And this evening we are looking
at verses three through five, 1 Peter chapter one. 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 from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled,
and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last time. I have two parts to my message
tonight. First, we see these verses begin
blessing God. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I would just remind us of
the difference between us blessing God and God blessing us. The difference between man blessing
God as the Apostle Peter does here. Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. and our blessing, or his blessing
us, rather. We declare, when we bless God,
we declare that he is blessed in himself and deserves to be
recognized by all men for his infinite goodness. Bless the
Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his name. When we bless him, We declare
that he is blessed. He is the blessed and he's blessed
in himself and deserves to be recognized for his infinite goodness. When God blesses us, it means
that he bestows blessings upon us and we are blessed. For instance, let's look back
to Ephesians chapter one. The apostle here in Ephesians
wrote a lot like Peter does in our text tonight. In Ephesians
1 and verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, we bless him. We bless him
for who he is, his infinite goodness, who hath blessed us. We bless
him by declaring that he is blessed and he is infinite in goodness,
and he blesses us by bestowing blessings upon us. Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And then he begins to name these
particular blessings, as does the Apostle Peter. In our text this evening, we're
going to look at three blessings which God bestows upon us, and
we are blessed. We bless him, And He blesses
us by bestowing spiritual blessings, spiritual benefits upon us. He blesses us and we're blessed. When He blesses someone, that
person is blessed. Notice in this blessing here
in 1 Peter, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now it is as He is the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that He blesses us. For Him to
be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of the
Eternal Son's incarnation. In other words, when He came
into this world as a man, then God became His God and God became
His Father. I know as God, He has always
been His Father. But as He came into this world
as a man, as a servant, the servant of God, He, that is God, became
His God and Father. These blessings with which God
blesses us come to us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Every
blessing that we receive comes to us through His Son, through
Him coming into this world and God being His God and Father. And because not only that He
is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but the Apostle
speaks of His abundant mercy. Look at the text again. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according
to his abundant mercy. He has blessed us according to
his abundant mercy. The blessings that we're going
to look at tonight, these three blessings that Peter mentions
here, they do not come to us. They're not ours because of our
worthiness. They're not ours because of any
merit, any desert on our part. These blessings are ours. They
come to us because of his abundant mercy. It's God's sovereign mercy
that bestows these blessings upon men. The scripture declares
that he will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy. And these blessings are given
to us by the incarnation of Christ, the eternal son coming into this
world as a man and God being his God and father and his abundant
mercy. His abundant mercy. We cannot
understand the mercy and the grace of God. We cannot measure
it, I should say. We can understand it to a degree,
but we can never measure God's mercy. You know that verse we
quote quite often in Isaiah chapter 55 that tells us that God's ways
are not our ways or our ways are not God's ways. And in the
context there, it is speaking of the mercy of God, that God's
mercy is unbounded and we'll never understand his mercy fully. But these blessings come to us,
and Peter begins this passage blessing God for these blessings. Again, we bless him by declaring
that he is blessed in himself. And he blesses us by bestowing
these spiritual blessings upon us. In fact, that passage there
in Ephesians says he hath blessed us with all, A-L-L. all spiritual
blessings in Christ before the world began. Every spiritual
blessing that you can think of, they're all yours if you are
Christ, and they came to us in Christ or through Christ. Now,
let's look at these three blessings for which Peter blessed God.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which
according to his abundant mercy, here's the first one, hath begotten
us again. Hath begotten us again. What does that mean? He has made
us his sons, his daughters. He has begotten us again. That simply means that he has
made us his children. And it's important to say that
word again, again. According to his abundant mercy
hath begotten us again, again. All men, the scriptures teach
this and most people recognize this, all men are the children
of God by creation. He is the father of all men.
by creation. In fact, in Malachi chapter 2
and verse 10, we're told this. Have we not all one Father? Have
we not all one Father? That is, all men, we all have
one Father. Hath not one God created us? So all men are God's children
by creation. But the The apostle is blessing
God because he hath begotten us again, a second time. The Lord Jesus Christ used that
word again when he spoke to Nicodemus, didn't he? Verily, verily, I
say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God. And then we know that our Lord
went on to to explain what the new birth is there to Nicodemus
when he said, except a man be born of water, and that's not
baptism, that's not baptism. Baptism doesn't save, it's a
figure of salvation, a type of salvation, but know the water
there, the cleansing there that is represented by water is of
course the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Except a man be
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom
of God. Look with me in John, back to
John chapter three. In that chapter where our Lord
spoke with Nicodemus, let's look down to the very last verse of
the chapter. John chapter 3 and verse 36. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not the
Son shall not see life. but the wrath of God abideth
upon him. Doesn't that verse clearly state
that the wrath of God abides on all unbelievers? On everyone who does not believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ, the wrath of God abides on that person
or those persons. Let me ask you something. Wasn't
there a time when you didn't believe? Sure there was. There was a time when you did
not believe. And we were, as Paul said in
Ephesians, we were children of wrath even as others. In other
words, we deserve the wrath of God. We were unbelievers. We were rebels, all of us by
nature. But in being born again, we believe. in the Lord Jesus Christ. Man
tries to reverse the order, doesn't he? Especially in this religious
day. And he would tell us, he would
tell people, you believe and then you're born again. And other,
the cause of the new birth then is faith. No, faith is the effect
of the new birth. Because you have been born again,
you believe. You believe, you have faith.
You can't do anything but believe. When the Lord gives you a new
heart, when you're born again of the Spirit of God, someone
said, well, how do I know if I've been born again? Well, just
remember the words in 1 John, whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. It's born of God, it's very simple,
isn't it? Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, the
Messiah, the God-man, the long-promised Savior, the Anointed, whosoever
believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And listen, everyone
that loveth him that begat. Now, he begats us. He births us. God does. We're
born of the Spirit of God. And everyone that loveth him,
that is God, who begets, loveth those also that is begotten of
him. When a person is saved, born
again of the Spirit of God, we love God. He's the one who birthed
us. He's the one who brought us into
the kingdom of God. And we also love others that
he has birthed, right? If any man say that he loves
or loves God and hates his brother, he's a liar. Everyone that is
born of the Spirit of God loves God who birthed us and loves
everyone else who's born of God. We do. We love each other. Our
state is changed now. We've been born again. We were
born the first time into this world And we were unbelievers,
we were children of God by creation, but we've been born again and
now we are his children in a new relationship. He is our spiritual,
our heavenly father. John chapter one, the apostle
said, but as many as received him, To them gave he power to
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name,
which were born, as we know, the scripture says, not of blood,
not of the will of the flesh, not of man, but of God. So that's the first blessing.
Peter blesses God here for the blessings that he has bestowed
upon those to whom he's writing, to believers. And the first blessing
is, we've been born again. We've been born again. Man doesn't cause his own birth. We, you know, in the natural
realm, this is so simple. We didn't cause our first birth,
our physical birth. We were born. And the same is
true in our spiritual birth. And in every birth there's a
seed, the seed of the man. In every birth there's a seed.
And Peter will tell us later down in this first chapter that
the seed with which we are born again is the incorruptible word
of God. Look down in that first chapter.
Let's see if I can find this. Yes, verse 23. being born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word
of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Here's the second blessing that
Peter mentions. He gives us a living hope. 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 from the dead. Now words we know that are used,
their meanings change over time. And this would be better translated
for us today as living, not lively. The word lively means something
to us today We think about a person who's very lively, very excited,
or something very lively. But no, this is living, living. He hath begotten us again unto
a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
What is that hope? That hope that we are given is
heaven. It's eternal life with God. BEGOTTEN
AGAIN UNTO A LIVING HOPE. In Ephesians chapter 2, the Apostle
Paul there speaking especially to Gentile believers, described
their condition before they were called as being in this world
without God and without hope. Now, he didn t mean that men
do not have hope Exactly. Because everybody has some hope.
You just don't meet anyone who doesn't have some hope. But what
Paul is saying there, men were, they were in this world without
any good hope. Oh, yeah, they had a hope. Even
in Job, we read of the hope of the hypocrite, that it shall
perish. And I suppose just about anybody
you were to ask, Do you have a hope? When you die, do you
have a hope? Absolutely. I hope I'll go to
be with the Lord. Why do you have that hope? Well,
I've treated my neighbor like I would want to be treated. I've
been a member of a church. Everyone has some kind of a hope,
but not necessarily a good hope. J.C. Rowe, Bishop J.C. Rowe, He had a message entitled,
Our Hope, exclamation point. Our Hope. And he gives five marks
of a good hope. Five marks of a good hope. His
text for his message was 2 Thessalonians 2.16, good hope through grace. We have been given a good hope
through grace. But he gives five marks of a
good hope. And the first mark is, according
to his message, and it's a good message. I don't know of any
grace preacher who hasn't preached it. Good outline. But the first
mark is, a good hope is a hope that a man can explain. It's a hope that a man can explain. That doesn't mean he can give
a long theological discourse. We're not talking about that.
But if you have a good hope tonight, you can tell me, you can tell
others that your hope is, and it's going to include these two
things, substitution and satisfaction. It's going to include those two
things. If you Speak and tell me what your hope is. Your hope
is going to be based upon Jesus Christ, his substitutionary work,
and the fact that he satisfied God in your stead, in your place. He's got, like I said, four other
marks that are good also. A good hope is one that a man can
explain. What do you hope to be saved?
What do you hope to enjoy heaven when you leave this world? You,
a guilty sinner, received into the presence of God. You, me,
who the scriptures describe as drinking iniquity like water. And God is declared to be one
who will by no means declare the guilty, what is your hope? What is your hope? The Lord Jesus
Christ, the eternal Son of God, came into this world as a man,
and he took my place that I might take his place. He became a man,
Son of Man, that I might become, that you might become a son of
God. He went to the cross bearing
the sins of his people, And he satisfied Almighty God, satisfied
the justice of God. You say, how do you know that?
Because God raised him from the dead. This is what the scripture
here says, have begotten us again unto a living hope, how? By the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. The very fact that he who was
charged with our sins was raised on the third day. That gives
us a living hope, a living hope, because he was cleared. He was
justified. God raised him from the grave. If someone were to ask me tonight,
what is your hope? We like to sing that hymn, don't
we? My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. Christ is my hope. He is my hope. But I think of
this one scripture. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation. that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. And I might argue
with Paul over that. I really might. I might just
argue with him. How could you be the chief of
sinners, Paul, when I look at myself, when I look at my life? How could you? No, I might argue
with that. But I will not argue with you
about this. It's a faithful saying that Jesus
Christ came into this world to save sinners. And I accept that
saying. It's a faithful saying, worthy
of all acceptation. I accept it, don't you? He came
into this world to save sinners. Now the third blessing He has
for us an inheritance. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy
hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and
that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last day. He has for us an inheritance. You know, an inheritance is not
something you earn. It's something that is given
to you, not something that you marry. I know sometimes we may
think, well, I was, his child or her child. And so I'm no,
no, your parents, whatever they have is there. They want to give
it to you if they want to give it to animal society. That's their business. You didn't
deserve it. You didn't merit it. Simply by
being one of their children. No, it's a free grace gift and
inheritance is and this inheritance that he has given us is incorruptible. It's unlike the inheritances
in this world. It will never perish. A man say
he inherits a lot of money when his parents die, but he soon
squanders it. It's all gone. It's all gone. No, this inheritance is incorruptible. It shall never perish. That is
heaven itself. And number two, it's undefiled,
meaning that it's pure. This inheritance was not, not, this inheritance was not accumulated
by fraud or by any dishonesty or anything like that. This inheritance
is undefiled. It's pure. And it fades not away. You say, what's the difference
between an inheritance not being incorruptible and it not fading
away? Well, the difference is both
of them speak of the perpetuity, the endlessness of the inheritance,
but it not fading away speaks of the fact that it will never
lose its brilliance. It will never change. And I thought
about how things in this world, you get something, you see, maybe
it's a new car. Well, that's just the prettiest
car you've ever seen. I mean, you want that car, and
finally you're able to get it, and you drive it off the lot,
it has that new car smell, and it's shining, and boy, you're
so happy with this car, it's just everything you ever wanted.
But then after a few weeks or months, you go to the grocery
store and someone slams the door into the side of it. That's the
first scratch. And oh, that hurts. That hurts. But as time goes on, it loses
that new car smell. As time goes on, it's just old
hat. Heaven's not like that. It will
never lose its newness, its freshness, its glimmer. It will never lose
that. It fades not away. In this world, an object may
be an object of happiness for a day, for a week, for a year,
but eventually it will lose that glow, that newness that it was,
that thrill. The thrill is gone. The thrill is gone. And this inheritance is reserved
in heaven. It's reserved for you. Nobody
else can inherit this inheritance. Your name is on it. RSVP. It's reserved for you. And thank
the Lord, not only is our inheritance reserved for us, but we are reserved
for it. We are kept by the power of God
through faith, ready to be revealed. Faith into salvation, ready to
be revealed in the last day. We're kept by the power of God
through faith, not apart from faith. We continue to believe
and to trust in Christ, and on that note, Think about what the
Lord Jesus told Peter, Simon, I have prayed for thee, that
thy faith fail not. Now that promise was given to
Peter, but that promise is to every one of us, every one of
his children. He prays for his people, he intercedes
for his people. And the reason our faith doesn't
fail is because of His prayer, His faithfulness.