May 12, 2024 | Immersed In God

This morning. We're going to be continuing in First Peter chapter one.

First Peter chapter one. There's a phrase here at the end of verse two which sounds good. It's a good phrase. It may feel fill us, especially if you're a believer who has known Christ for a long time. It may fill you with warm good feelings, but it may not have the depth that it needs to have for you.

And that phrase is this may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

What does that mean? I imagine that many of us would say that's a good thing. I want God's grace and peace, but maybe sometimes it stops at the level of fuzzy, warm feelings and doesn't have more content than that. Maybe the same thing's true when we sing songs like we just did, and you hear a phrase like it is done, it is finished.

And it's easy for our hearts, especially when we've heard over and over and over these truths. To maybe hear the good feeling that comes with it and not really think about the depth of that statement. Or maybe you haven't heard that statement. Maybe you've never heard that statement before and you say, that sounds good. There's great sounding words in there, but how does that impact me?

We all need grace and peace to be multiplied to us. And here on Mother's Day, maybe mothers need it. Even more than some of the rest of us. And I was thinking about this morning and having no idea really who would be here this morning. I thought, you know, maybe the mothers who need grace and peace multiplied to them the most would be the mothers who wouldn't be here this morning.

Because they may be sitting home with a sick kid. Or who knows what of whatever other reasons would happen. And so this morning, we're starting with the end. The phrase May grace and peace be multiplied to you. And then we're going to back up and see what Peter said right before that, which he intends to deepen their understanding, to give them a better foundation and a better experience of what this phrase is supposed to mean for them.

So I'm going to read. I'll read beginning at the beginning of the book, and we'll read two verses. Peter says, I'm Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ, and for sprinkling with his blood.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you. There's two big notes I want to make before we dive into what will be the the main glimpse of glory from this text that we want to spend our time on this morning. Two big notes first. Notice what Peter includes at the beginning of his letter. Now, I know letters are maybe an old thing, but if you were writing a letter or an email or whatever text, whatever you want to say, think of and you write a letter.

We typically say something like, dear whoever you're writing to, dear so-and-so, maybe you start with, I hope you're doing well. Or maybe it's dear so-and-so. So how are you? You know, we have certain ways of starting a letter. They had that two things like may grace and peace be multiplied to you were a version of their way of greeting you.

How are you doing? Notice before he gets there, though, in a place that may feel out of place to us. So he's writing. That's all this was, was a letter to churches spread across what we think of now Asia minor. He writes this letter and before he even says, how are you doing? Before he even says, hey, I hope everything's going well.

And we can talk about the other things he does throughout the rest of the book before he gives any warnings or commands or promises or any of that. He dives right off the deep end into theological categories before may grace and peace be multiplied to you. He's already said, you're not just dear friends. Dear church members, dear brothers and sisters, you're not just all that he calls them elect exiles.

He uses a name there that that's meaningful. It's not just. Hi, how are you? And then he goes straight. You look at verse two, he starts talking about the Trinity. There's the father, the spirit, the son, all listed. And then you're like, Peter, didn't you forget to like, start into this letter? Like, give them a second to catch their breath.

But that's not what Peter's doing. And he's not doing that for a reason. Not only that, he talks about foreknowledge. These are all theological terms. And you can say, I don't know what those are. That's okay. We'll come back to it. Foreknowledge. Sanctification. Obedience. Cleansing. All before. Hi, how are you? Like Peter, did you get this out of order?

Somewhere in there. Sometimes we might act like deep. We could call them theological truths, but we could just say deep thoughts about God. Sometimes we act like those are like a helpful add on for super Christians. But that's not the way the scripture writers treat these statements. Peter doesn't look at it and go, well, you really just need to know God's grace is going to be for you loved ones, people.

Okay, good. And now, if you want to learn more stuff, I'll tell you other things. Now before he even gets to that. He uses deep thoughts about God that were precious and important enough to him that before greeting them, he talks about these things. Now notice the way he talks about them though Peter doesn't start a lot of arguments here right?

You say he starts talking about the Trinity, but he doesn't tell you everything there is to know about the Trinity. He uses words like foreknowledge and sanctification, and he doesn't tell you everything there is to know about those. So what we're not saying Peter doesn't start this off by going, I'm going to give you every idea I can think of about God.

And if you make it through all that, then I'm going to tell you some other stuff. That's not how he does it either. But he starts, he says these truths. I would say it this way theological truths in Scripture are used to deepen and ground war. Fuzzy religious feelings. So somebody who knows nothing about what Peter is going to write can hear.

May God's grace and peace be multiplied to you. Yeah, that sounds good. I like that that feels good. There's a warm feeling there that's good. And and I would hope somebody would say, I want more of that. I don't know what it means, but I'd like to know more. But what Peter does here, and he's going to do it over and over and over through the book and really through every other book in Scripture, because God gave us a book that's this big is these thoughts about God.

These truths about him are intended to take that warm feeling, grace and peace. Well, good. What's that? And to give it depth?

In maybe the same way, similar illustration to the fact that a young couple who's about to get married, they love one another, and maybe they built a real deep relationship, and it's wonderful. The depth of that relationship is not the same thing as the depth of my grandparents, who will be married 75 years this summer.

That relationship has just deepened and deepened and deepened and deepened. They started with warm, fuzzy, wonderful feelings, and they still have some warm, fuzzy, wonderful feelings. But there is now a foundation and a depth to those feelings that is very different. And if all they had done for 75 years was sit at dates and stare at each other, that probably wouldn't have deepened that relationship the same way, same way.

We have some statements that are wonderful, good. They give us wonderful, warm feelings, and we need the truths about God that God has given us to deepen that and to give it foundation. That's why Peter starts with this before he tells him, before he greets them, he wants them to know that there's a second big picture introductory thought.

So that's one second thought. There's an important grammatical idea here that we'll need to understand for the rest of this to make sense in verse one, where he says to those who are elect exiles, there's two different ideas, two different labels put on these people their loved, their chosen and their sojourners in this world, they're strangers traveling somewhere else.

They're different from the world around them. There's two different pieces about that. If you look at the Greek grammar here, those are the same part of speech. So elect and exiles are actually the same, and they're put right next to each other at the beginning of the verse. Literally, if you were to translate, it would be from Greek to English.

You could say, verse one goes, Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ, to the chosen and exiled ones. So you say, why is he making a big deal about this point of grammar? Okay, here's the reason. Because some translations and some theological positions that you can find out there about these verses, they, in an attempt to explain it, they move around those words and they change the way that it set up.

And it obscures what I believe is the meaning of this text. So here's the point. The way it's structured is to say you're loved as God's children and you're living as exiles. That's two things about your identity as a believer in Jesus Christ your elect exiles, chosen strangers, whichever words you want to put there, there's two ideas here, and every phrase in verse two that we're going to spend our time really talking about applies to both of those ideas.

So when you say in a minute, we're going to say God has perfect knowledge, that means that God knows you as his as a believer. It also means it does not surprise God that you're exiled. See, his foreknowledge is going to apply to both. If we were to say, for example, for obedience to Jesus Christ, that one's pretty easy for us to understand.

You say you're chosen as God's people. Why? What's the purpose for obedience? That's a purpose. But you can also say, because of the grammar, the point I'm bringing out here is both of those things. This phrase applies to it. You can also say you are exiles in this world. Why? For what purpose? For obedience to Jesus Christ. So both elements of elect and exiles, they every phrase in verse two is going to refer to those both of those identities.

So then let's dive into verse two. Here's what Peter wants you to do. He wants to I'm going to use a phrase that gives you warm fuzzy feelings, hopefully. And then I'm hopefully going to deepen it. He wants to surround you in God. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, he wants you to know that you are already immersed in God.

And I'm going to show you how I think he does that. He starts with this phrase according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. The very least foreknowledge can mean we can take it apart and say he knows ahead of time. He knows before, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. How does Peter use this word? If you look down at verse 20, you'll see him use this word again.

And here he says, Jesus, that's what he is. There he was four known before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you. In other words, the eternal Son was perfectly known. It wasn't like God the Father sits here and goes, oh, I need somebody to die for people's sins.

Who am I going to find? Oh, Jesus. I guess maybe he could do it. He was perfectly known it was no accident before he came into this world. It was not a fallback plan. One of the things God's perfect knowledge means that I was thinking just. I stopped and meditated on this for a little while. You know, the experience of not knowing something and then coming to know it.

And there's this, like there's unknown. Maybe it brings fear, maybe it brings excitement. But whatever it is, you don't know the future and then you come to know it and that changes you. God's never experienced that because he always knows. He's never been thought this was going to happen this way and then been disappointed because he knew.

His perfect knowledge of you and I means that when we look at and say God has chosen us and we are strangers in this world, none of that is an accident. None of it happened because God didn't know what was going to happen. None of it's a backup plan, because God's first plan didn't really work out, and he had to figure something else out.

Now, I want to briefly say this. Some of you are well aware there's a theological debate all around. What I'm saying, and maybe your reflex here is to go, okay, but how does foreknowledge fit with my choice in all of those things? If that's your reflex, here's what I would suggest. I want to encourage you to push back of that reflex for looking at this passage, because Peter doesn't talk about it.

And I would say this about our theological discussions. If your thoughts about God make you a better fighter or debater, but don't make you a better worshiper. Your thoughts about God are not working the way they should.

Or I could say theology and say, if your theology makes you a better debater or fighter but doesn't make you love and worship God more, there's a problem.

And I know worship is his goal. Because look at verse three blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. His next response is just to pour out worship. So when you look here and you say, as far back as I can imagine, if you're a believer in Jesus, or if you ever become a believer in Jesus, then as far back as you can imagine, God knew everything about you, every sin, every good thing.

He knew everything about you and by his great grace, not because you were so wise or you were so smart, or you were so strong, or you were so great in any way you want to look at it. By his grace, he loved you. And you can put your name here. If you're a believer in Jesus, you put your name and say, Jed, I loved you.

Peter could say, Jesus loved me, knowing everything about me. According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, he loves his people. He knows it perfectly. And according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, his people are exiles in this world. You might sit here and think, I want to be God's child, but I'd really like to not be a stranger in this world.

Like God couldn't have done this a little better. No, according to God's perfect knowledge, this is the way he calls his people. As both children and exiles, you can say God's people are fully known and never forgotten. Isn't that comforting? Say God put your name as a believer in Christ. Put your name right there and say, God knows everything about me and the sin that I'm committed.

Yesterday didn't surprise him and make him wonder if his purposes were right.

God's people are fully known and never forgotten. Next phrases in the sanctification of the spirit. That's a big theological word. And really we could say in the the holy making work, sanctification comes from a word that meant holy, and it was the work that brought it about. So in the holy making work we say, what's holiness? What means there's no impurity, there's all righteousness.

You if you wanted to really put it, I think in the best small definition, you'd say to be holy is to love and pursue what you should love and pursue what's right, what's good, and to hate and shun what you should hate and shun because it's evil. Both sides to treasure the right things and to hate the wrong things.

It's holiness. God is at work too. He has worked within his people so that his children are chosen in the sanctification. They are going to be made holy because of the Holy Spirit. He's also made us exiles. How? Well, by making us holy. Have you ever been around someone who's not a believer in Jesus, who really loved something that really disgusted you?

Just that fact alone means you're different from them, right? Or maybe they really hated something that you really loved. When God works within us so that we love what we should love and hate what we should hate, we are different from the world that does not acknowledge him already. Just because of that. In the holy making work of the spirit, sometimes people will say something like, you don't have to be weird to be a Christian.

That's not really true.

You don't have to be weird in the way that some people think. You might have to be weird, but if you're a follower of Jesus, you are different from someone who is not a follower of Jesus. And you will be weird in some ways.

Because what's true is that we are children who are exiles, traveling to our home. Both of those are true. And how is that happened in the holy making work of the spirit?

Goes on, he says, for obedience to Jesus Christ. Why did God love you? I don't mean what was the basis for his love. That's a separate question. I mean, what was the purpose for his love? Why did he love you? You're not loved for these reasons. You're not loved by God. In order for you to boast in yourself.

That's not why he loved you. You're not God's chosen child so that you can run your own life. That's not why he loved you.

You're not chosen so that you can obey your hearts, or your feelings, or your own wisdom, or anything else about you. Peter wants them to know again. Remember before saying, hi, how are you? Like, come on, Peter, ease me into this Peter like, no, this is where we start because he wants them to realize their life is not about them.

They, as believers, are immersed in God. Everything, all of life is all about God. And so Peter says, you were loved for obedience to Jesus Christ, and you're also exiled so that you will obey Jesus Christ so that the world can see your obedience, so that they'll see your love and know you're a follower of Jesus. And the last phrase, therefore sprinkling with his blood.

It's interesting. There's only three times in the Old Testament where people are sprinkled with blood. There's a ton of times where the, the altar sprinkled with blood or the utensils are sprinkled, but there's a lot of things that are sprinkled of blood. There's three times in the Old Testament where people are sprinkled with blood, and all three makes sense.

Here's one. Exodus 24 seven and eight is the the covenant initiation ceremony, where sacrifices are made. Moses says, you have to follow God. The people say, yes, we will obey. They promise obedience, and then they are sprinkled with blood as a sign that they are initiated into that covenant with God.

We sing songs kind of like this, by the way. We don't always think about it, but like, are you washed in the blood? Are you sprinkled with blood? Are you in the the new covenant that God has given through Jesus Christ? That's one. There's another one in Exodus 29 here it's ordination as priests. When the priests are established, you're going to be a priest.

They sprinkle them with blood. Peter is going to go on and say in chapter two that we are all as believers. We are priests. We can go before God. We can point others to his truth. We can communicate about that. We can pray for others. We're priests. There's a third one in Leviticus 14. If you were a leper and you were outcast, and you say, I don't know, maybe this will go away.

Maybe it's not really leprosy, maybe it's something else. You're outcast when you are restored to the community, you're sprinkled with blood.

God made you. If you're a believer in Jesus, he made you his. He chose you so that you would be part of his new covenant to know him and love him forever, so that you would be priests to one another, and so that you can, as outcasts, be brought back in and restored over and over and over.

But every one of those things also makes you an exile in this world, a stranger in this world. Because if you come and say, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness, somebody who doesn't love Jesus goes, what are you talking about? You're weird. You're stranger. If you say, my hope is in the new covenant, that all my sins are forgiven and I have a new heart, and I know God and can be with him forever.

What planet are you from?

If you say, this book tells me what God has said, and I'd like to share it with you. Who are you? You're not a priest. Yes, you are.

If you come and say I sin, but I have continue. I have cleansing offered to restore me over and over and over. And somebody says no, you did wrong to me. I'm going to hold that against you forever. You're strange. You're weird. That's a really good thing.

When Peter goes through these things, I think what he's doing is he's saying, I'm about to tell you. May grace and peace be multiplied to you. But I know you're not going to know all that. That means. And even after this, this verse, you're not going to know all that that means. But he wants that to be deeper for them.

So what he does is he gives them theological truths to deepen and ground their warm, fuzzy religious feelings that could come with May grace and peace be multiplied to you. And so he wants you to know when I say, May grace and peace come to you. I mean the God who knows absolutely everything about you and has specially set his love on you.

May his grace, his help come to you. The God who knows everything about you. May the well-being that he can give you, the peace that he gives, may that be yours according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. He means God has promised that His Spirit will be working to help you, to love what you should love, and hate what you should hate to make you holy.

He says, when I say grace, I mean the kind of grace that makes you holy, not the kind of grace that lets you do whatever you want and think you get away with it. When I say peace, I mean the kind of peace that comes from having a perfectly pure conscience because it's been cleansed by Jesus blood.

When I say grace and peace, I don't mean grace and peace so that you don't have to obey. I mean, so that you can obey. So it deepens our understanding of what it means to be loved as children, but it also deepens our understanding of what it means to be strangers or exiles, he says. When the world says you're not part of us, you're different.

When the world shuns you, he says, you're God. According to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Your God knew every piece of that and every bit of hurt it would bring to you, and every bit of challenge you would face.

And yet, his grace and peace are going to be multiplied to you in every one of those situations.

He wants them to see we're strangers for these reasons, and the God who knows everything promises to transform you command your obedience. That's the God who gives grace and peace multiplied to you. Theological truths take. This could be a warm, fuzzy statement and just anchor it all the way back in eternity past in God. We could say I use the phrase Surrounded by God, we're immersed in God.

Think about three different ways Peter does this. He says, look back as far as you can look back. Then God knew it all. Look at what's going on right now. God's a work to transform you, and he's helping you to obey and follow him. Look at what's going to happen in the future. The God who's begun this good work will complete it so we can say past, present, future.

He sticks you right in the middle of God in all of that. But not only that, we could go into the entire being of God in the father, in the spirit, in the son. And what he does is he he points you to that, and he doesn't invite you to just think through and go, okay, what are all the answers?

So I can check the box off of my Trinity quiz. He doesn't do that. What he does, though is he says your entire salvation is wrapped up, not in a distant God out there who you might know or you might not. He says, look, you're right smack in the middle. Look over there. There's God the Father. He knows.

Look over there. There's the son. He died for you. Look there. There's the spirit. He puts you right in the middle of God and says, look at all of that, and invites you to marvel at it.

Not to figure out every piece that you might struggle with. He wants you to be immersed there. And there's another way. He does it because he has three phrases here and they point to different things. He looks at you and says, the basis of your salvation. And these really, these would come from the words used to introduce the clause.

They're different according to, in and for. So the basis according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. If you want a root to hold on, it's God knows absolutely everything. And he loved me.

The means in the sanctifying work of the spirit and the purpose, if you know the basis for something, the way it comes about and the reason you know a whole lot about it. You could say you're surrounded by it.

In one verse, before his real greeting, Peter wants him to rest on these truths and say, look, your whole existence, your salvation is surrounded past, present, future, father, son, spirit, the basis, the means, the purpose. You're right smack in the middle of an amazing God who loves you and has called you. And that means you're strangers right now.

But you're looking forward to home. So may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

I haven't made a big deal about this word, but I just want to say it real quick. I love the word multiplied in that statement. Not may grace and peace be given you where you don't have any. Not may grace and peace be just added on to what you already have. Not even just adding it all, we're going to multiply it.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

This morning, as we think about this in our lives, as I thought about Mother's Day, although you could apply it to all parents or grandparents. What does it mean to parent in a way that you know your life is surrounded by or immersed in God? What does it mean to look at? May grace and peace be multiplied to you, and have that mean a whole lot more than somebody showing you a T-shirt that says, you got this.

That's not what may grace and peace be multiplied means, but it might give you similar warm, fuzzy feeling. If you don't really realize what he's saying. He's saying something way more than that. He's saying for you and your individual life moms with your kids, whether they're this tall or that tall for you in your individual life, God knew everything that you would need, and they would need, and he loved you.

And he loves them. Rest in the knowledge of God. How on earth is he going to work that in me? I'm just trying to survive. Rest in the holy making work of the spirit who will help you to love what you should love and hate what you should hate, and help you to teach them to do the same?

And you think, I can't do that? I'm not big enough to do that. I keep messing it up. He didn't say, rest in your sanctifying work, even for them. Rest in the work of the spirit for you and them.

You say, what's the point of my life? Maybe some days feel mundane and challenging and you say, I just don't even know what the point is right now. What? The very least, it's for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling with his blood. I've got a foundation to go back to. I'm going to love him. I'm going to serve him.

Moms, fathers, children's workers, VBS workers coming up soon. Those kids need to know not that life is all about them, but that life is all about God. That past, present, future. That everything about their identity is wrapped up. Here's my God and here's how wonderful he is. Let them see you worship in that.

If they're believers in Jesus, they will grow up to be sojourners and exiles in this world, just like you and I. That's going to happen if they're a believer in Jesus, no matter how much you want to protect them from it. So since it's going to happen, teach them that exiles grow up, but they're in God's eternal care.

Teach them that sometimes you don't fit in with the world because you follow Jesus, but that it's absolutely worth it.

That's what Peter wants to point them to first says, you're at the very beginning, your chosen children loved by God, but you're also exiles. But here's the great thing you have a magnificent God who loves you. He knew it all. He plans it all, and he cares for you. Let's live there. And let's seek to teach the next generation to live their.

Let's spend a moment in prayer. I invite you just to to take a moment. If the spirit has laid on your heart something you want to respond to him with.

At the very least, I invite you to bask in the glory that God's grace and peace, that this God's grace and peace is multiplied to you. And then I'll pray.

Father, the more we see of you and your truth, the more we know we are barely scratching the surface. And yet I pray that the truths that we see and that we love. Would deepen our love for you would be a comfort to us in challenges. Would be a joy for us as we look forward to being with you forever.

And we thank you for it. Thank you that you have taken us as individuals and us as a body of believers, and we are not left to live out our Christian life separate from you, but we are surrounded by your eternal care in our past, in our present, in our future. For every piece of what you have done for us.

It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. We're going to sing together, but I'm not going to go play this time. I invite you to sing amazing Grace.

Amazing Grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I was once, was lost
But now am found
Was blind, but now I see.

I'll conclude by reading Peter's doxology. At the end of First Peter he says, May the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you to him. Be the dominion forever and ever. And God's people say, Amen. Thank you for being with us today.