Sermon Tone Analysis

“*SAVED TO BE HOLY*”

(A Chosen People – Series in I Peter)

 

Westgate Chapel 10~/22~/00                                   I Peter 1:10-16

 

PROPOSITION:  Our great salvation, which is the culmination of the prophet’s message and the angel’s envy, is for the purpose that we be holy, even as God is holy.

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i. introduction

!! -     THE apostle Peter writes his epistle from Rome about the time of Nero’s great persecution against Christians.

!! -     HE is writing to clusters of believers in the north east provinces of Asia Minor.

!! -     HE calls them God’s elect….brand

new Jewish and Gentile believers battling to stay afloat in their faith.

!! -     IMAGINE how powerless they feel in the face of the mighty Roman Empire, and the philosophical and elitist Greek culture that surrounds them.

!! -     THEY are…

!!! ~*     new in their faith

!!! ~*     very much in the minority

!!! ~*     without any influence or power in their communities

!!! ~*     cut off from the popular culture

!!! ~*     unsettled about the future

!!! ~*     frightened

!! -     THE further they get from the excitement of their faith beginnings….

!! -     THE closer the persecution comes to touching their lives….the

more they had to have been wondering if this was all worth it.

!! -     WHO are we?

!! -     A FRINGE religious minority.

!! -     WHO cares about us?

!! -     NOBODY.

!! -     WHAT influence do we have?

!! -     NONE.

!! -     HOW do we know any of this faith talk about being born again and going to heaven is going to happen?

!! -     WE don’t.

!! -     THEN why should we go through all the hardships and disciplines of following Jesus….especially

if it is going to end up costing us our lives?

!! -     CAN you begin to feel what these new believers were feeling in Asia Minor when this letter arrived from one of the disciples who had actually been with Jesus….

!!! ~*     seen Him die on a cross outside Jerusalem….

!!! ~*     eaten breakfast with Him after He had been raised from the dead

!!! ~*     watched Him ascend to the Father’s right hand

!!! ~*     on the Day of Pentecost had received the Spirit baptism that Jesus had promised from the Father.

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ii.

It was the prophet’s message

!! -     LISTEN to what Peter tells them in I Peter 1:10 (page 1200) *concerning their salvation*!

!!!       “…*the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care*..”

!! -     THIS salvation of yours is no fly-by-night theory born in the revolutionary fervor of Palestine.

!! -     THIS salvation you received when you were born again is not one of so many religious responses to a vague notion of the divine.

!! -     NO!

This salvation of yours is the culmination of grace to you that the Old Testament prophets have spoken of for thousands of years.

!! -     IT is God’s grace that was..

!!!       “…*to come to you*.”

!! -     PETER is singling out every Christian that is listening to the reading of his letter…then and now…with the use of this personal pronoun.

!! -     IN fact, it is curious to me that in the 7 verses we will be studying this morning the personal pronoun, “you,” is used 8 times.

!! -     PETER is coming after each one of us under the direction of the Holy Spirit to remind us that…

!!! ~*     nations come and go

!!! ~*     emperors come and go

!!! ~*     institutions come and go

!!! ~*     scientific discoveries come and go

!!! ~*     life itself can come and go…but God delivers His grace to real individual flesh and blood people….to

YOU.

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!! 1.   THEY SPOKE

!! -     THE prophets spoke about this grace for hundreds of years before Christ was born.

!!! ~*     In 1450 BC, Moses prophesied about the Prophet who was to come after him who would be greater than himself (Deuteronomy 18:15).

!!!! •     The Jews lived with the expectation that the Prophet Moses spoke of was the Messiah and Peter confirmed it in his sermon in Acts 3:22.

!!! ~*     In 700 BC, the prophet Isaiah spoke of Jesus’ birth, “*The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel*.”

(Isaiah 7:14)

!!! ~*     In 500 BC, the prophet Zechariah spoke about Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, “*Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey*.’”

(Zechariah 9:9)

!!! ~*     Isaiah saw the suffering the Messiah would go through when he said, “*But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed*.”

(Isaiah 53:5)

!!! ~*     In 1000 BC, David prophesied about Jesus’ resurrection in Psalm 16:9 saying, “…*my body also will rest secure*,(10) *because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay*.”

!!! ~*     800 years before the outpouring of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, the prophet Joel wrote, “*And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions*.”

(Joel 2:28)

!!!! •     And when Peter preached his sermon that great day he quoted from Joel and said, “This is that…”

!! -     THIS was the grace that the prophets spoke of that was to come to YOU.

!! -     IT was YOUR salvation that was the object of their prophetic passion and integrity.

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!! 2.   THEY SEARCHED INTENTLY WITH THE GREATEST CARE

!! -     PETER says that these prophets searched the things of God intently, using the greatest care.

!! -     THERE are several hundred prophecies in the Old Testament alone that speak of…

!!! ~*     how Jesus was to be born

!!! ~*     where He was to be born

!!! ~*     His lineage

!!! ~*     Herod killing two year old boys in Judea at the news of Jesus’ birth

!!! ~*     the messenger who would precede Him

!!! ~*     His miracles

!!! ~*     His teaching through parables

!!! ~*     how He was to die

!!! ~*     the desertion of his disciples

!!! ~*     His resurrection

!! -     NO detail was spared.

!! -     AND they were careful.

!! -     REMEMBER back in Daniel, when God would reveal some future work of God to him, he would tremble, get faint, and go into lengthy seasons of fasting and prayer….to

“*search intently with the greatest care*.”

!! -     THERE was no margin of error for an Old Testament prophet.

One false prophesy and it would cost you your life.

!! -     YOUR personal salvation was the focus of all of this careful examination….and

over hundreds of years time.

!! -     WHILE empires were rising and falling and world history recording military campaigns and conquests….men and women of God were prophesying of the grace that was coming to you.

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!! 3.   THE TRIED TO FIND OUT TIMES AND CIRCUMSTANCES

!! -     LOOK at verse 11.

These prophets were…

!!!       “…*trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow*.”

(1 Peter 1:11)

!! -     They tried to figure out the times and circumstances when YOUR salvation would come.

!! -     IT wasn’t them speaking!