Fanning the Flames

Studies in First Peter Part 4

“⁶In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, ⁷so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; ⁸and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, ⁹obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls” (I Peter 1:6-9).

We rejoice in our trials because our place is God’s family is secure and is “more precious than gold.”  We don’t rejoice FOR our trials.  They can be very painful for us and our families.  But we rejoice within our trials.  And this demeanor of faith, this picture of our trust in God demonstrates to the world around that we belong to Jesus.

The word “proof” here can be a bit scary.  Is how we react to trials a litmus test for whether or not we are in God’s family?  Do we have to prove our faith, prove that we really believe, by how we face our trials?  No, we don’t.  Once you believe the gospel message of Jesus Christ, you are in, safe and secure with Jesus.  You are righteous, holy, clean, and close to the Father.

A better way to think of “proof of your faith” might be to think of is as a “demonstration of your faith;” faith that you already have and do not need to prove to anyone.  What this passage is saying is that when you face your trials with the joy of the Lord in your heart, others will see that your faith to face this situation is in Jesus.  Your trust is not in your ability to muscle through.  Your trust is not in the doctors.  Your trust is not in denial.  Your trust is in Jesus.

And when your family and friends see this trust, God is the one who receives the “praise and glory and honor” as Christ is literally revealed in you.

Moving now to verse 8, even though we have not seen Jesus, there are two things Peter knows about how we relate to Him.  We believe Jesus and we love Jesus.  The word “believe” is all over the message of the New Testament.  The old covenant was marked by the word “do”.  It was a list of things to “do” to be made right with God, a list of things to “do” to receive His blessing.

But the new covenant is marked by the word “believe.”  And the main thing we are believing is that Jesus did the “doing” on our behalf.  We believe in Jesus for our salvation and we believe His promises of all He did FOR us and TO us and IN us for living the Christian life.  We “believe in Him.”  Faith and believing are synonymous.  The outcome of believing, “the outcome of our faith, is the salvation of our souls.”

And we love Him.  We love Jesus with the love that He has given us.  “The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5).  His love literally lives in us by virtue of His Spirit living in us.  And we love Him from this wellspring.  We do not love Jesus out of obligation or to follow a commandment.  We love Him because we have experienced and felt and believed His love for us.

The two great commands of the new covenant are to believe and to love.  “This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us” (I John 3:23).  Peter is encouraging his readers that this is who you are.  You believe Him and you love Him.

Studies in First Peter Part 3

“³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, ⁵who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (I Peter 1:3-5).

God’s great mercy, shown to us through the death of Jesus in our place, is the door through which we have been born again.  And this door to eternal life included the resurrection of Jesus as well.  The resurrection confirmed the complete and finished work of Jesus to take away our sins.  We have been “born again”, born into the family of God.  And we carry inside us a “living hope”, alive because it powered by the unbreakable promises of God, not by some kind of wishful thinking.  And this new birth and living hope have been confirmed in us by “the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Entering God’s forever family, we now receive the promise of “an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for us.”  Don’t you love these powerful descriptors of our inheritance?  Imperishable, undefiled, will not fade away, reserved.  There is zero chance that someone will be changing their will.  Your inheritance is set.  God is your Father.  You are His child.  Your inheritance – His presence in this life and eternal life with Jesus to come – is guaranteed and secure.

Continuing to verse 5, “We are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”  Again look at these key words.  Protected, power of God, faith, salvation.  How does our faith fit into this protected by God’s power dynamic?  It starts with the fact that your faith brought you to salvation.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).  This is one of our favorite salvation verses.  And we are quick to focus on “saved by grace” as we should.  But let’s not forget the “through faith” part.  Your faith matters and your faith mattered.  You raised your hand.  You believed.  You expressed your faith in Jesus to save you.  And you were saved.

In the gospels, Jesus chose who to heal, when to heal, how to heal.  But concurrent with Jesus’s actions, the faith of the recipient made a difference based on Jesus’ own words.  How many times did Jesus conclude a healing with “your faith has made you well”?  It’s a bunch.

I don’t know all of the ins and outs of how this works.  I only know that taking Jesus’ words at face value, their faith mattered.  And your faith matters.  Your faith in God’s power to protect you makes a difference.  It secures your peace and joy and calm in the middle of whatever storm you are facing that needs God’s protection.

For Peter’s first century readers, they were facing some challenging trials, and believing in the power of God to protect them was not a theoretical exercise.  It was where they lived.  We will talk about these trials next time.

Studies in First Peter Part 2

“Chosen ²according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure” (I Peter 1:2).

When you were “chosen”, when you believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ, you joined God’s family “by the sanctifying work of the Spirit” (vs 2).  Sanctified means “set apart.”  You were “set apart” by the work of the Spirit by being “set in.”  You were “set in” Christ, and Christ was “set in” you.  You were placed in Christ (Colossians 3:3), and Christ came to live in you (Colossians 1:27) the minute you believed the gospel.

We have been taught that we have some role in our sanctification with non-biblical phrases like “progressive sanctification.”  We have been taught that our sanctification is a life-long process of ups and downs, fits and starts, as we get closer or further from our heavenly Father.  But the Spirit already did the sanctifying when you believed the gospel.  “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all … For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:10,14).

Your sanctification has already happened.  You are now as clean and close to the Father as you can ever be.  And this vine and branches connection is unbreakable, unshakable, secure, and rock-solid.  It never fluctuates.  Not because of how well you are doing, but by Christ and His Spirit’s doing, making you clean and close forever.

“He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5-7).

Your sanctification has been sealed and secured by the Holy Spirit that now lives in you.  And one of the beautiful outcomes of being sanctified is that you now have what it takes “to obey Jesus Christ” (vs 2).  Yes, obedience is our journey in this Christian life.  But it is an obedience born of our new identity.  We now have Jesus living though us and the power of His resurrection life indwelling us.  This fuels our obedience.  It is not a begrudging, striving, going against all of our inclinations obedience.  No, it is quite the opposite.  It is living into the power of all that Christ made new in you.  He did it.  He made you new.

Obedience is our new disposition, our new “how we look on the inside.”  Please, please, please hear this.  It is not an obedience to the Law or any other rule-keeping system.  Christ gave us a new commandment for a new covenant, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34).  And this “love one another” is fleshed out as we practice the “one anothers” of the New Testament.  This is not a Law-keeping kind of obedience.  It is a freedom kind of obedience.  We are now free and empowered to love, encourage, lift up, and serve our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Finally, this life of obedience through His power will be overflowing with His grace and His peace.  I and a thousand of others in this group will assure you that this is true.

Studies in First Peter Part 1

“¹Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen ²according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.” (I Peter 1:1-2).

Believers live as “aliens” in this world because our true “citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20).  We look forward to the city “whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10) where we will finally and physically dwell with Jesus.  Peter’s letter encourages us how to live as agents of grace in a world where we are only passing through.

And we are aliens who are “chosen” by God.  Words like “chosen” can carry all kinds of implications because of the myriads of theologies built upon specific words.  Theologians sometimes take a verse or word and create an entire belief system like a “house of cards” built on human logic.  There is a lot of God can’t do this or won’t do that or ifs, ands, and buts that muddy the water.

We need to read these loaded words in light of the overall message of the New Testament.  “Chosen” is one example of that.  Reformed theology teaches that few were “chosen” before the foundation of the world to receive the gospel, and the rest of the population was condemned to hell before they were even born.  But this thinking does not align with the character of God as we see it displayed in Jesus.  It also doesn’t fit the message of the New Testament.

The focus on Jesus coming to take away the sins of the “world” is all over the New Testament.  The invitation for “all” to receive the gospel is all over the New Testament.  Right here in Peter’s writing we have this example, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for ALL to come to repentance” (II Peter 3:9).

The gospel is available to all.  But not all will receive it.  The gospel is an invitation.  The gospel is a gift.  Christ’s sacrifice in our place is a gift that one must receive to be saved.  So, in a way, we are the ones doing the choosing.  We chose God when we chose to believe the gospel message of Jesus Christ.  So how did God “choose” you in the context of our opening verses?

You raised your hand.  Think back to your sixth-grade math class.  When the teacher asked for a volunteer to go up to the front of the class and do the problem on the blackboard, students raised their hands.  And she chose a student from among the hands raised to march up front and work the problem.  If you were the “chosen” student, did the teacher “choose” you?  Yes, she did.  But she chose you because you raised your hand.  She did not choose from the group who kept their hands down.

Likewise, when you heard the gospel, you “raised your hand.”  You said “Yes” to Jesus’ invitation.  You accepted the gift of salvation in Jesus.  And God picked you based on that raised hand.  God “chose” you to become a beloved son or daughter in His family.  But unlike the teacher example where only one student was chosen, God chose every person who raised their hand.  “ALL who call upon the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).

God’s foreknowledge knew that you were going to raise your hand.  And now as one “chosen” by God, you have been sanctified, set apart, by the work of the Spirit.  “By the sanctifying work of the Spirit” in verse 2 is such an interesting phrase.  We will dive into it next time.

Check out this beautiful passage from II Peter chapter 1,

¹Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

²Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; ³seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.  ⁴For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

⁵Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, ⁶and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, ⁷and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.  ⁸For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁹For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins (II Peter 1:1-9).

In this introduction to his second letter, Peter commends the qualities of faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love as of great value in leading a fruitful Christian life.  He then makes an interesting observation in verse 9 regarding those who lack these qualities.  What does Peter conclude?  Are they not working hard enough?  Do the slackers need more teaching, more education, more knowledge in regard to what God expects in the quality of character department?

Peter attributes their lack to spiritual amnesia.  Look again at verse 9, “For he who lacks these qualities is blind or shortsighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.”  Our number one problem with sin may not be the power of the flesh, nor the lure of temptation, nor our lack of effort.  Our number one problem might be forgetting the precious and magnificent promises of God regarding all that became new at our new birth, especially our new found cleansing and freedom from the power of sin in our life.

Forgetfulness in daily life has been an increasing challenge for me, usually attributed to my current stage of life (think theater discounts, junk mail from AARP, and a closer parking space at church).  I don’t like it and have not been adapting well to it.  My young wife has already increased her penchant for lists.  She is the queen of lists.  She has lists of lists.  As for me, I just keep it all in my head, a stubborn attempt to live in the past.  Whenever I forget something, Rhonda gently asks, “Where is your list?”  I tap my temple and reply, “Right in here, Baby, with all the other lists.  Right here in this steel trap brain.”  She sighs, “That’s what I was afraid of.”

I know what she is thinking but is too nice to say it.  “That steel trap has been left out in the rain a few times too often and is starting to rust.  It might also have a loose spring.”  We can laugh about our forgetfulness after failed trips to the grocery or hardware store.  But in the spiritual life, forgetfulness drains us of our spiritual power and energy.

Remembering is so important that Peter returns to this theme further down the page in verse 12.  “Therefore, I shall always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present in you.  And I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder.” (II Peter 1:12-13)

We cannot be reminded too often that “God’s divine power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness” (vs 3).  May we never forget the promises of God regarding our new birth.  May we always find our spiritual energy in the resurrection power God has bestowed upon us.  May we embrace and live into all that God has promised when He literally “created us anew.”