[0:00] ...that we have from verse 3 to 5 of the chapter, verses 3 to 5. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, who served in heaven for you, you are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation, ready to be with you in the last time.
[0:40] And we'll just look at these verses as we have them in the order of the Yarin. And firstly, verse 3 brings before us a new birth and a new life.
[0:58] And verse 4 brings before us a wonderful inheritance. And verse 5, the protection of God, God's wonderful protection of his people.
[1:10] And firstly, coming to verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, a new birth, a new life.
[1:21] And we find Peter here, beginning from praising God. He begins with praise, and it is God that he is praising.
[1:32] And he is seeing God as the fountain from which all goodness flows. And the reason why he is praising him here is because God has given a new birth to his people.
[1:51] He has given them a new beginning. In other words, they have been begotten again, or they have been born again, as we have it in the verse.
[2:04] And that is really the meaning of what he is trying to get across to us. Every one of us, in a sense, we are all children of God, as far as being created by God is concerned.
[2:18] And every one of us is under the care of God's providence. We are under God's providential care. But from the time of the fall, from the time since we fell into sin, the relationship in which we stand with God from that moment onwards is the same relationship as a rebel stands before a sovereign.
[2:49] A rebel stands condemned before his or her sovereign. And that's the relationship that we were standing in with God from the time we fell into sin.
[3:01] A rebel condemned by, under the condemnation of his or her sovereign. But Peter here is revealing to us that that situation, that we have been taken out of that situation.
[3:17] And we have been taken out of that situation, as he explains to us in verse 23 of the chapter, by not of corruptible seat, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.
[3:35] We have been taken out of that situation through being born again by this incorruptible seat that is called the word of God, that Peter names for us as the word of God.
[3:53] And it is God itself who has brought this new birth about. And as he explains to us in verse 3 here, he brought this new birth about through his own great mission.
[4:10] Because of his great mission. So that those who are under condemnation are no longer under condemnation.
[4:23] Because God, through his great mission, has forgiven us our sins. Because we now believe in the obedience of Jesus Christ that was unto death.
[4:37] And we see that obedience that was unto death as being given personally for ourselves.
[4:48] It was personally for us. And this is what Peter is getting at in this verse. In other words, the situation that we were in, the relationship that we were in with God has been completely changed.
[5:26] It has been completely changed. Completely yoked. And the result of what flows from that, as Peter reveals to us in this verse, is that we are no a people.
[5:39] We are no a people who are in possession of our living hope. We are no a people who are in possession of our living hope. Begotten us again unto our livelihood.
[5:53] Now, what is the meaning of it? We are in possession of our living hope. Well, the meaning of it is that we are in possession of a hope that is certain and that is sure.
[6:05] Especially when we compare it with a hope that is empty and vain. Now, there was none of us. Before God and the mean within our lives, none of us would say that we were a people without hope.
[6:20] Because every one of us had a hope. We were building hopes for ourselves. But these hopes were empty and vain. But the hope that we have now is a hope that is certain and that is sure.
[6:33] And if we go back to the promise that Christ left to his own people before he was betrayed, he said to them, In this world, you shall have tribulation.
[6:48] Things won't be easy for you. But the fact is that God's people aren't crushed by these afflictions and these tribulations that they face, simply because this hope is looking forward to the blessings, the great blessings that are awaiting for them.
[7:11] And therefore, they are able to put up with these afflictions and these tribulations in a way that they do not crush them. And further, he brings before us in this verse that this lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
[7:32] This is the foundation of the hope. That Christ has been raised from the dead.
[7:43] So that the hope that we have is a hope that is looking forward to a resurrection life. To resurrection life.
[7:57] Now, the fact is that the afflictions that we face in this world, the tribulations that we were promised by the Savior, that would be our portion.
[8:20] They are only light. We look upon them as being only light in comparison with the blessedness of the resurrected life that is awaiting the people of God.
[8:35] And every power on heaven and earth has been given to Jesus Christ once he was raised from the dead.
[8:47] And therefore, it is possible now for Jesus Christ to bestow eternal life on everyone whom the Father has given to.
[9:03] And that, of course, with the promise that he has left to all of his people. As I live, you shall live us.
[9:17] And as we know as we read from the word, the keys of hell and of death are now in his possession.
[9:29] And he will do this. It is possible now for him to do this. And he will do it.
[9:39] And he will raise all whom the Father has given him to enjoy this life that is everlasting.
[9:53] To enjoy this life that is everlasting. Which brings us to verse 4. And here in verse 4, we have this hope being named for us as an inheritance.
[10:09] The two is an inheritance. So we remember that the inheritance that was promised to the children of Israel was the land that God had promised to them.
[10:20] And it says something, I think, in Deuteronomy chapter 26, it goes something like this. It goes something like this. It says, when you shall come into the land that your Lord, your God has given you as an inheritance.
[10:39] As an inheritance. But Peter is not looking at the inheritance of the children of God as being a land.
[10:50] But he is looking upon the inheritance. But he is looking upon the inheritance. This inheritance has been the fulfillment of this hope that he was talking about in verse 3. It is the fulfillment of this hope at the end of the Christian's pilgrimage within this world.
[11:09] The fulfillment of this hope. The fulfillment of this hope. And they will not commit to the fulfillment of that hope until the new heavens and the new earth are brought into being.
[11:26] And Paul himself had been the first. And Peter, in chapter 3 and verse 13. And Peter, in chapter 3 and verse 13, they will not come into possession of the fulfillment of this hope.
[11:43] Neither will the pilgrimage come to an end until the new heavens and the new earth are brought into being. And Paul himself had the same idea as Peter himself about the fulfillment of this hope as we find it in Colossians, the epistle to the Colossians, chapter 3 and verse 24.
[12:12] But Paul says, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance for ye serve the Lord Christ.
[12:32] And we have the same idea in the letter to the Hebrews. But we see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and they are looking. They are wandering in this land that was promised to them, looking for the heavenly city.
[12:46] Looking for the heavenly city. Their hope wasn't centered upon the land that God had promised them at all. But they were looking beyond that earthly land to a heavenly city.
[13:03] And we very often, when we go through the New Testament, we find this word inheritance very often. It is used as another way of referring to the fact that we will receive, at the end of a pilgrimage, we will receive eternal life.
[13:23] We will receive the recipients of eternal life. And he says in verse 4 that this inheritance shall not fade. It is not something that is going to fade.
[13:34] And it is not going to fade because God won't fade. God won't fade because we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.
[13:46] God is not. And God is not. God is not going to disappear from the scene, to put it in another way. God is everlasting.
[13:57] God is eternal. Therefore, because God is eternal, this inheritance is eternal. God is eternal. And it is not something that is vain. God is eternal. We are heirs and co-heirs with Christ of God.
[14:11] As Paul brings before us in Romans 8, 17. Secondly, this inheritance is incorruptible. And it is incorruptible because of a selection body that we will receive when we are raised from the dead.
[14:32] That resurrection body is incorruptible. If we go to 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 42, it is incorruptible, it is in perishing.
[14:42] It is not something that we are going to be given and sooner or later it will perish. It is something that is incorruptible.
[14:54] And thirdly, he reminds us here in verse 4 that this inheritance is undefined. It will never lose its beauty, it will never lose its lustre.
[15:07] Simply because the resurrection body that we will be recipients of, will be sinless, like Christ, who has resurrected body and even as body before us are sinless.
[15:23] It will be, we will be made like them to Christ himself. We will be raised in his likeness. And this inheritance is something that is undefined.
[15:38] We cannot. We just spoke to a plenishment. Supposing we cried. And the next thing he reveals to us here is that it is reserved in heaven.
[15:52] It is reserved in heaven for you. And it is God who reserves it for us. It is God himself who reserves this inheritance for us.
[16:03] Because he is selfless. Because he is selfless the inheritance. And he reserves this inheritance for us, which makes this inheritance certain and secure.
[16:16] It is not something that we are going to lose. And you see, when Peter was writing to, the people that he was writing to at this particular moment, they were going through sufferings.
[16:28] They were going through persecutions. And Peter here in verse 4 is reminding them that the veil of tears is going to come to an end.
[16:39] Whatever they are going through at this particular moment, it is all going to come to an end. And those who have put in their trust in Jesus Christ, those who continue to put their trust in Jesus Christ, will receive an exceeding great reward at the end of their pilgrimage in this world.
[17:10] They are going to be the recipients of a great reward at the end of their pilgrimage here. Now, we know that plenty of people like Karl Marx and others, not just Karl Marx alone, but many others, promised to us a paradise who only follow their philosophy or follow the way of life that they said before us.
[17:40] But they are worldly paradigms. And as we see, worldly paradigms that will never find fulfillment. But what Peter is bringing before us here is that the hope, the inheritance that the people of God are awaiting for, the hope is sure, the inheritance is certain, because it is based, as he puts it for us again in verse 23 of this chapter, that hope and inheritance is brought before us in the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.
[18:22] We find this promise to us in the very word, that of God that liveth and abideth forever. And that brings us to verse 5 of, verse 5 here, the great protection that God affords to each and every one of his people.
[18:42] And if we look at verse 5, it is as if Peter is debating whether those, whether all believers will at the end of the day receive this inheritance.
[19:00] And of course he names, the inheritance is named for us here in verse 5, as salvation. And that salvation has been experienced by every believer who has been born again.
[19:15] It is as salvation has been experienced by every believer who has been born again. But what Peter is bringing before us in verse 5 here is the fullness of that salvation, the fullness of it.
[19:31] And this, of course, it's in the glory that awaits the people of God when they will receive the fruits of the victory that Christ has won on their behalf over death, Satan, and sin.
[19:54] When they will receive these fruits in their completeness. In their completeness. And we can go over that with the words that Peter uses in verse 5.
[20:10] Because he says, it is a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Ready to be revealed in the last time.
[20:22] And there is no doubt that the Church of Jesus Christ that this is what we are looking at.
[20:32] This is what we are looking forward to. This is what we are longing for. From the moment that this salvation first came into our experience.
[20:44] from the first moment that we receive this salvation we have been ever looking forward to the time when we will when this salvation will be made complete.
[20:57] And when as Paul puts it in Romans chapter 8 we are waiting we are waiting to wait for the redemption of the body. We are waiting to wait for the... And it won't be complete to them.
[21:09] It won't be complete to them. And Peter Peter here gives an assurance is giving an assurance to those to whom he is likely that they will indeed receive this inheritance.
[21:24] There is nothing that is going to hold them back from receiving this inheritance until he is bringing before them in this verse. Why they will receive it? Because they will be kept by the power of God.
[21:39] They will be kept by the power of God. Though the word kept as it is used the word kept as it is used here in verse 5 means that God deserves stronghold God deserves focus just as David refers to him at the beginning of psalm making and the picture that is given to us there is of a fortified city for the inhabitants of that city being kept safe from the enemies that are outside of the city and that is the picture that is brought before us here by Peter in verse 5.
[22:24] Now there is no doubt whatsoever as we have mentioned before that Peter himself and those to whom he was writing were suffering at this particular moment.
[22:37] They were suffering physically they were suffering spiritually mentally as well but what Peter is bringing before them here is that these sufferings will not hold them back from receiving this inheritance.
[23:03] They will be kept by the power of God through faith through faith and every one of us has got to exercise faith that we are going to receive the fullness of this salvation and the faith that Peter is on about here is persevering in our trust and the trust that we place that we are placing in Christ and to be diligent to be diligent as far as our own faith is concerned.
[23:35] Now the question arises well how can this inheritance be attained if it depends upon the faith of weak people like me and like you and if there is anything going to hold us back from receiving this inheritance it is unbelief unbelief is the great sin and unbelief is what will lead to the children of God coming short of receiving this inheritance so therefore what this means is that our faith and our hope has got to be kept alive until we reach the end of our pilgrimage and Peter saying it will be kept alive it will be kept alive by the power of God it will be kept alive by the power of God in the midst of suffering in the midst of tribulation in the midst of sorrow in the midst of difficulty the faith of the people of God will be kept alive by the power of God and it doesn't matter how low that faith might go it doesn't matter how low our hope might go yet our hope and our faith will never reach the point where one can say but what we found is a dead faith and a dead hope doesn't matter how low the power of hope and of faith will be kept alive by the power of God until we come to receive the fullness of this salvation in the last time of Peter present and as we as we climb down from the mount of ordinance we couldn't have a greater promise going back into the world and that we are being kept by the power of
[25:57] God for this one reason so that we whom he and to whom he has given this new birth will receive this wonderful inheritance may he bless to us these few thoughts that is big longer for gracious and bless the moon Thank you.