We've all heard stories about extraordinary inheritances, a business empire or external exorbitant wealth, or a precious family heirloom that has passed from one generation to another. Today on Truth for Life, we'll learn why all of these things rolled together don't hold a candle to what God has set aside for every believer.
Alistair Begg is teaching today from 1 Peter chapter 1. If in the third verse we saw what we've been given, in the fourth verse we discover what we've been guaranteed. We've been brought, says Peter, into an inheritance. Now, once again, we realize that inheritances are not earned.
You receive it as a result of the beneficency of a previous generation or two. And so it is that for the Christian, we are going to enter, says Peter, into something that will never perish or spoil or fade, and it's kept in heaven for us. So, what do you have by way of inheritance as a believer this morning? What do we have to look forward to?
Is there something that we might anticipate with open-eyed expectancy? And the answer is yes. Ultimately, our inheritance is not a mansion in which we live—John 14. As much as we may sing that song, although I haven't heard it for years, I'm satisfied with just a cottage below.
Oh yes, a little silver and a little gold, oh yes. But in that city where the something will something, I have a mansion up there. You know, I'm heading for my mansion. The fact of the matter is that most of us live in such palatial surroundings that we can't imagine anything much better than where we are, especially when we can pair it with a third of the world that today is starving to death, and that every minute of our morning worship a child under the age of five has died on the streets of Calcutta. Our inheritance is not ultimately wrapped up in mansions on gold streets and thrones and crowns and robes and splendor. Our inheritance is wrapped up not in a package but in a person. Ultimately, our inheritance is to see Jesus and to be made like him—to be able to have a face-to-face dialogue with the risen Christ, to be able to know his gaze upon us, to be able to hear his voice, to spend time in his company. Bernard of Clairvaux, writing in the twelfth century in his great hymn, put it in this way, Jesus, our only joy be thou, as thou our prize wilt be. Jesus, be thou our glory now and through eternity.
And so this morning, as Christians, we've come, irrespective of what this morning has meant so far, or however bad last week was, know this, you have been given new birth. It's a fact, and you are guaranteed an inheritance. It's not in the stock market.
It is not going to fluctuate up and down and back and forth. Look at how it's described. Three descriptive terms. First of all, the inheritance that can never perish, or in one word, it is imperishable. It cannot be injured or spoiled. The second word is, in fact, the word spoiled, but it takes it on further.
Because the spoiling here doesn't mean simply the degenerative dimension as to what might happen to a fruit, but rather the notion of being unstained or undefiled. Supposing your grandfather has a study in his home, and when you go and visit your grandfather, you always sit in his big oak desk, and you love it. You love how your gran has kept it so carefully polished, and you like to sit there and open the drawers, and they slide in and out so nicely. And you always tell your grandpa, Boy, do I admire this desk!
And one day your grandpa says to you, Do you know what, son? I am going to give this desk to you. This desk will one day be yours. Then you better take great care every time you go to the house, and you better tell your dad not to go tampering with it, because sure, the desk is coming to you, but I can guarantee that no matter how much care is taken of it in the home, some clod somewhere will bang it against something en route to your house one day, and the chances of it ever reaching your study, unspoiled or unstained, is actually infinitesimal.
But the inheritance that awaits the believer this morning in heaven, it's not up there, as it were, getting all spoiled and bashed around. Nobody's spilling things on it. Nobody's messing it up.
Nobody's tampering with it. It's there with your name on it this morning. Your names are graven in the palms of God's hands.
The very hairs of your head are numbered. And he has, believer, for you, an inheritance that is up there. It is an imperishable inheritance. It is an unstable, undefilable inheritance.
And thirdly, he says, it is an unfading inheritance. Imagine your mother says she'll give you the drapes from her living room, which you've always admired. Well, fine, but when you take them down after all those years and transfer them to your home, they'll be faded. They'll be faded.
It's impossible for them to be in the sunlight without their being faded. And no matter how gloriously they may hang today, they will be diminished tomorrow, but not the inheritance that God has for the believer, and is guaranteed. See, let me ask you this morning, what else do you have in the whole world that is undefiled, imperishable, and can't fade?
Tell me one thing. It's not your life. It's not your relationships. It's not your money. It's not your car.
It's not your home. It's nothing, save one thing. Jesus Christ. He is the only one. He is our all in all. He is all we may hope for. He is all our joy. He is all our future. And before him, everything else we may possess and hope for fades into oblivion. Unless, of course, we have begun to worship and have our gaze consumed by that which is other than our guarantee, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade, that is kept in heaven for you. The three verbal adjectives say this of our inheritance.
One—and if you're taking notes, here it is, a summary—one, my inheritance is going to be untouched by death, unstained by evil, and unimpaired by time. I discovered a new phrase when I came here. Somebody told me that they would leave tickets for me for an event. I said, Well, where will I get them?
They said you'll get them at the will call. So I said, Fine. And I put the phone down, and I said, I wonder what a wilko is. And I wrote it down.
I tried to decipher it. Wilko. W-i-l-k-o. Wilko.
How will I know what a wilko is? And then I discovered, here we go again. It's just, it's in my ears. The problem lies. The person was saying, will call. So why couldn't you say will call? Why'd you have to say wilko? They'll be at the wilko.
Okay, fine. While you're driving in the car, and you have this assurance, they will be at the wilko with your name on them. And as you drive in your car, what do you say to yourself? I wonder if they'll be there. And right up until the very last minute, no matter who gave the guarantee, no matter how rock-solid it might be, you have a measure of uncertainty until you produce your driver's license, and you wait in that anxious moment as they go through all those little white envelopes about this long to see if your name is on it and if you're actually there.
Listen! That's not how you're going to go to heaven, believer! When Jesus Christ said it's left at wilko, it's left at wilko. And when we get up there, there's no question. You won't even need a driver's license.
They won't need two identification symbols. You just stand up there and say, I'm here with Jesus, and the inheritance is yours, unimpaired by time, unstained by evil, and untouched by death. There's a second question that we ask as we're driving in the car towards that gate, and it's not simply, Will they still be there?
But will I ever get there? That's verse 5. Because he says, not only have you been given you birth, not only are you guaranteed an inheritance, but thirdly, he says, you're guarded and you're kept, so you're gonna get there.
Notice what he says. Who through faith are shielded by God's power—the word there is guarded or protected by God's power—until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time? Incidentally, here in this section, we answer two of the very troubling questions that people often have in relation to coming to faith in Christ. One of the thoughts that is so frequently expressed is simply this, you know, I'm not good enough ever to become a Christian. And that is answered in verse 3, according to his great mercy. That you're right, you aren't good enough, and neither am I, and neither are any of us. But it is God's mercy which may bring us into faith.
The second concern is often this. I don't think that if I ever came to faith in Christ that I could ever keep going. And the answer to that is right here in verse 5.
No, you will only be able to keep going as you are guarded and kept by God's great power. And as buffettings and trials come, as we're about to see in a moment, it is that God keeps us. The word here in the Greek is a great word. It is the word frumenou.
Frumenou. And it means to be guarded or to be shielded. It's the same picture that is used in Philippians 4, verses that we often turn to. Philippians 4, a garrison town to the Roman authorities, and Paul picks up the picture, and he says, And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. It's the same word, this protective nature. And the individuals would think of a soldier standing guard of the garrison there. And up they would be on the walls, and they would feel secure within the city. And Paul says, That's the picture of what God does.
And Peter says, I agree with that. And God's power is the garrison in which we find our security. You see, where does our security lie this morning in concerns of our health?
How many of us know that we have a year left or two months left or even two days left? Where does our security lie? Our lives are like a vapor that appears for a little while and vanishes. We're like the breeze in the morning. We come and we go. So where does our security lie in terms of our physical frame? Where does our security lie in terms of our provision for the future?
Where does it rest? Peter says to these individuals, these first century believers, he says, Don't look here and there. He says, Look up! You have an inheritance, and it is definitely there, and you will definitely be there for it, because you are being garrisoned by his power. You are looking forward to a salvation that is ready to be revealed at the last time. In other words, it is as we've seen before that we have been saved from sin's penalty, we are daily being saved from sin's power, and one day we're going to be saved from sin's presence. And it is to this future dimension that Peter refers, which he says will be unveiled for us. The word there, revealed, is an important word as well.
It doesn't mean created. It doesn't mean that somehow they are patching it up and putting it together. There is a salvation that is ready to be revealed. No one is adding the final touches to it. It is not that behind the curtains, as it were, there's all pandemonium going on.
No, no. It's all finished and done with, all because of Calvary, all because of what Jesus did. And all that remains now is for curtain up. Curtain up. So he put the tickets in our name. And he says, We'll definitely be there.
And when we arrive, he'll pull the curtain up, and the show will begin. And so when the trials come, and with the buffetings faces, as he goes on to say in verse 6, this will be our confidence. In this, he says, you greatly rejoice.
When you are grieved, he said, here's an anchor in the storm. It's in the knowledge of God's work and salvation that gives me grounds for rejoicing, even when the waters of grief overflow my life, even when I face, as he says, a variety of trials at the end of verse 6. What does Scripture teach concerning trials in the life of the believer? Well, it teaches a great deal.
Let me give you just one or two pointers. First of all, it teaches that we are not removed from the pain of their presence. To come to Christ does not remove us from the realm of suffering, and many this morning are able to testify to that fact. To the awareness of what Jesus said in John 16 33, he said, in this world you will have tribulation.
You will have all kinds of trials. But he said, hang on, be of good cheer, because I have overcome the world. And some of us may have come this morning feeling a little bit disappointed that we would be in the midst of something like this. And I want you to see, don't let it be a stumbling block that brings you down. Let it be a stepping stone that takes you on, that we might acknowledge, first of all, that trials and Christianity are actually interwoven, not disparate. Secondly, that trials aren't going to last forever.
The phrase there in verse 6, for a little while, is important. It incidentally is not a phrase that we ought to use glibly with people who are going through difficulties. I don't suggest that we go out from here this morning and go and see somebody who is dealing with a terminal illness or with a child that is in need of great care or with a prolonged experience of being unemployed and give them a little, for a little while, talk. That's easy enough to do on the outside looking in.
It's not so easy on the inside looking out. But for those of us who are on the inside looking out this morning and think that everything's going to be this bad forever, Peter says you'd better realize something, that even if this lasted for the whole of your life, your life is a very short time in relation to eternity. And some have gone through their Christian experience suffering with the pain of physical impairment, with the disaster of brokenheartedness and so on, and yet they've been triumphant.
Why? Because in the midst of grief, they have been able to hold on. So trials are present. Trials won't last forever. Thirdly, trials prove the genuine nature of faith. Verse 7, These have come, he says, so that—a purpose clause—so that your faith, which is interwoven through all of this… It is as we exercise faith that we're shielded by God's power. And he says, this faith, which is greater worth than gold… And he says, gold is tried and tested in the fire, and its purity is explained and displayed. So he says, when you go through it, when you go through deep days, realize that it will prove the genuine nature of your faith, and also that it will result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. You see, part of the problem is that some of us are so impatient we can't wait for that. We live in an instant world.
We want everything now. We want praise and glory and honor now. And some of us are going to have to keep going through it, and the praise and the glory and the honor will come then. God uses trials to distinguish genuine faith from superficial profession.
Fourthly, and implicit in what Peter is writing, these trials should not be wasted. Grief comes to us all. It sweetens some, and it sours others. Why can we sing with such a response in our hearts, Spafford's great words, When peace like a river attendeth my way, When sorrow like sea billows roll? It's because it rings a chord within our hearts that a man could lose his daughters in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean and still write with faith.
Why did he do that? Because of what he'd been given, because of what he was guaranteed, because of how he was guarded, so that even when he was grieved, he could look on. So here we are, trials either wasted or endured and enjoyed. And verse 8, notice the progression and we're through. Though you haven't seen this, Jesus, he's going to be revealed. Oh, what a wonderful, wonderful day when Jesus pulls back the curtain and suddenly we're in his presence. And he says, In the meantime, though, you don't see him.
Notice it. Loving, believing, rejoicing, receiving. You love him, you don't see him now, but you believe in him. You're a lover, you're a believer, and you're filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. You're a rejoicer, and you are a receiver. What are you going to receive?
You're going to receive the goal of your faith—the salvation of your souls. Halfway around the world this morning, there's a girl called Lan. Her name is longer than that. She has a Vietnamese name. When she was eight years old, as a spindly-legged wee girl, she ran away from Vietnam with her family. They made it into mainland China, and for six years they lived in refugee camps. And then they escaped from the refugee camp under threat of beatings and death and managed to make it into Hong Kong. And now she lives in Hong Kong, in the squalid conditions, living in lattices of boxes fashioned from double-bed sized bunk beds stacked three high and bolted side by side, in a factory where there is no privacy at all, no fresh air hardly at all, and in the overcrowded, windowless dormitories they eke out their existence.
There's no shop in the camp from which the inmates can buy supplies. Instead, they're forced to climb the three-meter-high metal walls that shut them off from the larger Kai Tak camp that surrounds theirs. In a cruel irony, this house is refugees soon to be resettled in the West and receive their shopping requests through the barbed wire at the top.
Their relatively privileged compatriots charge a markup of at least sixty percent, and the people on both sides of the fence take the chance of punishment if caught in the act. They eat a never-varying diet of fatty pork, overboiled vegetables, and rice that varies from being hard and undercooked to what Lan calls white soup. Right now, it's ten to one in the morning in Hong Kong, and Lan and her young husband and her family are compressed in one of these glorified boxes. The article from the magazine in Hong Kong paid little attention to what is the key to this lady's existence. Because beside her bed is a quote from Lamentations chapter 3 and verse 25, and this is what it reads, The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. And the interviewer said, I don't know why this girl is unable to endure all this and yet has hope.
And the answer is, because of what she's been given, because of what she's guaranteed, because of how she's guarded, so that even in the midst of dreadful grief she is able to lift her eyes and to look up to an inheritance that can't ever pass away. Is that our hope this morning? Then may God be gracious to forgive us our gloomy countenances, our disgruntled spirits, our lack of resolution. And may he stir us up to go out and shine where the clouds hang so low over the hearts of so many. You're listening to Bible teacher Alistair Begg on Truth for Life. We consider it a privilege to open God's Word with you each day on Truth for Life. And we're thankful to our Truth Partners, listeners like you who give each month so you can hear Alistair's teaching on this program. Truth for Life is 100% funded by your donations. And if you benefit from listening to Alistair's daily Bible teaching, would you join the team that makes all of it possible?
Just takes a few minutes to sign up online at truthforlife.org slash truth partner, or you can call us at 888-588-7884. Now if you do, one of the ways we will say thank you for becoming a Truth Partner is by inviting you to request the books we recommend to listeners. Today we're recommending a book called The Glorious Christ Meditations on His Person, Work, and Love. Ask for your copy of The Glorious Christ Today when you sign up to become a monthly Truth Partner or when you give a one-time donation at truthforlife.org slash donate. Thanks for studying the Bible with us this week. We hope you have a great weekend and are able to worship together with your local church this weekend. There are some believers who think the Old Testament was rendered obsolete when Jesus appeared, but on Monday we'll learn why even today we need to be studying the entire Bible. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
