Turn with me, please, in your
Bibles to 1 Peter 5. 1 Peter 5. One of the lovely things about
preaching systematically through the scriptures or through a book
is that you get to speak on all the verses and you don't just
get to pass over the ones that are perhaps regarded as being
less significant and less important and less meaningful and maybe
less full of doctrine. you get to speak about all the
verses and I counted a privilege this morning to be able to come
before you and basically to preach on these few end verses of Peter's
letter. We're going to read 1 Peter 5
and verse 12. And here Peter is simply writing
to the congregations to whom this letter has been addressed,
and passing on some final greetings. But I think there are one or
two gems in the things that he has to say here that it would
be such a shame for us to pass over them without giving them
their proper emphasis. He says in verse 12, by Silvanus,
a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose I have written briefly,
exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God
wherein ye stand. The church that is at Babylon,
elected together with you, saluteth you, and so doth Marcus, my son. Greet ye one another with a kiss
of charity. Peace be with you all that are
in Christ Jesus. Amen. I don't know about you, but I
think it is very precious in reading Peter's epistles as we
have done over recent weeks, going through these chapters,
dwelling upon some of the highlights of the message that he has written,
that in reading these epistles, we remember that the writer was
a personal friend of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pretty obvious, I suppose. but
let me just take the time to repeat it. Peter was a personal
friend of the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, This man who was a disciple
from the very beginning, from when the Lord's ministry commenced
and he gathered those men around about him whom he would particularly
teach and lead in order that they, in the main, might go on
and establish the church and the doctrine of the church. Peter
was there. And he was granted access. to
the Saviour's most significant moments in his ministry. Peter was on the Mount of Transfiguration
when Moses and Elijah came and spoke to the Lord. As he was
transfigured, as he was glorified, as he shone bright and white
and pure, Peter was there and he observed it and he witnessed
it. And he had to be directed and corrected a little bit because
like Peter, impetuous as he was, he misunderstood and got misdirected. But there, as Moses and Elijah
spoke to the Lord about his forthcoming death and the things that he
must suffer at Jerusalem, Peter was there witnessing it all. He was in the Garden of Gethsemane.
He was there when the Lord knelt down, when the Lord came under
those pressures, that weight of anticipation of the sins of
his church upon him. When it is said of him that he
sweat, as it were, great drops of blood and cried out to his
father, Peter was there. And again, we see the weakness
of the man. For he slept in the midst of
the Lord's agony. But he was there in the garden. He was there in the garden when
Judas came with the throng of men to arrest the Saviour. Peter
was the one with the sword and he drew it. And he saw Judas
kissing the Lord. He was there in the high priest's
court when the little girl said, aren't you one of his disciples? And he was there in the garden
where the tomb was. And he ran to the tomb and he
found the stone moved away on that resurrection morning. and
he entered in to the tomb where the Lord's body had so recently
lain. Here is a man who bore witness
to the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and
a man who spent the rest of his life feeding the sheep of Christ
as he had been commissioned by the risen Lord to do. So when this old saint writes
these words to us, when he writes that he is exhorting and testifying
that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand, It means something. It means
something. If Peter, the Lord's friend,
who witnessed all these things, who saw all these things, he
says to us, this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand. He has spent his whole life preaching
this grace, lifting this grace up, exalting the saviour of this
grace. And he testifies that this is
the true grace of God wherein ye stand. Many, many people speak about
the grace of God. I guess there's not a church
in town, there's not a church in this land that doesn't speak
about the grace of God. What church could possibly conduct
a service and fail to speak and preach about the grace of God? But this gospel that Peter preached
is the true grace of God. And that makes a difference.
because men can conceive of a way of salvation. Indeed, the Word
of God tells us that there is a way that seemeth right unto
a man. Seems right, seems logical, seems
to work, seems all to fit together, all to hang together. Here is
a message which they preach freely and they offer to all. But Peter speaks of the true
grace of God and the true grace of God in which you stand. And this is the message that
the old saint would have us hear this morning. This is the grace
wherein you stand. This is the grace that enables
you to stand. This is the grace by which you
can be bold in the presence of God. This is the grace which
speaks of our standing in Christ, accepted in Him. and completely
at peace with God through him and because of what our Saviour
has done and accomplished. This is the true grace of God
in which we stand. We speak of effectual grace,
that just means grace that effects what it was sent to do, what
it was designed to do. Successful grace, if you like.
Accomplishing grace. We speak of saving grace. We
speak of sovereign grace. We speak of free grace. We speak
of abundant grace. That's a good Bible phrase. Abounding
grace. Great grace. Sufficient grace. Manifold grace. Grace to cover
all sins. Grace to cleanse from every evil. Grace to fit us for the presence
of God. And that's the kind of grace
that I need. That's the kind of grace that
I want. Not a part grace. There is no
grace because it requires something of me, something that I have
to do, something that I have to make up, something that I
have to join with the will of God and the desire of God and
the purpose of God to do me good, but waiting, hinging upon whether
or not I'll come up with my end. That's not the grace that I need.
That's the grace that will always cause me to fear always put me
into that place of wondering, have I done enough? Is it okay? Is it sufficient? I need a grace
that is sufficient for my every need. And I need to know the
Lord Jesus Christ, and I need to know God through the Lord
Jesus Christ. If it's not the true grace that
Peter here speaks of, then it is no grace at all. As Paul says, if it's not the
true gospel, then it's another gospel, which is no gospel at
all. It's false grace if it's not
true grace. It's pretend grace if it isn't
real grace. And this grace, says Peter, this
true grace of which I have written to you, of which I have testified
and exhorted, this grace is the grace wherewith we are called
by God unto his eternal glory in Christ Jesus. That's what
he's just said. That's what he said in verse
10. Speaking of God who hath called us unto his eternal glory
by Christ Jesus. This is a grace that calls people
to glory in Christ. calls us into the very presence
of God, calls us to experience that glory. What he says as he
goes on in verse 10 to say, this is the grace that calls us to
perfection. That establishes us. in the presence
of God that strengthens us for every obligation that we have
in this life and in this world and every challenge that we face
and settles us because we know that we have peace with God in
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the grace of which Peter
speaks. This is the grace of God in the
Lord Jesus Christ. This is the grace that comes
to the church and people of God. And this is the grace that we
must taste, that we must have, that we must hold, that we must
receive as a free gift of God. By grace are ye saved. through
faith, and that not of yourself, it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. This is the grace that is powerful
to save. And with this, we end our series
in 1 Peter. With this thought ringing in
our ears, with these words before us, we end this series that we
have had on the Apostles' Letter. And we say, thank you, Peter. Thank you, Peter, for being faithful
to that calling and commission that the Lord Jesus Christ gave
you in those early days following his resurrection when you stood
in his presence, when you stood in his company and he said to
you, feed my sheep. Peter, feed my sheep. Thank you,
Peter, for being faithful to that calling and bringing us
this grace this true grace wherein we stand. Thank you for carefully
teaching to needy sinners like us the grace of God by the Lord
Jesus Christ. Peter, we've been blessed by
you. Peter, we've been helped by you.
Thank you, Peter, for your faithfulness to your calling. So in closing,
as Peter closes, in these few verses, I want to pick out a
couple of the sayings that he has left with us just here at
the very end. Sort of PS at the bottom. so
that we might dwell in some of the sweet things that the old
apostle had to say and to convey to his audience and congregation. He says this, he says that in
verse 12, this letter that he has written is by Silvanus. Now, that name we recognize,
although not maybe in that form. This is Silas. This is the man
Silas. And there is every likelihood
that this is the same Silas that spent time with the apostle Paul.
Do you remember when Paul was in prison in Philippi? and they
had been beaten and they had been thrown into the innermost
prison and the jailer was out there and there was an earthquake
and all the doors opened. This is the man that had been
beaten and bound with the Apostle Paul. This is Silas, Paul and
Silas. It's very likely that this is
the very same man. And here he is in Babylon, which
is where Peter says he writes this from, he is in Babylon with
Peter and he is helping Peter. He had been Paul's attendant,
he had been Paul's companion, and now he is Peter's companion. That's lovely. That is lovely
to think that here is a man who moved between the greatest of
the apostles and who was a help and who was a support and who
was an encouragement to these men. And Peter used Silvanus,
he used Silas here as a man, perhaps to help him write this.
It may well be that Silas was his scribe and wrote it as Peter
spoke, or it may simply be that he was leaving the city and he
was going to carry this letter and be, as it were, the postman,
the delivery man for this letter. To take it to the churches so
that the churches would hear what the apostle had to say of
this true gospel of which he testified. So he's speaking of
Silvanus or Silas and he calls him a faithful brother, a faithful
brother, a faithful brother unto you. Ah, blessed Silas. He'd had his back torn by the
lashes of the Roman guard. He had had to go through the
trials and the troubles that had been the affliction of the
Apostle Paul. And now, perhaps all these years
later, here he is, still labouring, still working, still engaged,
still pulling his weight. in the service of his saviour.
Why is that? Why didn't he retire? Why didn't
he come today? Why didn't he say, I've done
my stint and I've got, hey, look, I've got the scars to show it.
But he's labouring on. He's a faithful man. Faithfulness
is a beautiful quality. A husband wants, desires faithfulness
in his wife. And a wife desires faithfulness
in her husband. And it is the loveliest of the
revealed characteristics of our God that he is faithful to his
people. He is faithful to his people. Great is thy faithfulness. God blesses a church with a faithful
preacher. That's a blessing that he gives.
It's a gracious blessing to have a man amongst us who preaches
faithfully the true grace of God wherein we stand. And that's
what Silas was. He was a faithful man to these
people. God grant that we in turn may
prove to be faithful. Faithful to him, faithful to
one another. Faithful as Silas was faithful. Faithful brothers and sisters
in Christ, seeking the good for one another as the Lord enables
us to labour together. Peter says, Silvanus was a faithful
brother unto you, as I suppose. Huh. That's an interesting little
phrase. Don't we believe that the scriptures
were inspired by the Holy Spirit? Didn't he know? Well, yes, he
knew. Did Peter not know? Well, yes,
Peter did know. And it's interesting that this
little phrase, assuming that it is connected with the earlier
part, the former part, the reference to Silvanus and not to the other
parts about the briefness of the letter, which it's quite
possible it is. But let's assume that it is related
to Silvanus. What Peter is saying here is
that here is a man that he has every evidence to assume is a
faithful brother in Christ. You see, we can't see one another's
hearts. We don't know one another's hearts.
The Lord chose 12, but one was a devil. We don't know one another's
hearts, but we can look on and we can see the works, and we
can hear the testimony. And we can say, this is a man
to be relied upon. And that's what Peter's little
phrase means here. It means, here is a man, I am
sending Silas to you, I'm sending Silvanus to you, whom I firmly
believe upon good evidence is a faithful man for your souls.
That's quite accommodation to be able to make to a fellow individual. When we know how deceitful our
own hearts are, it's a wonderful thing to be able to look at a
brother or sister in Christ and say, I believe him to be a faithful
man. I believe him to be a faithful
man or this lady to be a faithful sister in the Lord because she
has proved herself to be so over these years. Proved worthy of
the task that we have been given in the gospel. He writes that
he is writing from Babylon, verse 13. The church that is at Babylon sends their greetings to you.
Now, Babylon is a city in modern day Iraq. It's pretty much a ruin now.
It's not a city any longer. It was destroyed. It fell into disrepair. It's
not very far from the Iraqi city of Baghdad, which we often hear
about in the news these days. Babylon was in Iraq. Sometimes people suggest that
this may have been written in here because he's really talking
about Rome, but there is no evidence that the Apostle Peter was at
Rome, despite what some churches will say. And he says Babylon. Why would he change it? Why would
he make up a different name? So I think we should assume that
he is writing from Babylon. And Babylon, we know, had a large
community of Jews in it. And therefore it was very appropriate
that Peter would go to where the Jews were. That was his first
calling, was to preach to the Jews, the scattered Jews, the
diaspora. And that was where he went. So
even in his old age, there is the apostle. still labouring
in the gospel, still feeding the Lord's little lamb, still
feeding the flock of God. And he's sending out this letter,
but he's sending it out from that place, that Babylon, where
the Jews had congregated and where he was still performing
a ministry. And there was a church there
that he was identifying with and attached to. And he sends
this greeting to others of the Lord's people, the scattered
pilgrims, as he called them, in the introduction, whom he
is pleased to identify with. And he says of the church at
Babylon that they were elected together with these who received
the letter. I think this is lovely. Peter
gives the greatest possible reason for those who were receiving
this letter to identify with the church at Babylon, and the
greatest possible reason for the church at Babylon to identify
with those who were the scattered pilgrims. What was that reason? that they had been elected together
by God, they had one Lord, they were bound together in Him, they
were a united people. These people were more united
than their nationality united them, more united than their
locality united them, more united than their family relationships,
or their religion united them. These people were united in the
elective purpose of God. God had chosen a people in eternity,
bound them together as a unit, which he called the very bride
of Christ, and committed to give to his Christ as a people and
as a bride, and put them into Christ, and committed to Christ
the responsibility and the care for these people, even to their
very redemption in time and on the cross. Elected together were
these Babylonian believers with the scattered pilgrims to whom
Peter had written. These were the choice of God's
calling. These were the people that God
had set apart in his eternal will. God has called a people,
we read that, who have called us unto his eternal glory. The
initiative is with God, the choice is with God, the election, which
is what that word means, choice or selection. The election is
God's will, it's God's purpose, and he has a people that he has
elected. We can't read these words, we
can't deal with scripture with any integrity, with any honesty,
without recognizing that the great theme The great undergirding
foundational truth of election is there on the pages of the
revealed will of God, our holy scriptures. Now you can have
your religion, you can have your faith, you can have your worship
services, you can have your celebrations, but if you haven't got a place
for election in the word of God and in your gospel, you haven't
got the true gospel, you haven't got the true grace of God. And this is what the Apostle
Peter writes. God has called a people to glory
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And as those to whom he wrote
were the elect of God, so those from whom he wrote were the elect
of God. You know he started his book
talking about election. and he's finishing his book talking
about election. Listen to what he says. 1 Peter
1, verse 2. Elect. He's writing to these
people. He says, you are elect according
to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification
of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ. Grace unto you, and peace be
multiplied. The theme of his introduction
is the theme of his conclusion, election, salvation, peace with
God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Election is a triune work of
God. It flows out of the father's
choice, which is built itself on the everlasting love of God
for his people. It comes to us as the Holy Spirit
has sanctified and set us apart in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not
in this world. That Holy Spirit sanctification
is in itself an eternal work. God the Father chose a people.
He chose them. But it was the Holy Spirit that
placed them in Christ. And it was the Lord Jesus Christ
who accepted that people, that named people, that people whose
names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life from before the
foundation of the world. And it was the triune God, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit that contrived together, covenanted together,
in order to secure the salvation of this wayward people. It's the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ that cleanses us and fits us for the great glorious promises,
the eternal glory that we are called to by God the Father and
God the Holy Spirit. Romans chapter 9 verse 11 says,
For the children speaking about Jacob and Esau, and the Apostle
Paul was using their life's experience and example as a testimony, as
an object lesson for the way in which God has dealt with his
church out of this world. And he says, for the children,
being not yet born, okay? The children being not yet born,
so it couldn't have been anything to do with their reactions, or
their responses, or their works, or their attitudes, or their
character, or their activities. Nothing to do with anything that
they did. The children, they weren't even born yet. Paul says,
for the children being not yet born, neither having done any
good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. For he saith
to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I
will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then
it is not of him that willeth, not of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. Not of your will, nor of your
works, nor of your activities, nor of your running around trying
to please God, trying to do something that is going to be accepted.
Nothing to do with that. This was before the children
were even born. God said, Jacob have I loved,
and Esau have I hated. Don't you tell me that isn't
fair. Don't you dare sit on judgment of God. He judges you, you don't
judge him. Peter says, the church that is
at Babylon elected together with you, saluteth you, and so doth
Marcus, my son. That's nice. Who is Marcus, I
wonder? Well, he's Peter's son, right? Maybe. Peter had a wife. Maybe he had a son called Mark.
Maybe this is his natural son. It could well be. In which case,
that's lovely. Here's the old apostle and he's
still got his children around about him and he sends the child's
greetings. Oh, wouldn't we love to be able
to say when we're writing to one another, writing to a brother
in the Lord or a sister in the Lord and say, oh, by the way,
my children send their greetings too. Ah, many of us see our children
being wayward and not following after the true grace of God. It's a wonderful thing if we
find our children following in the testimony that the Lord has
graciously granted to us. Or maybe this was John Mark.
And John Mark is regarded as being the writer of the Gospel
of Mark. So Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
he's the Mark that wrote the Gospel. And he's thought to have
received most of the information that he wrote from Peter. And so Peter's experience, Peter's
observations of the things that were happening during the ministry
of the Lord are predominant in the gospel of Mark. And it may
well be that this is the Mark that we're speaking about here.
Verse 14, the apostle says, greet one another with a kiss of charity,
a kiss of love. Kiss of love is to mark our greetings
one to another. What is he saying? He's talking
here about gestures of genuine affection. He's speaking about
the holy kiss that Paul speaks about repeatedly, actually, in
his own letters when he writes. Take a look around. Take a look
around in the congregation. You see these people here? Well,
these people are your brothers and sisters in Christ. These
people are the Christian family that the Lord has given you to
share this world with, to share this brief moment in time with. These people, these are they. Now maybe we don't get on so
good with some of them some of the time. Maybe we have challenges
about the way in which we interact. But these are the people that
the Lord has given us. These are the people. These are
our brothers and sisters. There is a little saying that
says that you can choose your friends, but you can't choose
your relatives. Well, you don't get to choose
your Christian family either. You just don't. And they might
be square pegs and round holes, but this is it. And we are to show genuine affection
to them. And it's our privilege to do
so. Our privilege to do so. Our family in Christ is chosen
for us because God has chosen them before the foundation of
the world. And if he places us beside another one of his blood-bought
people, then it's our privilege to shoulder that person's burdens,
to help that person on their way, and to allow them to help
us. You remember the Hollies, the
English pop group? They sang a song called, He Ain't
Heavy, He's My Brother. He ain't heavy, he's my sister. These are our people and we carry
one another as we seek to serve the Lord together. We greet one
another with kisses of charity. Now I'm not a great kisser, but we're talking about sincerity
here. We're talking about a care and
a concern for one another. It's acting with each other,
with the Lord's words in our heart. I say unto you, inasmuch as ye
have done it unto one of these, the least of these, my brethren,
ye have done it unto me. is to be able to see in our brothers
and sisters, the Lord himself, and to be sincere and earnest
towards that person for the sake of Christ. Kissing, kissing, a kiss of charity. Maybe the two most famous kisses
in the whole of history. the two most famous kisses in
the whole of history. And neither of them was between
a man and a woman. In Matthew chapter 26 and 49,
Judas Iscariot came into the garden of Gethsemane at the head
of a large crowd of armed and violent men. And in the darkness,
he alone could identify the man that they were seeking to arrest. And he went up to him, and he kissed him. And that was
the sign that the soldiers were to arrest the man that he kissed. And forthwith, he came to Jesus
and said, and he kissed him. Well, that's
one of the famous kisses in history. In Luke chapter 15, verse 20,
we read about the other one. And that had to do with a young
man that had taken his father's goods and gone into a far land,
and there he had spent it all in riotous living. riotous living. He chased the girls, he drank
the wine, he snorted whatever stuff he could get. And then
one day he found himself in a pigsty and he was so hungry and he was
so bedraggled that he would have eaten the very contents of the
pig's food bucket. And he said, this won't do. I'm going back to my father and
I will confess that I'm a sinner and I will receive of my father
that which a servant would have if he will be good enough to
give me that. And so he went and we're told
in scripture that his father saw him coming a long way off
And he arose, the young man, and came to his father. But when
he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion,
and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. There was a kiss of deceit, and
betrayal, and hypocrisy. And there was a kiss of joy,
and pleasure, and delight. One act, one act, and two utterly
different attitudes in the people that enacted them. Let us value
and bless and cherish each other in Christian love, because the
Lord Jesus Christ has joined us together in him, in the elective
purpose of his grace. The last point that Peter makes
here in his letter is this. He says, peace be with you all
that are in Christ Jesus. Amen. Peter began his letter
not only with a reference to election, but also the peace
that was in Christ. And he ends it on the same. We're talking about the peace
that is in Christ Jesus. This piece is not the absence
of trouble or pain. That's just a feature of life.
It's a legacy of the sin and death that's in the world. It's
not an absence of strife because the Lord's people strive daily
in their Christian lives in this world. It's not the absence of
war. You can lie in a foxhole under
fire and know the peace of Christ in your life. And it's God's peace. Philippians
chapter four, verse seven says, the peace of God, which passeth
all understanding, which shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. This peace is the peace of God
because sins are forgiven by God, because sins are removed
by God. It's peace because enmity, being
an enemy, being an enemy one of the other has been resolved,
because acceptance has been gained, because an audience into his
presence has been granted and we stand in the presence of God.
Peace because it's reconciliation. Peace because the Lord Jesus
Christ has died in our place and the punishment for our sin
has been taken away. Peace because we are justified
before God and made righteous. Peace because the righteousness
of God has secured that peace in Christ for us. And this is
peace that is confidence in the trials that come to us, knowing
that the God who sends those trials is in control of them. And that all things work together
for our good, and that nothing can touch us, but that we will
benefit in our souls from it, and that our Saviour will be
honoured by it. Can I explain that in every detail? No, but then that's why this
is the peace that passeth understanding. But it is peace indeed. Peter writes, peace to those
who are in Christ, in his care, under his responsibility, objects
of his affection, beneficiaries of his almighty grace, a saved
people, a secure people, a blessed people, an upheld people, a people
assuredly protected in him. Thank you, Peter, for your faithful
witness for your loyalty to Christ, for your loyalty to his flock.
Thank you for feeding his lambs and his sheep as he told you
to. Amen.