Listen to audio above while following along with the transcript below (which is also available for download in Word at www.biblestudyministriesinc.com)
I want to share a Bible verse. We’re in 1 Peter, and that’s the book we’re looking at, and the verse comes from Psalm 39:12, and as we go through the book, you’ll see how precious this verse is. “I am a stranger with You, a sojourner, like all my fathers.” Just that expression, “I’m a pilgrim with the Lord,” and 1 Peter will explain what that means.
Let’s commit our time unto the Lord. Father, thank You for gathering us together and flocking us like this, that we might learn from You. Protect Your children from any of my ideas that are just from man, and we pray that we might hear from You. Thank You for the Holy Spirit who lives in our hearts, and ever turns our eyes to the Lord Jesus. We commit this introduction study to You and thank You in advance that You are going to minister to our hearts. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Welcome to our study of the Lord Jesus in the first epistle of Peter. We always study the Bible to know the Lord, not to know the Bible. I pray when we’re done that we’ll know the Bible a little bit better, but our hearts gather that we might know Him. This is our second introduction lesson to 1 Peter, and this lesson, probably more than the other two, because next week we’ll have our third introduction, and then we’ll begin the book, but this lesson today is so very vital. If you really want God’s heart in 1 Peter, the concepts that we’ll touch on this morning are just so essential. I’m just praying that the Lord would give us a divine attention.
In our first introduction I called attention to the historical and religious background of the book. I’m not going to revisit that, but I want to review two of the great realities that we touched, and then we’ll move on. The first thing I want you to recall is this, that the book of 1 Peter has a great emphasis on undeserved suffering. We handed out a little sheet on the emphasis that Peter gives to undeserved suffering, not only the suffering of our Lord Jesus, but the suffering of His children. 1 Peter 4:1, “Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourself also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.” And then 1 Peter 4:12, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as if some strange thing were happening to you.”
1 Peter covers the whole gamut of suffering. In other words, the extremes; He covers suffering at its worst under Nero, the tremendous martyrdoms Christians were going through, the violent death, very cruel treatment, and unspeakable dealing against God’s people from the heathen, with the sword, with the animals, with the flame, and so on. But here’s the principle. God has made provision for the worst-case suffering, and on the other end of the spectrum Peter mentions, for example, anxiety which is less than martyrdom, I would imagine. Of course, suffering is relative. In other words, if it’s mine it’s severe. We sort of think that way. I might be called to endure something that’s not very extreme, but because it’s mine and I’m going through it, I might think that’s very great suffering, my toothache, my backache. I don’t want to hear about the martyrs. I have a toothache, and that kind of thing.
The point we’re discussing is that Peter includes that which is relatively less. 1 Peter 1 :6, “In this you greatly rejoice, even though for now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials.” That word “various” is not talking about intensity, but different kinds. We all have different kinds of trials. 1 Peter 5:7, “…casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” So, your toothache, your backache, the weight of your guilt, your burden for your loved ones, your burden for those who are not saved, the frustrations of living the Christian life, all your burdens are to be cast on the Lord.
Here was the principle. God does not have one provision for great sufferers, and another provision for less suffering. There is no such thing. His provision for the martyr will have to get you through your backache. It’s the same provision. He doesn’t give one to the martyr, and then one to a little problem. In other words, the martyrs had the indwelling Christ as their provision. You have the indwelling Christ as your provision. That’s the only provision He gives. With Him He gives all things, so with the indwelling Christ, He might give a word in season, a promise, an encouragement. With Him He might give some expectation of a future hope. In Him He might give strength and patience to endure with what is not natural to endure, or rest or assurance that all things are under His control, or the idea that this is redemptive, and it’s for someone else. But the provision is always the Lord. Thank God for the Word! Thank God for other things! Thank God He sends Christians into your life to write, to visit, to call! Praise God for that! But what you and I need in suffering is the same thing the martyrs needed, the indwelling Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing is little to Jesus, and nothing is big to Jesus. God’s provision is Christ. Jesus is all you need for this moment, for the future, and for all the ages of eternity. We need to lay hold of that.
The second thing I want to review is the theme that we touched on last time. As you go through the book of 1 Peter, at first it seems like the theme is the pilgrim life, that Jesus is calling every Christian to be a Christian pilgrim. We don’t live here. We’re just passing through. This world is not my home. 1 Peter 2:11, “I urge you, as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.” 1 Peter is in keeping with the main direction of God’s entire word, all the saints in all ages. Hebrews 11:13 describes it, “All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed, if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.”
And Abraham, the father of faith, the pilgrim, he went out not knowing where he went, but he was looking for a city that had foundations, whose architect, whose builder was God. So, in that sense it’s true that the message is the pilgrim life. We are strangers here, aliens, sojourners. We don’t belong. Colossians 1:13, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom His beloved Son.” We once lived here. We once had roots here. We once belonged to the world, but we don’t live here anymore. God has changed our citizenship and we become pilgrims, and not only pilgrims, but we become ambassador pilgrims, but that will be later on.
John 17:16, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.” We used to be citizens here, but now we’re citizens of another country. Of course, in the world we left behind those who knew us before we were saved, before we became the Lord’s children, they’re scratching their heads. They don’t know what happened. All of a sudden, we got lifted up, and we’re in another kingdom, we’ve become heavenly pilgrims. 1 Peter 4:3, “For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries. In all this they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you.” They are puzzled at why you left. You used to be like them, and all of a sudden God has changed everything.
So, in a sense we are pilgrims, but that is not the prevailing theme of 1 Peter. The first verse in the whole book reminds us that we’re not only pilgrims, but we are aliens residing; this is not my home, but I live here. This is not your home, but you reside here. That doesn’t mean you have to drop roots, but we are living here. Ephesians 2:19, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household.” The theme and the emphasis of 1 Peter is not that every Christian is a pilgrim. That’s part of it but that’s not the prevailing theme. 1 Peter presents the Lord Jesus as the ideal pilgrim, and not you, and not me. Jesus is the ideal Pilgrim, and my only hope for living a pilgrim life is not by becoming a settler here and working my head off trying to live like a Christian. My hope is that the real Pilgrim, God’s ideal pilgrim, the Lord Jesus lives in my heart to live out His Pilgrim Life through me. In that sense I’m a pilgrim, to the degree the Pilgrim, the real One, Jesus, lives in me and through me.
I’m going to show you in another connection, in fact the lesson this morning, how wonderful that really is, having the Lord Jesus as the true Pilgrim, but for now understand that a lot of Christians don’t have the message of 1 Peter. They try to live the pilgrim life, and they end up just trying to survive. What Peter talks about as joy unspeakable and full of glory to those who are going through suffering, and undeserved suffering at that. They don’t get that. To them it’s just getting through another day, “I hope I can make it, and I’m trying hard, and I’ve fallen down, but now I’m getting up. 1 Peter 14, “If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you’re blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.” What a resting place for the Spirit of God! On you, and you’re blessed! A lot of Christians don’t think when they’re going through stuff that they’re blessed. 1 Peter 1:8, “Though you’ve not seen Him, you love Him and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.” Sadly, that’s not the experience of many Christians, especially those who are going through undeserved suffering.
I want to continue our second introduction, and we’ll touch a little bit on the joy of being delivered from the burden of thinking that I’m the pilgrim. There’s a great deliverance when God delivers you from that, especially, “I’m a pilgrim in a place where they hate me and don’t want anything to do with me,” and the world, the flesh and the devil will do everything to keep me from living the Christian experience. When God shows me and opens my eyes and my heart to see that Christ is the real Pilgrim, what a deliverance for the believer! It’s so different than just trying to survive from day to day and just get through this day and maybe tomorrow will be better, and that kind of thing. Sad, gloomy pilgrims have very little to offer the world, and we’re going to see that in 1 Peter.
I want to show you first of all how the Lord Jesus is the living hope, and then secondly how does Peter present Jesus as the ideal Pilgrim? If we could see those two things this morning, I think the burden on my heart will have been released. Let me begin with 1 Peter 1:3, just at the beginning of the epistle, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” I want to focus on “caused us to be born again to a living hope”. Kenneth Wuest in his translation says, “a hope which is alive,” a living hope. Another translation says, “a lively hope, we’ve been born again to a lively hope.”
Of course, this born again to a lively hope needs to be explained. What makes the hope live? If it’s become lively, then there was a time when it wasn’t lively? The implication is that before there is a lively hope, there’s hopelessness. That’s very important to understand the message. On the handout sheet I listed the four things that are guaranteed that come out of the living hope. We talk about the indwelling of Christ. We talk about the outworking of the life of Christ. Peter lays more stress on the outworking of the indwelling than any book that I know. It’s such a tremendous emphasis, and may God teach us that! When we get to chapter one, we’ll develop the living hope a little more, but for now I want to focus on what did Peter have in mind when he said, “God has begotten us to a living hope. Blessed be the Father for that.” First, I want to look at the picture, and then I want to look at the reality.
I want to give two illustrations from the gospel record that on the level of earth with these eyes illustrate “born again to a lively hope by the resurrection.” I want to give two illustrations of that. There was a hopelessness, and then something happened, and the hopelessness was kindled and it became hope, a living hope, and it was all because of the resurrection.
The first illustration is Peter himself. I wonder if we could find a more hopeless individual than Peter must have been after he denied the Lord Jesus. It’s hard to get into someone’s shoes like that but try to think about that. He had denied the Lord three times, and any hope that he had of being the follower of Christ and a good Christian and so on, I think it sort of went down the drain. We got a view of him right after Jesus looked at him, remember in the garden, and it says, “Right after the cock crowed, he had denied the Lord, and Jesus looked at him. Luke 22:62, “He went out and wept bitterly.” We just read that in English that he went out and wept bitterly, but the Greek is very graphic. Wuest says that he burst into tears and wept audibly. The idea is it was at the top of the lungs. He was howling, he was weeping, he burst into tears, and according to Wuest, he wept audibly and bitterly. I can’t’ imagine the emotion that must have been in Peter. He was a hopeless man, broken, and he had publicly denied the Lord, even with oaths, “I don’t even know Him, my best friend, I don’t know Him and I haven’t known Him.” So, in his heart I know he was depressed; it was over and he was hopeless.
But on the third day you know the record. Mary Magdalene brought a strange word to this hopeless man. Listen to John 20:2&3, “She ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.’ So, Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb.” I want to make one passing comment on John. Peter and John were close. If you denied the Lord, do you have a Christian friend who would take you in? This says a lot about John, because it was all out, and he had been exposed.
I’m not going to try to describe the emotion. I just know that it must have been terrible and tearing him to shreds. Peter runs, and now he hears that somebody took the body. He runs to the tomb with John. But we read this, John 20:9, “For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.” When he ran to the tomb, it wasn’t because he thought Jesus is alive. They didn’t get that yet. When he ran to the tomb, he was still hopeless, but now he’s hopeless and confused, and maybe angry that someone stole the body of the Lord Jesus.
How do you think he felt when the other women returned from the empty tomb with a message from an angel? Listen to the message, Mark 16:6, “And he said to them, ‘Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him.” Actually, the Greek says, “Look, here is the place where He isn’t. “But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’” By adding “and Peter”, can you imagine Peter’s heart when the women came back and said, “An angel told us He’s alive, and told us to tell all of you, and Peter, to tell you.” I can hear Peter say, “Are you sure He mentioned my name? Are you sure He wants me to know? I’m the one that denied Him? Are you sure?” Peter is hopeless, but now something is stirring. There is word that Jesus is alive, and when that hopeless man heard that Jesus was alive, his heart began to revive, like Jacob’s heart when he learned Joseph was alive.
Listen to Genesis 46:26, “They told him, saying, ‘Joseph is still alive, and indeed he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.’ But he was stunned, for he did not believe them. When they told him all the words of Joseph that he had spoken to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived.” That’s hope being made alive; his spirit revived. I’m going to leave Peter there for the moment. The story goes on, and there were other contacts with our living Lord Jesus, but for now here is a hopeless man who, because of a literal resurrection of Jesus received a living hope. He became alive again.
My second illustration is very similar to that. It’s Easter morning and it’s the story of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus. You remember Luke 24, they were walking the seven-mile journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and as they walked, they were discussing, and if you read it, they were discussing their shattered hopes. They were hopeless. The living Savior unknow to them joined in the walk. You remember that they were walking, and this guy shows up, and it’s the Lord Jesus. Luke 24:17, “And He said to them, ‘What are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you are walking?’ And they stood still, looking sad.” Do you know why they were looking sad? It was because they were sad. They were very sad. They had lost hope. If fact, when they tried to explain it to the stranger, they used these words, Luke 24:21, “But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, beside all this, it is the third ay since these things happened.” “We were hoping, but it didn’t work out. Our hopes died. They crucified Him and when He went, we went.” They don’t know how real that was!
You remember the story as Jesus began to revive their hope; first He opens up the scriptures and teaches them the only way to study scriptures which is to look for the Lord Jesus. Luke 24:27, “then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” My Lillian said that if there were any Bible story that she would have liked to have been alive, it would have been on this road listening to that Bible study where Jesus revealed Himself in all the scriptures. We know their hearts were burning; they testified to that, as this stranger opened the scriptures and showed concerning Himself.
The day was drawing to a close and they invited the stranger to come in. It was getting late and they, “Don’t continue; stay with us.” They prepared a meal and it was at that meal that the living Jesus revealed Himself. Luke 24:30, “And when He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.” In that moment when they recognized Him, the living Savior, their hopelessness was turned to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. They were begotten again to this living hope, filled with joy. The day was drawing on and it was getting late, but all of a sudden, they said, “We’ve got to go back,” and they took the seven-mile journey back, to share with others. Their hearts were now filled and overflowing with joy.
Now, 1 Peter, the epistle, begins with the truth of being born again, and usually when we think of those words, born again, we’re referring to the beginning of the Christian life. In other words, I was lost, and now I’m saved; I was in the world, and now I’m a child of God; I have been born again. I was born in Adam’s family, and now I’m in God’s family. But in the illustration that Peter uses, the illustration of Peter and the Emmaus Road disciples, they are already born again. They’re already Christian; hopeless Christians need to be born again to a living hope. That’s the situation. This isn’t about getting saved. They are already Christian. Peter is writing to Christians scattered abroad who are hopeless, and he is offering them a living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. That’s the message of this book.
It’s sad to say that some Christians are living hopeless Christian lives, and they need a vision of a living Savior. I want to continue by moving from the picture, Peter is here, the living Christ is here, and his hope revived. The Emmaus disciples are over here, and the living Christ is here, and their hopes revived. 1 Peter, two illustrations, Peter and the Emmaus disciples, they were literal. In other words, with these eyes they saw the living Christ, and with that visual with these eyes (heart), not these, with these eyes it was enough to quicken their hopes, and to make them alive. That’s the natural. Peter is using that to illustrate spiritual reality.
How many Christians have attempted to live the Christian life, the pilgrim life, that’s what this epistle is all about, thousands of born-again Christians need to be born again to a living hope. They need to see the living Christ. I know this from the Bible, but if you’ll allow me, I also know it from my own life.
I’ll tell you; I was one of those hopeless Christians. When I got saved it was an exciting time. Mine was a radical conversion, and I promised the Lord that I would be the best Christian that He ever saved, and I meant it, and I tried. 1 Peter 1:15-16, I saw the standard, “like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’” It didn’t take long to be crushed by the standard. I wanted to live a Christian life, and He said, “Alright, all you have to do is be perfect.” Yeah, right! Be holy! I tried to do holy. You can’t do holy; you’ve got to be holy. That has to do with who you are, and I was a million miles away from being holy.
I don’t know if you’ve gone through that experience, but I’ll tell you, the weight of the revelation of the standard to live the Christian life is crushing. I was disappointing the Lord every hour of every day. If you’ve never been real serious with the Lord, if you are just going through the religious game and going through certain motions, religious motions, you probably won’t even know what I’m talking about as I give this testimony. But if your salvation was real and you ever got serious about wanting to honor the Lord, and live the Christian life, for me my change was so radical, and the joy was so deep, and the burden for others was so all consuming, and the love I had for the Lord and the thankfulness was just awesome. I was determined, as I said, that I’m going to be God’s man, “You can read about other Christians, but I’m going to be God’s man.” I actually promised Him one day that I would never sin again. But one who is in dead earnest about being a true Christian, and tries to live the Christian life, I tried that for seven years. Seven years is a long time. In 1965 I crashed. I came to the Lord in 1958, and I began that great quest, “I’m going to be a Christian pilgrim,” and I crashed in 1965.
When that happened, I felt like I was the most hopeless man on the planet. It was over, and I threw in the towel. I quit. I told the president of the Bible school I was in that it was over, and I quit Bible school. I thought the best thing I could do for Lillian was to divorce her. I was crushed and I was hopeless. You can’t believe how hopeless. I threw in the towel. I tried not to sin, and I kept sinning, and I was addicted to sin, and I would mess up, and I would confess, and I’d come back to the Lord, and He would forgive me, and I’d start again, and I’d fail again, and I’d come back again, over and over, month after month, year after year, seven years of it. I can’t tell you how hopeless I became, especially in 1965 because I then was exposed as the hypocrite I was to everyone, and that just added to the hopelessness. I was told that confession had to be within the circle of the sin, and I was required to stand up at Columbia Bible College before a thousand students and tell them the hypocrite that they knew I was. It was a devastating time.
But then the Lord brought into my life faithful men and women who told me the greatest news I think any Christian could ever hear. They told me that Jesus was alive. It wasn’t like I hadn’t heard that before. I knew He rose from the dead. That Easter message was not a problem with me. I knew He rose from the dead, and I knew He was alive, but my idea was, “I’m here, He’s alive, and some day He’s going to take me to heaven, and I’ll enjoy Him forever.” That was my whole Christian life.
The reason Jesus didn’t do much for me as far as the Easter message was concerned, but these Christians began to tell me things that shocked me, like, “God never expected you to live the Christian life.” What? Why did He save me, if He didn’t expect me to live the Christian life? I thought that was the whole deal. I thought that was my duty, that was my responsibility, to live the Christian life. I was shocked to learn that the only one who ever expected me to live the Christian life was me, that God never expected me to live the Christian life. That was shocking to me, and being a constant failure at it, I kept vowing to do better, to be more faithful, to be more earnest, to be more zealous to dig into the Word more, to get more involved, and every promise was broken, and I became more and more hopeless. All of my prayers and all of my fastings and all of my confessions and all of my vows and promises to the Lord and my determinations were all for nothing, seven years of total waste.
But when my hopeless heart, listen to these brothers and sisters, I can’t describe, I’ll try, but I can’t describe the joy, the relief that came to my heart when I heard that Jesus was alive, the way they said it, not that He rose from the dead, but that He was alive, and alive in me. That was the difference right there. He’s alive to live in me as a substitute, as He once died for me as a substitute. How my heart burned within me as I discovered that this hopeless man all of a sudden had hope! And the Bible began to breathe and become alive to me. Everything was new. I was born again by the resurrection of Christ from the dead. He was alive, and now I had learned that He was alive in me. 1 Peter 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has cause us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Peter went from hopelessness to hope by seeing a living Savior. The Emmaus disciples went from hopelessness to a quickened hope by seeing the living Lord Jesus, and Ed Miller was raised, praise God, from being a hopeless Christian, an awful struggle of trying to do what was impossible, to a living hope, and the burden of being a Christian was lifted forever, that He will live in my place in my stead. Friends in Christ, do you see how everything is hopeless apart from the living Christ. Without the living Christ, without the life of Christ everything is impossible.
The need for the cross put an end to all of that hopelessness, the utter hopelessness of self and trying to do it and self-confidence. There’s nothing good in my flesh, nothing. There’s nothing good in your flesh, never will be and you’ll never improve, and I’ll never improve. If God left us to ourselves, we would be everylasting hopelessness, shame and guilt and remorse and reproach forever. If He left us for one moment, it would be back to riches of the glory of the mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The only ground for living hope is the ground of the living Christ. You’ve got to stay on that ground. I’ve got to stay on that ground. God will never again come to ground that He has abandoned. He will not. At the cross He closed the door forever on the natural man. It’s over and done and through, and God will never open that door again. And we can never get Him to open the door again with all of our pleadings.
All is hopelessness apart from the living Christ. That’s what gripped Peter. These suffering pilgrims, they’re being persecuted and being martyred, and they need the living hope. They need the living Christ. Nothing but the living Christ can ever take hopelessness and turn it to hope. That’s why Peter begins this first epistle with this great reality. All through Peter it appears like when he talks about the revelation of Christ, it looks like he’s talking about the future, but he’s not. He’s talking about the present. For example, 1 Peter 1:7, “..the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
That expression “at the revelation of Jesus Christ”, when is that? Is that heaven? Is that when He comes again? Or is that when He reveals Himself to you? 1 Peter 1:13, “Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:12, “Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.” What’s the day of visitation? We’re going to look at that when we get there. 1 Peter 5:1, “Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed.” I’m a partaker now of the glory that will be revealed. 1 Peter 5:4, “And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” When He appears… When, in the second coming, in heaven? Undoubtedly, all of those references, to the revelation of Christ and the day of visitation, and partakers of glory to be revealed and the appearance of the Chief Shepherd, they will have a final fulfillment. We’re never going to deny that, but in 1 Peter it’s more present tense than future. He’s saying, “Right now you are going through stuff, you don’t understand it, you don’t get the mystery, but you still love Him, you don’t understand it, but you still trust Him. When He reveals Himself it will become clear. That’s what He is saying in 1 Peter. We’ll look at that in great detail when we go through.
We don’t want to make the mistake that Martha, the sister of Mary and Lazarus made. Remember, Lazarus was dead, I mean dead; he was in the grave. John 11:23, “Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again,’ Martha said to Him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’” Do you see what Martha did? She just said, “I know that down the road, by and by, in the sweet down there someplace… To Martha resurrection had to do with the future, and Jesus reminded her in verse 25, “I am the resurrection and the Life. He who believes in Me will live, even if he dies. Everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe that?” “Martha, do you know why he is going to rise again at the last day? It’s because I’m going to be there to raise him. I’m here now.” That’s His point, that I am the resurrection right now.
When I got saved, I was taught immediately that now I had eternal life. John 3:15, “…so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.” John 5:11, “And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” I thought that eternal life referred only to duration, by and by, because I’m going to live forever. That’s how I thought. I made the same mistake that Martha made. It includes that. I’m going to live forever and ever, as ages roll on ages, but I like John 17:3, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Nothing but the reality of the living Christ can give me a lively hope, especially in the day of undeserved persecution. The Christian life is life, and life more abundantly, not by you working harder to live it, but by having someone else live for you, in you and in your place.
As we get ready to close, I want to begin to show you how Peter presents Christ as the ideal Pilgrim. It starts off as 1 Peter starts off; you have to have supernatural birth. Of course, the ideal pilgrim, I want to show four ways Peter shows Jesus as the ideal Pilgrim. Maybe we won’t get to all four, but I might do one and then do three, because you’ve got to have three. Then next time we’ll pick up with two.
The first is that the ideal pilgrim must have a supernatural birth. As a Christian, you can’t even think of the pilgrim life without a supernatural birth. Now, 1 Peter 1:10-12, it says that the prophets received word about the sufferings of Christ and the glory to follow, and they couldn’t put it together. They scratched their heads. Here is an amazing thing. God spoke to Isaiah, and then Isaiah studied his own writing, because he didn’t understand what it meant. The prophets studied their own writing because they were confused about, “How could He be Messiah and suffer, and then at the same time reign as King forever?” They couldn’t put it together. It was because He was supernaturally born. Micah states it this way. Micah 5:2, “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” There’s a supernatural birth. He stepped out of eternity, and you know about the virgin birth and all of that. So, an ideal pilgrim has to have a supernatural birth. I think Jesus is qualified.
The second characteristic. The ideal pilgrim has to be perfect, and I’ll show you that next time, but let me get to this third illustration. 1 Peter 2:23, “…while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.” When Jesus lived on the earth, get that point, He kept entrusting Himself who judges righteously. As He went through underserved suffering, somebody lived inside Jesus, and He spells it out. John 5:19, “therefore, Jesus answered and was saying to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” John 10:37, “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father in Me, and I in the Father.”
Jesus laid aside His deity when He came, and the life He lived, He depended on the Father who lived inside of Him. He initiated nothing, did nothing on His own. Jesus had to trust the indwelling Father. We say that Jesus did a miracle. He did not. The Father did the miracle, and Jesus was the instrument through which that miracle came. Everything was the Father. Jesus depended on the Father. Why is that so important? It’s because that’s how we are to live. He said that He was supernaturally born, He lived a perfect life, the life He lived He lived in dependence, and it’s going to be redemptive. We’ll look at that next time, too. But He did it first, not to show you how to do it second. He did it first to show you what it would look like when He did it again, in you and in me.
John 6:57, “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.” John 20:21,” So Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.’ And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” Nothing has changed. Brothers and sisters, this is 1 Peter. 1 Peter is saying that Jesus is the ideal Pilgrim, supernaturally born, lived a perfect life, in total dependence on the indwelling Father, and His life became redemptive. You are to live a pilgrim life. Jesus said, “I did it because I trusted the One who lives in Me. As the Father sent Me, I’m sending you. Don’t try to do it on your own. You have Me now living.” So, Jesus is laid out as the ideal Pilgrim, and now He comes to live in us. So, everything we read about in the pilgrim life is going to based on the living hope, Jesus living through us.
Father, thank You for Your Word, not what we think it might mean, but all that You know that it means. Work that in heart. If there is any Christian who is hopelessly trying to live the Christian life, revive them again with the great truth that You live and live in us. Lord, make this so real as we go through 1 Peter. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen