1 Peter 1:1-2
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
If you search resume writing help in google you will get an endless roll of resources
What is important
How do you order it
What do people need to know about you for the job that you want
We need help with the resume of the christian life in our cultural moment
1 Peter is the most condensed New Testament résumé of the Christian faith in a post christian world
Peter wrote this letter to a group of churches in modern day turkey almost 2000 years ago
And it reads like it was written to us today
We live in the same culture they did
Juan Sanchez sums up the purpose of 1 Peter and why we need it today
Christianity is no longer generally accepted, nor deemed acceptable. In such a context, believers may not necessarily face imprisonments, torture or executions; however, we do face a progressively intolerant culture in which we are likely to be discriminated against simply because we identify with Christ
If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.
How are we supposed to be the christians we need to be today with the culture what it is
1 Peter was written for us in America in 2024
And he grounds all of the how too in explosion after explosion of what Christ has done for us and what he has promised to do
We are going to see 2 things as he anchors where the resume begins
Never Forget What the Gospel Made You, Who You Are Changes What You Are Here For
Never Forget Who the Gospel Made You
Never Forget Who the Gospel Made You
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ:
To those chosen, living as exiles dispersed abroad in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.
May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
In these hardening times, some of us will be tempted to compromise what we believe in order to “fit in” or to avoid suffering, while others of us will be tempted to bemoan all that is wrong with our world and long nostalgically for a better time, long-forgotten (and that likely never actually existed)
Peter did both and never found hope…then he saw the gospel
He denied Jesus to avoid being made fun of and suffer
And in the garden he tried the other way raging against what the world had become and used the sword
Peter is telling us that there is a third way…and it is the way to hope
He begins with the reality that if God can save a mess like me he can do anything
Especially make us stand with hope as culture colapses
Never forget the scandalous work of grace that saved you and made you a people destined for the place where everything sad will come untrue
His introduction sets the stage
His reassurances to us will be real because he speaks with authority—the authority of the risen King.
that is what Apostle means
He was one of only 12 to be commisioned by the risen Jesus
There are no more (just in case you run into a pastor who calls himself an apostle…run from those squirrels)
These churches would have been like holy cow the Peter is writing to us he knows what he is talking about
And here is the contrast we should not miss
He says so much about them and so little about himself
Peter was the Rock on which Christ would build his church but the gospel makes any pastor humble..it should
How he even got to this point is a work only the Gospel can do.
He could presume a place of power because of his status.
But he chose his saviors example
His hope is all in what the gospel has made him
He didn’t consider himself worthy to even die like jesus
When he was killed by Ceasar he asked to be crucified upside down because he didn’t even think he was worthy to die like Jesus
The Gospel that changed him explodes in his identifying them
This is the gospel
He puts the whole message of the bible in a sentence
And the whole book has to be read through this lens
The end of the letter tells us why this is everything
Karen Jobes said Peter ends his letter with a statement of its significance, “This is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it”
If you want to have hope and joy as culture descends into a world you don’t recognize anymore you stand fast because of the Gospel
And the Gospel tells you this world is not your home
He goes in on true grace in greeting them by anchoring how they can live out there faith because of who they are now and what God has done for them
Jobes again says This letter’s relevance for us today is due to its presentation of how the gospel of Jesus Christ is the foundational principle by which the Christian life is lived out within the larger unbelieving society
Basically remember the Gospel because the God who did that is worth all of you…and in following him you find what you truly long for
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ:
To those chosen, living as exiles dispersed abroad in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.
May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
To those chosen and living as exiles
In the very opening sentence of his letter, Peter introduces a concept of Christian identity that is based first on relationship to God and then on relationship to the world
Before time began God knew we would reject him and cause a world where things weren’t how they were supposed to be
What should leave us in awe is the fact that he didn’t say you made the mess now clean it up
he didn’t wash his hands of us when he had every right too
Instead before time began he had a redemptive plan to save all who would repent and believe
That should blow our minds…it knocked the first readers of this off their feet
True followers of Jesus are chosen by God not because of anything we could ever do…but simply because he set his affections on you before he even made you
But we are to remember we are exiles in a world that isn’t our home
He is making a statement that made the jewish leaders want him dead
He just called them the same as believing Israel when they were dispersed through exile like babylonian captivity
So why does Peter use this Old Testament language of dispersion, exile, and Babylon?
Because he wants his readers to see that, like Israel in Babylonian exile, Christians now live in the world they once belonged to as “exiles” (1:1) and as “sojourners” (2:11). We do not belong here, and we are not to; we are just passing through.
This world where you are called weird and don’t fit in is not home
The word he uses was used in the first century to designate someone who did not hold citizenship in the place where he resided and was therefore viewed as a foreigner.
The lack of citizenship implied that such people did not enjoy all the rights and privileges of citizens.
Moreover, as foreigners, they were not necessarily expected to hold the values and practice the customs of their host culture.
Because of such differences, foreigners were often looked upon suspiciously as potentially subversive to the established social order, an attitude not unfamiliar even today
Do you see what he is saying to us
That is how we are seen today
That is how we are treated and its going to get worse rapidly
it is a storm growing
That is why he uses this specific language
This world is not your home if you follow Christ you are passing through
So understand it won’t get you
Juan Sanchez says here: Our identification with Christ is what makes us strangers in this world. Jesus himself had told Peter, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you … I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18–19). Exiles … sojourners … hated … those are strong terms. We are foreigners in a hostile land, a people presently living in exile, away from our homeland and dispersed throughout the world.
2. Chosen before time began according to God’s redemptive epic story in history
Thankfully, God does not choose as we would choose.
God sets his love on those whom the world is likely to reject
The original recipients of this letter may have been foreigners with respect to their society and scattered throughout the vast area of Asia Minor,
but with respect to God, Peter says they are chosen
In fact, Peter goes on to explain that it is because of their relationship with God in Christ that their relationship with their society has become troubled
And God knew this cultural moment would come
If he moved all of human history to save you ,you can be anchored to say the world is not falling apart it is falling into place to get us home
Jobes again says Peter here instructs his readers that God’s divine initiative has operated in their lives even before they were aware of it. It is this purposeful plan of God, larger than an individual’s life, that forms the ultimate foundation for the hope and encouragement that Peter is about to offer.
Ever looked back before you were a christian and see now how God was pursuing you?
Things just so happened
You just so happened to join a book club and met someone who introduced you to this place and people
If God cares so much about your little details you can have sure confidence he knows what he is doing to make all things new in the life to come
the world is not falling apart it is falling into place to get us home
3. This is what the Trinity is all about
What is the triinity and how the heck does it work?
Great question Peters says heres how
The Father elects a people for salvation; the Son accomplishes their salvation; and the Spirit applies that salvation to all who believe the gospel
chosen 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ
see the father, the spirit and the son all working there role in your details to save you, and in getting you home with him forever
Michael Reeves said we don’t have some insecure lonely God who put out a singles ad: Single God, non smoker, Loves dogs, seeking attractive creation with good sense of humor
Everything changes when it come to our God
THe Role of the Father- Creating a new people
God the father exists forever in perfect love with the son and the spirit
He didn’t create because he was lonely
He initiated creation as an overflow of that love to share with you..the crown jewel of all he made
How does the love of the father anchor us with hope
Look at this - Because of the fathers love of the son has burst out to be shared with us do you realize that means the Son’s inheritance is shared with us
What can this world take from you for being a christian when the whole earth is yours as a co heir with christ in 70-80 years of your life?
What is the role of the spirit to give us hope in the face of life as exiles made fun of, called weird, and misunderstood?
Reeves says The first thing the Nicene Creed says about the spirit is that he is “the Lord the giver of life”. In the beginning He first vitalized creation and breathed life into it. Likewise it the spirit who gives new life- first to Jesus in the tomb (ROmans 8:11) and then to us. Now just to have said that is to have said something profound. That we do not have life in ourselves we depend entirely on the spirit.
We live in a world that tells us to find true life elsewhere
In ourselves mostly
Life in pleasure however you want to find it
Anyone who goes against that is called weird or full of hate or phobic
We are told to follow your heart do what you want and in that we disconnect from the very source of life
But the spirit is the vivifyer of life itself
If we do what we want If our hearts do not desire true life in Him then we will forever be looking for the next thing to make us whole we never will be
But John 17:13
Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them.
This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent—Jesus Christ.
TO know him is to know the life that makes you whole
The spirits role is to take the blank canvas of creation of a new person when you are saved and make it come alive with color and depth and beauty and completion
That is how you anchor in hope as an exile
You are anchored in the fact that God the spirit is the one at work in you
You don’t perform to change
You follow Him and rest in what he is doing
He is using what is intended for evil for your eternal good
He will use what you go through to paint a masterpiece so that when you with him you will look back and say he did me no wrong…he made me new
That is coming hold on to that sure hope in a world that isn’t how its supposed to be
And you are whole in a world that is falling into place
Lastly and scandalously it is Jesus the Son who makes the way through His sacrafice and blood
Can you believe what he has done
From the old testament it is the only way sin is covered
A perfect lamb was killed every year and every year we brought new mess that needed covered
Not anymore
The final sacrafice was made to make a way back to God where ther was no way
And he did it by saying I will do it
What does this do in a world that is longing for hope
It makes a story of your life and a way of life people long for
That is a testimony
Testimonies are created when the goodness of god and the grace of god and the power of God intersect your life in a season or moment or issue in your life or adversity and we come out on the other side
Has that ever happened to you
The people around you don’t care how much you know
They don’t care if you can talk them into submission
The men at our mens group don’t need more information they need testimonies of I was but because of God I am
They need to know the God who made them created them and loves them so much they can’t out sin his grace
They need to know the son has done everything needed to make a way
They need to know the spirit will breathe new life into dead things and dead lives
If the excitement of the the Gospel overwhelms you everyday you will have hope in our cultural moment
If God choosing you and working all of your life’s details you save you leaves you in awe you can trust the world isn’t falling apart it is falling into place
And if with Him in a world without cancer and regret and what if’s is where you are going you won’t care you don’t have the same rights in this culture they all enjoy rejecting God
These loaded verses aren’t here to be known they are here to be used to change everything about your life when you are suffering
Thats the resume…and it changes what you are here for
Who You Are Changes What You Are Here For
Who You Are Changes What You Are Here For
we have a Mission as an exile
The reality of what Christ has done makes sure the hope of the Christian community.
Christians can not only endure suffering for Christ’s sake; we can rejoice, for in our agony they are joined to Jesus who suffered for them.
Our very sufferings become a sign of hope, for, as Christ suffered and entered into his glory, so will they.
The Spirit of glory and of God rests on us we will see in chapter (4:14).
Whether their neighbours attack or respect them, they can bear witness to the grace of God by their Christian lifestyle
No matter how far culture falls into a world that hates god’s way we know the only way to what they long for
We have been there
This room is full of those stories
But we have to tell them to our neighbors
We have to go to people and build relational equity so that when the wheels fall of of their life they know they can trust you to come to you and have seen you have hope in the same human experience
Michael Reeves shows us how Peter is connecting the 2
All Peter has laid out changes what mission looks like. It is not that God lounges back in heaven simply phoning in his order that we get on with evangelism so that he gets more servants. The reality is so different The truth is God is already on mission: in love the Father sent His Son and His Spirit. It is the outworking of who He is”
God is already on mission
Will you join Him in a world that isn’t how it is supposed to be for your neightbors
The third way of Peter is to remember who you are and how that changes the very reason you are here
That is how you can hope when the world is falling apart…because it is actually falling into place to see people saved and get you to the place where everything sad comes untrue
