First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi Morning Service

And so, Peter, in verses 18 through 21, our passage for this morning, is turning the diamond of the ransom, of the redemption, of the price paid for sinners at the cross by Jesus Christ so that we can see it, that godly fear may grow and flourish in our hearts and we may live for His praise and honor. We’re going to notice four things about the ransom that has been provided for sinners like me and you by the Lord Jesus Christ. First, we’re going to think about in verse 18 what we’ve been ransomed from; what we’ve been ransomed from. Then in verses 18 and 19, what we’ve been ransomed with. Then in 19 through 20, who we’ve been ransomed by. And finally verse 21, what we’ve been ransomed for. 

And as we consider Peter’s “therefore” and these implications of the grace of God in verses 13 through 17, I want you to notice with me that Peter is essentially inviting us to look in three directions. He wants us to look in three directions. First in verse 13, he invites us to look forward. He invites us to look forward to the coming of Jesus Christ at the end of the age. The key word here is “hope.” He wants Christians to have hope, though now they are experiencing trials of many kinds he says, there is hope - Christ is coming; look forward. Then, he wants us to look backward in verse 14. He reminds them of their old lives before they were Christians. He speaks about the passions of their former ignorance and he is here reminding us of how we are to name our old life and our old ways. It’s ignorance, because he wants to awaken in us an appetite for holiness rather than a return to the passions of our former ignorance. The key word is holiness. And in order to facilitate that holiness, he invites us to look

We’re going to consider verses 10 through 12 by noticing there are three groups of people engaging with God’s Word, responding to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in verses 10 through 12. And we’re simply going to think about how each responds. First, you’ll notice there are the prophets. The prophets’ search. Then there are the preachers. We’ll think about the preachers’ message. Then thirdly, the passage mentions the angels. So we’ll think about the angels’ longing. The prophets’ search. The preachers’ message. And the angels’ longing.

Verses 3 through 9 rehearse for us our great Gospel privileges. In 3 through 5, the apostle Peter lists those privileges; he outlines them for us in a marvelous summary of the riches of God’s grace and blessing in our lives. And then in 6 through 9, he applies those blessings to the particular context of Christian suffering. You might say in 3 through 5 Peter says our privileges are a landscape - beautiful, exquisite, breathtaking - a landscape to look at that makes us praise God for its beauty and for the riches of His grace. A landscape to look at. And then in 6 through 9, he says those same privileges are also a lens to look through.

We are only going to look at verses 1 and 2 today by way of introduction to the letter, but I want you to notice in these two introductory verses that Peter already is setting forth two themes that will be architectonic; they’ll be shaping and foundational for everything else he will say in his letter. First in verse 1, he talks about the Christian in relation to the world. The Christian in relation to the world. How does the world see us and how are we to be oriented toward the world around us? And then in verse 2, he begins to talk to us about the resources of grace available to us as we live in that way for God’s glory in a hostile world. He talks about the Christian in relation to God. So verse 1, the Christian in relation to the world. Verse 2, the Christian in relation to God. 

First, in verse 1, we’ll spend some time thinking together about the crisis of mercy ministry; the circumstances that gave rise to the institution of the diaconate. The crisis of mercy ministry. Then in verses 2 and 3, the call of mercy ministry. Mercy ministry is the burden and calling actually of the whole church and every Christian, so we need to think about that and the role of the deacon in relation to the church and in relation to mercy ministry. The crisis, then the call, then in the third place, the qualifications for mercy ministry. If we’re going to have deacons, we need to know what sort of men they ought to be and the passage has some help there for us as well. And then finally in verse 7, the consequences of mercy ministry. There’s remarkable blessing that comes to the church in the wake of the apostolic faithfulness in appointing deacons to serve the church in the way that they do. So the crisis, the call, the qualifications, and the consequences of mercy ministry. 

As we finish our series on the means of grace this morning by looking at the Church, there are three key areas that I want us to be thinking about together. First, I want us to think about the King of the Church. Secondly, I want us to think about the unity of the Church. And thirdly, I want us to think about the purpose of the Church. Or another way to think about it is, we’re going to look at the Head of the Church, Jesus, the body of the Church, God’s people, and the feet of the Church - what is it that we are to be doing? King or Head, unity or body, purpose or feet.

And you know, that makes sense on this side of eternity because the Bible says a whole lot about baptism and the Lord’s Supper, both through shadows and literally in the New Testament. And there are spectrums and nuances and angles and allegories and all sorts of things that are tricky to capture. And this is not surprising because the word “sacrament” in itself means “mystery.” It has the nuance of mystery - that the sacraments are deep mysteries. Just listen to 1 Corinthians 10:2 where Paul says this - “The Israelites were baptized into Moses.” What does it mean to be baptized into Moses? That preposition doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in modern English - “into Moses”? And so we can expect, before Christ comes again, that we’ll have all sorts of ways of looking at this. But we need to come to the Bible and grapple with what God says about baptism. Because as the old theologians used to say, “Baptism is the beautiful divine gift of God to the Church.” 

 “Taking the Lord’s Supper seriously is something that deep down most of us simply do not do.” That’s the way J.I. Packer begins the last chapter of his book, Taking God Seriously. Well we’re in a series this July on the means of God’s grace. These are the ways that God uses to grow us, to mature us, and to persevere us spiritually. We’re talking about taking God seriously. And taking God seriously means that we will read His Word and we will pray and we will observe the sacraments and we will gather together as the church. As Christians, we should be doing these things. And as we rely upon the grace of Jesus Christ and rest in the work of the Holy Spirit, God promises to bless us in these things. 

For the next several Lord’s Days, some of our assistant ministers will be examining what we call “the means of grace,” that is, the means that God has given us for our use in spiritual growth - the Word of God, both in preaching and teaching and personal devotion, prayer, the sacraments, that is, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, corporate worship. These are the tools that God has given to us for our growth in grace, for our coming closer to Him, and His coming closer to us. They happen to be the very tools that God uses to grow us. So our growth in grace isn’t a willy-nilly, maybe so-maybe not random experience. If we use these means, we’ll grow spiritually because He’ll bless our use of them. And if we don’t use them, we won’t grow, and our spiritual formation will be weak and sickly, we’ll never be strong, never be able to bear up under the trial of difficulty inevitably God sends to us, never be able to experience the fullness of the joys that He sends as well. Without our using the means of grace, we’re not