Lesson 3: Foundation for holiness – faith

Read 1 Peter 1:1-25 - https://www.bible.com/bible/59/1pe.1
8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,
9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully,
11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.
12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

In Hebrews 11:6 we read it is impossible to please God without faith in Him. In our verses today we read some interesting things about our faith.


Verse 8 says we rejoice in our love for Jesus with an inexpressible joy. Since we cannot see Him (we have never seen Him with our physical eyes), this love grows only by faith – faith through which we learn to see Him with our spiritual eyes as we get to know Him from the Bible.

Verse 9 tells us the outcome of our faith is the salvation of our souls. This is not the salvation we receive when we accept Jesus as our Savior. A good example of the two steps of salvation might be this: You accept the challenge of taking ownership of a piece of property on which nothing is built. The property is given to you with the instruction that you must build something there. You are given all the materials with which to build, but how you design and build your building is up to you. You can start building without any help if you wish, but since you know nothing of how the materials go together, you will almost surely make many mistakes. However, you are given, also free, a set of blueprints and an instructor to help you understand the blueprints and a guide for how to build a good building. Our faith is like this building. We have received everything we need from God to build (Ephesians 1:3), the Bible is our blueprint, and the Holy Spirit is our guide.

Verses 10-12 tell us something very interesting about the people of the Old Testament who were used by God to write those books (see Isaiah 45:20-25; 52:14; and 55:1-7). They knew they were writing important truths about Jesus, the Messiah whom God was prophesying about. But they did not understand what they were writing, even though they saw enough to long to know more. God comforted them with the promise that they were serving people like you and me who live in this time after Jesus came – so through their writing we would be able to understand the many glorious things He wants to teach us about Himself.

*What has Jesus taught you this week about Himself or about being more like Him?