The Joy of Salvation, Part 2 B

We have a constant present tense salvation.

That's what he's talking about here. The present result of your proven faith is the ongoing deliverance that you enjoy. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Shortly after becoming the first president of the United States, George Washington reflected on the violent struggle the new country had just come through, and he said, The value of liberty was enhanced, in my opinion, by how much it cost to win, and the character of our people was validated by the trials they endured. In other words, the greater the adversity, the sweeter the prize. That's a perspective you'll want to keep in mind today as John MacArthur continues his look at the purposes of heartache in the life of every Christian. It's a truth from 1 Peter that you can lean on when trials heat up and your joy is sapped. The title of John's current series, Our Great Salvation. And now here's John. Do you remember Luke chapter 12?

Let me just refer to it briefly. Verse 35, Be dressed in readiness and keep your lamps alit, and be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast so that they may immediately open the doors to him when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master shall find on the alert when he comes. Truly I say to you that he will gird himself to serve, that when Jesus comes for us, not only will we serve him, but he will what? Serve us. He will serve us.

He will have us recline at table and will come up and wait on us. Praise, glory, and honor given to us. Peter says, no matter what your circumstances, no matter what your trials, you should have full joy.

You should greatly rejoice in your protected inheritance, your proven faith, your promised honor. Fourthly, and this is so magnificent, we find joy in a personal fellowship, a personal fellowship. And I would perhaps say that in many ways this is the sweetest of all sources of joy, wonderful to contemplate.

Notice verse 8. 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. Why do you rejoice? Why do you greatly rejoice?

Why is your great joy inexpressible and full of glory? Because you love him and because you trust him. That's the two things he says. You love him and you believe in him.

And you've never seen him. Peter exalts love and trust. Can I tell you right now that that is a profound statement in that verse? I am convinced beyond equivocation that the two key ingredients in any meaningful relationship are love and trust. Love and trust. That is the essence of relationship. It is the source of surpassing joy in any relationship. Violate love and the relationship disintegrates.

Violate trust and the relationship disintegrates. There's some real deep pathos in this verse, deep pathos. Which of the apostles apart from Judas most demonstrated a weak trust and faith in Christ? Which one? Which one? Peter. Which of the apostles of Christ apart from Judas had to face Jesus Christ and have his love questioned?

Which one? Peter. Peter was the leader to whom it was said, O you of little faith. Peter was the leader to whom Jesus said three times, Peter, do you what?

Love me. And I see here some very beautiful humility. And Peter commends these suffering believers and says to them, you've never seen him and you love him. And you don't see him now, but you believe in him. And the pathos in the background is the humble attitude of Peter because in his heart he is saying, you're far beyond where I am or where I was because I saw him and I couldn't sustain my love.

And I saw him and I couldn't sustain my faith. Peter in true humility reflects on the difference between himself in the past and these troubled Christians. He had seen Christ, walked with Christ, been with Christ over three years, and he demonstrated a weak faith and a weak love. And they had never seen Christ and yet their faith was strong and their love was true in the midst of the same kind of trials to which Peter succumbed.

And so there's some deep pathos in this beautiful verse in the heart of Peter as a humble, humble man is opened up. Would you notice that first phrase in verse 8, though you have not seen him? Though you have not seen him. Oh, that's such a profound statement.

You see, it's usual to trust and love someone you've seen, someone you've touched, someone you've come to know. But these Christians had never met Jesus Christ. Like us, they never looked into His face. They never touched Him. They never ate with Him. They never walked with Him. They never talked with Him. They never heard His voice. They never felt His hands.

They never gazed into His eyes. And yet, He says, you love Him. Present active indicative agapao, you are loving Him. Constantly, the love of choice, that word expresses the love of the will.

You have chosen to be faithful in loving Him. And that, to me, is the essence of joy. It's that intimate love relationship you have with Christ.

Now let me just take this a little bit deeper. I believe that what Peter is saying here is categorically the description of the essence of what it means to be a Christian. If you ask me what is a Christian, I will tell you it is someone who loves Jesus Christ, with the love of the will, who loves Him. I don't believe there's any better way to describe the essential expression of the new nature than to say it loves Christ continually. I love the authorized translation of 1 Peter 2, 7, to those who believe, He is precious. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16, 22, if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be what?

Anathema, devoted to destruction, cursed. The Christian can best be described as someone who loves the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's really where you need to probe when seeking to determine someone's relationship to God.

Ask them what they think of Jesus Christ. And if they describe an intimate and consuming love for Christ, that's the mark of a transformed heart, loving Christ. 1 John deals with that so wonderfully. 1 John, do you remember chapter 4, verse 19? We love Him because what? He first loved us.

That's reciprocation. It is the essence of spiritual life to love Christ. That's why the Scripture says that the law is fulfilled in loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Listen to what Paul said. At the very last verse of Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 24, grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an incorruptible love. Isn't that wonderful? Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an incorruptible love.

That's basic. And I would dare say that anyone who says they don't love the Lord Jesus Christ could never be a Christian. That's the essence of Christianity. Jesus said it in John 14, verse 15, if you love Me, you'll keep My commandments. Verse 21, He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. Verse 24, He who does not love Me does not keep My words. In other words, Jesus linked loving Him with obeying Him, loving Him with keeping His commandments. And so, a believer is one who loves Christ. And so, Peter says, I really know that your joy flows out of your love for Christ, an unseen Master whom you love.

And then secondly, he says, and though you do not see Him now, implied with the physical eyes, but believe into Him, ace actually in the Greek. In other words, even though you don't see Him, you believe in Him. You trust in Him.

So, there are the two elements of a relationship, love and trust. And you remember, I'm sure you do, John 20, 29, Jesus said to Thomas, Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet what?

Believed. Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believed. Those are the two things that bind us to Christ in intimacy.

We love Him and we trust Him. Beloved, may I say to you, the soul that believes cannot but love and the soul that loves cannot help but believe. You remember 1 Corinthians 13, love believes all things.

Let me put it to you this way. Faith accepts the record of Jesus Christ. That record portrays Him in all His beauty and all His loveliness and leads us to loving Him. The more faith can know of Christ and have that knowledge possess the heart, the stronger love becomes. Because the more faith believes the truth of Christ, the more marvelous and lovely He is seen to be and the more such trust elicits love to one who is so wonderful. So, believing and loving, loving and believing defines our intimate communion with Christ. You love Him and you believe in Him.

How does that manifest? You long to promote His glory. Is that your longing? You long to serve Him with your heart and soul and mind and strength. You delight in His beauty. You love to talk about Him. You love to read about Him. You love to fellowship with Him. You desire to know Him better and to know Him deeper.

You're compelled in your heart to want to be like Him. That's the expression of the love-trust relationship. Robert Layton writing in 1853 in a wonderful commentary on 1 Peter said this, Believe and you shall love. Believe much and you shall love much. Labor for strong and deep persuasion of the glorious things which are spoken of Christ and this will command love.

Certainly did men indeed believe His worth, they would accordingly love Him. For the reasonable creature cannot but affect that most which it firmly believes to be the worthiest of affection. Oh, this mischievous unbelief is that which makes the heart cold and dead toward God.

Seek then to believe Christ's excellency and His love to us and our interest in Him. And this will kindle such a fire in the heart as will make it ascend in a sacrifice of love to Him." That's the living heart of our relationship to Christ.

We trust Him and we love Him. Do you enjoy that kind of relationship? That's cause for joy, isn't it? Do you ever just read about Christ and rejoice? You ever come off your knees in prayer having communed with Him to rejoice?

Do you just rejoice because you believe in Him and you are confident in that faith? Do you sometimes just feel a thrill in your heart because you have the joy of loving Him? Personally, I think we would all agree that love felt is far more wonderful than love received. My love for others is much more exhilarating to me than their love for me. I am much more thrilled with loving others than I am about them loving me. Because when I love them, I experience the love and I rejoice in my heart out of the joy of loving Christ. That's thrilling to me.

In many ways, more so than His loving me, for I can feel deeply my love for Him. So we rejoice. And what makes us rejoice?

A protected inheritance, a proven faith, a promised honor, and a personal fellowship. And it gives us, notice at the end of verse 8, rejoicing that is joy inexpressible. What does that mean? Anelito, it's above language. It is above speech.

Higher than speech is what that literally says. It's so divine that exceeds the power of speech and thought. You can't communicate it. It's hard enough to communicate loving other people. I mean, we try in the human realm, songs about love are ad infinitum ad nauseum, aren't they? I mean, we just keep piling them up, trying to express all the feelings of love from a human to a human. But the love that we have for Him, inexpressible, higher than speech. By the way, that's the only place that word is ever used. And then it adds this incredible statement, and full of glory.

What does that mean? I believe it means it's energized and endowed with divine glory. It is a supernatural endowment. What a thought.

What a thought. It is the fruit of the Spirit, love. It is the fruit of the Spirit, joy.

The love that we have for the Lord is not a human love, it is a divine glory infused into us, which energizes our hearts to love God with the love that He gives us. And we rejoice with the joy that is the joy of the Spirit. Our joy then is the radiation of a heavenly joy because our love is the radiation of a heavenly love. So we rejoice.

And then Peter gives us one final thought. We constantly should experience joy because of a present deliverance. A present deliverance beyond the future inheritance and honor, and alongside the present personal fellowship is the promise of a present deliverance. Verse 9, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

I don't think he's looking at the future here. He doesn't say you will obtain. It's present tense. Obtaining here and now, present. You could literally translate this, presently receiving for yourselves.

It's a middle voice. The word, by the way, comizo means to receive what is deserved, to win something that is due to you. And joy inexpressible and full of glory links not only to verse 8 but also to verse 9. Flowing out of that personal fellowship we have with Christ through love and trust is the outcome of our faith which we have here and now obtained, namely the salvation of your souls. So you now possess the outcome of your faith or the result, the end, the result of your faith, the logical end of it, the logical result of it, even the salvation of your souls. What's salvation?

That ongoing present tense deliverance. What does soul mean? The whole person? The whole person? You?

You could read it this way. You rejoice because you presently have obtained and continue to hold the logical result of your proven faith, even the constant deliverance of yourself. From what? Oh, what do we need to be continually delivered from? Sin, guilt, condemnation, wrath, ignorance, distress, confusion, hopelessness, everything that's fallen and defiling.

It's not a future thing he's talking about. We're delivered. We're delivered from the power of sin. We're delivered from its delights, from its passions and pleasures. And in exchange for that, he gives us new life and unspeakable joy. We have a constant present tense salvation.

That's what he's talking about here. The present result of your proven faith is the ongoing deliverance that you enjoy. Our salvation right here and now rescues us from sordid, damning, scarring delights and causes us to long for Christ. Our salvation present tense, to make it a prosaic picture, calls men and women to drink no longer from the filthy, vile mud puddle of sin, but the crystal streams of the fountain of eternal life. And so here we are in this world and we're under all the pressures, but sin no longer has what over us?

Dominion. We are no longer its slaves. We are no longer in bondage to it. And so we have joy. Joy not just in the future, joy in the present because of a present deliverance. And so there's even joy in our trials because the Lord delivers us from them all. There's no trial that ever comes our way that the Lord won't make a way of escape. Well, there's really no reason that we should lose our joy, is there?

We can look to a protected inheritance. We can thank God for a proven faith. We can hope for a promised honor. And we can enjoy a personal communion and fellowship and a present deliverance. Beloved, you need to tap the resources of joy that are available for you as a Christian. Jesus said in John 15, 11, these things I've spoken unto you that my joy might be in you, that your joy might be full.

He wants us to know joy, and we will know that joy as we focus on these great realities. Jean Sophia Pigault many years ago wrote a lovely hymn. The words of one verse go like this, Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what thou art. I am finding out the sweetness of thy loving heart.

Isn't that beautiful? Are you resting in the joy of who He is and finding the sweetness in His loving heart? Many centuries ago, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote what has now become a familiar hymn, Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts.

It's nothing new. Whether you go back a couple of generations to the lady who wrote the hymn or centuries to Bernard of Clairvaux, the Christians who tapped their spiritual resources lived in joy no matter what the circumstances were. And I don't think God expects us to live in any different way. I trust that you will know the joy that Christ longs to give to you. Let's bow together in prayer. Would you just take a moment in silence and would you, if you need to, pray the prayer that David prayed, Lord, restore to me the joy of thy salvation. And would you ask the Lord to give you the fullness of His joy. Father, we would pray also for those who do not know Christ, for whom this joy is a fantasy. O Lord Jesus, may they receive you today, opening their heart, accepting the gift of salvation which you offer through your death and resurrection, receiving the forgiveness of sins and eternal life, work your great work in every heart, that we may know joy that will redound to your praise forever and ever.

You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. The title of John's current study, Our Great Salvation. Well, it's encouraging to realize that for the believer there's really no reason ever to lose joy. Of course, that doesn't mean Christians are immune from difficulty, from trials that can rob their joy. So let me just ask, John, would you say it's possible for a mature Christian not only to lose his or her joy, but also to struggle with worry? Yeah, everybody has the moments of worry and fear, some of them induced by dangers and threats that come into our lives. Not only is it possible, it's normal to worry about certain things, but it's really not acceptable to God. It is an evidence of one's failure to trust God in the midst of every single trial. You know, the Bible says don't be anxious for anything, which is another way of saying don't worry about anything.

Why? Because your God is in charge. In everything, by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known to God. And the next verse in Philippians 4 says He'll flood you with peace. You don't have to live a life of fear and worry.

You shouldn't. In fact, you need to trust God, take your cares to Him, and enjoy the peace that He grants, that kind of faith. All of that and a whole lot more is in a book called Anxious for Nothing.

Here's the good news. We'll send it free to anyone who's contacting us for the first time. The full book, a couple hundred pages, it'll teach you how to look at life through a perspective that is divine, and you will escape worry and enjoy peace even in the most difficult challenges.

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Do that today. That's right, and friend, you don't have to worry. Anxious for Nothing shows you the biblical principles that put your worries to rest. Again, John's book is free if you're contacting us for the first time, so get your copy today. Call us at 855-GRACE to let us know you want this book, Anxious for Nothing. Again, it's free if you're writing or calling us for the first time.

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Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Be sure to watch Grace to You television Sundays on DirecTV channel 378, or watch online at gty.org. And be back tomorrow to consider this question, how would your thankfulness for your salvation increase if you could see exactly what hell is like? It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.