A Most Encouraging Promise, Part 2

Q: What does the Bible say about suffering for Christians?

The Bible teaches that Christians will face suffering, but God promises to perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle them in their faith through trials. The Bible acknowledges that suffering is an integral part of the Christian experience, especially highlighted in 1 Peter 5:10, which states that after suffering a little while, God Himself will perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle believers. This promise is central to the understanding of the Christian life, where trials are not just obstacles but tools used by God to develop spiritual strength and maturity. Suffering is framed within the purpose of leading to eternal glory in Christ, emphasizing that these challenges are temporary and not the end for God’s people.

Q: How do we know God's promises are true?

God's promises are grounded in His character as the 'God of all grace,' which assures believers of their fulfillment. The certainty of God's promises is anchored in His nature as the God of all grace. In 1 Peter 5:10, Peter refers to God not merely as a promise-maker but as the God of grace who has called believers to eternal glory through Christ. This title underscores His ability and commitment to fulfill His promises. By reflecting on God's past faithfulness and His covenantal character, believers can confidently assert that His promises, like those in scripture, will not fail. God’s track record of maintaining His covenant with His people throughout history offers substantial assurance that what He commits Himself to do, He will accomplish.

Q: Why is humility important for Christians?

Humility is crucial for Christians as it aligns them with God's grace and enables them to serve one another effectively. In 1 Peter 5:5, we are instructed to clothe ourselves with humility toward one another because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. This humility is foundational in the life of a believer, as it reflects the character of Christ and allows for the edification of the community. Humility positions believers to receive God’s grace actively, enabling them to bear one another’s burdens and serve selflessly. When Christians approach each other and God with humility, they cultivate an environment ripe for spiritual growth and unity. Additionally, humility helps believers recognize their dependence on God’s strength to face trials, fostering resilience and faith.

Q: What does it mean that God will perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle us?

These verbs describe God's active work in believers' lives, ensuring they are repaired, steadfast, infused with strength, and placed on a firm foundation. In 1 Peter 5:10, Peter outlines four distinct but interconnected actions that God will perform for believers: perfecting, establishing, strengthening, and settling them. 'Perfecting' means mending and restoring what is broken, akin to setting a bone that has been fractured. 'Establishing' speaks to making believers steadfast and immovable in their commitments to Christ. 'Strengthening' refers to the infusion of divine strength necessary for spiritual combat. Lastly, 'settling' denotes being founded securely upon Christ, ensuring that when trials and hardships come, believers remain anchored. Collectively, these promises highlight God’s holistic commitment to nurture and sustain His people through every challenge they face, ultimately preparing them for eternal glory.

Now let us turn together in our
Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 5, 1 Peter chapter 5. And I shall begin reading what
is the last paragraph of general exhortation beginning at verse
5B, 1 Peter 5, 5B through verse 11. 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 the faith, knowing that the same
sufferings are accomplished in your brethren who are in the
world. And the God of all grace, who called you unto his eternal
glory in Christ, after that you've suffered a little while, shall
himself perfect establish, strengthen, settle you. To him be the dominion
forever and ever. Amen. Well, let us pray and ask
God that he will be our instructor as we open the scriptures together. We have addressed you, our Father,
as our divine instructor. And we pray that you will be
that as we together look into this portion of your word. We
pray that you will teach with that voice of life giving power
that no man can bring to us. That it may be said of us in
this place today that the word came not in word only, but also
in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance. Hear us,
we plead, in Jesus' name. Amen. The book of 1 Peter, like all
the other letters or epistles in the New Testament, is not
a formal, logically structured theological treatise. It's full
of theology, it's full of much that is marked by logical structure,
but the letter itself is not a formal, logically structured
theological treatise. Rather, it is the spirit-inspired
record of the pastoral labor of the Apostle Peter seeking
to instruct to encourage and strengthen the people of God
in the churches of Asia Minor in the face of their present
sufferings and in the light of the fact that sufferings of a
more intense nature were to face them in the future. In other
words, we should view this letter as an expression of what the
Lord said Peter would do after he was turned again. You remember
in Luke chapter 22, prior to the trial and crucifixion of
our Lord Jesus, the Lord says, Satan has desired all of you
to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you, especially for
you, Peter, and when you are turned again, strengthen your
brethren. This is Peter doing what the
Lord commanded him to do. or in terms of his re-commissioning
service recorded in John 21 by the Sea of Galilee after the
Lord was raised from the dead. And each time he asks Peter,
do you love me? And Peter affirms that he does.
Our Lord responds by saying, feed my lambs, feed my sheep,
shepherd my sheep. And this letter is Peter doing
what his Lord commissioned him to do. And in the opening part
of the letter, he pursues this purpose with a series of statements
in which he sets forth some of the most amazing privileges of
the people of God to be found anywhere in Scripture, and then
he follows that litany of their privileges with specific Gospel
commands delineating the responsibilities of such a privileged people,
pointing them to their sufficiency for that obedience in Jesus Christ. Then in chapter 3 and verse 13
through to the end of chapter 4, he gets into the very heart
of his pastoral burden. For the general theme of that
entire middle section of the letter is the theme of suffering
and how a Christian is to respond in the midst of suffering for
the sake of Christ or suffering for what Peter calls righteousness
sake. And then in chapter 5, recognizing
that these individual believers are gathered in the various churches
scattered throughout those provinces described in chapter 1 in verse
1, Peter is concerned that the life of the churches, even in
the midst of persecution, continue to manifest the presence and
the grace of Christ. And so he gives specific directives
to the pastors of the church and then a general directive
to all of the members in chapter 5.1 through verse 5a. Then in 5b through verse 9 he
gives his final concentrated exhortation to all of the people
of God against the backdrop of all of the privileges that have
been described and all of the responsibilities growing out
of those privileges both of which are to be viewed in the context
of suffering, Peter's final exhortation is an exhortation on the one
hand to humility before God and one another and to watchfulness
in the light of this vicious predatory being called the devil
who walks about seeking whom he may devour. Then in verse
10, Peter sets before us what I think we ought to view as a
capstone promise given to the people of God against the backdrop
of the whole content of the epistle. with all of its privileges, responsibilities,
the peculiar pressures of suffering, the tendency of the human heart
to be proud, the devil committed to devour us. What in the world
do poor, weak, frail human beings do to stand in such a very unsavory
and incompatible context? Well, Peter gives us this marvelous
word of promise And the God of all grace, who called you unto
His eternal glory in Christ, after that you've suffered a
little while, shall Himself perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle
you. And we began last Lord's Day
to consider this most encouraging promise of verse 10. And as we
did, I stated that this is one of those verses where the Spirit
of God has given us such a dense concentration of significance
in almost every single word that nothing less than meticulous
exposition does justice to the mind of the Spirit of God. And
so last Lord's Day we took up just the first heading of the
exposition. We considered what the text sets
before us in terms of the author and the executor of the promise. As Peter is about to give this
promise, he does not immediately plunge in to the very heart or
the specifics of the promise he could have written and God
Himself will perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you, and
He will do this as the God of all grace who called you to His
own glory, His eternal glory in Christ. But He doesn't do
that. He is careful to put all of the floodlights upon the one
who is the author and the executor of the promise before giving
the specifics of the promise itself. And we noted in our study
last week that the author and the executor of this promise
is God Himself and the God of all grace. And just before the
four verbs, you have that pronoun, autos, I would love to find why
the translators of the New King James Version left it out. My
wife said, honey, last week when you were making that point, I'm
looking at my Bible and I can't find it. There is this extra
pronoun put in in order to emphasize that it is God Himself. whatever means He may employ,
whatever His tools are to perfect, to establish, to strengthen and
settle us, He wants the people of God to know that behind any
means made effectual in those things that form the heart of
the promise, it is God Himself who is doing it. Furthermore,
it is God in His identity as the God of all grace. the only place in the Bible where
God is designated in this way, as the God of all grace. Genesis
to Revelation sets Him forth as a God of grace. Many promises
concerning what His grace will accomplish, but nowhere but here
is He called the God of all grace. And you see the significance
as we think of the content of the whole letter. Here are these
believers in a pagan society, pressured on every hand, some
of them being maligned, some of the servants being maltreated
by their unjust bosses. A civil government that is ruled
by those who are pagans and who have little sympathy for Christian
standards. And then there's a devil going
around like a voracious beast. What in the world are these poor
believers to do? They are to fix their eyes upon
the God of all grace. All kinds of grace, all dimensions
of grace needed to be what they are called to be. And then we
noted in the text that the author and the executor of the promise
is not only set before us as God himself, God in his identity
as the God of all grace, but God in his activity and purpose
in connection with our calling. Look again at the text. The God
of all grace who called you unto his eternal glory in Christ or
in Christ Jesus. Before they suck sweetness out
of the specifics of the promise, he wants them to back up and
say, look, the God who himself will do these things, the God
who Himself will do them as the God of all grace, is the God
who's already called you out of darkness into His marvelous
light, and He's called you with a calling that has as its goal
that you will share in His glory and that forever. He has called
you to His own eternal glory, and the sphere in which He's
done it is union with Christ. He has united you to Christ,
that bond being forged from the human side by faith, from the
divine side by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And He says
it is in Christ that you have been called. And therefore, the
God of all grace, who is going to commit Himself to do these
four specific things, as the God who has called you, manifested
the power and the energy of His saving mercy when He opened your
blind eyes, when He unstopped your deaf ears, when He took
out the heart of stone and gave you a heart of flesh, and not
only summoned you to repentance and faith, but imparted the gift
of repentance and faith, united you to His Son, and marked you
for nothing less than sharing in His eternal glory. Now does
that make a difference as to how we view the stuff of the
promise? I pray God it will. How can we
contemplate a God like that and not have our hearts leap within
us saying, Oh God, anything you promise is surely worthy of my
unquestioned confidence. So having considered the author
and the executor of the promise, now then, let's consider in the
second place as we look at the text, the setting in which the
promise is to be fulfilled, and thirdly, the substance of the
promise or the specifics that are at the heart of the promise.
So we've considered the author and the executor of the promise.
Now the vital question is, when will this promise be fulfilled?
In what sphere of existence or experience do the people of God
have a right to plead this promise? To hold God to His Word. For that's what a faith-filled
prayer is. It is holding God to His Word. But you better make sure God
has given His Word for a given thing to which you're holding
Him in account. And the text reads this way in
most of our translations. and the God of all grace, who
called you unto his eternal glory in Christ, or Christ Jesus, after
you have suffered a little while, shall himself perfect, establish,
strengthen, and settle you." A first impression from that
reading of the old 1901, and from most of the translations
that I have consulted, would give the impression that the
promise is very clearly put in some chronological order. The
God who himself, as the God who called you and the God of all
grace, is going to perfect establish, strengthen, and settle you. He
will do this after you have suffered a while. So you have his calling,
then you have a period of suffering, and then you have God doing these
four things. Do you see that in the way it's
in the text? I hope I'm not talking to myself. Do you see that? So
you get the impression there is this definite chronological
order. They've been called. There's
a while, a period, a little time, or a little in measure. The word
in the Greek is indefinite, can be time or measure, but it's
after suffering a little or a little while, then there is the perfecting,
the strengthening, the establishing, and the settling. Now, if that's
a proper understanding of the text, then it can only be fulfilled
within two possible spheres of reference. It could mean that
Peter is saying this period of time in which the suffering is
intense upon you believers there in those Roman provinces, In
His providential ordering of the affairs of His people, God
is going to relieve you of that concentrated, intense period
of suffering, and when He brings you out into calmer waters, you
will see the fruit of that suffering, in that you will be perfected,
strengthened, and settled. Established, strengthened, and
settled. And those who take that view
point to the historical facts of the church in Jerusalem. In
Acts 2.47 it says that the church was having favor with all the
people. But in Acts 8 it says on that
day a great persecution was let loose against the church on the
occasion of the stoning of Stephen. And it says Paul was breathing
out threatenings and slaughters. Believers are scattered. But
by the time we come to chapter nine, after the conversion of
Saul, it says the churches had rest. and were being edified,
and were being multiplied. So some would say, this is what
Peter is alluding to. He has seen the patterns of God's
dealings in his providence, and when he allows intense periods
of persecution, he then brings periods of relative ease, and
then the people of God can look back and say, yes, God has used
that to perfect me, to establish me, to strengthen, to settle
me, and then they would bring in Romans 5, the first couple
of verses, James chapter 1, the general teaching of scripture,
that it's in the crucible of suffering and opposition that
our graces are cultivated. And if one took that position,
there would be no heresy, there would be no error, but I don't
believe that's what Peter is saying. But if you take the position
that the after is chronological, then you point to the age to
come. the God of all grace, who has
called you unto His eternal glory, after you've suffered a while
in this life, until your death or the second coming, this God
will fully and completely perfect you, establish you, strengthen
and settle you in the glorified state. So some would say, after
the suffering means, since the Bible teaches, our whole pilgrimage
will be marked by suffering. In this world you shall have
tribulation. All that will live godly in Christ
Jesus shall suffer persecution. This can only be pointing to
the eternal glory which will be comprised of being perfected,
established, strengthened, and settled. And then they would
say, 2 Corinthians 4, 17 is the divine commentary. Our light
affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not on
the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen.
Well, I can't buy that either. I have a problem with both of
those positions, and I've got to tell you why. And as I was
thinking of this part of the sermon, where you've got to think
and I've got to work through with you, I said, it's like eating
Brazil nuts. I love Brazil nuts. And it's worth all the difficulty
cracking the outer shell to get to the meat. Now we're cracking
Brazil nut shells here, all right? But there's wonderful meat inside.
And it's unusually nice when you can get the meat out whole
in one piece. I love the feeling of the crunch of a whole unbroken
Brazil nut. I only get it about once every
ten times. They're stinkers to get out of the shell. Well, may
God give us to know something of the savoring of the text,
if you'll hang in there while we do some nut-cracking, all
right? Why do I reject both of those positions? Well, the second
one that would say, well, these things are promised for the age
to come. The suffering for a little while is the entire experience
of the Christian in the whole of his life, all of God's people
in every age, and then what awaits him are these four marvelous
realities that God Himself will effect in us. He will perfect,
He will establish, He will strengthen, He will settle. Here's my big
problem. When you take your Bible and look up these words in an
English concordance, better yet, in the English and its Greek
concordance, you will find that three of these four verbs There's
one that is one of Peter's exotic words, found only here in the
New Testament, not even found in the Greek translation of the
Hebrew Old Testament, the Septuagint. It's its only use in the Scriptures.
But the other three, perfect, Establish, it's this third one,
strengthen, that is Peter's unique word, and the final one, settle
you, those words are used many times in the New Testament as
that which the writers of the Bible expect to be realized in
believers in this life. So that if Peter were using them
of the age to come, he is using terminology that is never used.
with respect to our glorified state. And furthermore, I don't
need to be settled in the glorified state. There's nothing to unsettle
me. I won't need to be strengthened
in the glorified state, for I will be like Him, having seen Him
as He is. And these commodities that Peter
holds out in the heart of the promise are not the stuff that
is needed in the age to come, but they are needed in this age
in the context of a vicious devil, of an unsympathetic world, and
our own lust that would betray us from within. And the first
one that would say, well, it's a period of suffering and Peter's
saying it's only going to last for a little while. There is
no indication that Peter was given some prophetic insight.
We know from church history that things went from bad to worse
in that area of the world. In a couple of years, general
persecution was to be let loose upon all of the church throughout
the Roman Empire. So then, how are we to understand
it? What is the setting in which the promise is to be fulfilled?
It's a wonderful promise. The God of all grace, who called
you to His eternal glory in Christ after you've suffered a little
while, shall Himself perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle
you. But when can I expect that to be fulfilled? How can I plead
it before God? Well, I believe a proper understanding
of the passage is this. First of all, there's no word,
quote, after in the original. Its presence in most translations
is an attempt to give smoother English to the words and to show
some sensitivity to the tense of the verb suffer. It's an aorist
participle. But a literal rendering would
be this. Look at your Bibles. The God of all grace, who called
you to his eternal glory in Christ, or Christ Jesus, a little having
suffered. That's a literal rendering. A
little having suffered shall himself perfect, establish, strengthen,
and settle. A little having suffered. And
the word holigon, a little, can mean a little time or little
in degree. It's indefinite. And I believe
the Spirit of God caused Peter to choose it for its very indefiniteness. It's a little. It's a relatively
short time, a relatively small degree, having suffered. And
this participial phrase is to be related not to when God shall
himself perfect you, establish, strengthen, and settle you, but
with reference to the ultimate end of our calling. Now look
at the verse, as I would paraphrase it with that understanding. And
the God of all grace, who called you unto his eternal glory in
Christ Jesus, this God, who himself is committed to take you to glory,
all right? Here's the picture. He's called
us unto His eternal glory in Christ, a glory which will be
yours after you have suffered a little. This God Himself, here
and now, will perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. And
this is not a novel approach that I'm taking. Modern commentators
such as Hebert, relatively modern Lenski, older commentators such
as Lilly and others say this is the only way to understand
it. The grammar could go either way, but the context and the
whole thrust of the letter forces us to view it this way. It's
as though Peter has an afterthought. The God of all grace, this God,
who called you unto His eternal glory in Christ. Oh, by the way,
a glory to which you're called through the path of suffering.
But don't be too upset that its calling is through the path of
suffering, for this God who shall glorify you shall here and now,
in the midst of the suffering, perfect you, establish you, strengthen
you, and settle you. Am I connecting? And we're doing
justice to the language, we're doing justice to the overall
thrust of it, and as I trust to persuade you, we're doing
justice to the words the Holy Spirit chose that form the very
nub of the promise. So the contrast clearly set before
us is eternal glory as the end of our calling, suffering for
a little as the way to that end. And that fits with the whole
of the Bible. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works
for us a far more and eternal weight of glory. While we look
not in the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen,
for the things that are seen, including our sufferings, are
temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. Remember the apostle in exhorting
the young churches, Acts 14.22, what was the note they sounded?
strengthening the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them
that through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom of
God. God has called us with a calling
that has as its terminus the sharing of His eternal glory,
but He's sharing eternal glory through the path of suffering. And that fits the rest of the
Bible that says we shall be glorified together with Him if we what? If we suffer with Him. Or Philippians 129, it has been
given to you not only to believe on His name but also to suffer
for His sake. And so the time frame for the
fulfillment of this promise is not the age to come, it is here
and now. That's why it's Peter's capstone
promise to these believers. It's as though Peter, having
written the body of the epistle, sits back, and like a good preacher,
gets inside the heads of his congregation. He thinks of those
people. He reviews all that he said they
have in Christ now and the best that awaits them in the inheritance
incorruptible, undefiled, and effaced, not a way reserved in
heaven. He thinks of his promise they
are kept by the power of God. They've been redeemed by blood.
They've been made living stones. He thinks back over his own epistle
and all the privileges he set before them. Then he thinks of
all the dangers he's laid out before them. The pressures of
persecution. Fleshly lusts at war against
their own soul. Unrighteous masters. An ungodly
government. Unconverted husbands. Unreasonable
with their wives. He thinks of all of these things
and says, how can I encourage them to believe that these standards
are not unrealistic, unattainable, just nice notions to float by
people when preachers are expounding my letter 2,000 years from now? What can I say that will really
strengthen the brethren? What can I say that will feed
the lambs and feed the sheep? How shall they be equipped to
face the present and the future sufferings? How shall they be
empowered and emboldened to confess Christ when it costs? How shall
they be strengthened in the face of this malicious and cunning
devil who's like a voracious beast of prey? And Peter says,
now I must point them to the fact that the God who got them
into this mess is not done with them. The God of all This God
who's called you unto his eternal glory in union with Christ shall
himself, during this period of a little suffering, he will perfect
you, he will establish you, he will strengthen you. Now then,
I hope Having persuaded you, and if not, you will not come
under Church discipline. You are free to question my exegesis,
and I shall defend it firmly until I am persuaded from the
Word of God that it ought to be another, but we can remain
friends if we differ. But now, you won't be able to
enjoy the substance of the promise like the rest of us will. You
see, if it's all out there, you can look at it from afar and
rejoice, and that's a biblical teaching. Many promises are held
out there for the age to come. Wherefore, comfort one another
with these words. What will happen when Jesus comes?
But for those of us who feel the need of promises to lay hold
of for the now, here's meat and drink to our souls. Let's look
now at the substance of the promise. The specifics which constitute
the very heart of the promise. Some of you have a Bible that
only lists three of them, perfect, establish, strengthen. Some of
you have a Bible that has four, and I'm not going to go into
the whole science of textual criticism. Suffice it to say
this, it is much easier to explain why that word translated settle would be omitted
than it is to explain why it would be included. Some manuscripts
omit it, some include it. When you wrestle with this and
take all the principles you're supposed to use in ascertaining
what was the original text, it is much easier to explain its
omission than its inclusion. So I share the conviction shared
by many responsible evangelical commentators that there was a
fourth future verb used by Peter, all right? And the way we're
to look at them is this. Some say, well, Peter's just
piling up near synonyms. They're not exactly synonyms,
but he's piling up these words, and you're not to try to find
any specific significance in each word, but take all four
of them, And the impression is this, though you're in the midst
of suffering, the God of all grace who's already called you,
who's marked you for eternal glory, yes, for a little while
you're going to suffer, but that God will perfect, settle, strengthen,
and establish, strengthen, and settle you. The overall picture
is this, you're going to make it. Neither your sin, nor the
world, nor the devil is going to frustrate God's end in His
calling. He's going to bring you to eternal
glory. So just take all four like a machine gun of blessing
and just get hit with the whole spray of the gospel bullets and
go down prostrate in worship and love and praise and adoration.
That's a crude analogy, but that's the first one that came to my
head. But I do have one that I have prepared. And that is,
I don't believe that's true, that there is significance in
each of these words. They are like a mosaic. You know
what a mosaic is? Take bits of glass or tile of
different colors and you set them in mortar. And when you
back off, if you get in a mosaic like this, you're just going
to see broken glass or broken pieces of tile. But when you
back off, you say, oh, wait a minute, all the reds there and the yellows
here and the greens, it forms a picture. But the whole is comprised
of all those individual parts. And you can't have the mosaic
conveying an image if you take them out and place them in different
places and say, well, the color and placement is irrelevant.
Well, it's my judgment, and thankfully again, not shared by me as a
minority opinion, but the majority of the commentators, that these
four future verbs that tell us what God is committed to do in
this little while of a suffering time, they form a beautiful mosaic,
but each piece in the mosaic gives its own distinct contribution. One gives the red, one gives
the yellow, one gives the blue, one gives the gray. And what
are they? Well, let's look at them. God
himself shall perfect you. Now the word perfect, if you
were a physician living in the first century, and someone came
into your office, or you met them at the emergency room, and
they had a fracture, and you set the bone, what you would
write up in your report that would go into their file is,
I perfected their broken tibia. I perfected. That's the word
the physician would use when he would set a bone. It's the
word you would use if you were a fisherman and you had your
nets up on the shore and there was a tear in them and you were
mending them. That's exactly how it's used in Matthew 4.21.
Jesus sees the disciples by the seashore with their father, mending,
that's our verb, mending their nets. So the sense of the word
is that you repair what is damaged or you supply what is lacking. If you were in the maritime business
and you were refitting a ship for an ocean voyage, this is
the verb you would use. You say, I perfected, I refitted
and outfitted the ship for its next voyage, so it has the two-fold
connotation of repairing what is broken and supplying what
is lacking. It's used in Scripture to point
for the fitting of something for its proper use. It's the
verb used in Hebrews 11 3. The worlds were, here's our verb,
perfected. The worlds were framed by the
Word of God. God furnished this cosmos for
its intended use. Hebrews 10.5, a body thou hast
prepared for me, the Son of God, His last words when He leaves
heaven, His Father, a body you have prepared, here's our verb,
you have fitted, suited to my purposes as the theanthropic
Redeemer, as the God-man who will live under the law and die
under its curse. That's the word that we found
when we read Galatians 6 this morning. If a brother be overtaken
in a fault, you that are spiritual, here's our verb, restore such
a one. Put his spiritual joint back
in place. Seek to supply what he's lacking
in his understanding of what he has done. Point out his fault
and seek to see him brought to repentance and restoration. That's
our verb. The same family of words in Ephesians
4.12, Christ gives pastors and teachers, here's our word, same
family, for the perfecting of the saints, for the mending of
their broken bones and for furnishing them unto works of service. You get a feel for the sense
of the word? Now, I have said that these words
are used not of the eternal state, but of the present state. And
I want you to look at two passages in which the apostolic writers
make this very, very clear. First Thessalonians chapter three. Here, I want you to get it through
the eye gate as well as the ear gate. And so I'm not just quoting,
but I want you to see it. First Thessalonians chapter three. sorry second Thessalonians I'm
sorry second Thessalonians I've made the jump I'm sorry yes it is I have the right reference
first Thessalonians 3 9 and 10 for what thanksgiving can we
render unto God for you for all the joy wherewith we joy for
your sake before our God now notice night and day, praying
exceedingly, that the Lord may come and you may be perfected
in that which is lacking. Know that we may see your face,
and here's our verb, may perfect that which is lacking in your
faith. Paul is passionately desirous
that God would open the way for him to see the Thessalonians
again, that through his ministry he may be an instrument to see
them perfected with respect to what is lacking in their faith,
that there would be a furnishing of them with what is essential
to a strong and vigorous life of faith. And then Hebrews 13,
the concluding prayer. recorded in Hebrews 13 verse
20, the God of peace who brought again from the dead the great
shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant
even our Lord Jesus make you, here's our word, perfect. make
you complete, fully outfitted, every bone set as it ought, in
proper working order, furnished with necessary graces, in every
good thing to do His will, working in us that which is well pleasing
in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and
ever. Amen. So you see, this word is not
used of something God will do in the eternal state, though
there He will set every bone and make up every lack, but when
the writer sits at his desk and pens these words, the God of
all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus,
this God Himself shall perfect you. He is pointing to that present
work of God by which God will take these saints in all the
reality of their circumstances with all of their vulnerability
to the world, their own sin, and to this voracious devil seeking
to devour them. And God will set their bones
and God will furnish them with the necessary courage and grace
and wisdom and power to fulfill His will. Let me illustrate. Back in the days when there was
something other than computerized warfare, with men sitting at
their consoles and sending missiles hundreds of miles away, when
there were trenches and foxholes and bayonets that drew blood
and bullets that split arms and shattered thighs and ripped through
people's chests, and in such a war the soldier in battle in
the midst of hand-to-hand combat, some of the things you've seen
in the old newsreel clips, the house-to-house combat in parts
of the European theatre. or the jungle conflicts in some
of the Pacific islands, in the driving out of the Japanese from
those islands. And here's a soldier who went
into battle, he had his helmet, he had his rifle, he had a full
supply of ammunition, he had his rations with him, but in
the midst of battle, the man has his arms shattered and has
a compound fracture of his upper arm. His helmet has been torn
off by shrapnel. He's all out of ammunition. His
rifle has ceased to function. And he crawls his way back to
friendly lines. And he enters into the tent of
a medic. And the medic says, we've got to fix you up, son.
And so he cleans his wound, sets his fracture, sutures up the
wound. And after a proper period of
R&R, he goes to what used to be called the quartermaster.
They don't use that term anymore. The one who would furnish the
soldier with all he needed for battle. He's outfitted with a
new helmet. He's given a new rifle. He's given all the standard
rations for field battle. And he's given a new rifle and
he goes forth. How? He goes forth perfected
for the next battle. How was he perfected? His broken
arm was set and the wound was sutured. He was given a new helmet,
given a new rifle, given adequate ammunition. That's the picture
of what God is committed to do in this spiritual warfare. There
are times when our helmet is blown off and our arms get shattered. And there are times when we feel
we've lost our rifle and we've got no ammunition. We feel we've
had it. In times like that, dear people
of God, you need to take a test like this and say, Oh God of
all grace, You have committed Yourself to me in Christ. In this period of suffering for
a little while, You are committed to perfect me. Lord, heal my
broken bones. Suture up my wounds. Give me
a new rifle. Supply me with the ammunition
because God, I'm not quitting. I'm not in glory yet. And I'm
determined in the language of Ephesians 6 to stand and having
done all to stand. God himself will perfect you. Secondly, very quickly now, God
himself shall establish you. shall establish you. The word
means to fix firmly, to make steadfast. Luke 9.51, Jesus set
his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem. That's our word. Jesus
established his face. He set, he fixed firmly his face
to go to Jerusalem. Luke 16.26, When Abraham is speaking
to the rich man in hell, he says, besides all of this, there is
a great gulf, here's our verb, fixed, established between us. None can pass from there to here,
from here to there. A great gulf is fixed, established. It's not a fluid thing. It's
not a changing thing. A gulf today and half a gulf
tomorrow and no gulf three days from now. It's fixed. It's established
immovably. And when Jesus said to Peter,
when you are converted, Luke 22, 32, strengthen your brethren. There's the very word. Strengthen
your brethren. I wonder if it was in Peter's
mind when he wrote this. When you are turned again after
your wretched denials, Peter, you'll show your love to me and
my grace to you. By strengthening your brethren,
no longer to be an occasion of stumbling by your oaths and maledictions
that you do not know me, you will be turned again by my grace. And when you are turned, strengthen
your brethren. Give yourself to being an instrument
to see them fixed firmly, made steadfast in the midst of the
pressures and the difficulties of this life. It's the very thing
Paul desired to do in his ministry to the Romans. Twice in the epistle
to the Romans, chapter 1 in verse 11, he tells us why he wants
to go to Rome, among other reasons. I long to see you, that I may
impart to you some spiritual gift to the end you may be, here's
our word, established. Well, I thought the church was
established at Rome. Yes, it was. We couldn't have
sent a letter to the church at Rome. But he said, I want to
see you fixed even more firmly in every godly and holy resolve
of the Christian life. And then he repeats it in chapter
16. This is why I say I can't apply this in its direct application
to the age to come. There's too much pastoral emphasis
upon present establishment. Romans chapter 16 and verse 25. Now to him that is able to establish
you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ,
according to the revelation of the mystery that has been kept
silent but is now manifested to this God be glory." He said,
I want you Romans to know He is the God who can fix you, who
can settle you on a solid base of commitment to Christ and to
His truth. Now this is a very crucial issue.
Paul is deeply concerned about this issue again with the Thessalonians. And he twice, in very short compass,
2, 16 and 17 and 3, 3 of 2 Thessalonians, now our Lord Jesus and God our
Father who loved us, comfort your hearts and establish them
in every good work and word. He wants to see their hearts
fixed and established so that they may be full of good works. and good words to the glory of
God. Chapter 3 and verse 3, But the
Lord is faithful who shall establish you, now look at the relevance,
and guard you from the evil one. He will fix you firmly and in
that posture you will be kept from that voracious devil who
goes about seeking whom he may devour. Let's go back to our
soldier. He's come back from the front
lines. His bone has been set, he's been sutured. He's got his
new helmet and rifle and his rations and his ammunition. But he lacks something before
he goes back to the battle. He's scared witless. He's heard
the bullets whizzing. The shrapnel hit his helmet and
tore it off. He looks down and he's got the
red scars and the arm will never quite be straight again. What's
he need? He needs not only to be perfected,
he needs to be what? Fixed firmly with new resolve
to go out again and face more bullets and more shrapnel and
more wounds. And so there is progression.
Peter says, the God of all grace, the God who called you unto His
eternal glory in Christ Jesus, during this little while, this
little measure of suffering, this God shall Himself not only
perfect you, but He will establish you. He can fix you firmly in
your commitments and resolutions to do His will, no matter what
the cost, no matter the day. But then he goes on and says,
God himself, look at the third future verb, he shall strengthen
you. He shall strengthen you. And
here Peter uses, you've heard me say the word before, what
the linguists and the exegetes call a hapax. Hapax is a Greek
word for once and for all. Logomenon, that's a word. This
is a once for all word. It's not found anywhere in the
New Testament, not found as I indicated earlier in the Greek translation
of the Old Testament scriptures, but from several secular usages
within that basic time frame of the New Testament, we understand
that the word does indeed mean to strengthen, to make strong,
to impart strength. Now think again of the context.
What do these believers need? They need not only that God in
grace and mercy should come set their bones and furnish them
and outfit them with all that is needed for their pilgrimage,
that he would not only establish them with fixed resolution, but
that they would actually have strength infused for the spiritual
conflict. Now we go back to our soldier,
and here I use my imagination. He's got his bones set and his
wounds sutured. He's got his new helmet and he's
got his new rifle and all his rations and his ammunition and
he's been given courage to go back, but he's still weak from
the weeks of recuperation. His muscles have become flaccid.
He couldn't run more than a quarter of a mile without pooping out.
What's he need if he's going to go back into the battle right
away? Well, he needs for someone to ship over some new exotic
multi-mega-vitamin with all kinds of amazing powers that if you
put an IV in him and give him a pint of this, he's as strong
as an ox. And you say to him now, Doughboy,
before you go back and face the bullets, I want you to get on
that cot, and we're going to strengthen you. We've perfected
you. We've established you, now we're
going to strengthen you. And they put the IB in, and when
he gets up off that bed, I mean, he feels like Samson. He's ready
to go at it. The God of all grace, who called
you to his eternal glory in Christ after you've suffered a while,
shall himself strengthen you. Strengthen you. The God who says
to you and to me, be strong, Spiritual weakness is an evidence
of blatant disobedience to God. Being strong is an imperative. But I stopped too soon, didn't
I? In the Lord and in the power of His Word. Paul is boasting, I can do all
things. Well, you wretched boaster, don't
you know that without him we can do nothing? Paul said, yes,
listen to the rest of my statement. I can do all things through him
or in him who strengthens me. Without me, you can do nothing.
But if you abide in me, you bring forth little, hard, nubby, barely
discernible fruits of your union with me. Nonsense. He said, herein
is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit, much fruit,
much fruit. God himself shall strengthen
you. My grace is sufficient for you,
for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore,
I glory in my infirmities that the what? That the power of Christ
may literally intent itself about me. spread itself like a tent
all around me, so that what is seen in life and labor is not
the weak vessel, but the exceeding greatness of the power that is
not from the vessel, but is from God Himself." And then the fourth
thing God's committed to do is this, God Himself will settle
you. I indicated that I do believe
that was part of the original letter. Peter says that this
God, who himself will do this, will do it as the God of grace,
as the God who called you, this God will settle you. And what's
that mean? Well, the noun form is the standard
word in the New Testament for a foundation. Luke 14, 29, the
well-known parable of a man who begins to build and can't finish,
the Lord says, lest, having laid the foundation, that's the noun
form of the word, It's used in Acts 16.26 when the Lord shook
the jail. It says the foundations of the
jail were shaken. In its verb form, it's used in
the very familiar words of Matthew chapter 7 in the Sermon on the
Mount. Most of us will recognize this the moment I quote verse
25. And the rain descended and the
floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and
it fell not for it was, here's our verb, it was founded It was
foundationalized on the rock. Now that's the word. God himself
will settle you. And I said, the only way I can
bring it over in English is to make up a word. God himself will
foundationalize you. Here's a man, his bones been
set, his wounds been sutured, his helmet's back on his head,
he's got his rifle, he's got his ammunition, he's got his
food, he's got all of these things. He has fresh courage to face
the battle. He's had his pint of super-duper
mega-vitamins that made him feel like Samson. But how long is
that going to last? Will he be quickly toppled from
that resolution and that posture? Peter says, no. God himself will
settle you. He will deal with you as one
planting you on an immovable foundation. and let all the powers
of hell and all the powers of the world and all the subtle
powers of the devil and of your own lust beat against you and
you'll be immovable, founded upon Christ and His grace and
His almighty power. Peter thinks of those believers
facing this complex of pressures And He calls Him the God of all
grace. He described Him in chapter 1
in verse 5 as the One who by His power keeps His people, who
are guarded by the power of God unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last time. If they're going to be brought
to their purchased inheritance, the God of all grace who perfects
them, establishes them, and strengthens them, puts them on a solid and
an immovable foundation. That's what Paul prayed for the
Colossians or Paul describes of the Colossians in Colossians
1 in verse 23. He speaks of them being founded
upon Jesus Christ. One commentator writes, God will
settle you. The word settle is equivalent
to make to rest securely as a building on its foundation. The idea is
this, the design of these attacks of Satan is to drive you from
the foundation who is Jesus, and the truth as it is in Jesus.
But God will render all these attempts ineffectual by his preparing
you for them, establishing you, strengthening you under them,
and by enabling you to stand and withstand, he will make them
the means of fixing you more firmly on the foundation than
ever. And any child of God who's known any combination of pressures
for any period of time in his heart of hearts says, Lord, it's
true. It's true. The more the winds and the waves
beat upon us, And we wonder, shall I topple and be swept out
to sea? And we're unable to stand. We
say, Lord, I'm not standing in my own strength. You have founded
me upon your Son. And the more the waves batter,
and the more we're unable to stand, the more confident we
are that it's God himself is the God of all grace who is causing
us to be foundationalized, causing us to stand. These four things,
then, are the substance of this wonderful promise, promised by
the God of all grace, the God who's called us to His eternal
glory in Christ. This God is committed to His
people, to perfect them, to establish them, to strengthen them, to
settle them. Listen to this brief summary
by one of the writers. He shall perfect, that no defect
may remain in you, He shall establish that you may be guilty of no
backsliding. He shall strengthen that you
may overcome every adverse power. and thus he shall settle you,
establish you more firmly than ever on the foundation. Those
very means that were intended to remove you from it and to
convert into an unsightly heap of ruins, all the holy dispositions
and all the glorious hopes which like a stately edifice polished
after the similitude of a palace rested on that foundation. The devil will make his efforts
to destroy it all. God is committed to preserve
it. Another writes, the use of these four verbs is not redundant
rhetoric, but there's an orderly thought development. The first,
he shall perfect you, assures the readers that God would keep
on perfecting his suffering children so that no defect would remain
in them. The remaining three verbs suggest
different aspects of this work. God will supply believers with
the needed support so that they will not topple and fall. He will impart the needed strengths
so they will not collapse, and He'll set them on an immovable
foundation so that they will not be swept away. Dear people
of God, what more can He say than to us He has said? To those
of us who for refuge to Jesus have fled. As I close, let me
challenge you. We'll just have to leave that
appropriate doxology. Let me just bring these two very
brief, pointed words of application. First of all, this passage illustrates
one of the most vital principles of the Christian life, and it's
this. Our understanding of the revealed character and purposes
of God is the foundation of our stability in the Christian life.
May I repeat that? Our understanding of the revealed
character and purposes of God is foundational to our stability
in the Christian life. As Peter wants to give a capstone
promise, he doesn't plunge into the specifics of the promise.
He says, this promise is conditioned by the God who gives it. And
I remind you of who He is, what He's done, and what He's purposed. He is God of all grace. What
has He done? He's called you. What has He
purposed? To bring you to share in His
eternal glory. Peter knew that this was foundational
to stability in the Christian life. That's why If you want
to be stable, you won't be stable grabbing your three minutes a
day from some watered-down, modernized version of a few snippets of
Amy Carmichael or of Oswald Chambers. And I'm not speaking disparagingly
of Amy Carmichael or Oswald Chambers, I hope you read them. But God
will not conform to this frenetic, busy, busy age and let you be
stable if you have no time to stop and think of who God is,
what He's done, and what He's purposed. Peter is talking to
slaves, to women with unconverted husbands, to common people, not
to aristocrats and PhDs, and he says, do you want to know
what you must grasp if you are to be what you ought to be in
the circumstances in which God has placed you? then understand
what is revealed of the character and purposes of God. Take those
phrases and chew upon them. You women with your hands in
the sink and folding clothes and about the housework, you
can take the phrase, He's God of all grace. God of all grace,
He's the God who's called. He's the God who's called me
unto His eternal glory. He is such a God. Feed your mind
upon His revealed character and purposes. making that commute
and in the midst of all of the bustle and the rest, learn the
discipline of a thought here and a thought there that like
the magnet of the soul is drawn to the iron of who God is and
what he's revealed of himself. The second great principle is
this, our prayerful receiving, I'm sorry, our prayerful believing
grasp of the promises of God is essential to our maturation
in the Christian life. You see, if someone makes out
a check to you and you believe that the person is upright, fiscally
responsible, doesn't make out checks that have nothing to back
it in the bank, you have confidence in the character of that person,
what do you need to do to transfer that piece of paper into some
other paper, legal tender, that can buy stuff? What do you need
to do? You need to do two things. confident
in the character and the fiscal integrity of the one who made
out the check to you, you must go to the bank and do two things,
endorse it and deposit it. This is God's check made out
to you. Do you question his integrity? Do you question his fiscal responsibility?
Does he make out checks for which he got nothing in the bank to
cover? No, he's the infinite God. God of how much grace? All. How do we endorse and deposit
the checks God gives us? By believing prayer. When we
endorse them and say, Lord, you have revealed yourself to be
the God who himself will perfect will establish, will strengthen
and settle. Oh God, I endorse it and I prove
that I mean it by bringing it to the divine teller and saying,
God make it good in cash. You say, that's brash. No, that's
faith. That's biblical faith. That's
not fanaticism. This spins out of the loom of
one's own notions what God will give. But when we come with God's
word and say, God, you don't make out bogus checks that bounce. God loves it when we do it. How
long has it been since you did it? How long has it been since you
endorsed and cashed a specific promise in the presence of the
divine banker? You answer, not outwardly, but
you answer in your own soul. I've cashed a half a dozen already
this morning. My strength is made perfect in
weakness. Without Me, you can do nothing. Give up to God this wretched
thing called your own humanity, with all of its limitations,
and say, O God, be pleased. Come in the midst of Your Word
and its preaching and teaching. Do what we cannot do. And God
delights when we plead His promises. God have mercy on us, brethren.
All the efforts to understand this are simply, well, it was
a good Lord's Day, and you and First Peter 5.10 never meet again.
May God help us that this will become one of our lifetime companions. In the midst of the realization,
there is a devil out to devour us. There is a world that is
no friend of grace to help us unto God. We have a thousand
betrayers within in our remaining sin. But there's a God who called
us. He called us to nothing less
than sharing in His eternal glory. And He says that we'll come to
that glory by way of suffering, but not suffering unattended
by His grace, but in the midst of the suffering, He Himself. So I keep going over it. Forget
everything else. I hope you hang the message on
that poor busted-up soldier. He'll set the bone and suture
it. He'll give you a helmet, give you a new rifle and ammunition.
He'll give you the IV, and then he'll plant you immovable in
the strength of Christ. If you're not a Christian, I
hope we've made you jealous to become one. You pity us poor
folks. You think we don't have any fun.
Oh, if we could just let you taste for one Lord's Day the
holy fun. May I say that without being
irreverent? The holy joy of knowing God. being right with God, knowing
that when it's all over, it's just begun, you have no such
hope. My dear unconverted friend, it's
yours if you will have Christ. And Christ is yours in the Gospel.
He offers himself to you freely, unreservedly, sincerely. He says,
will you have me for who and what I am? The Savior to break
your chains, to cleanse you from the vileness of your sin, to
change all of your purposes and directives in life, so you begin
to live for the purpose for which you were made. And indwelt by
my Spirit and guided by my Word, I'll fashion you and deal with
you and eventually take you home to be with me. My friend, I plead
with you, go to Christ and join this happy band as we make our
way to sharing in His eternal glory. Let's pray. Our Father, we're again amazed
when we stand back and survey all that you have committed yourself
to be and to do for hell-deserving rebels. Oh God, our Father, have
mercy upon us. Our faith is so weak, our expectations
are so low. Forgive the narrowness and the
shriveled state of our hearts and expand our hearts that we
may glorify you by a more aggressive faith, by higher expectations
of what your grace can work in us to your glory. We pray that
you'd seal your word to our hearts and dismiss us with the blessings
of your grace upon us. For Jesus.

A Most Encouraging Promise, Part 2

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about suffering for Christians?

How do we know God's promises are true?

Why is humility important for Christians?

What does it mean that God will perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle us?

Sermon Transcript

About Albert N. Martin

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A Most Encouraging Promise, Part 2

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about suffering for Christians?

How do we know God's promises are true?

Why is humility important for Christians?

What does it mean that God will perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle us?

Sermon Transcript

About Albert N. Martin

Comments

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