadership of the church is to be exact in it’s representation of Christ as well.  We must be careful to study the scriptures and teach faithfully and handle accurately the word of God, so that the church may be built up and do the work of service in ministry.

That’s quite a responsibility for the pastor, but it’s also quite a responsibility for the congregation, to be imitators of Christ in the world. To be discerning, and to be steadfast, persevering to the end.  I pray that we may be found faithful.

If you’re here today and you have come to the conclusion that you have never been born again by the Spirit of Christ, then I invite you to accept the gift of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  If you will confess your sins and repent of your sins, and ask Jesus to save you, to remake you, and surrender to Him as Lord and King, then He will forgive your sins, and cleanse you from all unrighteousness, and give you His Spirit to empower you.  I pray that no one here today is foolish enough to reject the grace of God. The Bible says it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.  When that day comes, your faith in Jesus Christ is the only way of escape.  I pray that you do not presume upon the grace of God, but surrender to Him today.