Studies in 1 Peter-17 1 Peter 5:6-14

Our Scripture reading this morning is 1 Peter 5, 6-14. 1 Peter 5, 6-14. God of all grace, he has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after he has suffered a while.

Make ye perfect, establish, strengthen, settle ye, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. By Sylvanus, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose, I have written briefly exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God in which you stand.

The Church that is at Babylon, selected together with you, will be with you, and so doth Mark our son, will choose one another with a kiss of love. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen.

It is difficult for those of us who were born into and brought up in Christian homes, who were taught the gospel from earliest years, and who while very young received Christ as a personal Savior, to have any real concept of the grace of God. For while no person, apart from a consciousness of his own sin and apart from a recognition of his own lostness, will trust Christ for his salvation, yet the concept of a child, of what it is to be lost, falls far or short of that which is the actual experience of the faith. Those whom God has brought through himself in maturing years, perhaps out of a life of sin and degradation, can more adequately conceive of the infinite grace of God that sought them when they were altogether lost, that cleansed them from their filth of sin and brought them into the family of God.

Apart from the word of God, no individual can adequately understand the grace of God. Because the man's soul of chastity was brought to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ in maturing years, from a life of hatred and animosity against Christ, Paul could never get away from the magnitude of the grace of God's vision. He stood in utter awe that God would save such a rebel, such an enemy as Paul of Tarsus, and make him Paul the Apostle.

The Apostle Peter had a similar concept of the grace of God, for the Lord Jesus had appeared to him when he was engaged in successful business enterprise, and had conferred upon him the high calling of an Apostle of Jesus Christ, not because of what he was but in spite of what he was. And the Apostle Peter, no less than the Apostle Paul, magnified the grace of God. As the Apostle Peter has been exercising his responsibilities as a shepherd over the sheep, he has been instructing them concerning the place that sufferings have in the life of God's children.

And as Peter comes to the concluding words in the first epistle which he as a shepherd wrote to his sheep, he is again found magnifying the grace of God and the God of all grace. We're in those verses through which we would direct your attention this morning. Verses 10 to the conclusion of chapter 5 of 1 Peter, we find Peter writing, "...the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that he hath suffered a while, making perfect, established, strengthened, and subdued the king of glory and dominion for ever and ever." And the Apostle Peter emphasizes once again that the God under whom he serves as a shepherd is a God of all grace.

We find a remarkable portrayal of the grace of God found from the pen of the psalmist in Psalm 103, beginning at verse 8. The psalmist writes, "...the Lord is merciful and gracious." Slow to anger and plenty in mercy. And when in the Old Testament you read the word mercy, you have a counterpart of the New Testament word grace. And David is here extolling the God of all grace, a God who is merciful and gracious, a God whose grace manifests itself in patience, for he is slow to anger and plenty in mercy.

He will not always try, neither will he keep his anger for ever, for God would find a way to pour out his displeasure upon sin on a substitute for the sinner. The psalmist says further in verse 10, "...he hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." And here is the biblical concept of grace, that God sets aside what a sinner deserves in order to give that sinner what he could never deserve. For the sinner, because of his nature and because of his actions, deserves condemnation, deserves judgment, deserves punishment, deserves death, deserves to be separated from God.

And if God gave the sinner only a small fraction of what he deserves, that sinner would be lost forever. But the psalmist says, "...God hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." What is the alternative to what we deserve? The grace of God. "...For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy, or grace to them that fear him." Now, does God's grace manifest itself toward the sinners? Verse 12 tells us, "...as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us." From infinity to the east, until infinity to the west, so far has God separated the sinner from his sin.

Why would God deal in grace with sinners? Verse 13 tells us, "...like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear him." Pity, in the Old Testament, is an expression of love, an expression of affection, and as a father loves his children, no matter how erring they may be. So God loves those whom he has created, and he has provided for them in grace, and grace provides for the removal of sins, the forgiveness of sins. The psalmist, you see, extols the God of all grace.

The Apostle Paul, in writing to the Romans in the 5th chapter and the 20th verse, emphasizes the same fact as at the conclusion of the verse he says, "...where sin abounded, grace would much more abound." Or, to draw the contrast, Paul writes that where sin abounded, grace superabounded, and the superabounding grace of God has flowed out the sinner to meet their needs. Our God is the God of all grace. But going back to Peter's statement in 1 Peter 5, you find that after Peter emphasizes this character, this quality of God, that he is the God of all grace, he underscores what God in grace has done for us.

He has called us unto his eternal glory. Called us unto his eternal glory. I cannot escape a contrast that was evidently in the Apostle's mind when he wrote these words.

If you turn with me to the 19th chapter of the book of Exodus, at least you will see this contrast, too. In the 19th chapter of the book of Exodus, the children of Israel have expressed a willingness to submit to the rule of God over them, and they have chosen to submit to the authority of the law that God revealed. Now, in the 9th verse, God made it known to Moses that he was going to take Moses up to the mount, and there reveal himself in the law to Moses, and reveal the law through Moses to the children of Israel.

But in the 11th verse, we have some specific instructions. God said, Be ready again the third day, for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai. And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it.

Whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death. There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through. Whether it be beast or man, it shall not leave.

When the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount." And in these restrictions, we see that God was unapproachable. Man's sin had put such a barrier between God and man that man could not come into the presence of God. The curse because of Adam's sin had come upon creation, and all creation was cursed.

And a beast of the field, even though that beast was not guilty of volitional sin, was under the curse. And because that beast was under the curse, the beast was no more approachable to God than was sinful man. They were to set bounds around the base of the mount lest one should approach into the presence of God, and should one approach God, he was to be executed because there was a barrier between a holy, righteous God and man and beast and creation that was under the curse.

We find this emphasized again in the 9th chapter of the Epistles to the Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 9. The apostle writing concerning the temple or the sanctuary in the Old Testament, writes to emphasize the fact that God is unapproachable and that no man can come into his presence. In 9.1 we read, "...the first covenant also had ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle made, the first, wherein was a candlestick and the table and the showbread which is called the sanctuary." That's the holy place in the tabernacle.

Then he says, "...after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the holiest of all, which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rob that budded in the tables of the covenant, over it the cherubims of glory shattering the mercy feet of which we cannot speak particularly now." Here he has described the holy of holies in the tabernacle, and that which was the very center of attention in the holy of holies was the Shekinah glory of God that dwelt above the mercy feet between the cherubim. That Shekinah glory gave light to the holy of holies. Then the apostle emphasizes this great fact that no Israelite could ever hope to approach into the holy of holies because of the barrier of sin, and he writes in the sixth verse, "...when these things were thus ordained, the priest went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God, that is, the priest could minister daily in the holy place, but into the second, that is, the holy of holies, went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people, the holy ghost thus signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing." What does this passage emphasize? That throughout the Old Testament, while man had a revelation of the glory of God, while they had seen a manifestation of the holiness of God revealed through the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud, no man could dare to approach God, to stand in his presence, to dwell in the light of his countenance, because a holy God was a consuming fire for sinful man.

That which characterized the Old Testament was a veil, a veil that separated sinners from the presence of God, and obscured the glory of God, and shut men out from the face of God. But Peter writes that the God of all grace has called us unto his eternal glory. Peter is not saying God has called us so that someday in the far off future we should go to heaven.

He is saying that God has parted the veil and has revealed himself through Jesus Christ, and through Christ has provided a way whereby sinners who once were separated can come now to dwell in the very presence of God, to enjoy the light of the countenance of God, to have peace and shine upon them. God, the God of all grace, has called us not to behold his glory reflected in the crowd from afar. He has called us into his very presence.

Peter emphasizes another great fact here, and that is that this call comes to us because of the work of Jesus Christ. No man can cleanse his hands, let alone his heart, to make himself acceptable to God. No man can cleanse the record of his life to purge away the guilt and the sin to make himself acceptable to God.

But Jesus Christ, by his death, has provided cleansing blood so that sinners who plunge into that fountain wash away every sin. He is a God of all grace, a God who has called us into glory, a God who has provided for salvation by the death of his Son. Should we use the suffering through which we, to have received the grace of God, must himself, would he mean that we will observe in the tenth verse as a temporary period? For he says that the God of all grace recalled us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus after he had suffered a little while.

Now, the little while could very well last from the time that they accepted Christ until the time either that Jesus Christ appeared to take sinners into his presence, or God called them home by physical death. Yet in the light of the eternity that God has provided for his Son, and in the light of the permanence of the home that Christ is going to prepare for those who trust him, the sufferings of this present earth were referred to as just lasting a little while. He who has said so much about those sufferings in the course of his epistles now looks beyond those sufferings, and in the last part of verse 10, Peter expresses to them that which is his hope, his desire, and his prayer for his sheep.

That God of all grace would perfect you, second would establish you, third would strengthen you, and fourth would settle you. He is a shepherd now, showing his shepherd's heart that which he desires for his sheep. This is what he wants the God of grace to do for them in their present circumstances.

And even though we are not called upon to suffer because of the blessing of our Christian heritage, the privilege of being born into a land where God traditionally has been honored and his word revered and his gospel known and believed, because of this we have been prepared for much suffering. Yet, these four things are things that, as a pastor, we can wish for the sheep. Today is a very significant day for me, because it marks the completion of ten years as pastor of Great Bible Church, and the commencement of an eleventh year.

Who can doubt that God is the God of all grace? We will see what he has done for us in days past, for the blessings that have come to us under his hand. And I can think of nothing that I could more wish for God's sheep here today than that the God of all grace would graze us first, and we might be perfected. The perfection of which Peter speaks is a perfection about which the Apostle John wrote in 1 John, chapter 3. When he says in verse 1, behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.

Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall do, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall keep him as he is. Perfection in the Apostle's mind was complete conformity to Jesus Christ, to be like him.

The Apostle John reminds us that the time will come when we will be translated into his presence, and the God of all glory will have called us into his glory. We will complete that which was begun the moment we were saved. The process of transforming us experientially to the Lord Jesus, who loved us and watched us march in his own blood.

And Peter prayed for his sheep, that they might be perfected, that that work of the Spirit of God might be carried on in each of them, so that they who behold his glory are being transformed into the same glory, into the same image from glory to glory, that they might be perfected to be like Christ. Peter prayed that they might be established. This word established suggests that they might be put on a firm foundation.

Peter has the same picture of a building that he had back in chapter 2, when he reminded the believers that they were being built on a spiritual house, 1 Peter 2. And a house that is not built upon a firm foundation can never be a permanent structure. Peter wanted them, in the face of the difficulties and trials that surrounded them, to be firmly established upon a sure foundation. The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 3 that other foundations can no man lay than that is laid, and that is Jesus Christ.

There can be no foundation other than the person of Jesus Christ and the word of God. No work can long endure, nor be effective, that is not firmly founded upon the rock Christ Jesus, that does not find its basis and its support in the person and work of Jesus Christ, is not built upon a ministry of the word of God. So Peter prayed that these might be founded, that they might be established.

Remember, our Lord taught that man could build a great edifice, but if it were built upon sand, when the flood came it would be swept away. Unless it should be built upon the rock, it should have no firmament. May God badly spot the person of his son through the word of God.

So Peter desires, in the third place, that they might be strengthened. This strengthening has to do with making firm, making sound, making whole. It would be possible to build a wall, but build it without adequate support, so that when a stress came it would collapse, since it was their practice to plaster over the walls with mud.

When you looked at that mud wall, it would look like any other mud wall, and you could not have confidence in that wall unless you knew that what was under the external plaster was sound and was strong, and was securely fixed together. So Peter prayed that as they moved to build upon that foundation a superstructure, it shall be a superstructure whose walls are sound, whose materials are true, that can stand because it is strengthened or is strong, is sound and firm. Then Peter desires, in the fourth place, that these believers should be settled.

The word settled here suggests being brought to rest. It has the idea in it of a babe nuggling down into its mother's arms. Just squirming and wiggling a little bit to get into a comfortable position.

It rests them in the strong arms of love that support. There are many of God's children who have believed God to the saving of their souls, who have not believed God to the experience of peace in their daily lives. They've never nuggled down into God yet.

Peter prays that the suffering through which these are going should not cause them to doubt the God of all grace, who has called them into his glory by Christ Jesus, who has placed them upon a firm foundation and is in the process of building them up into a spiritual house. And Peter, who saw the foundation laid, the superstructure being built, wanted to see that edifice completed to the glory of God. The child of God, sheep of his flock, may God-descended work in us that as shepherds and sheep, the God of all glory, who has called us in grace, may protect us and we delight in Christ, might establish us on the firm foundation of the person of Christ and the word of God, might make us sound and whole and firm, strengthened with all might, and brought to rest in the arms of the God of grace.

May I say to you, you may not as yet have received Christ as your personal Savior, but God is the God of grace. He is able and willing today to put aside what you deserve because of your sins, to give you forgiveness of sins, to give you salvation, to give you eternal life. If you reject Jesus Christ as your Savior, the God of all grace must become a just God who punishes sins.

If God gives you what you deserve, it must be condemnation.