Believers are strangers and pilgrims in this world, chosen by God according to His foreknowledge and set apart by the Spirit for obedience and the sprinkling of Christ's blood. This divine election, rooted in God's abundant mercy and Christ's resurrection, grants believers a living hope and an incorruptible, undefiled, and unfailing inheritance reserved in heaven. They are kept by God's power through faith, a faith that is tested but ultimately triumphant, enabling them to live distinct lives with different habits, language, and demeanor, bearing fruit as sown seed in the world.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 2.62 → restored 4.33
Let's turn together to the first epistle of Peter. Peter's first epistle. How many of you heard Dr. Jerry Hines this morning? One, in the advance on one, two, going at two, three, in the advance on three, four, you missed a treat. He was speaking about the refiners' choir. And it struck a chord with me because I worked, as you know, for a jeweler in the city of Birmingham. And Britain, while I was there for a very short time, went off the gold standard.
And all kinds of gold trinkets began to come into the firm. And because I was a low man on the totem pole, It was my job to sit with two tubes that came to a little gadget at the end there and a bellows. And when this thing was lit, it had like a long candle flame. It was incandescent, bright, so on. But when I pumped the bellows, then it would suddenly change to a very fierce and strong heat flame.
And that's what I used to play upon the trinkets as they lay in the container. Now, I mentioned Jerry Vines because he mentioned about the crucible. And when I was doing that job, And I would play that flame on those trinkets. They would slowly, well not so slowly, with a flame like that, melt and become liquid. And then, as he said this morning, the flame would be kept on the top until all the dross had been burned off and the gold was pure.
Now, I used to be amazed when I would look at that and I would realize that the crucible, which was made of prey, was actually red-hot, and still it took the fire and contained the gold. Now, this letter and the second one, these letters have been called Letters of Fire and Faith. because they were written to persecuted Christians. Someone, when a teacher called them the readers of the letter, the recipients of the letter, Christians in the Crucible.
Now that was his description of these believers. I noted that the word suffering occurs in this first epistle no less than fifteen times. Suffering, suffering, suffering. Yes, indeed. The believers were in the crucible. Actually, Nero was responsible for the persecution that brought about such dire circumstances. and I put the date down somewhere here and it was AD sixty four to sixty eight.
I was reading a little of church history and I discovered that. Now I want to read to you the first five verses and then I want to try to do a little exposition because there are important words and all of the verses are important Let me read and point out one or two phrases to you. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Now these five provinces were actually in Asia Minor.
And the phrase I want you to notice is this. strangers scattered throughout. Now here we have the character of those to whom Peter is writing. And we'll come back to that. Read on and notice the first word. Elect. You can think of it as select if you like. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you and peace be multiplied.
Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God. Now verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope or living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance. Those little two-letter words are so important there, I emphasize them for you. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you, and peace be multiplied.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Now we have the character of the readers, we have the calling of the readers, they are called elect, and we have the connection of the believers, of the readers, a connection that links them to a hope and a heritage. And then finally, when we come down to verse five, we read this, who are kept.
by the power of God through faith unto salvation. That word kept means being kept. It refers to the present, moment by moment, hour by hour, being kept. And that has to do with the continuance. of the readers. Character, calling, connection, and finally continuance. It's a wonderful thing to begin well. It's a wonderful thing to end well, a more wonderful thing. But to keep going well the whole time, that's victory, and that is what God looks for in our lives.
Think about the first of these, the reference to their character. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling the blood of Jesus Christ. That is so full. I hardly need to comment on that. In fact, I'm going to read it to you again so that you can really appreciate it. Elect. That's the calling. according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, and to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
Now what do you notice in that part of the verse? Is there anything that strikes you, anything that marks that verse? We have the Father, and we have the Spirit, and we have the Son. And they all have to do the three persons of the Trinity with the election or selection of every child of God. We are called. And it's God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit who calls us. We have an important calling. But then we read, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively or living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance. The two words here are hope and heritage. And we have the right connection. It's because of our connection to the Godhead that we have a hope and we have a heritage. Now let me go back before we come finally to that continuation. We'll be asking ourselves some questions as we go along because what we read before this fifth verse being kept are things that affect how appreciative or changed we are by this moment by moment keeping.
When we go back to the first, we find these words, strangers scattered throughout. And then there are five provinces. I want you to notice those words because first of all, when you have strangers, would you like to turn over in your Bible to the second chapter? And notice, I think it's verse eleven. It says, Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts.
Interesting thing, because the word that's translated stranger here is translated pilgrim in that second chapter. These two things are bound together, strangers and pilgrims. Now, a stranger, that means not a native. And this has to do with a man's birth. If he's born in America, he's an American. If he's born in England, he's an Englishman, unless he gets converted like I did, and I became an American. See, I knew on which side my bread was buttered. No, I got to love America and I'm glad to be American.
Strangers. It's a man's birth that makes him a stranger when he's out of his own country. Diversity. The stranger, a man outside his own country... And the word is paripidamus. And it means an alien, an alien out of his sphere. That is his original sphere. I used to be an alien when I first came to America. I used to carry a card. It was what is called an alien registration.
but not anymore don't carry it anymore I destroyed it with great glee but it is it's about a stranger there are always things that are different now you and I are referred to as strangers or as pilgrims we're not a native of this world and because of this our habits should be different When you travel from country to country, you find how different people's habits are. Christians should have different habits. And when we find some of the old habits manifesting themselves, we should get very disturbed about that.
We should get down on our knees in confession about that, and we should seek and seize hold in Christ a victory over these bad habits. A stranger is a man who has different habits. A stranger who is a man who talks a different language. He uses a different language. There are some Christians who never got their language cleaned up. When they talked, you wouldn't have known them from unbelievers. But the stranger, in this sense, is a man who has not only different habits, but also different language.
And there's a third thing in which is diverse, and that is in his demeanor. He carries himself differently. People should know that there's something about us that they don't see and sense about other people. We are strangers in a strange land. We are pilgrims. A man's birth makes him a stranger. A man's journey makes him a pilgrim. And so here we are, out of our element, no longer belonging to the The group we used to belong, the unsaved people, and we're on our way to glory.
Stranger by birth and pilgrim by nature because we're on our way to a different destination. Now, I hope that you can say that you have this assurance. that you are born again. You know, to be a stranger like this, you have to celebrate two birthdays a year. I was telling the folk at the nursing home this last week. You have to have two birthdays. You have to be born, obviously. But then you have to be born again. That means you have to have a second birthday. I was thirteen when I had my second birthday. And most of these people have a second birthday.
I wonder, do you? Have you been born again? Have you really accepted the Lord into your heart as your Savior? That's the new birth. And it all depends upon your resting your soul upon the work that the Lord Jesus Christ did on Calvary. Strangers. Scattered. Now look at that word. No, that word is associated with violence. Violently scattered. These people were being persecuted. And so the word scattered is very important here. And we need to remind ourselves. In fact, the word scattered is used about lions, scattering sheep.
It's used of a whirlwind, scattering people. It's used of arrows. scattering an army, believers scattered abroad. It has the thought of being attacked, being violated, being suffering for the sake of Christ. We live in a wonderful country. We live in the best part of the country. We have the best weather. We have the best people. All these Floridians. I'm exaggerating a little.
But the thing is, God has been so gracious to us, been so kind to us. We're not strangers here. In this family, we belong because Jesus died for us. But God intends that we should be different. Different, diverse. from other people. And that's the thought here in the word strangers. The word scattered, they were evidently under duress. They were being persecuted only because they were believers, because they took a stand for Christ, because they lived a godly life.
They were scattered. by force, violently, wickedly. But they went everywhere gossiping the gospel. So the devil didn't win out. They were strong when they were together. But when they were scattered, everyone became a missionary. That's the reason why God allowed it. When there are things that puzzle you, that come into your life, If you're a Christian, you have this, even though they may be hard to take, you have this assurance. God is in control and there is a reason and as long as you move in the path that he is directing you, you'll be useful to him and you will glorify him and in a coming day he will reward you for your faithfulness.
Strangers scattered and then threw out. And I love this. Because not only do we have here their diversity and their duress, but we have their dispersion. They were scattered among these five provinces. When we come a little further down and read this word scattered, it means it comes from two Greek words. It means, and here they are, through and to sow.
That is, like seed. And the thought is here, these believers were going through what they were going through, so that they might be sown as seed. And believers, they were, and into distant provinces they went, scattered, and some of them alone, but God sowed them there. seed so while the word scattered is associated with violence it is also associated in its meaning with sowing throughout God didn't make any mistake when he sent these believers to distant places they were seed and he sowed them and they brought up a harvest every one of us is sown as a seed and we should be producing fruit.
They were dispersed into those five provinces. Now, you know, it's really true, you know this, that a seed is useless until it's sown. I once saw a picture of an old, old coffin. In fact, it was a Pharaoh's coffin. If you go to the British Museum, you can see Ramses II still in a coffin. In this particular, not his, but in this particular one that I'm talking about, they found not only the corpse of a pharaoh, but they found a handful of seeds, two thousand years, lying there, looking shriveled up and blank.
but they took them and they sowed them. And great was the excitement when the first green shoots came up. And do you know what those seeds produced? Black tulips. Black tulips from two thousand years ago. Seed is useless until it's sown. And that's the reason why God scatters his people. He wants them to be useful. Sometimes we can get very cozy. Sometimes we can get very self-satisfied. Sometimes we can get very contented. But if we stay like a little group and never get sown, we're not of very much use.
Seed is useless until it's sown. But when it's sown, there is no limit to it. Because it produces, one produces another plant, then that produces another plant, and then that produces another plant. And this is how believers are meant to be. God says, you're seed. I want to scatter you. I'm going to do it violently. I have a purpose in it. But I'm going to do it deliberately because I'm sowing you a seed and... Then you'll become useful, and there'll be no end to what you can do. I wonder, as we sit here, believers in the Lord Jesus, most of us, I want you to ask yourself a question.
Have I ever led a soul to Christ? Now, that's a very searching question. That can be a very disturbing question. Because God doesn't brook any excuses. You know, well, you know, I live in a Christian community. But you shop outside the community. You say, yes, but I fellowship, I'm not very well, and I fellowship with all the people I know are Christians. There are ways and means.
You can write letters. You can send tracks. God intends you to be a seed sown so that you'll produce a harvest. It's the thought is here, in this word, scattered. And the dispersion is referred to because this is where their harvest were to be in the five provinces of Asia Minor. Strangers scattered throughout. Now that's their character. Now I want you to look briefly at their calling. It says here, elect. Do you know what the revised standard version says there?
Chosen and destined. Chosen, that's the past. Destiny, that's the future. But in between is life that has to be lived. And God has elected us for the purpose of making us workmen in his shop, making us sovereigners in our community, making us missionaries to the lost further afield. This is the calling of the believer, elect according to the foreknowledge of God.
I would like to really spend time with that. God's foreknowledge. I don't think that God's foreknowledge always makes him happy. If God sows a seed so that it'll produce a plant, then we'll produce another plant and produce another plant. In his foreknowledge, he knows what's going to happen to that seed. and sometimes the seed falls, the New Testament tells us, on stony ground. Doesn't produce a thing.
But sometimes it produces a little. Sometimes the seed produces a lot. The foreknowledge of God. I wonder what God fore knew of you as a Christian. Did he see you as a soulweather? Did he see you as a witness? Did he see you as a faithful believer? You were elected. You were selected. According to the foreknowledge of God, he made you, he brought you into time, and he knew what was going to happen to you from the beginning to the end of your life. I think that God is sorely disappointed in some believers.
who could have done so much, who could have been so useful. But they wrapped themselves up in their little cocoon and never got to first base. Your calling, according to the foreknowledge of God, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience of the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. I love the picture of the Trinity there. And it comes to, it starts with the foreknowledge of God and it ends with the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ and the result of that.
Then he says, Grace to you when peace be multiplied. That's to be experience of every believer. But if we tamper with sin, if we live selfishly, if we have no vision, we will never know that grace and peace multiplied. they're calling. Now briefly let's look at their connection and this is not really a brief section. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy, grasp that, have begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance.
Now he talks then here about a hope and about a heritage. And it's because we have the right connection with the Triune God. When God lays hold of you, your relationship is to the Triune God, to the Father, to the Spirit, and to the Son. and because of their working in your heart and they're working through your life as much as they are allowed to work depends upon your willingness and readiness to lay down your life for Christ's sake according to that is really the measure of your hope what do you hope for there's going to be a judgment seat for believers But if you're not faithful to God, if you're not a willing tool in His hand, if you're not ready to depend on Him and not complain, no matter what He brings into your life, your hope.
That is, the hope of the prize at the end, it diminishes some, according to how faithful you've been. Of course, this mainly means the hope of eternal life, a hope in heaven. You've got the right connection. You're going to get to glory. Nobody can prevent that. If God is your Father, if the Spirit is your indweller, if Christ is your Savior, your future is assured. And that's because of what he did, not because of what you've done. If we, he hath not.
dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our inequities. It's by the Lord of the Lord's mercies we are not consumed because his compassion fail not. If we got what we deserved, we'd already be in hell. We were lost, we were undone, we were ungrateful, we were sinners. But Jesus came, he died on the cross, the Father sent him, And he died on the cross and then gave his spirit to indwell the believer's heart so that they might know what a moment by moment victorious, happy and useful life really is.
You've got to have the right connection. You accept Jesus as your Savior and the threefold connection is made. So we have these believers and their character. They were strangers scattered abroad. And then we have their calling. They were elect according to the foreknowledge of God, their future put into his hands, and then the ability to put into their lives. what they did with it they will bear the responsibility for and then it's through the Lord Jesus we became related to father son and spirit we have the right connection but now I want you to look at this word in in verse five who are kept by the power of God now I mentioned It's in the present.
The word is actually speaking of the present. And it's more than just being kept because the word that's used means being guarded. Now, who do you think is doing the guarding? You've been elected, you've been selected, you've come into contact with the deity, you've been changed, your heart has been washed clean, and you've been given a hope. and you're given a heritage. The hope is a hope of eternal life, eternal glory. And the heritage is that which somebody else doesn't lay up for you.
You lay it up for yourself. You lay it up for yourself. Your faithfulness to God is what is going to be rewarded. Not the spectacular, not the sensational, but the faithful. It's faithfulness that God rewards. I was noting something here about the connection just before I leave it and conclude the message. It says here that not only is there a triune God, but three things are mentioned. Mercy and grace and peace. Now when we come to the hope, Four things are said about it here.
A lively hope unto a lively hope. Begotten us again unto a lively hope. Now, if you will read that very carefully, you'll find, first of all, that hope. That hope has its basis in trust. The recognition of mercy. The willingness to trust. depend upon the Lord and to earn a reward as well as bring about his glory. But the heritage is referred to here.
Look at what it says. To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that faileth not away reserved in heaven. Now I could take a full sermon time and deal with this. It says four things. You have to look for them yourself. First of all, it's undefiled. It's pure. And then it's incorruptible. It cannot be polluted. It's indestructible. It cannot be destroyed. And it is finally protected. It cannot be removed. All of that is right here. He hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Now take that, those words, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I don't have time to discuss them, but I looked at them and I thought, well here is the splendor of the person. Jesus Christ. Here is the arrangement of the name, Jesus Christ, the man, the master. Sometimes we find it Christ Jesus, but here it is Jesus Christ, and the arrangement is inspired. It's meant to read that way, and then there's the immensity of the fact.
It comes to us because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. When Christ rose from the dead, everything hung upon his successful resurrection. The immensity of the thought, he rose from the dead. They put him in a hewn tomb, a rock-hewn tomb. They rolled a big boulder in front of it, and they sealed it with the Roman seal. and he busted out. No, he didn't. The angel rolled back the stone. He was the one who broke the seal. Jesus didn't need to do that. He came right through the stone.
He couldn't be confined like that. The resurrection of Jesus Christ. The splendor of the person. Jesus Christ. The arrangement of the name. Jesus Christ. Man and God. And then the immensity of the fact... And finally, the sufficiency of the work. It says, He hath reserved it in heaven. He's done it. It's reserved. It's all there, according to His foreknowledge. What's our connection with God by regeneration?
with Christ by resurrection and with heaven by reservation. Have you got your reservation in? Reserved in heaven for you. If you're not saved today, if you're not born again, if you're not sure that you've trusted the Lord Jesus, don't go out of that door because none of this applies to you. If you die enslaved, you go to hell. But Jesus died and rose again in order that you might never find yourself in hell, but in order that he might take you, sinner as you are, pardoned, into heaven, into heaven itself.
Are you heaven-bound? And then he says, we come back to this, being kept. The power of God, referred to here, and the faith of the believer. God keeps. So don't get worried. Have faith. Have faith in God. There's a hymn called Have Faith in God. You know, we as Christians, we have to keep exercising faith. We do it. That's how we first of all get saved by putting faith in the Lord Jesus.
But every day our faith is tested. Every day calls for an exercise of our faith. And if we fail to exercise faith, that's when we become disturbed. That's when we become uncertain. That's when we begin to lose our joy. That's when we begin to find our power for God is diminishing. It's faith which is simply... Simple belief. Believe God because he said what you're reading. Not because there's something, some virtue in your believing.
God is all. Everything comes from God. But you've got to be willing, like a child, to simply say, Lord, I really believe it, because you never lie. My needs are met in your Son. Being guarded. The faith of the believer here. Verse five in this chapter says, it's true at the start. verse seven tells us it's tested by the way and then verse three tells us so the third thing is that it's triumphant in the end faith matters faith accomplishes things believing God and what he says because he said that simple faith.
Let's pray. Oh, Father, we thank you for these wonderful reminders. We have a hope. We have a heritage. And they all come to us through this divine, wonderful person and his resurrection. We thank you that he went into the tomb, having died upon the cross. But the tomb couldn't hold him. He tore the bars of death asunder and rose in triumph from the grave. And by faith we share the fruits of His resurrection. Make us truly grateful. And Lord, help us to talk about these things because so many people around us need what we have and they haven't yet got it.
Dismiss us with your blessing, we ask, in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.