Intro and three aspects of salvation
1 Peter 1:1-2 · Roger Henderson · Jan 4, 2015
1 & 2 Peter (2015), No. 01
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926452226531

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Let's turn to first Peter. And actually the introduction I'll give today is just going to be first Peter. We'll probably do a second introduction down the road for a second Peter. Second Peter actually has some other different things. I decided not to try to do over you for both of them. I thought it was just too much. But I actually thought about just doing this class just the first Peter. But then the more I looked, I said, boys, There's some many things in second. Peter, why? Why not? Why miss that opportunity? So plus it is always a struggle.

This class could be two or three years long. There's handouts and notebooks back there beside this one year. It's a one year course. But even with that, even with it being one year course, I mean, there's there's verses and. three or four verses that you could spend months on. In some ways, we're going to be pushed to get through this in a year. It's going to be worth it to try to do it in a time period that you can get the big picture, plus the small picture, hopefully.

Before we read anything, let's just go ahead and talk about the Apostle Peter. There are handouts in the back and notebooks. The handouts go in the notebooks. Or you don't have to use a notebook if you don't want to. That's good, too. OK, so actually, here's the class schedule. Basically, we're going to go through it, kind of list little chunks at a time. And this is the first two months of the class. And like I said, we have four teachers. So you're going to see Bob Eccle, you're going to see Jeremy, and you're going to see Josiah. We'll all be teaching.

So you get to experience, you know, like I said, varieties and approach, but hopefully the same same message. OK. So the. So basically, I am preparing for this. I looked at a couple of helps that we use a lot. I use some of Vern's material. I use some of Chester McCullough's material. So I use those couple of folks to kind of help us out here. So. So first of all, you know, the first. Let's talk about Peter first, the Apostle Peter.

The first place you come across Peter is in Matthew 4.18. This is the first place we come across this gentleman called Peter. If you look through scripture, boy, he comes up, the more you look, he's in He just occurs so many different times in scripture. So basically, in 418, this is when Jesus calls his disciples.

So it says, now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting nets into the sea where they were fishermen. So we find out the first thing about Peter, he's a fisherman. And then I have a couple of other verses here, and we're not going to go through all these verses. The one in Mark is another account of the calling of the twelve, and it mentions Peter again.

The Luke passage talks about, actually let's just turn to that, turn over to Luke 5. And here's one of the occasions where Peter just speaks his mind, speaks his heart right out. He's not afraid to say something. Either he'll say it maybe too quickly, Or maybe, sometimes it will be right on, sometimes it will just be, maybe he spoke too soon, possibly. So in Luke 5, this is the account, the disciples are called again, and basically the Lord is speaking, if you look down in verse 4, Luke 5 verse 4 it says, And when ye had finished speaking, he said to Simon, which is Peter, Put out your net into the deep water, and let down your nets for a catch. And so basically what happens in this account, Peter just becomes overwhelmed. They get so many fish in their net, they can't even bring them to the boat. He has to call his friends. He realizes that he has an encounter with God. He says, I'm a sinful man. To get down to verse 8, he says, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. So he's just amazed. He's just overwhelmed.

So Peter was a very sensitive guy, he came to faith in the Lord early in Christ's ministry, so to speak, and just over and over again, he always spoke his mind right off the top, just amazingly so. But you see a different Peter in the epistle. And actually what's interesting, we're going to see, if you guys were to ax with us, you guys were not, a lot of you were not, but you see a maturity even in Acts. He starts off and he starts going through Acts, he realizes that the Gentiles are part of this picture and he matures. And now we're going to see the first Peter. He's come a long way. He really has. It's a maturation process. He doesn't send out that reactionary email right away.

I always think about that. Whenever I send an email I think, how can this be taken differently? Because it can be. It can be taken differently. So many times we suffer for that. I do. It brings up an interesting point there, Roger, about the personality. I mean, we all carry our own personalities, which are either wrong or right. I mean, they're personalities that we all have.

And Peter has been transformed into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think that's what you're seeing. You're seeing the same Peter, but you're seeing now the leading of the Holy Spirit. And it's such a neat contrast. No, it is. It is. And some of the things he's going to He's going to reveal and point out.

He's going to become at home with suffering. I would say in the Christian life, that's one of the areas where I think the believer struggles the most with suffering. Because we somehow think that we should be immune from suffering. But scripture says just the opposite of that. It says, don't be surprised when the fiery trial comes. Don't be surprised by that. sometimes are a surprise, and rightfully so. It's not fun to go through a trial. Jack and Winnie, there are handouts in the back, and there are some notebooks back there too.

We also see in the early church, he was a leading figure there, and the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up and gave his first sermon the day of Pentecost, and he just went through this last year. He says, but Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raise his voice and declare to them, men of Judea, all of you who live in Jerusalem, let it be known to you and give heed to my word. And he's going to go on, he's going to say, these men are not drunk, they're not intoxicated, the Holy Spirit has come, and he's going to give this his first sermon. And we're going to see that he goes on beyond that.

So this is kind of the beginning. And so let's just kind of carry on the idea of kind of tracking with Peter here. And I borrowed a couple of slides from Vern here. This is kind of bullet slides here. So Peter, and we saw this, Peter was called by Christ Cephas, Simon.

He was a fisherman by trade on the Sea of Galilee. He initially was known for his bold, if unenlightened statements and proclamations. I mean, he made, like you said, out of the top of his head, whatever came to his mind, he said. He was a prominent figure with the Twelve. It's always like Peter, James, and John, you always see those together. Great statements in his denial of the Lord. Back in the Acts class, we saw how he was one of the prominent figures in up to the first 15 chapters of Acts. He was involved in the ministry. And he continued on his ministry, but then scripture kind of refocuses to Paul. And the last part of Acts is all Paul. But Peter was there. He was the first one to speak to the Gentiles, which was a big deal.

And now he said, I shouldn't even be in your house. He said, I shouldn't even be here. It's unlawful for me to be in your house. You get a little bit uptight about that, maybe. Basically, he presented the gospel of salvation in Acts 10 there. And let's look at this passage here. I had not realized some of it. I guess I sort of realized it. You kind of read over it sometimes. He had an interaction with Paul more than I had realized.

So let's look at Galatians. Galatians chapter 1. And if you have questions along the way, you can stop me. I mean, we have a lot to cover, but we still will try to answer questions too. Can I get someone to read maybe Galatians After three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode with him 15 days.

But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. In fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus with me also. And I went up by revelation and communicated unto them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, a problem to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run or had run in vain.

But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. And that because a false brother in unawares brought in, who came in privately to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage. To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. But of these who seemed to be somewhat, whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me, God accepted no man's person. for they who seem to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me. But contrary wise when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter.

Why don't you just stop right there. So what? So actually, so we see. So right there, it talks about that. There was there was sort of a division of labor, if you will, that the Gospels of the to the circumcision was kind of Peter's focus, while Paul was the gospel gospel to the uncircumcised, the Gentiles. So I didn't really want to get too much in detail here, but that's good. Thank you. OK, so there was an interaction with Paul. OK, so now we're going to move on. We're going to shift gears here.

I kind of use Chester McCauley's There's actually three parts to the way he looked at Peter's epistle here. He basically has the setting of 1 Peter. He has the perspective of 1 Peter. I'm going to chart each one. The perspective of 1 Peter and the structure of 1 Peter. Each one will give us a different look at what's going to happen in 1 Peter. First of all, let's turn back to 1 Peter.

It was given to a group of folks that were widely scattered, and that's pretty evident if you look at the beginning statement in 1 Peter 1.1. It says, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to those who reside as aliens scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, who are chosen.

Basically, we're going to find out that's actually modern Turkey, what was called Asia Minor in ancient times. It's a big land mass. It's a huge area. So we're going to see that's kind of a contrast of some of the books that like Paul wrote is to a certain church, right? The church at Ephesus, the church at Galatia, and so on. This is going to be to a large group of folks. So it's kind of a different focus. This is to a large group of folks. We'll talk about that a little bit later. So that's one of the points of the setting. Next point is, it's to believers. They have a common faith, a common salvation. Peter is going to talk about that, how we have a common faith, a common salvation. He's going to mention that.

And they actually have some problems. We all have problems, right? They had some real serious problems. They had Nero, if you guys remember history. Nero wasn't exactly the most friendly leader in the world. He would burn Christians for amusement. That was kind of his pretty gruesome kind of stuff. And some of these points, these are Macaulay's points, and basically how to live for Christ in a society that is ignorant and hostile to him. And basically they were treated very cruelly in that time period by Nero. The believers that share a common and immediate future. And let's look at that point right there. Let's turn to 1 Peter chapter 4. So what was their common and immediate problem? So I'd like to get someone to read 1 Peter 4, 12-16.

Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you. But rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. Your reproach for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part he is blasphemed, and on your part he is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people's matters. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.

Their immediate problem here, the problem that they all shared, was the fact that there are fiery ordeals. He doesn't say that there is going to be any relief from that. It's not going to go away. It's going to be there. He's saying, how do we deal with this? How do we deal with it as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? There's going to be lots of dialogue about how we deal with suffering in the Christian life. And I think it's qualified to righteous suffering. Exactly. And that's an excellent point, Bob. He qualifies that later on.

He says you shouldn't be suffering for your sins. Not that we don't sin, Christians don't sin, but he's saying that shouldn't be what happened. You shouldn't be suffering as a murderer or a thief. I'm talking about suffering when you do what's right and you're put down for that or you suffer for that. That's a good point, Bob. Thank you. So that's number one. Number two. The previous one was the setting, and this is the perspective. What's the perspective?

He wants believers to see that suffering is temporary and not permanent. And this is a good one, because we think, is this trial? And this is to apply to us today, right now, in 2015. Is it temporary or permanent? So Peter addresses that. Let's look at 1 Peter 1 verse 6. It says, in this you greatly rejoice, even though for a little while, I didn't look up in the Greek what that meant. Actually, Bob will probably cover that or someone else will cover that. We'll find out what a little while means. We'll probably spend a lot of time looking at a little while.

If necessary, you have been distressed by various trials. I do remember that And Vern's covered this, that various trials is like, comes from the word for polka dot. There are all kinds of variety of trials. So we may have trials, small ones, big ones, large ones. We always want the small ones. I'm always looking for the small ones. This must be a joke, folks. We're all looking for the small ones.

So let's look also at chapter 5, verse 10. You will see a very similar kind of thing in the benediction here. 1 Peter 5.10 it says, After you have suffered for a little while, there is that word again, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. We are going to dig into all these passages in depth.

A little while is a short time, as suggested. Exactly. The next point is, he wants believers to see that suffering has a purpose. Boy, is this a key one. I think if we can get settled about that suffering has a purpose, that will greatly help us in going through a trial or a suffering. I'm sure that's been exemplified by many in this body. I remember Hal in particular. Absolutely, absolutely. I agree with you on that.

In verse 7 it says, and actually that was the last part of what we didn't read before, 1 Peter 1.7 says, 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. So it's talking about more precious than gold.

And somehow we don't think of our suffering as being precious. We think it was just being awful. To be truly honest with you, that's an awful thing that's happened to me. That's not where the Lord wants us, but that's where many times we find ourselves.

Could we go to 2 Corinthians 4.17? Sure. I know you've got stuff to cover. These two verses I think are just so special. Great job.

2 Corinthians 4.17 and 18. How about if you read that for us? but just for a moment, but work it for us a far more eternal and exceeding weight of glory while we look not at the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen. For those that are seen are temporal, but those that are not seen are eternal.

That's great. That's wonderful. I'm sure we're going to be connecting up with that verse quite a bit. I'll come back to that. You will too. No, that's great. That's wonderful. Well, thanks Bob. That's great. wants believers to view suffering in the light of eternal glory. I think what McCullough tried to do, he tried to connect up verses, he kind of constrained himself to 1 Peter. Let's go back to 5.4 and 10. Some of these go back to the same verses again.

Basically 5.4 says, When the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfailing crown of glory."

Kind of pointing out that through your suffering, there is going to be a reward. Besides being a purpose, there is also eternal glory and reward for this. I think that is what 4 is talking about. Then verse 10, after you have suffered for a little while, God of all grace, we have read this previously.

OK, so that's a perspective. And now the structure of 1 Peter. And I found this probably the most, what Macaulay did here, this was the most enlightening part. I don't know what you guys have picked up. If you listen to quote pastors, they like to have words that start with the same letter. And it helps you to, there's a term for that. The starting of each idea was with the same letter. There's a there's a term for that. Anyway, an acronym. Well, not an acronym. Well, alliteration. OK, so we're going to find out his structure.

He has believers have a common salvation. That's basically versus. 1.1 through 2.12. So that's that section, Common Salvation. And under that, the key word there is Salvation. And Salvation shows up, go back to chapter 1. Salvation shows up in the verses he has listed there. In verse 5, it talks about, you are protected by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. After the salvation the prophets who prophesied of the grace would come to make you careful search and inquiry. And then in 2.2 it says like newborn babes long for the pure milk of the word by which you grow in respect to salvation. So the concept of salvation is going to show up in that section of 1 Peter over and over again.

The next common idea is common duty. And the key word here is submission. And so that's going to occur in 2.13 through 3.12. And by submission, at first you think, well what does that mean? So let's look at 2.13. And it says, submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king, as to one in authority. And then actually in 18, it says, servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but to those who are unreasonable. And then it gets into family matters here. three, one, in the same way you wives be submissive to your husbands, your own husbands, so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives. So there's a whole section on submission. So we see the S words here, salvation, submission, and then we're going to have suffering. Salvation, submission, suffering, common experience, all believers, bar none, Actually, it's interesting.

I had the pleasure, this goes back to when Hal was teaching his class on trials and suffering. And one of the classes there, I taught for Hal. So Bob taught for Hal a couple of times in that class. If you go back, I'm testing your memory here. In that class, actually somebody raised their hand and said, you know, I've never had any suffering. And I said, what about me? And he asked me that question. Well, I've never had any suffering. And I actually didn't know what to answer. I said, well, okay, I guess I'm happy for you. So it was interesting. Well, I've never had any suffering.

And I think his wife or somebody kind of poked him. It may just be a guy thing. The thing is that people are different. It may be that some people, take in just the trials of life and somehow they're not ruffled by him as much. I don't know. But anyway, he claimed he had no suffering. I found that amazing. In a sense, we suffer day in and day out because of the flesh we carry with us. Exactly. Maybe it's modest compared to physical suffering or loss of a loved one. Some people think that just being here on this earth is suffering. But that's citizenship, right? Well, sure.

To see what is going on in the world and to just be We still get the paper, which is in itself a downer. You open it up and start reading There's not too much good news in that paper. There really is not. I turned to the sports section because I find it's a refuge. Even there it's not even a refuge.

Depends on who you're cheering for. Exactly. If your team's winning, then it's wonderful. If your team's losing, not so good. But, you know, there's not a lot of good news. And you suffer with that. Look what's happening to our country, our families, and it just goes on and on and on. When you are in another country, you see these horrible things that are happening and you just feel helpless. And that's suffering right there, that your heart is just breaking for those things that are happening.

So we were just in New York for a week with Kim and Jim. And when I went to the gym each morning, Channel One, New York Channel One was what was on the tube. And for a half hour I'd get repeated news, but it was 90%. New York had just had that murder of the two policemen. There was a lot of that. A lot of suffering in a big city. Exactly, exactly.

Okay, so this kind of ends the overview of 1 Peter, so now we are going to jump into the first two verses. So turn back to chapter one, so now it starts off with Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. So my first question is, so what's an apostle? What are the requirements for an apostle? Tell me something about He had to meet him, right? You couldn't be an apostle because you met him by face, but you haven't met him personally, right?

Anything else? They have to be chosen by the Lord. What I was thinking about here was the fact that in the early church, and we kind of learned this in Acts, in the early church the apostles were men, because we didn't have the scripture complete, they were God's spokesmen.

And there's a verse that I wanted you to look at. When they spoke, it's not like I can say, on the authority of God's word, you must be born again. And you say, okay Roger, that's good. You've pointed me to a verse in scripture. and I trust the veracity of the word of God, and that's a good verse. But you wouldn't, if I said something else, and you say, no, you're not following scripture, you're off base.

Well, the apostles, when they spoke, they spoke scripture. They spoke God's word. Their authority was a lot more powerful. It's demonstrated in 1 Corinthians 14. 1 Corinthians 14. I Corinthians 14 and let's look at someone read verse 37 first Corinthians 37 first Corinthians 1437 If anyone thinks that he is a prophet or a spiritual person, he should recognize that what I am writing to you is a commandment of the Lord. Right. So what Paul is saying here is, when I write something down, this is pretty powerful, I can't say that.

If I write something down, he says when I write it down, that's the commandment or that's God's word. So the apostles in their day, they spoke directly from God. That's one of the characteristics of an apostle. So when we see Peter interacting with people in Acts, especially Acts, he was speaking God's word to those people. So when we see him writing here in his epistle, this is God's word.

It's an affirmation of who he is. Secondly, I think another aspect of the apostle, they have the responsibility for laying the foundation for the early church. Once we go back to Acts again, we see that they were responsible for the formation of the church.

So those are the two things that occurred to me. Another thing is, and you guys probably know this too, in scripture, letter writing in their time versus letter writing in our time, we say to Bob Eccles from Roger Henderson, well they did it the reverse. They state who they are first, and then they say who it's to. It's kind of flipped around. So it's Peter.

He tells who he is to those who reside as aliens. So this is my audience of the aliens. And in this case, aliens has a couple of ideas here. If we go back to the idea of this large Asia Minor, there's all these provinces. They were Roman provinces. There were exiles. They call them the dispersion. Dyspora, I think is a word. and the Greek, they were Jewish believers that were scattered through Asia Minor.

But in another sense, we're aliens too. So this has a double meaning. For us as here, we're aliens in this world. We have a heavenly citizenship, so we're aliens. So we can look at these things that Peter is going to tell us, and they apply to us as being aliens as well. Actually in scripture you see some synonyms. Pilgrims is a synonym. Sojourners. You're only there temporarily.

That probably helps us to think about that. Even though we have suffering here, we get pretty comfortable. We think, well this is my house. Maybe you've got the deed, you've paid money for it, you're paying for it, it's my house, it's my this, it's my that. But the Lord wants us to have a less tightly gripped feeling about that. He wants us to say, this is something that the Lord has allowed me to have. He's given me the money and the abilities and the talents to have these possessions and I'm going to use them for his glory and his work.

The idea of aliens helps us that we're sojournery. We're only temporarily here. We have a heavenly citizenship. It's interesting to look at Thayer's commentary here. He really indicates that it does mean foreigners from our heavenly citizenship. That's good. Thayer is questionably a believer, right? Most people, I may not actually be hitting it as hard, Ashley McCauley was very much the same way.

The focus here is that We know that we have a heavenly citizenship and we know our position in Christ. We're seated with Christ in the heavenly. That's our home. That's how we're going to view our situation here on earth. So we are aliens. But we get kind of comfortable.

In a sense, Roger, that sets the stage for the book to follow in terms of sufferings, right? If our citizenship is not here, the sufferings then should become relatively pale. They never go away, but it really makes us see that the purpose of the sufferings is for a higher glory to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Along that line, I remember, I go back to Hal a lot. Hal, I remember talking with him one time, he talked about, he said, think about this, you are seated with Christ in heavenly places, So as you go through a trial, he says, go to your position in Christ in the heavenlies.

Go there. He would say, go there and look at your situation. This is a mental game, a mental exercise. Go there and look at your situation being in the heavenly seat of Christ. View your situation from that. How does it look there? It's going to look different because you're secure in your heavenly position. Okay, this hasn't gone right, that hasn't gone right. Well okay, my home is still secure. Just like you might be in your earthling home.

I remember when my kids were small. When your kids are young, if they're all at home, they're all tucked in bed, things are good. I can go to sleep, I can rest. But when they get older, and they're all out of the house, and they're adults, and who knows what's happening to them. You don't rest quite as easy. Maybe that's just the nature of growing in the Lord.

I'm sure Jack and Woody can attest to that, and the rest of you guys too. When they're gone out of the house, you think, well this can happen, that can happen, and it does sometimes. You get phone calls, oh no, what's happened? So they're scattered through Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia. I have a picture in a minute.

Asia and Bithynia. Okay, let's look at the picture. So here's all these Roman provinces, Asia, Galatia, Bithynia. There's actually more on this map than there are in the scripture here. I thought this is one of the better maps. So this is really, this is Turkey. I don't have the, I mean, I just have an overlay of what Turkey is. There are certain places in Turkey, but this is all what's called Asia Minor.

So let's just go back here for a second. So actually, I kind of alluded to this already. What kind of letter or epistle is this? So this is what's called a general epistle, because it's to a group of people, a wide group of people, rather than a specific. What's the other terms? General versus. There's like the prison epistles. People categorize the epistles in the New Testament as general epistles, which typically are James is a general epistle. 1st John, then we have Ephesians, Colossians, those books are more to a church. They are classified differently. Just sort of a little background there. What did you say it was? What kind of epistle? It's called a general epistle. The reason it looks kind of strange, I have one C and then two.

Don't trust verse divisions. Look at the context, look at the sentence, read past it. This kind of splits it between chosen and according to. And boy, the thought here is, it says all you aliens who are scattered through those five provinces, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God. That's a complete thought there. That's a thought you want to grab onto. They are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God.

And then 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. So don't let the verse divisions catch you there. Read the whole context. So what we're going to see here, this passage is going to show us the work of the Trinity in salvation.

Because we're going to see God the Father, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ. They're all involved in the salvation of men. And when I say men, that's mankind, both men and women. So we have basically, some have said, the way to look at this is God the Father is the initiator. God the Holy Spirit is the sanctifier, based upon this verse. and God the Son is a provider. He provided his very life, his very blood on the cross. So, initiator, sanctifier, and provider in this verse. So, any thoughts? It's one of the verses that has all three persons of the Godhead. Exactly, exactly. Okay, so now, in the meantime here, we're going to just kind of go over, kind of jump in here.

Okay, who are chosen? Literally, it's the chosen out ones. So, I don't have to convince you guys here, you're well taught at Holly Hills, everyone is chosen, right? Every believer, everyone who places faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ is chosen.

Now, what you're going to say is, well, wait a minute. And this is the struggle we have. Scripture says every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is chosen. I have a slide just speaking to that. It's basically the riches of God's grace. It shows What's a believer's resume? If you go for a job interview, somebody says, well, what's your experience? What's your training? What's your this? Well, as a Christian, you can say, on the authority of God's word, I am chosen.

If I didn't do that, that's an act of God. Once you believe the word Jesus Christ, you are then chosen. So it hurts your head a little bit, because what you're going to say is, well, then Sam, Sally and Tom over here, they weren't chosen. Scripture never talks about that. That's where you have to be very careful.

We accept that Scripture says we're chosen. We accept that God says that we must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Once we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we're called chosen. We're called elect. We're called heavenly citizens. We're called all these spiritual resumes. That's really important. There are plenty of places where it says the Lord wants everyone to believe. So we have to take both those truths and put them side by side.

We dare not say how does that work out God? I don't see how it works out in my mind. I can't figure that out. How I can be chosen is I have to accept you by faith. But we don't know that Sam or Judy or whatever in their lifetime made believe. And we don't know that the seed we planted because we believed then assisted them in their belief.

Those are things the Lord only knows. And the truth of the word is that he's died and been crucified for all sins, for all men, for all times. Therefore, chosen must depend on our accepting faith, doesn't it? The carpet of grace is there for the entire millennium past. Scripture never talks about, it doesn't say certain people are not chosen.

It doesn't speak in that language. It says God has a, like with Judas, there are certain people that God, that was his plan. It's hard to kind of swallow that. It talks about certain predestined. The acts of Pharaoh and of Judas were in fact acts that were allowed by God to accomplish a purpose. Judas still could have potentially been saved. It seems that way. As far as we know, he wasn't, right? That's true. Doubtfully.

What's cool about this passage here, it's going to link, and that's just what we talked about, it's going to link chosen or elect and it's going to say, according to the foreknowledge of God. It's going to let two terms that we struggle with, predestination and foreknowledge, all those ones, oh my goodness, my head gets all, I get hurt by that. Because this preposition here, kata, it's a preposition that introduces a norm or a standard. So basically what it's saying is, therefore the standard by which God chose us, is according to his foreknowledge. You say this doesn't really help me a whole lot because you've added another big concept to foreknowledge and you're going to struggle with that big concept too.

That God knows things. I'm going to read three statements here I thought were helpful. This is from Macaulay. Three statements about foreknowledge. What we find here, it says, who chose us according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. So this is an action of God the Father. He's operating. He's choosing men and women according to his foreknowledge. So here's three statements about that. Scripture never uses what God knows. I'm sorry. Scripture never talks about what God knows we will do.

He always talks about what he does. So what Macaulay is saying here is, God talks about his action. chosen from the foundation of the world. Pharaoh. I harden Pharaoh's heart. He talks about his actions. He doesn't talk about I know. His foreknowledge doesn't focus upon our actions. It focuses upon his actions. That's really important. God talks about himself and what he says he's going to do. I purpose to do this. That's point one. Point two. God doesn't talk about what he knows. It's about who he knows.

Think about this. He says I knew you from the foundation of the world. Psalm 139. I knew you in your mother's womb. He talks about knowing people and a person. It's so personalized. I know that this country is going to come here. God knows that. He talks about, in terms of man, salvation. He knows us personally. He understands us. He has a loving relationship with us. I think that's a help there too. The third one is, It's basically this loving selection.

Let's look at 2 Timothy 2.19. Actually, it's down here in these verses.

2 Timothy 2.19. If someone has that, could they just read that for me, please?

Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this sealed. The Lord knows those who are His, and let everyone who names the name of the Lord abstain from wickedness. What I want to, it was right there in the center of what you read. The Lord knows those who are his. He says, I knew you in your mother's womb. It's just such an intimacy that it's just so incredible. The God of the universe knows us. He knows his his loved ones, his beloved, it says in 1 John.

That makes the idea of election and choosing different. It's at a personal level. Your mind just goes crazy after a while. pointed out in one of his messages that the Lord's time and space is totally different than ours. And I love it where he would hold up a pen and he would say, this is our beginning and our end.

This is our space. The Lord looks at the whole picture at one time, however that happens. And so the Lord does know. He knows this whole thing from the beginning to millennium where we don't have that. It's so hard for our brain to understand that. I agree. I think that helps.

We're wrestling here in this chosen according to his foreknowledge with these concepts that for an infinite God it makes total sense. For us we say boy it's just so hard to get our hands around it. But I think this verse uniquely shows us a connection between is choosing and foreknowledge.

In Romans 8.29 there is a connection between foreknowledge and predestination. This chart is just for some of you folks. Here is part of our spiritual resume.

We actually had a class on this. We did a whole year, maybe half a year, on basically the riches of God's grace. All these things are true about every single believer. Every single believer is in the eternal plan of God according to his core knowledge, his predestination, his election, chosen. Actually we have elect and chosen kind of separate concepts.

We combine them sometimes. Redeemed, reconciled, and so on. So this is part of our spiritual resume. So I just put it in there just for kind of some background. Okay, so let's try to finish here. God the Father is the initiator. God the Spirit is the sanctifier. So what does sanctify mean? It's one of these words that at Hollyoaks you have to, it's like a responsive reading. Sanctify means? Sanctify. Alright, good. Sorry. The Holy Spirit. So let's just cut to the quick here.

So is this sanctifying work? Sanctification is a whole study unto itself. So what do you think sanctification in this context, in this verse, what is sanctification talking about? Is it talking about before salvation or after salvation? After. The after salvation. You think after? I was going to go on the other side of that.

Since we're looking at salvation, And where I'm heading here is that we look at the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. So he's in the ministry of convicting or convincing us that we have a problem. That we have not believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. So I guess I kind of come out on the side that this is the sanctifying work of the Spirit is to show us and convince us that we need a Savior.

Now there's another ministry of the Holy Spirit in terms of the Christian life, the sanctifying work, and I see that a little bit differently. I don't think an unbeliever could be sanctified. It could be the work that is in process, but you're not sanctified until you're saved. We'll go back to what sanctify means, to be set apart. He's showing us that we need We need to be set apart in a sense. He's convincing us of our need to be saved in a sense. That's how I'm taking set apart. on believers related to believers in a sense are sanctified. That's true. So actually, let's read this. I didn't read the parallel. Let's read this parallel verse here. Just see if this will help. Second Timothy. Second Thessalonians. If someone gets here before I do, go ahead. Second Thess. 2.13.

God for you brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. So that helped me to see that the setting apart work is a process in salvation. But it says in faith in the truth. connected thought can't be sanctified unless you have the faith. Well, and that's and that's part of that's part of the idea of being set apart. for obedience and I guess obedience could be the faith of getting saved because it relates to the sprinkling of the blood.

Actually I want to get to the last part here before we run out of time. So hold that thought on this and we'll just keep going here. And actually that's a verse that talks about the work of the Holy Spirit. So let's look at this part. This is another kind of talk.

To obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood. So what does it mean to obey Jesus Christ? What's key here about It's really important to understand what's the definition of obey in scripture. It's a compound word. It's to hear under. So if we say to hear under Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood, isn't this talking about hearing the good news, hearing the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, listening under, Don't get too hung up on obey. Obey is to listen under and have the blood of the cross applied to you.

So I think that's what's being said here. And if you look at some of these passages here. So therefore you respond to the gospel, obey Jesus Christ by faith, and the work of the cross is applied to you. That to me fit really well with what that verse says. And the Holy Spirit is sanctifying work. He is convincing us that we need to listen under to the message of the gospel.

And the passage in Hebrews 12.24 says, to be sprinkled with blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. So sprinkling with blood is the idea of applying the blood to a thing for a purpose. And so if you think about The blood of Jesus Christ on the cross was effective for the payment of our sins. So I think it fits well with that.

And the last part of that is kind of the greeting, may grace and peace. We find that grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure. And that's an introduction to many of the epistles in the New Testament. Grace and peace be multiplied to you. Grace and peace be yours. If you look through those passages, you'll see that. OK. that was challenging.

Any other thoughts before we call it quits here? Bob's going to continue on with this next two or three verses we're going to cover. It's going to be about salvation. The first part, remember, the way the book is divided, we have salvation, submission, and suffering. We're going to spend the first maybe a couple months here on salvation. So we're going to come back to this, where we visit this salvation again, look at it a little bit differently, through the other verses.

Great. Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior. We thank you for what you've accomplished on the cross. We thank you just for the ministry of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in bringing us to the truth of your word. In Christ's name, Amen.