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SERMON: Chris McKenzie, First Baptist Church of Elizabethtown, IL
15 Plays4 months ago
"A Living Hope"
1 Peter 1:1-12
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 1 Peter: A Spiritual Journey
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Speaker
Through the book of or the letter of first Peter and then after we get the first Peter guess where we're going Second Peter all right But if you go ahead and open up your Bibles this morning the first Peter chapter one But before we go to the scripture first let us go to move with one more we where if you will bow with me Father again, we thank you so much for bringing this here to worship you
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and to read your holy word this morning.
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And Father, as I speak, let my words be yours and helpless help us to focus on you with all that we have and put aside the distractions of the world and listen to what your Holy Spirit is but revealing to us this morning.
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It's in Jesus' name I pray all these things. Amen.
Overcoming Hopelessness: A Discussion
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Alright, so as we open up to 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 1 through 2 is where we're going to be starting at, but do you ever find yourself in a moment of hopelessness?
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where it just doesn't seem like anything around you is going light and it seems like you're you're just digging into this hole that just keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper and you don't know how you're going to get out out of it or how you're going to get over it.
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And I think that if we're being truthful with ourselves today, that many of us at many times feel very hopeless in our situations. Maybe our job isn't as fun as we thought it would be and we feel a little bit hopeless.
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Maybe our finances aren't as good as we hoped they would be and we start to feel a little bit hopeless. So the question after we realize that is, are there moments in our life that we feel hopeless and we say yes to that?
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How do we get over that hopelessness? How do we not let that hopelessness crush us and keep us from doing the things that we need to do to get through each and every day?
Finding Hope and Purpose in Jesus
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And my friends, as we go into these letters that Peter writes, we find that in all of the hopelessness of this world, that in Jesus Christ, we have a living life.
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hope, a reason to wake up and to praise God, a reason to live our lives, to glorify God, a reason that in the worst moments of our life, to still have thanksgiving.
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Just as Sister Garlene said little bit earlier, I thank God for the trials because He was there with me.
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And when we stop focusing on the hopelessness of our situations and start focusing on the living hope that we find in Jesus, it makes our day a little bit brighter, doesn't it? So let's go ahead and jump
The Apostle Peter: His Role and Journey
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into the scripture. and It starts out with this introduction verse 1 through 2.
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it says, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the pilgrims of the dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and sanctification of the Spirit for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
00:04:07
Speaker
Grace to you and peace be multiplied. and so as we read these letters, we get the introduction. And the introduction is, hey, my name is Peter. And if you know who Peter is, he is the apostle that we read about many times with Jesus, who had many great successes, who But he also had many failures that we get to read about.
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If you think about Peter amongst the apostles, you have your group of friends and you all have your different identities, your different personalities, and we all have that one friend that's a real hothead. That's what Peter was. He was the hothead friend.
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Oh, are are you saying John was the hothead in his group? Okay.
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But Peter was the apostle that we kind of talked a little bit today in our or Sunday school lesson. He was the apostle that walked on water when Jesus called him out. But what happened after he walked on water for a moment?
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He looked around them. The waves were boisterous and he sank and Jesus lifted him up and said, ye of little faith, why do you doubt?
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It was Peter who Jesus talked to, and he was explaining that he was going to have to die and that he was going to be resurrected on the third day. And and Peter, with his hot-headedness, said, Nuh-uh, Jesus, we're not going to allow that. And Jesus said to him the harshest words that you could probably experience here in this world, Satan, stand thee behind thee.
Hope Amidst Persecution: Peter's Context
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It was Simon Peter
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who when Jesus was taken to the cross, denied him three times and thought that all hope was lost.
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But it was Simon Peter, where a couple of ladies said, Jesus is risen, that ran to the grave. And he kind of failed at that too because the other apostle outran. They had to put that in scripture.
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But he succeeded in the fact that he realized all the words that Jesus spoke and he heard that he was resurrected. And without delay, he got up and he to the ground to see the truth.
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If there's someone that knows about hopelessness,
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I think Simon Peter would be a good person to listen to. Simon Peter time and time again did things, and I'd like to say that we can kind of make fun of Simon Peter sometimes and say, oh, Simon Peter, why didn't he just listen to Jesus? But how many times do we do the exact same thing as Simon Peter?
00:07:13
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Jesus gives us the truth. Jesus encourages us to go on. Jesus tells us what he wants us to do. And we get a little hot-headed. And we have our own will and our own desire. And we put it before God. And we stumble and we fall. But the same Jesus that lifted Simon Peter out of the water is the same Jesus that extends his hand out to listen us and lifts us up when we fall.
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So Simon Peter knows a little bit about hopelessness. And during this time as he's writing this letter, there was a lot of hopelessness amongst the church. This was a time when there was an emperor named Emperor Nero
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And he didn't like Christians. So this was written either right before this great fire or right after this great fire in Rome that Emperor Nero blamed on the Christians. He used that that time to be cruel to the Christians, to martyr them, to put them in his garden as what they call candles.
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He was very cruel to Christians at this time. So there was a lot of hopeless hopelessness at this time.
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But Simon Peter has a message of hope. And that's what we're going to read about as we continue on.
Spiritual Rebirth and Inheritance Through Jesus
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Verse 3 through 5, we get into the the meat of this message.
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where it's written, 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.
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to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, 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.
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And the first thing we see there is he said, blessed be the God and Father. And what we have to understand is how we live this life here in this world can be a blessing to God or it can cause God, kind of like us parents sometimes when our kids don't listen, to smack his forehead and say, what are they doing?
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But it's a blessing to God when we step back and realize that all of our blessings and all of the good things that give us hope come from him.
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Remember what James writes in James chapter 1 verse 17 through 18 where he says, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
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Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. And notice the resemblance between what James writes right there, what we just read, and what Peter writes.
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Peter writes, begotten, he brought us forth. And that begotten is this idea of birth.
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But Peter writes, he has begotten, given us new birth into a living hope. And James writes, by his own choice, he brought us forth. In other words, gave us birth by the word of truth.
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And this birth comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And the living hope continues back past birth and leads us and into an inheritance that is eternal.
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imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. And so in all of the hopelessness that we find, that when we put our faith in Jesus, we are born into a new family.
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Not a family of flesh and blood, but a spiritual family. And this is the same birth that Jesus was talking about when he talked in Nicodemus. When we read John chapter 3 and we go down to 16, what that birth leads to, an everlasting life in Christ.
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But we find this, our very first point today, my friends, is that Jesus is our living hope.
Joy in Trials and Trusting God's Promises
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That because he came to this world and lived the life that we could not, died the death that we deserve, and he rose from the grave to promise us new life in him, we can wake up and we can praise God and the most hopeless of situations and say I have a reason to keep going because he promises us through faith new birth and a citizenship in heaven which cannot be taken away from us he says you are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time and my friends
00:12:46
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Isn't that a wonderful promise to believe in today? But we go on in verse 6 through 9 and we keep hearing about about this hope, this living hope that we can have. And he says, in this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials.
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that the genuineness 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, whom, having not seen, you love.
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Well, now you do not see him, yet believe You rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
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And in all this hopelessness and in all the trials and the tribulations of this world, our next point is this. Our response to the promises of God should be rejoicing.
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but Though I have many trials and there's going to be various trials that each and every one of us go through, then I can face those trials and I can, at the end of the day, rejoice in God because I know this, that the promises that I have in Him are much greater than the trials that I'm facing here in this world.
00:14:18
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Isn't that what Paul writes in Romans 8, verse 18? He says, i consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
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That means that when I face this trial, it hurts.
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Sometimes I have fears. We talked about fear in Sunday school today. Sometimes I have anxiety. Sometimes I feel depressed. Sometimes I feel like I can't keep going on. But when I get to those points, I look at Jesus, my living hope, and I remember this, that he promised me that he would never leave me nor forsake me.
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That when I stumbled, he would pick me up. That when I had tears, he would wipe them away.
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and now I know that even though I'm going through some of the worst circumstances I can face here in this world, does it doesn't mean much when i look at the glory that I have in Jesus.
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And not only does Paul write about that, but James writes about it in chapter 1 of James, verse 2-4 where he says, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
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but let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
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My friends, when we face the various trials of this world, know that we still have a living hope in Jesus to continue on to praise his name to live for him until we get to be with him.
The Continuity of Salvation: From Old Testament to New
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And finally, we go to the verse 10 through 12, where
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it says of this salvation, The prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that were followed.
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To them it was revealed that not to themselves but to us they were ministering the things which now had been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things which angels desire to look into.
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Peter declares that salvation by faith in Christ is no new concept.
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that this living hope that we have in Christ is not something new, but that the prophets and the people that came before the first century church preached at the time that the Messiah would come into this world, that the blameless Lamb of God would come into this world and do exactly what Scripture said, that he was going to save his people from their sin and the shackles death.
00:17:39
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And when you look back, let me tell you, some people might say today, but well, I don't see the point in the Old Testament. I don't know how that's relevant. It's relevant because everything that we read here in this Bible, from the beginning all the way to the end, points us to the promise of the Messiah.
00:17:59
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When we read the Old Testament, it tells us of how Jesus is going to come and save his people. And when we read the New Testament, we see the fulfillment of that promise and another promise that is made to us that we can hold on to, that when he ascended to the heavens, he said, i am coming back.
00:18:22
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And so Peter declares that the salvation of faith is no new concept, but that the prophets prophesied of it.
Sharing the Gospel: The Power of Salvation
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Like the prophets, we as Christians today are not called to promote ourselves rather our very last point here's what we are called to do in response to the gospel we serve the world around us by preaching the gospel of truth and the gospel is simple it's very simple we can complain and bicker and go back and forth on several different concepts of what we believe and don't believe but what
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The truth of the gospel reveals to us is that we were lost sinners outside of Christ who Jesus and that through faith, Jesus wipes us clean, makes us into a new creation, and gives us an inheritance that is incorruptible and imperishable, saved heaven for us.
00:19:29
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So we must, as Christians, respond to this. and say, you know what God, life stinks sometimes. It does.
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We never know what's gonna happen. But God, you walk beside me and more you walk beside me. I'm gonna bring glory to your name. I'm gonna tell people about me. And that's where we find this very last verse that we're gonna read, Romans 1 16.
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I'm not ashamed and the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
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My friends, if you're a Christian today, you have a living hope that's in Jesus. I don't know what you're going through. Even when you tell me what you're going through, I don't know the depths of it, but I know someone who knows everything about you, who knows the depths of your heart, who knows the depths of your despair, who knows the depths of your hopelessness, and loves you and wants to help you out.
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And it's to him I will always point you to.
Invitation to Hope in Jesus for All
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Christians, today you have a living hope in Christ. So live for him. But if you're not a Christian, outside of Christ, all you have is hopelessness.
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And God doesn't want that for you. he wants you to put your faith in him. He wants you to find hope in him. Turn away from the world.
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Turn away from your sin. And follow Jesus. But my friends, I'm not going to keep beating the dead horse. You heard the word? Now what will you do with it?
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That choice is yours, my friend. Go live for Jesus. Let's pray.