Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:13)

This is Peter's very first command to his first readers, yet it's a command for all believers in every age. Preparing our minds for action, and being sober-minded, we are to set our hope fully on the grace that will be given to us when the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed in His majestic glory. It's wonderful reality, and one that should kindle the embers of hope in our hearts: God promises to lavish His redeemed with even more grace in the future.

PAST GRACE

Election

As Christians, when we look back on our lives—and even further back to a time before the world existed—we see that the grace of God was already being lavished upon a people yet unborn. The doctrine of election is nothing more than God's grace extended to wrath-deserving sinners in Christ Jesus before the ages began (2 Tim. 1:9). God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we might forever praise the glory of His grace (Eph. 1:4-6).

Redemption

Not only is God’s grace the source of election, but it was also the very thing that motivated our Lord Jesus to humble Himself for us: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9). According to Paul, redemption through the blood of Christ and the forgiveness of our trespasses flow from the riches of Christ’s grace (Eph. 1:7).

Regeneration

We can also trace the miracle of the new birth—the reality of being made alive in Christ—back to the grace of God (Eph. 2:5). Those who are called are called by God's grace (Gal. 1:15), and those who believe, believe only through God's grace (Acts 18:27). Whether we look back to the Father’s sovereign election, the Son’s redeeming sacrifice, or the Spirit’s work in calling and regenerating us, grace is the fountain from which all of it flows. 

Never move beyond the wonder of past grace poured out by our Triune God, for the preciousness of past grace empowers present obedience and enlivens future hope.

PRESENT GRACE

Sanctification

God's grace toward us didn’t stop at regeneration. God's grace trains us in holiness (Tit. 2:11-12). The language of believers continuing to be entrusted and handed over to God's grace and favor is found three times in the book of Acts (Acts 14:26; 15:40; 20:32). As Christians, we are "set before" (Gk. paratithemi) the grace of God (Acts 20:32). We stand in grace (Rom. 5:2), live under grace (Rom. 6:14), are gifted by grace (Rom. 12:6), sustained by grace (2 Cor. 12:9), and strengthened by grace (Heb. 13:9). As we pray, we approach God's throne of grace, where we are guaranteed to receive mercy and grace to help us in our time of need (Heb. 4:16).

FUTURE GRACE

Glorification

Christians can look back, up, down, and around with the eyes of faith see the grace of God everywhere they turn. Yet, there remains a future manifestation of God's grace: "the grace that will be brought to [us] at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 1:13). It is this grace, according to Peter, that we are to set the entirety of our hope upon. In fact, it is fitting to think of this future grace as the ultimate goal for which all past and present grace is extended to us. In other words, the grace behind election, redemption, regeneration, sanctification, and preservation is preparing us for the grace to be revealed in the breathtaking experience of glorification—when all the blood-bought children of God will be perfectly conformed to the image of God's eternal Son.

John Frame summarizes glorification as "the consummation of human nature in God’s image" (Salvation Belongs to the Lord: An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2006, 223). It is the final link in Paul’s golden chain of redemption: "And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified" (Rom. 8:30). Glorification involves the redemption, resurrection, and transformation of our lowly bodies (Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 15:43; Phil. 3:21). As John Murray states, it refers to "the complete and final redemption of the whole person, when in the integrity of body and spirit, the people of God will be conformed to the image of the risen, exalted, and glorified Redeemer, when the very body of their humiliation will be conformed to the body of Christ’s glory" (Redemption Accomplished and Applied, 1955, 175).

On that final day, our heavenly Bridegroom will "present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:27). In Luke 12, we are given a breathtaking picture of the grace that will be lavished upon us by our King:

Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. (Luke 12:35-40)

Christian believer, consider these words and let them sink in: Christ will again dress Himself for service and have His people recline at the table, as He did with His disciples during His first coming (John 13:4-5). He will again "come and serve" His beloved (Luke 12:37), just as He came the first time "not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many" (Matt. 20:28). This must be divine revelation from another world, for who, with the slightest reverence for the God of Scripture, could imagine the King of glory returning to serve His servants? Who are we that we should be the recipients of such gracious service? The answer isn't found in who we are, but in who He is.

The Beatific Vision

We tend to think of God's Son taking the position of a servant only during His first coming (Phil. 2:7), but He is coming again to serve the Bride He redeemed with His own blood. He is coming in grace and with grace to lavish even more grace upon His beloved. He will serve us by glorifying us with Himself (Rom. 8:17). He will serve us by granting us the unspeakable joy and privilege of being with Him forever and beholding His glory:

Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, may be with Me where I am, to see My glory that You have given Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)

To be with Him and to behold Him—this is the grace and glory of the life to come.