Now may I encourage you to turn
with me in your Bibles to 1 Peter, Chapter 5. I shall read what, in my judgment,
is a paragraph unit beginning with 5B, in which the Apostle
turns from giving specific directions to elders and then directives
to those whom they lead, and speaks his final word of exhortation
to all within the various congregations in those Roman provinces of Asia
Minor with these words, yes, all of you gird yourselves with
humility to serve one another for God resists the proud but
gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under
the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time casting
all your anxiety upon him, because he cares for you. Be sober, be
watchful. Your adversary the devil as a
roaring lion walks about, seeking whom he may devour. Whom withstands
steadfast in your faith, knowing that the same sufferings are
accomplished in your brethren who are in the world. and, or
perhaps better rendered to give a feel of this particular particle
used here by Peter, moreover, looking back upon all that has
been written, moreover the God of all grace, who has called
you unto his eternal glory in Christ, or in Christ Jesus. Some of the manuscript evidence
has Jesus as well. After you have suffered a little
while, shall himself perfect, establish, strengthen. And again, I believe the better
manuscript evidence adds a fourth verb, settle you. The God of
all grace who called you unto his eternal glory in Christ Jesus,
after you have suffered a little while, shall himself perfect,
establish, strengthen, settle you to him the dominion forever
and ever. Amen. In the opening words of this
letter, Peter addressed the people of God in these Roman provinces
of Asia Minor as elect sojourners. As Peter writes most likely from
Rome, called in the end of our epistle Babylon, he envisions
God's people in their identity as elect sojourners, that is,
those who were loved and chosen by God before the world began
to be the recipients of His saving mercy in Christ, but who presently
are aliens passing through a country not their own. Once their election
became known in their effectual calling, they ceased to be identified
primarily as citizens in the Roman Empire. They were now citizens
of the commonwealth of heaven, and therefore they are to regard
themselves in their true light as aliens, as those who have
another and a better country. And then it becomes clear in
the body of the letter that Peter has two major concerns as he
instructs and exhorts these elect sojourners. The first concern
is that he wants them to know and believingly to grasp all
that they possess of redemptive grace in the present and all
that they shall experience of that grace in the future. as
he thinks of these elect sojourners and asks the question, what do
they need as those loved and saved by God who are in alien
territory on their way to their true dwelling place? What do
they need? Well, it's obvious, particularly
in the first couple of chapters, that what they need is to know
and, believingly, to grasp all that they possess of redemptive
grace in the present and what they shall possess in the future. And I call those statements in
1 Peter again and again the grand indicatives of God's grace, the
statements of what is and what they possess. But then Peter
has a second burden that is evident throughout the letter. He wants
these elect sojourners to know and obediently to embrace all
that God requires of them in their sojourn as aliens on their
way to a better country. And that's summarized in such
statements as 2.11, I beseech you as strangers and sojourners
to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. and those I call, throughout
the exposition of them, the practical imperatives. God's indicatives
always precede His imperatives, but the imperatives always follow
the indicatives. Our privileges in grace lay upon
us the serious responsibilities of grace to be fulfilled and
discharged in the power of God's grace. Furthermore, all of the
privileges and duties The grand indicatives and the practical
imperatives are constantly conditioned throughout this letter by the
reality of the present suffering of these elect sojourners and
Peter's prediction that suffering will mark them throughout the
entirety of their sojourn in this place that is not their
country. One writer has said that 1 Peter
is a roadmap for suffering saints who are on their way to the celestial
city. And what it is and was to them,
I trust God has been making it to each of us. Now we come in
our expositions of the letter to this passage read in your
hearing, and in particular to verses 10 and 11, which are really
the conclusion of the letter. Verses 12 to 14 are an epistolatory
conclusion, a formal addendum, a spirit-inspired P.S. in which Peter, following the
pattern of first century writing, gives some additional information
but is really not part of the body of the letter. The letter
concludes with this most fitting doxology, to him the dominion
forever and ever. Amen. And it is preceded by what
I am calling a most encouraging promise. Now put yourself in
Peter's place. He's there in Rome. He has been
fulfilling the commission of His Lord. When you are turned
again, strengthen your brethren. He is concerned for these saints
way out in the northeast segment of the existing Roman Empire.
He's writing to them. He wants them to know and to
believe all that they have in Christ. He wants them to know
and obey all that they ought to do for Christ and consistent
with their profession of Christ. And now he's bringing his letter
to a close. What shall he say to them that
will, as it were, cause them to leave the hearing of that
letter read in the various assemblies? And later on, when it would be
copied and they would be able to see the mind of God with their
own eyes, what is it that Peter wants them to have ringing in
their ears, stuck on their eyeballs as they read the letter? Well,
it is this most encouraging promise of verse 10 and this most fitting
doxology of verse 11. And for those of you who have
a Bible that indicates that this is a prayer, that has to do with
a textual matter again. Whether Peter used simple future
indicatives or whether he used what's called the optative case,
I mean the optative mode. Optative is the form in which
you express a wish or a desire. May the God of all grace do thus
and thus. But this is not an optative.
These are not optatives. The four verbs are simple future
indicatives. They are a declaration of what
God is committed to do and so they constitute a promise. And
the God of all grace shall himself perfect, establish, strengthen,
settle you. That's the heart of the promise,
and I am entitling it a most encouraging promise. And as I've
sought to understand the meaning and significance of this encouraging
promise, it's become very clear to me that this is one of those
texts in which almost every single word, including the prepositions,
is pregnant with far-reaching significance. And I trust you
understand, dear people of God, that we're not saying one part
of the Word of God is more inspired than another. Every word found
in Scripture in the original manuscripts was inspired by the
Spirit of God. Those words in which God gives
details of what part of the animal should be flayed and cut out
and burned and thrown away. Every one of those words is as
much inspired as every word of 1 Peter. But not every portion
of Scripture is equally dense in its significance or equally
important to the Christian life. And this is one of those passages
in which every word of the text is pregnant with far-reaching
significance. It's as though Peter gets inside
the heads of his listeners, and to us, his readers. and looks
back through the letter and anticipates the very concerns and questions
that would arise in the hearts of his readers and the listeners,
and answers those questions before they can even be framed and articulated. It's as though he anticipates
these elect sojourners saying, Peter, Peter! How can I possibly
hold before me all of these amazing privileges that you have outlined
that are mine as an elect sojourner? How can I remember and believingly
appropriate all of the grand indicatives, especially when
I'm in the midst of suffering? Peter says, here's your answer.
The God of all grace who called you shall himself, shall himself
perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. Look to the God
of all grace. It's as though he anticipates
the response of some saying, Peter, my problem is not so much
holding before me all the grand indicatives in the midst of suffering,
But it's holding before me and complying from the heart with
all of the gracious imperatives. Peter, you've given us directions
about the home and about how to relate to unjust and unrighteous,
irascible and unreasonable masters and employers. And you've told
us how to relate at the level of the state and how to deal
with our own... Peter, how in the world can we
hold all of this and walk in the light of it? He says, here's
my answer. The God of all grace who called you shall Himself
perfect, establish, strengthen and settle you. Here, Peter says,
is the promise that is the capstone promise over all that I have
written. And in giving that promise by
the guidance of the Spirit, He has packed into every word tremendous
significance. It's going to take me two expositions
to open up verse 10. At least two. Now, come with
me into this green pasture and by the still waters of this most
encouraging promise that God through his servant Peter gives
to elect sojourners. And this morning we'll only have
time to consider what our text tells us about the author and
the executor of the promise. Now, author, you all know what
an author is. That's the someone who writes something. Well, who
ultimately wrote these words? Who stands behind them? Who is
the author of the words? And the executor is the one who
effects what the words say. The executor is the one who performs
or accomplishes. You and I make out a will. We
are the authors of that will, in conjunction with a lawyer,
in most cases. And in that will, we who are
the authors, we name an executor to administer what is in the
will. And in all wills, the one who's the author is not the executor.
You don't executorize from your grave. It's that someone else
will administer the terms set out in the will. But when we
come to a passage like this, it is the one true and living
God who is both the author and the executor of the promise. And before Peter articulates
the promise in its specific details, He is passionately concerned,
and I use that word not in excessive rhetorical embellishment, but
living with this text has convinced me. It is indeed a passionate
desire. that before these elect sojourners
attempt to take hold of the very heart of the promise, this God
shall himself establish, settle, etc. He wants them to contemplate
God himself who is the author and the executor of the promise. Now why did Peter do this? Well
you say he was guided by the Holy Spirit, yes. But the Holy
Spirit did not guide the biblical authors apart from the processes
of their own mind. Now sometimes he took them far
beyond those processes and they had to sit down, as Peter tells
us earlier, and scratch their heads and say, what in the world
did I say and what did I write about? How does it all fit together? But in the ordinary unfolding
of what we have as Scripture, God takes the mental cast of
the biblical authors. That's why you have a Petrine
style of writing and you have a Joannine style and a Pauline
style. The Holy Ghost does not batter
and neuter nature. He enhances and encompasses and
refines and sanctifies and lays hold of nature to make it the
conduit of his gracious working. So we ask the question, why did
Peter direct attention to the author and the executor before
he lays out the details of the promise? And I answer, I believe
it's because Peter understood what all of us know, and it is
this. Our response to any promise made
to us will be determined by our perception of the character and
the competence of the one who promises. Now think of that for
a minute and ask yourself, is it not true that my response
to a promise made to me is in direct proportion to my perception
of the character and the competence of the one who promises? Suppose
some of you had an uncle. He was a big-hearted, kind of
a jolly guy, but very irresponsible, a man not known to keep his word.
And you were visiting your uncle on vacation. Your uncle kind
of took a liking to you and he rubbed your head and sat you
on his knee and talked about how much he liked you and said,
well, you know, I'm going to, and then he promised you that
when you reach age 12 or age 16, I'm going to get you a brand
new car, and if mom and dad will let you have it, the title will
be yours. Now, if Uncle John, Uncle Henry, Uncle Harry, Uncle
whatever his name is, has a reputation, you've already become aware of
it, even though you're only 11, 12 years old, that he just promises
people to move. It's just part of the way he
is. He makes promises, but he doesn't keep them. He is not
known to be a man of truthfulness and integrity with his words,
and furthermore, because he's been so irresponsible, He drives
an old 1979 clunker held together with bailing wire and coat hangers.
And you say, he neither has the trustworthiness of character
nor the competence to fulfill his promise. So you might look
up at Uncle and say, well, thanks, Uncle. I'm glad you're here.
But you don't go home for dinner. We know, everybody knows, Uncle
John always keeps his word. And he promised me a car and
I know he can do it. Because he's got three cars in the garage
and he gets a new one every year. You see, your response to the
promise will be conditioned by your perception of the character
and the competence of the one who promises. And Peter understands
that. That is just one of the givens
of human relationships. And because this promise is so
all-encompassing, it's as though Peter anticipates the reaction
of our residual unbelief, saying, Peter, that's too good to be
true. And Peter said, now if you're
tempted to do that, remember who the author and the executor
of the promise is. Well, who is he? Peter said,
I'm going to tell you. And I want us now to look at
three specific things that Peter tells us about the author and
the executor of this promise. And the first is this. The author
and the executor of the promise is God Himself personally committed
to fulfill it. The author and executor of the
promise is God Himself personally committed to fulfill it. Where
do we see that? And the God of all grace, who
called you unto his eternal glory in Christ after you've suffered
a little while, now notice, shall himself perfect you. Since Peter writes, as he is
conscious in chapter 1 and verse 1, as an apostle, as a duly appointed,
uniquely equipped mouthpiece of God's revealed will to his
church. Among other things, that's what
apostles were. The words Peter writes are the
very words of God. But you see, he's not content
to write, and the God of all grace perfects you. But just
before the four future indicative verbs telling us what will be
done, he puts the intensive pronoun, God Himself. He didn't need it to make good
grammar. He needed it to make good theology. That these elect sojourners would
realize that in the midst of the suffering, In the midst of
the misunderstanding, in the midst of the opposition, in the
midst of trying to lay hold of all that they have and are in
Christ and to be all that they desire to be and God requires
them to be in Christ, they need to understand that the God who's
brought them into this orbit of concern is committed personally
to effect the very things that are promised in this text. Seeing the words of God Himself,
they are the words of the God who cannot lie. You kids in your catechism have
learned that God can do all His holy will, but there is something
God cannot do. Hebrews 6.18 says, God who cannot
lie. Paul writing to Timothy says,
God cannot. deny himself. It's a wonderful
thing to know that our God is the God of omnipotence, all power,
but His omnipotence is bounded by His truthfulness. Now think
of that for a minute. Let it sink down into your soul. God can do anything, but His
omnipotence is bounded by His truthfulness. He cannot lie. He cannot deny himself. And the
flip side of that is, he's the God whose truthfulness has omnipotence
as its servant. So that whatever he says in truth,
he has the power to effect. I was struck with this in my
Old Testament reading this week, in those marvelous chapters in
Jeremiah. Where Jeremiah 32, 27, God says,
Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything
too hard for me? And the answer is obviously no.
Jeremiah confesses there is nothing too hard for you. So when we
contemplate the one who gives the promise, the author and the
executor of the promise, is this God whose omnipotence is bounded,
I say it reverently, is limited by his truthfulness. God cannot
lie. God cannot violate his own word. And yet his truthfulness, whatever
it expresses, has omnipotence as its surface. Now when a God
like that says something, you and I do well to say, this ain't
old Uncle John who just promises you the world and gives you a
handful of animal crackers. This is no Uncle John who promises
big and doesn't deliver, who's all mouth and no performance. This is God. This is God. The Lord, the God of all flesh.
And when the biblical writers want to emphasize to the believers
a given act of God being God's own act personally, intimately,
involved with his people, they add this little intensive pronoun. For example, in 1 Thessalonians
5 in verse 23, you have a parallel usage. Look at it with me. 1
Thessalonians 5 in verse 23, and the God of peace Paul could have written, sanctify
you wholly, may your spirit, soul, and body be preserved,
but no, he says, and may, and the God of peace himself, himself,
he will be involved personally, intimately, actively in this
matter of sanctifying you wholly. So at the very outset, the promise
that the readers are going to receive is one that they must
view against the fresh awareness of the contemplation of the God
who gives it. To grasp that He will do what
is promised personally, individually, by His presence and His power,
we need afresh to focus our minds upon Him as both the author and
the executor of this promise. John Brown has captured the spirit
of this in his commentary when he writes, such a promise from
the most accomplished of men, from the highest of angels, from
all good men and all good angels together, would sound like bitter
mockery. Suppose Peter had written, and
all the good men in the apostolic church and all of the holy and
elect angels shall in their combined influence establish you, strengthen
you, perfect and settle you. John Brown says all of this would
sound like bitter mockery, but it is God who by the mouth of
His holy apostle declares that He will perfect and establish,
strengthen and settle the Christian combating with His subtle, active,
cruel and powerful spiritual adversary. He has just said,
Whom resist? How can I resist the devil and
so resist him that he will flee from me? God, God Himself, the
God revealed in Jesus Christ. And deeply as the Christian feels
how much is lacking in him for the conflict, how ready, how
sure, if left to himself, to turn back in the day of battle,
how powerless he is in the grasp of the strong man, the terrible
one, How much in danger, so far as depends on anything in himself
of being permanently moved from his steadfastness and torn from
that rock of salvation on which the whole fabric of his holiness
and spiritual enjoyment and hopes rests. This is enough to sustain
and encourage him. God can do all he has here promised. He is infinite in power and infinite
in wisdom. No enemy so powerful but he can
restrain and subdue him. No enemy so crafty but he can
circumvent and disappoint him. No Christian so weak but that
He can make him strong. No Christian's so foolish, but
that He can make him wise. Is anything too hard for the
Lord? He can do it, for He is infinitely
powerful and wise. He is disposed to do it, for
He is infinitely kind and compassionate. He will do it, for He is inviolably
faithful. He can do all things, but He
cannot lie. Nothing is impossible with Him
but the denying of Himself. Now, I can't go home and meditate
on this for you. I've tried to lead you in to
the pasture. You've got to chew the grass, and you've got to
burp it up, and you've got to ruminate over. When we come to
the amazing promise in those four future verbs of what God
is committed to do, not in the age to come as a surface reading
of the text might lead us to believe, but in the midst of
the suffering, in the midst of a devil who goes about like a
voracious beast seeking to grasp us and chew us up and swallow
us down, in the midst of all of that, it is God Himself who
will perfect us, establish us, and settle us. No wonder he breaks
out in the doxology, to him the power, to him the kratos, the
might, the divine energy committed in grace to do exactly what God
has promised in that passage. And when you find your faith
in the promises weakening, Almost invariably, it's because you've
lost sight of the glory and the majesty of the God who is the
author and the executor of his promises. That would happen to
Peter. At one point, what are the billowing,
roaring, foaming waves? It's my Lord walking on the water.
Lord, bid me come to you. What's the law of gravity? What
are the waves? What are the winds? That's Jesus,
Lord of heaven and earth. Out of the boat he comes and
he's a walker. He's all right, as long as he remembers who's
the author and the executor of his ability to walk on water.
But when he fixes his eyes on the circumstances, nothing in
Jesus changes, but everything in him changes, and everything
around him changes. He's going down to Davy Jones'
locker. Why? Why? Nothing changed in Christ.
But his faith, gaze toward Christ, and confidence in Christ was
weakened by what he saw. See the point? Peter says, I'm
going to make an amazing promise. But it's no more amazing than
the God in whose name and on whose behest I make it. So I
want you to know, before you get taken up with trying to grasp
and by faith apply and work out the promise, fix your gaze. and the author and the executor,
God himself. But then secondly, he points
our attention to him, the author and executor is God in his identity
as the God of all grace. Look at the text. He could have
written, and God himself will Or I like the old distinction,
second and third person shall speaks of not mere simple futurity,
but determination and commitment. God himself shall perfect, establish,
strengthen, and settle you. Had been a wonderful promise,
but he doesn't do that. He writes, and the God of all
grace. He's the only penman in scripture
who was ever privileged to describe God. as the God of all grace. It's an absolutely unique designation
of God. Now, you're saying, Pastor, this
is the only place you find grace? Of course not. The grace of God
and God's graciousness is found from Genesis to Revelation. God's grace is everywhere in
Scripture. His undeserved favor and goodwill
to hell-deserving men That undeserved goodwill and favor that actually
confers upon them the opposite of what they deserve, that's
grace. And grace is found everywhere
in the Bible. But you may use any concordance
you like, and you will not find God described anywhere else from
Genesis to Revelation as the God of all grace. It was left to Peter to have
the privilege to designate God as such a God. A parallel passage
has perhaps already come to some of your minds is 2 Corinthians
1.3, where Paul writes, the God of all comfort. Similar construction. You have all but not grace, comfort. Who comforts us in all our tribulation? I think the meaning is quite
easily to grasp, easy to grasp in that passage. He's writing
and he's saying, wherever there is true spiritual comfort to
a suffering child of God, it ultimately is traced back to
the heart of the God who is the God of all comfort, who comforts
us in all our tribulations. And He wants the Corinthians
to trace back every single ounce of divine comfort they've ever
known or spiritual comfort to its source in the God who is
the God of all comfort. All true, substantial, real comfort
in suffering saints has its origin in the heart of Him who is the
God of all comfort. So in the same way, when He is
designated as the God of all grace, Peter is saying that all
the goodwill in favor of God to hell-deserving sinners, with
all the benefits provided and conferred upon those sinners,
comes out of the infinite storehouse of grace that resides in God
Himself. That's why we sang of Him, fountain
of grace, rich, full, and free. What need I that is not in Thee? So you see what Peter's doing?
He is the great realist. He knows what he did when the
heat was on. Oh, uh, your speech betrays you.
You're one of those guys. Hey, I think I... No, no, not
me. I'm not one of them. A short time later, hey, aren't
you one of them? Your speech said... No, no, I'm not one of
them. A third time. In the name of the God of heaven,
may he strike me dead if I am one of them. And he takes oaths
of self-malediction and says, I have nothing. He knows what
happens when human frailty meets opposition to Christ and to identification
with Christ, unsupported by divine grace. He knows that those people
are made of the same stuff of natural weakness. They have all
the potential for denial that marked him. And he wants them
before he gives them this marvelous promise. God himself shall perfect,
strengthen, establish, settle you. He said, I want you to contemplate
who this God is that I'm going to tell you is committed to do
some wonderful things for you in the realism of all your native
weakness, in the realism of a vicious, unprincipled devil and all of
his minions seeking to gulp you down, in the midst of your natively
proud heart that doesn't want to humble itself before God or
man, he said, I want you to know that the God who is author and
executor of this promise is the God of all grace. The God of all grace. The God of all grace. And you see, grace is not just
an emotion and a disposition in the heart of God. Grace is
His disposition of goodwill and kindness to hell-deserving sinners
that gives and confers precisely what those sinners need. That's
why God could say in Christ the Paul, my grace is sufficient
for you, my strength is made perfect in weakness. Grace and
strength are linked. What is God saying? My disposition
towards you, my servant Paul, is such that though you think
this physical weakness is an impediment to your usefulness,
I see it as essential to your usefulness. Your weakness will
keep you consciously dependent, and what you lack in strength,
my grace will make up in a humble, trustful heart. Whereas I resist
the proud and only give grace to the humble. My grace. You see, it wasn't just God's
disposition. It was the disposition with all that omnipotence can
bring to bear upon the situation of need. Now go back to the text. And the God of all grace. The God of all grace. Do you
feel yourself Smothered by all that I've given you in the grand
indicatives, Peter says, there's a God who in His grace can expand
your capacity to take in all that in mercy and saving kindness
He's done for you. Do you find it hard to grasp
that you've been begotten again unto an inheritance incorruptible
and undefiled and that fades not away reserved in heaven? There's a God of grace who can
expand your heart. And when you find your faith
faltering before the marvels of His grace, you can cry, Lord,
increase my faith! And in grace He will do it. And
when we read that hereunto were we called, Christ suffered for
us, leave an example, we should follow His steps, who when He
was reviled, reviled not again. When He suffered, He threatened
not, committed His cause to Him who judges righteously. We say,
Lord, I can't do that. I can't take it anymore. The
slander, the lies. God says, yes, you can. My grace
is sufficient for you. You go back through 1 Peter and
every command that seems impossible, stamp over it. God of all grace. God of all grace. God of all
grace. God of all grace. He can, John Brown says, He will
fit for the combat. He can, He will sustain during
the conflict. He can, He will make victorious
in the conflict. He can and he will reward after
the conflict. But then Peter's not done. He's
not done. Look at the text. Not only are
we pointed to the author and executor of the promise as being
God himself, not only God in his identity as the God of all
grace, but now look in the third place. The author and executor
of the promise is God in his activity and purpose in conjunction
with our calling. See the text? He could have written,
and God himself perfect, or God of all grace himself perfect,
but no, he's piling up another pointer to the author and executor
and the God of all grace who called you unto his eternal glory
in Christ. Now before you grab at the promise
I want you to consider it's God himself who's the executor as
well as the author. It's God in his identity as the
God of all grace but furthermore Peter says He is God in His activity
and purpose in connection with your calling. He is the God who
has called you unto His eternal glory in Christ. Now the word
call and calling in the New Testament rarely mean what we mean when
we use the word call. Johnny, didn't you hear Daddy
call you for supper 20 minutes ago? What do we mean? Did you
hear Daddy's voice summoning you to come home to supper? We
use the term, broadly, as a summons. There may be but one or two places
where it's used in that way in the Gospels. But in the Epistles,
uniformly, calling is never a mere announcement of something that
God is declaring to us, or a mere invitation. Calling is God's
summons that actually secures the salvation of his people.
Calling is a distinctive experience of the people of God. That's
why Peter can write and say, this God who is committed to
the promise I'm about to give you is the God who called you. He not merely summoned you or
invited you, but He has effectually and powerfully brought you into
the orbit of His salvation, which has as its goal nothing less
than the eternal glory that is the people of God, that the people
of God will share in union with Christ. That's how he used it
earlier in the epistle. And I go over this ground that
is familiar for some because we have new folk all the time
for whom this is a new concept. And I want to take enough scriptures
to demonstrate that I'm preaching the truth. In chapter 1 in verse
15, Peter writes, Like as he who called you is holy, be yourselves
also holy in all manner of living. When Peter writes, he who called
you, is it just the one who summoned you? No, these are people who
have embraced the summons. They are the people of God and
they are now being directed to pursue a life of universal holiness. Chapter 2 and verse 9. where
he is describing the privileges of the New Covenant community
of God's people under rich Old Testament language. Verse 9,
you are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a
people for God's own possession, that you may show forth the excellencies
of Him, here we are, who called you out of darkness into His
marvelous light, who in time past were no people, but now
are the people of God. The people of God are, without
exception, called ones. Not all who are summoned are
the people of God. There are some of you who have
sat in this building for years, and almost every Lord's Day,
without exception, you have been called, you have been summoned
to stack arms, to turn from your sins, and to run to God as revealed
in Jesus Christ crucified, buried, and risen from the dead. There
have been entreaties, and pleas, and warnings. That's what men
designate the general call of God in the Gospel. The next chapter
in our confession, we'll come into that matter of God's sincere,
well-meant invitation to sinners. Oh, everyone who thirsts, come
to the waters. That's God's general call. The
Spirit and the Bride say, come, let him that is athirst come
and take of the water of life freely. Come unto me all you
that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. That's
God's general, sincere, well-meant, indiscriminate call to all where
the gospel comes. But then there is that effectual
call, that call of God that causes the sinner not only to hear,
but to run toward the God who summons him to repentance and
faith. And that's why in a passage like
Romans 8, verse 30, being called is nestled in between the eternal
dimensions of God's saving mercy to His people. Look at Romans
8, verse 30. Whom He foreordained or predestined,
that's our salvation with its anchor in eternity past, them
he also called, now notice, that brings our salvation into time,
he called, whom he called, them he justified. No one is called
in this calling who's not justified. And all who are justified, now
notice, them he also glorified. There's the other anchor of our
salvation in eternity future. Predestination, glorification,
and in between calling and justification. four unbreakable links in the
chain of God's saving purpose and God's saving activity. So
now, having established I trust for any who are willing to yield
their minds to the Bible when Peter writes, the God who's going
to fulfill this promise is the God that you believers there
in Asia Minor, as this letter circulates, you must think of
Him particularly, not only that it is God Himself, God is the
God of all grace, but what He has been to you and what He is
in terms of your being called unto His eternal glory in Christ. Now, there are two things about
the call. We've defined what the call is. It's God's efficacious
putting forth of the arm of his power to bring us into saving
union with his Son. Now, two things about that call
in the text. First, we have the goal or the
wonderful end of the calling. And then we have Peter describing
the sphere or the spiritual context in which the call takes place.
Look at what our text says about the goal or the wonderful end
of the calling. The God of all grace who called
you, not merely unto the present possession, of forgiveness, justification,
adoption, the gift of the Spirit, peace, joy. All of that would
be true, but he says your calling has a distinct goal and wonderful
end. He has called you unto his eternal
glory. God's call has as its specific
and immutable end that all who are called would be brought to
what Peter describes as His eternal glory. Now what does that involve? You want to feel your earthiness?
Ask that question of yourself sitting at the desk and saying,
how do I preach that? Called us unto His eternal glory. We know what it doesn't mean.
We're not going to be made into gods. That we know. The Creator
Creature relationship will be sustained through all eternity.
God lost nothing of himself when he made us. He lost nothing of
himself when he redeemed us. He adds nothing to himself. He
is God and we are the creature. Yet it says we are called unto
His eternal glory. His glory is the outshining of
His perfections. We are called unto His eternal
glory. Whatever outshining of His perfections
will be eternally fixed, not temporally manifested. The glory
of Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration was a momentary burst of glory,
but then it was veiled again. This is a glory that is eternal. Ionia. Unending. This is eternal
glory. In what does it consist? Well, some would suggest it will
be beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
That's what he prays in John 17, 24. Father, I will. I will
that those whom you have given me be with me where I am that
they may behold my glory which you have given me. There is a
unique glory that Christ will have, follow me closely now,
as the incarnate Redeemer, who lived, died, was buried, and
rose again, and in His exalted, glorified humanity is back in
heaven in a form that He did not have when He left heaven. He took something in Mary's womb
that will be His for all eternity. and that human nature joined
to the divine nature has been glorified. And He says, Father,
I will that they behold My glory which You have given Me. See,
this is a glory given. He had an inherent glory that
was underrived and ungiven, that was His as the eternal Word. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Isaiah spoke
these things when he saw His glory. That was his essential,
pre-incarnate glory. But he has another glory that
comes as the reward of his sufferings. Wherefore, God hath highly exalted
him, the glory which you have given me. Could it be that what
Peter is saying, God has called us, and the end of our calling
will be in the language of John? We shall be like him, for we
shall see him as he is. That could be. But it doesn't
satisfy me that that's what the text is saying. He said He's
called you unto His eternal glory. Not to behold it, but He's called
you to it! Well, the Bible does teach that
we ourselves, in the consummation of our redemption, are going
to experience something that's called what? Glorification. Isn't that what we just read
in Romans 8.30? whom He predestinated, whom He also called, whom He
called, He justified, whom He justified, He also what? Glorified. Glorified. He endows us with
glory. And what will that glory be?
I believe the Romans 8 passage is closest to answering it. And
I would not dogmatize, but I think there's a strong case for it.
Turn there with me now as we try to pull these two things
together. Romans 8. Verse 29, Whom God foreknew,
that is, set His love upon beforehand, He also foreordained or predestined,
now notice, to be what? To be conformed to the image
of His Son, in order that our total conformity to the image
of Christ has another end in view, that Christ might be manifestly
seen as the firstborn, the preeminent one, the rightful heir of all,
among many brethren. So when God set His love upon
us, that love moved forward to an ultimate end, that we should
be conformed to the image of His Son, to another and higher
end, that Christ would be the elder brother, with all His family
gathered around Him, reflecting His likeness. the glorified God-man,
supreme above all others, but glorified Father of Hell, transformed
into His moral and physical likeness. For Paul says in Philippians
3.21, He shall fashion the body of our humiliation like unto
the body of His glory. Think of it! If that doesn't
get you shouting happy, I don't know what will. I will be given
a body that resonates in likeness to His glorious body. And that
body will house a soul from which every last stain of sin has been
eradicated forever. And Christ, the firstborn, the
rightful heir, the chief, the elder brother among His family
will look down and see the fruit of His sufferings and see nothing
but glory. And we'll all look up at Him
and see nothing but glory. And we're enveloped in glory.
And it'll never have, but then it is eternal glory. Forever eternal glory. If your sons then heirs, heirs
of God, joined heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with
him in order that we may be what? Glorified together with him. I didn't write it, the Holy Ghost
did, Romans 8, 17. Glorified together with him. Will we become little Christ? No. But will we be glorified
together with him? Yes. Now, will that make any difference
how you regard the promise? You're in the midst of suffering.
You're trying to keep your head sorted out. Who am I as a Christian?
What do I have in Christ? What awaits me? And then I think
I've got to relate to my wife this way, and got to relate to
my husband this way, and to the state this way, and how can I
keep it all sorted out? And then people begin to malign
me, and people begin to slander me, and begin to oppose me, and
speak evil of me. I'm using language out of 1 Peter.
How in the world can I press on believing that the best is
yet to come? Well, remember who God is. This
is the God who is committed to perfect you here and now, not
with sinless perfection. We'll see what the words mean,
God willing, next week. To establish and settle you, foundationalize
you, would be a rough way to try to translate the final verb. Well, this is the God who one
day is going to so work on who and what I am in my spirit How
can I say it in a way that shocks you into remembering it? I couldn't
sin if I wanted to. Okay? I couldn't sin if I wanted
to. There will be nothing in any
part of the soul, the mind, the affections, the will, that has
the slightest inclination or tendency or even capacity to
sin. And that will be housed in a
body that's got no arthritis, doesn't need glasses, Don't have
to go for the latest LASIK surgeon and risk my eyes on his desire
to make 2,000 bucks. It's down to 2,000 now. They're
all vying to get your eyeballs under the laser. No pile of pills
that I take my morning ones that I take my night ones. A body
like under the body of his glory. Now if a god can do that, Is
that kind of God able, in the midst of your remaining sin and
the vicious devil, in an unsympathetic world, is He able to supply that
which is lacking in you? That's what the word perfect
means, to supply what is lacking. Is He able to establish and strengthen
and foundationalize you? You say, what a stupid question.
If that God's going to make me into the likeness of His Son,
in a context of eternal glory, Surely I can trust him to supply
what is lacking, to establish, to strengthen, to settle me,
and enable me to finish my pilgrimage in a way that brings glory to
the one who called me unto his eternal glory. That's the first
thing about the calling, the goal of the end, sharing his
eternal glory. But the second thing is this,
the sphere or spiritual context in which the call takes place.
Look at it. God of all grace, who called you unto His eternal
glory, but He doesn't stop there. He called you to His eternal
glory in Christ. But there's strong textual evidence
for the fuller name, Christ, Jesus. It's all the same. There's
only one Christ, and that's Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus of Nazareth
is the one Christ. So nothing's lost if we don't
settle the textual debate. He's called you to His eternal
glory in Christ Jesus. That's the sphere or the spiritual
context in which the call takes place. The glorious end is to
share in His eternal glory. But the sphere or the context
in which the call takes place is in Christ. Now do you see
why I said every word is pregnant? Because that little prepositional
phrase, in Christ, in Him, in whom, is used more than 150 times
in the New Testament. It is the most significant phrase
pertaining to God's salvation because it tells us that all
of God's saving acts are accomplished for sinners by Christ and that
all of God's saving work is accomplished in sinners by uniting them to
Christ. And if you let go either of those
realities, you don't have the salvation taught in the Bible.
You got that? It points to the fact that all
of God's saving acts are accomplished for sinners in Christ. Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save. Faithful is the saying, worthy
of all acceptation, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. All of God's saving acts are
accomplished for sinners by Christ. And if you think you have salvation
in any other, you are deceived, for there is no other name given
under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved. But
don't miss the second truth. All of God's saving work is accomplished
in sinners by uniting them to Christ. So He's called us to
His eternal glory where? In Christ. And whatever you may
profess about being a believer in Christ, if you are not united
to Christ, you are deceived. And if you claim to be united
to Christ and you've not become a new creation in Christ, and
His workmanship created in Christ unto good works, you are equally
deceived. To be in Christ is not a positional
notion. I'm in Christ in some positional
way. No, no, you're in Christ in a
vital life union so that He can say, I am the vine, you are the
branches. The same divine life that is
in me has now come to you. In Christ! In Christ, united
to Christ, united to Him in faith, in submission, in love, in obedience. And Peter, before he spells out
the details of the promise, he wants them to know that the God
who is author and executor is not only the God who Himself
personally will fulfill the promise, who will fulfill that promise
in His identity as the God of all grace, but in His activity
as the God who called us, with a call that has as its wonderful
end, His glory, and as its sphere or spiritual context, union with
Christ. I will have to leave till next
week the setting and circumstances in which the promise is to be
fulfilled. After you've suffered a little while, time is gone.
I want to close on that note that I've just sounded. It struck
me afresh in meditating upon the significance of the phrase,
in Christ, that sitting here this morning, whoever would be
here, God alone knew. I could anticipate who many of
you might be, but God alone knew that I can say something without
any fear of being contradicted, no matter who showed up here
this morning. In a very real sense, God, looking into this
congregation this morning, sees only two men, two men, only two,
Adam and Christ. And He sees every one of you
in your relationship, not to both at the same time, one or
the other. And when we read Romans 5, 12
to 21, 1 Corinthians 15, to be in Adam is to be in guilt, condemnation,
and death. As in Adam, all die. Wherefore,
as through one man sin entered into the world, and death passed
upon all men, for then all sinned. Through the one man, condemnation
came upon all. To be in Adam, and that's where
you are by nature, is to be in the state of guilt, of condemnation,
and of death. To be in Christ is to be in a
state not of condemnation, but of forgiveness. Not of guilt,
but pardon and acceptance. Not of death, but of life. And
every one of you, this day, right now, I can't discern it, only
God can, but God infallibly discerns. You're in Christ, you're in Adam. Where are you? If necessary, you better spend
the rest of your life wrestling with that question, because in
the day of judgment it will be infallibly revealed when all
who are yet in Adam will be set as the goats upon his left hand,
and all who are in Christ will be set as the sheep on his right.
And then shall he say to those on the left hand, Depart from
me, you cursed, into everlasting prepared for the devil and his
angels. He shall say to them on the right, come you blessed,
enter the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world.
You may have been able to sit there this morning and say, that
crazy old preacher, he's getting all excited about this stuff.
It leaves me absolutely cold. My friend, you know why it leaves
you cold? You're still in Adam, you're dead. You can set the
most delicious, well-prepared gourmet meal before a dead man.
He doesn't salivate one drip. You don't salivate because you're
dead. You're dead, dead. But my friend,
you don't need to remain dead. There's one who is the resurrection
and the life. And he bids you to go to him
and find life in him, to find salvation in him. And dear people
of God, it may be good to turn off the television for a week.
All the time you'd normally spend there, just take These words,
meditate upon them, assimilate them in the language of Maurice
Robert's wonderful book. Worth the price of the book just
to have the first essay on the thought of God. This crazy generation
doesn't give us time to think about anything, let alone think
about God. Peter says, you want to be a
stable, elect sojourner? Think about your God. or His
most wonderful words of promise will fall to the ground, ineffectual
in your life, because you haven't seen them flowing out of and
fastened to the integrity and power of this God, who Himself
shall make up what is lacking, establish, strengthen, and settle
you. Let us pray. Our Father, we confess in your
presence that when we are given to see as it were but the edges
of your ways, we do acknowledge afresh that only a glorified
mind and body could begin to take in what it will mean to
be glorified. But we thank you that you have
set before us this glorious inheritance and we are ashamed that we could
ever be dazzled or attracted by the trinkets and toys of this
world. Forgive our earthiness, forgive
our wretched unbelief, the fruit of our failure to contemplate
who you are. We worship you, O Lord, that
you have set boundaries to your omnipotence, that your truth
is that boundary, and yet we thank you in your truthfulness
you have omnipotence as your servant. And we do believe, O
God, we do believe that as the God of all grace who has called
us unto your eternal glory in Christ, that you can fulfill
every promise you have made. We pray for those who know nothing
of this hope, of this confidence. O Lord, give them no rest till
they too are in Christ, until vitally joined to Him They know
the blessed realities of which we have meditated this morning.
Seal your word then to our hearts and dismiss us with your blessing.
We plead in Jesus' name. Amen.