You Need Good News

You Need Good News

Pulled Up by Hope (1 Peter) part 2

1 Peter 1:10-25

1. The Bible is Good News About And Jesus is good news.

–Story life of Jesus’ life is called “Gospel” or “Good news.”

–The angels said to the Shepherds, “I bring your Good News of great joy”

–1 Peter 1:10 Peter says that before Jesus came, the prophets had hints of what God was doing. But they did not have the full story. Prophecy is when God writes history before it happens.

–1 Peter 1:11, “suffering” is plural. He refers to the sufferings of Christ. Not just the cross, but the entire work of redemption came with suffering. So the flogging, the beating, the cross were all his sufferings. Also there was great spiritual suffering at the cross.

–1 Peter 1:11: “Spirit Christ in them.” Interesting verbiage, as Peter does not make a distinction between the second and third person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. Hundreds of years before Jesus came, he was predicting his own death and resurrection. Jesus spent eternity thinking about his coming suffering. You were not loved for a moment on a cross, you were loved for endless ages past.

–1 Peter 1:11: The prophets wanted to know all about the coming Messiah. Who he was, where he would be born, what exactly his relation to God would be.

–Jesus is the hope of the Old Testament. Jesus is Old Testament orthodoxy.

–1 Peter 1:11: compare to John 8:56. Also Numbers 24:17.

–1 Peter 1:12: The prophets were not serving themselves. The word “serving” is in the active tense. It’s as if through the Bible, the prophets continue the work of serving us. Every time Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel are read, they serve us. They are living oracles.

2. The Bible is Good News About the

–1 Peter 1:13: the word preparing is literally “gird up your loins.” Means to tuck your robe in and get ready to run hard or work hard. He’s saying, “Get to work, Jesus is coming.” He would say, “Roll up you sleeves and get to work.”

–1 Peter 1:13: Set our hope on the grace that “will be” brought to us at “the revelation of Jesus Christ.” That is not referring to the past grace given at the cross, but to His Second coming. His Coming is a day of wrath for the unbelieving world, but he does not give wrath to his children, he gives grace. On that day we will literally be saved from the wrath of the Lamb. For the Christian, the day of Christ coming is a day of great victory.

1 Peter 1:12: Things angels long to look into.

–“Things” refers to the many features and facets of salvation.

–“Long” refers to angels strong overpowering desire to study salvation. Their desire is not whimsical or curious. They have a strong passion to know more about our salvation. It is the same word for John stooping down to look into the empty tomb of Jesus as if the angels long to stoop down and look into our salvation.

–Angels celebrate our salvation. They are not saved the way we are. Angels that rebelled were not given grace but were thrown into confinement to await judgment. The angels who did not fall, rejoice at what God has done for mankind.

3. The Bible is Good News About

1 Peter 1:14: Things that make us happy are a path to misery. Fun is not a purpose.

1 Peter 1:15: Peter describes the purpose of life as one of seeking after God’s Holiness. The purpose of life is to walk in the image of Jesus. Jesus commanded us to “follow” him. To be a Christian (Christianós) means to be a follower of Christ, or as an insult in Acts 11 it meant “little Christ.”

1 Peter 1:16: God is “holy” meaning he is different than anything else that exists. He invites us into his holiness. We are not independently holy; but we share in His holiness.

1 Peter 1:17: Peter discusses how we behave as members of God’s family.

4. The Bible is Good News About

–On this side of the Bible we can look back and see God’s plan from all age’s past. In the Old Testament the plan of God was given as hints; but now we are hit over the head with a crowbar. We can look back and trace the story of redemption from Genesis to Revelation.

–W.A. Criswell preached a single sermon on December 31, 1961 that went through the entire Bible called, “The Scarlet Threat Through the Bible.” He preached for 4 hours and showed how the redemption of mankind was forecast throughout the Bible. (https://wacriswell.com/sermons/1961/the-scarlet-thread-through-the-bible-part-1)

–1 Peter 1:18-21 is the Gospel in 4 short verses.

–1 Peter 1:18: We were ransomed. To ransom is to exchange one thing for another. But we were not ransomed with money, Christ used his own blood and his righteous life to purchase us out of sin. Jesus did not come to earth, work for 33 years as a carpenter, build a company, invest in the stock market and use money he earned to buy us out of our debt. He paid our debt with his blood.