Sermon: Reasons To Praise (Part 1) - [1 Peter 1:3-9]

The Bible please turn to 1 Peter chapter 1, 1 Peter chapter 1, as you're turning there

I did some research on the internet and I found out things that people tell others when they're in a trial, right?

We've all gone through trials and what do we try to say to our friends to console them? Or what do we even tell ourselves when we're in a trial?

And I found some of the top 10, I found the top 10 most annoying things that you could tell people when they're going through a trial.

So these are things that we shouldn't do, but these are annoying when said to us. Number one, when people go through a trial, it's annoying to tell them to get a grip.

Number two, pull yourself together. Old school, they're there, they're there.

Pain is just weakness leaving the body. Very annoying.

Keep a stiff upper lip. There's plenty more fish in the sea.

Pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever. That's too bad.

Chin up. And the oddest one to me, the most annoying one to me, worst things happen at sea.

So my question this morning really is what will 2023 bring? Certainly joys, births, weddings, excitement, promotion, family events, celebration.

2023 is certain because of the Lord's compassion to bring us many wonderful things.

We praise Him for that. But there also will be things because of the fall that will be very difficult.

It will be a year filled with trials for you and for me. Funerals, sicknesses, getting fired from jobs.

I mean unless the Lord comes back, wouldn't that make it all better? I mean I would rather have this be 2023.

I saw heaven open and behold a white horse and the one sitting on it is called Faithful and True.

In righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire and on His head are many diadems.

And He has a name written that no one knows but Himself. His cloth and a robe dipped in blood and the name by which

He is called is the Word of God. From His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations and He will rule them with a rod of iron.

And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

That's our longing. We would love to have the Lord come back. But if He doesn't come back, we need to make sure we have a proper perspective on 2023, especially when we are going through trials.

I was at the funeral this last week for Dave Copper. I thought Steve did an excellent job, Pastor Steve, preaching through 1

Peter 1, the first few verses. And I thought, I'm not going to steal his outline, but I'm going to steal his passage.

Because it's not his passage at all now, is it? And so we're going to look at 1 Peter 1, verses 1 through 9 today.

And I'm going to give you kind of reasons, kind of a template, so that you will not be able to just give people encouragement when they go through trials, but you yourself.

What do you tell yourself when you're going through trials? What do you tell other people when they're going through trials?

And that will be 1 Peter 1. Very counterintuitive. It won't be annoying at all.

It'll be encouraging. And we're just going to kind of take a big picture view of 1 Peter 1, 1 to 9, and ask ourselves the question, when we're in a trial, what do we think about?

And you're going to see very quickly that it's not going to be about ourselves and our trials and looking at our own person.

It's going to be an upward look. Our help's going to come from the hills, and everything about this section is going to be upward.

Because the trials are certainly real. They're difficult. But can we, especially as Christians, always find a reason to praise the

Lord? I want 2023 for you and for me to be a year full of praise.

No matter what's happening, no matter what's going on, we can still praise the

Lord. Let me read the introduction first, verses 1 through 2. And there's all kinds of wonderful information there, but our main focus will be found in verses 3 through 9.

Do you see how Peter introduces this epistle? Peter, an apostle, once sent by Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles in the dispersion.

These are Christians that are scattered everywhere because of persecution. And where are they scattered? Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia.

According to the foreknowledge of God the Father and the sanctification of the Spirit, for the obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with His blood.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Peter, acting like a wonderful pastor and shepherd, wants to encourage people.

They are losing their homes, they are losing probably their lives, many of them. They're losing everything.

And what do you tell people who are struggling? Well, he kind of starts off interestingly.

He says, you're elect, you're chosen. Do you see it right there? You're elect exiles. He gives that wonderful Greek and Hebrew intro at the very end of verse 2.

Grace, unmerited favor, demerited favor. We get what we don't deserve based on the Lord Jesus. And peace, a wonderful Jewish greeting there.

You have peace with God and therefore peace with others. But what do you tell people who are going through trials?

I regularly preach to myself. Sometimes out loud, a lot of times in the car.

And sometimes it's, Mike, stop. Mike, repent. Mike, quit that.

It seems to get louder every time I say the word Mike, but that's good for me to hear. Kind of preaching to myself. I want the

Word of God kind of with a Nathan -like finger right on my sternum. Okay, you need to think rightly.

Because we are to use our minds, right? So often we're floating in the sea of feelings. And remember the

Bible where it talks about loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

And our minds need to be engaged. And what Peter the pastor does, he doesn't say, worse things happen at sea.

He's going to direct them to who God is. And he's going to say, in spite of everything, you can still praise

God. No matter what happens to you this year. Dear Christian, you can still praise God, right? No matter what happens.

And so when we have our focus down on the ground and our trials, it's going to be very, very difficult. So what

Peter tries to do by the Spirit's Word is to say, okay, we have to make sure we're looking up, looking at life through the lens of who

God is and what he's done. And I thought that would be a good template for my own soul and your soul as we go to 2023.

And of course, beyond. So what we're going to do this morning is we're going to mainly focus on verses 3 through 9.

And I'm going to give you reasons that 2023, dear Christian, can be praise -filled.

Some reasons that it can be praise -filled. Seriously, no matter what you go through, no matter what your family will go through.

Some of you are in a trial right now, and it's very, very difficult. But since you are a

Christian, I'm preaching to Christians today. Because if you're not a Christian, you're not trusting in the risen

Savior. You're not forgiven. You have no hope of heaven, as Pastor Scott Brown, Elder Brown, was talking about resurrection.

Resurrection of the body, if you're not a Christian, is a bad thing. But if you're a Christian trusting in the Lord, this is for you.

If you're not, we want you, of course, to confess that Jesus is the Lord. You say, Pastor, why is this all about praise?

Take a look at verse 3. Everything in this section is about praise. And it starts off with, in the

ESV, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He starts off right away with praise.

With blessing. It's like an exclamation. Even in the ESV, that's how it's translated, with this exclamation.

Praise. Now, if you have a eulogy for someone, it means to speak well of.

E -U means well, and then logos, eulogy, to speak well of.

And right at the very beginning, Peter is modeling for these dear elect exiles, and he starts praising

God. He starts thinking, you know what? This is like Psalm 103.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. All that is within me, bless

His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits. That's the kind of background that's here.

Paul does it in 2 Corinthians. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The word blessed means to celebrate with praises.

To celebrate with praises. I love that. We all have certain celebrations, and I don't know, have

I ever mentioned about having a little grandson? And there's a birth in the family, or there's a wedding, and it's just exciting, it's celebration.

Doesn't matter what the cost is, this is a time to celebrate. That's what he's talking about here. To speak well of.

You elect exiles, you Christians who go through trials, it's time to speak well of.

Peter was not immune to trials himself, and here Peter, with the great modeling, this is how we do things.

We praise the Lord for His goodness, for His character, for His essence, for who He is, for what

He's done and what He will do. This praise be language is used of only

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. Because this kind of praise, this kind of exaltation, this kind of celebration with adoration is for one and one only.

Not Pele, not Tom Brady, not the President. One and one only.

There's only one who gets this kind of praise. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I mean,

Peter, it's been quite a while since you've been saved. Aren't you supposed to be super excited about the Lord, and praise

Him and celebrate Him when you're a new Christian? But then when you've been a Christian for 30 years, you're subdued.

You know, you're not so much on the praise aspect. Was that Peter's attitude? Like Paul, right?

25 years after he gets saved on Damascus Road, he, with the same language in Ephesians chapter 1, says what?

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as He chose us in Him before the foundations of the world that we might be holy and blameless in love.

He just starts launching, celebrating with praises. This whole section is about praises.

And so if you look at verses 3 through 9, basically what I'm going to do today is, if you want a really exegetical, detailed outline,

I think Pastor Steve did a great job, I'm going to look at more big picture. We're going to look at things in this section, in verses 3 through 9, that we could praise

God for. If this section is about praising, and it is, what can we praise

God for? Give me some reasons. I mean, I praise God. What if I run out of reasons? I'm just kind of generally praising.

Could you make it specific? Could you make it tangible? Give me some reasons in my prayer time that I could praise

God. Remember that old acronym for prayer? A -C -T -S.

S is supplication. We're asking Him for certain things, like a child to a father. T, we're thanking

Him for what He's done and who He is. C, we're what? Confessing sins and asking for cleansing.

And what about the A part? By the way, I've got the S part wired. I need this,

I need this, I need that, and there's nothing wrong with asking God for things. Right? You have a five -year -old and they need something,

I'm happy to give them what they need. But it's harder on the A side.

So this section is really wonderful, because it just helps us. He gives us all these reasons to praise

God. Kind of reminds me of Ecclesiastes. Instead of complaining, instead of being grumpy, instead of being a downer, instead of being depressed, here we put off those things, and here is the celebration.

Did any of you go out at midnight last night and light fireworks illegally? Come on, somebody here had to have.

Did you? Nobody will admit it. All right. But you can just see those fireworks going up.

Wow, ooh, cool. Okay, maybe you watched them on TV. Let me give you some reasons from 1

Peter 3, 1 Peter 1, 3 to 9, to praise God. Number one, you can praise

God because He's triune. You can praise God because He's triune. You could see

Father, Son, and Spirit in verses 1 and 2, could you not? And He now talks about the Father and Son here.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'll ask you a question.

Preacher mode. When's the last time you said, God, I praise you for being triune?

Maybe you say, I praise you for being kind to me, patient with me, forgiving. But sometimes we think the

Trinity is so hard to understand, it's a cause of consternation versus praise. Not for Peter, not for Paul.

When he begins to think about God, he begins to think about the triune God, and that causes him to praise.

Even though God is infinite and we're finite, even though God is pure and we're sinful, don't let that rob you of praising

God for who He is. Because if I begin to say, the Father, I hope you're thinking, oh, that's the

Father who sent the Son. And then the Spirit of God applies the work of the sent Son, the

Father sending the Son to me. I think of the one, the old theologians would say, the Holy Spirit makes me think of all three.

I think of all three, makes me think of the one. Here, you can see it with your own eyes. He's praising

God, the triune God. Say, well, help me understand the

Trinity a little bit better. It's not that hard in terms of truths that we have. God is one, correct?

The Lord our God is one. There's one God. Each person of the

Godhead is divine, right? Is the Father divine? Yes. Is the Son divine? Yes.

Is the Spirit divine? Yes. Is the Spirit the same as the

Father, and the Father the same as the Son, and the Son is the same as the Spirit? No. We believe in one God, each person is divine, and the persons are distinct from one another.

And furthermore, we believe in this God, one God, three persons. And they act as one.

Right, if I said to you, who raised Jesus from the dead, what would you say? The Father, and I'd say, good job.

And the Son raised Himself, John 10, I'd say, good job. And the Spirit vindicated Him by raising Him from the dead, 1st

Timothy 3, verse 16. Because if God is one, He acts in unison. Sometimes there's more of an emphasis about God the

Creator, God the Sustainer, God the Sanctifier. I understand that.

But what we have is a God who's triune, who acts as one, because He's one God. I personally, dear

BBC, I like it when I can't get my arms around something. Because if I can figure it out, if Mike Ebendroth can figure out calculus, it's not that impressive.

But if I can't figure something out, I'm kind of in awe. Can you get your arms wrapped around who

God is? By the way, it will take you all of heaven, and you still won't get your arms wrapped around who

God is. So just put that in your cap and say, when I praise God, it ought to be a triune praising.

God, I praise You that You're one in three. I praise You that You're three in one. O God, who is like You among the gods?

Was there ever some kind of God who's triune? No. You say, well, this is more of a

Christ -centered church. We don't focus on the Holy Spirit as much. What's going on with that? Dear friends, it's the

Holy Spirit who says, preach about Jesus. It's the Father who sends the Son, and He says,

I exalt the Son, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well -pleased. When you preach the Son, you're preaching the

Father who sends, and the Spirit who applies His work. When you're talking about the Holy Spirit, you're talking about the

Father and the Son. When you think of the one, you think of the three, and when you think of the three, you think of the one.

When's the last time you praised God for being triune? God, I praise You for being triune.

Reason number two, that we can praise God no matter what we go through this year. This is what

I want you to tell yourself, and tell other people going through trials. You can praise Him for His mercy.

Number one, you praise God for being triune. You can also praise Him for His mercy, right there in the text.

The job of the preacher is to be faithful to what the text says. You can see it in your own Bible. You can come up with this outline yourself, because these truths are found in this passage.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to His great mercy.

Let's just stop there for a second. Sometimes, as we talked about last week, mercy is not getting what you deserve.

You deserve a spanking by your parents, you don't get it, you get mercy. That's an aspect. But that's not the aspect here.

Here's the aspect of mercy. Someone you know is in a state, and they need help.

They're kind of pitiful. They're kind of like, I wish I could just help them. I mean, they're stuck in some kind of thing that...

I just feel so sorry for them. I'd like to get them out of that predicament.

I want to extract them from that quicksand trial that they're in. I could do something about it, and I'm just drawn to do that.

Emotions aside, that's what this is. God sees us. We're in a pitiful state.

Sin. Trespasses. Enslaved. Straight jacket.

And He says, I'll do something about it. What if God said, no, no, I'm aloof. I stand away.

I don't want to get involved. You know how it starts. You get involved with a little thing, and now you get involved all the way.

No, this is... This is what Bengel said. Grace takes away the fault.

Mercy takes away the misery. Can't we say as Christians, we were afflicted?

We were astray. We were pitiful. We were there in the dung heap, as it were.

And now we're rescued by what? Mercy. And when Paul realizes that, when

Peter realizes that, it begins to have him praise. Remember Ephesians chapter 2, 1 -3.

Dead in trespasses and sins. Ends in verse 3. Children of wrath, even as the rest. What are the next two words?

But God, who is what? Really impoverished in mercy, doles it out.

No, no, what's it say? But God being what? Rich in mercy. I'm rich in sin. I've got a lot of sin.

Manifold sin. I'm going to need grace greater than my sins, and mercy greater than my sins as well.

The reason you're a Christian is because of God's mercy. Well, I voted to get saved.

Satan voted that I didn't get saved. Now what?

Well, if it wasn't for mercy... It's certainly not God voting, Satan voting, you cast the deciding vote.

It's mercy. If you're going to go to heaven, it's divine mercy. One writer said, the average evangelical pulpit conveys the impression that it lies holy in the power of the sinner, whether or not he shall be saved.

God has done his own part, you do the rest. What kind of praise would that be?

If it's not all God's salvation, if it's not Jonah chapter 2, salvation is of the

Lord, then all the praise doesn't go for God. He gets some praise, I get some praise.

As my brother said, we fist bump God and we say, we did it. You did 99%,

I did 1, but still no. For Peter, he's all in, praising God. One of the reasons why religion as a system is so bad is because it doesn't need

God's mercy. Maybe some of you have got saved out of a Christian system, or a non -Christian system.

It's not about the mercy of God, it's what you have to do and ordinances. You've got the right parents, you've got the right setup.

You're going to get saved, it's got to be mercy. Well, there's more. Uh -oh, this is a good one.

This is one of those we have to double check. Is this in my Bible? Yes, it is. It's in your Bible. Reasons to praise

God, no matter what happens this year. He's triune, He's full of mercy, and He caused your new birth.

It's right there. It's in the English, and it's in the Greek. Right there, I'll read it again. He's caused us to be born again.

That's really what's fueling the great... The mercy fuels us being born again, but I want to focus in.

He's caused you to be born again. I've said to myself, May 12th, 1960,

Clarkson Hospital, Omaha, Nebraska. Mike Abendroth bore himself from Carla Abendroth's womb.

Now, you're all laughing, but we begin to think somehow, God and me, we did this together,

I did my part, now God can work. He's looking down corridors of time, what will I do?

That's a God that's made up. The God who's real, the God who's triune, the God who's beyond you. Here's what

He does. You're enslaved to sin, and since He's got so much mercy, He says, you're born again. The language of birth should tell you,

God is the active one, we're passive. Of course we respond with faith, and then later obedience, as we walk a holy life.

But God is the actor in your salvation, so guess who gets all the praise? If you say to yourself,

I'm a born -again Christian. One, it's not needed for you to say born again, because all

Christians are born again. But if you say, I'm born again, you are saying, I didn't bear myself again

Christian. God is the one that caused me, God caused me. Do you know

Christian? You should be able to praise God and say, thank you for making me a Christian. You did it.

And in our world that we live in, there's a lot of theology that basically says, it's more man -centered, and I did this, then

God did that. As the writers will say, our first birth, birthed us into sin, it's going to need the second birth, to birth us unto children of God.

He caused you to be born again. That's amazing to me. All of God.

Listen to Titus chapter 3, it uses the same language of born again. He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewal of the

Holy Spirit. Why are you a Christian? Because God caused you to be a Christian, and you freely responded with faith.

Peter is praising God for that. And it was going to need, by the way, if you think of Peter and his life,

Peter was going to need something like that. This is Peter, the one who's saying, you know what,

Jesus, don't do that, don't talk that way, don't do that. And Jesus is saying, get behind me, what? Satan.

Peter is going to need a great savior. Jesus answered Nicodemus and said, truly, truly,

I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he's old?

He can't enter into the mother's womb a second time and be born, can he? Jesus answered, truly, truly,

I say to you, unless one is born of water and a spirit, internal cleansing that we can't cleanse, you will not enter the kingdom of God.

I mean, I can clean my hands. I can clean my arms. How do

I clean my heart? Ever sinned something so bad, you just feel so dirty and like,

I can't get clean. He can cause you to be born again. And he has, dear

Christian. You say, well, I need counseling because I'm anxious.

I need counseling because I'm depressed. I need counseling because I'm this, I'm that. What if I would tell an unbeliever, you need counseling because you need a new you.

You've got to be a different person. Become a new you. How do you do that? Become a new you.

Sounds like a good TV commercial, but it's never going to work. Jesus goes on in John chapter 3 with Nicodemus.

He talks about, out of flesh, can spiritual things come? Can you make cotton balls in Pittsburgh steel factories?

The flesh produces fleshly things. We need to be cleansed on the inside.

If you're a Christian, God made you a Christian. Are you glad he did? Or would you rather have him just pass you over and you're on your way to hell one day?

I think that's praise -inducing. S. Lewis Johnson said, there's two systems of truth on earth.

One is that salvation is the product of one's movement toward God. And the other is, salvation is all of God.

Which one was Peter teaching? You say, yeah, but my mom teaches this, my dad taught that, my grandpa teaches this,

I thought this, my old pastor said that. Put your finger right there in verse 3. Underline it. He caused us to be born again.

That's what the Bible says. Do you believe it? If you do, you'll say, thank you. Thank you,

Lord, that you saved me. Ask this question. Why are some people saved and other people are not saved?

Because one was better? Let me ask you another question. How many people here are

Christians and would come up, I'm not going to let you do it because I don't want you to embarrass yourself, would come up and take the microphone and say,

I became a Christian by my own power. You know, we have baptismal testimonies and we don't clap much at this church, but we clap at baptisms, right?

And they're giving test... Excuse me. They're giving test... They're testifying to what

God has done. God did this, God saved. We would never stand up and say, I'm getting baptized today in my profession of faith, in obedience to scriptures, because I made myself a

Christian. And by the way, if you're of that persuasion, you say, that's kind of a caricature.

If you don't believe this, I want to ask you a question. When you pray for your loved ones to get saved, don't you pray this?

God, I have a loved one who is not saved. How do you pray? Would you open their eyes?

Would you cause them to be born again? Would you make them a Christian? Would you save them?

Would you redeem them? Would you rescue them? Don't you ask God to do that? On your knees, you believe this.

Because we realize, we try to talk to our sister for 50 years, we try to talk to our dad for 30 years, we try to talk to our children for 20 years, they don't listen to us, because we don't save anybody.

God uses our preaching, and then he opens people's eyes. Spurgeon said, don't pray like this.

Lord, I pray that I'm not like these poor, presumptuous people. I was born with a glorious will.

I was born with power by which I can turn to you of myself. I've improved my grace. If everybody had done the same with their grace that I have, maybe all have been saved.

Lord, there are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was. They had as much of the

Holy Ghost given to them, they had much as a good chance, they're much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us differ.

I know it did a great deal, but I still turned the point in my own salvation. I made use of what was given to me, and others did not.

That's the difference between me and them. And I read that and I go, duck!

I'm nicer than Spurgeon, because Spurgeon said, that's the prayer of a devil. God, you are triune.

God, you are merciful. God, you made me born again. Is that how you praise him? That would be enough right there, but there's more.

Let's keep going. A fourth reason. Praise God for a living hope. No matter what happens this year, some of you that I'm preaching to will probably go to glory this year.

Or I will. Maybe all of us. There will be sickbeds.

There will be deathbeds. Right? It's been Ecclesiastes for us. Can we praise

God even then? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to whose great mercy has caused us to be born again to what?

A living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. We have hope.

When you have a loved one who dies without the Lord, you look back, and I think my father died in 1989.

He was 55. I'm thinking, I've got to try to get my mind wrapped around this some way, shape, or form, because how awful it is to die hopeless, and not in Christ.

You, dear Christian, you have hope. As God is a living God, you have a living hope.

As Jesus has been resurrected from the dead, and is alive, you have a living hope.

Future resurrection. Does this sound familiar to you? And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain.

We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that He raised

Christ, whom He did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even

Christ shall be raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins.

Then those who have fallen asleep, or died in Christ, have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are people most to be one.

Pitied. That would bring sorrow, pity, shame, and sadness.

But we have a living hope, and Peter, I was going to say, is off his rocker.

I would love to meet Peter on earth. He's just extolling who God is, saying things like this to the people, not just in pen, but in person.

And that's exactly what he's doing here. I guess you have other hopes this year. Dow Jones?

Crypto? I don't know. What do you hope? 401k? It took a beating last year, didn't it?

What are we going to hope in? We have this lively hope. I love the

New Testament. There's a blessed hope, a joyful hope, a comforting hope, a hope of glory, an anchoring hope, a purifying hope.

I'm expecting there's going to be future good. That's what hope is. Something good is going to happen in the future.

The ultimate thing is, the Lord returns, or we go to glory with Him. J. Gresham Machen, a scholar, writes, people think he's this dry

Presbyterian, frozen chosen kind of guy. The Christian hope is the hope of a time when even the possibility of our sinning will be over.

Don't you hate your sin? I do. Not just seeing Jesus face to face, but no more sin.

It's not the hope, Machen said then, of a return to the condition of Adam before the fall, but the hope of an entrance into a far higher condition.

The last Adam. No wonder Paul says in Romans 12, rejoicing in hope.

When's the last time you said, Lord, I thank you that you're triune, I thank you that you have great mercy upon me, and you've pitied me, and you've rescued me, you've caused me to be born again, and you've given me life and hope, and future to think about.

That's one of the reasons why I feel so sorry for people when I meet them and they're not Christians. I think to myself, if my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, and it's still hard for me to live the

Christian life, the life on earth, what do you, dear person who hope in nothing, hope in?

Hope in hope? Tied together with this, and we could talk about it or make it a new point, if you will, is praising

God for the resurrection. Let's make it explicit. Explicit. Number five. Reason to praise

God? For the resurrection. Why is there biblical hope and not just finger crossing?

Because of the resurrection. There it is in verse three. Through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Remember, dear Christian, if Jesus is still in the grave, there are some implications. If we can find

Jesus' bones, there are implications. What are the implications?

Implication one is he really did sin. He was tainted by sin, with thought, word or deed.

He disobeyed his parents, bad attitude, was not thankful, didn't love God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength.

Didn't love his neighbors himself. And while we thought he came to pay for our sins, he had to pay for his own.

And he'd be in the grave. Another option would be, somehow

Jesus didn't do everything he was supposed to do. And the father wasn't pleased to raise him.

And both are just as bad. So what did it mean when

Jesus was raised from the dead? What does it mean when the father raised him?

What does it mean when the spirit raised him and vindicated him? What does it mean when Jesus said, I'll raise up my body on that last day?

What does it mean? Well, it means this. That Jesus was sinless.

Right? By the way, do you want me as a priest? Do you want me to be as your priest? Sometimes people visit the church and they call me priest.

Do you want me to be your priest? For a fee, I will gladly do it. No. You don't want me for a priest.

Why? A priest stands between you and God. That's what a priest is. And if you're gonna have somebody stand between you and God, it better not be somebody who needs a priest himself.

And the list goes on and on and on. If somebody's gonna stand between you and God on judgment day, you need a good priest.

A holy priest. A priest that's not gonna be banished because of his own sin. A priest that's not gonna be having any defilement, any sin.

You need a good priest. A faithful priest. You need a priest that's been sent by the father. Ministered by the son.

A priest who's got mercy. A priest who does all the work of salvation.

That's the kind of priest you need. And he's gotta be a live priest.

Because dead priests don't help you. Is Pope Emeritus Benedict helping anybody today?

For us, though, it's the resurrection. The father says, This is my beloved son in whom

I'm well pleased. And as S. Lewis Johnson regularly said, When Jesus cried on the cross, It is finished.

Paid in full. Debt paid. All your sins paid for. The father said, Amen. By raising

Jesus from the dead. And you say, Pastor Mike, Everything you've said today, I already know.

You've preached this 50 times. Well, today's 51. Because we need to be reminded.

Christianity isn't about new things. It's to be reminded. When my eyes go down here, I see the trials.

I see this. I'm sick. I'm that. What if I get COVID? All these different things. I have to deal with life.

That's certainly true. But my eyes need to be lifted up. And that's the tenor of the

New Testament. To walk by faith and not by sight. That's the tenor of the Bible. Where you see people looking to the father.

Isn't that even the Lord Jesus? In John 17, Praying to the father. Looking to the father for help.

All the craziness going on there. And he goes to the hills quietly. And he's in solitary moments.

And he prays. To make sure he, The God man, Is thinking about the Lord right.

Every one of us is going to go through trials this year. The question is,

Can we still praise him? What did Job say? Though he slay me,

Yet I will what? Trust in him. That's our hope.

That's our desire. A praise filled year. I mean,

Basically the metaphor of the world's praise is this. It all happens when the ball drops in Times Square.

And everybody's excited. And the next day, It's headaches and confetti pickup.

That's what it is. And it's over. I hope this will be a better year.

I hope it'll be a better year. And for us, I hope so.

We know so. Dave Copper was in my preaching class.

And I said to the class, Let's memorize 1 Peter 1, verses 3 to 9.

We're going to need it in our life. We're going to need it when we're having all kinds of trials and troubles.

Of course, later in Peter, he talks about being holy, And how to treat your wives properly, Your husbands properly, Local church, ministry, praying, shepherding.

But to start off the intro point, The January 1st point, as it were, Is about praise.

And so we memorized it. I remember talking to Dave quite a few times.

And he'd say, I have to go in one of those MRI tubes. I have to go in one of those CAT scans.

And of course, the older MRI tubes, If you have to get your brain done, I mean, you've been in one of those little tubes like that,

You can't move, you can't get out. I'm thinking, I'll tell you what I did. I said,

I've been in so many of those, With all the migraines and everything else. I said to the doctor, I need some medicine. You got to give me some kind of Valium or something.

I'm laying in there. I want to be tough and cool and say, You know, I'm a Navy SEALs diver.

And I go into the torpedo tubes And extract people out, Mom's in the lung, all this stuff.

I said, I'm hurting in there. It's 45 minutes. You can't move. I remember once a lady said,

What kind of music do you want? I don't know what kind of music. I said, Reggae music. She said,

How do you spell Reggae for Pandora? I don't know. Get me some medicine. I didn't say that.

My mind did. So I would have a little

Valium And I could make it through. Well, Dave Copper had a lot more. I said,

Dave, how do you do it? How do you make it through the MRI tube? They've got a little mirror right there

So you can see out. Do you just keep your eyes closed? You don't know you're in the tube? He said,

No. I just memorized 1 Peter 1, 3 -9 And I just rehearse it over and over and over.

And Dave Copper's praising the Lord right now. Because he's triune. He's got great mercy.

Dave's in heaven because he is caused to be born again. And Dave no longer has a living hope.

He has a living Savior. But his hope has become sight. Because of the resurrection from the dead. And you, dear