We start a new study this morning, and yet we must always keep in mind that even though the Bible is made up of numerous separate books and letters, God the Holy Spirit has designed His word to be one complete work inspired by One God; and though He uses many people to write it, there is only one Author.

And so our study this morning takes us to the first epistle of Peter. And as is my custom when we start a new study, I like to give some background information on the work we're looking at.

Now, since this is not a history class, but a time to hear from God through His word I will be somewhat brief concerning the historical aspects of this letter and yet I want to include some things which I believe will add to our understanding of God's word as we have it in first Peter.

Of course the writer of this letter is the same Peter who spent some three years with Jesus as His disciple. He's the same Peter who denied our Lord three times and the same Peter who ended up giving his life for Christ in service to Him.

In fact, in all of the N.T. there is only one man named Peter and this is the man who penned this letter. Some quick information about Peter himself which might help us see the grace and mercy given him by Christ.

The first time we meet Peter is in Mar 1:16 "As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.
17 "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."
18 At once they left their nets and followed him."

Peter was a blue collar worker. He was out there doing the job only a rugged individual could do. Peter wasn't some whimp. But when Jesus called him he and his brother left what they were doing and followed Christ.

By the way Peter's name was Simon before Jesus changed his name to Peter which means, stone or rock. He seemed to be a man of extremes and one who was always willing to take the lead. And he was very bold in some ways; not always in a confrontational way, but in a way which only wanted answers to what he felt were important questions.

We read in Mat 19:24 "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?"
26 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
27 Peter answered him, "We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?"

He knew they were specially called and he simply wanted to know how they fit into the scheme of things. And yet he was willing to go the distance for something he could get behind 100%.

We see this again in Mat 16:13 "When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"
14 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
15 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" (The "you" here is in the plural form which addressed all of the disciples)
16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven."

Peter wasted no time in declaring that Jesus was who He said He was. This same Peter also seemed to be the epitome of loyalty to the Lord when he told Jesus in Mar.14:31, that even if he had to die with Jesus, he would never deny Him.

And yet we know the tragic story of how Peter fulfilled the very prophecy Jesus gave him that he would in fact deny Him three times before the cock crowed. And on the morning of Jesus' arrest Peter did deny Him.

It's worth looking at that incident and seeing how a man intent on following the Lord to the very end could find himself, under pressure, actually denying Him.

Luk 22:54 "Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance.
55 But when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them.
56 A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, "This man was with him."
57 But he denied it. "Woman, I don't know him," he said.
58 A little later someone else saw him and said, "You also are one of them." "Man, I am not!" Peter replied.
59 About an hour later another asserted, "Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean."
60 Peter replied, "Man, I don't know what you're talking about!" Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed.
61 The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: "Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times."
62 And he went outside and wept bitterly."

That had to be the lowest point in Peter's life. To deny the Master, the very One whom Peter knew to be "the Christ, the Son of the living God."

But of course this is not the beginning of the end for Peter. And yet it is in a sense the end of his beginnings with the Lord. For in three short days Peter would learn that the One he knew as Messiah would prove Himself to be the living Savior as He rose victoriously from the dead.

But it was during our Lord's 40 days after His resurrection, just before He ascended back to the Father, that Peter's life would be given it's true direction by Jesus.

Charles Swindoll in his book, "Hope in hurtful times", puts it this way. "Peter was fishing when the words of Jesus came to him from the shore, jostling a sleeping memory. He immediately threw himself into the sea in a rush to get to his Lord. Once on shore, Peter found breakfast waiting for him and the other disciples -- Jesus Himself tending to their needs. While they were all hunched around the campfire, Jesus took Peter aside and began his restoration....

.... Three times He asked Peter if he loved Him, providing this devastated disciple a chance to reconfirm his love for each of the times he had denied it. And with the words "Tend my Lambs... Shepherd My sheep ... Tend My Sheep," Jesus reestablished Peter's role of leadership in His Kingdom and then sealed it with the command to follow Him." ......

....... A quick look at Luke's record in the book of Acts will show how this second chance turned Peter's life around... It was Peter who took the lead in choosing a disciple to take Judas' place (Acts 1). It was Peter who became spokesman for the first evangelistic outreach at Pentecost (Acts 2). It was Peter who, with John, healed the lame man at the temple (Acts 3). It was Peter who defied the Sanhedrin, refusing to be silent about Jesus (Acts 4). It was Peter who presided over the grim task of dealing with Ananias and Saphira (Acts 5). It was Peter who dealt decisively with the deceit of Simon the magician (Acts 8). It was Peter who reached out to Cornelius, a Gentile, after God revealed to him that the gospel would be extended universally. (Acts 10-11)." ........

..... And this was the man God used to pen the two letters known as 1 and 2 Peter. He was a man who could identify with failure... who could understand pain... who was well acquainted with suffering."

In fact this is much of what this first letter is all about; suffering. And though this is the overall theme of the letter the purpose is to demonstrate that there is hope even in painful times and that they are not without a purpose; and that purpose is to be molded into the kind of effective servant that even Peter became in Christ.

As I scanned Swindoll's little book on this letter I noticed that he states three lessons that he learned from 1Peter. "First: Failure in the past does not nullify purpose in the future. Second: A broken heart is great preparation for healing fractured lives. Third: One letter of hope brings more encouragement than a thousand thoughts never expressed."

We'll see how all of this plays out over the next few weeks as we study this letter from God, penned by Peter. But before Peter gets into the realities of suffering he lays a very important foundation so that each believer will keep in mind his position before Christ, Who is our Rock, and Who is able to make us stand.

And so we come to our text. 1Pe 1:1 "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,
2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance."

"Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ..." Unlike Paul, who on a number of occasions defended his position as an apostle because of such opposition from enemies of the cross, Peter needed no reason for such a defense.

Everyone knew who Peter was and his position in Christ as one who had personally walked with the Lord. One thing you notice is that Peter doesn't address himself as "The apostle." Rather, an apostle; one among the others.

This is important to note because some would try to place Peter in an elevated position; a position which Peter never claimed for himself. Be that as it may, he was still an apostle.

As we've said before the word apostle in general use meant "one sent as a messenger". And so many people could fit into that category. But when Peter or Paul would use that designation for themselves they meant it in a special way, as a messenger sent with God's very message for the world as the Lord inspired them to write His word.

And for that reason, there are no more apostles today who would have all of the qualifications that were met by certain men called out by Christ for His special purposes in the first century, not the least of which was to give us the Bible as we have it today.

And so Peter addresses these people as one with authority and can give them instruction as coming from God Himself. But, he's not intending to bring attention to himself because he designates himself as an apostle "of Jesus Christ". In other words, Peter could be saying, 'I'm a messenger for Jesus, here's what the Lord wants you to hear.'

By the way, this particular letter is referred to as a general letter. The reason for this is because it's not addressed to any particular individual, like Paul writing to Timothy; and it's not addressed to any one church, like Paul writing to Rome.

This letter was designed to go to many churches and be read. What would actually happen is that a messenger would take the letter to a church and they would make their own copy. And so every church would make their own copy for their own possession.

This was a practice with all of the letters, even the letters addressed to individual churches. The churches would recognize them as messages from God penned by the apostles. And so the letter which Paul wrote to Rome, for example, was copied and found its way to the rest of the churches who would make their own copy.

Now, it's interesting to note how the people are addressed in this letter. "To God's elect, strangers in the world." That's how the NIV puts it. In other translations like the NAS it reads: "To those who reside as aliens", while the KJV says, "To the strangers scattered."

What the NIV does is to place the idea of being elect or chosen at the beginning of this verse, while other translations place the idea of being elect or chosen at the end of this verse. The KJV even places it in verse 2.

Don't worry, the Greek language allows both possibilities. But so as not to confuse you I'm going to deal with both ideas together as does the NIV.

"To God's elect, strangers in the world." Whenever the word elect is used in the Scriptures, as it refers to people, it always means God's people and so we know that Peter is addressing the church. Now, what will often happen at this point is that someone will emphasize that Peter is introducing a Theological truth which stands on its own.

That is not what Peter is doing here. He isn't teaching on the doctrine of election as though this were some sort of catechism for these churches. He's simply identifying them as people who have received God's grace and stand in a relationship with the living God by faith in His Son.

In fact, from such a statement without any further explanation, Peter assumes that these people believed and accepted the doctrine of election and that they understood that they were the recipients of such grace from God.

But, for the sake of those here this morning who may be a little fuzzy on this subject let me quickly explain it. All through the O.T., as well as the N.T., we see the doctrine of election. It's classic definition is that God has chosen a people out of the world for His own possession.

As the Lord revealed Himself to Israel in the O.T. He said. "I will be your God and you will be My people." It was His act of choosing which placed Israel in a relationship with Himself.

In the N.T. we have such passages as Eph 1:3 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love
5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will--
6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves."

In a nutshell election is God's Sovereign choice. And His choice has nothing to do with who we are or what He knows about us, even before we're born. His choice is entirely according to His love and mercy.

Some will suggest that God foreknew and elected us in the sense that He could see down the long corridor of time and know who would choose Him. But, that would make His choice of us dependent on our actions, which denies Him a true choice based only on His Sovereignty.

As Jesus said to His disciples in Joh 15:16 "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last..."

And so we must agree with God's word that God is the One who initiates our salvation by choosing us and then calling us. This is what Paul meant in Rom 8:29 "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified."

But having said that we would be remiss in our responsibility to handle accurately the word of God, if we didn't include the doctrine of the personal responsibility of all men to come to God. We call this man's free will.

All men everywhere are called to repent. In fact Peter himself writes in his second letter in 2Pe 3:9 "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."

We are also told in 1Tim.4:10 "...we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe."

Paul says in Rom.5:18, "Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men."

All men are responsible before God for their sin and all men must come to Christ if they would be saved from the penalty of their sin.

So how do we reconcile these two teachings? For men this is a very hard thing to reconcile. None the less, they're both true. God chooses His people and all people are responsible for choosing Him. This is known as an antinomy, where two truths which seem to conflict actually don't.

The problem we run into today is that one group falls on one side, while another group falls on the other, and they divide themselves over the truth of their choice.

But simply because we can't reconcile the two truths of God's word, doesn't mean God has any problem with them. And so as the Lord told Isaiah in Isa 55:8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.
9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

But, Peter then calls these elect, "strangers in the world". A more literal translation would be aliens, or as the NKJV would put it, pilgrims which implies sojourners or a temporary resident.

And these terms would be closer because strangers gives the impression that we aren't known to the world. And yet Jesus wants us to be known to the world as lights and salt, glorifying our heavenly Father, not off in some monastery or keeping only to our own group to the exclusion of the world.

You can be an alien and be quite at home in one sense. We hear the term illegal aliens, who have made this country their home. But the point Peter is making is that we who have been called out by God may live in this world, but this world is not our home. We're only visiting this planet.

Our residence is in heaven. Therefore, our lives should be moving heaven-ward with our desire to draw closer and closer to the One who has given us eternal life.

So, these two terms; elect and strangers or sojourners are terms which we can call ourselves. But just in case we're not seeing the forest, for the one or two trees we're concentrating on, let me take you back to why Peter is addressing these Christians in this fashion.

These Christians were facing all sorts of trials and in some cases real persecution. Before Peter addresses those problems he wants them to know how Jesus sees them.

Jesus sees them as His special children whom He has chosen in love. Jesus sees them as beloved children who need to know that, despite what this world may do to them, they have a place reserved in heaven where our Lord resides and is waiting for them with open arms.

This whole letter is meant as an encouragement to a group of people who are trying to deal with real life which was pretty tough for many of them. But this group of people were given a hope which only their Savior could give them.

You and I may not be undergoing persecution, but you and I face the attacks of the enemy in other ways as we try to live to God's honor and glory. And so you need to see yourself as one who is chosen by God Himself to be His representative in this world, which is not our home; just a place where we can shine for Him in the mean time.

But keep in mind too that as Peter encourages these people to look to their position in Christ, as ones who have been called out and loved by Jesus, he doesn't divorce the means that Jesus has instituted to find encouragement and help in times of need.

And by that I mean the Body of Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit. It's not as though these people who are hurting are on their own with the Lord. Peter makes the assumption as he addresses these churches, that in their trials they are there for one another.

The writer of Hebrews touches on this in Heb 10:23 "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

This "one-anothering" can only take place as we are connected to each other. And that connection is found first and foremost in Christ, but it also includes Christ's church which He has given us for this encouragement.

This encouragement is found in the teaching and preaching of the word of God; encouragement found in the fellowship of the saints; encouragement found in worshipping our God together as we humbly rely on Him for all things.

Jesus knows our faith can be weak and that trusting in a God we can't see can be tough at times, and so He demonstrates His love through His people as we're giving that love to each other in tangible ways.

This is mentioned by Paul in Phi 2:1 "If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,
2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:"

We must encourage one another as we meet needs and point others to Christ, but we must always understand where our ultimate encouragement comes from and that is from the hope we have in the Lord.

Rom 15:5 "May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus,
6 so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

We really didn't get too far into this letter today. And quite honestly I didn't intend to get too far. I just wanted to set this up in a way so that as we go through this letter we can be encouraged and expectant of what God has to say to us in our trials and how we can see ourselves from God's perspective.

None of us are without trials. And what may be a small trial for one may be a major problem for another. When you're in the middle of it nothing seems to be small. But I want you to know that God knows where you are and He wants you to know that He's always there and He has the answer.

I would encourage all of you this week to read through 1Peter in just one sitting and then at some time go through it at a slower pace and meditate on what the Lord would say to you and how He wants to encourage you.

But know this, you are chosen for a purpose. And it is God Himself who has chosen you. Choose Him every moment of your life by drawing close to Him and relying on the power of His Spirit to effectively represent Him in this world with the love and the hope He's given us in Christ.