Salvation: A Glorious Election - 1 Peter 1:1-2

1:11And that encouragement comes in the form of standing firm in true grace. True grace. 1 Peter is going to pick up, chapter 1, verse 1, is going to pick up or begin the journey of strengthening and edifying these people. Before we read those verses, I want to share one of my Arkansas Hillbilly art class encounters. I spent some time in Arkansas in early high school, as many of you know. I had this one class that was an art class that was done by a really wild teacher. He was unlike any teacher I had growing up. But he gave this art assignment. And he said, you've got to go do a portrait of something. Okay, so I went and what do I do? And he said, take a portrait, take a magazine, and draw a picture of it. That was the assignment. So I went home. There was a magazine, and on that magazine was an Indian chief, a face of an Indian chief. So I said, I'm going to draw that. And I started drawing on it, or drawing it. And I don't have very much art practice, but I just started drawing, and I really got into it. I mean, I started getting so excited about this art project. It was all that I wanted to do. In fact, I have a distinct memory of sitting by my desk, and we lived close enough to the football stadium, and it was one of those big events, and it may even have been homecoming. And I was sitting there drawing on my picture, and I could hear all the crowd yelling and screaming, and I was just sitting and thinking, Lord, thank you that I can sit. Here and do this and not be out there. I was so excited and taken with this art project. Well, this guy was also a real character when it came time to critique art. In fact, he's very scary. He would, I don't know where he learned how to do this, but he'd walk down and look at people's art projects, and he would literally take them, tear them, throw them, trash them, and he would say, What is this? I mean, it was, he was frightful in that sense. And I was like, This isn't PC, this isn't anything. Well, I finished my art project, and I came the fateful day when he was going to look at it. And you're not going to believe what he did.

3:46But I'll tell you in a little bit. Let's look at 1 Peter 1: Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens scattered through Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithnia, 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 yours in the fullest measure. So here we come at the very beginning of Peter's letter to these battered and persecuted people, and he starts with election. Election.

4:29And this caused. Some consternation for many people. In fact, when you hear the word election, a lot of people run into their corners as if this is one big boxing arena and they've got their own understanding of what election is and their own explanation of it. And so everybody goes to their corners and starts saying, Okay, I'm going to see how this guy handles this now. We've got the hot one right here, right? Don't let that be you. You see, we tend to approach this passage as if Peter was writing to a bunch of seminary students that were engaged in a theological debate over God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. But Peter isn't writing to a bunch of academians that he's trying to settle the theological nuances or explain the mystery of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility in salvation. He is writing to encourage his brothers and sisters to stand firm in the true grace.

5:27In fact, he knows their lives depend upon it. And he addresses them. The first words out of his mouth are elect ones. He says, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. And then the very next word in the Greek is electos. You elect ones. He starts out by saying, you wonderful ones, you highly favored ones, you choice ones, you most excellent ones. That's how he begins this letter. And from the opening greeting to the end of the letter, Peter puts things into an eternal perspective. And he had to, because there was nothing comforting in their present circumstances. I mean, what do you say to somebody who Nero has taken one of their family members, dipped him in tar, lit him on fire to light his gardens? What do you say to a mother who has lost children because of the cause of Christ?

6:29who have been displaced from their home because of the cause of Christ. What do you say to people like this? Because it creates an incredible theological problem. God, where are you? God, do you love me? God, are you sufficient? God, have you forgotten? And so Peter doesn't try to comfort them from their present circumstances. He puts everything in an eternal perspective, and that is how he begins to comfort them. And he starts out with elect ones, special ones.

7:06Although you are despised by the world, know that you are choice in God's eyes. Nothing is happening outside his control, his power, or his good pleasure. Understand that. And what could be more affirming or more comforting than to reiterate to somebody your special standing? You are. God's. He does love you supremely. And that's how he starts out this letter. You see, it was their elect status that guaranteed their final salvation and the future glory that they will experience. And their salvation was secure. Don't worry about that. It's secure, he's saying. God hasn't forgotten you. Your salvation didn't begin in the realm of man, it began in the mind of God. It's sure.

8:03And so he doesn't begin with the shiftiness of man. He doesn't set the foundation of their salvation or our salvation upon the shiftiness of man, upon the unreliableness. Even we know ourselves, right? We are unreliable. And something as eternal as salvation and eternal life, I really don't want that riding upon my shoulders. So Peter begins his whole endeavor to strengthen his beaten and distressed people to stand firm upon the sure footing of God's election. If you come to this passage with a seminary mindset or with a debating mindset, understand you're going to miss what Peter is doing with this doctrine. He is laying the foundation and the philosophical and biblical foundation on which they can. Can stand in a society that is rapidly turned against them. You see, we understand that a building of any kind must start upon a firm foundation, right? I remember when I was moving down here to College Station eight years ago, I didn't want to buy a house that was less than 10 years old because I know about the soils down here in Bryan College Station. There's a lot of clays, they move around a lot. So I wanted to make sure I had a house that was old enough to where I could see how it weathered the storm. And the foundation of our home is incredible. I don't know, somebody was pretty concerned about the soils as well. They put 80 big old concrete columns that go down way down into the subsoil. And upon that, they tied their whole foundation together. I mean, the thing's not moving. It doesn't show any cracks externally. There's one on the inside.

9:58But it's normal. But my point is, it's upon this footing of salvation, this unconditional, unmerited, unsolicited, undeserved favor, is where Peter begins to encourage his people. And when you get down to it, that's where true encouragement comes from. It's the only sure foundation for true grace. Anything else is a faulty foundation, unmerited favor. Unconditional election. This is the only thing that we have of value in this world. That is where it all begins. It is this unconditional favor that drove the cross, that drives the new heaven and the new earth. All of history begins with this unmerited favor of God upon his people.

11:01Well, this unmerited favor or unconditional election, undeserved blessing, is the headwaters of true grace. And it's Peter's starting point to teach his people how to live victorious in a world that is bitterly opposed to them. Stand firm. And here's the solid foundation upon which you will be able to stand firm. If this one's shifty, you're not going to be able to stand firm. But if you can settle in your mind that God loves me, His favor is upon me, and that began in His mind, not in what I did, then you're on good ground.

11:39Well, one of the very important principles of valid interpretation is understanding the meaning of the words. And Peter uses the word electos. And a good principle is to understand how Peter uses that word throughout his letter. Before you Import your idea of what election means, you begin with how Peter uses the term. And generally, if you look over at chapter 2 and verse 4, he's speaking about Christ, the choice one. The electos in Peter's near vernacular is, it means choice. Electos means choice, select, excellent. And he uses it to refer to Christ as a living stone. Look at verse 2, 4, and coming to him as a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice. There's that word, electos and precious in the sight of God. That's how Peter's using the term. In verse 6 of chapter 2, he says, Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious stone, excellent one, a choice one, a preferred one, an excellent one. That's how he's using it. But then there's another term that's right after that. And that is the word that we translate as aliens.

13:08And then we translate this word as sometimes foreigner, sojourner. But the idea of this word is that it contains the foreign nationality and the temporal residence. An alien, a temporal resident, somebody from another place, here for a little while and then gone, sojourning. So he refers to these people. People as God's elect strangers in the world, God's choice ones, God's elect pilgrims, or call it elect foreigners, elect chosen outsiders. Or you can get fun with it, you know, and you can say, okay, these are his choice aliens, all right? Or how about first-class freaks? Okay?

13:54That's what you say, electos, aliens, or you know, they're prime ones, but they're also odd ones. So we could refer to them as the prime oddities, okay? Or how about really cool extraterrestrials? Or how about wonderful weirdos? You get to get the picture. These two words are, there's a juxtaposition of these two words, but I would settle on the word elect pilgrims. That's what he's, they're elect and they're pilgrims. And both terms are fitting designation for the believer. Chosen ones, elect, but pilgrims. They were pilgrims in the sense that many had lost their homes or been displaced or had become unwelcomed in their world. So they were outsiders. They were pilgrims just passing through. They didn't fit in. So they're pilgrims, but they were also elect. They were elect. And that's the designation. They were choice. They were precious. Even though the world didn't value them, God did. And that's what Peter. Is telling them. He says, and there are three acts that make this electos a fitting designation for every believer. We'll just go through the first one. Three acts, comprehensive, total, complete, that make elect or the electos a fitting designation. The elect the right designation for every true believer. And the first is the loving will of the Father. Look back at verse 2. They are elect or chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. And that word is the word foreknowledge comes from the word gnosis and pro, meaning before knowing or foreknowing. We use it as a medical term, prognosis. You've heard that? We have some medical people in the room. The prognosis is foreknowledge. That you go to a doctor and you say, doctor, check me out. What's the prognosis? Well, I've seen this before. Here's the pattern. This is what's going to happen to you. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And he can make a prognosis based upon a pool of information. Well, this is the Father's prognosis. In this sense, his people are elect according to his foreknowledge. They will be his choice ones. This is the prognosis that he has for every person who has put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Christ, the prognosis of the Father is, you will be.

16:37My choice ones, my beautiful ones. But this understanding, and it's correct as far as it goes, but it doesn't catch the full meaning of the word. Foreknowledge is a compound word that simply means knowing, that means more than just simply knowing beforehand, as in some abstract knowledge. Some would interpret this, that God looked down through the corridors of time, saw who would put their faith in them, and then upon that basis he elected them. But that is not what this is saying at all.

17:11The word know throughout Scripture, to know, carries the idea of special intimacy. Adam knew his wife, and they conceived a child, had relations with, even in Matthew 1.25, speaking of Joseph, the New American Standard translates the phrase that literally means did not know her. It's translated as kept her a virgin. There is a picture of special intimacy involved. So the gnosis or to know implies throughout Scripture an intimacy, a relational intimacy. In fact, Jesus used the same word when he warned, he said, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Now, he knew about them. He knew they practiced lawlessness. He had abstract information. He knew all about them, but he didn't know them in the sense of a loving relationship. So he said, I never knew you. The same word in Amos 3 is translated as chosen, chosen, to speaking of the family of Israel. But look at verse 20. Look at verse 20 in chapter 1. It's the same term that's used to talk about Christ.

18:38He was foreknown before the foundation of the world. The same Greek word translated foreknown in verse 20 is the same one speaking about the believers in verse 2. And when Christ is talking, when God the Father is talking about his foreknowledge of the Son, he is talking about an intimate relationship. He's not just talking about some abstract concept out there that he knows. He's talking about an intimate and special loving relationship. And so what's happening here, and what Peter is affirming, is that just as the Father had a loving relationship with the Son, so he has a special and loving relationship with his people. He is making the connection between the two. 2. Both the Savior and those he saves are intimately foreloved by the Father. That's what he's getting across.

19:42And remember Peter's sermon in Acts chapter 2. He says, men, he's preaching to the people in Jerusalem at Pentecost. And he comes to, he's speaking about Christ, and he goes, This man delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. In this context, the foreknowledge involves a predetermined plan. So you put all this together, and what Peter is saying is, look, Christians are foreordained for salvation in the same way Christ was foreordained to be a sacrifice for sin. Pause. Think about that.

20:24The Savior and the saved are foreloved. I don't know why it's so hard to understand. If you're going to have a Savior, you're going to have those he saved. And if you're going to give the life of the Savior for those he's going to save, there is a forelove. Why do people have such a difficult time with this teaching? Why do we? I think it's because of our lack of faith. I don't think we can really, we have a difficult time believing that God has. Really selected me. And then, where this goes is, people say, Well, what about the non-elect? Let me tell you about the non-elect. And I'm not going to be able to stand up here and presuppose I'm going to be able to answer all the mystery involved, but I can tell you this: the non-elect do not want to be the elect.

21:17They do not want Christ in their life. They do not want to obey him. They do not delight in his ways. Shackling them to Christ would be like throwing them in prison. They cannot stand his ways. They don't like his morality. They don't want him in their life. But I think the bottom line is: he's talking to believers here. And he's not in a legal setting, he's in a comforting setting. I mean, do you really believe that God hasn't thought through all the details of salvation? Do you really think that you are some sound just happened out there in the cosmos? Do you really believe that God loves you?

22:12And that not based upon anything you've done. That's the foundation of true grace. So the Father's prognosis is that his people will be choice. They will be choice ones, much like Christ is the choice one. And this is due to the loving will of the Father. His loving will is comprehensive. He's thought through every detail. You can look into nature and just see how he has thought through every little detail wonderfully, precisely, beautifully, harmoniously, graciously, just awesomely, if there is such a word.

22:54And all this creation is going away. You are going to remain. How much more has he given thought into you? Now, our problem with this doctrine is that we don't believe it. It sounds too good to be true. But to know that you are known by God is that anchor for the soul, that firm foundation. And no matter what happens around you, you can stand firm. And that's where Peter begins his letter. But there are two other reasons why Electos is a fitting description of God's people. So, first, the loving will of the Father. Second, the sanctifying work of the Spirit. The sanctifying work of the Spirit. Look back at verse 2. Chosen by the foreknowledge of God, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood. The word for or the process of sanctification is the process of taking somebody out of the common and making them distinct, making them holy, sanctifying, set apart. That's the whole idea of sanctifying, setting apart.

24:20And it's the operation of the Spirit to make someone holy, the sanctifying work, to set them apart for God. And this is what the Spirit does. The Spirit of truth proceeds from the Father. Think of the Holy Spirit as the one who carries out the will of the Father. You saw this in creation. As God spoke, there is the Spirit bringing into being the things that God wills. And one of the first things that the Spirit gives is He gives God's people a desire for heavenly things. I think Calvin still has one of the best quotes on this. Therefore, as we can never come to Christ unless we are drawn by the Spirit of God, so when we are drawn, we are raised both in mind and heart above the reach of our own understanding. For illumined by Him, the soul receives, as it were, new eyes for the contemplation of heavenly mysteries, by the splendor of which it was never before dazzled. And thus the human intellect, irradiated by the light of the Holy Spirit, then Begins to relish those things which pertain to the kingdom of God, for which before it had not the smallest taste. In other words, one of the first works of the Spirit in your life is to give you a desire for heavenly things, to give you a desire for God. This is his work. But read on through the New Testament, and it's clear that the Spirit regenerates other language, he adopts, places you in the family, he seals, he indwells, he imparts spiritual gifts to, he guides, he intercedes for, he produces fruit in. He's the one that will raise the body. And all of this, all of the work, his comprehensive sanctifying work, is for the purpose of transferring believers from darkness to light, from the penalty and power and sin to the blessing of Christ and his righteousness, from a love of sin to a love of righteousness. This is a sanctifying work, but if you look back at verse 2, there's a specific goal of his work mentioned here in verse 2. By the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood.

26:49To obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled him with his blood. Verse 13 and 14 of chapter 1, therefore prepare your minds for action, keep sober. In spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ in verse 14 as obedient children. There's that word, obedience, obeying him. Then he goes on in chapter 2 and verse 4. What's the first act of obedience? Coming to him. Coming to him. If you do not come to Christ, you are not being obedient to Christ. You are resisting the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in your life if you do not come to Christ.

27:30Because that is what he does. And he says in verse 4, and coming to him as a living stone, which has been rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God. Come to him. You too are being built up as living stones. Then he goes on in verse 7, verse 6, for this is contained in Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes in him will not be disappointed. This precious value then is for you who believe.

28:01All the values of the choice stone, the spiritual building, the work of Christ, all that is for you who believe and come to him. But, look at verse 7. For those who disbelieve, the stone which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. For they stumble because they are disobedient to the word. And to this doom they were also appointed. What is the doom? Stumbling over Christ. Why were they doomed? Because they were disobedient to the Word. And that's how Peter leaves it.

28:37They stumbled. And to this doom they were appointed because they were disobedient to the Word. So to be obedient to Christ, but then look at to be sprinkled with His blood. Not only to be obedient to Christ, to obey Jesus Christ, the work of the Spirit, and if you think about what the work of the Spirit is in your life, it's to prepare you to be a person who will obey Jesus Christ. Failure to obey Jesus Christ is resisting His Holy Spirit. But there's more. To be sprinkled with His blood. And that brings us to the third comprehensive act that guarantees or that makes elect or the elect the appropriate term for God's people. The perfect sacrifice of the Son.

29:31John 4:34, Jesus said, My food is to do the will of him who sent me. John 6:38, I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. Christ's whole disposition in life was to do the will of the Father. You see how these are connected? The loving will of the Father was that you be set aside for his glory. So the Spirit has a sanctifying role in that. And the Son. As a sanctifying sacrifice in that. But he marches to the will of the Father. But this picture of sprinkling blood takes our minds back to Exodus 24.

30:14If you'll remember in Exodus, the Israelites had just come out of Egypt. God had saved them. And our understanding of salvation comes out of that Exodus account. And he had just brought them out. And he brings them to this mountain where he's going to meet with them, Mount Sinai. And he scares the daylights out of everybody. The thunder, the lightning, the fire, the smoke. And in Exodus 19, I'll tell you what happened before, there was blood sprinkled. He comes down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And he says, in 19, verse 12, he says, You shall set bounds for the people all around, saying, Beware that you do not go up on the mountain or touch the border of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death, whether beast or man, he shall not live. In other words, God put a boundary and said, You don't come on this mountain or you die. Now, then there was this event in Exodus 24 where the blood was sprinkled. Let me just pick that up and read this account to you. Exodus 24, verse 3. Then Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the Lord and all of the ordinances. And all the people answered with one voice and said, Said, all the words which the Lord has spoken, we will do. We will be obedient, is what they're saying. Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. Then he arose early in the morning, and he built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the sons of Israel, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the Lord. Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and the other half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. So he took the blood of the sacrifice, half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And then in verse 7, look what he does with the other half. Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people and said, And they said, All that the Lord has spoken, we will do and be obedient. And then in verse 8, he takes the blood. Then Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, The blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. Now, I want to show you what happens in verse 9. Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel. And they saw the God of Israel, and under his feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself. Yet he, God, did not stretch out his hand against the nobles of the sons of Israel. And they saw God, and they ate and drank. You see, before.

33:00The sprinkling, they could not go up on the mountain and see God. But after the sprinkling, the representatives of Israel were allowed. But note the parallel: the obedience and the sprinkling. This is the sanctifying work in the Holy Spirit, of the Holy Spirit in the life of the New Testament believer. Obedience and sprinkling. And see, being sprinkled by his blood has the idea of gaining the benefits of Christ's death. Being sprinkled with his blood means you inherit the benefits of why that blood was shed. And it brings the blessings of the new covenant. And this is what Jesus said in Mark 24: this is the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.

33:57So, by three comprehensive acts, the term elect is a fitting term to identify God's people. Because the loving will of the Father guarantees it, the sanctifying work of the Spirit guarantees it, and the perfect sacrifice of the Son guarantees it. I mean, think about it. You think there's going to be some mess-up in the Trinity? I mean, you see the whole triune God involved in sanctions. In salvation and glorifying his people. I mean, do you think that the Spirit's going to say, you know, that one was just too hard? I know you wanted that one saved, Father, but that was just, poo, that guy was way gone.

34:46Or do you see it, or do you think, do you picture the Son coming up saying, my blood was good, but that guy just wasn't good enough for him? It's blasphemous, isn't it, to even think that. That's why God's word, when He calls His people the elect, you choice ones, you beautiful ones, this world is not your home, is the foundation for true grace and where we can stand. A good question comes up. Can't leave without this one. How do you know if you're one of the elect? Kind of expected that, right?

35:27Well, you can't really prove your election empirically, but you can prove your salvation. You prove your salvation and then never doubt your election because your salvation is a result of your election. So don't spend time trying to figure out the, you know, spend time trying to figure out if you're truly in the faith or not, if you're truly saved. And understand that if you're truly in the faith, You are elect because that's driving it. But still, how do you know if you're saved? Well, another principle of valid interpretation is to not only see how the term is used by the author, but see how the term is used by other New Testament authors, specifically the word electos. How is that used by others? Well, Jesus answers this question for us. In the Gospels, in Matthew 22, 14, it's used to describe those who are chosen. But let me just read to you. In this context, the chosen are the ones who respond positively to the privileges of God's grace.

36:42Just read to you a parable. Jesus is in the temple. He's already cleansed it. There's the leaders that are rejecting him in the process of plotting his murder. And then he tells this parable. In Matthew 22, 1, he says, Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come. So first invitation rejected. Then in verse 4, second invitation. Again, he sent out other slaves, saying, Tell those who have been invited, Behold, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat and livestock are butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast. So he's like, this feast is going on. It's all ready. Verse 5, but they paid no attention. And went their own way, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed him. But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. Then the third wave of invitation, verse 8. Then he said to his slaves, The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast. Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good. And the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests. But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes. And he said to him, Friend, how did you come here without wedding clothes? And the man was speechless. He either rejected the wedding clothes that were offered to him at the feast, which was customary, or he did not properly put on clothes that would honor the occasion. And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, for many are called, but few are chosen. The chosen ones are the ones who respond positively to God's grace in this country. Context. Put on the robe of righteousness. Put on the grace.

39:08In Colossians 3.12, Paul uses this term. So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, so because you are God's chosen, holy and beloved, put on, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. That's the proper attire. The humility, putting on, taking in the benefits of His grace, putting on the character and attitude and welcoming the character and attitude of Christ. And if you do not see a welcoming of the character and nature of Christ in your life, then the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit is not happening.

39:58But if you see, like Peter saw in these people, he saw the evidences of true salvation. And this was cause for great salvation, I mean great rejoicing, joy, because what had taken place was evidence of true salvation. That means God's, what happened in eternity past and what happens in eternity future are all connected. And this is just one indication that you are God's elect, chosen, beautiful ones. And on that basis, stand firm. That's the eternal perspective, and I can see it in your life, and I can encourage you in that sense. And that's what he's doing.

40:45I want to give a final word about election. It's glorious, it's glorious. 1 Peter 5:10. After you have suffered a little while, keep in mind, these are people suffering, as we have said and re-said and said again. They are bruised and battered. After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, eternal glory in Christ, will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. The question is, what is glory?

41:26Glad you asked. Peter gives us, in 1.17, he gives us an idea of what that glory is. 2 Peter 1.17, he's speaking about when he was up on the mountain and he saw Christ transfigured before him. He saw the glory of the Lord. And then he says this about it. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, okay, here's Christ receiving honor and glory from God the Father. Such an utterance was. Was made to him by the majestic glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Underline that, if you dare.

42:09The glory and honor was the good pleasure of the Father. C.S. Lewis, in his sermon, The Weight of Glory, which some attribute to him as being his best, says some remarkable things. I think he captures the essence of this. He's talking about how one of the greatest things is to receive pleasure, and not a sinful kind of pleasure, receive the pleasure of somebody else. The kind smile, the praise. He says, even a child, you can see it in a child. I can see it in my dog when I'm in my study, and my dog's sitting over there, and I look at him and I frown. He cowers down. And when I even smile at him, he gets up, starts wagging his tail, and he wants to come over me. We see it in a child, a desire, an innocent desire for the affirmation to be praised. Then he goes on and he says this. In the end, that face, which is the delight or terror of the universe, must be turned upon each of us, either with one expression. Or the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. This is the promise of glory, he says, that some of us, that any of us who really desires or chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval. They shall please God. And then he says this: to please God, to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness, to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son. It seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is. My elect one, in whom I am well pleased. Well, that brings me back to my art class. It came time for him to look at my painting, not painting, my drawing. He picks up my drawing and he looks at it and his countenance, and I saw it just briefly, there was an expression of approval. And you know what he did? He said, this drawing is mine, Tom Baber. I was like.

44:52And he took it to show others' classes. He was known to take people's artwork and keep it in his personal. Collection. But that was probably, that gave me more honor. Now, as I look back, see, that was more honorable than if I had that. I probably would have lost the drawing anyway. But see, I want you to understand something. An art teacher delights in making artists, those who love art. And my work reflected somebody who just took the assignment and loved it and went with it. He wants to, his delight is in making artists, those who are zealous for art. Oh, God the Father delights in making disciples of Christ. Those who love his Son. That is what he loves. Those who are zealous for his son, like he is zealous for his son.

45:54That is the glory. That is the glory that awaits all of God's people because of the loving will of the Father, because of the sanctifying work of the Spirit, and because of the perfect sacrifice of the Son. And in that grace, we can stand firm. And if you don't know that grace, your responsibility today is to come to him and ask him for it. And we can baptize you next week. Heavenly Father. We do thank you for your great grace. Father, we thank you for this anchor for the soul. Lord, give us the faith to truly believe that we are not some cosmic accident, but that you had your mind on us before we ever stepped foot on this globe. And, Father, you have a future for us that as Peter can truly rejoice in, there is no other response, Father, but looking ahead, no matter what happens in this world or the days of our sojourning upon this earth, Father, we know what is to come. And we thank you for your great grace. In Jesus' name.