Praise the Lord for Full Salvation! (1 Peter 1.3-5)

The speaker is continuing their study of the epistle written by the Apostle Peter to various churches. They invite the listeners to turn to a specific passage in the Bible. They then offer a prayer and discuss a song they recently learned and the importance of choosing songs with good theology. They introduce the main theme of the sermon, which is praising God for full salvation. They explain that God deserves praise because He gives everlasting life. They discuss the first point of the sermon, which is the description of Peter's benediction. They emphasize that giving praise to God is the apex of Christian belief and practice, and they highlight that God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They then move on to the second point of the sermon, which is the reasons why God is worthy of unending praise. They discuss the new birth and living hope that God has given believers through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They explain that our salvation is a result of God's mercy and that ou This morning, we are going to continue our study on the epistle that the Apostle Peter wrote, the first one, to a number of many churches. So, after worshiping our Lord then with such beautiful songs, it is our turn to worship Him with the study of His Word. So, as every Sunday, I invite you to turn to 1 Peter 1, verses 3 to 5. In the Pew Bible, the passage is found on page 1047. 1 Peter 1, page 1047, and we will read one more time, verses 3 to 5. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy, He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. Let us bow our heads and pray. Father God, we thank You for this wonderful opportunity we have to praise You by studying Your Word, meditating upon each word. We pray that we would take heed of what You have to say to us. We pray that we would be humble to accept the message, whether it's encouragement, whether it's rebuke, whether it's instruction. We ask for humility that we would respond in accordance to Your Word and in accordance to what You require of us. I pray that every soul and every life here would desire to praise You with their lives as the Apostle Peter does as he begins this episode. Guide us, open our discernment, our hearts, our minds. May Your Holy Spirit speak to us and may we receive His Word with humility. Amen. Before I came up here to the pulpit to preach, we sang, Deeper than the stain has gone. Now, this is not a very popular song for most people, unless you are as old as Mr. Bill, of course. I am sure that many of you heard this song for the very first time here in our church. In fact, I've never heard this song, but Mr. Bill would come and ring my bell every Friday and Saturday, we need to sing, Deeper than the stain has gone. That happened probably for a month or so. Finally, I have to give in. Okay, let me look at it. He went, I think, to Brother John, too. We need to sing, Deeper than the stain has gone. So we looked at it and, yeah, we were impressed by the words. We didn't know the song. We had to learn and then we taught it to you. I know this song is quite old. However, the theology in this song is really amazing. And this is one thing that we always share in this church. As we think of what songs we're going to learn and we're going to sing, we don't care if it was written 1,000 years ago or yesterday. We really don't care what instruments they play. We believe the Scripture clearly says, Praise the Lord with everything you've got, with every instrument. In fact, we see that there is not one homogeneous way to worship in the church. The trees clap in praise to God when we look at the Scripture. Others jump, others dance, others bow down. There are various ways. And we embrace that here. But, of course, there are a couple of prerequisites when we choose songs. And one of them is the theology of the song. Does it praise God? Does it talk about its attributes? And we were impressed with this song. This song is a great description of the salvation God in His mercy has given us. Let me read one more time the first verse in the chorus. You can read it. There it says, Dark the stain that soiled man's nature, Long the distance that he fell, Far removed from hope and heaven, Into deeper despair and hell. But there was a fountain open, And the blood of God's own Son Purifies the soul and reaches Deeper than the stain has gone. Praise the Lord for full salvation, God still reigns upon His throne, And I know the blood still reaches Deeper than the stain has gone. Now, the words of this song capture the very heart or the theme of the verses we just read and which we are about to study. The theme is that our eternal God deserves an end in praise because He gives everlasting life. And therefore, the title of today's sermon, Praise the Lord for full salvation. Yes, our eternal God deserves an end in praise because He gives everlasting life. Now, this is the amazing truth which Peter begins his discourse with. He starts by praising the eternal God because of the everlasting and never-ending life He has given us. And it is this praise, by the way, which extends all the way to verse 12 that we will begin studying this morning. However, there is so much in this one single sentence. Yes, it's one single sentence. It's not even one paragraph. It's one single sentence of about ten verses. This one single sentence is about praising God for full salvation, past, present, and future. Today, however, we will only look at verses 3 to 5. And we will be in these first 12 verses for about five weeks as we walk our way through the theology that is found there. Now, the outline for today's sermon has only two points. Now, don't let that deceive you because there are sub-points under each main point. But it's rather straightforward. However, we will spend the majority of our time this morning in our second point. And with that in mind, then, let us discuss the very first point which concerns the description of Peter's benediction. God is worthy of unending praise. As Peter writes the thanksgiving section of his epistle, which is verses 3 to verse 12, he begins with this benediction or blessing. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some translations may be, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a blessing. It is a praise. It is a statement of worship. Now, there are at least two things worth mentioning under this first point. And first, either by convention about letter writing or by conviction about Christian theology, Peter begins this discourse by highlighting or emphasizing the praise of God as if giving praise to God is the apex of Christian belief and practice. He doesn't begin by talking about the people's problems or the sufferings that they are going through, which he will. He begins by giving praise to God. Why? Because the worship of God and the praise of God is the apex, the climax of Christian belief and practice. Being a Christian is about being a worshiper and giving praise and glory to God. Indeed, the scripture is clear that the purpose of our existence, first as human beings and then as Christians, as Christians is the praise and the glory of God. In Psalm 117, all the peoples of the Lord of the world that are called to worship God. This is what the psalmist writes. Praise the Lord, all you nations! Stall him, all you peoples! For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord. He's writing to every nation, whether Christian or not, to every ethnic group, all you people, everybody has the call and the duty to worship God. But this reality becomes particularly relevant and of paramount importance for those who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 1, 13 and 14, the call to worship God is zeroed in on Christians. Paul writes, And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you believed you were marked in him with a zeal, the promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession. Why did God do all of this? Salvation, inheritance, the gospel marked with the Holy Spirit. Why did God do all of this? To the praise of his glory. So, it is fitting for Peter to begin his Thanksgiving with a praise to God, because giving praise to God is indeed the apex of Christian belief and practice. We were created and we were saved to give glory and praise to God. And for those of you who have been attending Calvary Baptist Church, this is not new to you. This is what we said many times. We exist to the glory of God. Our desire every Wednesday, every Sunday, as we gather together, is to go into the Word of God. Yes, to deal with our sins, to find encouragement. The most important thing, however, is to come and give worship to God. I don't have to apologize to people that I am not talking about self-help messages here. I'm sorry if it offends you that I don't comment on the latest movie or the latest trend or what's going on in politics. But this is not the place to find that discussion. We are here to worship the creator of the universe every time we meet, because we believe the God of the universe fills this place in a miraculous way. He is here right now. And giving praise to God is the apex, the most important thing, the climax of our belief and our practice. The second thing which is important to point out in this first point is the fact that Peter refers to God as the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, thus emphasizing that giving praise to God is a response to his full revelation in Christ. Peter's benediction is an important modification of the traditional Jewish benedictions which address God as the God of Israel. For example, in Luke 1.68, Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, when he discovered that he was going to be a father, or in his song, somehow, he wrote a song because he couldn't talk, remember? He wrote a song. And he began his song with these words, Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. This was the traditional benediction in Israel, to give praise to God. In contrast to Zachariah, however, Peter's praise is to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not of Israel. Now, why is that? The reason is because we don't praise some ethereal being. We praise a God who has made himself known to us through the incarnation of his son, Jesus Christ. We praise a God whom we can know and experience truthfully, even if not exhaustively. Jesus is the full revelation of God. And after the coming of the Messiah, it is appropriate to worship God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the one who has fully revealed to us in the person of his Son. And not only to worship the Father, but to worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So, there is a distinction from the way Israel worshiped God. Before, we give praise to a God in response to his full revelation to us. He has come and made his dwelling among us. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only God, John Wood Wright. So, yes, our praise is distinctively Christian. We don't just praise any God. We praise the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We praise a real being who has made himself known to us. We praise a God we can experience truly through the incarnation of his Son. We can know him truthfully. However, we will never know him exhaustively, of course. But that doesn't mean that our knowledge of him is not real. That is why I said our eternal God deserves unending praise because he gives everlasting life. Now, with that in mind, let's then look at the second point where we will examine the reason why God is worthy of unending praise. Because Peter just doesn't tell us to do something. He gives us plenty of reasons. And what remains of verse 3, all the way to verse 5, and in order to substantiate the fact that the praise of God is the apex of Christian belief and practice, as well as to provide hope to his readers who are facing great trials, Peter will talk about the new birth God produced in those who in faith have come to believe in Jesus. The apostle tells us that in his great mercy, he, that is God the Father, has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. This inheritance, the apostle continues, is kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of salvation that is ready to be revealed. In the last time. Now, there's so much in those verses. Now you can see why I couldn't preach to you all 12 verses this morning. A lot that we need to unpack. He's talking about the new birth that God has given us. And he's praising God because of the new birth he's given us. However, he uses a lot of complicated subordinate clauses to describe this new birth and the consequences or the effect or the corollaries, if you want to say, of this new birth. As Peter describes the new birth, that is, the transference from the state of spiritual deadness to that of spiritual life, as he describes the new birth of those who have placed their faith in Jesus, the first thing he lets us know is that new birth is an act of God's infinite mercy. As you may have already noticed, it is in his great mercy that God has given us new birth. In other words, our salvation, our transference from death to life, our forgiveness, and our deliverance from the slavery of sin is the result of God's great mercy. Great with uppercase letters. Our salvation, our deliverance from sin, our forgiveness, our transference from death to life is the consequence, the result of his great mercy. It is not the result of our great ingenuity or our devout religiosity. Our salvation is the work of God that is given to us solely on the basis of his goodness. In his great mercy, God does not give us what we deserve, death and eternal judgment. Instead, he gives us life, forgiveness, and an intimate relationship with him. This is the reason why our eternal God deserves unending praise because he gives everlasting life. He didn't have to do it. He didn't, did he? He didn't have to do it, but he did it because goodness and mercy is in his nature. We worship a God whose perhaps most defining attribute is his selfless love for goodness. I am taking a risk here by saying that this is perhaps his most defining attribute because God is as righteous as he is as loving. He is no more righteous than he is more loving or more gracious than he is more merciful. However, if there is one thing that scripture emphasizes about all the other attributes is God's love, mercy, and grace and goodness. So from the experiential level, we can say that it is probably God's most defining attribute, his selfless love and his goodness. This is a God we praise. He has given us new birth as an act of his infinite mercy. This new birth also entails a living hope. Notice that the new birth God has given us is into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now what is Peter saying here? He has given us new birth and he proceeds into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. I have already mentioned that one of Peter's aims in this epistle is to give his readers grounds for solid hope in the ultimate future so that they might face the immediate future with equanimity, courage, and even joy. As you know, these believers are suffering. They are running risks of being killed. They are refugees, literally. And they are foreigners in the lands they are. And they are being discriminated and persecuted for those reasons in addition, and more importantly, because of their belief in Jesus Christ. So his aim in writing this epistle is to give them grounds for a solid hope in their ultimate future so that they can face this life, dangerous life, in light of that hope. It doesn't matter what happens to us now because we know what awaits for us. And this is precisely what Peter does by invoking the living hope we have as a result of our new birth. You see, when we experience physical birth, we are brought into a world characterized by fallingness and suffering that will eventually cease to exist. That's the world we are brought in when we experience physical birth. However, when we experience new birth, or spiritual birth, we are brought into a world where there is no place for sin. A world that will remain forever in a world where there is hope for the future. Now this hope, by the way, is not mere wishful thinking. It is not like, I hope so, but I don't really know whether it's going to happen or not. It's not a mere wishful thinking. Instead, it is the assured conviction that we will spend eternity in the presence of God. I say this because for Peter, the basis on which our hope is anchored is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That's what he writes, right? He says, we were given new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This hope, the basis for this hope is anchored in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why it's not wishful thinking. Rather, it is a conviction of a reality. You see, for a conviction to exist, there has to be some kind of basis. For instance, if I hope or have the conviction that the sun will rise tomorrow, the reason for this conviction is based on the factual reality that the sun has risen every day of my breathing life. There has not been a single day I haven't seen the sun rise up. I bet you have had the same experience. This reality provides the foundation for my inference that the sun will come out tomorrow. I think I'm pretty much convinced that the sun will come out tomorrow. Do you want to challenge that conviction? Do you want to bet? You see, that experience of the reality that we see, it's what provides the foundation for my inference, for my conviction. Likewise, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the basis for our hope. That is, our conviction that we will spend eternity in the presence of the Lord, it's a factual conviction because we know that Jesus lives. Just as God has risen Jesus from the dead and Jesus lives eternally, so will God raise us from the dead in order to experience everlasting life. Now this fact is rendered more explicitly in verse 4 where Peter explains to us that new birth entails the preservation of our inheritance. The apostle tells us that God has given us new birth not only, as we just read, not only into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, but also God has given us new hope into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. He further explains that this inheritance is kept in heaven for you. Now there's no doubt that the new birth a believer experiences upon confessing Christ as their Lord is a present reality. There's no doubt about that. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 17, a famous verse, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is here. Now according to this verse, the new birth and the new life that comes as a corollary or a consequence of this present reality, a new birth, it's actually not something for us to enjoy in the future. It's a present reality. The new is here, he said. It's not the new is to come. The new is here. So there is no doubt then that the new birth that a believer has as he confesses Jesus as Lord is a present reality. The question is, however, if this new life which results from our new birth will continue beyond physical death. You see, there are some that believe that you, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you might not make it to heaven if you just make the wrong decisions. You will lose your salvation. Now I believe in eternal security. I also believe that I will experience this eternal security as long as I run the race till the end. Those are not contradictions. Those are two paradoxical truths that we find in the scripture. Here, Peter lets us know that our life will continue beyond this world and beyond this body, beyond physical death. His answer is absolutely. The life you have received upon your confession of Jesus Christ as Lord will remain till the end. The spiritual life God gives us upon our new birth is eternal. It is ours to the eternity. Now the Apostle expresses this reality in various ways. First, he equates our salvation to an inheritance which means that it is ours by right. Of course, given to us by God, just like a child has the right to the inheritance, so do we. It is ours by right on the grounds that we have an organic relationship with God. We are his children and he has made us his heirs. Secondly, Peter qualifies our inheritance, that is our salvation, with the adjectives incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading. The NIV renders these adjectives with verbs that are somewhat equivalent. Our text in the NIV says that our inheritance can never perish, spoiled, or fade. The effect is the same. Really, it is just a preference of translation. And this is the effect. In contrast to our earthly possessions which get eroded and corrupted, our salvation is, in its very nature, everlasting and free from corruption and contamination. And if that were not enough, Peter continues and tells us that our salvation, or our inheritance, is kept in heaven for you. Somebody that's the keeping. It's in the passive voice. Kept by another agent. Of course, that is God. We can be confident that if we have believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will spend eternity with God. The worth of our salvation is infinite. Yes, our eternal God deserves an end in praise because he gives everlasting life. Now, it is not much use, however, to carefully preserve an inheritance if the heir or the inheritor is not going to live to receive it. Why good is it to have an inheritance? Imagine if my mom has an inheritance for me but then I die before my mom. What good is the inheritance to me? So, it is not much use to carefully preserve an inheritance if the heir is not going to live to receive it. Thus, Peter makes sure to let us know that new birth also entails the preservation of those who are God's children. Notice how he words this text. On the one hand, he tells us that the inheritance is kept by God or it's kept in heaven and it's incorruptible and unfading. It doesn't spoil, it doesn't perish, it doesn't fade. But on the other hand, as he comes to the text, verse 5, he says in verse 5, You, the believers in Christ, through faith, are shielded or are kept by God's power until the coming of salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. According to this verse, believers in Christ are kept. Not only the inheritance or salvation is kept safe, believers are kept safe or shielded. And the first thing that we see is that believers in Christ are, first of all, guarded by God's power. It is the power of God and not our own performance that keeps us from faithfully running the race. God, through the Holy Spirit, is the one who enables us to be holy. He is the one who every day renews our desire to honor Him. He is the one who encourages us to persevere. No one who doesn't persevere until the end will see salvation. So, yes, even though salvation is secure and eternal, it is conditioned upon our running until the end. I know that sounds complicated, right? Because it is. But here we are told that we are shielded by God's power, which gives more assurance to our eternal security. He is going to keep us. He is going to keep us to run until the end. He is going to help us so that we are successful in our race. Now, just because it is God's power that sustains us in our walk, that does not mean that we are exempt from any responsibility. In the dynamics and intricacies of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, we do play an important role. We do. According to Peter, our inheritance is also guarded through faith. In other words, it is as Christians trust in God that they experience His power to protect them. Hence, even though our salvation is kept secure by God, we must never stop believing in the Word of God, for our salvation is paradoxically also kept secure through faith. We must keep the faith until the end. We must faithfully run the race until the end. So, there is a part that we have. Indeed, this is how Peter ends verse 5. He states that our salvation is shielded by God through faith until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In other words, God's work of preservation of our salvation in tandem to our work of faith will find its culmination in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. At this time, there will be no need to protect our salvation because the whole package of salvation will finally be ours. I have told you that our eternal God deserves an ending praise because He gives everlasting life. This is the reason why we can rest assured that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. One other hymn which we sang this morning expresses this kind of assurance. I would like to finish my sermon by reading the chorus. It says, But I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed and to Him against that day. I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded, I am convinced that He is able to keep that which I have committed, which I believe by faith, which I receive by faith, and to Him against that day, the day of His second coming. Yes, we know whom we have believed. Yes, we know He is able, through our faith, to keep us from falling and from being disqualified from the race. Yes, our eternal God deserves an ending praise because He gives everlasting life. The question is, do you have this everlasting life? Have you believed in Jesus Christ as your Savior? Have you believed in His death and resurrection? And if you have, remember that the epics of your calling is the praise and glory of our God. May your life be a song of praise to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.