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1 Peter 1:8 By E. H. Andrews

Holy Spirit. Two general principles that we must bear in mind, and to some extent which I will take for granted as we go through this series. First of all, the fruit is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It has a divine origin. It stems from the Spirit of God who has taken up residence in the heart and soul of every true believer. That's what it is to be a believer.
It is not I who lives as the Apostle Paul, but Christ lives in me. And he lives in me, of course, by his Holy Spirit. And it is that indwelling Spirit of God who in the last analysis brings forth and creates and causes these fruits to appear in the life of the believer. And the second principle, the second thing I shall take for granted is this, that fruit is visible.
When the New Testament talks about fruit, well, the Bible, when it talks about fruit, it's talking about that which is visible, that which appears at the end, perhaps, of a long period of time after the seed is planted and the seed sprouts and it grows and it develops. In all that time there is nothing visible, but then eventually the fruit appears. And it is the appearance of the fruit that demonstrates the genuineness of the plant. By their fruits say the Lord Jesus Christ, you shall know them. So the fruit of the Holy Spirit are not to be perceived as inward experiences.
No doubt they have to be inward experiences before they can be outward manifestations. But nevertheless we have to see them as things which appear in the life of the one who bears the fruit, things which are demonstrated in their actions and their attitudes, and in their general walk with God. Well now, to look at this fruit of joy, we're going to turn to the first peter, the first letter of peter and chapter one, those verses that Alan read to us earlier in the service. And in particular, to start with the statement in verse six, in which he says, in this salvation you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various triumphs.
Now I want to look first of all at joy in adversity.
Peter is writing not to some specific church or group of individuals who had
suffered some particular problems and calamities, he's writing very generally. He writes to the
pilgrims of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. He's writing to
the people who have been scattered from their homeland, people who have been driven out in
many cases from their inheritance upon this earth, and had been made exiles through persecution
of their Christian faith. And he comforts them with this fact that although they had become
exiles and had had to give up their earthly inheritance, he speaks of an inheritance in
verse four which is heavenly, which is eternal, which is from God, which is the city that God has
made and designed and prepared for those that love him, an eternal city. He has prepared us for an
inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven
for you. Now here is the first great comfort that Peter offers to these people. He doesn't know them
personally. They're a vast multitude of people scattered throughout the then known world,
but one thing he does know, and that is that they're having a hard time.
He doesn't know their individual circumstances. His letter is addressed far too widely for that,
but he does know this, that they are grieved, verse six, by various trials, by various temptations,
as the authorized version, but it's trials, it's tests, it's difficulties, it's problems,
persecutions, sorrows. And he knows this is the earthly lot of believers. Now it may be that in
our own day we have a fairly easy time of it. It may be that we do not suffer outward or specific
persecution, that we have not been driven from our homes, that we have not been robbed of our
earthly inheritance because we are Christians, because we believe in Jesus Christ, but
nevertheless, nevertheless, I think every one of us here could testify to the fact that it is not
easy to be a Christian. The Christian life is not easy. It is beset by trials and by temptations,
and as a consequence of those trials and temptations, we are in heaviness,
says the King James Version. We are grieved, we are burdened, we are bowed down, we are caused
to sorrow so often because of these trials and afflictions that come upon us, whether they be
natural, the afflictions of ill health or old age, or whether they be the afflictions imposed upon
us by an unbelieving world. There are many trials and tribulations. We must, through much
tribulation, enter the Kingdom of God for rights to Timothy. There is no easy way. It is a hard way,
it is a difficult way. And yet Peter can talk of joy. He says in verse 6,
in this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved
by various trials. And he offers various comforts. He offers various reasons, if you like, why it is
possible for us to rejoice at the same time as we are bowed down and grieved by various trials.
At first sight that may seem a contradiction. It may seem that if we are grieved, if we are in
heaviness through many tests, that we cannot at the same time rejoice. But Peter says that's not
the case. It is possible to rejoice in the midst of sorrow. It is possible to have joy in the midst
of temptation. You may remember how the Apostle Paul speaks of the churches of Macedonia in
2 Corinthians chapter 8. He testifies there. He says, Moreover, brethren, we made known to you
the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia, that in a great trial of affliction,
a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy,
and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality.
Here's a most amazing testimony. And notice that Paul gives credit, not to the Macedonians
themselves, but he gives credit to the grace of God. He glorifies God. He says, We want to make
known to you the grace of God bestowed upon the churches of Macedonia. And what did that grace
do? It produced an abundance of joy in the midst of a great trial of affliction. And it produced
a visible and tangible liberality with their money in the midst of their deep poverty.
That's a most amazing statement, and we could easily linger with it, but we won't.
It demonstrates the fact that in a trial of affliction, in difficulty, in pain,
in perplexity, in loss, in hardship, it is possible to rejoice.
And indeed, it is perhaps that sense of being detached from the world, of having no continuing
city here. That sense that comes when we are rejected and persecuted by men. That sense which
comes when the things of this world are taken from us, whether it be health or money or friends
or whatever. That sense that comes of realizing that the fashion of this world is passing,
that the things of earth are not tangible, they're not lasting, they're not enduring, they have no
continuing value. That sense of detachment from the world that comes in a time of persecution
and difficulty, perhaps it is that which enables us in a more pure and a more wholehearted manner
to seek the joy that is found in God. To seek those things which are above, where Christ reigns
and sits at the right hand of God. Where there are treasures that do not fade away and
are not corrupted by rock, by rust, and stolen by thieves. It helps us indeed to be weaned
from the things of this world and to set our affections on things above. But Peter offers
two further causes of comfort in the midst of affliction. Two further things that give us ground
for rejoicing in the midst of adversity. The first is here, quite plainly in verse 5,
you are kept by the power of God through faith. And we are kept, he says, for that salvation that
is ready to be revealed in the last times. So he's not only talking about a day by day keeping,
although of course he does mean that, but he's talking about being kept for our eternal reward,
being kept throughout the period of our lives, being kept so that we might inherit
and attain to that great inheritance, that great glorious inheritance of which we have more to say
a little later on. We are kept by the power of God, that this is something to rejoice in even
in the midst of affliction. You may recall the words of Isaiah chapter 43, words which have been
a great comfort to me on many occasions. But now, thus saith the Lord, who created you, O Jacob,
and he who formed you, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name,
you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and through the rivers they
shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame
kindle upon you, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
Now you'll notice there the prophet, or the Lord speaking through the prophet, makes a promise
that they will be kept in the midst of trouble. You see, he doesn't say that they will not pass
through the waters, he does not say they will not have to cross the rivers,
he does not say they will be spared the fire, but what he does say is that when you pass through the
waters I will be with you, and through the rivers they shall not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, neither shall the flame scorch you.
You see, God does not promise us exemption from trials and hardships. There are some
people who preach the gospel in such a way as to suggest that it is an escape road
from the tribulations of life, that Christianity is an easy way out,
but nothing could be further from the truth. The Christian life is a hard life,
the Christian way is a narrow way, there are stony pathways to negotiate.
The Christian life is not easy, but we have this glorious promise that God Himself, who is our
Saviour, who has created us, who has formed us, who has redeemed us, and has called us by our
names individually, one by one, called us to Himself, that this great God and Saviour is with
us in the midst of all those trials and all those temptations, and by His presence and His powers,
Peter, we are kept. And this is something in which to wondrously rejoice.
I was speaking to somebody very recently who was having great difficulty, physical difficulty,
illness, pain, weakness, but there was evident joy in this person's testimony.
She had gone to a hospital as an emergency admission, and was rejoicing in the fact that
she had had some communication there with people that she wouldn't have met otherwise, spiritual
communication. I didn't make out whether it was speaking to unsaved people or whether she'd met
another Christian, but nevertheless there was joy. Something good had come out of her affliction and
how often we can echo that experience. We are kept by the power of God, and therefore we can rejoice
even in the midst of affliction. And then there's a second thing that Peter offers here by way of
comfort. He says in verse 7 that there is a reason for the trials, that God has a purpose in the
trials. They're not meaningless. They're not simply there to make us dependent upon God even.
There's a much more positive purpose in trial, and Peter spells it out here, doesn't he, in
very wonderful terms. He says, these various trials that have grieved you are necessary in order
that the genuineness, the reality of your faith, being much more precious than gold, the perishes,
though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise and honour and glory at the revelation
of Jesus Christ. And you know James goes one step further, doesn't he? He says, brethren, count it
all joy when you fall into different trials. We are to rejoice at our trials. Peter and James
join together in saying this to us. We are to rejoice in our trials because God has a purpose
in those trials, and that purpose is to refine us, and in particular to refine our faith.
It's just as gold is refined by fire and heated, so that the dross, if there is any, might rise to
the top and be be skimmed off, so that what is left is 100 pure metal. Now God is using
our trials and our afflictions to purify our faith, and there is something in which we may
truly rejoice. So then, we are to have and we may have and we must have joy in adversity.
But the second point here, and rising in importance, perhaps the most central thing and
the most important thing that we have presented to us in this passage is the fact that we have
joy not only in adversity, but we have joy in Christ. Joy always has an object or a focus.
To give an example, the Old Testament speaks of the joy of harvest. The joy the people had
when the harvest was gathered in, especially if that harvest was an abundant harvest, they had
great joy because their livelihood had been secured for another year. There was great reason
and cause for rejoicing, but the cause for rejoicing was not in themselves, it had an
objective existence. It was the harvest in which and over which they were able to rejoice.
Now, happiness is something that can just happen to us. You may get up in the morning and feel on
top of the world. You may get up in the morning and feel that everything is going your way.
Equally, you may get up in the morning and feel completely the opposite.
Happiness is something that is within us. It is not to be despised. This is something that we
we enjoy and long to have. But there is a distinction between happiness and joy because
happiness is very subjective. Whereas joy has an object. We rejoice in something. We rejoice over
something. The bridegroom rejoices over the bride and the bride rejoices in the bridegroom.
Joy always has this object, and the grand object which is presented to us in scripture for our joy,
the great cause of joy for the believer, is not a thing, not an experience, but a person,
Jesus Christ. And because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, so that joy is
or should be a constant joy that does not change with the circumstances of life or with the way
we're feeling or with our state of health or with the way people treat us. Here is a joy that is
focused upon Christ and that arises from the person of Jesus Christ. That's very plainly stated here,
isn't it? In verse 8, he's speaking of Jesus Christ, the revelation of Jesus Christ,
whom having not seen you love, though now you do not see him yet believing,
you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. But there are too many words in there. We
can easily lose the sense of what Peter is saying.
Whom having not seen you love, though now you do not see him yet believing, you rejoice in him
with joy inexpressible and full of glory. The Authorized Version, in fact, puts that clearly.
Whom having not seen you love, in whom though now you see him not yet believing,
you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Our rejoicing is in Christ,
and he is the cause of our joy. If we are true believers, he is the cause of our joy.
But notice that Peter joins together with that joy as things that are causative of that joy
to other things. They are love and faith, or believing. You can almost think of this as a
chain. How do we rejoice in Jesus Christ? How do we in practice experience and demonstrate to
others around us the joy we have in Christ? Well, says Peter, we do it in two ways. We do it
in loving Christ and believing in Christ. It is as we love Christ and as we believe in Christ
that we have joy in Christ. The joy that we have in Christ is not something that just falls into
our lap out of a blue sky. The joy we have in Christ is something that arises spontaneously
as, first of all, we believe on Jesus Christ. Now, we have to start there. We have to start
there with believing on Christ, for we have no part in Christ until we believe on Christ.
We have no understanding of Christ until we believe in Christ. We have no forgiveness in
Christ unless we believe in Christ. It is through faith that we are justified. It is through faith
that we are brought near to God. It is by faith that we enter into the holiest, into the presence
of God through faith. It is as we embrace Jesus Christ as the sole cause of our eternal benefit,
the sole cause of the forgiveness of sin, as a sole cause of God's blessing upon our lives
and our hearts and our eternal future, it is as we embrace Christ in faith that these other benefits
begin to flow into our lives. Perhaps the first one that we experience as we believe on Christ
is love towards Christ, whom having not seen you love. Now, Peter puts a great emphasis here on
the fact that they haven't seen the Lord Jesus Christ. They haven't had that privilege of seeing
him in the flesh. But remember how Paul says, though we had known Christ after the flesh,
yet now we know him in that way no more, because the true knowledge of Christ is a spiritual
knowledge that is just as open to Peter's readers and to us in our own day as it was to Peter
himself who saw Christ in the flesh. This love does not depend upon our seeing Christ, upon our
hearing his words physically, seeing his miracles. This love depends upon the work that the Holy
Spirit has done in our hearts. It depends upon the opening of our hearts to receive the things
of God as the Spirit of God teaches them to us. It is into our hearts that the love of God is shed
by the Holy Spirit who is given to us, and that love is focused upon Christ.
We believe in Christ and we love Christ. Logically that is the sequence. Faith first,
love comes. But in my experience, I know this, that they came at the same time.
I couldn't separate one from another. I was a teenage student and God in his mercy gave me
suddenly for no obvious reason, for no apparent reason, for no human reason,
a great hunger for the scriptures. I never read the Bible before. I went to church,
but the Bible meant absolutely nothing to me. But there came a day when I was like a thirsty man
in a desert for the Word of God. It didn't have a Bible. It didn't even possess one. So I borrowed
a New Testament from a friend at church. I devoured that book. My hunger was such that I,
I, not literally of course, but almost literally ate it up. I just read from the first page through,
and as I read, I found myself believing on this person of whom he spoke, believing on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and I fell in love with him. I am not ashamed to say that. I fell in love with this
person whom I had not seen, who was coming to me only through the pages of the book,
through the words of those who had seen him. I believed and I loved. I know now that was the
gracious work of the Spirit of God working in my soul. And as I believed, I loved, and as I loved,
I found joy in Christ. That is a joy that has not departed from me. There have been times of ups
and downs, and there always will be in this life. But that joy in Christ, joy in possessing Christ,
joy in being joined to the Lord Jesus Christ, joy in receiving from him all the blessings,
all the riches of wisdom and knowledge and grace and mercy, all those unsearchable riches
that are Christ's are mine. And what a joy this is, how I can rejoice
over the blessings of God that he has given me in Jesus Christ.
But Peter doesn't stop there. He goes on. Not only do we rejoice in Jesus Christ,
because we believe in him and because we love him, we also rejoice, he says in verse 8,
with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of our faith, the salvation
of our souls. That brings us to the third point, not only joy in adversity and joy in Christ,
but joy in the glory of Christ. Now it may be an artificial division,
but nevertheless we're rising yet one step higher. Not only joy in our experience of Christ,
not only joy in salvation, but joy in all the glorious future that Christ has made ours.
Now I don't know how you feel when you read verse 8,
believing in whom believing you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.
Now that's extravagant language, isn't it? And your first reaction may be, what is my first
reaction whenever I read these words? And that is, this is beyond my experience, or at least it is
beyond my normal experience. There may well be times, perhaps in the past, that I can think of,
occasions over these last 50 years, when I could perhaps apply these words to my own experience.
There has been joy, unspeakable as the authorized version puts it, and full of glory, but it's not a
normal, not a common experience of believers. Really one of the reasons I mentioned right at
the beginning, that a lot of Christians seem to get by without joy.
Here is something that appears to be beyond our ability to attain in normal times,
in normal experience. And at first sight it may seem to be discouraging rather than encouraging,
because Peter is talking about something up here, where we're down here, and somehow
there doesn't seem to be any way of getting from here to there.
But you know, Peter is not writing to discourage his readers. He's writing to encourage them,
writing to help them, to strengthen them. He's writing to support them and to help
strengthen that joy that is already theirs. And I think perhaps there is the danger of
misunderstanding these words, because this inexpressible nature and glorious nature
of the joy, in verse 8, should I think be attached not so much to the subjective experience,
but to the objective reality. You see, we often stop at the end of verse 8,
but there's no full stop there. No full stop in any of the Greek manuscripts, of course,
they didn't use that sort of punctuation when these manuscripts were written. But in the sense,
there is no full stop. It carries on into verse 9,
receiving the end, the objective, the purpose of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
See, this joy that is inexpressible and full of glory is related to the end purpose
and end result of our faith, namely salvation. And to understand what he means by salvation,
just go back to earlier verses in the passage, he's not talking only about our present experience
of salvation and reconciliation to God. That's part of it. That's included in it. But notice
again, in verse 4, how he encourages them by pointing them forward to the inheritance,
which is incorruptible and undefiled, and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven
for you who are kept by the power of God through faith for a salvation, and there's our word,
ready to be revealed when? In the last time. He's pointing them forward to the return of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's pointing them forward to the time when our salvation will be complete.
When our salvation will be finished, or to put it in the language of Romans chapter 8,
when the sons of God, the children of God, will be revealed in glorious liberty. That time when
the whole creation, the whole created order will be delivered from the corruption, from the bondage
of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. There will be a time when our
salvation, which is to some extent hidden and concealed, will be fulfilled, will be complete.
When our bodies, for example, will be raised from corruption and be perfected, and they will be,
the redemption of the purchased possession, we shall be complete. There is a glorious heritage
laid out before us. And that, I believe, is what Peter is speaking of. And when he says
that they rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and full of glory,
I think he's attaching those words, not so much to our subjective experience, but to the objective
reality of this great salvation that is laid before us. And you know the New Testament does
that. It points us forward to that time when God's purpose will be finally fulfilled. And we,
as believers, shall enter in to an experience of glory and of God in Jesus Christ, which is so
great, that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man the things that
God has prepared for them. Or as John says, now, brethren, we are the children of God. It does not
yet appear what we shall be, but we know when that He appears, we shall be like Him, like Christ.
There is a glory that is at present hidden from our eyes. There is a heritage, an inheritance,
that is so vast, so wonderful, so indescribable, that it cannot be expressed. And we are to have
joy in that. Remember in Hebrews chapter 12, how the writer says of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame,
and has sat down at the right hand of God. And there is a parallel there. The Lord Jesus Christ
endured the cross. He despised the shame of hanging there upon a Roman gibbet.
Why? How? How did He cope with it all? With the joy that was set before Him.
Now, because He has suffered, we do not suffer. Because He has borne our sins, we do not bear
our sins. We cannot have before us the joy that was set before Him. But we have something that
He has earned for us by His suffering. We also have a joy that is in anticipation
of the glory that shall be. And I think the reason that we so seldom have any joy of this nature
is that we do not have a perception of that glory that is to come. We are too preoccupied
with the things of this world. Sometimes the good things of this world, we're preoccupied with the
work of the Church, the work of evangelism, we're preoccupied with all the things we do in the
service of God here. And it's quite right and proper that we should be so preoccupied.
But we must not forget the reason for which we have been saved, the reason for which we have
been called out of the world, the reason for which God has laid hold upon us in Christ. What is that
reason? That He might bring many sons to glory. That He might bring us to that place of ineffable
glory and unspeakable wonder and beauty, to that place of the fulfillment not only of everything
a human heart could desire, but the fulfillment of the very purpose of God. The Bible gives us
glimpses of it. We cannot see the whole as yet. We shall not know the whole until we are with Christ
in glory. But we are to so set that vision before us that we rejoice in something that is
inexpressible and something that is full of glory. And our rejoicing in itself, in its present sense
experience, will take on the tinge, the color of that glory and of that beauty and of that wonder
that shall be when we are around the throne of Christ.
The New Testament points us forward to that time. Even Abraham, so long ago,
looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
He was looking for a heavenly country, not an earthly country. God had promised him an earthly
inheritance, but his gaze ultimately was upon that heavenly kingdom, that glorious Zion,
that city of the living God to which we are bound, that glory that awaits us, that inheritance,
says Peter, which is undefined. Just read again in verses three and four.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has
begotten us again to a living hope, living expectation through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not
fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith
for that salvation that is ready, that is waiting to be revealed in the last time.
You know, we do so much need to set our affection on things above.
We do so much need to put our hope and our rejoicing in those glorious things
which God has prepared for those who love him. We need to find our joy, not only in a
present experience of Christ, but in the anticipation and hope of that great
great and wondrous fulfillment of all that Christ has done in heaven and in glory.
I know it said that we mustn't be too heavenly minded to be any earthly use, but I tell you this,
unless we are heavenly minded, we shall be of no earthly use. May God help us therefore
to set our affection on things above.