Triune Power for your Salvation

[0:00] Open your Bibles to 1 Peter, 1 Peter chapter 1. We're just going to read verses 1 and 2 this morning. 1 Peter instead of Leviticus, and you're probably going like, whew, that's a good thing.

[0:22] This is the word of the Lord, 1 Peter chapter 1, beginning in verse 1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, 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.

[0:56] Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word, and Lord, in the face of so many difficulties and sufferings and troubles that we encounter on a daily, weekly basis in our lives, I pray that You would help us to understand Your Word, so that we would know how we are to face these things.

[1:19] May You give us wisdom, instruction, equipping, challenge, and conviction from Your Word, and we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

[1:31] From the years 2002 to 2005, we were actually members of a church in Glen Rose, Texas, where one of our elders was a gentleman named Bill Williams.

[1:43] Bill Williams was with his father, the two guys that started a little grocery chain. I don't know if you are familiar with this grocery chain or not called Thrift Mart Food Stores.

[1:59] It was in sort of the central Texas area up that direction. But as one of the elders of our church, he loved the Lord. He was very knowledgeable about Scripture.

[2:10] And in 2004, Thanksgiving, he had gone to his family's house for Thanksgiving, one of his daughter's house, and they were coming home, and he had stopped at a gas station to fill up the pump with gas.

[2:21] And as he was standing there manipulating the gas hose and all the things related to it, he kind of misstepped a little bit, tripped just a little bit, and kind of fell into the gas pump just a little bit.

[2:35] But he heard a snap, and he had broken his arm right here in the middle of the arm. It's a really strange thing. So he goes to the doctor, and he finds out that what he sees, what the doctor sees is that he has bone cancer.

[2:52] The bone cancer has gone through him and has caused his arm to be brittle. And so he begins the process of the treatments, and you're all familiar with how that goes. But as the elder and one of the small group leaders, he had invited me to his house because he wanted to have me lead his small group for him while he was going through treatments and unable to be a part of things.

[3:14] And I remember sitting in his kitchen at the table, and he was looking at me, and he was telling me the story of how this happened to him and what had happened to his arm. And he said to me, and I don't know that I can give you the exact words, but it was something of the nature.

[3:27] He said, you never know that the things that you believe are things that you really believe until you go through suffering. That you can say you believe one thing, but that when you go through suffering, it really is a crucible that makes it so that what you really believe is what's left at the end of that suffering.

[3:48] And that is the reason that Peter wrote this book and why we're going to preach through this book, because Peter is talking about suffering in this book. And as he does talk about suffering, he is doing so in such a way as to lay out for God's people how are we supposed to endure, face, and deal with suffering.

[4:12] And in this beginning point, in this introduction, in this greeting of this letter, he lays out and begins to give the big picture of our salvation in order to help them have what they need to face this suffering.

[4:32] And he does it by basically these two words. He calls them elect exiles. And those two words will make up sort of how we put this together. And I want us to deal with the last word first.

[4:43] I want us to think about exiles for just a second. And as we think about exiles, we need to go back and just say, yes, he's talking about suffering in this letter.

[4:56] And the suffering currently that they're going through, he uses three words that are interesting. He says, you're being insulted, you're slandered, and you're maligned.

[5:09] In other words, currently for the Christians that he's writing to, bad things were being said about them. Now, typically we have a tendency to have a view of persecution, but this is what was going on for them currently.

[5:22] It was perhaps going to get worse for them. But Peter's pastoral concern in this letter is the suffering and persecution that they were enduring.

[5:33] As a matter of fact, he makes reference to their current suffering and future suffering 23 times in five chapters. 23 times in five chapters.

[5:45] He does it once in chapter 5, five times in chapter 2, six times in chapter 3, eight times in chapter 4, three times in chapter 5.

[5:57] These exiles were suffering and were going to continue to suffer. Now, you think about this word exile, and exile is someone who belongs to another country, but for some reason they cannot go home.

[6:13] They are in a foreign land, having to live in a foreign land, always longing for home. And Peter's using this in a metaphorical way, that these Christians are all exiles, not from some geographic location, but they're living as exiles here on this planet, as our home is with the Lord.

[6:38] For some reason, their homeland is off limits to them, but Peter expects them to live and act like home while they're not at home.

[6:49] And we'll dive into some of these things as we go through the letter, but just give you a couple of examples. Like he tells them that they're to keep their conduct honorable among the pagans, that they're to be prepared to give a defense of the gospel to those that ask him for why they have such hope and joy in light of the way things go in this world.

[7:08] He is encouraging them that they're to spread the gospel to those who are dead so they might come alive. And these churches that he's writing to, there's probably several of them.

[7:20] They're located in this area of what we would call modern-day Turkey, Asia Minor, near the Black Sea. Here's your map. Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, or Asia, then Bithynia.

[7:36] That's the order he does it, right? It's kind of like a little, kind of a little circle with a little inlet like that. It's probably done that way because that's somewhat of a male route for this Roman province.

[7:47] The point is, is that this area probably has more than just a few churches, and they're probably both Jews and Gentiles. And so what the point of this is that this is the most universal letter you could have.

[8:03] He's writing to all Christians. And so this letter is a letter for you. This is a letter that would tell you that, listen, you are not home yet. You are living as an exile of the Lord here on this planet.

[8:18] And so he wants them to understand how they're supposed to deal with this, living as an exile, living as one who represents the king in a place that's hostile to your faith.

[8:33] So how does Peter tell them to deal with it? Let me take you to the very end of this little letter, chapter 5, verse 12, where he's sort of wrapping up his letter.

[8:45] He's got a couple more verses. As by Silvanus, a faithful brother, as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God.

[8:57] Stand firm in it. In other words, after all that's been said about suffering and how you're supposed to handle suffering, he's telling us that his primary motive, his primary thing that he was after is that they would understand the true grace of God and therefore stand in that grace.

[9:19] He expects them to be thoroughly prepared and ready to face the suffering. And honestly, he's expecting them to continue to do that which they were always called to be and to do, to be instruments to disciple the nations.

[9:36] And as we look at this and we think, how do we apply this to our own lives? We've got to be mindful that what we need in our own lives is the very same thing.

[9:46] We need the true grace of God. You need to be equipped with the truth of God's grace. You need to be furnished with the kindness of God. You need to be well trained in the gospel of love.

[9:59] You need to have stockpiles and supplies of the deep knowledge of the mercy and grace of God that can withstand persecution, withstand suffering, and give light to those who are around us.

[10:16] Why would we need to be so equipped with God's grace and the gospel? Well, after Hurricane Harvey came, our house we had had a flat roof.

[10:30] It had about a 30-foot-long run, a flat roof, on one side of the house. We had decided that with some of the money we'd gotten from the damage that we were going to pitch that roof because that flat roof, I'm going to just tell you something, flat roofs are terrible.

[10:46] They leak all the time. And we just wanted to get the water off that roof. And so I was trying to figure out a way to pitch this and finally sort of figured out a way. But it required me to go to the edge of the house for about 30 feet and to cut off the decking off that roof.

[11:04] And it being a flat roof meant that there was covering, decking, overhead joist slash rafter, sheetrock room. There was no attic in this place.

[11:15] It was just there. So here we are, December, cutting off an 8-foot swath, 30 feet long of the roof of this thing. The decking and all the covering and so all that's exposed are the rafters, the wirings and the insulation.

[11:33] And it begins to rain. And I look at my son and I'm panicking and I'm going like, what are we going to do? He said, what we were going to do, we got to go fix the roof. Just because something bad is happening does not mean that the mission has changed.

[11:52] We're still supposed to do the same things. When they removed prayer from the public schools, the mission of the church did not change. It still needed to know the grace of God, prepare for suffering and spread the gospel.

[12:07] When abortion was legalized by the Supreme Court, the mission of the church did not change. It still needed to know the grace of God, prepare for suffering and spread the gospel.

[12:18] When the Supreme Court legalized so-called same-sex marriage, the mission of the church did not change. We're still supposed to know the grace of God, prepare for suffering and spread the gospel.

[12:30] And when this election is over, the mission of the church will remain unchanged. We're still supposed to know the grace of God, prepare for suffering and spread the gospel.

[12:44] The mission remains unchanged. Because of that, we need the grace of God. We need to understand the depths of the grace of God so that no matter what we encounter as a Christian society, as a Christian church, and no matter what you encounter as a Christian person, you're going to be able to go through it as exiles here on this earth seeking to bring a little bit of home to where we are.

[13:22] Isn't that the prayer? Let thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so we are these exiles.

[13:35] And because of that, the mission is unchanged. But the second thing is he calls them elect exiles. Elect exiles.

[13:48] This word elect literally means those who are chosen, someone who is selected. And anyone who is a Christian is someone who is elect.

[14:00] Peter goes into detail talking about how this election happens here in verse 2. And as he does, he points to the Trinity.

[14:12] Now, this is not what this sermon is about kind of, but also kind of about. And so we just need to pause for a second and remind ourselves of the doctrine of the Trinity because we don't want to be confused by this because it's easy to get confused by this because everybody's got different analogies.

[14:29] It's like you say, well, how do you explain that there's one God and, you know, three persons? How do you explain that? And people use analogies. You just need to understand that every analogy I've ever heard illustrates a heresy that's been condemned in the early church, okay?

[14:43] So don't use those. Let's just use a definition, okay? So here's a definition of the Trinity. The Bible teaches in all of its parts that there is one God.

[14:55] There is one being God. There are not two beings. There are not three beings. There's not a bigger being and a lesser being. There's one being, God.

[15:06] One God. He exists eternally in three persons. A person is not a humanoid figure. A person is not a human body.

[15:17] A person is a personality. Right? So one God, three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each one of the persons of the Trinity is fully God.

[15:31] So we can say, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. However, they are distinct from one another so that the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Spirit and the Spirit is not the Father or the Son.

[15:48] And yet there is one God. Now that's a definition. I could probably say it a little bit shorter for you, but the point is this. Don't use the analogies.

[15:59] They'll confuse you. Just hang on to the definition. And the reason this is important is for small things such as who's Jesus praying to? When Jesus prays to his Father, who is he praying to?

[16:11] He's not praying to himself. He's praying to his Father. Right? All right. So with that said then, Peter then is explaining something about this being elect by using the Trinity.

[16:23] And I want you to notice he says three things because there's three persons to the Trinity. He says that they're elect according to the foreknowledge of the Father. Not of the Son or the Spirit, but of the Father.

[16:37] Now to say something is according to is to say that something is based upon. In other words, you do this action based upon this thing, so this action is looking at this thing and not anything else.

[16:50] So this election is built upon the foreknowledge of God the Father. So we need to understand what this word foreknowledge is. Foreknowledge is an Old Testament word.

[17:02] It's an Old Testament concept. It means to set affections on beforehand. Now that's not your typical way that most people think of that because most of us live in an American culture where we think that foreknowledge is to have certain facts in your mind before they happen.

[17:21] But that's an American concept. That's not a biblical concept. The word knowledge is the same word that's used there in Genesis where it talks about Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived.

[17:34] Right? It is a experiential relationship affection intimacy term that God knew us is not just new facts about us like I could tell you facts about my friend Bill or I could tell you facts about the president.

[17:57] No. The Father knew them and to put the word for in there is to say that this is something that happened before creation that the Father knew his people.

[18:10] Peter is declaring to us the true grace of God that God the Father has set his affections on his people before all time and that is why they are elect.

[18:23] There's nothing about them that he looks at and commends them for and therefore chooses them. It's not because there's anything that they've done or anything that he's going to he foresees that they're going to do it's because he's setting his affections on them.

[18:40] It brings to us the mind and it should bring to mind that if this is the case then we must understand that we are lowly we are unworthy we are not commendable God chooses us because we are not worthy.

[19:00] Isn't this how he chose Israel? He tells Israel he says I didn't choose you because you're the biggest nation I didn't choose you because you had the biggest army I chose you because you were the smallest and I could get the most glory out of you.

[19:16] You and I are unworthy sinners deserving nothing more than death and hell and yet he has saved us. You are elect according to the foreknowledge of God and for that we ought to be eternally grateful.

[19:34] But then he uses the spirit and he says by the sanctification of the spirit now I've said the word by the text uses the word in the Greek word for in there can either be the idea of where something happened or how something happened and in this case this is how it happened.

[19:52] In other words the elect is something that happens based upon the foreknowledge of God the father but then in time and space it is done by the mechanism is by this sanctification of the Holy Spirit.

[20:05] This word sanctification it's the Greek word for holy or sanctified or whatever but the base meaning of it is to be set apart. To be set apart for a particular purpose and reason.

[20:17] You think about the tabernacle we just got through with Leviticus right? Go back to the tabernacle think about the Holy of Holies what's in the Holy of Holies? Ark of the Covenant that's right that's a very holy place that's a very sanctified place that's a very set apart place.

[20:34] You don't take your lawn chair and a cold one and sit and talk to your friend inside the holy place right? There's going to be death happening if you do that right? It's a holy place.

[20:44] Do not go there. It's set apart. What he's saying then is that we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God set apart for this thing by the Holy Spirit.

[20:56] The Holy Spirit is in cahoots with the Father taking those that the Father has foreknown and then taking them and setting them apart for all of these things.

[21:08] But then he says something weird. Then he says something weird. I'm just going to tell you I just found it weird. Because as I read the rest of the New Testament this is not the way Paul talks.

[21:22] I like Paul. A lot of people don't like Paul but I like Paul. I like the way Paul talks and Paul doesn't talk this way. So I'm sitting there trying to figure out what does this mean?

[21:35] Because I would have expected him to say something about the death of Jesus and he kind of does but not really. What he talks about is for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling with his blood.

[21:48] Peter what are you talking about? Well it turns out that Peter is pretty smart. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he understands the Old Testament.

[22:02] And what he's doing is he's making an Old Testament reference. You remember when the Ten Commandments were given by God? All the people are down around Sinai. Moses goes up to the top of the mountain.

[22:14] God gives the Ten Commandments. It's the only thing he writes with his own finger. Right? But after that while Moses is up there God gives him more than just the Ten Commandments.

[22:25] He gives them what's called the Old Covenant. Right? You can go to the book of Hebrews and you can see it talked about being called the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant is also called the Sinatic Covenant.

[22:38] It's also called the Mosaic Covenant. It's this idea of all of those ceremonial, judicial, and moral laws given to Israel for them to live by in the land.

[22:52] And it was to be this covenant relationship between God and Israel. A contractual relationship between God and Israel.

[23:04] A contractual relationship in which God said I will do this and you will do this. And in that relationship with them in that covenant in the book of the covenant he tells them.

[23:17] He says I'm going to do this and if you do this then I will bless you. If you don't do this I will curse you. And all through the rest of the book of Exodus, Leviticus, parts of Numbers, and even Deuteronomy this idea of the old covenant is repeated and talked about in several places.

[23:38] Now why am I telling you this? Because when Moses gets off the mountain he comes down to the people in Exodus chapter 24 and he says this then he took the book of the covenant and he read it in the hearing of all the people and look what the people said and they said all the Lord has spoken we will do we will be obedient.

[24:09] There's the first half. Keep reading verse 8. And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.

[24:24] There's the two parts of what we just read in first Peter obedience and sprinkling with blood. What is Moses doing because I'm not sure I'd want to be an Israelite at this point right.

[24:36] What he's doing is he's saying here's the covenant that God has brought and God's people are saying this is what's offered by God this is the plan of God then we will do it.

[24:48] In other words this moment of obedience and being sprinkled with the blood for the old covenant was this ratifying of themselves coming into the covenant.

[24:59] In other words this was their moment of conversion where they come into the covenant with God. So what Peter is saying back in first Peter is he's saying that you are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father according to being set apart by the Holy Spirit for this conversion to Christ.

[25:20] the whole reason the whole result of that foreknowledge of that sanctification of being elect is that you might be converted having the obedience and being sprinkled with his blood.

[25:35] Now we got to get to the good stuff. you may and may not agree with me about some of the things that I've just said but you've got to not miss Peter's point because Peter is not writing about a bunch of theological topics in a vacuum.

[26:01] He is looking square at the present and future persecution and suffering of God's people and he is giving to them under inspiration of the Holy Spirit that which they need.

[26:19] and what he's telling them what he's telling them is going to help them because here's the truth.

[26:32] The truth is is that whether it's suffering because of evil in this world because of sickness in this world or because of some other thing or whether it's persecution the results in our lives can be very similar.

[26:54] Fear. Fear and temptation. Imagine someone tomorrow came up to you and said from now on you can no longer worship at any church in Medina or Bandera or Kerrville.

[27:20] You had better not come out of your house and go to another church starting tomorrow because if you do we're going to confiscate your home and cut off your retirement income.

[27:36] Now for some people they will hear me say something like that and they go like yeah I shoot them. You know or some of you might be saying to yourself that would never happen here. That is not a bridge too far.

[27:51] But I just want you to look at it from the standpoint of the temptation to fear. I'll just be honest with you you know like I think about myself in a particular similar kind of situation.

[28:09] temptation. And right now I cannot say to you with a hundred percent that I would hold firm onto Christ. You know why?

[28:24] Because I'm afraid. I mean you could take my house. There's a lot of that you could do like of course it's your house so I guess it's okay. But you understand what I'm saying like you tell me I can't have money that's that's fine.

[28:41] But you take and you put my wife over here and you threaten my wife's physical health. And all of a sudden. All of a sudden.

[28:53] I'm crumbling inside right now as I think about that I'm just crumbling. And this is the situation that these people are in and Peter wants to deal with this and he wants to help them by helping them understand that listen your salvation is not wrought by half God and half you.

[29:19] Your salvation is wrought by God from beginning to end. Your salvation and being held firm to the end is not because he foresaw something good in you that he kind of worked out of you but it's because he saved you from beginning to end.

[29:37] That's why Paul says that he is the author and finisher of our faith. That's why he says that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus.

[29:50] Because your salvation is a work of the powerful sovereign triune God who does not fail at anything that he does.

[30:01] It's not as though the spirit is going to do something opposite, different or slightly off from what the father is doing. It's not as though the son is going to do something a little different and off from what the father and the spirit are doing.

[30:13] They are in perfect harmony with one another as they save their people. And that salvation is then wrought in this sovereign, powerful, triune God.

[30:31] And what this means for us then is that when it comes to our salvation and how we're shaped for this suffering is that because salvation belongs to the Lord, we have the entire resources of the triune God working on our behalf to not only save us back then, but to keep us saved all the way to there.

[31:03] As the father has chosen and set his affections upon us, as the spirit has set us aside, as the son has bled and died in our place, there is perfect harmony in them and our salvation salvation is built upon him and not us.

[31:21] And this, this is what prepares us for suffering because when I think about that situation and I think about what it would be like to have to face being told to recant or your wife, I want to say that I would hold to Christ.

[31:44] Christ. But right now I cannot with 100% certainty know that until I face that. And that right there is the problem that most of us as Christians face.

[32:00] We don't know. Because we all know what happened to the last guy who said, oh, Lord, I would never leave you or forsake you. What happened to him? He denied that he knew Christ three times.

[32:14] But what happens to him in the end? God keeps him safe. There is nothing that can cause us to lose or walk away from our faith if God is the one who has saved us.

[32:39] So this means we need to do three things and then I'll be done. Number one, we need to take time to make sure we're saved.

[32:53] You need to examine your own faith profession and ask yourself, is this real? I grew up in a preacher's home.

[33:05] I was basically born in the church house there all my life, baptized at eight, licensed to the ministry at 18 in July of 1989, and saved in September of 1989.

[33:30] because someone challenged me to examine my faith profession to see if it was real.

[33:44] Paul tells the Corinthians to do that in 2nd Corinthians where he tells them, test yourselves to see if you're in the faith. Peter says the same thing in his second letter.

[33:56] 2nd Peter 1, verse 10, he says, Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. You see, one of the big problems that most people have with talking about election is they end up saying, well, how do I know I'm elect?

[34:09] Are you in Christ? Do you trust Christ in your elect? But like, there's other things we need to look at, right? Because here's what most of us are taught. Most of us were taught that the day you were saved.

[34:20] Open up your Bible right here in the front of it, the date that you were saved. And when you begin to doubt, go look at that. That's nowhere in the Bible. There's nothing about that in the Bible anywhere.

[34:33] Not even remotely looking, but I'll tell you what is in the Bible, the epistle of 1st John. The epistle of 1st John where he tells us, these things I've written to you who believe so that you might know that you have eternal life.

[34:47] And then he gives these five tests. Now I'm just going to go through them, but I'm just going to go through it with four because I've kind of combined some things, but I think it's a little simpler to understand if you've never read it.

[34:58] But go read it this afternoon. Here's four things to be looking for to say, how do I know I'm a Christian? How do I know that I'm elect? I've got to test that to see. Number one, do you believe the truths that the Bible presents about Jesus Christ are actually, historically, reality?

[35:16] his sinless life, his virgin birth, his death upon the cross, his resurrection, his ascension, his soon coming back.

[35:27] This is all historical fact. It's not some fairy tale. It's not some sort of mythology. It's not some sort of maybe so, hope so. It's actual real historical fact, about as much historical fact and truth as it would be that if I jump off this building, I'm going to get hurt.

[35:45] Certain that these things are true. Because if you don't believe these things are true, then you're not a Christian. Second, do you hope in, trust in, throw yourself upon the Lord Jesus Christ as the only thing, the only person, the only hope that will protect you from the wrath of God to come?

[36:05] Not your sinner's prayer, not your baptism, not your church attendance, but Jesus Christ and him alone. Third, are you seeking with all of your soul and with all the power of the Holy Spirit to obey Christ and all that he's commanded and you see yourself growing in holiness because of that obedience?

[36:31] I mean, maybe before you got saved, like me, you were an angry person. And do you find that over time, you have become a person who is less angry about things that you don't need to be angry about because of the work of the Lord in you?

[36:48] Are you going, not have you arrived at perfection, but are you going in the right direction? And fourth, do you love the church of the Lord Jesus Christ?

[37:04] He puts in there, in that letter, he puts in there, that if you say that you love your brother whom you have, or you say you love God whom you've not seen, but hates your brother who you have seen, how can that be true?

[37:18] And one of the tests is do you love the brothers? Do you love the church of the Lord Jesus Christ? Test yourself, see if you're in the faith. Second thing that you need to do, take time to give praise to God.

[37:33] If salvation is all of God, then we should be singing with more gusto than everybody else. I sometimes think about the rules for singing that John and Charles Wesley wrote, and one of them is to never sing louder than the person standing next to you.

[37:54] And I think that makes for weak worship. I think that if you recognize that you deserve nothing but death and hell, and in a moment as you sing these glorious truths of who God is and what he's done for us in Christ, belt it out.

[38:13] Not because we want to just be loud, but because we want our hearts to soar in praise to who he is for what he's done. And third, you need to trust that when the time comes that your salvation will hold because it was wrought by the grace of the triune God.

[38:44] You see, here's the problem. We don't get to have that kind of assurance right now about that that might be in the future. Did you follow that?

[38:59] You see, when we know that suffering, persecution, difficulty, trials, and troubles, they're out there in the future that could come to us. When we sit and we think about them and we become anxious over them, we're looking at something in the future that is not a reality yet, but we fear what that reality could be.

[39:23] And what we often want is reassurance now that that over there is going to be okay. But the problem is, is that God is not going to give you assurance for today what's going to happen for tomorrow because he's already told us that tomorrow will take care of itself.

[39:43] And so what we have to do is we look to the future and we begin to fear what might happen if. Then what we need to do now is trust he's going to trust that he's going to be there when we get there and the salvation will hold.

[40:09] we've done a lot of white water rafting this August. We did it again and that's been 20 years since the first time I went.

[40:21] White water rafting is a ton of fun. I recommend it. All of you should go. It's great. You get in the raft and all of the seats and the sides are these, it's inflated, huge tubes, right?

[40:37] And if you're in the front you're sitting on a tube and there's what they call a foot cup. And you're supposed to take, if you're sitting on the right side, your left foot, stick it in the foot cup and put your right foot under your seat and under the side down in the little crevice that forms because of the tubes.

[40:59] So your feet are locked in. If you're sitting in a tube back then you shove one up underneath the seat in front of you and then one here to the side. And it's not easy getting your feet out and it kind of hurts.

[41:11] If you don't like that then don't go white water rafting. But the whole reason you do that is so that as you hit the white water of the river, you know, it's going to be a drop, it's going to be a spin, it's going to be a rock, it's going to be all kinds of things.

[41:25] When you hit these things, it's very easy for you to fly out if you're not locked in. And so you have to put your feet in to not get thrown out.

[41:38] And I fear, I fear that most Christians think about their salvation like that in the sense that they've got to get themselves locked in and ready for what's coming to them.

[41:52] And the truth of the matter is, is that if we're going to try to face that in our own strength, locking our own feet in, we're going to be sorely disappointed when suffering comes. The better image is to understand that God has picked you up and put you in the wrath and he's got you.

[42:13] And he goes down the river with you and all the way through all of that terrible white water of suffering. And in the end, he opens up and says, you're still there because I've held you the whole way.

[42:25] We've got to trust today that the triune God is going to be there when we get there.

[42:36] And the salvation that he has wrought in us will hold. Because it comes from him. And this means then that if you're not a Christian, if you if you've never trusted Christ, because primarily I've been talking to Christians, primarily first Peter is written to Christians, but I can't just walk away from this without looking at you if you're not a Christian and say to you, but you can be.

[43:03] Repent of your sin. And trust in Christ. There is no other way.

[43:19] May God give us the faith to trust. Salvation belongs to him and what he started. He will finish. Let's pray.

[43:30] Well, let's pray. Well, let's pray. Well, let's pray.!