The God of All Grace

1 Peter 5:10-11

Immanuel – 10/17/21

Again and again on Sunday mornings I have stood up here and spoken about the many problems and pains that cast long shadows over our world. And when all these shadows are gathered together – like they seem to be doing in our day – it can feel like the sun has long set; and all that remains are distant spasms of light.

But it is not true. Though the shadows gather, it is not enough to bring upon us, night. We are children of the light. We are the burning brands of hope. We are the sons and daughters of the God of all grace.

And as Peter begins to close his letter we see that fires of hope have engulfed his heart. Peter wants the same fire to engulf our hearts as well. And it is my prayer that the words of this sermon would help to spark such flames; for we study some of the most hope filled words in Peter’s first letter.

Purpose

What is our living hope?

Read 1 Peter 5:5b-11

Peter’s words to the elect exiles of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia are coming to a close. How he loves these churches! And as these little flocks are hemmed in by hostilities all around, how he wants to feed them with hope!

The words we come to today, in verses 10 and 11, serve as Peter’s summary statements. They wrap up Peter’s offerings of hope; and as you will see, these verses have reflections of so much of what he has written earlier.

In chapter 5 Peter has shown us the antidotes for pride within and pride without. Pride within – which is the root of anxiety – is defeated by humbling yourself and casting all your anxieties upon the Lord. Pride without – that arrogant roaring lion – is already defeated. All you must do it believe in what Christ has done; or as Peter says, “Resist him, firm in your faith.”

A Little While

Your relentless battles with pride and anxiety, your time of resisting the accuser’s lies, and all the other pains that come in this world, it is just for a little while longer.

As Peter writes in verse 10: And after you have suffered a little while. Every Christian – indeed, every human being – will suffer. I wonder if you recognize that phrase? Peter used it before.

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. -1 Peter 1:6

The trials last for just a little while. Or, in 5:10, suffering lasts just a little while. But what exactly does a little while mean?

It means your whole life in this fallen state: from birth to death, it is only a little while. The average global life expectancy is 72.5 years. In the US it’s a little better: 79 years. The oldest member of Immanuel, Anita Seaburg, is nearly 103. But even 103 years is a moment, a molecule of water spilling over Niagara.

Though this life and all the sufferings that come with it feel like an eternity, it is not.

What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. -James 4:14

For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace. My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass. -Psalm 102:3,11

We must remember that this life is short. Anyone that has some years behind them knows how quickly time passes. It seems like a moment ago that my girls were toddling around the house. And I know that in another moment they will have toddlers of their own. And a moment after that I’ll return to walking around like a toddler.

We all must hold this perspective as we reckon the number of our days. Death comes quickly. The brevity of our days is the consequence of our pride, our selfishness, our sinfulness. Our total moral depravity earned for us a total condemnation before God. Without forgiveness we are destined to an eternal dying.

But look again at verse 10.

The God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ…

For those to whom God has called, for the elect exiles, death is an awakening, a recreation, a birth.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! 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. -1 Peter 1:3

When the God of all grace called you, faith was born within you; and in that very moment He united you to Christ. The innocent and righteous Jesus was condemned in your place – He died your death. And when Jesus the Lord rose victorious from the grave, He killed death! He lives, and He will live forevermore! Now His eternal life becomes your eternal life.

Though our days are short, though death is racing towards us, death does not end our life. It merely ends our exile.

And so God beckons us to live in light of eternity. This means we live our lives in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called – as Paul says in Ephesians 4:1. And it means that we must constantly remember that these present sufferings are momentary.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. -2 Corinthians 4:16-17

Your life will be so long that the wind would grind the Himalaya into sand, the stars in the sky would move so far that the constellations would change, and then they would eventually go out as they are all swallowed by entropy. That is, of course, if the secular worldview had it right. There are ages upon ages of life to come, endless eons of living in the presence of God.

The momentary afflictions of these fleeting 80 years are as nothing in comparison. And sufferings might be heavy in the moment, but they are a feather’s weight next to forever.

Eternal Glory

All Scripture does what Paul just did in 2 Corinthians 4. Peter has been doing it in his letter. 2 things are set in contrast: the momentary life and fading glory of man versus the eternal life and transcendent glory of God.

“All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.”

-1 Peter 1:24-25

God’s glory and eternality are so absolute, that even His words do not fade. Ours are spoken and they are gone, hardly remembered in the passing of minutes. But when God speaks, His words are more lasting than the sun.

And that should cause us to leap for joy, because it with His word that He breathed faith into our hearts. We live, and will always live, because God has spoken.

You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God. -1 Peter 1:23

And this word, living and abiding, spoken into our depravity and brevity, is glory dawning upon us, it is God come to dwell with man, it is Christ living within us. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me (Galatians 2:20).

If those words make your heart swell, if you would count everything as loss in order to gain Christ, then know that God has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, as Peter writes in verse 10.

Yes! The God of all grace has done this!

The God of all grace! He did this! You did not deserve it. You have earned no glory. Yours was the judgement and the fire. Yours was an abiding separation. But according to His great mercy, He called you out of the darkness and into His marvelous light. Just a few more years of suffering and then alive! We will rise with Christ!

This resurrection is our great and enduring hope. Listen to Peter:

Read 1 Peter 1:3-9

All of that is about the resurrection and the unfading inheritance that it to come. All of that is about our hope.

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

-1 Peter 1:13

So what exactly do we hope for at the revelation of Jesus Christ? Yes, resurrection and eternal life, but our hope is even better than endless days.

Read vs 10

Are these not stunning words? To the broken, to the condemned, to the weak, to the dying, the God of all grace calls you into glory. It is a glory where He Himself will restore you, confirm you, strengthen you, and establish you.

God will restore to you all that was broken. If your body is wracked by pains, has been scarred by sickness, has been torn apart by lions; then you need restoration. If dementia or delusion has broken the mind, then you need restoration. If depression or anxiety or rejection have crippled you heart, you need restoration.

God Himself will restore you!

“For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord, because they have called you an outcast: ‘It is Zion, for whom no one cares!’” “Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob…out of them shall come thanksgiving, and the voices of those who celebrate. I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will make them honored, and they shall not be small.

“And you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” -Jeremiah 30:17-19,22

God will confirm your adoption. If the devil’s lies have left you doubting that your faith is enough, He will confirm you. If you wonder if all that you have spent is worth the price, He will confirm you. If you have feared that God does not actually love you, that His face does not seem to shine upon you, that you are undesirable; He will confirm you. You are His child.

Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgements against you; He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil. On that day is shall be said to Jerusalem: “Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak, The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over you will gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will exult over you with loud singing. -Zephaniah 3:14-17

God will strengthen all that was weak. Your heart, so torn and tossed by the storms of life, He will strengthen. Your body, once so frail, so prone to atrophy, He will sweep all weakness from. Your mind, struggling to remember, struggling to understand, will eternally be strong. He Himself will strengthen you!

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to Him who has no might He increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not be faint.

-Isaiah 40:28-31

God will establish you in honor and glory. God will take you – broken, doubting, and weak – raise you up and forever establish you as a son or daughter of the Most High. And in the place of highest honor you will be seated in Christ, with Christ, at His right hand. And your faith, once plagued by shadows, will become your sight.

God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. -Ephesians 2:4-7

What glories are yours in Christ! Back in 1:7 Peter wrote that after our brief time of trial God will give us praise and glory and honor. Now we know what that looks like: for the God of all grace will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

If you want to enter in to these glories – if you want the God of all Creation to restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you – then all you must do is repent and believe. Come to Jesus. Believe that He died and was resurrected. Leave your old ways behind and begin a life of following Jesus. Seek first Jesus, and His kingdom, and all these things will be added unto you.

After such words you can understand why Peter worships.

Read vs 11

At the end of 4:11 Peter had some similar words.

To Him (Christ) belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

In 5:11 Peter repeats this doxology almost verbatim; that is, except for one word: glory. Why does Peter say glory belongs to Christ in 4:11 but drop glory in 5:11? I don’t think it was an accident and I don’t think he changed his mind about something.

In chapter 4 Peter was talking about loving one another and using our gifts all for the glory of Jesus. We live and move and breath so that Christ gets the glory.

In chapter 5, as Peter is closing this letter, he climactically and fully reveals that Jesus has lived and died and lives so that we can share in His glory.

God the Son was bathed in glory long before the foundations of the earth were laid. It was a glory He left to become a man. And in ascension the Father has restored unto Him that glory. But with the resurrection there came a glory new to creation.

It is a glory that shines with the brilliance of the grace and the wisdom and the power of God. It is the glory of straying sheep now found. It is the glory of the darkness transformed by the light. It is the glory of a people rescued and redeemed. It is the glory of a Bride adorned for her Husband, arrayed in the blazing white righteousness of Christ.

Can you see what Peter is doing? Yes, to Christ be the glory forevermore. But also to us. We are partakers of that glory. For the God of all grace has called us into His eternal glory in Christ!

We live to give glory to Christ, and Christ has lived to bring glory to us! And through all of this, the Father is supremely glorified!

Read Psalm 146

Yes, the Lord will reign forever! And so long as Christ sits upon the throne, there we will be, seated with Him, clothed in glory. His everlasting life is our everlasting glory. And this is why Peter ends with: To Him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. As long as Christ Jesus our Lord has dominion, we will be glorified, and we will eternally be His glory.

Yes, my brothers and sisters, the sufferings of this life are just a little while longer. But these light and momentary afflictions are preparing for you a weight of glory beyond all comparison.

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

-1 Peter 1:13

Let your life be marked by eagerness for such a revelation. Those future realities are your present hopes: they make life worth living and certain deaths worth dying. When hurts and troubles come spilling into your life of exile, set your heart towards home. Remember always the One enthrone there. No dictates of the world’s leaders, no amount of the devils roaring, will shake the throne of Christ the King!

And on the day that your faith becomes your sight, the God of all grace will Himself restore you, confirm you, strengthen you, and establish you. This is your heritage! This is your living hope!