1 Peter 1 — 1 Peter 1-2

0:02 Well, good morning. Would you please turn in your Bibles to first Peter chapter one. So, first Peter, we'll eventually take a look at some other passages where you left off in Acts, but most of my message is going be here in one Peter. And Peter is writing to primarily Jews and we will look at that in a minute. And he's writing about their suffering.

0:49 And when you look through this book, get this picture of the suffering of these Jews who he says are scattered. So let me just give you a couple of examples. A few verses on, he talks about verse six, they're distressed by various trials. In chapter two, he says, they're slandered as evil doers. They're suffering unjustly.

1:18 They're suffering for doing what's right. Kind of like today. Suffering for the sake of righteousness, intimidation, slander. Chapter four, he talks about the fiery ordeal among them. And I I don't think Peter's being metaphoric there when he's talking about fiery ordeal.

1:41 These people were living during the time of Nero. That guy was nuts. He he would he would literally take people and use them as human torches. So this fiery ordeal that Peter's talking about is quite literal. And so Peter's writing to the Jews and and if you remember Paul mentions Peter, he's the apostle to the Jews.

2:10 Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles. And to me, that kind of shows that God has a sense of humor. Know, Peter is this rough and tumble fisherman. You'd think that God would send him to the Gentiles. Paul, prim and proper conservative Pharisee, you would think that God would send him to the Jews.

2:33 But nope, he just flips it around. Peter, you get to go to the Jews. Paul, you get to go to the Gentiles. So Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens scattered. We're gonna stop there for a minute.

2:51 And I I just wanna talk about the scattering. It's called, in Greek, it's diaspora. And there were many diasporas and I'm not even sure that's the plural, but, so way back in in the Old Testament, in two Kings 17, the Assyrians come down. And in 07/22, they take the Northern Kingdom. They just take them to Assyria and there's no record that the Northern Kingdom ever came back.

3:27 Little while later, beginning in around 06/2005, the Babylonians come. Second Kings 25, they take the Southern Kingdom. Seventy years later, they begin to trickle back. Not everyone but quite a few. Daniel did not come back.

3:47 Daniel was still alive when they started coming back but Daniel didn't come back which you know, you kinda understand. Well, the guy's probably in his nineties. That would have been a long trip. So Daniel doesn't come back. And then some time goes by and in the period between the two testaments, the intertestamental period, Daniel chapter 11 talks about that period of time.

4:19 And if you've ever read Daniel chapter 11, it's a really confusing chapter because he talks about the king of the North and the king of the South multiple times. But there's not just one king of the North. There's multiple kings of the North and there's not just one king of the South, there's multiple kings of the South. The Seleucid dynasty in the North, the Talmaik dynasty in the South, Syria and Egypt and who's in the middle? Israel.

4:52 And the kings of the North and the kings of the South, they're always at each other's throats and in order to get to one another, they gotta go through Israel. And it got really intense. Lots of Jews died and lots of Jews were scattered. And if you sometimes just look at at John chapter seven, Jesus is talking to the Jews in Jerusalem and he's saying to them, I'm gonna go away and you're gonna look for me and you're not gonna find me and and they're thinking, what? Is he is he gonna go to the Greeks among the dispersion?

5:33 That's the dispersion he's talking about, that intertestamental period of time. We know a descendant of that dispersion, very famous man. You would know him as Saul of Tarsus. He was a Jew of that or a descendant of that dispersion. He was born in what is now Southeast Turkey.

6:01 Paul was not a native Hebrew. And if you look at acts chapter six, lots of Jews had started moving back into Israel and there was this division in the early church. You had the native Hebrews who were born in Israel and then you had the Hellenistic Jews. Paul was a Hellenistic Jew. And so the widows of the native Hebrews and the Hellenistic Jews, there was some tension.

6:35 The Hellenistic Jewish widows were kind of being overlooked there. Yeah, we're not going to deal with them. We're just going to take care of our own. And so that's where the whole deacons came into being. Acts chapter eight, we we...

6:55 You guys have been going through that. Saul of Tarsus, this is after Stephen's martyred, Saul of Tarsus was in hearty agreement with putting him to death. Saul was a Pharisee. He probably cast his lot and hey, guys, I'll watch your coats while you throw the stones. On that day, a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem and they were all scattered.

7:31 And the beginning of that scattering was in Judea and Samaria. And as you go on in Acts chapter nine, Saul still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord goes to the high priest and asks for letters to the synagogues in Damascus. Well, now Saul of Tarsus is beginning his persecution outside of Israel in another country. So there there's this scattering going on. It it began way back in the Old Testament, continues into the intertestamental period.

8:13 And now Saul is instigating a persecution against Hebrew Christians and they're being scattered. So in first Peter chapter one, he says they're aliens scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. And if you look in a map at the back of your bible, that's modern Turkey. All of those are just provinces in modern Turkey. Just a side note, when you see Asia in the Bible, don't think modern Asia.

9:03 Biblical Asia is not modern Asia. Modern Asia is basically everything from Russia, from Eastern Western Russia all the way to the Pacific Ocean. That's modern Asia. Biblical Asia is this itty bitty province in Western Turkey. That's it.

10:02 Now remember, Peter is writing to Jews primarily. So when you're coming across the terminology in Peter, you've got to look at this terminology from a Jewish perspective. So when Peter is talking about to the chosen ones and and literally it would be to the chosen ones, of the dispersion. These are the chosen ones of the dispersion and he's talking about Jews who have been dispersed going all the way back into the Old Testament, into the New Testament under the instigation of Saul of Tarsus. He's talking about Jews.

10:56 And look at this from a Jewish perspective and and some translations actually bring this out really well. Over the last couple of years, I've come to enjoy the NLT. I'm not a huge fan of paraphrases, but I've come to enjoy the NLT. My go to Bible is the NAS, but sometimes the NAS is so literal it doesn't make sense. It's like what in the world are these guys trying to say?

11:37 Go to the NLT, it's like, oh, well that makes perfect sense. The NLT says, this letter is from Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. I am writing to God's chosen people who are living as foreigners. I would add scattered as well. So these are the chosen people of God and from a Jewish perspective, these are the Jews.

12:08 So Deuteronomy, I'll just read a few verses for you. Deuteronomy seven:six, Moses writes, the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession. That's exactly how Peter is using that word. You Jews are the chosen people of God. Deuteronomy fourteen two, same same phrase, the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession.

12:42 Paul, on his first missionary journey in Acts 13, the people... The God of this people, Israel, chose our fathers. We Jews are the chosen people of God and Peter is writing to us. But you can also bring in the Christian perspective. So Peter's readers are doubly blessed.

13:14 They're the chosen people of God because of their Hebrew lineage, but they're also Paul says in in first, in in Ephesians one four, you were chosen in Christ. So they're they're doubly chosen. Chosen as the people of God from the old testament, chosen in Christ. And then he says, according to the foreknowledge of God the father. And this is a designation that like chosen, you've got to look at from a Jewish perspective.

14:32 There's nothing inherent in the word foreknowledge that has a time reference to it. Foreknowledge simply means I know something before now. There's nothing in the word that tells me how much before now. You've got to get the time reference from something else in the context. So later on in this chapter, toward the end, verse 20, referring to Christ.

15:13 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world. That extra phrase gives us the time reference. If we didn't have before the foundation of the world, we couldn't determine when. There's nothing in foreknowledge to tell us when. That has to come from somewhere else.

15:40 And because we're looking at these ideas from a Jewish perspective and we're talking about God's chosen people Israel, when did God know Israel before now? How far can we go back? Well, I would go back to when Israel became a nation. At some point in Egypt, Israel became a nation and when God brought him out, that's when God knew Israel. We're not talking about knowing about Israel.

16:27 We're talking about knowing Israel. And don't get foreknowledge confused with omniscience. Those are two totally different concepts. So again, in the NLT, he says God the father knew you and chose you long ago. In Romans chapter 11, Paul says God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.

17:06 God knew Israel. He had a relationship with Israel. He's not talking about God knowing about Israel. He's talking about I know these people. For example, in Philippians three, Paul says that I may know him and the power of resurrection.

17:32 Paul isn't talking about knowing about Christ. Paul is talking about knowing Christ, an intimate personal relationship with him. And and that's what Peter is talking about here. God chose this people long ago and brought them into a relationship with himself. Out of all the peoples of the earth, God chose them and loved them and brought them into a relationship.

18:32 So again, Old Testament. NLT says his spirit has made you holy and that's exactly what the Old Testament says. You are a holy people to the Lord your God. Now being called holy and being holy are very different. God set them apart.

19:00 In that sense, they were holy. They didn't act that way but they were still called holy. In Deuteronomy 26, he will set you high above all the nations. That's the idea. This nation is set apart by God and set above everyone else.

19:26 They're consecrated. Take a look at first Corinthians chapter one and this will help. If you had to describe the church of Corinth, what words would you use? I probably would go with divisive, clickish, immoral, idolatrous, lots of false teaching, the list goes on and on. Here's how God describes them.

20:14 Verse two. To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified, set apart in Christ Jesus saints by calling. I'm not sure I would have used those words. It's like in second Peter where Peter says, righteous lot. Righteous lot?

20:43 Really? I never... If I didn't have that statement in the New Testament, righteous would not have been a word I would use for for Lot. I mean, that guy was a scoundrel. Yeah, uncle Abraham, you you take the desert and I'll take the well watered plains of the Jordan.

21:04 And then what he attempted to do with his own daughters? Righteous? And yet, that's what God calls him. The Jews, Israel was a set apart holy nation. They didn't act that way, but they were still set apart by God.

21:27 They were chosen. They were foreknown. They were set apart by God. And there was a reason for that. To obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood.

21:44 Now, the NLT uses the past tense, which I would disagree with. The NLT says, as a result, you have obeyed and have been sprinkled by his blood. While that is true, Peter's readers have obeyed. They have been sprinkled. I I don't think Peter's looking at it from that perspective.

22:13 I think he's saying, you as as a people, you were chosen by God. You were known by God. You were set apart by God for the purpose of obeying Jesus Christ and being sprinkled with his blood. So the question is, okay, what did they have to obey? And I would suggest they had to obey first John three.

22:42 First John three twenty three, this is his commandment. There's only one thing you need to obey. Believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ. God is issuing a call, the call of the gospel. What do I have to do to be saved?

23:08 The Philippian jailer says. Paul didn't give him all you have to do this, this, you can check. No, he just said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. That's what you have to do. In John chapter six, Jesus is is is talking.

23:26 He's he's just fed the 5,000. He's crossed the Sea Of Galilee and the Jews are are saying, what do we what do we have to do to do the works of God? This is the work of God that you believe in his son. This is his commandment that you believe in the name of Jesus Christ. That's what we have to obey.

23:53 So for example, in Hebrews five, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation. Not a list of commands, but the call of the gospel to believe. Other places talk about that. Second Thessalonians one, To those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Peter talks about this same thing in chapter four.

24:29 If judgment begins with us, what's gonna happen to those who don't obey the gospel? That that's the reason God dealt with this people. He chose them. He knew them. He sanctified them so that they would obey their Messiah.

24:48 Did they? Unfortunately, no. Some did, but most didn't. And this is kind of the point of John chapter one. You know, he came to his own and those who were his own didn't receive him, but as many as did receive him, to them he gave the right to become children of God.

25:13 So to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood. Now, I would suggest, I don't know if you read the Bible out loud. Sometimes you can't, but I like to read out loud. I live alone, so I'm not going to bother anybody. But when you read it out loud, you can put emphasis on different words.

26:21 Not not the blood you're used to, but his blood. Go over to Hebrews nine. And the writer of Hebrews does this as well. He he makes all of these different contrasts. So in Hebrews nine eleven, he says, when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood.

27:12 He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and that would be the day of atonement, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, and that would be the whole red heifer sacrifice from numbers, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh. And and the way he's wording this, that statement is true. The blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer did sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh. That's a true statement.

27:59 There was an outward ceremonial religious cleansing. If that's true, how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God cleanse your conscience? And that's what Peter's getting at here. You're supposed to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood. Those things were just the the old testament sacrifices.

28:32 They were all outward and ceremonial. I'm offering you something that is inward. It will cleanse your conscience. If you jump down to verse 19, he says, and this goes back to Exodus when Moses, God gave him the the book of the law and he offered the sacrifice and he sprinkled the book and he sprinkled the people. He says when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, sprinkled both the book itself and all the people saying this is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.

29:28 Peter's coming along and saying, yeah, all that's all that's nice, but God wants you to obey his son and be sprinkled with his blood. Not not the blood of bulls and goats and calves and whatnot. That's not going to do anything. Sprinkled with his blood. When Jesus Luke 22 instituted the Lord's Supper, he he...

29:55 I think he when he spoke the words, there was an emphasis. So he says this cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. They're thinking old covenant, blood of bulls and goats. Jesus is saying, no, no, no, This is the new covenant. That old covenant, it's done.

30:23 Christ is the end of the law, Paul says. This is the new covenant in my blood. This covenant will take away sin. Hebrews 10. The law, it was only a shadow.

30:39 It could never take away sins. Christ comes along, one sacrifice for all sins, for all time, sins taken away, never remembered again. So may grace and peace be yours in fullest measure. And then he goes on and remember, these Jews are being persecuted. There's this fiery ordeal.

31:37 You're going to be imprisoned and some of you are going to die there. And I know some people, oh, you can't take it literally. Why not? Why why ten days? Why can't that be a literal ten days?

31:56 Some of you are gonna be persecuted for ten days. You can put the little tick marks on the wall, one more day to go, but some of you aren't gonna make it. So with that in mind, Peter says, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again. So we place our faith in Christ, he regenerates to a living hope. Some of us, Peter is saying, we're not gonna make it.

32:34 There's a fiery ordeal coming. Some of us are going to be taken out and used as human torches. Some of us are going to die. But we have a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Our hope's alive.

32:54 Some of us may die, but our hope isn't gonna die. Christ was raised from the dead. And just think of of first Corinthians 15 sometime. Just go go and read that. Toward the mid...

33:11 Toward the end of of Paul's discussion of the surety and the reality of the resurrection, Paul says, in verse 19, if we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. If if my hope in Christ is only in the here and now, and and I'm giving my life to be burned at the stake, and it's only for the here and now, people should pity me. They should feel sorry for me. I'm an idiot. If my hope is just now, what's the point?

34:04 Peter is saying, no, we have a living hope. Christ is risen from the dead. He's made a promise to us. The integrity of God is on the line here and God cannot lie. Hebrews makes that abundantly clear.

34:23 God cannot lie. In fact, go over to Hebrews chapter six eighteen. God made some promises to Abraham and they were unconditional promises. In other words, there was nothing that Abraham could do to get the promises taken away. And he says in verse 18, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie.

34:58 He made a promise. He swore an oath. He cannot lie. We who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. We can we can take hold of it.

35:17 It's something we can hang on to even when persecution comes, even to the point of death. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul. Sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us. That's the idea that Peter's getting at here. He is...

35:50 He's given us a living hope through the resurrection. He's gone within the veil. He's a forerunner, which means we're gonna follow. Our hope's alive. And and that was the encouragement that that Peter's giving.

36:22 There's a whole lot more to it. I have an inheritance. And an inheritance is someone that is something that's given to you a child of God, a son of God. God has not only made us a child through faith, he's made us sons and daughters through adoption. And Paul says in Ephesians one, these are predestined things.

36:50 We've been predestined to adoption. We've been predestined to an inheritance. They're waiting. And our inheritance is imperishable, undefiled, will not fade away, reserved in heaven for us. There's quite literally a box with our name on it.

37:14 That's Jeff's. And then he gives another encouragement reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God. Yes, you may die a horrible death at the hands of Nero, but you're protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. This life is not the end. And that's the encouragement he's trying to get across to his readers.

37:54 Some of you are gonna go through some pretty rough times. Fiery ordeals. Some of you aren't gonna make it. But you have a living hope. You are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation that's ready to be revealed.

38:14 Paul talks about in Romans eight, the redemption of our bodies. Philippians three, we eagerly wait for a savior who will transform this body into conformity with the body of his glory. So Peter's trying to get his readers to understand this life. This is compared to eternity, a nanosecond. And hopefully his readers got it.

38:49 Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word. Thank you for the encouragement. Thank you that we have a living hope. This life isn't isn't the end.

39:06 It's it's just the beginning. Thank you that we have a forerunner, someone who has gone ahead of us and is going to come back at some point and take us to be with him. Help us as we walk with you to keep these thoughts in hearts and in our minds and be faithful even until death. And we pray that father in Jesus name.