Video to come.
Morning Message Text: 1 Peter 1: 1-9
1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,
2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Praise to God for a Living Hope
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,
5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.
7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,
9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Morning Message:
Let me start this morning with something that I read this week. Matthew 24: 6 says: “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled.” Do you have a device that monitors your heart rhythm, sleep patterns, daily steps, oxygen levels, and body temperature? A lot of people wear monitors of some kind these days. I have one that keeps me aware of certain things that are going on with my body. What if you had a stress-o-meter that could measure your anxiety levels right now? Personally, I have one of those, it’s in my neck.
Are you calm, nervous, frightened, worried, or afraid of the future? Most of our fears have to do with the future, and we find ourselves afraid of what might happen to our loved ones or to us. In his sermon about the Last Days, Jesus made two seemingly contradictory statements: The world will be filled with war; we are to be filled with peace. See that you are not troubled. How true the first part of that statement is. The world is filled with war, with fighting, with unrest, even in our own country we see rioting that is disguised as “Peaceful Protests.” We see lawlessness on a scale that surpasses anything that I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. We see a total distain for law and order and even some who have this crazy idea that we should do away with law enforcement all together. That one right there scares the daylight out of me. Can you imagine sinful mankind left to their own devices with no rules to govern them?
So how can we be filled with peace? How can we keep are hearts from being troubled? How do we do that? By trusting Jesus with the future. We may not know all that is to come, but we do know that whatever happens, Jesus is on his throne and in control. The throne of heaven governs the affairs of earth and the pathway of God’s children. So don’t be troubled. Ask Jesus today to give you the courage to trust Him. Do we truly believe that God is sovereign. If we do, then we are declaring that He is the almighty and the owner of all power in heaven and earth. No one can defeat His plans, prevent His purposes, or resist His will.
Peter’s letter to these scattered, persecuted believers turns on three points: First, a believer’s hope. Peter’s central theme is how to conduct themselves as “God’s special possession” living among those who do not yet believe and who are looking for reasons to oppose the spread of Christianity. Aren’t we living in such a world today? More and more we are marginalized and looked down upon for our faith. We see this today in our colleges, our institutions of learning. Protests against Jewish people, and they are not always peaceful. They chant and call for Israel to be eliminated, guess who is next on their list, Christians. Why? Because evil will always attack anything Godly.
When Peter calls his readers “God’s elect, exiles scattered,” he is certainly referring to Jewish believers who fled Jerusalem in the outbreak of persecution following the stoning of Stephen. But likely he is also referring to all believers—Jews and Gentiles—who are “foreigners and exiles” in this world, “God’s special possession” called out of darkness into His wonderful light. As Christians we are exiles. This world is not our home. We are citizens of heaven, not of earth; we are here on a mission. That is where our mindset must change. We think of this earth as home; it’s what we know, and we have become comfortable in a place where we don’t belong. Don’t be surprised when the world acts like you don’t belong, because you don’t.
All of this may sound downright depressing to you, but it’s not. You have a living hope, a hope that has been sealed for you since before the foundation of the earth. Listen and let the Holy Spirit give you full understanding of this. You have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with His blood. Now listen: Christians are chosen for salvation by God the Father, not because of who they are, what they have done, or what they might do, but because of His endless grace and compassion. This is the doctrine of election. Election does not mean that God is a mean overlord who chooses some and rejects others. Nor does it cancel out human responsibility, making us mere puppets. God’s choosing demonstrates His grace. But in election we must still choose to trust in Christ. And we respond to God’s choosing by choosing to live holy lives. All this really means is that our all-knowing God, the God who knows the future and the past, had the foreknowledge of your salvation. An old story about election demonstrates God’s heart. A man was walking through a doorway, and above the entrance was a sign that read: “Whosoever will may come.” As he walked through the doorway and looked back, another sign above the entrance on that side read; “I chose you before the foundations of the earth were created. This is our wonderful living hope.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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