The Gift of Grace

The Gift of Grace 1 Peter 1:10-12 Online Sermon: http://www.mckeesfamily.com/?page_id=3567 The Gift of Grace So that we fully understand what Peter was saying to the Christians in Asia Minor lets take a moment and examine the gift of grace and salvation that the prophets never got to see opened! "Having made promises to His people in Old Testament times, God now acts in accordance with them to show His love and compassion"1 by sending the ultimate revelation of Himself, His very own Son! Christ chose to make Himself nothing in the eyes of the world (Philippians 2:7) by taking on the nature of a suffering servant and offer His own life as a sacrifice for many (Mark 10:45). It is by grace and through faith in His atoning sacrifice (Ephesians 2:8) that believers are freed from the bondage of sin (Romans 6:18), are born again (John 3:5-8) and eternally adopted into God's family (John 1:12-13). "Believers have a living hope. To be born is to enter into existence in a new world. Physical birth brings us into a world that will eventually perish. Spiritual birth is into a world where there is hope for the future."2 Because we were "not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold but the precious blood of Christ, the lamb without spot or blemish,"3 we are to look forward to when we will receive our new bodies and the promised inheritance that imperishable, pure and unfading.4 While those who are perishing in their sin and cannot discern the things of the Spirit cannot see this gift and therefore wrongly declare it to be mere foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18, 2:11-16), for those who are born again and have obtained the mind of Christ they did what the prophets longed to do, not just pear into the gift but to obtain the "living hope"5 that comes from becoming a redeemed masterpiece of God's eternal grace! . Out of the reality of our present Christian experience arises our conviction that our hope in God is not empty and delusory6 Two kinds of attitudes to this form of prayer coexist in the church today. Some people like to use existing, set forms of words7 Other people eschew any kind of formal prayers because either they find the repetition of familiar forms of words makes them boring and meaningless or they feel that the Spirit should inspire more spontaneous expressions of praise8 Although the Jews already knew of God as Father, the full revelation of the intimacy of this relationship came to those who saw how it was realized in Jesus and came to understand that they were admitted to the same relationship9 God acts in mercy (see 2:10). God brings believers to a new birth. The beginning of the Christian life is expressed in various ways in the New Testament, and one of them is the thought of new life10 But what is hope? It is the conviction that something will happen in the future. But for that conviction to exist there has to be some kind of basis. If I hope-in the sense of having the conviction-that the sun will rise tomorrow morning, that conviction does not come from knowledge of the future but rather from the fact that every morning the sun has risen and from the reasonable inference that it will continue to do so. (Yet there is the element of uncertainty: the end of the world might happen tomorrow11 So too the hope of future life rests on the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead and on the reasonable inference that, if God raised Jesus, he will also raise those who trust in Jesus12 Part of our certainty regarding the future, therefore, arises not only from our trust in God's promises for the future but from our present experience of God fulfilling his promises to us Here, then, is a paradox that we cannot resolve. It would go beyond biblical teaching to say that our faith is wholly due to the power of God, and it would be equally mistaken to say that God's power comes into action in our lives only as a result of our faith. It might be more true to say that God's power and our faith are two sides of the same coin, but to say this is not to explain how they are related13 But the New Testament uses the word to express more the legal claim which the heir already has on the property even while the father is still alive14 The fact that they already enjoy a foretaste of this salvation, of which the inspired writers of the OT had only an obscure presentiment and even the angels long to catch sight, is a measure of the Asian Christians' privileged position15 The whole paragraph carries a strong flavour of the newness and the excellence of the church age. Peter tells his readers: ancient prophets predicted the grace that would be 'yours' (v. 10); you live in the great 'time' of 'glories' (v. 11) which was long foretold; the prophets were in fact repeatedly ministering for the benefit of 'you' (v. 12b); and world-changing events have 'now' been proclaimed to 'you' through the working of the Holy Spirit 'sent' in epoch-changing new power from heaven (v. 12b16 1 I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 1 Pe 1:3-5. 2 I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 1 Pe 1:3-5. 3 C. H. Spurgeon, "Angelic Interest in the Gospel," in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 46 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1900), 493. 4 I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 1 Pe 1:3-5. 5 I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 1 Pe 1:3-5. 6 I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 1 Pe 1:3-5. 7 I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 1 Pe 1:3-5. 8 I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 1 Pe 1:3-5. 9 I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 1 Pe 1:3-5. 10 I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 1 Pe 1:3-5. 11 I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 1 Pe 1:3-5. 12 I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 1 Pe 1:3-5. 13 I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 1 Pe 1:3-5. 14 I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 1 Pe 1:3-5. 15 J. N. D. Kelly, The Epistles of Peter and of Jude, Black's New Testament Commentary (London: Continuum, 1969), 58. 16 Wayne A. Grudem, 1 Peter: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 17, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 78. --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------