A Living Hope

Where Angels Long to Look

A study through Peter June 11th 2023

I’ve been praying and reading for a while about where to journey next in the scriptures as we continue on our mission to know Christ and make Christ known.

All of this (the bible) is good, and ‘All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.’ (1 Tim 3:16,17)

It would be ok, would it not, to simply open up the scriptures to anywhere and take from that whatever God would have us glean from whatever portion we happen to read, yes? But that might be a bit confusing perhaps, jumping from place to place, time to time, circumstance to circumstance. I prefer, and I trust you don’t mind, that we go through entire books in a series, so as to understand the context of a message given to us, be it the Gospels, the prophets, the Epistles or wisdom literature – though a series through all the Proverbs or Psalms would be a LONG journey…

Where I felt led to go was to the writings of one of the men from history that I tend to resonate with quite a bit, and perhaps you do too. Peter was a very ordinary man in his day. He was a fisherman by trade, a husband, a family man…an uneducated, common man. (Acts 4:13). There is one thing that is quite unique about Peter when compared to most other people of his day; he had been with Jesus throughout the 3 years of Christ’s ministry on earth.

In that time, he heard Jesus teach, he witnessed miracles of healing and resurrection power. Peter was there with James and John at the transfiguration of Jesus when the Lord had a conversation with Moses and Elijah. And he was there at Gethsemane. He cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant. He heard Jesus mock trial. He was the one who denied he even knew Jesus when the pressure was on.

He was at the cross, and he was at the tomb on the morning of Jesus’ resurrection. He was in the upper room when Jesus appeared to the disciples and he received the Holy Spirit when Jesus breathed on them.

Peter often stuck his foot in his mouth and spoke out of turn or without thinking. He also preached a sermon that led 3000 to believe and be added to the church in one day. Peter was a regular person that God has done great things through – the greatest of which was to save Peter’s soul and commission him to go and bring that message of hope to the world!

If God can work in the life of a guy like Peter, then surely God can work in any of us, even me, amen?

Turn to the first book of Peter with me and let’s begin our journey through this timely encouragement to followers of Jesus, and discover ‘things that angels long to look into…’

That statement made me think that if this is stuff ANGELS want to know about, then perhaps all of humanity should want to discover it too???

1 PETER

Greeting

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and

Bithynia, 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

• What a great start to a letter! It’s Peter here, the follower of Jesus, the witness to His life, death and resurrection, commissioned by the Lord to share the gospel to all the world – the Apostle.

• And who is he writing to? Elect exiles. Not people literally living in exile from the Holy Land, but believers who know that this world is not their eternal home! Their real Promised Land is eternal life with Jesus in heaven.

• Their values and the way they understand the world are not those of the world. Rather it is the change in their hearts brought about by their salvation that they align themselves with God

• And note that all three persons of the Trinity are mentioned right here in the opening of Peter’s address to them – God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ Who shed His blood for their sin – and for ours.

• God the Father knows them

• The Holy Spirit purifies them

• And they live in obedience to Jesus Christ

• He blesses them with a prayer for grace and peace to grow in their midst