8.25.2024 pm Service

The speaker is encouraging the audience to rejoice and find joy in their faith. They discuss the importance of having a God and a goal, and the guarantee of salvation. They emphasize the need to focus on these things and find joy in them. You have your Bibles tonight. Turn to 1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter chapter 1. We finished up Philippians this morning, and of course, the whole book was about joy and rejoicing and a lot of things that we've learned this week. But the one thing that I want to do is ever since Bible school and everything, God has just put this joy and this thanksgiving into my heart. And you know, even though things are not perfect in this world, things are not perfect right now in a lot of places, yet we have a security as believers. And sometimes we just need to stop and laugh a little bit. Sometimes we just need to rejoice just a little bit. And Peter, I love 1 Peter, and I believe that's what Alston's going through. He's going through 2 Peter. But I just love 1 Peter, which I've made mention several times that me and Peter have a lot in common. We're usually quick to speak before we think. We usually get upset pretty easy. We think our way is always right, even though sometimes it's not. And after everything that Peter went through and God got his attention, and I guess that's why I just love 1 Peter because the older I get, the more and the more that I'm also beginning to appreciate the love and mercy and forgiveness and stuff of Jesus Christ. But we just need to rejoice. And that's what we talked about this morning. And Peter, as he starts out this letter, he gives us two things to rejoice over. First of all, we rejoice in what we have. And second of all, we rejoice in where we are. And if we could just focus on them things this week, I think our lives would be a whole lot better. And so if you'll look in v. 3-5 is where he tells us to rejoice in what we have. And he tells us, he starts in v. 3, he says, "...Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." And a lot of times when I work on my sermons and study my sermons, of course, any of you that have done any type of preparation or Bible study on your own know that when you're studying a passage that through the Holy Spirit, through maybe your own being or whatever, we end up chasing rabbits. We end up looking at other passages. And this is just one of them passages that just, you know, it's one of them that, man, I wish I had an opportunity to preach that after studying, but I had to preach Philippians this morning. So I said, man, Sunday night would be a good night to look at this. But notice what Peter says we are to rejoice. First of all, folks, we have a God. We have a God. You know, sometimes it just gets back to the simple things. We overcomplicate life a lot of times. We get wrapped up in things. But notice what Peter says. He says, blessed be the God, the Jehovah God, the great I Am. Blessed be Him who became our Father. He says, blessed be the God, our Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of the dead. Notice first of all what he says is when we think about God, think about where we are because of that God. You know, I'm studying right now. I'm teaching Old Testament survey in prison on Thursday nights. I've been reading through the Old Testament and studying the Old Testament and outlining the Old Testament and trying to figure out the different stages and everything else. And man, when I look at the early years of the human race, and I look at the patience and love of God, it's like God, what in the world? You know, you can't help but love Him. He comes back and He destroys everything with the flood and He saves one person, Noah, by grace in his family. And then immediately when they get off of the ark, what do they do? Noah goes off and gets drunk and starts messing things up. He told them to go into all the world and multiply, and what did they do? They all huddled together and began to build this tower. We find them now, instead of being spread out over the world, they've got a tower. And so God, instead of destroying them again, instead of bringing about a flood because He had promised us that He couldn't, what did He do? He divided their languages. He said, ok, I'll push you out. I'll get you to do... And we see that over and over and over in the Bible. We constantly want to do what we want to do, but God is there and lovingly, He has a way of getting us to do what He wants us to do. And He did that through His Son, Jesus Christ. He said, His abundant mercy hath begotten again unto this living hope. What is our hope? What is the hope that you and I have as Christians because of God? I've talked about it all week long at prison and different things, but our hope is in the return of Jesus Christ. We've been building on that all summer on Wednesday nights and this finality of finally being with Jesus Christ of the time when finally, He wipes away all of the tears. He removes all of the pain. All of the sorrow. There's no more funerals. There's no more death. There's no more suffering and bad things. That is our hope. And we have that because of the mercy of God. And so when we think about rejoicing, when we think about joy, we need to remember we have a God. But notice what He says in verse 4. In verse 4, He says, not only has this God saved us by His mercy, but then He says He is to an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you. See, not only should we rejoice because we have a God, but we should also rejoice because we have a goal. We have something to look forward to. The invitation song this morning is one of my favorite songs. I catch myself a lot of times just doing whatever Donnie does and just all of a sudden that song will come into my mind. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. The cares of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of His mercy and His grace. And so we have a goal. What is that goal? That goal is the essence of our hope. And that goal is what? To an inheritance that is incorruptible, that is undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you. Lisa mentioned about the poverty and stuff and we got out at all three ports. One of the places there in Belize we never left the port, but the other two places we did. As a matter of fact, both of these were all on an island. Honduras, where we was at at Roatan, was an island that was 30 miles long and 18 miles wide and had 100,000 people population on that island. And the port, when you get out of the ship, you get to port, and man, it is nice. It's all these bright colors. It's these clean stores. It's all this. The minute you step out behind that port, there's security guards and there's people. And the class and the culture changes drastically when you step across that. And you look at all of the... You see the poverty. You see the hurt. You see the stress of everything. But guess what? God says we have an inheritance that is incorruptible, that is undefiled, that fadeth not away. And notice He says it is reserved in heaven for you. We've already got our ticket. We don't have to wait about getting on the bus or catching the bus. You know, that was one of the scariest things about it. And they stressed it to us. And the very first excursion that we took, they said you have to go by ship time. We don't care what time it is there in Honduras, which they didn't recognize daylight savings time, so they was an hour ahead of us. They said we don't care about Honduras time. All you care about is ship time. And He said when it goes across at 4 o'clock ship time, that barge is going to be pulled up. The door is going to be closed and we will see you again in two weeks when we come back through there. And the very first day, me and Lisa, we talked about don't be them people running to the boat in the last 15 minutes trying to get on. And we found ourselves there in that first day running to the ship trying to get there. But guess what? I don't have to run for heaven. It's already there. It's reserved. They're going to wait on me. They're going to wait in there. When we see Jesus Christ, He says it's going to be in the instant. In the twinkling of an eye, we shall be with Him. So not only should we rejoice that we have a God, and not only should we rejoice that we have a goal, but verse 5 tells us that we should rejoice because it's guaranteed. Look at what He says in verse 5. Who? Are kept. Are kept. How are we kept? By the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Remember this morning, I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me. And He said in that next verse, He used the word power. Dunamis. The same word that is here. Because Christ is in you. That power is there. And He says that we are kept by the power of God. What is anything? Can you name anything that God can't do or accomplish? There's nothing. There's nothing. You know, when we used to go to seminary, we were always the sarcastic. There was always one guy in there that was sarcastic. And they'd ask these ridiculous questions trying to mess with the professor or whatever. One of the questions was, can God build a mountain too big that He couldn't move? Kind of one of these rhetorical... One thing, God's wise enough, He's not going to do it, right? But there's nothing that He can't do. And so, man, our guarantee, we are kept. We are guarded. We are protected by the power of God. But notice how we're protected. Because this is real key when we get to why we rejoice because of where we are. We're protected in our faith. Through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Faith is so incredible. Faith is something that you and I as Christians ought to be at the top of our list. Where does that faith start at? It starts in that we have a God. And that God loved us. And that God didn't leave us in sin, but that God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins, to be buried and resurrected again. That is our rejoicing. That is our God. But then we have a goal. He says, I'm not going to leave you here on this earth. He told His disciples, if I go, I go to prepare a place for you that where I am, you may be also. And Peter says, man, not only do we have a God, but we have a goal. We have a hope. We have an expectation that is out there before us. And he says it's all guaranteed because we are kept by the power of God. You know, that ought to make Baptist Stephen happy. That ought to make Baptists get just a little bit excited. I mean, if you cannot rejoice over the fact that you have a God, you have a goal, and you have a guarantee, there's nothing in the Bible that I can give you that's going to make you happy and joyful. And so Peter is saying, man, rejoice in what you have. But then he goes into v. 6, 7, and 8. He says not only rejoice in what you have, a God, a goal, and a guarantee, but rejoice in where you are. And he gives us the reality in v. 6. Look at the reality. Because you know, it's easy. It's great to think about God. It's great to think about eternity. It's great to think about the guarantee of one day being with God. But then Peter comes back to reality in v. 6. Notice what he says. Wherein, again, you greatly rejoice. You know, everybody ought to be able to say amen to God, a goal, and a guarantee. He says, though now for a season, if need be, you all are in heaviness through manifold temptations. Any of you got up this morning thinking about heaven and all of a sudden got in your vehicle and God said, welcome back to earth? Welcome back to reality, right? You either hit I-30 and the traffic on I-30. Something happened. You know, maybe you spilt your breakfast or your coffee on your shirt as you're walking out the door. Man, you're all prepared to go to church. You're all prepared to worship God. And then reality hits. And Peter says, man, we have a God. We have a goal. We have a guarantee. But, he said, here's the reality. Man, we're facing a lot of temptations. Manifold, many various temptations. There is all kinds of stuff going on. You know, I think the thing that I enjoyed the most was actually not having phone service and everything. For me and my wife to sit down at dinner time and we couldn't pull out our phone and look at Facebook and stuff while we were waiting on our food. And when we ate in the dining room, from the time that they brought us our appetizer to we got our dessert, it usually took a typical of an hour and a half to feed us all of our courses when we ate in the diner. An hour and a half we sat there. The first night it was kind of awkward. We kind of talked to the couple that was on this side of us. We talked to the couple on this side. But by the second and third nights, you know what? That hour and a half of just sitting down with each other and able to talk. And able to share. And able to go and experience. But man, there's all kinds of temptations. There was temptations to go here, to go there, to grab the buffet because it was quick and easy and we could go to a show or go do something. But just every single night, reality was just to sit and be still. And that's where we are in life. Man, I want to be in heaven. There's always some place that we want to be, right? We want to be at home. We want to be fishing. We want to be hunting. We want to be doing this. Or we want to be doing that. But there's temptations all around us. But the reality is we live in a world where there is temptations. So that's where we are. You see, what God does is He takes that reality and He realigns it. Look at v. 7. He says, Here's the reason you have all of these temptations in your life. That the trial of your faith. Now, when was we introduced to faith? Do you remember I told you to remember it back up there in v. 5? Because we are kept by the power of what? God through faith. So it's our faith. Do we trust God? Do we believe God? Just like in Philippians this morning. Remember, there's going to be circumstances. There's going to be things that don't work out the way that we think. But Paul said, I am what? I'm content. I'm satisfied. Why? Because God's in control. God has a purpose. Notice what Peter says. Peter says that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold, that it perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He just said in v. 6, rejoice. Rejoice, because the reality of your life is guess what? You're not probably going to experience heaven here on earth. This is not going to happen. There's all these temptations. There's all this stuff to draw us away from keeping our eyes on Jesus Christ. But notice what he said. He said that trial of your faith, that testing of always wanting to do something other than what we need to be doing and what we need to be focused on, that pressure, that temptation is actually working on your faith. It's increasing and helping your faith. Just like a refiner takes gold, and when he melts that gold down and he applies the heat, the heat is the trial, the tribulation to the gold. It melts it. And when it does that, the impurities rise to the top. See, when these temptations come and these other things come, and man, I could be doing this. I could be there. I could be doing this. I want to be doing this. I would like to be eating here. I'd like to be whatever. God says let's realign and get your faith focused back. So I'm going to allow these temptations to try you. I'll tell you, we went to church the Sunday before, but we got on the ship the Sunday after. We didn't get off in time to make it to a church service, but we did Facebook Live the entire way home to listen to Brother Kelvin's message. It was a great message. But I guarantee you, it's not like being in a church service with people. It's not. It's not the same thing. I missed being here with you guys. I missed being here on Wednesday nights to hear Brother Morris teach. I missed visiting and fellowshiping with you. I told my wife this afternoon, I said, you know, it's been a long time since our group of people have gone out to eat on a Sunday night. I said, I miss that intimate fellowship. I miss that talking on small groups and small things, because why? To find out what's going on in people's life. To find out what you're going through. We don't get that just talking here during worship service and stuff. And so he said that training of your faith is what helps us to be more pure, to be more purified. And so God aligns us so that what? Our life comes back to not our rejoicing, but to His rejoicing. Look at what it says there. It says, in verse 7, that the trial of your faith being a much more precious faith than gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found. This is the realignment here. Instead of being forced into these temptations and being drug into this, God allows this stuff in our life and in the presence of our life that we might, once that trial and temptation, we realize that guess what? There is nothing on this earth or this world that is better than God, or what God has planned for us, or the guarantee that God has that we'll get there. There's nothing there. And so what does it do? It grounds us. To what? We have to come back and praise God. We have to come back and honor God. But then look at verse 8, the last thing. When we rejoice where we are, the reality is, is guess what? We're faced with all kinds of temptations and heaviness and burdens, but yet God realigns us by working on our faith so that He can prove His reliability. Look at verse 8. "...Whom having not seen..." Has any of you ever seen God? What does He look like? Any of you seen Jesus Christ? What does He look like? I guarantee you He doesn't look like the paintings of Jesus Christ with blue eyes and pale skin and looks like man, He's never seen the sun. I guarantee, in just a few days, everybody's talked about your tan or redness or whatever for just a few days in the sun. Guess what? Jesus lived out there every day. His skin was weathered. He had been rough. We haven't seen Him, have we? Has any of you seen heaven? We're going to look at what the Bible describes it as Wednesday night, but have you ever seen an artist rendition trying to draw what the new heaven and the new earth looks like from a bunch of words? There is no way even the greatest artist can imagine what John put into words what it's actually going to look like. Any of you ever seen can even imagine a pearl big enough to make an entire gate out of? There's going to be 12 of them. Can any of you imagine enough gold? You know, we see gold jewelry and stuff, but it says literally the streets and the sidewalks. Everywhere you look, there's going to be gold out on the ground in the pavement. Can you even begin to imagine that? Can you even draw that? Can you even conceive that idea? And that's what Peter is saying. He said we haven't seen it. Nobody has seen God, but yet what? We love God, right? I've never seen God, but I love God. I've never seen Jesus Christ, but I love Jesus Christ. I've never seen heaven, but I love heaven, right? It's a place I want to go. If they're going to wipe away my tears and they're going to take away my sorrow and they're going to take away my aches and pains, I want to be in heaven. The cruise was great, but it's not heaven. Now look at what he says. He says, though, now you see Him not, yet believing, you rejoice. What is believing? It's the same thing in v. 5 and v. 6 faith. Faith. Yet believing, what? Rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Not because God can count on you and me. Because we like temptations. We have a lot of burdens here. You know, it's hard when you've got a sick child that's very sick. It's hard to leave that child at the house and go on to church, right? It's hard when you've got things going on to stop and put that aside and say, you know, I'll get that later, but I need to start my day reading the Bible and praying. It's tough to focus on God and what we are supposed to do when everything is going on in this world and everybody is calling and all of these people are wanting and pulling you in all of these different directions. But it's not because God can count on us, we rejoice because we can count on God. We can count on God. And so tonight as we think about it, I just want to just take time to rejoice. You know, sometimes we spend a lot of times thinking about the things that we don't have, right? I don't have this, or I wish I had that. And sometimes as Christians, we just need to get back to the very basics and realize, folks, we have a God. We have a place that is promised to go that He's going to take us to. And we have His guarantee that it's by His power. The same power that spoke and created all of this into existence. The same power that allowed Jesus Christ to be nailed to a cross and opened not His mouth until He said, it is finished. To be placed in a grave and rise forth from the dead. That's the kind of power that we have in our God. And so you know what? When I start focusing on God, our contentment and our satisfaction ought to change. And all of a sudden, these manifold temptations, these heaviness, these burdens that we have in life, when we poke our eyes and we turn them on Jesus Christ, we ought to grow strangely dim. Because God has truly blessed us. If you have God, you are blessed. If you don't have God, guess what? You're not blessed. And you're not going to have happy. And you have no reason for joy. And you're not going to find it in this world. Only in Jesus Christ.