WHAT HOLY PEOPLE
ARE THANKFUL FOR
Happy Thanksgiving! What are you thankful for today?
Thanksgiving
is an interesting holiday. Its origins are found in the intentions of pious and
godly people who wanted to give thanks to God for the physical blessings they
had experienced. The governments of the U.S. and Canada have made it a national
holiday to give thanks, to be grateful for our life in these good countries.
Good
intentions can be misinterpreted however. Many people are inclined to say, “I’m
thankful for…” and rattle off a list of benefits they have experienced. But
thankful to who? They don’t say. It is not fashionable in today’s society to be
thankful to God, so we’re just thankful. Thus the things we are thankful for
can be quite trivial or even temporary.
I
received an email this week that proclaimed “One more reason to give thanks this
holiday.” Do you know what it was? Knives! Safeway wants to make my holiday a
cut above the rest…with knives. So this afternoon when we sit around the turkey
and fixings, I am going to thank God for knives. If it weren’t for a sharp
knife I would have to pull turkey with my fingers. Thank you, God.
What are
holy people, that is, people who are chosen out of the world to be God’s
people, thankful for? Remember, we are a peculiar people who don’t fit into the
societal mold, so we are strange folk. What do strange folk, who know that God
is the giver of all good gifts, thank God for?
1 Peter
1:10-12 isn’t really a thanksgiving-based passage. And yet, Peter does begin
this piece by saying, “Praise be to the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…” Praise and thanks go naturally
together. What do holy people thank God for? Peter wants his readers to give
thanks to God for the eternal plan of salvation through Jesus Christ conceived
of long before the world began and now revealed to we privileged few.
I have
broken this thanksgiving down into four parts.
1. We thank God for Salvation
“Concerning this
salvation…” In the preceding verses, Peter briefly described this
salvation. He noted that God the Father is the instigator and Jesus the agent
of our new birth into a living hope. Through Christ’s death and resurrection we
receive the inheritance of eternal life. This is the salvation to which Peter
refers.
But
“salvation” has become a word that few outside the church can grasp. It is
“Christianese,” a foreign language to the unsaved or the unbeliever. The word
“salvation” implies being “saved” from something. What are we saved from?
Fortunately,
Peter’s letter is all about this salvation. He wrote to these suffering
believers to encourage them that salvation was worth the pain. Peter not only
reminded them what they were saved from but what they were saved for as well.
Note first what we are saved from:
·
We are
saved from our sins (2:24). Sin is a disease from which we need healing.
Christ died to save us from the death sin brings.
·
We are
saved from separation from God (3:18).Sin separates us from God; Christ’s
work on the cross reconciles us to God opening the way for relationship.
·
We are
saved from judgment (4:17). God is judging the sinner right now and will
judge him or her on the Final Day. We are saved from that final judgment.
·
We are
saved from the devil (5:8). Satan is looking to devour anyone who does not
belong to Jesus. Followers of Jesus can imitate Christ and are protected
through self-control.
Note also that we are not simply saved from these
terrible consequences of the sinful nature; we are saved for a purpose. Being
saved from sin only is like having someone pay for your university education
only to end up busking on Portage Avenue. When we say “God has a plan for your
life” it is more than wishful thinking (who you will marry, etc.). Peter
outlines this plan by telling his readers what they were saved for:
·
We are
saved for the Shepherd (2:25). He loves us and wants to bring us home.
Someone said the world can be like a hotel or a prison. If the happiness of
this life is all you have, the world can seem quite limited and confining. If
we hope in our eternal home, the world is like a hotel: it’s a nice place to
visit, but we know we don’t live here permanently.
·
We are
saved for our inheritance (5:4). I confess that I don’t know what the
inheritance will be like, only that it will be good, far beyond my imagining.
·
We are
saved for sharing in Christ’s glory (5:10). This glory will be
revitalizing. When we receive this glory you will think you haven’t lived till
that point.
·
We are
saved for everlasting joy (4:13). If we can know joy in the midst of
suffering, think of the joy we will experience when Christ comes again. We will
have been practiced and conditioned to recognize joy. Our purpose is to find
joy now in Christ.
This is the essence of our salvation. It is full and
overflowing with meaning. Are you thankful for this salvation?
2. We thank God for the Prophets
Peter moves on to talk about how we came to know this
salvation beginning with the prophets of old. He wrote, “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 the Messiah and the glories that
would follow,” (10-11).
When
Peter speaks of the prophets he refers to the OT. This summer we were in a
sermon series to discover Christ in the OT. Aside from the obvious passages we
tore into some difficult references where Jesus was not so obvious. When we
tackled those difficult passages I was amazed to find him there and all over
the OT.
Something
we should be aware of when it comes to the prophet’s job in the OT is that they
preached sermons to their own people. They weren’t necessarily predicting
future events. Prophets were there to correct and rebuke the people of Israel
and get them to turn back to God. If they did not repent, the prophets told
them, God would visit a judgment on them in the future.
What the
prophets were only vaguely aware of was that couched in their words to the
people in front of them were words with a deeper meaning. Take Isaiah: he spoke
of a virgin being with child. He must have paused and thought, “What did I just
say?” God told him to say it, but he must have wondered about the implications.
Was it a metaphor? Isaiah also spoke of the Lord’s Servant suffering. That was
perplexing. What could it mean in real terms?
So three
aspects of their work stand out in Peter’s summary of prophecy:
·
They
predicted Christ’s coming. They knew that Messiah was coming, a David-like
king who would restore the kingdom.
·
They did
not understand the prophecy but pursued its meaning. They searched
“intently” for what these prophecies meant. These prophets ached to see it
happen but could not grasp how it would come about.
·
They
faithfully described Christ’s sufferings. Charles Spurgeon noted that even
the devil did not understand prophecy, and especially the sufferings of Christ.
If he had he would never have stirred up the rabble to have Jesus crucified. Even
though it must have seemed odd to the prophets to say what they said, they
preached that the Messiah would suffer. Psalm 22 speaks in detail of how Christ
would die. Isaiah 53 tells of his suffering and agony and his purpose in it
all.
The prophets did not understand what they said but they
laid a foundation for those who would. What this implies is key for us today:
Jesus was not God’s last hope. Jesus was God’s hope for humankind from the
beginning. That is why the OT is full of Jesus if you look for him.
We know
that Jesus told parables and by them confused his hearers. He knew some would
get it and some would not. After one parable he told his disciples, “…blessed are your eyes because they see,
and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and
righteous men longed to see what you see, and to hear what you hear but did not
hear it,” (Matt 13:16-17).
We know
what we know of salvation because of the prophets. But we would not know if not
for the Apostles.
3. We thank God for the Apostles
It was the apostles, those men who followed Jesus while
he was here on earth, who continued the thread of salvation from the OT to the
NT. They could not have done this except by the Holy Spirit.
Notice
that in verse 11 that it was the Spirit of Christ who pointed the prophets to
the time and circumstances of Christ’s sufferings. Calling him the “Spirit of
Christ” is a way of saying that the Holy Spirit’s purpose is to highlight
Jesus. It is this same Spirit who enabled the apostles to preach about Jesus
from the OT. “…they spoke of the things
that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the
Holy Spirit from heaven,” Peter wrote (12a, b).
The
reason that the prophets could not see how and when Christ would come is
because they started from an OT perspective. That is, they could not see the
Scriptures in the light of the cross. We, on the other hand, have the words of
the apostles, the NT (and please check this out: the letter of Peter is filled
with OT references). So we read the OT from a NT perspective. We live on this
side of the cross and have a better grasp of salvation because of it.
The
Bible, the OT and the NT, was written by 40 different men over 1600 years. Yet
its unity of thought is amazing. No book contradicts another but in fact tie
together. It is a progressive revelation of God’s plan of salvation with each
part building on what was spoken before. No other collection of human writings
can claim this amazing thread of unity of thought and cohesiveness.
We thank
God for the prophets and the apostles for their faithfulness in communicating
God’s thoughts and plans. For this reason we know what it means to need and
receive salvation from the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
4. We thank God for curious Angels
Peter concludes with a strange declaration: “Even angels long to look into these
things,” (12c). The phrase “to look into” is used in one other place – John
20:3-5. Peter and John run to the tomb of Jesus having been told it was empty.
John outruns Peter and yet stops outside the entrance, stoops, and peers into
the empty room. John studied the bare resting place, the cold and silent walls,
pondering what took place.
In the
same way, the angels are stooping and peering into this strange world and
studying the goings on. That they long to look into these things does not suggest
that they want to but cannot. It means that they want to but are outsiders to
the drama of sin and redemption. Angels do not sin and therefore cannot
experience the salvation we have come to know. But they love to watch the great
work of God’s salvation unfold in our lives and in the history of the world. As
Jesus said, these beings cheer and celebrate when one of us repents from sin
and confesses that Jesus is Lord (Lk 15:10).
For this
reason they stoop and peer into our world, into our very lives, to study the
things of God. These angels are curious to know why their King would leave
heaven’s throne and condescend to our existence. They are fascinated by the
incarnation prophesied in Scripture; they are intrigued by the hand of God in
world events; they were horrified at the death of Jesus their King; they
exulted in his resurrection.
Brothers
and sisters, if the angels long to look into these things to know them as we
do, shouldn’t we have the same appreciation, the same desire, and the same
passion to study the Bible? Thank God for curious angels who by their curiosity
imply that there is more to discover in God’s Word.
Shortly
after Vietnam fell to the Communists in the 1970s, Hien Pham was imprisoned for
allegedly helping the Americans during the war. His jailers tried to
indoctrinate him against democratic ideals and the Christian faith. He was
restricted to communist propaganda in French or Vietnamese, and the daily deluge
of Marx and Engels began to take its toll. ‘Maybe,’ he thought, ‘I have been
lied to. Maybe God does not exist. Maybe the West has deceived me.’ So Hien
determined that when he awakened the next day, he would not pray anymore or
think of his faith.
The next
morning, he was assigned the dreaded chore of cleaning the prison latrines. As
he cleaned out a tin can overflowing with toilet paper, his eye caught what
seemed to be English printed on one piece of paper. He hurriedly grabbed it,
washed it, and after his roommates had retired that night, he retrieved the
paper and read the words, ‘Romans, Chapter 8.’ Trembling, he began to read,
‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him. .
. for I am convinced that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of
God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Hien wept. He knew His Bible, and knew
that there was not a more relevant passage for one on the verge of surrender.
He cried out to God, asking forgiveness, for this was to have been the first
day that he would not pray. . . . After finding the Scripture, Hien asked the
commander if he could clean the latrines regularly, because he discovered that
some official was using a Bible as toilet paper. Each day Hien picked up a
portion of Scripture, cleaned it off, and added it to his collection of nightly
reading. . . . What his tormentors were using for refuse — the Scriptures —
could not be more treasured to Hien.
We thank
God for salvation; we thank God for the prophets (OT); we thank God for the
apostles (NT); and we thank God for the angels. I thank God on this
Thanksgiving Day weekend and every day for the Bible. My parents gave me this
Bible when I graduated from high school in 1986. I pledged myself to wearing it
out and preaching from it for as long as God permits. No other book captures my
attention like the Bible. It is the only book that can explain God’s plan of
salvation.
This is
what holy people are thankful for…
AMEN
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