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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/david-richards/exceeding-joy/
1st Peter please. 1st Peter chapter 1. Preachers come in different sizes. I remember one Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, giving a very short word and I made the mistake of saying I'm just going to be short and simple and sister told me afterwards she almost called out you already are.
Anyway I'm just going to try and be short if I can. 1st Peter chapter 1 and we'll read please for connection from verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively or a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed at the last time wherein ye greatly rejoice though now for a season if need be year in heaviness through manifold temptations.
We're going to look at a few more verses as we proceed but we'll stop there for now. I just want to speak about one word as it appears three times in Peter's first epistle. It doesn't appear many times in the New Testament but of the few times that it does appear three times it appears in 1st Peter.
It's the word that's translated in verse 6 greatly rejoice. A related word appears in John chapter 4 in verse 14 but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life.
Those words springing up are a related word to the word that is translated here greatly rejoice. It's not the normal word for joy or to rejoice in the New Testament. It's a different word and it means quite literally to leap for joy, to be beside yourself with joy, to be ecstatic with joy and as I say it appears three times here in 1st Peter.
Twice in chapter 1 and once in chapter 4. In this first reference to it in verse 6 it's the idea of rejoicing in salvation. You'll notice he says at the end of verse 5, unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time wherein ye greatly rejoice, wherein you leap for joy.
Dear brother, dear sister, how much are you enjoying being saved? How much do you really appreciate it? I remember, oh some of you've heard me say this over and over again I'm sure, not long after I was saved I was in the British military in Cyprus.
I can remember leaving the MMG where I first heard the gospel and going through the regimental gate and down the other side and over on the left were the sheds I worked in for over two years. Over on the right was a little hut that I lived in and beyond was the Mediterranean Sea and I looked around I couldn't see a soul so I presumed that nobody could see me.
So I jumped up in the air and I said praise the Lord. I can't jump so high now in fact I can't jump at all but I tell you I can really shout praise the Lord. You've never heard me shout. Sometimes I'll be traveling in the car put it in cruise control and even on the trip here this last couple of days.
A couple of times at least just from the top of my lungs I shouted out praise the Lord. Are you really enjoying being saved? Salvation is not intended to be something endured. It's intended to be something enjoyed.
Are you beside yourself with joy? Do you so appreciate what you've been saved from? Just consider where you could be today if it hadn't been for the intervening grace of God. You could have already been down in hell with the awful expectation of the lake of fire forever.
But you've been saved. You've been delivered from going down to the pit. But you know it might have been enough for you and me just to be annihilated. I mean that's better than going to hell. But it wasn't enough for him.
He loves us so much. He wants to have us with him forever. And he has brought us into a fullness of salvation. Already I've mentioned in prayer that we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
Everything that we need to meet God with instantly became ours when we received Christ as Savior. There is not one thing that God forgot to think about that was necessary for our salvation. We've got it all in Christ.
I don't know about a second blessing. I've got them all. So if this second blessing is not one of the all the blessings of Ephesians chapter 1, I don't want it. I've already got them all. Are you really enjoying the fact that you're saved?
Sometimes I pray that God will lead me up my Mount Pisgah. That I might view the land in all the immensity of its dimensions. The figure of course is of Moses up in Mount Pisgah viewing the land from Dan even to Beersheba.
He wasn't to cross over the Jordan into the land, but he viewed the land. It's a good thing for you and me if we can climb up the heights and view the inheritance that we've been brought into in the Lord Jesus.
We've been brought into a large place. What a fullness of salvation you and I have in the person of the Lord Jesus. So we should be rejoicing in salvation. Come down with me lower down in the chapter please.
Verse, well we'll read from verse 7. That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen ye love, in whom though now ye see him not, yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
When he says, believing ye rejoice, the word therefore rejoice is our word. It's to be ecstatic with joy. So if in verse 6 we're supposed to be ecstatic with joy at this salvation that we've been brought into, in verse 8 our joy is to be ecstatic in the person who has become our Savior.
How much are you enjoying Christ? How much have you grown in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? You know, you never get to know Christ when you live at a distance from him.
You really need to spend time in communion with him day by day. I remember the day I got married. Maybe I wasn't qualified to talk about it at the time. I was only 23 years of age. But I talked about getting to know the person that you marry.
Of course, I discovered afterwards I didn't know her as well as I thought I knew her. That's not a negative thing, by the way. That's a very positive thing, at least in my case. I have no regrets at having the wife that I have.
I'm very happy with my wife. But, you know, you have to spend time with the person to get to know the person. And you and I have to cultivate the presence of Christ to get to know him. We get to know him through his word.
But, you know, even that can just be a theoretical thing. Remember, Paul could say, what things were gain to me? Those I counted loss for Christ. Now, our King James says, yea, doubtless. It should actually be translated, yea, rather.
In other words, what Paul is saying is, what I've said in verse seven is understating the facts. Yea, rather. And I count all things but loss for the excellency, for the surpassingness of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord.
How much are we growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? So my prayer is that I might grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, not just theoretical knowledge.
It's wonderful when you have all the facts straight, when you can show from the word of God, the deity of Christ and the true sinless humanity of Christ and so on. But there's much, much more to knowing Christ than being able to state the facts.
You know, you could learn how to swim from a book. It's true. You buy yourself a book on how to do the American crawl. And so there you are, you're lying over a chair and you got the book in one hand and you just follow the instructions.
It's a very different thing, though, when you get into the water, isn't it? And it's the same when it comes to getting to know Christ. It's not just a matter of reading up about him. You can read up about Winston Churchill, but you'll never get to know him.
You and I need to get to know Christ far, far more intimately than we do. But let me warn you, you'll never get to know Christ without paying a price. Paul says, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things.
So he paid a price to get to know Christ, but he wasn't crying in his bed. He wasn't complaining. He says, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them, but refuse something to be put in the garbage dump because he found so much in Christ.
That everything else. Lost its attractiveness to him. So are you and I rejoicing in Christ? Do we find there are times when we just are beside ourselves with joy as we talk to him? So we should be rejoicing in salvation.
We should be rejoicing. In Christ. Now, come with me, please, to chapter four, verse 12, he says, Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you.
Maybe we'll stop there a moment. You know, we're we're all very good at comforting other people that are going through trials, aren't we? And we can all be very good at quoting. Well, all things work together for good to those who love God.
But when the trial comes our way, we say, why me? Why should I have to go through this? Whereas we ought to be saying, why not me? Why should other people have to go through trouble? And I never have to go trouble through trouble.
So Peter says, don't be surprised as though this is a strange thing that's happening to you. It's part of life's expectations. If you've never had any trials in your life up until this point, well, don't get impatient.
Just hang in there. It'll come. Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. We can expect trouble in our life. That's what he's saying, basically, in verse 12, but verse 13, but rejoice in as much as you're partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
So what is translated back in chapter 1 and verse 6, greatly rejoice, and verse 6, to rejoice. Here, it's translated exceeding joy. Rejoicing in salvation. I hope you're rejoicing in salvation. Rejoicing in Christ, just knowing him intimately and being able to talk with him.
You know, I used to love to go for walks. Some of you here know that. I used to walk for miles, and it was such a pleasure. That's one thing, one consolation about the prairies. I can't say I love the prairies, though I love the assemblies in the prairies.
There are not enough mountains in the prairies as far as I'm concerned, but one thing I do love about the prairies, you can get out on some of these roads and you won't see a soul, and you can walk for miles, and to walk in the country and just talk to the Lord.
It's a wonderful thing. I used to love to climb the mountains around Kamloops. By the way, if you want to see a big sky, you'll see a bigger sky around Kamloops than you'll see in Portage le Prairie, but you have to climb a mountain to see it.
But to get up in the mountains and just talk to him, there's nobody else around, so you can actually verbalize it. You can speak to him. We should be rejoicing in Christ. But now in chapter 4, we're rejoicing in the prospect.
Notice what he says. He says, but rejoice in as much as ye partake are partakers in Christ's sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. Ecstatic with joy.
We should be rejoicing in the nearness of his return. Now, I would suggest to you in the context of first Peter that this is his coming to establish his kingdom. When the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea, and they shall not say in that day, Know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the greatest.
What a wonderful day that will be. But if you want to make the application to the rapture, I'm not going to quarrel with you. In fact, I can rejoice with it with you. We're looking forward to the return of Christ, whether it be to that tremendous moment when he shall step into the air and we'll be caught up to be forever with the Lord, or whether it be when we come out with him and we're all put on display to a wandering world and he's going to be glorified in them that believe.
What a wonderful moment that will be. Are we living in the expectation of the return of Christ? I wasn't going to use this illustration. Some of you, I'm sure, have you heard me use it. I'm glad my son's not here.
Don't tell him. But I remember when he was a little boy, maybe about five years of age, I had a can of peanuts. Now, it isn't that my son was not allowed to have any of my peanuts. But in our house, we didn't have too much money.
And our children couldn't just help themselves whenever they wanted. Not only because we didn't have too much money, but we didn't think it was good for them either. And I went into our living room this one day and we had a door on the living room.
I went inside and looked back and there was Mark on the floor and my can of peanuts was open and my Mark's face was bulging with peanuts. I said, Mark, what are you doing? He said, I was only looking at them.
And his mouth was bulging with them. Listen, Mark loved his dad. I'm sure of that. But he didn't love my appearing. I came at just the wrong moment. He wasn't living in the realization that I could turn up at any moment of time, Paul says.
Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness. Which the Lord, the righteous judge will give to me at that day and not to me only. But unto all them also that love his appearing again, I believe that the appearing there is his coming in glory.
But I make the application. Of the Lord's return at the rapture. He could turn up at any moment of time. Do you love his appearing? Are you ecstatic with joy at the realization that Christ could come at any moment of time?
If you are. It's going to affect the way you behave. There are things that you wouldn't do if you realize that Christ could turn up at any moment of time. There may be places you wouldn't go to if you realize that he could turn up at any moment of time.
There might be things that you would say maybe to someone like me or someone else that you wouldn't say if you realize that the Lord could appear just as you're saying it. How different our conduct would be if we loved his appearing.
May we really be ecstatic with joy at this salvation that we've been brought into. May our hearts leap for joy in the enjoyment of communion with Christ, and may we be beside ourselves in the realization.
He could be here. Any moment, God bless his word.