An Inheritance that is Imperishable 1 Peter 1:3-12

I wanted to share a little bit about the way how so many great stories in literature, in fantasy, in sci-fi, begin. A pattern is found in many stories, no matter the genre or age. There is someone who sends the main character or the group of main characters on a quest. Oftentimes, that person is a quest giver, sometimes they're an older person, sometimes they've got a really long beard. In the case of The Lord of the Rings, there's Gandalf who meets Bilbo and sets his path on an adventure with the dwarves.

A quest giver, who has been on a journey themselves, comes to equip the party, going on this journey. The quest giver wants to equip that person so they're ready for the journey ahead. They want to prepare those who are going on this journey for the upcoming dangers, to give them a warning about what is going to lie ahead along this journey. Lastly, these quest givers want the party to know who's leaving, and the destination that they are headed towards is worth the danger and worth the journey.

Peter's Equipping

Sure enough, like a quest giver, Peter is going to equip believers, the elect exiles in the dispersion, and equip us for this incredible journey of faith that God has started us on. Peter wants us to be prepared for the dangers that are ahead on this journey and Peter wants us to look forward to the destination, to the place that we are going to eventually arrive.

Peter wants us to be aware of these things as we set out on life's journey, as we seek to follow Jesus our King.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being revealed through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. 1 Peter 1:3-12

Peter is first beset with the task of equipping believers for this incredible journey of faith that we are on. He reminds his audience and reminds us first off about the start of the journey, where the journey of our faith began.

Journey of Faith

It didn't begin of our own strength. It didn't begin of our own ambition. We have not become believers and followers of Christ Jesus through our own intuition, through our own intelligence, through our own gifting, through our own wisdom, but rather we have been set on this journey, on this path, on this mission by God himself.

It is God himself who sets us on this journey and it is God himself who will equip us for this journey. Just take a look at verse 3. Peter begins by saying, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his great mercy. God's mercy is the start of this great journey that you and I are on, this life of faith as Christians.

It is through God's mercy that he has caused us as otherwise just exiles to become elect exiles, to be those who would be a part of God's chosen people. It is because of God's great mercy that we are involved in this grand adventure in any way. It is all because of God's grace, all because of God's mercy, God's given gift to us to be included in this journey, to be set forward on this journey, to be moving through life's journey of faith. It is all due to God's mercy who caused us to be born again. This journey that we are on is not a journey through our own choosing but it's also not a journey that's a hopeless journey.

Have you ever been on a hopeless journey? Maybe you've been driving somewhere, maybe you've been traveling somewhere, maybe it's in a car pool, maybe it's towards vacation and it just for whatever reason it felt like a hopeless journey. It felt like a hopeless journey with nothing to look forward to. It's kind of that similar symptom to when our kids are in the back seat and we hear that refrain, are we there yet? The journey in and of itself for those children is a hopeless journey, but we are not on a hopeless journey.

Peter lays out that we have been set on this journey according to God's great mercy, and according to his grace. The next thing that Peter says is he has caused us to be born again to a living hope that we are people on a journey of hope not of despair but of a journey that has got somewhere to go that's worth going and going along the way to that destination is worth traveling. This journey is not a hopeless journey but rather this journey is one of hope.

The unbeliever is in a position where they are on a journey through life and it is hopeless. They have no eternal hope in this life or eternal hope in the next. As believers, if our faith is in Christ Jesus because of his great mercy to us, we have hope as we are journeying through this life. We don't live a hopeless journey but rather we live a journey of hope. Peter also wants to remind his audience of elect exiles and remind us that there are others who have journeyed on this pathway before.

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Others on the Journey

We're not the first ones to take this journey and we won't be the last. Just take a look at verses 10 through 12.

10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. 1 Peter 1:10-12

There were prophets, the Old Testament believers, the New Testament believers and every believer who has gone before us is a testament, an encouragement, and is a way for us to be equipped to know more about this journey of faith that we are on. He says in verse 10, concerning this salvation, this great mercy that we've been given, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. The prophets and all of the Old Testament is pointing towards Christ and towards his time. Even prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, Ezra and Ezekiel, are all looking forward to the time at which the Christ would appear and salvation would be made manifest in history.

We have the privilege in our journey of looking back to those who have already journeyed before us, to those who were saved and were elected by God, brought and equipped forward for the hard work and the hard journey, but the journey of hope that we are on. They were a part of God's mercy in bringing the Gentiles that Peter is writing to here, what was to be an adoption into the family of God.

These elect exiles are reading from what we know today would have known as the Old Testament. They're reading and learning about the prophets, what God has done through time and through history, his promises, and his covenant that he made with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, that he continued with Moses and with David. We are hearing about God's mercy told throughout time in history, revealed in an ongoing manner as God wished to make himself and his plan of hope, salvation, and mercy for his elect people to be unveiled, and revealed throughout time and through history.

And this is an encouragement for us, is it not? That there are others who have been on this journey before. They were looking ahead and maybe were on a different portion of the journey, but because they were on a different portion of the journey, they are able to equip us about what life is like on this journey. They are able to give us some sense of the dangers of the journey, of the various stumbling blocks along the way, and about the things that we can look to to take hope and take encouragement through the journey.

Journey's End

Our journey isn't aimless wandering. It has an end, even if we can't always see it. It has an end.

Indeed, the journey of Jeremiah, Isaiah, Nehemiah, Ezra, Ezekiel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of all of those patriarchs and their families, of all of these prophets from the Old Testament, of all of God's people, it all comes to a point of conclusion that isn't aimless wandering. It has an end, even if we can't always see it. And that end is a glorious end.

It is a glorious place that we are going to. And it is a glorious place that they now rest in, resting with Christ Jesus himself. Those who have gone on this journey before are with him in heaven.

Even as the Holy Spirit, in verse 12, has been sent from heaven, so too those who have gone on before are now with Christ Jesus. In verse 12, Peter makes it very clear, it was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you. Think about that for just a moment, that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Ezekiel, even as they were working and laboring, even as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit, to work towards writing God's Word for the benefit we might think of for them and for their day.

But look at how much more of a benefit their words are now to us, many who are Gentiles, but we can say with confidence, elect Gentiles, that we can look back and see that God's Word revealed through time is indeed an encouragement, one that pointed towards the appointed time, life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. We get to live after that point in history, looking back, seeing that the faith that they had in Christ Jesus, though they did not see Christ Jesus, they loved him, though they did not know him face to face, they did know him. So too for you and I. Though we have not seen him, we love him.

Though we do not now see him, we believe in him, and we rejoice in the midst of this journey that we are on, even as they did, even as the prophets of old. This isn't aimless wandering. This is a purposeful journey that our Lord and Savior has been on himself.

He wants us equipped for that journey, ready to move throughout its many dangers. Because it's a very dangerous journey, we must be equipped, and we must take caution and take seriously the words of warning that are prepared for us right here in 1 Peter. 1 Peter wants the elect exiles to know that there are dangers on this journey.

Dangerous Journey

This journey isn't like the journey along the yellow brick road, or maybe it's exactly like that. When thinking about the Wizard of Oz this week, many things came to mind. The Wizard of Oz gives us this imagery of a yellow brick road and sort of a picturesque moment, a beautiful moment, a happy traveling path that's carefree, almost laissez-faire, almost too good to be true.And yet upon closer inspection, there are all sorts of dangers. There are all sorts of strange new happenings and strange new events that occur to those who travel along the yellow brick road in this wonderful story.

This Christian journey that we are on, this journey of faith, it's not a laissez-faire journey. It's not a journey that is going to be simply careless, carefree or danger-free. Just as Dorothy and her companions meet a great many dangers along their travels, there are a great many who seek to deceive them along the way and to steer them off the path of their ultimate destination. There are a great many dangers, and they learn about those dangers along the way. They experience them and sometimes fall into the temptation of being pulled away from the path, or others come and assault them while they are on the path.

This really is truly very much like our journey of faith, is it not? But there are many times where we will be tempted to stray away from the faith that we have been elected to, the mercy of God that has been given to us, that set us on this journey in the first place. This life, the Christian life, will endure many enemies and many dangers that seek to tempt us or pull us or push us from the road that is set before us that our Savior has walked on and we now follow in his footsteps. The trials of the Christian life is something that Peter wrote to his audience about, the elect exiles, so that they would be prepared.

And he writes it for their benefit, and even as he says in verse 12, not only for their benefit, but for our benefit, for the future benefit of future travelers, of future faithful, of future elect exiles who will journey along following Christ Jesus in faith. Peter wants those elect exiles, us, to know about these trials, to know about these dangers, to know that there are fires to be endured, fires to be passed through, and fires that do indeed scorch us to our very souls as we move through this journey of life of faith. Peter was writing to equip, to encourage, and even to prepare, to warn believers.

We too have trials and dangers in our Christian walk in our daily life. There are temptations, trials, and external forces that seek to push us, pull us, tempt us away from the faith, the gift of grace, of mercy through Jesus Christ. We'll say, oh you can get away with that sin, Jesus has to forgive you, and then as soon as we get off the path, it's as though the tempter comes to us and say, you were never on that path to begin with, don't go back.

God's Grace

There are a great many intense dangers on this journey. They're menacing, and the only way any of us ever completes this journey that God has set us on is through the grace and mercy of God. It is not through our strength, it is not through our wit, not through our guile, not through our intelligence, not through our righteousness, not through our know-how, not through our power, not through our beauty, not through our charisma, not through our words, not through what we know, but rather through who knows us.

Peter holds up the faith which does not come from us, not from an inner belief system, not from self-confidence, not from a strength that we have in ourself, not through the lie that is so prevalent in today's stories that you must believe in yourself. No, it is not from a belief in self, it is not from a program, it is not from an app, it is not from a trainer, it is not anything inherently within our own abilities to overcome the trials and pits and dangers that will come up in this journey. In verse 5, we're told, those of you who are on this journey, who are by God's power, are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. That our guard is not in and of ourselves, not of something that we can come up with, that we can produce, that we can purchase, that we can manufacture.

It is all through guarding by God's gracious gift that we are kept safe in this faith, held tight because neither depths of hell nor heights nor anything in this world can separate us from our God. It is from him and through him and to him that we have been saved. And so we are guarded, not because we have the best security along this journey that we've hired, that we've contracted out, that we've put into place, not because of our training that we've diligently sought out or our own learning that we have studied, but it is through God's guarding of our faith that we can endure these trials.

And these trials are grievous, and they are real. They are not to simply be cast aside as something that is trite. For many of us today, there are trials and there are fires that we are going through even right now.

The encouragement that Peter wanted to give to the elect exiles as they were going through their fires of their journey of faith, and the encouragement that he wanted to record down for us so that future generations, us, we too, as we go through our fires of trials of faith, we might know that our faith, our faith that is a gift of God, in verse 7, is more precious than gold that perishes through, though it is tested by the fire. And that our faith may be found to result in the praise and in the glorification and in the honor of Christ Jesus at his second coming. That there are present dangers, there are very real dangers, but it is God's grace and his mercy to us that sustains us and brings us through even the hottest fires of this life.

Peter wants us to be equipped for the upcoming journey by looking back, by seeing the prophets of old, by seeing the words of God revealed. He wants us to know that others have been through the journey before us, and to take that as encouragement. He wants us to know that God is guarding us even though we go through trials and even though we go through fire and danger in this journey of faith.

And lastly, Peter wants believers to look forward to arriving at our destination. Because our destination is a place where Jesus Christ himself resides. And it is a place where you and I will go and reside.

It is a place. It is not an ethereal concept. It's not a spiritual platitude. It's not a mystical saying. It's not a magical concoction of words. This is a very real place that you and I are headed to on this journey of faith. Jesus himself said that he was going to a place. In John 14:3, he said, Behold, I go to prepare a place for you. In Luke 23 verses 39 through 43, Jesus is confronted by one thief on the cross who said, If you can save yourself, save us too.

Come down off the cross. And the other thief who gave testimony that he and his other accompanying thief were being crucified rightly, for they had done wickedness, that the man who was beside them, Jesus Christ, had done nothing wrong. And the thief asked to be remembered.

And Jesus told the thief on the cross, This day, this day, you shall join me in paradise. That they were going to a place. That they were on their way.

Indeed, Jesus, when he was risen and ascended, he was taken up and his body went to a place, an actual place. Oftentimes, we reduce the concept of the afterlife to some sort of spiritual mysticism, or to some sort of well wishes or to some sort of mental concept or even a mental construct of a psychological good feeling. But our king has gone before us to a place, to an eternal destination, that is imperishable, that is undefiled, and that is unfading.

Jesus Christ from the dead has gone to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. It is kept in heaven for you. This is a place that the prophets of old were given glimpses of.

The destination that the Old and New Testament believers were headed to, the exiles, the prophets, the patriarchs, that place where those who are faithful in Christ now reside, that place is the place you and I are on our way to. And that is a comforting thought, is it not? That we go not to a place of some ethereal construct, but that we go to a place that is a real tangible place and we will really dwell there face to face with our God. That in that place, Christ Jesus himself will be there.

And even though for right now we have not seen him, we love him, and even though now we do not see him presently, we believe in him, then we will see him face to face. Oh, what an amazing day that will be. Amen, brothers and sisters.

What an amazing day that we will stand in the presence of God and he will smile upon us as his people. That we are headed to this place, an eternity that is peaceful, an eternity that is undefiled by the fires and the dangers of this journey. A place that is imperishable, that doesn't perish like the things of this world.

An eternity in a place where we will be with him, where we will be with Christ. The filth and the fires of this present sinful world will pass away.