The Joy of Salvation, Part 1

God has caused us to be born again unto a living hope, and that hope is that we will receive an eternal inheritance. The inheritance can never perish, the inheritance can never be defiled, and we can never be disqualified, for we are protected by the power of God. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Here's a question for you. Is it possible to grieve and yet at the same time rejoice? Another way to ask it is, can you find joy even in the midst of terrible circumstances? Well, if you're a Christian, if you've repented and received forgiveness and bowed your knee to Jesus Christ as Lord, then the answer to that question is yes, you can.

But practically speaking, how does that work? John MacArthur will help make that clear today, giving you a fresh appreciation for God's redeeming work and showing you how to live with abiding joy. So grab your Bible if you can, turn to 1 Peter, and here's John to continue his study, our great salvation. 1 Peter chapter 1, we're looking at verses 6 through 9 in this wonderful epistle. He mentions salvation in verse 5, a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In verse 9, the salvation of your souls. In verse 10, as to this salvation, the prophets have made careful search. Three times from verse 5 to 10, he uses the word salvation. Salvation then is an element in Peter's theme. You will notice also in verse 6 that he talks about joy.

In this you greatly rejoice. In verse 8 at the end, he says you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. Now what I would conclude just very simply from that is that Peter has in mind here that we would not only understand salvation, but its implication, namely joy. Salvation, joy, is on Peter's heart in this passage.

It's fitting because it's reflective of what Peter knows about the revelation of God. The psalmist, for example, in Psalm 4-7 says God put gladness in his heart. Isaiah writing in chapter 35 verse 10 said that the ransomed of the Lord will come with joyful shouting with everlasting joy. He also said in chapter 61 that Christ was coming to give the oil of gladness. And he spoke for all the redeemed in verse 10 of that same chapter when he said, I will rejoice greatly in the Lord for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. You also remember that when the angels announced the birth of Christ, they said that there was a Savior coming and that His coming was bringing good news of great joy.

Luke 2-10. Joy and salvation were linked by the apostle Paul. He wrote that the Thessalonians had received the gospel message with joy, 1 Thessalonians 1-6. Now the sum of all of that is simply to remind us that joy is a result of God's gift of salvation. And all of us who are saved should experience that joy. That's why Paul exhorted the Christians in 1 Thessalonians 5-16 with these familiar words, Rejoice always. To the Philippians he said, Rejoice always and again I say rejoice.

Why? Because joy and rejoicing is an element within the saving work of God. And when, however, sin comes into a believer's life, joy will depart.

And David expressed that, didn't he, in Psalm 51-12 when coming out of the terrible sin of adultery and murder, he cried out to God and said, Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation. Joy is an element of salvation. It can be forfeited by sin at which point we are to be exhorted to experience again the joy that God has provided for us. Salvation then has built in joy that every believer should experience constantly. Now the question that comes to our minds is how do we experience that joy? How do we capture that joy? Let's face it, most of us are not all the time filled with joy.

We're not all the time experiencing rejoicing. What then is it that restores that joy? What is it that motivates that joy? What is it that captures that joy?

What is it that discovers that joy? Well, that's exactly what we're going to find out from Peter in verses 6-9. Before we look at those verses specifically, be reminded that it's important for Peter to bring up the subject of joy because his readers need so much to be reminded of it.

They're in a very difficult situation. They were being slandered as evildoers. In verse 19, the implication is that they were literally having to suffer unjustly, and Peter says, bear up under this unjust suffering. In verse 20 it says, they were being harshly treated and called upon to endure it with patience. In verse 21, he says to them, you've even been called for this purpose. Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.

He suffered and you will suffer as well. In chapter 3 verse 9, he says, don't return evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead. The implication is they were doing evil to these Christians. They were insulting these Christians.

They were not to retaliate. Verse 14 says, you are suffering for the sake of righteousness and thus you are blessed. And he goes on to remind them to give a defense for the faith and the hope that is in them and sanctify the Lord God in their hearts. And if need be, in verse 17, suffer for doing what is right rather than what is wrong. Chapter 4 verse 1, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose. Chapter 4 verse 12, don't be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you which comes upon you for your testing as though some strange thing were happening to you. To the degree you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing so that at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exaltation.

Verse 14 tells us they were reviled for the name of Christ. They were suffering, verse 16 says, as a Christian and were not to be ashamed but to glorify the name of the Lord. And verse 19 says that if you suffer, commit yourselves to God. Chapter 5 verse 10 says after you've suffered for a while, God will perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. Now all of those verses let us know in no uncertain terms that they were in a very, very difficult time. It was a time that easily could rob them of their joy. And that is why Peter ties joy into their salvation, reminding them of the blessedness of knowing God through Christ and that they should know joy in spite of all of that.

They're facing difficulties that in no sense should diminish their joy. Now let's look at verse 6 through 9 and you listen as I read. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while if necessary you've been distressed by various trials, that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable even though tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And though you do not see Him now but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls. That is a rich, marvelous, profound statement. And it opens up to us this whole matter of joy. Peter really answers the question here implicitly that we asked earlier, What do believers in the midst of trouble need to focus on to regain their joy?

Where do I go to find my joy when my circumstances aren't all I would like them to be? Just in general, did you notice as I read that that joy is connected to that sort of holy and familiar triumvirate of faith, hope, and love, all three of which are referred to in this section? You see, joy is not a shallow, brief emotion. It is something very deep, something tied to faith, something tied to hope, and something tied to love. Joy does not come cheaply.

It comes at great expense to God. He lays up the treasure of joy in heaven through the sacrifice of Christ. He provides that joy through all our trials by the ministry of the Spirit of God, and so the expense to the Father was to give us the Son and the Spirit in order that we might experience joy. Joy is produced by things that are much deeper than the things that produce happiness. Positive circumstances produce happiness. A positive relationship with a living God through Christ produces joy.

Happiness comes from positive events. Joy comes from a deep-down confidence that your life is hid with Christ and God. Joy is connected with salvation. So you say, well, John, where do I look at my salvation to get that joy, to discover that joy, to focus on that joy, to capture that joy? Peter tells us five things, five points of contact to rediscover your joy. I don't know where you are in your Christian life, but if you're not rejoicing always, if you're not rejoicing always in the Lord, if you don't have that deep-down sense of peace and satisfaction, that glowing heart, that burning, exhilarating thrill in your life, no matter what the circumstances are, you need to get your joy back, and Peter gives us five perspectives. Your joy is going to come from deep within. It's not related to your circumstances.

It's not related to what you're experiencing in one sense. In another, I'll show you that it is. It comes from confidence in certain things, the first one.

It comes from confidence in, one, a protected inheritance, a protected inheritance. This is the first great verity that brings salvation joy. Notice verse 6. In this you greatly rejoice. That word, greatly rejoice, is a very, very expressive term. Jesus uses it in Matthew 5, 12 in the Beatitudes, and it's translated in the Authorized Version, be exceedingly glad.

Peter uses it three times, and Paul never uses it. It is a much stronger word than the word to rejoice, Cairo, much stronger. It means to be exceedingly glad, to be super abundantly happy in the profound sense, not in the circumstantial sense. And so he calls for great rejoicing. The word is always used of spiritual joy, never temporal joy. It's always used of joy that comes from a relationship with God, never used of joy that comes from a relationship with anybody else. And since it's in the present middle voice in the Greek, it has the idea of a continual, exuberant joy and gladness. You could translate it, be jubilant, be exuberantly glad. And so he calls for great rejoicing.

Over what? In this, he says, you greatly rejoice. What does this refer to? We have to go back to verses 3 to 5. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 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 and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are, here it is, protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. We studied that, and we said that Peter here is talking about a protected inheritance that every one of us in Christ have with God.

God, through His mercy, has caused us to be born again unto a living hope, and that is a hope that ever lives. And that hope is that we will receive an eternal inheritance. The inheritance can never perish. The inheritance can never be defiled. The inheritance can never fade away. And we can never be disqualified, for we are protected by the power of God.

So we have a protected, eternal inheritance. In this, He says, you are jubilant. Where are you looking for your joy? That's the question. Are you looking for your joy in your circumstances?

It isn't there. Circumstances will betray you. But if you recognize that your joy can be found in your protected inheritance, nothing can touch that. The marvelous promise of God to every believer is that we have an eternal, imperishable, undefiled, unfading inheritance, which is our ultimate glorification in final salvation. It is presently reserved for us, securely held in heaven, until the last time when we see Jesus face to face. That glorious eternity which God the Father, by mercy, has granted to us through the new birth is the hope that fills our hearts. In this you rejoice. Beloved, get your eyes off this world.

Quit looking for your satisfaction here. It's your eternal glory in heaven that is the focus. Paul said it, set your affections on things what? Above, Colossians 3, not on things on the earth. You have the promise of a full and eternal salvation reserved for you in the safest place in the universe, the holy heaven of God.

Nothing can happen to it and nothing can happen to you. What a source of joy to realize that our full inheritance is waiting for us, that we are secure. Nothing can ever alter that and we await that inevitable moment when we receive the inheritance. That is cause for joy, cause for joy. There was a moment in the New Testament when that joy perhaps was elusive, that joy of a protected inheritance. In John 16, you remember Jesus talking to the disciples? He said, a little while and you'll not see me, again a little while and you will see me. Truly, truly I say to you, you will weep and lament but the world will rejoice.

Why? Because I'll be dead, I'll be gone and you'll weep and the world will rejoice. You'll be sorrowful and then He said, but your sorrow will be turned to what? To joy. Whenever a woman is in travail, she has sorrow because her hour has come.

But when she gives birth to the child, she remembers the anguish no more for joy that a child has been born into the world. Therefore, you too now have sorrow but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice and no one takes your joy away from you. There was a dark hour, the time when Jesus was in the grave and joy was really elusive because the promised inheritance hadn't yet really been verified. It was fine for Jesus to say, I'm going to prepare a place for you and I'm going to come again and take you to be with myself but when He was dead in the ground, it was a little hard to hold on to that and there was a moment of sorrow. But when Jesus burst out of the tomb and saw those disciples, their sorrow was turned to joy because the promise of life after death for them seemed more believable since Christ had conquered death Himself. And there was even more implied in that text in John 16. I believe Jesus was even going beyond His resurrection and talking about the coming of the Spirit.

There was still a time of difficulty, even when Jesus rose from the dead. When the disciples were struggling in their hearts with all that was going on because they had not yet received the resident Holy Spirit. And then Jesus said, I'm going to go away and send you the Spirit and the Spirit will take up residence in your life and the Spirit is the source of joy.

For Galatians 5 says, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy. Jesus had both in mind no doubt when He said, your sorrow will come but your sorrow will turn to joy. You'll weep for a while but then your weeping will turn to joy which no one will ever take from you because it is joy based on the resurrection, joy based on the coming of the Spirit for one brief moment in time. The promises of God through Christ to His own seemed elusive and the joy seemed absent. But when the resurrection came and soon after the Holy Spirit came, the joy of future inheritance came to life and no one will ever take it away again, never again. That's why Paul in Romans 5, 2 says, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. That's why he says in Romans chapter 12 in verse 12, rejoicing in hope because his hope is in the resurrection and his hope is generated by the indwelling Holy Spirit who is, mark it, the guarantee of our protected inheritance. In Ephesians chapter 1, a wonderful portion of Scripture, verse 12 says that we have hope in Christ and then in verse 13 it talks about the message, the gospel of salvation and having believed you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, listen to this, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance. The Spirit of God is the down payment on your protected inheritance.

He is the arabon, Paul uses that word, it means engagement ring, to verify that the wedding will really come off. You can rejoice, beloved, at your glorious inheritance, kept for you and you being kept for it and nothing can ever steal your joy because that joy is built on a historical fact, the resurrection of Christ. It is built on a present experience, the indwelling power and presence of the Spirit of God. That's joy and that's joy over a protected inheritance. Now if you're going through trials in life, instead of looking at this mundane temporal world with all of its problems, you need to look at your protected eternal inheritance.

If you're having trouble with that, get the series on heaven and go over it again. Now I'm not talking about pumping up emotion, you understand that? I'm not talking about something artificial, facetious or insincere. I'm not asking you to pretend to have a joy that isn't real.

I don't think you can manufacture joy. I don't want you to deny pain, I'm not asking you to deny suffering. I'm not asking you to deny sorrow or deny trouble.

It's not going to go away, but I am saying decide which way you're going to look. You look out in life of a window. You're like a train, imagine a train passing through the mountains.

We've all had that experience, most of us. And on this side of the train, and it's a train with a lot of windows to see, maybe you're up in the observation car. And on this side is a high mountain and you're running very close to it and all you can see is dark shadow. On the other side, magnificent valleys and meadows and streams and lakes are in your vision, stretching as far as your eye can see.

What are you going to look at? Well, some people in life just choose to stare at the dark mountain. That's their perspective. On the other hand, if you want to rejoice, look at your new life, your new hope, your new wealth, your security in Christ. And undoubtedly the reason that so many Christians are miserable, weighed down with burdens and guilt and unfulfilled aspirations and broken resolutions is because they don't look at their glorious, protected, eternal inheritance. Your joy, now listen carefully, must be in great part the joy of anticipation, the joy of anticipation.

And that's valid. Hey, you live with the joy of anticipation in a temporal sense. You get all pumped up months and months and months before you go on vacation. Usually the anticipation is better than the actuality.

You're about three days into your vacation and you say to yourself, why am I spending all this money? In this case, reality will far exceed anticipation. But anticipation is enough to give you joy. You're listening to John MacArthur on Grace to You. John is a pastor, author, and chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. And the message you heard today is from his series, Our Great Salvation. John, at the end of the lesson, you talked about living with the joy of anticipation.

And I know you would say that our anticipation is not only for heaven, but also while we are here on earth, we anticipate the possibility that Christ could come at any moment. So talk about that. Well, if I had the choice between dying and being caught up in the air in the rapture, that's not much of a choice. Yeah, amen.

So I've let the Lord know that. If you could please bring the rapture in my lifetime, I would be deeply appreciative of that. But you know, Paul had that anticipation. He speaks about the rapture and the taking away of the church in terms that sound like he's talking about a reality that could happen in the next few weeks or months. He speaks as if it could, and it could.

That's the doctrine of immanency. Nothing prophetically needed to happen before that, but it's just a question of when God's timing is. Yeah, we would all like to go in the rapture and just go from the joy of life in this world in the church militant into the joy of eternal life in the church triumphant. I wrote a book on this some years ago called The Second Coming.

You need to read it. It could also motivate you to faithfully give your family and friends the gospel when there is still time. Chapters in the book, The Timing of Christ's Return, The Great Tribulation, The Cosmic Signs, The Final Judgment, and many others. The Second Coming book will help take the intimidation out of prophecy, make it personal, and stir you to greater anticipation of our Lord's return. Again, available from grace to you.

Thanks, John, and friend, John's book will help you find answers you need, and it truly does take the intimidation out of Bible prophecy, showing you clearly what scripture says about Christ's return. So call and ask for the title The Second Coming when you contact us today. To order, call us at 855-GRACE, or use our website, gty.org. The Second Coming costs $15, and shipping is free.

As you study this book, you will develop an earnest longing for Christ's return, as well as confidence about how to live expectantly until He returns. Again, to order, call us at 855-GRACE, or shop online at gty.org. And thanks also for remembering that Grace to You is listener-funded.

Many people around the world tune in every day for the first time, and we're able to broadcast the verse-by-verse teaching of scripture to people like that because of friends like you who give to support our work. If you'd like to partner with us, you can mail your tax-deductible gift to Grace to You, post office box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. Or just call us at 855-GRACE.

Or you can express your support online at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Be sure to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DIRECTV Channel 378. Then be here Monday as John continues showing you the tremendous joy of our great salvation. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.