All right, turn with me and your Bible, please, to the book of 1 Peter. If you don't have a Bible, we have a lot of Bibles under the chairs around you there. It turned to page 1200, page 1200, in that particular Bible. And I'd like to begin a new sermon series this morning on the book of 1 Peter. We're going to do this during the Christmas season. And then we're going to continue it on through the winter as well. First Peter, chapter 1, I'd like to read verses 1 through 12. And as I say, it's found on page 1200 of those hardback Bibles. First Peter, chapter 1, beginning with verse 1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God's elect, strangers in the world scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bethinia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying work of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood, grace and peace be yours in abundance. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade, kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Now concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. 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, listen to this, even angels long to look into these things, the Word of the Lord. So how many of you have seen the new twilight movie, new moon, if there are any men that just raised your hand, you should be ashamed of yourself? Not as many hands went up as I expected to. You know what I'm talking about, right? This series of books called The Twilight Series, the books written by Stephanie Meyer, books were enormously popular. My wife read them, oh, I wasn't supposed to tell you that. She did. She read them as quickly as they came out, and now the movies have been coming out as well. So this new movie is called New Moon. I went online and I googled this question. What makes the Twilight series so popular? And you know how, when you Google a question, you get a lot of different answers. And so I read them. Some of them were pretty bad answers to that question, but this one was really good. A woman named Jenny said this, why do people like the Twilight series? Because it feeds on our desire to fantasize about love. The love, Bella and Edward share is so intense. It makes us believe that it really exists. Stephanie Meyer did a great job at making a generation of women believe in romance again. The idea of someone loving you from day one till the day you die, standing by your side always, is priceless, very good answer. She's very perceptive. The idea of someone loving you from day one till the day you die, standing by your side always, is priceless. Today we're starting this series on first Peter and I'm calling the series inexpressible joy based on one of the verses that I just read. There are lots of topics that are covered in this letter. We're going to try to cover most of those topics over the next few months, but overall, overall, you know what it is? It's a letter of encouragement. In fact, one of the very last verses, you'll see it on the screen, chapter 5, verse 12, tells us why Peter wrote this letter. It says with the help of Silas, whom I regard as a faithful brother, I have written to you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God stand fast in it. Notice that the purpose of the letter of first Peter is to encourage you and through encouraging you to testify to the grace of God so that you will stand fast in it. Well, if the purpose of the letter is that of encouragement, I can think of nothing more encouraging than this, that if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, God has loved you from day one, and will love you till the day you die, in fact, what we're going to see this morning is that God loved you before day one. He loved you before day one. How do I know that? Because of first Peter one, one and two. Let's focus our thoughts this morning on the very opening two verses of this letter of first Peter. What I'd like to do is walk us through these opening two verses and stop and ponder a few of the key words that we find there. So let's dive in, ready? First Peter, chapter 1, verse 1, begins with the words Peter and a puzzle of Jesus Christ. Now this Peter is Simon Peter, that was his full name. He was one of the original twelve disciples. Do you remember this man, Simon, he was one of the guys who was fishing on the day when Jesus saw him and met him and said, come, follow me. So he became one of Jesus' followers. And the name Peter, which in Aramaic is Cephas, is the name that Jesus gave him. His original name was just Simon, but he became known as Peter, which means the rock. Ironic, isn't it? Ironic that this man would be called the rock. This is the same impetuous Peter who often spoke before he thought. It's the same Peter who tried to walk on water, remember that, and began to sink. It's the same Peter who was chosen by Jesus to be in that inner circle of three Peter, James and John, and yet who couldn't stay awake with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. That's this Peter. It was the same Peter who said to Jesus, I'll never turn away from you, Jesus. I'll always follow faithfully after you. And yet as you well know the story, Jesus, rather Peter, was the guy who denied that he even knew Jesus three different times in the hour of Jesus' agony. It's the same Peter who, yet after that, was forgiven and restored and commissioned by Christ to be the apostle to the Jews. Who better than this Peter with all his faults and with all his failings to write the next three words of verse one, to God's elect, to God's elect. And he goes on to say these elect are strangers in the world scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, and Papadotia, Asia and Bethinia. What Peter is doing here is writing a letter to followers of Jesus scattered throughout the Roman provinces of Asia Minor, Asia Minor. And what he calls these followers of Jesus is the elect. To elect someone is to what? To choose them or select them out of a larger group. This verse says that if you are a Christian this morning, it's because God elected or chose you for salvation. Do you understand that? Do you know that? God chose you out of a larger group if you're a follower of Jesus today. You see, here's what you need to know about the whole human race. The whole human race deserves God's wrath. God would have been just, perfectly just, to send all of us to hell, but in his mercy. God reached down to sinful humanity and elected a people to be his very own. That word elect is the same word that Paul uses in Romans 8.33. I'm going to show you a number of verses where you find that word. Verse 8.33 says, who will bring any charge against God's elect? It's the same word that Paul uses in Ephesians 1, 4, where he says God or he chose us in Christ before the creation of the world. It's the same word that Jesus uses in John 15, verse 16, where he says, you did not choose me, but I chose you. It's the same word that Jesus, again, uses in Matthew 2431, where he's talking about the last days and some of the things that are going to happen in the last days. And one of them is that the Son of man will send his angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect from one end of the heavens to the other. And it's the same word that Peter himself is going to use a little bit later in this letter. Verse 9, where he says that you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. What a wonderful verse that is. So who are the elect? Who are they? Well, to quote what the Apostle John says in the book of Revelation, they are those whose names have been written before the foundation of the world in the Lamb's book of life. Revelation 13, 8. So he writes this letter, he says, Peter, an Apostle Jesus Christ to God's elect. And then in verse 2, let's go a little bit further. Peter says that we, the elect, have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the father. Now we're going to park on this verse for a little while. We've been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the father. What does foreknowledge mean? Well, here's the way a lot of people explain foreknowledge. And it even sounds right. Foreknowledge according to Son is the idea that God looks down the corridor of time and he sees that there are all these people out here who choose him. And so he sees that ahead of time and therefore he sees it and he chooses them because they have first chosen him. Is that a proper understanding of foreknowledge? It sounds right, doesn't it? To foreknow sounds like you would just know something ahead of time, but I'm going to give you two reasons why that is not what God's foreknowledge means. First I want you to think about the word itself for just a moment. It's the Greek word prognosis. You hear a word that we use a lot. You go to the doctor and he gives you a prognosis of your problem. It's a prediction of outcome. That's where we get this word. It's the Greek word prognosis. This literally made up of the prefix pro followed by the word nosis, which means knowledge. And so it's really easy to figure out prognosin is knowledge beforehand. So it sounds like we're still learning that God just simply looks down times corridor and he sees that all these people choose him and so therefore he knows that they're going to do that. So he chooses them. But actually I want you to think a little more carefully about it. Peter was a Jew. He thought like a Jew. He knew the Jewish Old Testament backwards and forwards, a lot better than you and I do. And one of the things that Peter knew was that this kind of knowing means more than just passively knowing some hard, cold facts. It means a lot more than that. Peter, the word to know meant to have regard for or to have your attention centered on or to set your love on something or someone. That's what the Hebrew idea of knowing often meant meant in the Old Testament. For example, let me give you some scriptures to back this up a little bit. All the way back in Genesis chapter 4, we're reading about Adam and Eve. And it says in chapter 4, verse 1 of Genesis, it's up here on the screen, Adam lay with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. Actually that phrase lay with is the Hebrew word no. Adam knew his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. Now I think that it was more than simply Adam seeing Eve walking over there and said, oh I know you and suddenly she became pregnant, no it was a lot more complicated than that. It was a knowing of love, it was setting love on or centering attention on the most intimate idea right of one's knowledge of another person. Genesis 18, verse 19, God is speaking about Abraham, his friend. And he says in that verse 4, I have chosen him and again it's the Hebrew word no. I have known him literally as what it says so that he will direct his children in his household after him. God wasn't simply saying that I know that Abraham is going to raise his children well. He's saying I have known him. Abraham is the object of my affection. And as a result of that affection, he's going to direct his children in his household after him. Jeremiah chapter 1, verse 5, God says, before I formed you in the womb, Jeremiah, I knew you. In other words, you were the object of my affection. I set my love on you. I had regard for you before you were even born. chapter 3, verse 2 of the book of Amos, God is speaking about his chosen people, the Jews. And he says, you only have I chosen of all the families of the earth. And again, it's the Hebrew word known. You only Israel have I known of all the families of the earth. I have focused my affection on you. And finally in John chapter 10, verses 14 and 15, Jesus is talking about being the good shepherd. And he says, I'm the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me just as the father knows me and I know the father. You realize, of course, that God knows his son in an intimate way. Now Jesus is saying, I know you in that same intimate way. In a relational way, I have centered my attention around you. So in the Bible, let me wrap this up, in the Bible, to for know someone meant to be intimately connected to that person ahead of time. You might want to even reword it by saying, I have forloved you. I have loved you ahead of time. Before you even born, like it says in first John 4.19, we love because what? He first loved us. He forloved us, therefore we respond and we love him. So one reason why the idea of forknowledge means a lot more than God just simply knowing something ahead of time is the meaning of the word forno means to set love upon ahead of time. But now let me show you another reason. A second reason why forknowledge is an act of God setting his love upon someone ahead of time. Here it is, the second reason. It's because forknowledge does not mean God simply knew ahead of time that we would choose him. Why? Because we can't choose him. Not without his choosing us first. Have you seen the movie or heard about it? Dead men don't wear plaid. Well, it's a funny movie, but I'm just using it as an illustration. Dead men don't wear plaid, well, dead men don't choose God either. Dead women don't choose God. Dead people don't choose God. What am I talking about? Well, in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1, it says that when you were yet in your sin, you were dead in sin. It says you were dead in your transgressions and sin. See before you became a Christian, you weren't just a little off. You weren't just a little sick with sin. You weren't even just deformed. Now the Bible says you were spiritually dead before Jesus found you. You couldn't have chosen God because you were spiritually unable to. John 6 verse 44, Jesus is talking about this and he says no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws in. Now ponder that verse with me just a moment. When you were a child and you were sitting in your classroom and you were in let's say fourth grade, you had to go to the bathroom. You raised your hand. You said to your teacher, teacher, can I go to the bathroom and what did your teacher say back to you? Well here's what my said back to me. I don't know Mike, can you? And of course I was supposed to say teacher may I go to the bathroom, right? You've been through all that. See the word can is talking about ability. The word may is talking about permission. Notice what Jesus says, he does not say no one may come to me unless the father who sent me draws in. No. He intensifies it and says no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws in. It's because we are sinful in our sinful state. We are dead in sin. We have inherited that sinful nature that we talked about earlier from the Westminster shorter catechism from Adam and Eve because of their fall, we sinned all and that meant that we were unable to respond spiritually to God. I like the way Mark Driscoll put it one time. He said we are as capable of seeking God as a dead corpse is able to run a marathon. That's the condition that we're in before Christ finds us. I know a lot of people say at this point, and maybe you're thinking this too. By the way, I wish I could answer all the questions about election and predestination. In one 30-minute sermon, I know I'm going to raise probably more questions that I'm going to answer. I would invite you to come to my theology class. I'm going to take our officer trainees through the theology class of our church in the wintertime. And all of you are invited to that and we'll cover this topic in that class. But one of the questions that comes up at this point is, but Mike, what about man's free will? Don't we have the free will, the ability to choose God? What happens to free will here? Here's my answer. Your will is always limited by your ability. Martin Luther wrote a book and he called it, the bondage of the will because our will is in bondage to our sin. Illustration, I would love to be able to fly. My dream is to fly like a bird. I would love to be an eagle and fly over the mountains of Colorado, wouldn't you? I would love to do that, but I cannot. No matter how much I want to choose to be a bird, I cannot because I don't have wings. The same is true about you and me in our sin. We would love, perhaps, to choose God. We would, well, actually, we don't want to. That's how bad we are. We're his enemies. But if it could theoretically be possible to choose God, we could not. Because we don't have the ability spiritually speaking. We had our grandchildren in for Thanksgiving this past week. And one of my grandkids is Tate. He's three years old. And I had bought his older brother, Evan, a scooter, one of these razor scooters. And all my goodness, Tate went crazy wanting to ride that scooter. But he couldn't do it. He fell off every time. And that's the way it is with us when it comes to choosing God. We cannot do it because of our spiritual problem of sin. You may have heard the phrase total depravity. This is what I'm talking about. We're unable spiritually to follow after God. Romans 8 verse 7 is very instructive. It says that the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. So what's Peter teaching us here? He's looking into these truths about human depravity. And he's saying that God did more than just predict that one day you would be his child. He did more than just make it possible for you to become his child. No, it's much better than that. Here it is. Long before God lay the earth's foundations and set the stars in place. Long before God said, let there be light. Long before there was even such a thing as time. When there was just the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you existed in the heart of God. He already knew you, if you're his child today. He already loved you. He had already decided to send Jesus to die on the cross and rise again for you. To save you from your sins and to adopt you as his child. He had already put you and Jesus together in his mind. You specifically, you, particularly, you were the focus of God's love, you, with all your hangups and problems and dysfunctions, you, with all of your worries, your addictions and your sins. You mattered to God long before he mattered to you. God knew you even better than you know yourself. Yet from day one till the day you die, he'll love you and he's standing by your side. And that's why Jenny was right. That's a priceless truth. So what difference is this truth going to make in your life? Can I mention four, eight words to help you remember them? Four things that this ought to do to radically transform your life. If you grasp even a little bit, and listen, guys, we're only going to grasp this truth a little bit. It's a mystery, right? I mean, I can't answer all the questions about predestination and election. But if you begin to grasp just the core truth that when you didn't choose God, he chose you, it'll do these four things for you. First, it'll make you happy. It'll make you happy. And that's pretty good for a Presbyterian to be happy. Verse six says that in this, you greatly rejoice. You see that verse of our text? In this, you greatly rejoice. And verse eight says that you are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. It'll make you happy, folks, to understand the foreknowledge of God. Think about it. Why did God love you and choose you to be His own? Why? Well, there's a very simple reason. Why? He loved you because He loved you. That's all you need to know. And it's the truth. He loved you because He loved you. Look at this beautiful passage. God is talking about the nation of Israel, the fact that He had chosen Israel out of all the nations of the earth. And He says this, the Lord did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples. For you were the fewest of all people. I mean, you weren't strong. You weren't mighty. You weren't great. You weren't outstanding. Nobody even knew about you. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath. He swore to your forefathers that He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery from the power of Pharaoh, King of Egypt. You know, we could rewrite those verses to make them appropriate for us. The Lord didn't set His affection on you and choose you because you are holy or because you go to church or because you look good or because you've got it all together. The Lord didn't set His love on you and choose you because you've conquered all your sins and temptations and you've got life all figured out. No, God loved you because He loved you and you're His. Doesn't that make you happy? Doesn't that set you free? It ought to. I remember those Sandlot baseball games when I was a kid. I hated them because I was no good in baseball. And we would always have the two captains, you know. And they would begin to pick sides, pick players from the pool. And I was always one of the last ones to be chosen because everybody in my neighborhood knew that I was a horrible baseball player. Our election was based on our performance, it's based on our ability, our athleticism. Aren't you glad God loves you in spite of your faults? Your God's precious possession and nobody and no thing will ever snatch you out of His hand. He will never abandon you, He will never reject you. You may have been rejected by a spouse, by a friend, by a mother or by a father, never by God because you're His. He loves you because He loves you. Second thing this ought to do is not only make you happy, it ought to make you humble. It'll make you humble. Some people picture salvation like this. God is over here reaching out His hand part way toward us and here we are and we reach our hand out part way to Him. And so we cooperate with God in our salvation. That's called synergism. He does His half of the work and we do our half of the work and somehow it gets together. Folks that is not true, it's more like this. God is up here, here we are helplessly in misery, in our sin and God reaches His hand all the way down here to an empty hand of faith. And He grabs us and rescues us and brings us to Himself. It is entirely God's work from first to last 100% the work of God. It's monogistic, not synergistic. And that ought to make you humble to realize that. Verse three of our text, look at that again, says, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in His great, what, mercy. In His great mercy He has what, given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. What's mercy, mercy is not getting what we deserve and God didn't give you what you deserve. Instead what He did was He gave you mercy. He gave you a new birth. The emphasis is on the gift of the new birth. You did nothing to get it, you did nothing to earn it or deserve it. He gave it to you freely and that ought to make you humble. The third thing you ought to do is not only make you happy and humble but hopeful. It should make you hopeful. What I mean is that you'll be hopeful about people who are not Christians. I know that all of you know people in your circle of influence who are not yet believers. Some of you here today may not yet be a Christian. And that's great that you're here. You know often it is said that if a person really believes in election he or she will not share the gospel with people. I mean why share the gospel when it's all God's work, right? When God's chosen people they're going to come to Him anyway, I'm just not going to share the gospel. That's what a lot of people think. But actually the doctrine of election gives you confidence to share the gospel. You know why? It's because you know God's people are out there. You know they're out there. They're around you. Keeping shoulders with you every single day, you don't know who they are. But if God saved you he can save anybody. Everyone you meet. You ought to see as a potential elect person. Everybody you meet, everybody you work with, everybody you go to school with, everybody in your family is potentially elect and it's not up to you to save them. Your job is just to plant seeds. To scatter seeds of truth by loving, by sharing, by being God's child yourself, living the life that God has given you to live, your job is to plant seeds. It's God's job to make them grow. He's sovereign in people's salvation. I love Acts chapter 17. In that chapter Paul is in Corinth and he's discouraged because he's been preaching and teaching the gospel but he's been running up into opposition day after day after day. And so one night he has a vision from God. And in this vision God speaks to Paul and he says don't be afraid Paul. Keep on speaking. Don't be silent. Now listen to this. He says, for I am with you and I have many people in this city. I have many people in this city. You know what God would say to you? I have many people at Lockheed Martin. I have many people at Timber Creek High. I have many people over at UCF. My elect are all around you. They are all over East Orlando. Your job, my job, is to be faithful to share these seeds of God's gospel. Well fourth and finally not only will this truth make one happy and humble and hopeful but it will make you holy. Knowing that God has chosen you before the foundation of the world will make you holy. Look at verse 2. Peter says you have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying work of the Spirit for what obedience to Jesus Christ. See this is ironic I know it's a little paradoxical but when you grasp that God has loved you from all eternity past you will want to be holy. You will want to please God. Why because you are so secure in his love that's why? This is I guess is movie illustration Sunday. Some of you have seen I suspect the movie The Blind Side. How many of you have seen it yet? Oh wow. Great movie. Awesome. Awesome movie. Talks in there about a man by the name of Michael Oer. If you haven't seen it yet you should. Michael Oer was one of 13 kids born to a crack addicted mother in inner city Memphis. He didn't know his full name. He didn't know his birthday. He didn't know who his father was. By the age of six Michael Oer was sleeping on his porch fending for himself. He was totally neglected as a child. He hardly ever went to school and the rest of his childhood he spent bouncing from one foster home to another. By the age of 15 he was wandering the streets of Memphis as a homeless teenager for foraging for food. Michael Oer couldn't read he had no hope that things would ever change. But the turning point came one cold winter morning when Michael was walking through the snow dressed only in cut off jeans and a t-shirt. A couple by the name of Leanne and Sean Toey spotted Michael, took him into their home and eventually adopted him. Soon after moving into the Toey home Michael became a great offensive lineman for the high school football team and the number one college prospect in the country. He went on to play for Ole Miss where he was an all-American tackle and then he was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens where he is today, making a million. What had happened to Michael Oer? He was loved unconditionally. That's what happened. In an interview with CBS News, Leanne Toey said this and I quote, Michael just needed to be loved. I hugged him for a year before he ever hugged me back. It was the first time in his life that he knew in his heart that somebody loved him for him. Michael Oer said, I felt like I was wanted there. That's what it was. I felt like I was wanted. You remember what I said at the beginning today? The idea of someone loving you from day one to the day you die, standing by your side always is priceless. Friend in Christ, the doctrine of election says, God wanted you. That'll make you happy and humble and hopeful and holy. May it do that beginning again today. Let's pray. Father, it's amazing to us, your grace. The idea that you would choose people who don't choose you, the idea that you would want, people who are your enemies is incredible to me and to us. And we thank you, Father, that you did choose us. Lord, I thank you that this means that there's hope for anybody. And if there's someone here this morning who does not have that assurance that he or she is going to heaven when they die. If there's someone here this morning who hears the Holy Spirit inviting them to yourself, I pray that that person will simply pray this simple prayer right after me. Father, I realize that I need you. I've been trying to live life all by myself and on my own. I need to know that I'm loved by a being who won't reject me. Thank you, Lord, that you'll never leave me or forsake me. And the greatest proof of that was that you sent Jesus to die for me. I believe that he died for my sins and I receive him now into my life. I thank you that you've invited all of us to come to you. You said, come to me all who are weary and burdened and I'll give you rest. So Father, I want that rest. I want that relationship and I yield my life to your control. Father, if there's anyone here today who feels that way and says something like that to you, I thank you that you have said to them, you are my child. I've been pursuing you longer than you've been pursuing me and your mind. Thank you, Father, for that wonderful truth. And Jesus' name we pray. Amen.