The sermon continues a series on 1 Peter 1, having covered verses 3-4 the previous week, which established that God's great mercy is the source of the new birth, Christ's resurrection is the ground on which that new birth rests, and the inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading is what believers are born again to receive. Those verses ground Peter's doxology: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" is praise offered because of what God has done and will do, not because of anything the believer contributes. The sermon frames this as an outworking of the Westminster Shorter Catechism's first answer — that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever — and insists that glorifying God flows from grasping his work for us, not from human effort aimed at producing glory.

Having looked at the past (verse 3-4, what God has already done in raising Christ and regenerating believers) and the future (the imperishable inheritance kept in heaven), the sermon turns to verse 5 to answer a pressing question: what about now, in the interval between new birth and the final reception of that inheritance, a time marked by trials, temptations, stress, fear, and confusion? Does God simply set believers to finish the race under their own strength? Peter's answer is that believers "are being guarded through faith by God's power for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."

The preacher illustrates this with the image of a long chain stretching from eternity to eternity: one end anchored in God's eternal election "before the foundation of the world" (echoing Ephesians), moving forward to Christ's death and resurrection roughly two thousand years ago as the historical foundation of salvation, forward again to each believer's own new birth by the work of the Spirit and the word, and then into the present — the gap between conversion and seeing Christ face to face, where the chain's final link must still be forged. Peter's answer is that this present link is God himself preserving believers "through faith" by his power.

To sharpen what that means, the sermon contrasts two errors. The first, labeled Arminian (after Jacobus Arminius), rightly says faith is the chain linking present life to final salvation, but wrongly concludes that a truly regenerate, chosen, born-again believer can abandon that faith and thereby be lost — becoming, in effect, no longer a child of God but a child of the devil, cut off from Christ and bound for eternal destruction. The sermon illustrates this with the story of "Charlie," raised in the church, seemingly converted, active in ministry, who later absorbs relativistic and atheistic ideas at university (illustrated by the "blind men and the elephant" parable, which the preacher argues secretly claims sight for its teller while calling everyone else blind) and ultimately abandons the faith, ending in divorce and addiction. The second error, called antinomianism, or "once saved, always saved" taken to an extreme, claims that because someone was truly born again they cannot lose salvation no matter how they live now, even in ongoing unbelief and unrepentant sin, since final salvation was already secured.

Against both, the sermon insists that Peter's own language holds two truths together. First, genuine faith is essential and must be real — visible in obedience, love for God with the whole heart, and love for others — because, quoting James 2, faith without works is dead, and even demons believe and tremble; 1 John 2:19 warns that those who depart from the fellowship show by their departure that they never truly belonged. So fruitlessness is a serious warning sign, not proof of a merely external, unregenerate profession like Charlie's. Second, and decisively, that same persevering faith is itself sustained and guarded by God's omnipotent power, not by the believer's own strength — this is the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, meaning God preserves the saints by enabling them to persevere. True believers may stumble, doubt, and sin, but they will not totally and finally fall away, because God himself upholds their faith.

The sermon closes with Peter's own experience in Luke 22:31-32, where Jesus tells Simon that Satan has demanded to sift him like wheat, but Jesus has prayed that his faith would not fail, and says "when," not "if," you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. Peter denied Christ three times, yet returned, wept, and was restored — not because his own resolve held, but because Christ's intercession and God's preserving power held him. The sermon urges believers to strain toward faithful, fruitful lives while resting the ultimate outcome not on their own strength but on God's unbreakable, sustaining hand, and closes in prayer inviting any who are unrepentant, fruitless, or never truly converted to turn to Christ.

Bible Verses Used

• 1 Peter 1:3-4: Reviewed from the prior week as the ground for praising God — his mercy, Christ's resurrection, and the imperishable inheritance kept in heaven for believers.

• 1 Peter 1:5: The central text — believers "are being guarded through faith by God's power" for a salvation to be revealed in the last time, the basis for the sermon's teaching on perseverance.

• 1 Peter 1:6: Cited briefly to show that what God has done and will do is the ground for present rejoicing.

• 1 John 2:19: Used to explain that those who depart from the faith and the fellowship of believers thereby show they never truly belonged, warning against false, external professions of faith.

• James 2 (faith without works is dead / even demons believe and tremble): Used to insist that genuine faith must produce visible fruit and cannot be mere intellectual assent.

• Luke 22:31-32: Peter's own denial and restoration — Jesus' prayer that Peter's faith would not fail, and his promise that Peter would turn back — used as living proof that God preserves the faith of his true children even through failure.

• John 10 (implicit, "no one will snatch them out of my hand"): Referenced in critiquing the classroom debate over whether believers can "jump out" of God's hand, to affirm that security rests on God's power, not human effort.