Triumph Over Trials - 1 and 2 PeterSample

It Was Planned All Along

Read: 1 Peter 1:17-21

SOAP: 1 Peter 1:20-21

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was manifested in these last times for your sake. Through him you now trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Into the Text

Isn’t it amazing to realize Christ’s sacrifice for our sins was not an afterthought or plan B? Before the first star hung in the sky, God crafted a plan. It was not a last-minute thought, but His heart’s intention from the start. Before the world began, God already had us in mind (Ephesians 1:4), and He knew how everything would start and end.

Long before Adam and Eve drew a breath, God knew what His plan would cost Him. The Creator of everything set up a rescue mission to save you and me from our sins. He saved us not only from the punishment of our sins but also from the power of sin.

Peter writes here that we were “ransomed” from the “futile ways” inherited from our forefathers (1 Peter 1:18), meaning that Jesus paid a price to set us free from living the way the world does. He paid with the most valuable thing in the universe: His own blood. He bought our holiness - our holy way of living - making sure that all true Christians would be able to walk God’s ways. Because of this, the only way to God is through Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the only means by which a person can be saved (John 14:6).

So not only is Jesus the only way to be reconciled to God - He is also the only One by whom we can be sanctified. Jesus can help us overcome our deep-seated sin. He bought us. We are His, and He will keep working on us until we are perfected in heaven one day. As the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his creative work, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we can do them.”

Prayer

Dear Lord Jesus, thank You for being willing to lay down Your life from the very beginning of time. Thank You for Your loving obedience that led You to the cross. Please show me my sins and give me the grace and power to overcome them by your blood. Amen.