Speaker: Greg Sanders

Passage: 1 Peter 1:1-5

UNDERSTANDING THE FATHER’S LOVE

Grab your Bibles. Have a seat. Let’s go to 1 Peter, just in the early verses of 1 Peter. And if you’re picking up with us, new in the study, we’ve only been in it one week so far, just did a little overview and took a look at verses 1 and 2. 

I’m going to go ahead and read verses 1 through 5 to kind of get us started. It says, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood. May Grace and peace be multiplied to you.” 

So, these first two verses, there’s four really, really big thoughts that come through. One is that you are chosen by God. And I know that that can roll off the tongue like a greeting card, like, Yeah, I’m chosen. 

But I would just love if we could push pause long enough to consider that this was not an accidental thing. The Lord didn’t choose a swath of humanity and you were in it, that you were actually, according to the Greek, selected. 

That’s hard for us to wrap our minds around because we can’t fathom having a love that’s so specific and so detailed that all of humanity could uniquely be chosen. But that’s what Peter says here. You’re chosen according to the foreknowledge of God by the sanctifying work of the Spirit. In other words, you’re in a process of being made holy by the Holy Spirit. 

Why is that important? Because up front, Peter’s letting us know, Hey, so you’re aware, the Holy Spirit’s going to be working with you. There’s going to be things He’s telling you to stop doing. Don’t freak out. There’s going to be things He’s coaching in your life. Don’t take it the wrong way. 

What do you mean? Don’t take it the wrong way, don’t take it as negative. Don’t take it as, Woe is me. Don’t take it as, I’m bad. Take it as, Thank you, You’re helping me look like Jesus. That’s Your job. 

So, when you’re in a marital situation, or you’re in a work situation, there’s that tinge of things that comes up in your core, that conviction where you’re like, Shouldn’t have said that. Stop fighting it and embrace it and go, You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that. 

Yeah, but I don’t like admitting I’m wrong. That’s a problem because you are, and He’s in the process of helping us. Instead of taking shame for that, just to help us understand every moment, You’re right. I need to be more like Christ. Let’s go. 

LISTENING TO THE VOICE OF THE LORD

I love this phrase where he says to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood because there’s two things that happen here: that the Holy Spirit is leading us always unto something. What is it? It’s obeying Jesus. It’s obedience to Jesus. 

And what we should be able to bank on what Peter’s telling the church, he’s kind of getting them prepped. I want you to bank on that leadership and that conviction. He’s always going to push you to obey Christ. 

Has anyone ever said this or heard it said, I’m not convicted by that? I would offer a concern that we as people need to be very, very careful to tune our hearts to the voice of the Holy Spirit, teaching ourselves how to be closer to what He says, not further away, because it is possible to numb your senses. 

It’s possible to numb your hearing to where you’re like, I don’t really feel conviction anymore. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is not the kind that’s going to yell louder. He’s not going to come alongside you, going, Come on, I said no. He does the opposite, actually. Biblically, He steps back. 

The way you increase the voice of the Lord is by becoming more tender to the voice of the Lord, by becoming more sensitive to the voice of the Lord. And when we become less sensitive, we move ourselves away from hearing. 

This is why the enemy works so hard at initial disobedience. When the Lord whispers something, there’s always an affront against it to keep us from obeying because the enemy knows, If I can get them to stop that first step, they won’t hear next time as well. 

And there’s a lot of believers running around believing, I’m not hearing the Lord say anything, therefore I must be awesome. It’s just a caution. 

SPRINKLED WITH THE BLOOD

The fourth thing here is being sprinkled with His blood. It’s a great phrase because in the Greek, it’s a phrase that carries the idea of forward movement. It’s not a you came to the cross, you got sprinkled. It’s a process that, according to what Peter’s saying, the Holy Spirit is doing all the time. 

When we walk in alignment with Him, we walk in step with Him. We’re making mistakes, we’re screwing up, and He’s sprinkling us, going, Nope, they’re still forgiven. They’re forgiven. They’re forgiven. It’s a declaration over us of our condition. I don’t know about you, doesn’t that cause you to want to walk in better alignment with the Holy Spirit? 

So, He’s right there on the ready, sprinkling you. You’re being– hear this– you and I are being forgiven all the time. But we do have an enemy that loves to whisper a truth. We have a world that loves to whisper a truth. Oh, you see, you’re not an actual believer, a real believer. You know, you would have changed. 

No, no, no, no. I am a believer. I am in process. I’m being changed. I am continuing to become like Him. And every area that I find I’m not like Him, I simply reconcile it, look at it, go, That’s not Christ. I’m not doing that anymore. Moving on. 

Do you catch the difference? The Lord’s been whispering some things to me lately, and I really feel like this morning, so we’re clear, what’s in the heart of the Lord is a restoration of the love of the Father and a fixing of authority issues. I had multiple people, like, It just feels good in here today. I’m like, Yeah, the Father’s doing something different this morning. 

He’s always bringing a settling so He can bring a healing. Why? Because to the level I’m healthy in my relationship with the Father, I will live out a want-to versus ought-to. An unhealthy relationship with the Father drives me to do things, a healthy one invites me. 

And anytime I see a movement in my life that’s born out of ought-to, I can understand there are things with the Father that need to be healed. I’m going to leave it there because we’re going to talk more about it, okay?

HEAVENLY FATHER

Verse 3, here we go. “Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy, has caused us–” say that with me– “Has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 

We’ll read that one more time because it’s really good, and I think we need to get it, and you catch the way this Greek is written. It’s layer upon layer upon layer upon layer, and you kind of have to filter through all the layers to get the message. 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Okay, so all of this that’s coming in 3, 4, and 5 is connected to the Father. Peter’s making a statement about I’m going to put the Father on display, “Who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 

So, verse 3 gives us a framework to understand what Peter’s teaching, because Peter’s going to expound on the process of what the Father has done for us. In the early church, the church of these writings, he’s putting their focus on the Father. 

So, I want to frame this conversation for two reasons: I want you to consider who Peter is speaking to. He is speaking to a people who were accustomed to interfacing with GOD, big G, big O, big D, but they really had no idea of what it looked like to interface with a Heavenly Father. 

Their entire world view had come through a more religious, legalistic, top-down methodology, to where there were sacrifices to be offered when they screwed up, there were steps to be taken, there were ways for reconciliation to happen, even though we understand that Hebrews says the blood of animals was never really able to take care of sin, but God had allowed it for a season. But their entire grid of leaning into Him would have been from a God point of view, not from a Heavenly Father. 

So, Peter’s working to establish something in this church. Why? Because if we don’t have an established understanding and right relationship with our Heavenly Father, what happens is all of the other poor leadership relationships in our life, whether it’s our fathers or it’s a boss or it’s a supervisor or someone in our life that has hurt us, those things start to inform that. 

Does that make sense? I reconcile and get healthy with the Heavenly Father. How do I do that? This is what Peter’s doing, the truth of Scriptures have to be defined. And I would suggest that we’re largely still in a position in our society where most people, most of us, whether knowingly or not, still respond to Him as God, and not so much as a Heavenly Father. 

I don’t think we can grab on to what Peter’s saying unless we allow our hearts to get open to the love of the Father. The way we do that is the truth of what the Scriptures teach has to inform our belief set of how He loves us. I don’t respond to Him anymore out of what I feel, I respond out of what the Scriptures say because this teaching for Peter is rooted in the goodness of the Father. 

How many would agree that sometimes your history and your journey with earthly fathers and authority figures has gotten in the way of how you respond to leadership? Anybody ever noticed that truth? It gets in the way of our ability to grasp and understand what the heart of the Father is for us. Again, let’s go back to this idea. Do you find yourself moving out of ought-to instead of want-to? Because ought-to is driven out of a desire. 

Think about who’s writing this book. If there was a disciple that had dad issues, it was Peter. Consider it the entire time we see Peter, he is striving for acceptance. He’s the first at the line all the time. In fact, Peter makes a statement to Jesus and about John. He looks at John and says, What about this guy? Because Peter’s worried about who’s first. Who do you like most? 

Give you a hint, if you’re always worried about whether you’re at the top of the class, you have dad issues. It’s just the way it is. Not unhealable, but they’re there. 

So, Peter’s living this life. He’s working this way. And Jesus looks at him and says, If I choose to keep him alive until I return, what business is that of yours? In other words, Dude, put your eyes on Me and you, and that’s it. 

Notice who it was that steps up and chops off the ear in the garden. It’s Peter. Notice who it was that jumped out of the boat to walk. It’s Peter. Why? Because he’s got issues. He wants to be held in great rapport by leadership. Why? Because there was a void in him. 

So, him writing this is wild. I would offer that him writing this is because one of the transformational things that happened in Peter’s life was when he failed Jesus, and Jesus came back and said, All right, come on, let’s do this again. Peter realized, Oh man, I’m loved not for what I do, but for who I am. I have a value to Him that’s beyond my performance. 

KIND THOUGHTS AND GOOD INTENTIONS

Are you tracking with where we’re going? Okay, so I want to give us some truths. I want to use this concept of what does it look like to walk in a healthy Father-relationship, and I want to take these verses and give us some truths. 

First one: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again.” I want you to catch this. It’s simple. You could not take any of this teaching and build a rocket. It’s just simple stuff, that’s why Peter’s teaching it. 

He’s trying to lay a groundwork for them because he understands if the Father relationship isn’t right, none of your relationships will be right. The Father’s heart is full of mercy towards you. “The Father’s heart is full of mercy towards you according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again.” 

This word mercy here, by definition, is kindness or goodwill towards the miserable or the afflicted. Think about that just for a second, that according to His kindness towards your misery and your affliction, this is what He did. 

In other words, He saw where you were at in life and responded to you. Again, remove from your mind, He responded to the mass populace, and I just happened to be in it. That’s not what Peter says here. Peter uses very clear language to you. 

I want to highlight that the mercy was His. He didn’t have to give it away, it was His choice, and that mercy is the reality of a God who has kind thoughts and good intentions towards you. He has kind thoughts and good intentions towards you. 

You can wake up every day and say this statement: I know You have kind thoughts and good intentions towards me. That’s not just some weird mantra, it’s actually what the Scriptures teach. 

I would also offer that sometimes when we don’t take on that mindset, what’s really happening in the back of our mind are all the lies that are whispering to who we think we are. I know You’re frustrated with me. I know I’m not who You want me to be. I know I’m not performing at the level You need me to. All those things that roll back here when the real truth is actually You just have kind thoughts and good intentions towards me. 

Huh? Anybody in here besides me deal with this condition called being somewhat driven? Putting myself at the head of the class for chief person with issues. We’ll start this conversation a lot of times that drivenness is rooted in a bad relationship with authority, and the only way to get it healthy is to have a right relationship with authority. 

And a right relationship doesn’t mean, Oh, I love You, Lord. It means I have dug in here until the truth of this Book has reconciled the lies in my heart. He’s tracking where we’re going. I thought it was going to be six inches deep, but we went like six feet. 

THE FATHER MOVES TOWARDS US

It says, “According to who…” According to means caused by or coming from. So, we’re kata in the Greek, His kindness and His goodwill caused Him to act on our behalf. His kindness, his goodwill, forced Him to act. In other words, it just pulled it out of Him. 

Have you ever thought about the fact that you, as a son or a daughter, in your conditions of brokenness, caused Him to pour something out? It’s not in our conditions of success where He’s proud of us that causes Him to be kind. It’s actually our brokenness. 

It says it caused Him, like it yanked it out of Him, because so often we believe that our brokenness and our dysfunctional states repel Him. And a lot of times, without knowing it, what happens in our mind is, you know that thing where you’re like, If I sin, I need to wait a couple days before I can talk to the Lord because He won’t want to talk to me? 

According to this, according to what Peter’s saying, is actually in that brokenness, in your dysfunction, whether it’s an intentional sin, whether it’s an emotional issue, what’s going on inside of Him is something pulling from Him towards you to fix you. 

Why would He do that? Why would our condition cause Him to move towards us? Which means– news flash– Calvinists, Armenians, according to Peter, you didn’t move towards Him, He moved towards you. 

Well before He was already traveling towards you, all you did was stop and go, Oh, hey. Why would He do that? The only answer that we have to reconcile is because you and I are important to Him. You have to be able to say He did it because I matter to Him. I matter to Him. 

Your history, your brokenness, your person, drew mercy and compassion from Him. Doesn’t that reframe the conversation about my past and my history and my brokenness? How many feel, once in a while, like a screw-up? Doesn’t this reframe that? You’re like, You know what? I praise God for that because it’s what drew compassion out of Heaven. He saw me that way. 

Big deal. He doesn’t still see me that way. He just saw me that way, and went, Hey, I’m going to help. I’m going to step in. And the moment He stepped in, I took His hand, and we’re moving on a different journey. 

And it’s no longer about what I was, it’s about who He wants me to be. Think on that for a second. The moment He saw me in my condition, He leaned over and said, Hey, I can help. And I said, Okay, help. And the moment I took His hand, it’s no longer about what I was, it’s about who I’m going to be. 

Because I just took the hand of somebody who said, Let’s go on a journey. Let Me move you towards health. Let Me move you towards success. Let Me move you towards righteousness. Let Me move you towards My Son. So, let Me track with you, Greg. 

And when you let it go, here’s what’s going to happen: Hey, the journey is this way, you want to come? Okay, I’m coming. All right, let’s go. Every once in a while, the answer is this: No. We get stuck in our sin, we get stuck with what we want. 

And in His kindness, He does this: All right, well, when you’re ready, and you’re done playing in the mud, let’s go. And we play in the mud, and we get in a cesspool, and we get our attitudes out of line, and we screw up the life around us, and then we go, I don’t think it’s working. 

And the answer is always the same: Come on, let’s go. That brings a different level of freedom to a believer because that changes the narrative from, I have to do better, I have to be better, I ought to, and it shifts it to, I’ve been invited into a journey, and that journey is about me looking like Jesus and every movement of the Father, because He’s so in love with me, He’s going to help me get there. 

SUCCESS ON EARTH AND SUCCESS IN HEAVEN

If you grew up Pentecostal and first born, this is a tough message for you to digest because the truth is, and I love this, Dan Allender will say this: “There are times in our life where we have to be willing to shake hands and honor the dysfunction that got us to where we are, but recognize it will never take us where we need to go.” 

At times, it’s okay to say– driven people– That drive got me here, but it ain’t gonna take me there. That drive came out of dishealth. That drive came out of an inadequacy, in the sense of devaluing myself. I need to let Him redefine who I am. 

And I know the fear. The fear is, Well, what if I don’t produce anything that matters after that? What if I can’t be me without that? Then maybe you shouldn’t have been that anyway. 

So, success in an earthly realm does not mean it’s Heavenly. We have a world that loves, loves, loves, to put a modicum of value on dysfunction, and at times, the best answer is whether I can get ahead doing that or not, I probably shouldn’t because it’s not in line with who He’s asked me to be. 

Chew on that one for a day. Why am I saying this? Because if we’re going to get healthy with the Father, we might have to let go of some things that have been unhealthy, that have benefited us in the earth. 

Anybody in here who’s decided to take on eighty, ninety, one hundred-hour work weeks because of the way it’s valued in the marketplace? Trust me, bosses love it. Who doesn’t love a work week like that? The people that are supporting you so you can do it, the people who have sacrificed relationships so you could do it. 

Okay, so then why do we do it? I have to. No, not true. Come on, guys, this is as blatantly vulnerable as Greg Sanders could get with you. Why do we do it? Because at the core of who we are, we believe my value out of that arena is more important than my value in my family arena. My value out of that arena is feeding something in me that my family can’t. 

This is what Peter’s dealing with. He’s dealing with Father issues in the church, so they understand how to be successful. Because if this isn’t right, nothing will be right. Doesn’t mean you won’t have success. You might. 

Wouldn’t it be just like the enemy to put success on something that was super unhealthy, to where we numb ourselves down? Because the benefit of success is kind of like anesthesia to the pain of dysfunction. 

And so, over a long period of time, we don’t really notice how painful it is until you wake up at a day and a time in your life where it’s too late to fix and reconcile because you’ve already lost the opportunity. 

I know we love to live in a culture that says there is no such thing as regret. That’s absolutely a lie. I genuinely believe when we stand before the Lord on the other side, some of the pain that is talked about is because of this. There’s pain talked about at the judgment seat for believers who are already saved. 

Please understand theologically, this isn’t like a giant, everything’s awesome. What would that pain be? It would be the pain of regret for the places we didn’t align with the heart of God during our life, and we realized what it cost us. 

THE FATHER LOVES US

Wow, I got through one point. Do you feel what the Lord’s doing in our culture right now? It’s like a full stop, Hey, you got to get healthy with Me. You got to let what I’ve said about you begin to inform your identity. 

Why? Because if He’s not informing your identity, something else is, and I promise you there is nothing else that can inform your identity that’s healthy. So, let’s start with just point one today. He loves me. He really loves me. 

My condition right now, in this moment, is drawing out of Him mercy. What am I going to do with it? You’re like, Well, it just feels like you just walked us into a process and left us. I did. 

The Scripture is loaded with detail about His heart for us. You have a Holy Spirit, you don’t need me to break this down, but you need to be willing to go look for it. You need to be willing to discipline yourself to say, Hey, I see some things in my life that I don’t think really reveal a super healthy relationship with Heaven. I’m still driven, there’s a lot of ought-to. 

Does that make sense when I say ought-to? The things we do because we know we’re supposed to, but they don’t come out of the genuine desire to be like Him? I would still take ought-to over no way, but I just want to highlight that ought-to is always fueled by desire to be better, instead of a desire to be like Him. 

Ought-to is something we use with children. You should say you’re sorry to your brother. Okay, I’m sorry. Why? Over the course of time, we want them to understand the value of why would I say I’m sorry to my brother? Because I wronged someone. 

Some of us are still living childish before the Father, we’re letting ought-to drive us, still don’t want to. I know that this just turned into a therapeutic session, but that’s what Peter’s dealing with. He’s dealing with the Church’s ability to grab on to the love of the Father, to understand it. 

Paul in Ephesians 3 will say, “Here’s my prayer. I want you to understand how wide, how tall, how deep His love really is.” Why? Because when you understand it, you can experience the love of Christ. 

This is one of those places, when we deal with the love of the Father in Scripture, there seems to be a connection in the way it’s taught that a proper understanding of what the Scriptures teach leads us to a proper experience of what the Lord wants. 

Sometimes the Lord will give us an experience first and then educate us later. When it comes to the love of the Father, seems like they’re all talking about knowing first, experiencing second.

Would you stand with me, please? I want to take bread and cup. I saved it for the end for a reason. A lot of times I think bread and cup is a familial thing. We take it in family units and stuff. I think this is a one-on-one with the Lord moment. 

And I just want you to be willing to ask this question, I want you to be able to ask the Lord, Are there any lies in my mind that keep me from receiving Your love? Yes, He’s going to answer. You don’t have to know what those are today. 

What I would love for you to do is, if the answer is yes, I just want you to say this, I want you to commit this to Jesus today, I celebrate the bread, I celebrate the cup, and I commit. You and I are going to work this out. I’m going to go sit with You and let You begin to point out where it is that I’m not believing You like I should. You’re like, That sounds like homework. It sounds like life work. 

So, Father, we stand before You. Go back to what Paul said in Ephesians 3, “We stand before you, the Father of Heaven, from whom all the tribes, the nations, the tongues of the earth, derive their name.” You are the top relational authority that’s ever been. 

That’s what Paul really teaches. So, if we’re not healthy with You, we’re kind of rinsed. We need You to help deal with our hearts. Not conviction deal, revelation deal. Son, daughter, yeah, you need to get healthy with Me. 

As we take the bread, we take the cup, we do so in remembrance of You, Jesus. I love your invitation for that, every time we do it, just remember what You did on the cross. This is, by and large, the reason You went to the cross, is so that we could have relationship with the Father again, so that we could be restored to the original intent of Heaven, that we could walk in a naked and unashamed relationship with Heaven. 

So, as we step into the bread, and we step into the cup, we ask for Your leadership, Your voice, and Your strategy to be released to us. We love You, we honor You, in Jesus’ name, amen.