These are my notes from a message I preached at Johnstone Baptist last month.

Faith To Soar Higher, When Tested By Fire

  1 Peter 1:1-2

 1Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
      To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, 2who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood:
      Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

  

What words of encouragement would you offer someone who was going through a really hard time?

 

Or

 

Have you ever been in a situation were someone has made you aware of some particular difficulty they were facing and you have struggled for the ‘right words’ to offer?

  

Various responses to peoples difficult circumstances

  

  • Flippant/naïve/shallow ‘Don’t worry, it will be ok’.
  • The Optimist- looks for something positive (woman in docs)
  • Pessimist- admits how awful- and tells you even worse things!
  • ‘I’ve been there response’
  • Agony Aunt Response- the person with the ‘one size fits all’ answers
  • The Empathetic Response- the silent head nodding ‘mmmm’

 

What Job’s comforters’ people can be!

  

Purpose of 1 Peter

  

  • 1 Peter is written to Christians who are experiencing various types of trials and suffering.
  • Many were facing hostility, rejection and persecution on account of their faith.

 

Suffering is a reality which all Christians experience and need to face up to.

 

3 examples of suffering

 

  • Suffering and evil exist in the world because of the curse of the fall (Gen 3) everyone is affected by it.
  • There is a suffering that comes as a direct result of our faith and obedience
  • There is a suffering which tests our faith- sometimes we do not understand the reason why it is happening.

 

  

  

1 Peter 4:12

 12Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.

1 Peter 1:4-7

  

6though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

 

“A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It has  to go through the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain.”

  

Various Types/levels of Suffering

  

  • Suffering caused by others
  • Caused by Circumstances
  • Ourselves

  

Various Responses to Suffering

  

  • The atheist sees suffering as evidence that God does not exist

 

  • Some who profess faith struggle to reconcile suffering- with God’s love

  

Example

 

You believe God is good

Something awful happens

You cant understand ‘how God could let this happen’

 

  • Trials can floor us ‘Not In Service’ gets written over our Christian life
  • They can stunt our development (child development example)

 

Peter is writing to these Christians who are facing difficulty and trials in order to

 

  • Encourage and strengthen them
  • To help them stand firm in their faith
  • To remind them to live Christ-like lives in the midst of unbelievers

 

Unlike the poor advisors mentioned at the start- Peter writes to

 

  • Give these believers a Rock under their feet
  • Give them an anchor in the midst of their storm

 

  

  

  

The keys: for ‘faith to soar higher- when being tested by fire’

 

  • Peter does this by strengthening their faith
  • He does not encourage them to ‘have faith’ - (hopeless advise!)- Where do you find faith in the midst of despair?
  • He fixes their gaze upon God- and what God has done for them

“Some of you seek for faith much in the same way as you would dig for a well. You turn the eye inward upon yourself and search admidst the depths of your polluted heart to find if faith is there; you search admid all your feelings at sermons and sacraments to see if faith is there; and still you find nothing but sin and disappointment… Look full in the face of Jesus… Drink in His Word… Faith comes by hearing the voice of Jesus.” Robert Murray McCheyne

 

  • ‘Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God
  • Peter fixes their gaze upon the triune God

 

1 Peter 1:1-2

 

1Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
      To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, 2who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood:
      Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

 

  • 1) He fixes their eyes upon the Sovereign God who chose them

 

  • They are God’s elect
  • Chosen according to God’s foreknowledge

 

  • A) They are not chosen on the basis that there is anything good in them or in what they have done.

 

  • B) Foreknowledge is not God looking into the future and seeing who will choose him and then electing them in response.

 

 

  • C) When God looked into the future what he saw in all people was a ‘love of sin and hatred of himself’

 

  • D) His choosing of the elect is based upon

 

  • His Sovereign choice
  • His great mercy and love
  • His own good pleasure and purpose

 

Sadly the doctrine of election has been turned into a negative and controversial doctrine.

 

Yet in scripture the doctrine of election is intended to

 

  • Cause us to praise and glorify God!
  • Be a source of comfort for the elect
  • Enable Christians to walk in confidence and assurance

 

“The secret formula of the saints: When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord’s choicest wines.”
~ Samuel Rutherford

 

The doctrine of election is one of the Lords choicest wines

 

2) Election explains our alienation

 

“To God’s elect, strangers in the world”

 

  • This world is not our home- we walk contrary

 

John 15:18-21 

 18“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’[a] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.

 

  • Hebrews 11 speaks not only of the walk of faith but the cost of faith
  • Abraham’s heart tested to give up his son
  • Moses chooses to be mistreated with God’s people rather than enjoy the ‘pleasures of sin for a season’
  • Others are martyred and persecuted for their faith

  

Hebrews 11:13-16

  

13All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. 14People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16Instead, they were longing for a better country-a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

 

The calling and election of God come with a cost

 

 

 

 

  • 2) The Spirit who sanctifies us-

 

Sanctification is both positional and progressive- Peter is dealing with the positional aspect here.

 

  • A) Set apart for God’s special purpose - through regeneration (new birth)

 

  • Sanctified = Set apart your toothbrush is ‘sanctified’ it is set apart for you

 

Scriptures which speak of positional sanctification

 

Hebrews 10:10

10And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Hebrews 10:14

14because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

  • We are set apart from the world for God
  • From Sin to Righteousness
  • Darkness to light
  • Death to Life

 

B) We are sanctified (set apart) for “obedience to Jesus Christ”

  

Peter is possibly referring to the ‘obedience of faith’

Romans 1:5 (English Standard Version

5through whom(A) we have received grace and(B) apostleship(C) to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name(D) among all the nations,

Order of Salvation

 

  • Father elects
  • Sends the Spirit to set us apart (sanctify us)
  • Spirit quickens faith to our hearts
  • Faith receives the benefits of Christ on the basis of his blood (justified by faith)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • 3) Peter Reminds us of the Son who saves us

  

The “sprinkling by his blood” Speaks of

A) God’s Covenant (His faithfulness)

Exodus 24:8 (New International Version)

 8 Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

O.T Moses Sprinkled the Blood over the people to seal the covenant

N.T Believers are sprinkled by the blood of Jesus

  • When going through a trial we often feel abandoned by God
  • The Sprinkled blood speaks of the covenant which says “NEVER WILL I LEAVE YOU, NEVER WILL I FORSAKE YOU”
  • When facing difficulties its easy to wonder ‘Have I done something wrong?’ ‘Is God punishing me?’
  • The Sprinkled Blood of the Covenant says “IT IS FINISHED”, “AS FAR AS THE EAST IS FROM THE WEST, SO FAR HAVE I REMOVED YOUR SINS FROM YOU.

 

The “sprinkling by his blood” Speaks of

 

B) God’s Love

 

God’s love is manifested through the cross which joins us to Christ forever

Romans 8:35-39 (New International Version)

35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written:
   ”For your sake we face death all day long;
      we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[c] 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[d] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

  

  

  

  

  

  

Closing

  

  • All of us have encountered various trials in our walk
  • Some may be going through a season of testing right now
  • Are you soaring or sinking?

Allow the great truths of what God has done for you in Christ to lift your heart to higher ground.

 

In the midst of storm you need an anchor lift your eyes to

 

  • The God who choose you
  • The Spirit who set you apart
  • The Son who shed his blood for you

“Grace and peace be yours in abundance”