If you will, let us open our
Bibles to 1 Peter, Chapter 5. 1 Peter, Chapter 5. I believe that many of us were
taught in school years ago that when you write a letter, you
should have a salutation, and then the body of the letter,
and then a postscript. And our text today is found in
this part of Peter's letter in the postscript. Remember that
all of the New Testament, except the Gospels and the Book of Acts,
they were all letters which were written to various churches and
individuals. And every letter and every part
of every letter is all part of the all scripture which is given
by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. You notice the letter, the body
of the letter ends in verse 11, to him be glory and dominion
forever. and ever, amen. And then the
postscript. By Silvanus, or Silas, a faithful
brother unto you, as I suppose, I have written briefly, exhorting
and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein you
stand. The true grace of God. Notice in that verse the apostle
says that he had written briefly, exhorted, and testified of these
two things, of the true grace of God, and secondly, in which
you stand. We might say the doctrinal part
of the letter is the true grace of God, and the practical is
the standing. And most of all, most all of
these New Testament letters may be divided into those two divisions. First, the doctrine, what we
believe. What you believe experiences,
what you believe rather affects how you live, what you practice. And so we have the doctrine first
and then the practice. But Peter mentions the true grace
of God. Several years ago, there was
a lady that was listening to tapes, recorded messages by myself
and other preachers. She lived in another part of
our state, and the Lord saved her. And she was convinced that
he had saved her by grace. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. And so she wanted to go to a
grace church. And she looked in the phone book
and she found that there was many churches named Grace, different
denominations. So she went to a church, a Baptist
church named Grace. But when she got in, she realized
it was a different kind of grace. But Peter tells us in our text
today that in this letter he had written unto them the true,
the true grace of God. So I want to point out five things
to us in this letter about the true grace of God. When the Lord Jesus Christ in
John 15 in verse one said, I am the true vine, the true vine,
we recognize that he confessed to be that branch that branch
that God had promised to send. In the Old Testament, the scripture
says, thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, behold, the
man whose name is the Branch. That's a strange name, isn't
it? The Branch. And each one of those letters
is capitalized, which tells us that it is Jehovah. I am. I am the Branch. I am the true
Branch. God prophesied and promised to
send the branch, the man whose name is the branch, and he shall
grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of
the Lord. He's the true vine. Every man
who came before the Lord Jesus Christ and confessed to be the
Savior, confessed to be that promised Messiah, confessed to
be the way unto the Father was false. The Lord Jesus Christ
is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh unto
the Father but by Him. I am the true vine. So we see
there's the false vines and there's the true vine. And there is that
which is called grace, which is false, and there is the true
grace of God. That's what Peter wrote to them
about, and wrote to you and I about. And here's five things I want
to mention about the true grace of God. Number one, the true
grace of God includes the truth about election. Election. God choosing a people. If a person denies the truth
about election, he's not preaching the true grace of God. Look back
into chapter one here, 1 Peter. This is who he's writing to.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according
to the foreknowledge of God the Father. I want you to notice
in this verse that it is individuals who were foreknown. It's not
actions. God foreknows everything. That's
for sure. God is omniscient. But this verse
is not telling us that God foreknew what men would do. And those
who would accept Him, He chose. In other words, man actually
accomplishes his own election. God takes credit for something
somebody else does. That's not true. That's not so,
my friends. The true grace of God proclaims
the truth about God's sovereign election. They are elect according
to the foreknowledge of God. And this word foreknowledge is
the same word that's used in Romans chapter 8 when the Apostle
Paul said, for whom he did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of His Son. And whom He did predestinate,
them He also called. And whom He called, them He also
justified. And whom He justified, them He
also glorified. the actions of men that God foreknew
and then based His election upon what man would do. No, God before
the foundation of the world chose His people. And if you do not
accept and believe in God's sovereign election, you do not believe
in salvation by grace. You believe in salvation by works. You can't get around that fact.
That's just so, my friends. It's individuals that God did
foreknow, and he set his love upon them from eternity. It's
individuals whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life from
the foundation of the world. I listened to a preacher, a man
who is a pastor, He told us if we would do certain things that
our names would be written, would be wrote in the Lamb's Book of
Life. I thought to myself, does that man really believe that?
That God Almighty, the sovereign God who created all things, who
spoke the worlds into existence, known unto God are all his works
from the beginning of the world? Does that man actually believe
that there's an angel up there in heaven? writing names in the
Lamb's Book of Life of those who follow His formula. My friends, God chose and wrote
the names of His people in the Lamb's Book of Life from the
foundation of the world. He is a Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. He had the names of every one
of those chosen individuals engraved on the palms of His hands. That's
the truth, that's what the Word of God declares. A person does
not believe in the true grace of God who denies the truth of
God's election. The Apostle Paul, writing to
the church at Corinth, he asked those in that congregation, for
whom maketh he to differ from another? If you are a believer
today, if you know Christ as your Lord and Savior, who made
you to differ from those who reject Christ, who deny Christ
and go on their way to hell? Who made you to differ? Surely
you would not be so vain as to say, well I, my decision, my
will. Oh no, not if you're a true child
of God. Because every child of God has
this desire for sure, and that is that God gets all the glory. Not most of it, not 99 and nine-tenths
percent, but 100% of the glory. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us be the glory, but unto thee. What Paul said, for who maketh
thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou
didst not receive? Whatever you have, you've received it. You've received
it. Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? So first
of all, the true grace of God includes the truth about God's
election. Number two. The true grace of
God includes the truth about the redemption price and what
it accomplished. Look here in 1 Peter 1, verses
18 and 19. For as much as you know that
you were not redeemed. Now notice you were not redeemed. These are the same ones, the
same yous. The same use as those in verse
two, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. For as much
as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things
as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by
tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of
Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. The word translated
here redeemed means to release on receipt of ransom. Some people in some versions
translate this ransom. Those individuals whom the father
foreknew, along with all others of mankind, we all fell in our
common head at him. We fell into sin and we were
held captives. We were held captives. God's
law and God's justice demanded satisfaction. Listen, if God's
law and God's justice is not satisfied, no one will be saved. God is not going to compromise
his law, which is a reflection of his holiness. He's not going
to compromise himself. He cannot deny himself, the scripture
says. And so there must be a satisfaction. And that satisfaction was in
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, in the Old Testament,
we have the teaching of the kinsman redeemer. How many of you read
the book of Ruth? Just four short chapters. I read
through it, I think it was yesterday or Friday. You know, the whole
subject of that book is the Kinsman Redeemer. That's the whole purpose
of the book, the Kinsman Redeemer. It's a beautiful story. I've
read in history where Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, attended a
meeting of, I think they were agnostics or atheists in Philadelphia
years ago. And they asked him to bring a
report or something. And he just read the book of
Ruth. And they didn't know where he was reading from. And the
people there, they're so impressed, so impressed with the beauty
of that story. But the whole purpose of the
book is to remind us and teach us about the kinsman redeemer. Ruth. Her husband had died, her
mother-in-law, Naomi. Her husband had died, and they
were in poverty. They were in poverty. And the
only way out, the only way out for both Naomi and Ruth was if
a kinsman redeemer would redeem their husband's inheritance.
Now, not just anyone could be a kinsman redeemer. There were
several requirements, but the first requirement, it had to
be a man of near kinsmen. When Ruth came home that first
day after she had been gleaning in the fields, she came home
with some barley and quite a bit of it, I believe. And her mother-in-law
Naomi was so impressed. And she asked her, whose field
did you glean in today? And she said, well, I gleaned
in the field of a man by the name of Boaz. And when she said
that, Naomi, her heart leaped for joy. Why? Because he's a
near kinsman, that's why. And not only is he a near kinsman,
but he's a great man. In other words, he has the ability
to redeem us. And so you know how the story
goes. There was one man who was of near kin. And at first he
said, I'll redeem Elimelech's inheritance. But Boaz told him,
when you do, you've got to marry Ruth the Moabitess and raise
up a son to his father. And he said, I can't do it. In
other words, he wanted to, he was willing, but he didn't have
the ability. We have both a willing Savior,
willing Redeemer, and an able Redeemer. You and I, we might
be willing to redeem someone, but even if we are, we're not
able. We're not able to redeem a person's
soul. No, the Lord Jesus Christ, He
came into this world, the scripture says He was made flesh. And the
Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians that he's bone of our bone and
flesh of our flesh. That is, he is the God-man, the
kinsman-redeemer, and he redeemed us with his precious blood. He did something by shedding
his blood, by giving himself a ransom that all the money in
the world could not accomplish. All the silver and the gold could
not accomplish. The Lord Jesus Christ accomplished. And the true grace of God reveals
this truth about the price and about the accomplishment He didn't
just give His life in vain. He gave His life for the people
that the Father had given unto Him. And He redeemed us. A redemption that doesn't redeem
is not a redemption. You can call it something else,
but it's not a redemption. A redemption redeems. Those who were held in captivity
and the justice of God demanded satisfaction, demanded payment. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
here am I. He's the surety of the everlasting covenant. And
God looked to him to satisfy his justice on behalf of his
people. If you turn over a few pages
into Revelation chapter five, keep your place here. Revelation chapter 5, and this
is a glimpse into heaven itself. Verse 9, those in heaven, the
scripture says, they sung a new song saying, thou art worthy
to take the book, speaking of the lamb that was slain, and
to open the seals thereof, for thou was slain, now notice, and
has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of. Do you see that? out of every kindred. He didn't redeem every individual
of every kindred, every individual of every tongue or language,
every individual of all people, every individual of all the nations. No, He redeemed His people out
of. People talk about limited Atonement. Well, the only thing that's limited
about His atonement, my friends, is it accomplishes what God purposed
to accomplish. It accomplished exactly what
God designed that it do. What did it do? It redeemed His
people, ransomed His people. Now, the third thing The true
grace of God includes the truth about the new birth. Look at
verse 3 here in 1 Peter 1 and verse 3. 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. The true grace of God includes
the truth about the new birth. We all are begotten the first
time by our earthly fathers. But now the new birth is to be
begotten again, this time by the heavenly father. John the
apostle wrote, which were born not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. The true
grace of God declares the truth about the new birth. It is the
work of God. Some of you are not old enough
to remember this, but back in the 1970s, many of you probably
are not that old. Some of us are. But for some
reason, the media, you know, the media don't believe anything
they say when it comes to the things of God. But they started
talking about, he is a born again Christian, or she is a born again
Christian. There's no other kind. There
is no other kind. Every Christian, every child
of God is born again. Our Lord said, except a man be
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And in that passage
there in John 3, where he said that to Nicodemus, he went on
to tell Nicodemus, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit. Now, many believe that The word
water there refers to the word of God. And if you look down
in this same chapter, verse 23, Peter says, being born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word
of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Now, when, think with
me just a moment, born of water and the spirit. What comes first? If we believe this word water
refers to the word, the word, Ezekiel, carried out there to
that valley full of dry, dead bones. What happened first, before
the wind came? He preached, he prophesied. That's what no doubt caused that
old Puritan to say the Holy Spirit rides in the chariot of the word
of God. And the word of God, the gospel
is preached. And God, the Holy Spirit, he
does his work. Our Lord told Nicodemus this,
the wind, and he's referring to the spirit, the wind bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst
not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth. So is everyone
that is born of the spirit. The new birth is a sovereign
work. The spirit bloweth where it listed. The new birth is a mysterious
work. Two men, two brothers, two twin
brothers, raised in the same home, hearing the same gospel,
same message, and yet one is born of the spirit of God and
the other isn't. It's mysterious. That's the reason we go forth
preaching, sowing the Word of God. And God, this is His work. But I would remind us of this.
When the Lord said and referred to this work as the wind, the
wind bloweth where it listeth, the wind doesn't always blow
at the same velocity. And some men and women, no doubt,
in their new birth, it's like a hurricane force wind. And others,
it may be more like a gentle breeze. But yet they're changed,
and they're given a new heart, a new nature. It's mysterious,
but it's real. It's real, it's so. And the true
grace of God testifies to the truth about the new birth. It's
God's work. I believe the greatest, well,
I shouldn't say greatest, but one of the most sure signs that
a person has been born again is what John wrote, whosoever
believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Do you believe that Jesus is
the Christ? Peter said, we know and are sure
that thou art the Christ, the Son of God. Whosoever believeth
that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And everyone that loveth
him that begat, who does the begatting, the Father through
the Spirit, loves them also who are begotten of him. How can
a man say he loves God and hate his brother? You've never seen
God. John said that's impossible.
Everyone born of God loves God and loves his brother. Here's
the fourth thing about the true grace of God. It includes God's
call, that is his effectual call, and his keeping power. His effectual
call, if you look over in chapter five, And I've already touched
on that in the New Birth, but in chapter 5 and verse 10, the
Apostle Peter said, but the God of all grace who hath called
us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, he calls his people. He calls us out of a life of
depravity and darkness And he calls us into the kingdom of
his dear son, kingdom of light. Has he called you? I know he's
called you outwardly, but has the word of God ever come to
you in power? If it has, I know you are following
him today. Your life's been changed and
your desire is to live for him. But also the true grace of God
teaches us that he keeps us. Now back in chapter one, first
Peter chapter one and verse five, who are kept by the power of
God through faith unto salvation. Kept. The true grace of God is
keeping grace. The Lord Jesus said, I give unto
my sheep eternal life and they shall never perish. People talk about grace and then
they say you can lose your salvation. That's not the true grace of
God. The true grace of God teaches us that when God saves a person,
he keeps that person. That we are in his hand and no
man can pluck one of his sheep out of his hand. keeping power of God. And the fifth and last thing
about the true grace of God, there's many more things we could
mention, but for time sake, look in chapter two, the true grace
of God includes being constituted a peculiar people. First Peter
chapter two and verse nine, but you are a chosen generation. A royal priesthood. He's redeemed
us by his blood and made us kings and priests unto God. A royal
priesthood. A holy and holy nation. We believers make up a nation,
the nation of God. A peculiar people. And notice
what's peculiar about God's people. that you should show forth his
praises. You should show forth the praises
of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous
light. What's peculiar about God's people
is not the way they dress. What's peculiar is that they
show forth praises of Him who has called them. And how do we
show forth His praises? With our mouths, yes. With our
conversation. Our Lord said, let your light
so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify
your Father which is in heaven. So the true grace of God includes
this truth about God's people being a peculiar people. Worship Him and praise Him. And
our heart's desire is that we do so in our thoughts, in our
words, and in our actions to show forth His praises. Now the
last thing, and just briefly, in which you stand, the practical. The in which refers to the grace
of God. That's what we're in, the grace
of God. And in relation to that, we are
to stand. In all the temptations and trials
in this life, stand. Stand as persons who have already
been made partakers of the true grace of God. Stand knowing that
glory, glory is always connected with grace. Let that sink in. Stand, wherein you stand. You've been made a partaker of
the grace of God, wherein you stand. And remember this, that
grace and glory are always connected. In other words, everyone to whom
God is gracious, He's going to bring to glory. This is what
the psalmist said in Psalm 84 in verse 11. For the Lord God
is a sun and shield. The Lord, now listen, the Lord
will give grace and glory. Always, always, never divides
these two things. To whom he gives grace, he gives
glory. He brings to glory. No good thing
will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. Now look one
more time back in chapter one. Beginning in verse 13, those
of you who are in the true grace of God, wherefore, gird up the
loins of your mind. Just like those men used to wear
those long robes, and if they had work to do, they'd gird it
around them with a sash or a belt or something of that nature.
So gird up. The psalmist said, gird up the
loins of your mind. Be sober. and hope to the end
for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of
Jesus Christ. As obedient children, not fashioning
yourselves according to the former lust and your ignorance, but
as he which hath called you is holy, so be you holy in all manner
of conversation, because it is written, Be you holy, for I am
holy. In all manner of conversation,
be holy. We know that we have been made
holy, we've been sanctified in Christ, but practically, our
lives in this world, we are to strive after holiness. As I said, in thought, in word,
and in deed. May the Lord bless His word to
all of us here today. And if you know the true grace
of God today, how about just saying it aloud, amen? Amen,
right? The true grace of God. We're
going to sing a hymn written by a man who was a great defender
of the truth of God's grace, Augustus Toplady. Hymn number 126.