Good morning, everyone. It is great to see everyone
who's here today. We have a great crowd.
And I'm honored to be able to teach from God's Word, to share
something that God is teaching me actively.
And I pray that we will learn together from the truths that
the Master teaches through the Holy Spirit.
And we're going to be learning from an apostle that we don't
often hear from in the New Testament.
As far as the letters that are written.
We're going to be learning from the Apostle Peter.
So if you want to turn with me there, we're hardly going to
make any outside references. We're going to spend almost all
of our time on first Peter. So we'll start there.
In verse one of First Peter chapter 1, it says there Peter
is Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the pilgrims of the
dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bethenia.
So he clearly identifies who's writing this letter as we've
studied some of their letters recently.
Some of them don't have an author.
We studied Hebrews or they don't have a clearly identified
author, and there's different reasons for that.
We learned about the book of Jude recently.
We know that Jude who is written by, but there is some debate as
to maybe who wrote James and which James it was.
Even though it says the name, there's really no dispute.
This is the apostle Peter. This is Apostle Peter who is out
in front all the time, sometimes leading with his mouth,
sometimes not leading with his actions when he should have
been. This is the Apostle Peter that
we have all come to maybe relate with, maybe laugh at sometimes.
This is the man Peter. This is the one who walked on
water to Jesus and fell. This is the one that was praised
by Jesus in front of all the other disciples for making a
confession of his faith of who the Messiah was.
But he was also the one who was rebuked in front of everyone.
He was the one who he was rebuked carrying the work of
Satan. He said, get thee behind me,
Satan. This man Peter is a fascinating
character to study. And it's kind of interesting to
me that we don't hear as much from him the rest of the New
Testament. But God has his chosen vessels
for chosen works in different parts in time.
Much of the New Testament is written by Paul, and yet Paul is
not involved in the life of Jesus the way Peter was.
So as we begin this, we all have our role, and Peter's role,
although it was primarily in the life of Jesus, he had a profound
impact on the people he wrote this to, both in the time and
day he wrote it and hopefully to us today.
He's writing, it says, to the pilgrims of the dispersion, and
he's writing to those pilgrims of the dispersion that are in
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.
The first thing I want us to recognize is this phrase, the
pilgrims of the dispersion is a phrase used to communicate with
Jews. The Jews had a strong bond
because when the nation of Judah was captured and was overtaken
by Babylon, the Jewish people scattered and they called one
another the people or the pilgrims of the dispersion.
It's a it's a term of camaraderie in the faith is
really what this is. But we know that first that
Peter is writing this letter to all Christians.
It's not just Jews. So I believe this is a nice
little, it's like an olive branch.
It's, it's a unifying statement to all the Christians that now
it's not just us Jews who are dispersed across the world now
it's not just us, it's all Christians.
You are the faith now. You are the pilgrims.
He identifies them as pilgrims just like we are called, because
they are not in their permanent resting place.
They're not in their permanent land.
They are not in the final place where they are supposed to
inherit. They are temporarily passing
through. And the dispersion, I thought it
might have been the dispersion from the destruction of
Jerusalem, but scholars believe this hasn't happened at that
point. So the dispersion is how the
Christians have spread out because of probably another
factor we're going to get to in just a minute.
So just so we know, where is this referring to?
What is this region? So if you look at the greater
map, you can see the, the southern border of, of, of
Europe over here with the, with Italy on this side.
And as you make your way E, you get into the Near East, which is
Asia Minor. And you can recognize many of
the names from churches. You might recognize Ephesus or
Colossi, Lycia or Crete. We've been reading a lot about
those letters that involve those cities.
And he's talking right now of this northern region as the
church spread into northern Asia Minor.
And you can see all these larger sections is who he's talking
about. You have Cappadocia, Galatia,
Bithynia, and Pontus is way up there on the northern side as it
borders, I believe that is the Black Sea.
This is a great spread. And this is still the early
years of the church, still in the 1st century.
The church has already grown massively.
So what is the context maybe of the dispersion if it's not the
destruction of Jerusalem? Well, this was during the time
of Emperor Nero's reign. And you, many of you have heard
of Emperor Nero. He basically used Christians as
a scapegoat for things that happened in the city.
There was a great fire that burned Rome and Christians took
the fall. And so Christians were
persecuted, they're arrested, they were beaten, and they're
eventually burned in the city. There's one historian that says
that that the Christians were being burned to light the
parties at these places. This was a massive persecution
the Christians were enduring during this time.
So it's no surprise that there may have been a dispersion of
Christians that left that fled into these regions that maybe
were less populated and less consolidated by Roman power
where they could be affected. And so these persecutions were
great. And that's the greater message
of this letter is learning to work through persecutions.
But remember, I don't want us to feel distanced from these
Christians just because our persecutions aren't the same or
maybe as severe. I don't want us to lose the
message to us. The message is going to be the
same whether you are going through massive fiery trials or
whether you are in 21st century America where we are supposed to
have free religion and free speech and all these things.
There are still lessons to be learned, so please don't think
that these are the real Christians and we are the ones
that maybe one day will be like them.
It is true that anybody who stands for the faith has had
their faith refined by fire, as we're going to talk, and they
have been clearly identified through their struggle as a
faithful Christian. But the message of all Scripture
is have faithfulness wherever it is you stand.
If you're in 21st century America, be faithful here.
There's plenty of people who are not faithful in in 21st century
America. There were plenty of people who
are not faithful in 1st century Asia Minor.
The message of all biblical writers is be faithful where you
stand and that will lead to the recipe.
I do find it's kind of interesting that we ourselves
actually are pilgrims of sorts. Our country was founded from a
dispersion of people who wanted religious freedom, and so we may
have something more in common with these pilgrims of the
dispersion in that daytime than we realize.
He says in verse 2 to these pilgrims, he goes on to address
them as elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.
OK. We have talked about election
recently, not political election.
We've talked about election reference in other New Testament
letters of conditional versus unconditional election.
We've talked about general election versus specific
election, but we're going to talk more about, I believe the
greater message of election in the next letter because he's
going to dive into it in a way that is very well explained and
powerful. And, and so I, I hope you'll
just hang on to this and, and excuse me for moving past it a
little bit fast because he's going to deal with it more.
But for now, let's just understand in this introduction
that the elect are people that God has chosen for a role in his
masterful plan. I'm going to say this again next
week when we or next time when we study into what the election
is. But the election is about the
work people want to focus about election being salvation.
And you read in the Old Testament, the election was I'm
choosing you for a role. I'm electing you to be, to play
a part in God's masterful plan in which you, yes, will be
saved, but you are supposed to bring the blessing to the whole
earth. And those who would counteract
that blessing, God will deal with them.
So the election I want us to see is we are called and we are
chosen for a great work. Don't get bogged down into the
debate about election being so. So don't even worry about that.
That's not even the point right now.
The point is you and I have a work.
So in light of this, let's consider what he's saying in
light of the fact that, you know, these people are under
great persecution. You have a work, you have a
responsibility, you have a a chosen role during this time.
He didn't say there's a job here if you want to take it or I'm
sure I can find something for you to do.
If you want to be a Christian, he says you are chosen, you are
elect. And because of that, you have a
responsibility. You are exactly where you need
to be. Whether you're being persecuted,
persecuted, whether things are all unsettled.
Everywhere you look, you have a chosen role to fulfil right now.
That's the message to these Christians.
Do you ever wonder where you stand in life?
Can you really do anything with where you're at right now?
Can anything come from your situation for good?
Maybe that's how you feel sometimes.
Maybe that's how they felt. The message to anyone going
through these questions or these frustrations or wondering you
have a chosen role to fill. It's not a job.
If you want to take it, it's not.
I could probably find something for you to do.
You're going to be an extra hand.
It's you have a chosen role and it was chosen for you by the
foreknowledge of God. God knew ahead of time.
God was not. You're not catching him by
surprise. You're not in your life
situation where you're at right now by surprise.
God knew you were going to be there where you're at and
wherever it is, don't neglect that role.
Identify. I am a chosen vessel of God.
I'm in this situation not by accident, but for his, but for
His glory and for His work. OK.
He says we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father. He's addressing these people and
he's saying they're elect in the sanctification of the Spirit.
Oh, that's a big word. We don't use that word a lot.
Sanctification just means to be set apart for a holy purpose.
This is going to again, play into our election lesson next
time, But sanctification means there's everybody who's doing
whatever they want, and then there's people who are set aside
for a lot of reasons, or maybe in a lot of ways set aside for a
special purpose. You and these Christians were
set apart of the Spirit. Who does the setting apart the
Spirit of God In the Old Testament, sanctification had
some very detailed processes, but really it's just basic
categories. You set something apart as
special in every area of life. There were objects.
They were set apart as special. For example, you had the altar
where they would perform their sacrifices to the Lord.
That was set apart as different. You don't just do anything.
You don't eat your food on this altar.
You don't come up here and just have a meal and kick your feet
up on the altar. This is set apart.
It's special. There were utensils they were to
use that were special and set apart and different.
There weren't just objects. There were places.
Again, pretty much every category, there are places.
There was a temple erected in the middle of the camp that was
going to be a special place, and even within that there was a
special holy of holy places just set apart.
It's just God wants some things to be different and not just
normal. Like everything else.
The rest of our lives just becomes the same.
But God doesn't want to be the same.
God doesn't want you to live mundane.
He wants there to be things in your life.
He wanted there to be things in the Old Testament, people's
lives that were separate and set apart.
You have the temple, you have the burning Bush.
As a more individual example, there's so many examples of this
in the Old Testament. There was the corporate version
of the temple, and then there was a holy place where Moses
stood on holy ground near the burning Bush.
And he approached and God said, take off your shoes, your
sandals. This is holding ground.
This is all sanctification. It's just making something else
special. Times.
They had times that were special, like the Sabbath, the
day of rest in the Old Testament, and they had special
feasts. Then you have people like the
priests who are designated and set apart from the rest of the
people for the service of God. Sanctification of the Spirit
just means there are things that need to be different, not just
normal, like everything else you do.
And that is carried out through the Holy Spirit, He says for
obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus.
So of all the glorious ways God works through his Spirit, the
Spirit of God in our lives, however he accomplishes that
process, obedience is always part of it.
It doesn't matter what we think about how the Holy Spirit works
in individual ways. Our obedience cannot be
separated from sanctification. Our obedience cannot be
separated from that how the Holy Spirit will work in us because
we know the Holy Spirit teaches us through his word and changes
us inwardly. And you could say, well, I'm
changed inwardly so that my actions reflected or you can say
I don't really feel different on the inside, but I'm going to do
this because I know God says is right and then your insides
being changed, it's all the same.
It all gets to the result. The end goal is I want to be
acting and and being internally set apart for God.
I want to be completely reserved for His purposes.
And because of that, all glory goes to God in our
sanctification. All of our glory goes to God for
obedience. That's our part.
And the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
Our obedience does us no good without the sprinkling of the
blood of Christ. That sprinkling is referring to
the Old Testament sacrifices, how they would sprinkle blood on
the altar. That's sprinkling for the
forgiveness of sins. And the atonement came from a
new sacrifice, Jesus Christ. All these things play into our
election and consecrating a new agreement.
And in that new agreement, yes, we have a sacrifice of Jesus.
But in the covenant that God has, every, in every covenant
God has ever set up, there is an obedience, there is an agreement
between both parties. And so may we consider ourselves
this morning, just like these people were to be sanctified
from the Spirit. May my objects, may everything I
own, may I focus on using it for the glory of God, to be setting
things apart for God. Maybe it's in the giving.
May the places I go be set apart for the glory of God,
specifically on days like today. But in how I use my week, may
those go to the glory of God. May the times in my life may I
set aside special time, whether it's in worship or maybe it's in
time with God on my own day, may I have it set apart.
And may the people I associate with and may the the person I
become be set apart and sanctified for God's glory.
He says to to these people who he just described, grace to you
and peace be multiplied. Did you notice that every person
of the Godhead was represented in that introduction?
That God elected us and we are known by the Father from time
past. The Spirit has done the
sanctification and is doing the sanctification, and Jesus Christ
offers the sacrifice of the blood man.
We're reading a letter to people who are struggling in
persecutions. The first thing he wants them to
know is that you were chosen for this work.
And secondly, you are surrounded by the work and the support of
the Godhead. Whatever you're going through,
that applies to them, that applies to you.
You were chosen for the work, and you were surrounded by the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
As you do this, I think those people might have already
started to perk up and get a little bit more strength.
Now remember, I've all these messages, Peter's going to
relate to the struggling or persecuted Christians.
It's all related to a focus, not a fix.
It's all going to be them having their attention directed away
from whatever they're going through and focusing on the
things that Peter's teaching them.
That is going to be the answer to our faith.
It's not going to be a fix. It's not going to be a quick
fix. It's going to be a focus issue.
He goes on to say in verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy
has begotten us again to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
One man said all his goodness to us bring begins with mercy.
No other attribute could have helped us had mercy been
refused, as we are by nature or you might say by habit.
Justice condemns US, holiness frowns upon us, power crushes
us, truth confirms the threatening of the law and wrath
fulfills it. Everything else works against
us, but it is with the mercy of our God that all of our hopes
begin. And so blessed be our God, who
by his abundant mercy, not because of any of our goodness,
but because of our great and awesome God that we came to
worship here this morning, had mercy on us and continues to
have mercy on us. He's given us a living hope.
Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead, and because of
that, our hope does not die with Him, it is resurrected with Him,
and we have hope and life in Him to an inheritance incorruptible
and undefiled, and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven
for you. Did you have a long week this
week? Were you underpaid this week?
Were you underappreciated this week?
Were you lonely this week? Were you unable to accomplish as
much as you would have liked to this week?
Maybe it's your own limitations physically, Maybe time wise,
energy wise? Do you ever feel stuck,
frustrated or tired? I'm young and I do, so I know
all those feelings can grow even with age.
And his message to these people is they are not only surrounded
by the support of the father and chosen, but they have an
inheritance that is incorruptible.
That whatever else they are going through, whatever you are
going through, that's all going to be gone one day and there's
going to be an inheritance that is waiting that is not going to
ever tarnish. Everything we do is corruptible
on this earth. People talk a lot about right
now about generational wealth. That's a hot topic in in all of
the whether it's political circles, young people trying to
build better lives, generational wealth.
You've got to start generational wealth so that I can start my
next, my children off on a better footing than I started.
And that's how we help one another going forward into the
future as you build it generation after generation.
And well, that's true and that's wonderful.
Everything I do is going to be corruptible.
We went to an estate sale yesterday.
I find them sad. This person worked their whole
life and they may have done some amazing things with their tools,
with their home, but then one day a company comes in, Hundreds
of people flock through like vultures, pick through their
stuff at half price, and it's gone.
Some of the stuff is still worth something.
Some of it is outdated because it was a tool that was invented
80 years ago. 50 years ago. It's been replaced with cheaper,
better things. Some of it is worn out by the
sun and no longer has any structure.
It's brittle. Everything we have is passing
away. But there is an inheritance
coming and it is better than anything I can give my children
because the best thing I could do for them is going to probably
have some money sitting in a in a retirement account or an
investment account that's growing for them.
But even then, inflation, as we learn, there's many things that
can happen in a day to change your financial outlook.
It's all corruptible. It's all fading away except for
our hope and our incorruptible all verse 5.
So he says these things are reserved in heaven for you who
are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation
ready to be revealed in the last time.
I'm amazed that all the people in this room and my brothers and
sisters that have continued to weather the storms of your
faith. I'm amazed by the people in this
room and people I know in the faith that glory goes to God
because that speaks to the keeping power of God.
One translation says that we are shielded that by the power of
God through faith, that yes, our faith is tied intricately with
God, but in that faith where He is tied in with us, He is
shielding and keeping us and protecting us in ways that we
cannot do on our own. It is not a small thing that you
remain firm in the faith and it is speaking to the power of God,
and people are able to glorify God because of you.
If I want to make God's name famous, this is where it starts
for us. I want to make God's name
powerful in the sense that He can say He took some lame, weak
person like Wade Branch and he's kept him.
He can keep me and God is alive and he's doing great things
because through my limitations, God will be strong and God will
hold and uphold those who are in the faith.
And he says we're being kept through the faith for salvation
that is ready to be revealed. Sometimes we think about when
Jesus says, I go to prepare a place for you.
I know Frank has probably mentioned this recently, but
it's like he, he, it's going to take him a long time and he's
still building the house and, and he's going to get done with
it eventually and he'll let us come in.
No, he says it's ready. He just needs to reveal it.
We know that the long-suffering of God on those who are
perishing is why the earth still stands.
It is ready right now. It was ready so long ago.
Jesus can come back right now and it will be ready for us.
It is that real and present. We just can't see it.
And for the people who are enduring suffering, it's like
there's a veil and you just push aside the veil and it's right
there. Just keep holding on a little
bit longer, keep striving for the faith, keep holding on to
God and it's ready to be revealed for you.
So as we continue through, Peter's message to the
struggling is he reminds them of a hope in their future of war.
He reminds them of the resurrection and reminds them of
God's power to keep them. Verse 6.
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while,
if need be. You have been grieved by various
trials if need be. What does that mean?
I think it could mean a lot of things.
There's a lot of reasons why we might need to go through
something. We've talked about them
recently, but I'll just throw a few couple categories up here.
Maybe God's working on us as Frank talk about the pruning and
the trimming that happens to us and our faith in a previous
lesson. I don't move forward without
trials. Not only am I weak where I
stand, I'm not strong enough to even get myself to the next
level of my faith without something to push me there.
And so I need trials. That's the hard reality.
Maybe God is working through US. God has done wonderful things in
people's lives through their suffering to benefit someone
else. And maybe someone else is being
supported because of that. It goes so far beyond this.
And so maybe he says, for a little while you've been grieved
with various trials. And if you know about this
persecution and it didn't go away overnight, it wasn't a
little while like the storm of Nero blew over and that all was
fine. That wasn't the little while.
It's all in perspective of eternity.
I'm young, many of you are older.
You know how time flies. You look back and you see how
life has just passed from children to grandchildren to
great grandchildren just like that.
That's the context of this. It's the eternal perspective, if
need be, you've been grieved by various trials that the
genuineness, the realness, the trueness of your faith being
much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is
tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the
revelation of Jesus Christ. He uses a lot of words in here,
and so I'm going to try to get the simple piece first.
He's saying that our faith is what is more precious than gold.
We, they understood and we understand on some level how
gold is purified. Gold has to be, has to be taken
through a process to remove all the impurities.
And so while you may have a lump of minerals or ores that you
might call gold, it probably has a lot of other stuff in it and
maybe more things than actual gold is in it.
And so they have to take that gold and they have to superheat
it to the point that the gold, what is heavy, rests to the
bottom and the impurities float up to the surface.
And those impurities are then scraped off the top by the
whether it's the Smith or the jewel or whoever that is.
And he's saying you're, you know how that works with, with
metals, He said. Your faith is so much more
precious than that. The ground of the streets of
heaven is described with the precious things of this world.
How much more the people who walk the ground to glorify God
in heaven. He says.
Your faith is so much more precious than gold and it is
tested by fire just like the gold.
That is how God is going to work out the impurities with us.
That is how God is going to purify our faith.
May we somehow figure out how to welcome the fire.
Sometimes we talk about how, you know, there's people who are
always going through something worse than us.
There's people overseas who are being beheaded by anti Christian
groups who are going through something worse than us.
OK, that's true. But don't lose the the
realization that you have the fire too.
Because if you don't think you're in the fire, at some
point you're going to be discouraged when your trials run
around because you're going to think that it doesn't have any
meaning. And then you're going to be
confused and frustrated, and you may even become bitter, and you
may not even take advantage of them to grow towards God's glory
and in your faith, which is the whole point of the trials.
Don't forget that. Yes, other people may have it
hard, but you have trials and fires and heat.
Life heats up even if you live in a society like ours that
seems to be very stable relatively.
May God be gracious with us and gently break us, as the song
says, and heat us to the point that he can scrape off some
impurities. Because the metal will cool
down, it'll go back to a more solid form, and it will be worth
it once the impurities are gone. And it'll probably have to
happen again because you I don't think you get all of it on the
first try. Maybe we'd be humble before that
process. It really helps me to consider
faith through the lens of muscles because I think faith is
often more of a muscle than a than a gear.
Sometimes we think like, I need to get the fix for this problem.
I need to get the answer to this so that everything stops being
hard or it's a quick solution. But as the process with heating
is painful, I think our bodies reflect really what faith is all
about. In your bodies, as I'm sure all
of you know, your muscle breaks and grows.
That's how it grows. And during the exercise
movement, if you're not sure what happens is under tension,
your muscle fibers tear. They have micro tears that when
you stop working out, you stop exercising.
They then heal and grow larger than they were before in order
to handle the new loads that it perceives that you're going to
be taking on. And those micro tears can only
come from something that's there.
So I can't have a micro tear between my head and my toe
because there's no muscle that connects those.
You have to have some fibers connecting 2 joints or two, two
connection points. You have faith.
Your faith may be just a couple of fibers.
It may be faith like a mustard seed.
But if you will hold on through the tension and the challenge,
those muscle fibers that tear and you feel pain through them
when you're holding firm, those will come back stronger.
The more you hold, it will come back stronger.
And you know, what's kind of hard and, and difficult is the
muscle science is coming out right now more and more in like
current studies is showing that actually your greatest growth
comes from a couple key areas #1 hypertrophy.
Hypertrophy means you go to muscle failure when you
literally can't do anything anymore.
If you really want to grow your muscles, it's not just about
doing heavy stuff. It's not just about doing it
frequently. It's you need to go to failure
to get maximum growth. Number 2, they say stretch at
your fully lengthened part. So if you're dealing with the
bicep, this is the fully lengthened part.
It's stretched, but it's also load.
If I'm fully stretched but there's no load, my muscles not
going to grow. But if I'm fully stretched and
there's a load, scientists are saying that's where the most
growth happens spiritually. That's kind of tough news
because that means that there's going to be times where we are
stretched beyond what we can think is possible and we're
carrying the load we didn't think we could carry.
But that is specifically when our bodies are designed to grow.
I do believe that is probably where we grow the most in our
faith, not because we just had the answer, but because we will
continue to hold on. Faith is a holding on because
there are some areas of life and some loads where it's like
blocked in, no problem. Got it.
This issue is bolted to the wall.
It's not going anywhere. But there's other things that
are being held by fibers, by intention that take struggle,
and that is where our faith is refined and we are able to grow.
And may we welcome the load and face the fire.
Because he says that that faith may be found and will be found
to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
He didn't say who. Who's he talking about?
Who gets the glory? Who gets the praise, Who gets
the honor? Is it us, is it God?
I actually believe he says it this way because it's both.
Think about it. We are honored in the highest
way possible when we have been identified as a faithful child
of God, refined by fire through the challenges, through every
difficult thing that came our way, and we still held on.
Can you have a greater honor than to stand on Judgement Day?
God's not going to come down and be like, oh, we're salvation.
Why? You built that really nice car.
No offense, Terry, you built that really nice house.
Is that the greatest honour that we're going to have?
No, the greatest honour we could possibly imagine having is to
stand at the feet of the master and be greeted by him knowing
that you've been heated up, you've been stretched, you have
been pulled in every direction. You held a lot.
Is there a greater honour? I can't think of a single
greater honour. And so when Jesus comes back,
you bet there's going to be glory, honour and praise.
That is no doubt in my mind. But absolutely God is most
honoured in the way that He can be honoured more than anything
else by standing in front of a Christian that has just
completed their gruelling work and has held on to Him and has
shown true faith to Him, to our God is so great.
I would go through anything it took to show faithfulness and
allegiance to you. How is God more glorified than
that? Is God most glorified?
When he gives me something nice and I turn on and say thank you
and praise a nice song, Everybody's going to do that.
But when I will face the heat of life's fire, think about it like
a marriage for our golden couples in the room.
The greatest honor you share between one another is getting
through life struggles, coming down to the wire and enjoying
the golden years together. Why?
Because you faced the fire together.
You were faithful to one another.
You returned to one another through whatever happened.
You held on to one another. That's gold.
And you honor your spouse, You appreciate your spouse because
of that. They honor you and appreciate
you because of that. Is there any greater honor
between two parties? And that shown when fire has
been faced and faithfulness has been revealed and tested over
the years. And so that praise and honor is
going to be in both directions in a way that is more profound
than I can ever imagine. When is it going to happen?
At the revelation of Jesus Christ?
That will be the moment. You will know exactly when it's
coming. There are sometimes when life's
challenges, you don't know what's really going to end, but
you will know when it's over because Jesus is going to arrive
and it'll all be done. And at that moment when Jesus is
revealed to us and returns, that's the moment. 2nd
Corinthians verse 4 says it this way, Or chapter 4 says for our
light affliction, which is but for a moment is working for us a
far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
Again, lightness is not describing the load, it's
describing the load in comparison to the glory.
It's not that the weight is light, but the grind you are
enduring today has ramifications far beyond what we can imagine.
Some people never get past the the thought of, well, I got
saved, That's all that matters. Life is more about than just
getting saved. It's about the weight of glory
that's built over your lifetime to stand at the feet of the
Master and show Him honour and to be appreciated in return.
And so our actions have far reaching implications for
eternal weights of glory. And I don't know how many of you
know the physics behind a lever, but pretty much everybody knows
how lever works. If I set up a lever, I'm able to
lift things much greater than my own strength are because of the
length of the lever. So if I have a a load on this
end and it's close to a point where it's tipping, I can I can
lift heavy loads. One man said give me a lever
long enough and a place to stand and I will lift the earth.
The calculations for it if if you run the the physics.
I know there are men in this audience that could attest to
this. If you have 100 foot lever you
can lift a £500 object with only 55 lbs of force.
So a lever reaches a long way. That'd be hard to do, but you
can lift some heavy stuff. This man is lifting a car by
just standing on the end of the lever, and that's not a very
long lever. God has given you a place to
stand wherever you're at right now.
He has given you an eternal lever that stretches into
eternity, and He has given you a load to bear.
But Scripture clarifies it's not too much with faith.
There are people in this audience that are lifting
eternal loads and eternal weights that aren't very strong
physically. Sandra can't lift much right
now, but she is lifting eternal weights of glory to the trials
of life. There are people who are
enduring struggles and have endured struggles that have a
lever attached to eternity that's going to influence an
eternal weight of glory. That's going to happen one day
because the lever's that long and what you're doing matters
more now than we will ever be able to fathom until that day.
And so, as I think I've mentioned before in analogy,
when I got done with that workout and practice and I
didn't give everything I had, I just felt like it.
Now there's now the exercise. The workout was over.
I could have given more. I had more left in the tank.
I could have given more. I don't want us to end life like
that because the ramifications are going to stretch so far, far
and powerfully into eternity that it's worth whatever effort
we give. And May God give us the energy
and the strength to do it again today.
It is tiring. It is weakening, but God gives
strength each new day to bear this load for an eternal weight
of glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom now having
not seen, you heard, and having not seen, you love this Jesus
who's coming. Having not, having not seen you
love Him, though now you do not see him yet, believing you
rejoice with joy, inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the
end of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
There's a show on right now that I'm not going to recommend that
is called Love is Blind. And the whole premise behind the
show is love is more true when it's not dependent on all the
other things that go into what we consider to be love.
But it's focused on the essence of a person.
It's focused on the character of a person.
The premise applies to us as Christians.
While it has its problems with love and relationships, there is
a truer form of love that we get to experience because it is by
faith. Jesus says blessed are they who
believe and have not seen them, and we can rejoice with joy
inexpressible and full of glory today of this salvation, this
special salvation. The prophets have inquired and
searched carefully. People have been interested in
this for a long time. Who prophesied of the grace that
would come to you searching what or what manner of time the
Spirit of Christ who is in them was indicating when he testified
beforehand. He's saying there were people in
the Old Testament who for a long time were really curious to look
into this, like what's going to happen, what's going on?
The Spirit of Christ was in them, indicating when he
testified before, beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the
glories that would follow. And to them, to these prophets,
it was revealed that not to themselves but to us, they were
ministering. How about taking the load off of
people and giving them strength when they're going through
something difficult? Realizing there's people who've
been preparing this for me for a long time.
They were serving us the things which have now been reported to
you through those who have preached the gospel to you by
this Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things which angels
desire to look into. Prophets wanted to understand
it, the Holy Spirit gave it, and angels still want to understand
it. The finishing up here.
Therefore, he says we got to get a little bit of application.
He said a lot of things about all the blessings we get and all
these wonderful things, but I want something to to sink my
teeth into and to be able to take forward.
He says. Therefore, gird up the loins of
your mind. They used to wear long flowing
garments and you can't run well in a skirt.
You women know, hopefully some of you men don't know, but some
of you might. It's hard to run in a skirt.
And so they would take that, that that cloth, and they would
wrap it up and tie it up to where they could have their legs
free to run. He's telling them tie up the
excess. You don't have time and energy
to to worry about everything, to be dragged down by everything.
You've got stuff to do. You've got faithfulness to be
had. Gird up the loins, take up your
mind and be sober. I call that go mode.
There's a certain mode I get into when I can be very like
lackadaisical. I can complain, I can be
overthinking, but there's times where something has to get done
and I'm in go mode and I have to just move right on through.
Maybe it's on the job site when when something had to get
accomplished, the concrete was being poured.
You don't have time to think about whether you're hungry or
tired or whether that thing is just not just perfect on the
job. You just got to move.
You have to cut the excess. What can be things that have to
be excess? They have to be gotten rid of.
How about sin? Absolutely any kind of sin is
weight that easily besets us. We're told in Scripture we have
to get rid of specific distractions.
Maybe there's things that are in our way, they're distracting us.
Some things are just extra. Maybe it's not necessarily a
sin. Maybe it's not necessarily one
thing, but it like that's a keeping our attention, but maybe
it's just it's unproductive, it's excess, it's maybe worry,
maybe it's complaints. Maybe we're just in a mindset
you got to snap out of and say nobody has time to I don't have
time to deal with this, this worry.
I got to, I got to keep moving. I got to cut it out.
I got to cut that mindset out and I got to sometimes cut out
my idea of perfection and I got to, I got to keep moving because
some projects will never get done if you continuously tweak
and tweak and tweak and just always have to get it right.
Sometimes you have to lay aside the things that are not
productive for you and you know what's your unproductive extra
loins that you need to gird up and rest your hope fully upon
the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of
Jesus Christ. I'm going to have to stop right
there because we're already getting a little long.
May we gird up our our minds and instead of being motivated and
and hopeful in and focused on all the things that make us go
up and down and all the extra things that caused those
worries. May we take our hope and place
it intentionally. Not on whatever might pop up
that's the most intriguing at the time, but on the hope that
is to be brought to us and that will help us eliminate a lot of
the noise that comes from inside and outside.
So we may serve him and enjoy that election in that role that
he has called us into because it's going to have an eternal
weight attached to it. If you have not started this
walk today, please begin. It's never too late.
There are people who great built great business empires in their
lives but neither success came until age 70.
There's amazing things people have done late in the game.
You might say it is not too late to start.
You can start today and begin a new life where God can work
through you. And it begins with hearing the
word of God and believing in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
And we make a decision to confess, to repent our past
life, to change and turn towards his direction and to follow him.
Confessing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and there's no
salvation in any other. Not a Buddha, not a shaman, not
our own goodness, but through the Lord and Savior alone.
And that we will be baptized for the remission of our sins, to
contact his blood, to have our sins washed away as we see
exemplifying the New Testament. If you've already done that and
you want to get back on the right track, we'd be happy to to
pray for you now if this is, if this is appropriate, while we
stand and while we see.