The Benediction

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Will you please turn in your Bibles with me to 1 Peter chapter 5. 1 Peter chapter 5, and this morning the sermon will come from verses 10 and 11. 1 Peter chapter 5. If you're using your provided New King James Pew Bibles, you'll find that on page 1079. I'm gonna read verses eight through 11. Brothers and sisters, this is God's perfect word. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.

Prayer for Illumination

But may the God of all grace who called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you had suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Grass withers, flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray.

Sermon

Father, we thank you. You've given us an amazing passage today, full of hope, because you are our God. So Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would please work in our hearts through the preaching of your word. Father, we pray that it might become effectual unto salvation. that would be sanctifying to those who are saved, that would be encouraging, Lord, that we would be, by your Spirit, equipped for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We are right at the end of 1 Peter. And as we've gone through 1 Peter, there's been some really, really hard points in 1 Peter. Just some real realities.

Peter is not writing from an ivory tower, but as he's writing to the various churches in what's modern day Turkey, and Pontius, and Bithynia, and Cappadocia, Galatia, and Asia, as he's writing to them, he started at saying that they were those who were foreordained by God, elected by Him, that the Father had done, that the Spirit had sanctified them, and that the Son had washed them in his own blood.

That they had an inheritance in heaven, but in this life, they were going to live as sojourners and pilgrims, waiting for a better land. And in this life, the Holy Spirit, through Peter, was letting them know this life was going to be filled with trials and hardships, difficult things. There'd be struggles from within their own hearts. And there would be challenges that would come from the outside as well. And they would even have an adversary, the devil, trying to devour them.

But, this is Peter's prayer in verse 10. But, may the God of all grace. They're gonna suffer. but just for a little while. Brothers and sisters, the reason why God gives His church the scriptures is because these are timeless truths. They were written to very specific people in a specific place at a specific time. But the truths contained in this passage are very much true for you as well and root and anchor you in the hope that God has given us. Because the suffering of this life is only for a little while.

And it's amazing, as I was reading this passage last week, and I was wrestling with it, and I started reading it in the Greek, and I thought, okay, the easier thing for me to do, just to make sure I'm getting my ducks in a row and making the main thing correct, I diagrammed it out as I was sitting on the floor, and I realized something.

Everything about this passage is about God, who God is. and what God is doing. God is the controlling subject for everything in these two verses. It is God. And it's because of who God is and what he does that we have joy and hope. So look with me as we look in verse 10 first in this blessing, this benediction, this encouraging prayer.

He speaks of God, but may the God of all grace This idea of grace that God has shown us unmerited favor. That the God of the universe who knit you together in your mother's womb and who knows your own rebellious heart still sent his own son to die on the cross for you. That his face might smile upon you. That the light of his countenance might be upon you. This God who looks upon you and knows your sin, removes your sin as far as the east is from the west, and while you were yet still a sinner, he sent Christ Jesus to die for you. And here's the kicker.

We didn't deserve any of it. We didn't earn it. We weren't good enough for it. We didn't get the grace because somehow we were so beautiful or so righteous in and of ourselves, no. If grace was earned, it's no longer grace. Grace is God loving us because he wants to love us. For by grace you were saved through faith and not of yourselves. This is the gift of God. God is the God of all grace. Every temporal blessing you have in your life is because God is gracious to you.

We're rebellious people. If we're honest with ourselves, there's not a single person, unless they're really, really self-deceived, who would think, oh, I'm absolutely perfect. And you know what this is like in your own relationships, right? When somebody behaves untoward, they're difficult to get along with, they're difficult to live with. Maybe you've got a spouse or a child, maybe you've got a teenager in your home that you're just like, I wanna give them the hammer, but instead you make them breakfast.

That's grace. It's choosing to love that person, choosing to show your favor upon that person because you've decided to. This is how God treats us. If we are in his son, God shows the light of his favor, his countenance upon us. because it's what he does. Notice the second part of verse 10. He's not just called the God of all grace, but he's actually done something.

He is the God who has called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. God has called you in Christ Jesus. The theologians will talk about this as the effectual calling, right? God, by His Spirit, summons you. He summons you when you heard the preaching of the word and you responded by faith, but before that, He had done remarkable work in your heart. See, what God does, this is absolutely amazing, right?

God knows that you're his. And yet sometime in your life, God sent his spirit into your heart and he took out a heart of stone and he gave you a heart of flesh. And then at just the right time, and sometimes this is indistinguishable as we think about it chronologically in time, but at the perfect moment, you heard the good news of Jesus Christ and you believed out of that redeemed heart.

You latched on to the gospel for yourself. You assented to it. You held on to it. You clung to Jesus Christ. See, our faith, the content of our faith is Jesus. The content of your faith is Jesus Christ. He's our only hope in life and death. He's the joy of our salvation. He's the Lord of our lives. And so He is the one who has called us effectually by His Holy Spirit. He summoned sinners to Himself. For some of you, you remember this. For some of you, you remember the first time as a child when you heard the gospel.

No, that's my Lord. One of my favorite stories, I was talking to an older lady in this congregation, and she was telling me when she was going through catechism class one time, and she was studying the catechism specifically on a question about faith, and she realized at a very specific moment in her young life, I can't play games with this. Is Jesus my Lord? Is he my Savior? Do I actually believe for myself? Some of you remember it later on in life, when God called you to himself.

But I don't know each of your hearts. Maybe for some of you, is today the day of salvation? Charles Spurgeon once wrote to his students, And in his lectures to his students, he said to them, if you get up in the pulpit, men, and you don't believe that the Holy Spirit that day can save someone, just shut your mouth and go home. Maybe today you've been holding off. Maybe you've questioned and you've wondered, is Jesus really my Lord? and you have known the Holy Spirit, you've heard the summoning through the scriptures, and you've wrestled with, is he my Lord? Do not hold off. Is today the day you will say that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior?

He's my only hope in life and death. He's the resurrection and the life. And I believe in him. There is a point in every man and every woman's life And we must decide if we will follow the Lord. This is what Joshua did. As he entered into the promised land, and he was soon to die. Choose this day whom you will serve. If you will serve the Lord, wonderful. If you're gonna go serve the Baals, just go do it. But as for me and my household, we'll serve the Lord.

Have you made the determination in your hearts? that Jesus Christ is your only hope in life and death, that he's your only righteousness, that you have nothing in and of yourself to stand before the righteous presence of God, but that Jesus is good enough.

And that when he said, it is finished, it was finished for you. Those whom he has called, he's also predestined. And those whom he's predestined, he has also sanctified. God is doing a work by his Spirit in each of his children's hearts. This is the God of all grace, who has called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. His eternal glory.

Man, I don't know about you, but sometimes I read the book of Revelation, and I think about the beautiful pictures of what John received, of what it was like to sit in the throne room of God, with the angels crying out, worthy is the Lamb, as the radiance of the Lamb shines forth, and there's no sun and no moon, because the light of Jesus Christ is the light of their eyes. Do you long for eternity before the throne of God himself? Does your heart desire to be with him forever? From the very root of your soul, is it your only joy, your highest joy, that when you hear of Jesus Christ, when you hear the pictures of heaven, that you long to join that heavenly choir?

He is preparing your heart in this life because you're sojourners and pilgrims, knowing that your home is being prepared in a better place, in a different place. And Jesus went to go prepare a room for you there. And if it wasn't so, He wouldn't have said it. That's why He rose again from the dead and ascended up into heaven, because He has prepared a place for us with our Father. And so He's our hope and He's called us to an eternal joy We may suffer a little while, but even in our suffering here as we sojourn, he's doing a number of different things.

In your life, Christian, God is working in you, individually, And us as a church, this is all written in the y'all, right? In English, we don't use, especially in the North, we don't use a second person plural very often, right? There's you, like you singular, like you and you and you. But in Greek, it's very clear when it's not just you, but it's y'all, right? You churches, you saints, you people, you redeemed ones, you people of God.

He's doing something in you. Even through your various trials, what is he doing? He is perfecting you. Catartizo. This is the idea that you were broken and he's mending you. He's restoring you. He is taking things that are out of order in your life and he's placing them in order.

The trials and the sojourning and the pilgrimage and the difficulties submitting to those who are tyrants and trying to play our role in the different places God has put us in our life. It's tough, right? People are slandering and people are accusing, people are persecuting. In these areas, people are gonna literally be tortured for their faith in Jesus Christ.

And God's putting their priorities straight. God's reorienting their hearts, changing their loves, changing their minds, making them new. He's perfecting us. Because see, we're not perfect here. We're not perfect here. We struggle, we wrestle, We have issues.

But God is bringing you about. Thank the Lord for this promise. He who has begun a good work in you will bring it about to perfection under the day of Christ Jesus. God is perfecting you to be with him forever. Not because you're perfect in and of yourself. but he's making you more and more like Jesus.

Do you see, Jesus died for our sins. On the cross, Jesus paid for our sins. The debt was paid. He was the scapegoat for us. But when he died and he was buried in the tomb, there was something better to come. He would raise again for our justification.

God has legally declared you righteous. And Jesus has ascended up into heaven. And he sat down at the right hand of God the Father, and he has been made the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and he has sent his spirit. And now by his spirit, your king is perfecting you, making you ready, not for this life, but for the life to come. He's establishing you. He is establishing you. After you have suffered a while, perfect, establish. He is firmly fixing you.

I grew up not very firmly fixed. I went to eight different schools by the time I graduated high school. We were just poor, and oftentimes we couldn't pay the rent and we had to move. Sometimes there was job changes, sometimes there was just opportunity changes, and we moved a lot, and we weren't firmly fixed. And there's something we know, something we long for in our heart, is to have something that's unmovable, not changing, fixed.

It's why Jesus says, build your house upon the rock. Woe is the man who builds his house upon the sand, for the wind comes, the waves come, and the house is washed away. You know there's a house floating around in the Atlantic Ocean? They built it with pylons in the sand in North Carolina or South Carolina. And when a hurricane came, it literally whooped the whole house. And every once in a while, if you're on social media, you'll see a video of some guy out in a boat. And all of a sudden, there's the attic of a house floating in the ocean. Someday it will sink. But it didn't have firm fixing. It wasn't deeply rooted and deeply moored, but as we suffer, even for a little while, God is firmly fixing us.

He's strengthening us. I've said this before with strengthening, and I'll, don't hide it from my coach at the gym either. I don't like, I like the idea of getting strong. I don't like trying to go to the gym and be strong. Do you know what it takes to be strong? Your muscles have to rip apart. Literally, how people get strong, how your muscles get stronger, is the fibers in your muscles are being pulled apart under stress. so that when you rest, then they get stronger and they build and they mend and being ripped apart and then having time for rest and building back together is how your muscles get stronger. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound very pleasant with my life. I don't like being ripped apart.

But yet, when we're corrected, when we're rebuked, or being trained for righteousness, that we might be thoroughly equipped for every good work. When we're confronted with sin, when we're put into the pressure cooker of sanctification, God hasn't forgotten you.

When there's death, when there's cancer, when there's pain and poverty and persecution, thank God there's a reason for it. If you are in Christ Jesus, he's giving it to you because he knows you will be stronger coming out of it. This is what our Heavenly Father does, the God of all grace. In his grace, he strengthens us and he settles us. This God of all grace, as we suffer a little while, he settles you. The dictionary for this Greek word says, to provide a secure basis for the inner life and its resources. You might translate settle differently as establish or strengthen you. These whole ideas are tied together. That God is moving you. God is working in your life. Because when you were first believing, that was good. And eternity was guaranteed for you. But God doesn't just save us and then take his hands off of us. He's a wonderful heavenly Father.

Who knows every tear that we shed. Who knows every grievance that we have. Who knows every trial that we go through. And here's the wonderful thing. We have a Lord who sympathizes with us. Jesus suffered like us. He was tempted in every way. And he endured even the depths of the most difficult suffering upon the cross as he took on our sin. God settles us. He's prepared us for a home. He's strengthening us. But here's the fun thing. It's not about us. Why does God do all this? Did you notice that? Verse 10 is what we call a benediction. a prayer of God's blessing or a declaration of God's blessing. But verse 11 is a doxology. God's blessing us feeds and to us giving him glory. To him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever, amen. You have been called You have been redeemed. You are being sanctified. And you will someday go into glory. And you will spend forever with your heavenly Father. And what will you do for eternity? You'll bask in His glory. Is why the end of the Lord's Prayer, to you be the glory and the power and the dominion forever and ever.

Our salvation isn't about us. It's because we get to glorify Him. Our salvation is because we get to praise Him, because we get to live under His sovereign rule, because we get to live as part of His kingdom. because we get to live with him as our crowned prince, as the one who rules with justice and mercy, truth and grace. And of the end of his reign, there is no end.

You know, we're psalm singers here. I wasn't always a psalm singer. And I remember one of my favourite lines of a very famous hymn, right? As we sing of God's grace in one of the hymns. As we've been there 10,000 years, it's only just begun. We get all eternity, forever and ever, to worship him. Great sinners like us. This has been the hope from generation to generation.

Closing Prayer

It's the hope of those two women in Bithynia, who just about three decades after this letter would be written, would be tortured, would be tortured by plenty of the younger for their faith. And they knew that that suffering was only a little while. And as they were tortured for being Christians, they gave their testimony that their hope was in Jesus Christ. You can go to the pages of history and whether it was William Tyndale or any other martyr of the past. It's amazing to me how frequently the saints have passed as they would suffer and even die for the faith. They will look up to heaven, pray for those who are persecuting them and worship and ask God to receive their spirits. Because I knew They knew what was on the other side of that veil. What's your hope, Christian? What's your joy? To God be the glory forever and ever. Let's pray. God, we pray that you indeed would not just let these words just be words.

O Lord, your word by the power of your spirit is sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing soul and spirit, joint and marrow. Father, we pray that you would convict us and give us renewed hope. Lord, I pray for any today who have been struggling with hope that you would renew and strengthen their hope. Lord, we pray for those who feel weak, who are weary and heavy laden. Lord, we pray that they might be able to come to Jesus Christ and find rest for their weary souls. Lord, we pray for those who have struggled with disbelief. Lord, we pray that they might be like the one who came to Jesus and say, I believe, help thou my disbelief. Lord, renew our strength. Give us joy.

By the power of your spirit, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. And thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.