An overview for Sunday school teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible lesson” for March 2, 2025, “Our Inheritance,” with the text of I Peter 13-12. A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:

INTRO:  When George Washington was just 11 years old, his father Augustine Washington passed away, and he left George an inheritance in his will. Author Ron Chernow writes in his book, Washington: A Life, p. 10, 

“George inherited Ferry Farm, a half share in an upriver parcel called Deep Run, and assorted lots in Fredericksburg. The eleven -year-old also found himself the juvenile owner of ten human beings. Since he could not claim this property until he reached maturity, George’s newfound wealth was purely theoretical.”

(You may also want to refer to Washington’s future inheritance in Point IV, (:6-7) below.)

??? After talking about Washington’s inheritance, you could then ask you class members if anyone of them has ever received an inheritance — who left it to them, and anything interesting/particular about it???

(My mother passed away last fall, and I am in the process of trying to administer her estate — it’s been more complicated than I would have imagined — some of y’all have been through that! But I’m thankful for the gifts that she left each of us kids and her grandkids.)

You/your group can share your own stories, then you could say something like: Today as we start a new study in the Book of I Peter, we are going to look at the inheritance that GOD has given each of us as His children! 

OR: One of Charles Dickens’ greatest novels bears the title: Great Expectations. The term, “Great Expectations” in those days did not just mean that in some vague way, big things were expected of the young man Pip, whom the story was about. To have “expectations” in old England meant that you had the prospect of an inheritance coming to you. So if someone had a substantial inheritance they were expected to receive, it might be said of them that they had “great expectations.”

Then you might say: According to our scripture this morning in I Peter 1, If anyone has “Great Expectations,” it is the child of God. We are going to look at “Our Inheritance” as Christians in I Peter 1:3-12.

CONTEXT:

We begin a brand new study today, of the Book of I Peter.

Peter of course is the well-known disciple and apostle of Jesus Christ, one of the most prominent of Jesus’ disciples. Verse 1 tells us he wrote this letter to “those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” — so to Christians who lived throughout what we know as the nation of Turkey today. 

(You might get a map off of the internet like this one from biblestudy.org to show your class: 

So show your class, this is where the people lived and had their churches, that Peter was writing to here in this book.

As we saw in the journeys of the Apostle Paul in Acts, this was NOT an easy time to be a Christian, as the individual Christians and churches faced a lot of opposition. So Peter wrote to encourage and instruct the believers there on how to live the Christian life amidst those trying times of persecution and false accusation.

One of the ways he sought to encourage them was to get them to focus on the rich inheritance that God had waiting for them in glory — which will be the focus for our lesson today from I Peter 1:3-12.

OUTLINE:

I. The Prerequisite for the Inheritance (:3, 8-9)

II. The Nature of the Inheritance (:4)

III. The Guarantee of the Inheritance (:5)

IV. The Attitude of the Inheritance (:6-7)

V.  The Prediction of the Inheritance (:10-12)

TEXT:   I Peter 1:3-12

I. The Prerequisite for the Inheritance (:3, 8-9)

Sometimes an inheritance comes with a condition. For example: 

“In 1992, a successful German businessman left his heirs significant fortunes – with a weighty catch. Male heirs had to maintain their weight under 175 pounds, while female heirs needed to stay under 145 pounds. The will specified annual medical check-ups and weight verifications. Overweight heirs would lose their annual payments unless they dropped the excess pounds within one year.” (Legacy Insurance Plan.com, “Strange Inheritances.” 1/08/2025)

I’m glad God hasn’t given us THAT condition to receive His inheritance!  But there IS a condition, a prerequisite for receiving His inheritance, and we see it as :3 opens the main body of the text: 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 

How does Peter say we get the hope of this inheritance? The inheritance that is waiting for us in heaven is not just automatically given to everyone. To get it, we must be born again. And he specifically says this happens THROUGH the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It’s through receiving the gospel of Jesus and being born again.

Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

He said again in :7, “You must be born again.” And He went on in that passage to say that “whoever believes in Him shall have eternal life.” (:16) So a person is “born again” by putting their faith in Jesus as their Lord & Savior, and having the Holy Spirit come into their life. We are qualified to receive the inheritance when we are saved by faith in Jesus.

We see this explained and re-emphasized later in this text, in :8-9:  “and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.”

What does it mean to be saved by faith? This tells us: It means that although we haven’t seen Jesus, we believe in Him, and we love Him. 

— It’s just like Jesus said in John 20:29, “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” 

— It’s just like Hebrews 11:1 says: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.” 

Saving faith is putting the trust for your salvation in the death and resurrection of a Jesus you have never seen. If you have put your trust in Him, you are “born again,” as Jesus taught in John 3. And being born again, by grace through faith, is the prerequisite that qualifies you for the inheritance God has for us. Encourage your group members to make sure they have been born again, and have the certainty that they will inherit all that God has for them in heaven!

II. The Nature of the Inheritance (:4)

:4 “to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,”

So just what IS this inheritance God has for us? What is it like? Verse 4 tells us a lot about it. In fact, what I would do is ask your group to call out everything this verse tells us about the inheritance:

(Answers should include the following:

NOTICE the first 3 terms that describe our inheritance are all “negative”: “IMperishable; UNdefiled, will NOT fade away. In Greek each of these descriptive words begins with the letter “Alpha,” (our “a”) which at the beginning of a word means “not.” For example:

— “imperishable” (“a-phtharton”; “not/perishable, corruptible, decaying”). 

Back in the 1980s I discovered that I had some old baseball cards from the 1960s & 70s that were collector’s items. I’ve kept them and hope to pass them down to my sons as part of their inheritance. But those things are made of paper, and you can see how they are starting to fade, and decay just a bit. But God tells us there that the inheritance we have in heaven is NOT “perishable, corruptible, decaying.” We don’t have to worry about that happening with our inheritance in glory!

??? A discussion question in this section could be: do YOU have anything like this you are hoping to receive, or to give, as an inheritance, that may not last because it is perishable???

(That’s a genuine concern with all things of this world. But thank God our inheritance in heaven is “imperishable”!)

— “undefiled” (“a-miantos’; “not/stained, defiled” It is pure and perfect, not tainted by sin, like everything in this world is.

— “will not fade away” (“a-marantos’; “not/fading, withering”

— “reserved” from the Greek Tereo, which means “guarded, kept” (same word used for the soldiers who were “guarding” Jesus in Matthew 27-28.)  Importantly, this is a “perfect tense” verb, which means it is a past action that has abiding present results. God has been guarding that inheritance in heaven for us, with the present result that it is still being kept for us — and will continue to be! Nothing can take our inheritance away from us (as we shall see in :5)

— “in heaven.” This is important. Our inheritance is not here on this earth. We do not have “our best life now.” We get our inheritance in heaven. We’ve all heard that term, “He went on to his reward …”. That is what this is talking about. Our reward is in heaven. Some of us need to stop looking for it here on earth. Our inheritance is in heaven. THAT is where we get what is coming to us.  As Peter began this book, we are “aliens,” this is not our home country. “Our citizenship is in heaven.” (Philippians 3:20)

I remember as a child hearing the story of a missionary who returned home to the States after a long career of service overseas. Getting off the ship, he heard a band, and a great crowd, and he was so excited — until he saw it was for some dignitary on board. There was no one there to greet him. He said, “Lord, is this the reward I get when I get home?” He said he felt the Lord whisper to his heart, “My son, you’re not home yet!” 

Many of us as Christian need to remember this, as we get disappointed with our lack of success, or the way we are treated, or the lack of reward in this life. WE’RE NOT HOME YET! This is not where we get our reward! Our reward is kept in HEAVEN for us. So let’s keep our eyes fixed on heaven, and keep serving faithfully until we receive the inheritance we have waiting for us there.

III. The Guarantee of the Inheritance (:5)

:5 “who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 

Not only is our inheritance kept in heaven for us, but WE are protected by God’s power so that we can be certain that we will receive the inheritance.  This is such a vital thing: our certainty that we will get to heaven, to receive the inheritance God promised, is NOT based on our faithfulness, works, or ability, but on the power of GOD to protect us!

The word here in :5, “protected” by the power of God is another word that means “guarded,” like by a military guard.

You may remember in our study of Acts last year, how in Acts 23 the Jews had asked for the Apostle Paul to be brought to them for “investigation”  — but they were really plotting to ambush him on the way and kill him. Their plot was discovered, however, and the Roman commander sent 70 horsemen and 200 spearmen to guard Paul on his way to Caesarea — and he made it safely to his destination.  This is the picture of what God is doing for us: He is guarding us, not with mere human military might, but with His omnipotent power, and He will see us safely to our ultimate destination in heaven. No power in heaven or on earth can keep us from the inheritance God has saved for us!

It is just like Psalm 63 says: “My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.” Yes, we are to cling to God with all we have; but our ultimate confidence that we will make it to glory is not based on our own strength or faithfulness, but on GOD’S power!

I’ve used before the illustration of the picture I have of me holding my grandbaby, and he had his hand full of my shirt, just holding on with all his might, like his life depended upon it! But his security was not based on how tightly he was holding on to me, but on how tightly I was holding on to him!

This is a picture of our security in the Lord. It’s not based on our faithfulness or power, but on His. 

— “If we are faithless, yet He remains faithful.” (II Timothy 2:13) 

— “for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” (II Timothy 1:12) 

— As the great hymn says: “The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to his foes. That soul though all hell should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no never, no never forsake”!  GOD’S power is the guarantee of our inheritance! 

IV. The Attitude of the Inheritance (:6-7)

:6 “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, 7 so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;”

Peter says the Christian, born again through faith in Christ, with an inheritance waiting in heaven, can rejoice, even if we experience difficult trials while we are here on earth. The future promise of our inheritance, cheers us in our present situations.

You may/may not have used the George Washington inheritance story in the introduction. Either way, you might plan to refer to that story at this point: point out that as a boy, George Washington had this rich inheritance coming to him: of the farm, and the land, and the lots, and the slaves. Now, as a boy, he did not have all of that in hand yet — and there may have been some times when he was discouraged about his life and situation — but he could always look ahead, and say: “things may be tough now, but I have all this inheritance coming to me soon!” 

That is exactly the attitude that we as Christians should have. We have this amazing inheritance coming: “imperishable, undefiled, will not fade away, kept in heaven” for us — we are rich! Now, we may experience difficult times right now, and we not have all we want, and things might not always go our way here on earth. But just like George Washington we can say “Very soon I am coming into this great inheritance, and I will be rich — and it will be for all eternity!” Our trials here on earth are brief, but our inheritance in heaven will be forever. 

It’s just like Romans 8:18 says: “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us.” We should continually comfort ourselves with thoughts like that. And again, that is really what faith is: believing in something that is coming to us, that we can’t yet see. If we believe that it is coming, and rejoice in it, that is faith, and that attitude of faith both pleases God, and will comfort us too.  

V. The Prediction of the Inheritance (:10-12)

:10 “As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, 11 seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look.” 

First, this speaks of “the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come” — this refers to the Old Testament prophets who predicted the coming Messiah and the salvation He would bring:

— Prophets like Isaiah, who predicted in Isaiah 53 that the Messiah have “the iniquities of us all” laid on Him.

— Prophets like Micah, who predicted in Micah 5:2 that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

— Prophets like Daniel, who was shown a vision of the coming Messiah in Daniel 7, and how He would be given an everlasting kingdom. But as he asked questions at the end of his book, in Chapter 12, he was told in :9 “Go your way, Daniel, for these words are concealed and sealed up until the end time.” In other words, you just write this down; it’s not for you; this is for the end; it’s for others.

So all of these Old Testament prophets predicted about the coming Messiah. This gives a strong foundation for the Gospel. Jesus didn’t just appear “out of nowhere” claiming to be the Messiah. He fulfilled all of these prophecies that were given hundreds of years beforehand by the prophets. These fulfilled prophecies are one of the strongest arguments for the truth of the Christian faith.

Another application we can take from this, is that not everything we get, or do, is for US. Sometimes what we see, do, share, receive — is for the benefit of OTHER people, not us! Peter says these Old Testament prophets sought to know what Person, or time, their prophecies referred to. God told these prophets, this was not for them, it was for the peoples to come.

“It’s not all about me” is a big lesson a lot of us need to learn. In our sin nature, we tend to be very self-centered. So when we get saved, God points us away from our self-centeredness to “not merely look out for our own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” (Phil. 2:4)

We have a lot of opportunities to apply this:

— “Why should I serve in the nursery? I don’t have any kids.” You’re not serving yourself, but others!

— “Why should I give for the youth building?” You aren’t serving yourself, but others!

— “Why should I go to church today; I don’t feel like I need it.” But OTHERS need your presence, encouragement, and gifts. And on and on. As Christians God will often call us to do things, not for ourselves, but for others! 

??? You might “prime the pump” with some of the above examples, but then ask your group: 

??? What are some things God might call us to do today as His followers, that we will do, not for ourselves, but for the benefit of others???

(You/your group can come up with many more.)

But make the point here from this verse: “They were not serving themselves, but you” — there’s a lot of things in the Christian life like that, that we don’t do for ourselves, but for the benefit of others. And it all comes from the attitude that Christ modeled for us: when “He who knew no sin, became sin on OUR behalf.” (II Cor. 5:21). Jesus didn’t do what He did for Himself; He selflessly did it for us. And if we really understand, and have really received what He did for us, then we will turn around and do selfless things that benefit others, and not ourselves, as we follow in His steps. And remember: we may or may not be rewarded for that selflessness here on earth — our reward is the inheritance in heaven! 

(Just FYI I preached a sermon series on I Peter in recent years, so if you want to look for some more Biblical insight, illustrations, or applications, you can use the search bar on my blog home page and type in “I Peter” or whatever particular passage you are looking for, and it will bring it up the relevant message. (For example, I have one on I Peter 1:4-5 entitled “Great Expectations.” You can type I Peter 1, or “Great Expectations” in the search bar, and that message will come up.) I hope that might be a helpful resource to you as we go through this book in the coming weeks.)

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