The Trinity...At Work!

Peter here has written a truckload of truth, hadn't he? The point of his declaration is, again, simply this. Every member of the Godhead is involved in the salvation of every member of God's family. You are chosen by God the Father. You are inhabited by God the Spirit.

You are under orders and constantly cleansed by God the Son. Salvation comes to us through the Trinity. It happens through the Trinity. It will one day bring us home to the Trinity, the Father, Son, and Spirit. Do you find the biblical teaching about the Trinity to be confusing and hard to understand?

I think we all do. There are aspects of the Trinity that we just can't seem to understand. However, the Trinity being hard to understand doesn't mean we can ignore it. More practically, though, is the reality that the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit are all integral to our salvation. We're going to look at that truth today, and I hope you'll stay with us. This is wisdom for the heart, and here's Stephen Davey with a message called The Trinity at Work.

J.I. Packer once gave an illustration of the Christian life by imagining someone in a helicopter dropping somewhere in the Amazonian jungle, picking up a willing tribesman who'd never been out of the jungle before, flying him immediately to London or New York, dropping him off in the middle of the city, and then telling him, you're on your own, now make the best of it. He goes, all right, we're cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who happens to run it.

Disregard God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life, blindfolded as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. So it's a little surprise that in the beginning of this letter, as he begins to address how to live for Christ in an unwelcoming world, Peter begins by describing God, who is our refuge and our strength. And more specifically, Peter will describe how each member of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, intersects your life and mine. He's going to do it in three statements. He's going to do it a lot more.

We're just going to take time for three, all right? You might want to number them in your text because they don't necessarily follow the verses. First Peter in chapter 1, the first statement begins with verse 2, according to the foreknowledge of God, that's the first prepositional phrase, the second phrase follows, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, and then the third phrase, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood. That's sort of the long way of making the theological point that every member of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit, is involved in the Gospel. Every member of the Godhead is involved in the salvation of every member of God's family.

That's the primary point. And it is more than that. In fact, when you read on at the end of verse 2, you discover that on that basis, that is, of each member of the Triad got investing and redeeming and sanctifying and cleansing us. The believer, then, in any generation, in any country, under any government, at any given time, through any season of life, in the first century all the way to this 21st century, grace and peace can be multiplied to you in the fullest measure.

So it doesn't end with a sour, so I guess we just pack up and go hide. No, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the fullest measure. We'll get there eventually, but let's just go back to these three phrases and break them apart and get to the heart of why this would be so encouraging. Let me just take those three phrases and turn those into three points of an outline in good Baptist fashion.

Number one. The first point is this. The believer is saved and scattered by God the Father. The believer is saved and scattered by God the Father.

Let's go back and get a running start with verse 1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen, now notice, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. When Peter used the word here for foreknowledge, prognosis, in verse 2, he wasn't simply talking about God knowing in advance what would happen. That word refers to God planning, predetermining by his loving and saving intention to redeem his beloved. Peter, in fact, uses the same word in verb form later down in verse 20 to tell us that the death of Jesus Christ to redeem sinners was foreknown by God the Father. Now that cannot mean that God the Father looked down the corridor of time and saw that Jesus would be willing to die and he said, okay, let's make that the way it works. Now, in fact, Peter, when he preached on the day of Pentecost, that the death of Christ was, in fact, here's what he said, and I'm going to quote him, that the death of Christ was according to the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. God did not call an emergency meeting after Adam and Eve sin and say, what are we going to do now?

We're up a creek. Now, this is all actually discover part of his plan. How amazing is that? From eternity past, the plans of God were made and that defies our comprehension because we're talking about eternity past.

If you're thinking, man, this OK, this staggers my thinking, then I think now we're on the right path. And I think it's consistent with scripture. God the Father chose you and me in a way that is beyond our comprehension. God the Son paid the penalty for our sin in a way that is beyond our comprehension. I mean, how did he do that? How did he pay the penalty for a sin nearly 2000 years ago that you're going to commit two weeks from tomorrow?

You figure that one out. And while we're at it, the Holy Spirit indwells us in a way that is beyond our comprehension. He an eternal person of the Godhead indwells us.

Well, that's understandable. Oh, and by the way, while we're at it, our triune God has destined us and prepared for us an eternity and an immortal body to go with it in a way and in a place that staggers our comprehension. Here's where it immediately mattered to these believers scattered throughout Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Raleigh and Apex and Morrisville and Holly Springs and even Chapel Hill. To these Christians who are foreigners, who are in their own country but now lost, they're marginalized, they're maligned, they're unloved, they're unwanted.

Here's where they could breathe a deep breath of hope. And really, Peter is telling them that the foreknowledge of God, the Father, doesn't just relate to their salvation, but to their situation. You can just as easily understand Peter to be saying here in verse 2, you have been chosen by God to not only be saved, but to be scattered.

Don't miss that. To these scattered, elect ones, that's all by means of the foreknowledge, foreplanning, foreloving of God the Father. It's all according to the plan of God. From eternity past, nothing could ever happen in your life where God says, well, I didn't see that happening, and now what are we going to do?

Let's come up with plan B. Listen, if before the creation of the world God chose you, he isn't about to lose sight of you now. Like seed from the hand of the gardener, you haven't just been scattered. Peter wants to reinforce the concept that you have been planted according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. His foreloving, foreplanning, predetermining counsel in eternity past puts you here right now in that seed going through whatever you're going through.

And in that then you find in him your refuge. The chaos of the Roman Empire has not caught God by surprise for these believers. God is in control of the chaos. As I said in our last session, the world is never falling apart.

According to the foreknowledge and foreplanning of God, the world is always falling into place. The believer is saved and scattered by God the Father. Number two, the believer is sanctified and set apart by God the Spirit. Look again at verse two where Peter writes, according to the knowledge of God the Father, now notice, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit.

Now watch this. Peter is moving us from the foreknowledge of God the Father in eternity past to the work of God the Spirit as he intersects our lives in time present. The word Peter uses here refers to the Spirit's work in your life, which is sanctifying. It is making you holy. It is making you a separate people unto God. This is the sanctifying activity by means of the Spirit of God that starts and it never stops.

And by the way, it'd be easy just to camp here for a while, but we dare not. But the Holy Spirit, if I can make a couple of points, according to Scripture, is the third person of the godhood who actually drew you to a saving relationship with God the Father. That was the Holy Spirit who opened your eyes so that you could say yes to Jesus.

It is the Holy Spirit who resonates in your heart regarding the truth of Scripture. You happen to be odd. You happen to believe odd things. You're strange.

You're more and more a foreigner in the world around you. Why do you believe this stuff? It's the work of the Spirit of God within you, for the unbeliever cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God because they are discerned by means of the Spirit. And to them it is foolishness, 1 Corinthians 2.14. The Holy Spirit fuels genuine worship. You know, what makes good worship isn't necessarily, well, I like those songs and that choir number and the people were nice around me, and boy, that was great worship. What makes good worship is the indwelling work of the Spirit of God, that even if you didn't have a 45-piece orchestra and a wonderful choir and people who were smiling around you, you could leave the assembly saying, that was a great worship service.

I connected with the truths about God. That's the work of the sanctifying Spirit of God within you. The Holy Spirit, one more thing, the Holy Spirit also provokes true prayer in your life because the Spirit helps us, Paul writes, because we don't know what to pray. There are many times we don't know how to pray and so the Spirit intercedes for us, Romans 8.26.

A lot more. But all of Christianity, the beginning and the middle and the end of the Christian life is the work of the Holy Spirit of God. Now, there are two different ways to think about the fact that He's always present. And you can say it with just a little different emphasis and you can catch what I mean by that.

You can say it one of two ways. You can say, God's Spirit never leaves us alone. Or you can say, God's Spirit never leaves us alone.

Both are true. In fact, one of our biggest mistakes is to think that we can somehow get through today much less life without the indwelling, sanctifying Spirit of God who gratefully doesn't leave us alone. One of the tragic mistakes of the church is to think that our programs and our plans and our strategies can produce lasting fruit independently of the work of the Holy Spirit. That somehow you can disciple someone into maturity without the work of the Spirit. That somehow you can share the Gospel with someone who will believe in it.

It was a great presentation. The Spirit had nothing to do with it. I remember one class where Howard Hendricks asked us this question with great passion.

He said it this way. If the Spirit of God checked out of the average church in America, how long do you think that church could operate before they figured it out? There are churches today that are meeting without the Holy Spirit because He's bound to the truth. The lights are on, climate control set, nice chairs, had the offering, nice singing. And the Spirit is absent.

Well, let's personalize it. How long would it take you and me in our own lives to discover we're doing it on our own? We've had some thunderstorms lately and a couple of very brief temporary times when the power went out at our home. It's amazing to me how primitive life becomes when you lose power. You begin thinking thoughts like I should have dug a well and I really ought to have a real fireplace instead of that gas thing and a kettle and whatever. When the power in your house goes out, it doesn't matter how much you paid for your washing machine or your dryer or your refrigerator or your microwave or your new LED lights or your cell phone that you now can no longer charge or your computer.

They are all worth less than the cardboard boxes they came in without power. Our lives are like those appliances. There's not one function we can fulfill with God's pleasure and according to His purposes without God's power. The Holy Spirit, by the way, isn't some ethereal power source.

He is a person and by means of a relationship with Him, He has given us then the power to live and work and disciple and evangelize and stand and function for His glory. I think Peter would be encouraging these believers to not only know that God hadn't left them alone, but he's at work because they would think, are we alone now? We just feel so alone.

It would be terribly encouraging to them. And I don't really know what nuance Peter had in his mind, even from the language he provides us, but I can't help but believe that he knew it would be incredibly encouraging for his scattered believers who were feeling so separated from the world to discover that the work of the Spirit was to make them separated from the world. Feeling more like a foreigner these days? If you feel more separated and different from your world, guess what? It is the Spirit of God at work reminding you that you belong not to the kingdoms of earth, but to the kingdom of heaven. And like all these scattered believers in Pontius and Galatia and Cappadocia and Asia and Bithynia and our world today, the believer is saved and scattered among those locations by God the Father. And in the midst of it all, the believer is sanctified and set apart, and that never ends, by God the Spirit. Thirdly, the believer is surrendered to and sprinkled clean by God the Son. The believer is surrendered to and sprinkled clean by God the Son. Notice the last part of the verse, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit. Now notice, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood. To obey Jesus Christ, the word used here conveys the picture of listening to and coming under, submitting to that which is revealed.

It refers to daily practice, though imperfect, of reversing, by the way, the attitude that characterizes the unbeliever who doesn't care what God says. I don't care what God says, they would say to you. Well, God says this. Well, I don't care what God says. See, that is the characteristic of the unbeliever. They are in rebellion to what they hear from God.

This is the reversing of that. You are in submission to what you hear from God. That's why the word of God is so precious to you.

We care. Peter is going to stress this kind of obedience in his letter. In fact, down in verse 14, he challenges us to be like obedient children. How different is that? That's unique, isn't it?

Right? Maybe you've seen that in your children from time to time. Down further in verse 22, he uses the same word again that challenges to be obedient to the truth. In other words, the work of salvation that was determined in eternity past by God the Father, brought about by means of the Holy Spirit, ought to somewhere along the line show up as obedience to Jesus Christ. Peter then goes on to reference the cleansing we have by the blood of Christ, and I think that's a timely place to put that, a timely reminder, because we do not obey Christ perfectly.

Sometimes not at all. But our assurance is based on the blood he shed and the payment he made on our behalf. Now, you've got to go back into the Old Testament, and for the sake of time we're not going to turn there, but let me just review for you that Peter is actually alluding back to the book of Exodus where Moses gathered the people at the base of Mount Sinai and delivered to them the commandments and the ordinances of God, and the Israelites heard God's word and said, quote, everything the Lord has said, everything we've heard the Lord say, we will do. They were brought to obey the word of the Lord, and then Moses sprinkled the people with the sacrificial animals' blood.

This is the picture here. In fact, if you dig around in the Old Testament, you'll find there are two other occasions where people are sprinkled with blood. When Aaron and his sons were dedicated, set apart for their ministry and the goddess priests, the sign of them being set apart was they were sprinkled with blood. So also, by the way, the New Testament picks up on that analogy because you happen to be a priest.

You don't have to go through anybody. You can go directly to God. As priests, Peter says, you are a royal priesthood.

You've been set apart. You've been sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb, the final sacrifice. Secondly, I discovered that when a leper was healed, he was to go to the priest and be sprinkled with the blood of the sacrificial animal to symbolize that he was now cleansed. So the writer of Hebrews picks up on that illustration as he encourages the New Testament believer to draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.

Hebrews 10, 22. We were once leprous. We were once terminally infected with sin. We listened to the gospel. The Spirit of God opened our eyes to the truth of it, and we obeyed its command to call upon the Lord and be saved. We did that, and the Spirit came in to indwell us, and the result of the Spirit's indwelling is we're cleansed forever, not to point forward by the blood of Christ, but we are now becoming obedient to Jesus Christ. And we do it with joy.

Why? Because the penalty of all of our sin, and every time we do fall short, and every time we do have to have a fresh bath, as it were, our feet get dirty. But we know the penalty of all of our sin has been forgiven forever. We know that all the guilt of our sin has been swept away forever.

Imagine that. Now, Peter here has written a truckload of truth, hadn't he? But the point of his declaration is, again, simply this. Every member of the Godhead is involved in the salvation of every member of God's family. And we don't tend to think of all three members of the Godhead at work on our behalf.

It's how much he foreknew and foreloved you. You are chosen by God the Father. You are inhabited by God the Spirit.

You are under orders and constantly cleansed by God the Son. Salvation comes to us through the Trinity. It happens through the Trinity. It will one day bring us home to the Trinity, where we will worship our true and living God, the Father, Son, and Spirit. Peter concludes his opening thoughts by writing in verse 2.

Look at the end there. May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure. And I thought about doing just a sermon on this, but I want to get to the end of his introduction, okay? This isn't a throwaway line.

This is wonderfully deep truth. Peter's writing to both Gentiles and Jews. I'll try to be quick. He's writing to both Jewish and Gentile believers here. And in this greeting, he very wisely combines together expressions from the Gentile and Jewish custom as they greeted one another.

Gentiles would say hello to each other with an expression that involved the word kuris, or grace, and Jews, when they would greet each other, would use something with the word shalom in it, and it basically had shallow meaning. Wishing grace in the first century was kind of like saying, Hey, good luck. I hope your day goes great. Best wishes. Wishing peace, or shalom, was really nothing more than sort of saying, Hey, I hope everything's peaceful. I hope everything's smooth in your life today.

I hope everything's rose petal covered. Peter uses those and gives them deeper meaning. The peace that Peter has in mind isn't the lack of conflict or trouble.

He's writing to people who are in trouble. For the believer, peace is internal. It is the conscious awareness by means of a relationship with God that the peace treaty's been signed.

We're not in conflict with him, and he's in charge of the conflict we face. And the grace that Peter has in mind isn't good luck. It's living with eyes clearly seeing the fact that God in his providence is lavishing us, is demonstrating to us enough grace to get through today, and we have no way of calculating how much it took to get through today. We just had it. Even hardships have the purposes of God behind them, the one who foreknew and foreloved us. And Peter, by the way, wants it to be multiplied. Did you notice that?

Not just a little, you know, a little shake of the salt shaker. I want the truck to back up and unload grace and peace. Who's the giver? Who's the multiplier? Who's the donor here?

He didn't mention it. Though not immediately mentioned, it's obvious in this context that the donor and the multiplier is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. Thanks so much for joining us today as we've reflected on the Trinity and the role that the Trinity plays in our salvation. Did you know that you can download the audio file of this and every message Stephen has taught free of charge from our website? You'll find us at wisdomonline.org. This current series is called Profiling Christians, and today's message is entitled The Trinity at Work. You'll also find each message on our smartphone app.

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