1 Peter 1:6-9 • October 9, 2024 • w1447
Pastor John Miller continues our study through the book of 1 Peter with an expository message through 1 Peter 1:6-9 titled, “Celebration of Salvation – Part 2.”
What a marvelous text tonight. I want to read it, then we’re going to go back and set the context, and then unpack it phrase by phrase. It begins in verse 6 where Peter says, “Wherein”—or in this—“ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations”—trials or testings. I want you to know right off the bat that that word “temptations” in my King James Bible, I’m not sure how it’s translated in yours, is better translated trials or testings, and I’ll explain why. In verse 7 he says, “That the trial of your faith,”—again, right off the bat we move from the temptations to trials. At the end of verse 6 the word should be trial or testing. “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing”—we get our word apocalypse from that—“of Jesus Christ”—that’s the Second Coming. Verse 8, “Whom having not seen,”—referring to Jesus—“ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: 9 Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.”
Peter is writing in this epistle to believers that are being persecuted. They’re in the strange land, they’re called strangers of the diaspora, and they are being persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ. In verse 6, (go back there with me, it’s key) he says, “Wherein ye greatly rejoice,” so he wants them—in spite of their suffering, in spite of the persecution, in spite of the opposition they’re facing—to have joy in the Lord, “though now for a season,”—catch that—“if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold”—trials or testings. So, we are rejoicing in our salvation even, “ . . . though now for a season,” we’re being tried and we’re being tested and we’re being persecuted.
Peter began the epistle, we saw last Wednesday night, by outlining God’s plan of salvation. By the way, the title of my message tonight is, “Celebration Of Salvation, Pt. 2,” pretty simple. Last week was “Celebration Of Salvation, Pt. 1,” this is the continuation. Actually, from verses 3-12 in the Greek it’s one long sentence, there’s no break. The same theme carries all the way to verse 12. He begins the letter by outlining God’s plan of salvation, and he wanted them to rejoice in the salvation that was theirs in Christ right now, even though we are suffering sorrow and trials and tribulations.
Remember that Peter gave them three things to rejoice in. First, God the Father had elected them. Just a quick review, verse 2, we see that they were, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” Secondly, God the Spirit had sanctified them, verse 2, “ . . . through sanctification of the Spirit.” Third, God the Son had died for them on the cross. All three of these are referenced in verse 2—the Father had elected them, the Spirit had sanctified them, and the Son died on the cross to redeem and forgive them in His blood. They were born, thus, to three things: verse 3, to a living hope; verse 4, to a heavenly hope; verse 5, to a sure hope—a living hope, a heavenly hope, and a sure hope. What a marvelous truth that is.
All this led up to verse 6, “Wherein,” but he’s basically saying in that first word of verse 6 is “in this” what has gone before—that you’ve been chosen, that you’ve been sealed, that Jesus died for you—that you were born for glory, you’re being prepared for glory, that you can rejoice and be glad, even in the midst of the opposition and persecution and sufferings that you are enduring and going through.
In verses 6-9, Peter writes to assure his readers that the heaviness of their trials is not inconsistent with their rejoicing over God’s salvation plan for their lives. Peter wants us to consider salvation’s future glory and heaven in light of our present day adversity. We basically saw that we’re born for glory, verse 3-4, that we’re being kept for glory, verse 5, we’re being kept by the power of God. Tonight we move to two other areas: we are being prepared for glory, verses 6-7, and we can rejoice and glory now, verses 8-9. Right now we’re being prepared for what is future, that is, the glory of God.
There are only two main points that we have tonight from verses 6-9. If you’re taking notes, the first is salvation means that we are being prepared for glory, verses 6-7. Salvation means that we are being prepared for glory, verses 6-7. God is working in us that process of sanctification so that we can be finally glorified on that day.
Now, go back with me to verse 6, and let’s unpack these phrases. “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold”—testings or trials. Verse 7, “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing”—that’s our final phase of salvation—“of Jesus Christ.”
Now, “Wherein ye greatly rejoice,” even though you are sorrowing and suffering and being tried and being tested, we do have the joy of the Lord right now. What is Peter speaking of when he says, verse 5, “ . . . salvation ready to be revealed in the last time”? He’s speaking of that final phase when we see Jesus face to face, so we rejoice now, even though we’re not with Him, we don’t see Him, we anticipate our future glory that we are going to have with Him. They were facing many trials, and I want to break them down.
The word “temptations,” as I pointed out at the end of verse 6, I said would be better translated as trials or testings. The same word—here’s how it works—the same word means something different based on the context. When it means temptation to sin, it refers to a temptation of the devil to sin. When it refers to testing or tried, it refers to God using sorrow or suffering or hardships or trouble in our lives to prove our faith, to strengthen our faith, or develop our faith. Someone said it like this, “Satan tempts us to bring out our worst; God tests us to bring out our worth.”
Satan tempts us to bring out our worst; God tries us to bring out our worth or our value, so He tries or tests our faith. The temptations come from the devil and the world and the flesh; trials are sovereignly, providentially allowed by God for our good and for His glory. If you don’t get anything else tonight, just grab ahold of that. Trials are for our good. You say, “I don’t know if I can believe that,” but they are, “And we know that all things work together for good”—Romans 8:28—“to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” They’re for our good and for His glory. God is sovereignly arranging our lives, using all our circumstances, to make us more like Jesus. I’m going to give you this exotic list tonight of I think eleven things that God uses to prepare us and why God allows suffering in our lives. It’s a marvelous good in our lives, and it is all for His glory.
That word “temptations,” or trials or testings, has the idea of a winnowing log. What they would do when they would winnow the grain, it was called the tribulum. We get our word “tribulation” from it. They would put the wheat on the threshing floor, and the wheat had husks, so they needed to separate the husk or the chaff from the wheat. They would throw it up with a winnowing fork, but a lot of times it wouldn’t separate, so they would get a large log from a tree and put broken pieces of metal and stone in the log and many times with an ox they would drag it over the wheat which would thrash it, separating the wheat from the chaff. That’s where we get this word “tribulum” from, we get our word “tribulation” from. God is trying and testing us to separate the chaff from the wheat. He’s trying to refine us and prepare us for heaven. It’s so very important.
I want you to note some facts, five to be specific, from this text about trials. First of all, trials are needed in our lives. Trials are needed in our lives. I think you’re probably saying, “Did he say what I think he just said?” Yes. Trials are actually needed in our lives. Do you know that if life were all sunshine, it would be a desert? Have you ever driven to Phoenix, Arizona? We had a daughter living in Phoenix for a while, and I’ve made several trips out to Phoenix. It’s like, “Oh, gosh! This is terrible.” It’s harder than being 13 hours on an airplane in some foreign country. There’s just nothing out there but desert and heat. The sun is always shining, most of the time, but it’s a desert.
So, into every life a little rain may come, hopefully not as much as they’re getting in Florida right now. We have to have the storms of life to be able to produce the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. I say we actually need them, and I want you to see it in your Bible in verse 6, where he uses the phrase, “ . . . if need be.” Do you see that, verse 6, “ . . . if need be.” You might want to circle that or underline that. The point is, it is needed, and some of us need it more than others because we have a long way to go on that spectrum of sanctification, that’s why God allows us to go through trials and suffering. God knows that there are special times that we actually need to go through trials.
Let me give you my list. This is not drawn from the text itself, it’s drawn from the inference, or what’s implied in the text. The first is to silence Satan. In the book of Job there’s an example of this. Job was actually being used by God, unbeknownst to Job, which is interesting, so he had to live by faith. He was being used by God to silence Satan. You say, “How was that?” The theme of the book of Job is not “suffering,” the theme of the book of Job is “God.” The theme of the book of Job is that God is to be worshiped, God is to be loved, God is to be served, God is to be trusted no matter what happens to us.
Actually God used Job to silence the devil who said, “He only serves You because You bless him.” What he was saying was, “God, You’re not worthy to be worshiped or served. People only serve You because You’re good to them, or You bless them, or You do these wonderful things for them. That’s the only reason why. If You let me afflict him, he’ll curse You to Your face,” so God said, “Okay, go for it,” but He put a hedge around Job, and God allowed the devil to try him and test him, but only to the degree that God allowed. God is in control of our trials. Satan can only go so far, for so long, and do so much. It’s all under the providence of God. But Job came out victorious, and he vindicated God that God is worthy to be loved, served, worshiped, even though He doesn’t give us good things. Job said, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him;” “The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
I know as a pastor that when I see sometimes people in our congregation going through suffering, one of my prayers is, “God, help them to keep trusting You, to not lose heart, to walk by faith, to not grow bitter but grow better. Lord, keep them strong and trusting You.” So, He silenced the devil through Job’s suffering, and Job had no idea what was going on.
Here’s the second, (I’m supposed to move fast through this list) the glory of God, to glorify God. In John 11:4, I don’t have references for each point, when Lazarus had died, Jesus said it was for the glory of God. God was actually going to be glorified through that. This is what doesn’t compute in the minds of unbelievers—that God can use what seemingly is a tragedy for His glory, but Jesus said very clearly that it’s for the glory of God that Lazarus has died.
The third is to make us more like Jesus. This could actually be just the one point that summarizes them all—He’s trying to make us more like Jesus. God’s purpose and plan and goal in all our suffering and sorrows and trials is sanctification, and the goal of sanctification is likeness to Jesus Christ.
Here’s the fourth, to make us more thankful, to make us more thankful. When we suffer, when we go through trials, we learn to be thankful and appreciative over what God has given us.
Here’s the fifth, to learn to depend on God or to trust in God. God wants us to live in dependence upon Him, so He will pull the rug out from under us intentionally, purposely, lovingly. He sometimes challenges us but never hurts us, so we learn to depend upon God and His grace.
The sixth is to learn patience. Every time I hear that word I get impatient. You always want everything to happen quickly, smoothly, fast, and effortlessly. I don’t ever want people to be slow in front of me on the freeway. Coming to church tonight I had to break the speed limit a little bit to get around somebody. The word “patience” means to abide under pressure. It’s not a passive concept, it’s a positive concept. It’s that we are facing opposition, and we keep moving forward. It’s sometimes translated endurance, and that’s what God’s developing in us. In Romans 5:3 and James 1:3, both places, it says tribulation works patience. That’s why when we pray, “Lord, give me patience,” guess what He does? He sends tribulation. You say, “That’s why I don’t pray for patience!” You pray for patience, trials are going to come, so He uses them to develop steadfast endurance.
Here’s the seventh, to learn to be sympathetic, and I love that. Write down 2 Corinthians 1, the suffering that we have makes us sympathetic and compassionate toward others. You know someone made a statement once years ago I heard that said, “The world has been most greatly advanced by those who suffer.” The people who suffer are the ones who have the most to contribute. Have you ever gone to somebody for counsel, and you have a weakness or a problem or you’re going through a hard time and they are somebody that thinks they’re perfect and never had a problem. They look at you like, “What’s your problem? Why are you so worried about this?” They don’t have any compassion, they don’t have any sympathy, they don’t have any understanding, so God many times allows us to suffer so that we can feel with, empathize, with all other people who are sorrowing and suffering. I think that’s important, so if God is going to use you wonderfully, He many times has to break you and chasten you and try you and test you. So, He makes us sympathetic.
The eighth is to keep us humble, 2 Corinthians 12. Paul’s thorn in the flesh was to keep him humble so he could be useable.
The ninth is to teach us to pray—simple, but super important. God allows trials in our lives to teach us to pray. You say, “I don’t want to learn to pray. I don’t want to be Christlike. I want to be comfortable.” If you want to be comfortable, you can do that, but you’ll lack character.
The tenth is to discipline us. Yes, God disciplines His children. The Bible says, “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” Whom He loves, He chastens. It’s a sign of God’s love, and it’s an indication that I am His son, or I am His daughter.
The eleventh, last but not least, is to help us think more of heaven. If you want to take a picture of that, I don’t know if you’re ready to do that or not, but we could be helped to think more about heaven. It weans us from the world. Sorrow and suffering weans us from the world and makes us long for heaven, and that’s a good thing. It’s good to have a heart longing for heaven. We don’t always know the need being met when God allows us to be tried or tested, but we can trust God to do what is best. A lot of times we just simply have to trust Him by faith.
Here’s the second point when it comes to the facts about trials, trials are varied, verse 6. Notice the word “manifold.” The word is literally variegated or in its etymology it means many colored. I’m reminded of Joseph’s coat of many colors, so it means many colors. It’s like the different colors on the rainbow, which means basically that God’s trials and testings come in different kinds. There is physical trials with your health, there’s financial trials with your wealth, there may be emotional trials, there may be spiritual attack from the enemy, there may be little insignificant things that just are eating away at us, but we need to learn to trust Him through the trials and the testings of life.
In my former church, Calvary Chapel San Bernardino, there was a senior saint there. His name was Frank Dillon, he’s gone to be with the Lord, an amazing one of God’s saints. He was just busy serving all the time around the church. He used to come up every week and give me a poem that he would compose or write based on my sermon the previous week. Every week he had a poem based on the sermon that I’d preached the week before, and I saved this one. I was preaching this very same text about the manifold, many-colored trials that God allows in our lives, and he wrote this poem. He called it, “God’s Palette.” It goes like this:
Life’s colors come in various hues,
Brightest golds and deepest blues.
Pastels of contentment,
Burning reds and yellow of pain.
As one fades away,
The other comes back again.
And there is black, no color at all;
A hole of depression, as if after a fall.
Perfect colors come from God alone,
Exactly selected from His place on the throne.
The colors He uses to confirm or replace,
Are applied precisely using His palette of grace.
I love that. All these different colors of trials, and for each color of trial He has a color of grace to meet the need that we have going through that time of difficulty.
Now, be careful and don’t assume that if you conquer one testing or trial that it’s over and through and you passed the test and there won’t be any more. Trials and trouble will be here until we go to see Jesus face to face. We never outgrow them, we never go beyond them, they’re a constant part of the Christian life.
The third is trials are not easy. Look at the word “heaviness,” verse 6. He says, “ . . . ye are in heaviness,” so there are times of difficulty and sorrow. The same word was used of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. The same word was used of Jesus Christ when He was in heaviness, sweating, “ . . . as it were great drops of blood,” and He was in agony, as it’s rendered there, in the Garden of Gethsemane. We also know that at the grave of Lazarus that Jesus wept. There are times that as Christians we are weeping, we are grieving, we are in a time of “heaviness.” In 1 Thessalonians 4:13 Paul says, “ . . . that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope,” when a loved one dies. But he doesn’t say we don’t sorrow, but our sorrow is not hopeless sorrow. We do shed tears, we are not subhuman.
Here’s the fourth, trials are controlled by God. I love this. Notice it says in verse 6 that these heavy trials are, “ . . . for a season,” so they’re not 24/7 every day, all of our lives. How important that is. God keeps His eye, when we’re being tried and tested, on the clock and keeps His hand on the thermostat when He puts us in the oven of affliction.
My wife sometimes will put a casserole or something into the oven and she’ll leave the house. She asks me when the timer goes off, to take it out of the oven. Pretty easy, right? Take it out of the oven, turn it off, and put it on the counter. Inevitably, I forget. I don’t know why, but she’ll say, “The timer’s going to ding.” She’ll even say, “This is what it sounds like,” DING. “Okay,” then I go watch football, or watching tv or watching something on the screen. Maybe an hour later, DING. I say, “What? That’s a weird noise. What in the world is that? Oh, well,” and keep watching tv. Then, all of the sudden, SNIFF something’s burning. I look out the front window and the firetruck just shows up and the smoke alarm is going off.
Aren’t you glad I’m not God? When God puts us in the oven, He keeps an eye on us, He keeps His hand on the knob, and He knows just how long that we should go through this period of time called a short season. In 2 Corinthians 4:17 it says, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
Here’s the fifth, and we’ll wrap it up, God rewards the faithful sufferer. We finally move into verse 7. God rewards the faithful sufferer. Notice he says very clearly in verse 7, that this is a “ . . . trial of your faith.” That word “trial” could also be thought of as a test, so God is testing you to do what? To prove your worth. God is testing you to prove your worth. A faith that cannot be tested, cannot be trusted. A faith that cannot be tested, cannot be trusted. If you want to know if it’s real, you want to know if it’s genuine, you want to know if it’s authentic, it must be tried and tested.
Peter uses the imagery of gold, “ . . . being much more precious”—or valuable—“than of gold,” so where are your priorities? “ . . . of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire,”—it’s a picture of the goldsmith putting the gold into the crucible, heating it up, and when the impurities come to the surface, he skims them off; and looking into the crucible, when he can see a perfect reflection of his face, he knows the gold is ready and been purified.
God isn’t trying to destroy you, He’s trying to make you. He’s trying to prove your value or worth. It’s “ . . . much more precious than of gold . . . might be found”—here it is, our faith might be found—“unto praise and honour and glory”—when?—“at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” That is the word epipháneia or epiphany, and we get our word appearing in personal appearance. This is a reference to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ comes again, a faith that has been tried and tested and proven will bring honor and glory to God when the Lord comes again, so our faith when Jesus comes. It’s so very, very important, “ . . . praise and honour and glory.”
I believe it’s important that we understand in the second section that salvation means that we can enjoy and glory in God now. Don’t get the idea that Christians go around bummed out. Sometimes we look like we’re baptized in lemon juice—we think it’s more holy. Yes, we have heaviness; yes, we have sorrows; yes, we have times of suffering, but we rejoice in them. How important that is.
Here’s the second section, verses 8-9, salvation means that we can enjoy the glory of God now. The Christian philosophy is not pie in the sky in the sweet bye and bye. You can actually eat your pie right now—you can have heaven on earth. It’s not just one day we’ll have joy when we see Jesus face to face, but even though we go through difficulties, we have joy now in the Lord. Verse 8, “Whom having not seen,”—he just mentions that he’s going to appear at the end of verse 7—“ye love,”—right now He hasn’t appeared. He hasn’t returned. We don’t see Him. We live by faith, not by sight. “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing,—you trust Him—“ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and”—notice that—“full of glory.” This is describing that in the midst of our trials, in the midst of our sorrow, in the midst of our suffering we have unexplainable, incomprehensible joy.
You know, Christians sometimes are just viewed as an enigma, “I don’t understand them. You have this trial, you have this trouble, you have this difficulty, and you seem to have peace. You seem to have joy. How can that be?” Because we have the love of Jesus Christ, we trust Jesus Christ, and we have the joy of His Spirit in our hearts and it’s full of glory. Verse 9, and we know, “Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.”
The Christian philosophy of life is that even though we go through difficulties now, we have the joy of the Lord. I love what F.B. Meyer said. He said, “Oh for more of heaven, on the way to heaven.” I love that. “Oh for more of heaven, on the way to heaven.” Someone else said, “A little faith will take your soul to heaven; a lot of faith will bring heaven to your soul.” I’m glad I get to go to heaven when I die, and I’m looking forward to Jesus coming, but I want to have heaven right now, don’t you? Don’t you want to have the joy of the Lord? Don’t you want to have, “ . . . joy unspeakable and full of glory”? Don’t you want to experience the goodness of God right now?
In this text, it’s interesting, we’re going to see how we can have joy in the midst of our suffering and trials and difficulties. Here they are. First, by loving Jesus. Write that down. “Whom having not seen, ye love.” Have you ever thought about how much you love Jesus and you’ve never seen Him? I haven’t seen Him. I doubt that you’ve seen Him. I won’t ask for a raise of hands, but we see Him how? In the eyes of faith. He, by the way, becomes more clearly seen—listen carefully—in times of affliction. You’ve heard me say it many times, but John Bunyan who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress wrote it in a prison, in Bedford Prison. Do you know what he said? He said, “In times of affliction we most commonly meet with the sweetest experiences of the love of God.” I love that. “In times of affliction we most commonly meet with the sweetest experiences of the love of God.”
What we need when we’re going through the fires and the trials and the hardships is to love Jesus with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength, and all of our mind. Someone said, “When we’re going through a trial, our love relationship with Jesus will take all the poisons out of the experience.” This is why many times I pray for people in our church when they’re going through the fire, when they’re in the crucible of affliction, that they will continue to love Jesus with all their heart, all their soul, all their strength, and all their mind. C.S. Lewis once said that if we love Jesus like that, nothing much can go wrong with you, and that’s so, so profound. What goes wrong is when we’re not loving the Lord and trusting the Lord the way we should. It’s so important.
Now, it’s interesting that when Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to His disciples that there was a disciple named Thomas that wasn’t there. Thomas said, “I won’t believe unless I see Him. I gotta see Him. I gotta touch the scars. I gotta see Him with my own eyes.” Immediately, Jesus appeared in the room. And, a little sanctified imagination, I imagine Jesus pointed to Thomas and said, “Thomas, come here.” He’s like, “I’m so busted! I’m in so much trouble.” He said, “Thomas, be not unbelieving, but believing.” Thomas, I believe, fell on his face before Jesus and said, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus said, “Thomas, blessed are they who haven’t seen, yet believe anyway.” He actually said, “Thomas, you should’ve believed even though you didn’t see Me. Blessed are they which haven’t seen Me, yet believe anyway.” So, we haven’t seen Jesus, but oh how we love Jesus.
The second thing we need to do to survive trials and testings is not only love Jesus but trust and believe in Him, verse 8. He says in verse 8, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, now ye see him not, yet believing”—notice that, which is faith. So, we have love and faith, trusting Jesus. Trusting Jesus is so very important. In Romans 8:28, when Paul says, “ . . . all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose,” he started that verse by saying, “And we know . . . .” Notice he didn’t say, “And we see;” he said, “And we know.” How do we know? By faith, not by sight, but we know by faith, and so we stand on believing God, believing in His Word. If you love Him, you will trust Him. Someone said, “Never doubt in the dark what God has spoken in the light.”
The two ways to go through trials—loving Jesus, trusting Jesus—and here’s the third. The third is rejoice in Jesus. Look at verse 8. He says, “ . . . ye rejoice with joy unspeakable,”—which means you can’t explain it—“and full of glory.” So, you love Jesus, you believe in Jesus, you trust Him, and “ . . . ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”
Notice the fourth, verse 9, look for Jesus to come again. The first is love Jesus, the second is trust Jesus, the third is rejoice in Jesus, and the fourth is look for Jesus to come again. I love the way he wraps this up, verse 9, “Receiving the end of your faith,”—this is our faith at its end of culmination—“even the salvation of your souls.” Contrast that with verse 6, at this time we are rejoicing, “ . . . though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations,” but verse 9, “Receiving the end of . . . your salvation,” which is our faith coming to its full completion. In verse 9 we have the goal of our salvation. That phrase “salvation of your souls,” the word “souls” means your total person—your body, soul, and spirit.
You’ve heard me say it many times, but salvation has three tenses—past, present, and future. This reference in verse 9 is the future aspect. I don’t want to confuse you, but we’ve been saved, past tense. This is what’s called justification—we’ve all been declared righteous. I have been saved, and you can surely stand on knowing you’ve been saved. Sanctification is a lifelong process, and we would say, “I’m being saved.” This is sanctification. I’m being changed by the Spirit of God through the trials and sufferings into the image of the Son of God. As I love Him, as I trust Him, as I wait for Him to come again, I’m being changed into His image. That’s the present—I’m being saved.
Then, there’s the future, this is our ninth verse, I will be saved, “ . . . even the salvation of your souls.” You would read that and say, “Wait a minute, I thought we were already saved? I thought we’re already elected, that we’re already sanctified by the Spirit. We’re already chosen by God the Father. Jesus already died for our sins. Aren’t we saved?” Yes, we are, but we’re in process. It’s so very, very, very important for you to understand that as a Christian you are saved, you’re being saved—you’re being sanctified, being changed, made more like Jesus Christ—and one day you will be glorified.
This is what’s called justification, sanctification, and glorification. I believe that those that He’s called that are justified, He sanctifies; and those whom He sanctifies, He glorifies; that what begins with God’s grace, will end in God’s glory. Read Romans 8. God will take us to glory. This is what we call, Titus 2:13, “ . . . that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Let’s pray.
Pastor John Miller continues our study through the book of 1 Peter with an expository message through 1 Peter 1:6-9 titled, “Celebration of Salvation – Part 2.”