1 Peter 1:1-2
Notes
Transcript
1 Peter 1:1-2
Turn with me to 1 Peter. Last week I gave an introduction to the two letters we have in the New Testament written by Peter: 1 and 2 Peter. To just quickly remind you, I said that Peter’s first letter was written to encourage his readers as they dangers from outside the church. They were facing persecution from the Roman Empire and would continue to do so for another two hundred years. Peter’s second letter was written to warn them about the dangers they faced within the church. False teacher would arise from within to destroy them.
Peter is not unique in these concerns. Almost every New Testament writer addresses these two issues and Jesus warned about them as well. I would say that right now we especially need to hear this message, but the truth is the church always needs it. That’s because the church has always faced persecution. Churches in America have lived in relative peace, but that hasn’t been true for many churches around the world. I think specifically of Christians living in North Korea, China, Iraq, and Iran. But there are many other places where it is illegal to be a Christian or where it is just difficult. This past year was particularly rough for Christians living in northern Nigeria as it has been for several years. There’s a good chance that persecution could increase for Christians in America, but it would be nothing new for those living elsewhere in the world.
I think an even more present danger for us is the increase in false teachers. I think that’s a particular problem for us because persecution has a way of rooting out those not fully committed and false teachers usually aren’t. Therefore, the lack of persecution tends to encourage false teaching. I won’t go into much detail tonight, but over the last two or three years there has been an increase in the number of Christian leaders who have either abandoned the faith or have begun teaching doctrine contrary to what has been taught for almost two thousand years. For example, there’s a growing number who claim that Jesus didn’t die for our sins. I don’t understand how they can still claim to be Christians or why they’d even want to do so.
So these two concerns of Peter for his readers are still problems today and have been throughout the history of the church.
What we didn’t talk about last week, was the readers of Peter’s letter. Peter identifies them in the introduction to his first letter.
1 Peter 1:1-2 1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, 2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Peter uses two terms to identify his readers. The first is “God’s elect.” We’ll discuss that in a few minutes. The second term he uses is “exiles.” Other translations use the terms “aliens” or “foreigners.”
The Greek word literally means “one who comes from a foreign country into a city or land to reside by the side of the natives.” So it describes a person who is traveling or living in a foreign country.
The term is used only three times in the New Testament, and two of those three occasions are found in this letter. The other time is in the Book of Hebrews.
Hebrews 11:13 All 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, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.
So why did Peter call them strangers, aliens or exiles? First, as the author of Hebrews says, this is not our home. When we became Christians, our true country became heaven. As the song says, “This world is not our home, we are just passing through.” Paul told the Philippians:
Philippians 3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul was a Roman citizen, and his Roman citizenship was important to him, but not as important as his heavenly citizenship. So no matter where we live on this earth, we Christians are always aliens, strangers, foreigners or exiles, because our homeland is heaven above. We must live in this world, but not be of the world.
Second, there’s a good chance they had been forced to leave their homes due to persecution. Peter says they had been scattered. These places to which they’d been scattered include the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. Asia is not referring to the continent that we know as Asia, but the Roman province in what is now Turkey as you can see on this map. The other four, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, and Bithynia lay to the east and north of Asia. So Peter isn’t writing to a single congregation but to congregations spread out or scattered over a large area. Most believe these were Jewish believers since Peter was an apostle to the Jews while Paul was an apostle to the Gentiles. Many may have been forced to leave Judea and Galilee because of persecution from fellow Jews. Now they faced it from the Romans.
We’ve only read a couple of verses, but these two verses and especially verse two are filled with information and doctrine about our salvation.
In his commentary on 1 Peter, Paul Cedar writes:
Salvation is at the very core of Christianity. It was for our salvation that Jesus Christ came to us as a man and lived among us as a servant. Indeed, Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost! He is the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world.
The Bible is the story of God’s work to save the people he created. In the Old Testament the prophets had predicted the coming of a savior. Then, when the angels appeared to the shepherds, they declared that the savior had come:
Luke 2:11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.
The name Jesus means “Savior.”
The coming of Jesus was not a mistake or an incident of chance. As Peter will say later in this chapter, it was God’s plan before he even created the world to save it through Jesus. What do we learn from Peter about our salvation?
First, we learn that we have been chosen.
Peter addresses his letter to “God’s elect.” This and “God’s chosen ones” are common descriptions for God’s people. Think back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who were chosen by God. We read in the Old Testament about how God chose their descendants to be his people. For example, Moses told them in Deuteronomy 7:
Deuteronomy 7:6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
And Jesus told the disciples:
John 15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.
This choosing applies to us as well. In chapter 2 Peter wrote:
1 Peter 2:9-10 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
We – the church – are God’s chosen people, called by God to live for him.
Peter says this choosing was “foreknown” by God. God knew who would accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Some believe this means God chose some to be saved and that he chose others not to be saved. I think the Bible teaches that salvation is open to all people. For God so love the whole world that he sent his Son, not that he loved some of the world. And in his second letter Peter wrote:
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
God opens salvation to everyone, not wanting anyone to be destroyed, but God also knows who is going to reject his offer and who will accept it. It’s amazing to think that God not only knew that we would trust in him, but that he knew it before we were born. God knew us before we were born. David wrote:
Psalm 22:10 From birth I was cast on you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
And again:
Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
God told the prophet Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
God says the even before Jeremiah was conceived he knew Jeremiah and called him to be a prophet. Paul made a similar claim:
Galatians 1:15 But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace. . . .
Even before we were born God knew us. More than that, God knew us even before he created the universe.
Ephesians 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
God knew you before your parents did, before your parents were even born, before the earth was even formed, and he chose you.
Second, we learn that we have been sanctified.
Those who have been chosen are then sanctified. To be sanctified is to be made holy. Paul often used the word “holy people” to refer to believers as he did in his letter to the Ephesians.
Ephesians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.
Older translations use the word saints instead of holy ones. The word “saint” is one of those words that is often misunderstood. It is used by religious groups to refer to those believers who are now dead but did great things when they were alive. One requirement to become a saint is to have two or more miracles attributed to you. Others refer to someone as a saint because they live really good lives. We perhaps think of older relatives. But the Bible says that all believers are saints.
The word saint or holy one simply refers to what Peter has already said. A saint is someone chosen by God and called to live for him. The word “sanctify” means: “be set apart for holy uses.”
This act of being made holy is carried out through the Holy Spirit or as Peter wrote: through the sanctifying work of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit sanctifies us through the word of God. Jesus prayed:
John 17:14, 17 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
Peter says the purpose of this sanctifying work of the Spirit is to lead us to obey Jesus. We can’t be part of God’s chosen people until we respond with faith-motivated obedience to Jesus. Jesus tied our love for him to our obedience. As he told the apostles:
John 14:15 If you love me, keep my commands.
We are to obey. Jesus is not to be only our Savior; he’s to be our Lord which means he has the authority to tell us what to do. We find God identified as Lord throughout the Old Testament and Jesus is referred to as being Lord in the New. In the Book of Revelation John wrote about Jesus saying:
Revelation 19:16 On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: king of kings and lord of lords.
Jesus is Lord. Not everyone recognizes that or is ready to submit to him, but one day they will. As we read in Philippians:
Philippians 2:9-11 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Third, we learn that we have been sprinkled.
The purpose of the sprinkling is forgiveness. Peter picks up on the Old Testament images of forgiveness that results from the sacrifices of animals and included the sprinkling of their blood. Concerning the sacrifices God told Moses:
Leviticus 4:6 He is to dip his finger into the blood and sprinkle some of it seven times before the Lord, in front of the curtain of the sanctuary.
The shedding of blood was required for forgiveness.
Hebrews 9:7, 22 7 But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. 22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
As Christians we are saved through the shed blood of Christ. We remember that when we gather around the Lord’s Table and read the words of institution when Jesus said:
Matthew 26:28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
When we obey the gospel by being baptized, we are sprinkled by the blood of Jesus and our sins are forgiven and washed away. In that first sermon on the Day of Pentecost, Peter preached:
Acts 2:38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
We have forgiveness because of the blood of Christ.
So concerning our salvation Peter tells us that we have been chosen by God, sanctified by the Spirit so that we might obey, and forgiven by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ.
Did you notice the Trinity in there? Verse 2 mentions God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In other words, all three are a part of our salvation.
The most important thing for us to know about the recipients of this letter is that they were going through a time of suffering, and Peter was preparing them for the additional suffering they would face in the future. At least fifteen times in this short letter, Peter referred to suffering, and he used eight different Greek words to do so.
Some of them were suffering because they were living godly lives and were doing what is good. Others were suffering reproach for the name of Christ. Peter wrote to encourage them to be good witnesses to their persecutors, and to remember that their suffering would lead to glory. They needed to reminded of the truth of their salvation that could give them strength in the midst of their suffering.
I’ll end with a quote from Terry Waite.
As an envoy for the Church of England, Terry Waite had successfully negotiated the release of numerous hostages in the Middle East during the 1980s. During a negotiating trip in 1987, he himself was taken captive. Waite remained in captivity for 1,763 days or more than four and a half years. The first four years were spent in total solitary confinement. It was not until November 18, 1991 that he was released.
Here is his assessment of his suffering:
I have been determined in captivity, and still am determined to convert this experience into something useful and good for other people. I think that’s the way to approach suffering. It seems to me that Christianity doesn’t in any way lessen suffering. What it does is enable you to take it, to face it, to work through it, and eventually to convert it.”
Like Terry Waite, let’s allow the faith and hope we have in our salvation to enable us, in the face of suffering, to take it, face it, work through it, and eventually convert it.