1 Peter 1:3-12

The Intersection of Life and Grace

(Before moving on… need to establish why 1 Peter relates to trust. Background and themes of letter… trust and hope… moving on how each attribute relates to the trust theme)

Good morning! Don’t worry I’m not here to give any more announcements. When Gregg was looking for someone to step in and preach, everyone else said “no”, which left me. No, I’m kidding. Gregg just really wanted you to miss him so he figured having me preach would help.

Anyway. We’re going to be in 1 Peter 1 today. We covered verses 13 and onward during a Midweek Study a little while ago. Today we’ll be looking at verse 3 and following.

Let’s pray as we enter before the Lord into His Word.

Now over the past several months I’ve been spending a lot of time in these epistles, or letters, written by Peter. My friends who joined me in Kenya got to hear some of what I’ll be sharing today as I was working through it preliminary stages.

And I’ve also been spending a lot of time in the Gospel accounts. Our Youth Group has been studying the Gospel of Matthew since May of 2024 and we’ve gotten to about chapter 19. So the slow speed isn’t just Gregg, it’s all of us. But we’ve also been studying through Luke on Sunday mornings for the past 10 months.

And the unique thing that happened in that time, looking at 1 & 2 Peter, and Matthew and Luke, is the Lord was showing me how Peter’s time with the Lord impacted him, shaped him, and caused him to say the things he does later on his life.

As Peter teaches in his letters, he is drawing on personal experience, he is recalling his conversations that he had with Jesus during His ministry here among us. He’s describing Jesus to them as He saw Jesus live before his very eyes.

So when Peter describes Jesus’ majesty, Peter isn’t just reciting what he was told, He is drawing upon the image of the majesty of the transfigured Christ before his very eyes. Not just his eyes, but the eyes of James and John as well. A trustworthy witness.

2 Peter 1:16–18 “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.”

In this example Peter himself uses this experience to add to what he’s saying to the reader in this moment.

But what’s really neat, when you approach these letters knowing what Jesus has done in Peter’s life, the very language he uses, the truth he is saying, becomes alive. Peter isn’t talking about the theoretical idea of God’s majesty. He’s remembering how God’s majesty appeared to Him. He recalls the power and the splendor of Jesus, the Son of God. His authority, being the One whom the Father loved and was pleased with. The One who would therefore be a worthy sacrifice for our sins and who’s power over sin and death could set us free and cause us to be alive again unto God.

So what I want to do this morning is read through the opening verses of 1 Peter, verses I’m sure are familiar to a lot of us. Verses we’ve studied here at Calvary a couple of times in years past. But it’s going to look a little different. We’re going to take our time moving through them and as we do I want to pause to take a look at where Peter may have encountered this attribute of God himself during his time with Jesus. And as we walk away from our time this morning, my hope and prayer is that our eyes for the Lord Jesus would grow.

We would learn to trust Jesus more knowing these attributes of His aren’t theoretical, but very personally made available to us. To develop a trust not just in our heads, but demonstrated through our actions. Leaning into the Lord’s nearness to us and making choices that depend on Him to provide us with Himself.

So let’s dig in, shall we?

We’re going to start in 1 Peter 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,”

We might have the tendency to jump right to “his great mercy”, but come on, you know where you are. We’ll start with our first word here.

“Blessed be”

Peter just moved past his introduction, his greeting. And right out of the gate he’s praising God. He can’t really get any further without doing so. It’s like he’s saying, how can I speak on the things of the Lord without first declaring His praise?

When his mind is first fixed on communicating the things of God, his reaction when encountering those thoughts is worship.

What is our reaction when we recall the things of the Lord and interact with His Word?

Peter is clearly mindful of God’s holiness here. How high are these things that we’re about to consider. How great is this God who we’re going to be speaking about.

And as I mentioned a few moments ago, Peter has come face to face with this holiness. In light of our recent study and the passage from 2 Peter, we think first of the transfiguration.

But another passage strikes me that we’ve studied recently in Luke.

Let’s take a quick look at Luke 5:1–12 “On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

God’s holiness is not tied to His appearance. Jesus wasn’t more holy on the mount of transfiguration than He was in the manger. He has always been and will always be completely and infinitely holy. What do I mean when I say holy. It’s simply to be set apart. Completely distinct, different from, and separate from. God is not created, but Creator. He is not dependent on anything. He is perfect and good in all ways. He is eternal. He is all-knowing. He is all-powerful. He is free from anything that could lessen His perfection. There is nothing about God that would cause Him to have any kind of blemish.

And this is true about Jesus.

Hebrews 1:3 “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,”

Colossians 1:15–17 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Colossians 1:19 “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,”

Jude 24–25 “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”

Through Jesus Christ. It is true of Him.

Revelation 5:13 “And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!””

And to the Lamb.

As we saw when we studied Luke 5, Peter didn’t just respond to the power of Jesus. He responded to His holiness. We know because of what Peter said.

“Depart from me, for I am a sinful man”.

I am not holy. Therefore I should not be here before You.

Here was Peter fishing on the sea. Familiar with Jesus no doubt from what his brother Andrew had been saying about Him as one of John the Baptist’s disciples at the time.

But now Peter is confronted with the holiness of Jesus.

We’re familiar with the account.

What I want to note here this morning is this. Peter can begin his letter in this way, worshipping God, because God’s holiness is a holiness that moves toward us. It’s revealed to us. It’s made known to us. God makes Himself known and extends Himself toward us.

We can worship God because God has made Himself known to us. His holiness He reveals to us in His Word and in the person of Jesus Christ.

And Jesus stepping into the boat that day with Peter and calling Him to Himself is proof for not just Peter, but for us.

This holiness describes a God worthy of our worship and worthy of our fearful reverence.

And it’s not just His holiness