By Rev. Dr. Brent Russett – Asbury Free Methodist
May 26, 2024 – 1 Peter 1:1-12
I don’t often preach the same passage of scripture two Sundays in a row. However, I am going to do that today so that you can get the full impact of verses 10-13.
The word of the old hymn has been going through my mind this week.
Sing them over again to me,
Wonderful words of life;
Let me more of their beauty see,
Wonderful words of life;
Words of life and beauty
Teach me faith and duty.
Beautiful words, wonderful words,
Wonderful words of life;
Beautiful words, wonderful words,
Wonderful words of life.
You can tell that the hymn writer is completely enthralled with the gospel story. I am hoping that you will be, too as we look at these verses again.
George Beverly Shea used to sing a song called
“The Wonder of it All.”
There’s the wonder of sunset at eventing,
The Wonder as sunrise I see;
But the wonder of wonders that thrills my soul
Is The wonder that God loves me
O The wonder of it all! The wonder of it all!
Just to think that God loves me
O the wonder of it all the, the wonder of it all
Just to think that God loves me.
I love these old songs because they articulate what we aspire to. But if you have been walking with Jesus for a long time, then sometimes the good news can seem like old news. When our hearts get there. We are missing some thing. We have to pray prayers like the song says.
… May I never lose the wonder
The wonder of the cross
May I see it like the first time
Standing as a sinner lost
Undone by mercy and left speechless
Watching wide-eyed at the cost
May I never lose the wonder
I am hoping that we can look at the greatness of our salvation today and that you will see it in a new light.
Come with me to
1 Peter 1:1–2 (NIV)
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, 2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood:
Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Peter starts off by telling us not only who he is writing to but who we are in Christ. Writing to the church, he says, “To God’s elect.” He is talking to them as a group. He is saying that the believers have been chosen by God. He is going to make a case all the way through this book. Those of you who have received Jesus into your life – you have been chosen by God.
He describes these Christians as exiles, as sojourners. Later on in this book, he tells us how our citizenship is in heaven. But the picture he starts his book off with is that we are foreigners who live in a strange land. We are sojourners. We are hiking through this world, but this is not my home and native land.
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Now, look at what he has to say about their salvation. They have been chosen by God the Father according to his foreknowledge. God knew what was going to happen, and he knew that there would be a group of people like you and me. Paul says you were chosen before the foundations of the world.
Peter tells us that the mark of the chosen is that they are sanctified by the Holy Spirit. That means that they are set apart for God’s use. Their lives have been made sacred. Here is what being sanctified/ set apart looks like: They are obedient to Jesus. What sets us apart is that we are followers of Jesus. The fact that the Holy Spirit is doing that means that he is giving us the power to be obedient to Christ.
He goes on to say one more thing. We are sprinkled by his blood. The work of the cross has been applied to our life. You are forgiven. You are made righteous. You are made pure.
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We could spend hours on these terms, but here is what it means for you who are followers of Jesus. Here is what it means to you personally.
The God of the universe, the one who by his very word, spoke all that is into being. That God chose you before you were born. You didn’t stumble into your faith by accident – God knew you, and he chose you. Some of you are wondering, “What was God thinking?” I know me and my foibles. This holy God, who lives in unapproachable light, who has angels around his throne saying Holy, Holy, Holy, chose you. This perfect God saw us in all our imperfection and chose us.
His entire being – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit was involved in this choice. God the Father chose you. God the Holy Spirit set you apart by sanctifying you – giving you the power to be obedient to Christ. God the Son died for us so that our hearts could be sprinkled by his blood. We are forgiven. We are made righteous.
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Oh the wonder of it all, the wonder of it all just to think that God loves me.
But this is just Peter’s overview, his introduction, of what God had done for you. He goes on to say
1 Peter 1:3 (NIV)
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
Peter states what is obvious to most of us – that God is merciful to give us such a great salvation. No kidding. If you understand the holiness of God and you understand your own heart, you will know that it is only by God’s mercy that we are saved. Mercy happens when we receive the good that we don’t deserve. We did not deserve our salvation.
But in spite of the fact that we didn’t deserve it, he has given us new birth. Jesus talked about being born again. He was talking about a spiritual rebirth. Paul talks about being a new creation. The old is gone the new has come.
We were spiritually dead, but now we are spiritually alive. We were disconnected from spiritual things, but now we are connected with God. We live because Christ lives in us. That happens because of God’s mercy.
We were given a new birth into a living hope. It is strange to talk about hope being alive. Hope is more like a concept. But what makes hope alive is the object of our hope, who is Jesus. What makes hope come alive is that because Jesus is alive. As we live in him we live in hope.
That is what he goes on to say. We are given this new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus. All of our salvation is based on the fact that Jesus is alive. It is where are spiritual life springs from. It is where our spiritual power springs from. It is where our hope springs from.
Now, you will notice that all of these things that belong to our salvation that I have talked about come from God. He chose us. The Holy Spirit sanctified us and gave us the power to be obedient to Jesus. It was the sacrifice of Jesus that paid for our sins. As Peter says, “We were sprinkled by his blood.” It was God’s mercy that was extended towards us. It wasn’t something that we had done. It was God who gave us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus. It was God. It was all God.
Your salvation starts with God. He is the one who initiates it. He is the one who makes it happen. God has done all the work that needs to be done.
O The wonder of it all! The wonder of it all!
Just to think that God loves me
O the wonder of it all the, the wonder of it all
Just to think that God loves me.
Your salvation starts with God. He initiates it and makes it happen. I want to remind you of that because it is human nature to try and make our salvation more about what we have done than what God has done. We are tempted to make it about how good we are or how religious we are.
Sometimes, it is subtle. We would never say that we need to earn our salvation – but we live as if we are trying to get God to like us. We are trying to earn his favour. But you don’t need to do that. There is, however, a response that we are supposed to have to our salvation.
1 Peter 1:8–9 (NIV)
8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Your response – even though you have not seen him, you love him. The first response to our salvation is to love God. The second response to our salvation is that you believe in him. You ongoing faith is in him.
Those two responses to God are what God requires of you. You love Jesus. It kind of echoes Jesus’ words when he talked about the greatest commandments. The first was love the Lord with all you heart, soul, mind and strength. The second was to love your neighbour as yourself.
But Jesus was stating that for a Jewish audience that was steeped in Old Testament law. It was a command to followed.
In the New Testament, the command to love God is much more dynamic. It is like you have seen how he chose you and died for you and made you holy. You have experienced his great mercy and the new birth. How can I help but love him? Instead of love being commanded. Love is the response to what God has done for that. Isn’t that what
1 John 4:19 (NIV) says
19 We love because he first loved us.
Our love is a call out of us because we were loved in the first place.
The second response it the response of faith.
1 Peter 1:8–9 (NIV)
8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
You don’t see him now. Yet you believe in him. Note how that is worded. You are believing in a person, not a premise. You are believing that Jesus is who he says he is and that he is at work doing what he said he would do.
So, you believe him when he says that he takes your sin and he gives you his righteousness. You believe him when he says that he puts his Spirit inside of us, giving us the power to do what he has called us to do. You believe him when he says that he stands by the Father pleading your case. You believe him when he says he is the way, the truth and life.
This belief is not in an idea but in a person. What that means is that we live our lives in obedience to that person. We live our lives in a way that makes sense as one of his followers.
You see, if you really believe in Jesus, you will do what he says. Faith and obedience are two sides of the same coin. You love others, do good to others, serve others, and live well because you believe in Jesus. You believe his way is the best way. So, you live out of that belief. That includes loving your neighbour. But it also includes so many other things. But when it comes right down to it, living the Christian life is living a life of faith.
Notice the end result of this love and faith.
1 Peter 1:8–9 (NIV)
8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
It produces glorious joy. We touched on that last week. It produces a deep sense of well-being. But look what else it produces. You are receiving the result of your faith – the salvation of your souls. You were saved. You are being saved. God is working because of what he has done and because of your faith – the ongoing salvation of your souls.
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All that explanation of our salvation serves as a backdrop to the next three verses.
1 Peter 1:10–11 (NIV)
10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.
Concerning this salvation that comes out of the mercy of God. Concerning this salvation that you have received, brother and sister in Christ. Here is what I want you to know, says Peter.
The prophets, in the Old Testament, spoke of the grace that was to come to you. They caught glimpses of God’s undeserved, unearned favour towards you. It was amazing to them.
They searched intently and with the greatest care. How does a prophet search? He searches for the words that God has already spoken. He searches in prayer, waiting for God to speak. He searches by contemplating what God has already said. He searches by thinking deeply about what he knows and what he thinks he knows and what he doesn’t know.
He was searching for time and the circumstances that the Spirit of Christ was pointing to. Note that although Jesus doesn’t show up by name in the Old Testament it is still his Spirit guiding the prophets. Here is what they want to know. They want to know when and how the Messiah would suffer and what glories would be revealed after he suffered.
Do you know what they were told after that intense search? What you are seeing and what you are writing is not for you, my dear prophet; it is for the people who would experience the fullness of God’s salvation. What you have seen and written about is for the people who would experience God’s mercy and respond in love and faith.
1 Peter 1:12 (NIV)
12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
What they longed to see you, dear church, have received. What they longed to understand you, child of God, have experienced. What they spent their whole life longing to know, you now know in the gospel that you have received.
He even goes a step further and says, “Angels long to look into these things.” The salvation that you have received is so amazing and so mind-boggling that angels don’t get it. It doesn’t make sense to them. They long to understand.
Why does God love you so much? Why does God love me so much? It doesn’t make sense to the angels of heaven. It is a mystery. Why would Jesus die for those who had rebelled against him? Why would he die for those who were spiritually dead? It doesn’t make sense to angels. It makes no sense to you. But God knows.
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O The wonder of it all! The wonder of it all!
Just to think that God loves me
O the wonder of it all the, the wonder of it all
Just to think that God loves me.
***
I have been a Christian for a very long time. There have been patches in my journey where I have lost the wonder of it all. The gospel, the good news has been around for the last 2000 years, and so it can get to feel like old news.
Instead of the wonder of it all – it is the same old same old. – ho hum.
But here is what I have learned. When I get to those patches in my spiritual journey – I am missing something. If Angels long to look into these things – and I am ho hum – I am missing something.
If angels who see the spiritual realm clearly, are unclear about this mystery, I must be missing something. When I lose the wonder of my salvation there is a good chance that spiritual eyes have been dimmed. My spiritual ears have been blocked. There is a good chance that my faith is lukewarm.
If that is you, the first thing that you need to do is own it. Yes, that is me. The second thing you need to do is repent of the state of your heart. “God, you see my heart, I am sorry for the state that it is in. Forgive me, help me.”
Then, you may want to examine your heart for sins that you haven’t repented of. It usually comes in a few forms. If you are consistently doing something you know is wrong – it will dim your spiritual sight. It will block your spiritual hearing. You were saved and set apart to be obedient to Christ. Repent and do what you are called to do.
The other form is that you know you were called to do something, and you didn’t do it. Maybe it was prayer. Maybe it was worship. Maybe it was service. If the opportunity has passed to do what you were called to do – all you can do is repent and grieve it. If it has not passed, then repent and do what you are called to do.
The last thing that you may want to check is pride. Pride says, “I’ve been there, done that.” Humilities says – I am still being saved and I am in need of God’s grace and mercy still. Pride gets puffed up with knowledge. Humility enters into a relationship with God sincerely. We are very aware that apart from him, we can do nothing.
Now I get that as we mature in our relationship with God that we won’t have the same sparks of discovery, where it seemed as if every day we were discovering something mind-blowing. But it is like being in a good marriage – you may be past the honeymoon stage – but there is still a deep love which makes you thankful for the other person.
How about you? How is your heart doing? Are you singing
O The wonder of it all! The wonder of it all!
Just to think that God loves me
O the wonder of it all the, the wonder of it all
Just to think that God loves me.
Or maybe you need to be praying
… May I never lose the wonder
The wonder of the cross
May I see it like the first time
Standing as a sinner lost
Undone by mercy and left speechless
Watching wide-eyed at the cost
May I never lose the wonder
If you have lost the wonder – take action.