Growing in
Grace and Hope
Living In
Hope - Part 1- 1 Peter 1 :1-12
The continuing
war in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism in general…The tension with
North Korea and Iran…Huge losses in the stock market…Massive job layoff…The
worst economy in 75 years…An administration that is spending more money than we
can comprehend and no way to pay for it…Massive proposed tax increases at the
federal, state and local level to at least try to raise the funds for some of
it…A world that is increasingly fed up with America’s spending and
borrowing. It's enough to make anybody discouraged. And
that does not even take into consideration personal problems that you may be
facing ... financial difficulty, hurting or broken relationships, failing
health.
Would you agree
that discouragement is a universal disease? Everybody gets it from time to
time. We all get discouraged. It's also a highly contagious disease. You
notice, you get around discouraged people, what happens? You get discouraged.
It was
advertised that the devil was going to put his tools up for sale. On the date
of the sale, the tools were placed out for inspection. There they were, hatred,
envy, doubt, jealousy, lying, pride and so on. Laid apart from this pile was a
harmless looking tool - well worn and priced very high.
“What's the
name of this tool?” asked one bidder? “Oh,” said the adversary, “That's
discouragement.” “Why have you priced it so high?” “Because it's more useful to
me than the others. I can pry open and get inside a person's heart with that
one, when I cannot get near them with other tools. Now once I get inside with
discouragement, I can do almost anything else. It's a badly worn tool because I
use it on almost everyone. Few people even know it belongs to me.” The devil's
price for that tool was so high that he never sold it, and he still uses it on
God's people to this day.
Discouragement
is a universal problem, but it's also a curable one.
I've
discovered that what you focus on in life determines your outlook. It is not
uncommon for me to be getting upset and discouraged at some problem in my life.
Then suddenly, a phone call gets my mind off of that to some matter in the
church. It's a bit of good news, and suddenly I am not at all discouraged. What
I allow my mind to focus on greatly determines my state of mind. If you're
discouraged, I've got some good news for you. Today we're going to begin a new
series in the book of 1 Peter. It's a short book at the end of the New
Testament written by Peter. It was written to discouraged believers. It was written to encourage people who were
hurting, and Peter knew about discouragement. He was very discouraged when he
failed Jesus the night of His betrayal. Peter denied Jesus three times even
when he had promised Jesus he would never do that. In fact, not even the
resurrection cured Peter's discouragement. It took a one on one encounter with
the risen Jesus to do that. Jesus forgave Him and affirmed him personally. Now
Peter is passing on encouragement to others. In the process of giving us a message of hope,
Peter is also encouraging us to move on in our maturity as disciples – to
become more like Jesus. We all need
that.
In our passage
today it says in vs. 6, “I know you're going through some trials right now.”
That's the understatement of the century when Peter was writing that.
Christians at that time were being fed to lions. They were being burned at the
stake. Nero burned
Read 1 Peter 1:1-12 – “This letter is from Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. I am writing
to God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners in the provinces of
Keep this passage open and ready to look at.
WHAT TO REMEMBER WHEN DISCOURAGED
In this passage Peter tells Christians who are
discouraged that when you get down you need to focus on what is really good about
your life in Jesus. He says there are three things believers ought to never
forget.
1. God has chosen me to be a part of His family.
2. God is working in my life. Even though there
are problems and difficulties.
3. God has secured my future. My home in heaven
is secure.
These are simple, but they're really profound.
If you'll focus on them your discouragement will lift.
1. God has
chosen me to be part of His family!
1 Peter l:lb-2a – From the NASB for better
accuracy - Peter is writing to those “who
are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father…” Notice the
word "chosen". What is he saying here? He's saying your salvation is
no accident. God chose you long before you chose Him. He knew all about you and chose you. He took
the initiative. It was God's idea from the very start.
To me that brings up a couple of immediate
questions. The first one is “Why in the world would God do that?” Why would God
choose you, or me, to be a part of His family? The answer is, “Not because of
something I've done, but because of Who He is.” Because He is a God of love. He
is a God of grace. The more you understand grace the more you're going to be
amazed by it. God chose you. Did you deserve it? Not a chance. Do you deserve
to go to Heaven? No way! Are you or I good enough to be in God's family? No. He
just chose you. And that's good news.
On what basis did He chose you? V. 3 - “It is by
his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ
from the dead.” Notice the word “mercy.”
It's based on God's mercy not your performance. You'll never earn it. You'll
never deserve it. You couldn't work hard enough for it. You couldn't be good
enough. It's just God by His grace, His mercy, that He says, “I want you in My
family.” That blows my mind. That alone should encourage us all.
Notice he says, “We are born again.” I used to
not like that term. I feel like it's been misused ever since the days of Jimmy
Carter's presidency. But “born again” means getting a fresh start, a new heart,
a new standing and relationship with God by the miraculous work of God. That's
all it means. Have you ever been halfway through a conversation and thought “I
wish I could start over.” Have you ever been half way through life and thought
“I wish I could start over.” God gives you that option; it's called being born
again - a fresh start. He says He gives you the privilege of being born into
God's family.
Can you imagine what it would be like to be born
into a wealthy and influential family? Let's say you could be born into the
Kennedy family or the Forbes or Sam Wall's family. You'd get perks. You'd get
privileges. You'd get opportunities.
Maybe you feel like you are just barely hanging
on by a thread. I know that some of you are deeply hurting. Some of you are
facing a tough week, maybe getting some test results back. Or having a
relational problem. You're not here by accident this morning. No, you're not.
Just as God chose you before you were even born, He brought you here today. And
He wants to say this to you today, He wants you to know, no matter what
happens, He will always love you. No matter what happens in 2009, God will
always love you. He will never stop. Nothing can stop Him from loving you.
2. God is
working in my life!
Peter moves on to a second encourager. Not only
does God choose you to be a part of His family but he says God is still working
in your life, even when you're going through problems.
Even though you don't feel it, even though you
may feel God is a million miles away and you are all alone, God says, "I'm
working in your life." He's working in your life right now, even though
you don't feel it.
Notice v. 2: It says that we are chosen and we
have been made holy by the work of the Spirit in our lives
for the purpose of helping us obey Jesus and
being cleansed by His blood. Notice he says God's Spirit does two things inside
of you: He cleanses you and He changes you. He's always molding
you, making you more like Jesus. He's changing you on the inside. He's working
on you on the inside even when you don't feel it. Part of this work is done through
things that have the potential to discourage us if we don't keep our focus on
God alive and our eyes on the hope before us. During this series, keep this
in mind – God not only cleanses you or saves you, but He is wanting desperately
to change you by the power of the Holy Spirit – to become more like Jesus in
your character. He wants you to be holy.
Video –
“The Holiness of God’s People”
And there are two benefits to having God work in
your life: In verse 2 - “May God give you
more and more grace and peace.” He says there are two benefits from
having God work in your life:
1. Grace. I hope that word is now familiar to you. Grace means I'm richly blessed. I don't get
what I really deserve from God and I do get what I don't deserve. It is a gift,
unearned.
2. Peace. Because of God's grace, you will have increasing freedom from
anxiety and fear. It's peace of mind. It's the product of a new kind of
relationship with God It's the product of not having to perform to earn God's
favor or be good enough to get to heaven. It's the product of knowing that you
are a sinner but God loves you anyway and accepts you if you just trust Him. It
is the product of grace.
As one of your pastors, the deepest desire of my
heart, is that you will understand the grace of God and experience the peace of
God That's my prayer for you just as it was Peter's prayer for these people. I
try to say it in a hundred different ways so that you will understand the grace
of God and you will experience the peace of God in your life. If you will grasp
grace, then so many other things in the Christian life will fall into place.
You say, "But you don't know the problems
I'm going through right now." No, I don't. But God does. And even those
problems can be used by God to bring you closer to Him and to bring you joy.
That is the infusion of hope when you're
discouraged. Not only will God love me in spite of my sin, but no matter what
happens, God will help me. He's working in my life. You may feel like the
situation you're going through right now is hopeless, but it's not. As long as
you've got God, you're not hopeless. You may feel it's hopeless. It's not. We
have a living hope. The tomb's empty, we have a living hope. So no matter what
happens, God will love me; no matter what happens, God will help me.
You say, “How is God working in my life?” Vs. 7
– “These trials will show that your faith
is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your
faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong
through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the
day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.”
The purpose of problems is to refine and test
your faith. The result of that is that you're going to be rewarded in eternity
for it. The reward is going to be long, long lasting while the problems you're
going through are short, temporary. Even if the problem is one you've had your
entire life and you had to live with it, take that in light of eternity and
it's short.
He is saying, God is testing and refining your
faith. You know how they refine gold? They heat it up. They put it under
intense pressure, intense heat, and as the gold gets hotter, the impurities
rise to the top and they just skim them off or they burn up. What's left is the
pure gold. Gold is refined through fire, through heat. Your faith is far more
precious than gold. Are you feeling the heat these days? Are you feeling a
little pressure on you? God is working in your life. He's testing your faith. He's
strengthening it.
2 Corinthians 4:17 - “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they
produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” He says the short time of problems you're
going through is going to result in the richest blessings forever and ever. God
is working on your character.
Sometimes a freak accident changes the direction
of your life. Sometimes an unexpected problem happens and you think “How in the
world can God use this?” And you wonder what's going to happen. But God has a
purpose in it. When you get discouraged remember first, I am a part of God's
family by His grace, and I can't figure out why this is happening, but I know
God is working in me through it all. And
third,
3. God has
secured my future.
Vs. 4 -“Now
we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an
inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the
reach of change and decay.”
Peter says, God has given you this priceless gift
of eternal life. How much is eternal life worth to you? It's priceless. You
couldn't put a price on eternal life. There's nothing worth giving up in order
to lose eternal life. Peter gives some good news: Once you've got it, nobody
can take that away from you. If you maintain your faith in Jesus, you are
secure. In fact, he wants you to get the
point so much that he emphasizes it several times in verses 4 and 5.
Vs. 4 says it is “an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled,
beyond the reach of change and decay.”
He's saying, “Get the message. It can't be taken from you.” That is
security.
Once your name is in the Book of Life it's in
permanent ink. Can you imagine if it weren't? Say, God just wrote your name in
pencil and every time you sinned He'd erase it. Then when you confess and get
right He'd write it in again. Then the next time you sinned He'd erase it again
and every time you'd confess it He'd write it back in. He'd need a pretty big
eraser. And in my case, there would be a
massive hole worn through the paper by the eraser! God writes your name in permanent
ink.
Titus 3:5 – “He
saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his
mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the
Holy Spirit.” If I were saved on the basis of my work, obviously if I
stopped working I'd lose my salvation. If I were saved on the basis of what I
did, obviously if I stopped doing it I'd lose my salvation. But you're saved on
the basis of what Christ did and your faith in that work. He did it all and on
the cross and He said "It's finished" and it can't be undone.
Ephesians 2:8-9 – “God saved you by his
grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from
God. Salvation is not a reward for the
good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.” You don’t get to heaven by your good works,
so you don't lose heaven by your bad works once you're a believer. It can't be
taken from you as long as you trust God. That's why verse 5 says we are
protected by the power of God through faith.
Maybe you have delayed giving your life to
Christ and making that commitment because you're afraid. “What if I can't keep
the commitment? What if I become a believer and then I sin?” Your faith in Jesus means that you are
cleansed from all sin, including the ones that you have not committed yet.
Paul said in 2 Timothy 1:12 – “I know the one in whom I trust, and I am
sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his
return.” That's security. That's
something to give you
That's good news. Remember the phrase “protected
by the power of God through faith,” because God will make sure that your
assurance in Heaven isn't based on your performance, it's based on God's performance.
It's not based on your ability, it's based on God's power. God, in His mighty
power, will make sure. I can't lose it. I may lose my job. I may lose my house.
I may even lose my health. But one thing I'm never going to lose and that's my
ticket to heaven, my salvation, because I trust in God to do for me what I
cannot do for myself. That is an encourager to me.
What's Peter's conclusion? Vs. 6 - “So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy
ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while.” He
says don't worry, relax, rejoice. You will go through some tough times here on
earth. In fact. you will go through them. But in light of eternity and what
you're going to see in reward for the testing of your faith is so much greater
it makes the problems seem insignificant. Don't lose your perspective, your
focus.
So Peter concludes in vs. 12 “It is all so wonderful that even the angels
are eagerly watching these things happen.”