Gold Refined by Fire Peter 1:3-9

Eureka Baptist Church iconEureka Baptist Church

0 views

0 comments

00:07
as we live in this world. We do what we can to avoid pain.
00:14
That's human nature. When we have an illness, we take medication. When we have serious illness or injury, we go to the doctor.
00:25
If we have back issues, we go to the chiropractor. When winter comes, people go south to a warmer climate for a temporary period.
00:35
We also have our favorite places where we reach for heaven on earth. I sadly learned a week or two ago that my favorite
00:42
Airbnb on the North Shore was sold by the owners. Bree and I and my brother and sister -in -law took vacations there in the summer, and what a pleasant place it was.
00:56
At this location, we were in a forest not far from Lake Superior. We had our own private rapids to swim in.
01:04
There were trails to go hiking, and we stayed in a nice cabin away from the homeowners. We all have these places that are a little slice of heaven on earth, where we associate the place with beauty, rest, comfort, happiness, and relaxation.
01:26
But our temporary experiences in these places of happiness are not the totality of our experience of life on earth.
01:36
To live on earth is to experience pain. You can't avoid it. The psalmist said this in Psalm 90, verse 10.
01:47
The years of our life are 70, or even by reason of strength, 80. Yet their toil is but trouble.
01:56
They are soon gone, and we fly away. This is the reality of our lives here on earth.
02:04
No one's story is one of comfort and ease. There are challenges. You can mark it down that those difficulties will come, and for those here who have lived long enough, you've already had many.
02:19
While it is true that everyone on earth faces challenges, generally, believers face more challenges.
02:28
It has been said that God cares more about your character than your temporary happiness.
02:35
This is true. So what the Lord does during our lives is He sends trials our way, and He does it remarkably because He loves us.
02:46
It doesn't sound right when we hear that, but it's true. He sends trials our way because He loves us.
02:54
He wants to make you into the best version of yourself, and the only way this can happen is through difficulty.
03:06
Acts 14 .22 says, As we jump into our second sermon in 1
03:17
Peter, we are going to see Peter address this very topic of God's sovereignty over our trials and the glory that awaits the one who walks with God through those trials.
03:31
So at this time, I encourage you to turn with me in a Bible to 1 Peter. We'll be looking at verses 3 -9.
03:39
If you don't have a Bible, we do have those Bibles in the pews, those red Bibles. The sermon is titled,
03:46
Gold Refined by Fire. And I'm going to begin by reading the text.
03:52
1 Peter 1, verses 3 -9. In this, you rejoice.
04:30
Though now, for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
04:55
Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see
05:00
Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
05:13
Here's our big idea. What this text is calling us to do. Understand that the
05:19
Lord always works for the good of His people. Understand that the Lord always works for the good of His people.
05:26
We're going to see four plans how in this text. Last week we introduced 1
05:33
Peter by looking at the first two verses of chapter 1. In this sermon we focused on four areas that the apostle
05:41
Peter addresses in these two verses. The first area of focus was asking the question, who wrote the letter of 1
05:49
Peter? And the answer is obvious. Peter says that he is the author of 1
05:55
Peter. The second area we focused on was the timing and location of the letter. We learned later on in the letter that Peter wrote from Babylon.
06:03
In ancient times, Rome was often called Babylon, so he wrote from Rome.
06:09
And he wrote during the period before the great persecution performed by the emperor
06:17
Nero, which happened from 64 to 67
06:22
AD. So Peter likely wrote 1 Peter in 62 or 63
06:28
AD. The third area of focus that we looked at were the recipients to whom he wrote. He wrote to several regions of Asia Minor in what is now called
06:37
Turkey. This is a letter that was more widely circulated than the other letters of the
06:44
New Testament. The last area of focus were the last words of verse 2 where Peter wrote,
06:51
May grace and peace be multiplied to you. What we learned here is that the phrase grace and peace is a reminder to the believer of the wonderful standing that you have before God.
07:05
Believers are under God's grace and believers experience his peace wherever you go.
07:13
So that's what we looked at one Sunday ago. Now let's jump back into our text beginning with verse 3 where Peter once again says,
07:21
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
07:34
Once Peter gets into the body of the letter, he starts off in the beginning of verse 3 by saying that the
07:42
Father is blessed through our Lord Jesus Christ. What we see here is how the
07:49
Trinity works. The Father is the head and when the Father gets praised, so do the
07:55
Son and the Holy Spirit. So that's what Peter does here. He praises God the
08:01
Father. Then in the remainder of verse 3, Peter explains the wonderful reality of God's mercy to believers.
08:09
God is merciful to us by sending his Son to die in our place and as Peter says at the end of verse 3, the resurrection of Christ shows that God approves of the sacrifice of his
08:24
Son. This is very important for us to understand. If Jesus stayed dead, it would have shown that he was a false prophet like the corrupt
08:34
Jewish leadership claimed at this time. But he did not stay dead.
08:40
He rose from the grave. When Jesus rose from the grave, he officially and finally accomplished your salvation for you.
08:50
The way that the finished work of Christ is applied to you is through faith.
08:56
You believe that Jesus died and rose again to wipe away your sins and it is through this faith that you are born again.
09:04
As Peter writes, you are born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
09:14
That is, his finished work made being born again possible and when you believe, you become born again.
09:24
The Apostle Peter is describing an important doctrine that goes by several different names.
09:30
Whether we are talking about being born again, experiencing the new birth, or experiencing regeneration.
09:37
When we talk about these, we are talking about the same reality. Jesus describes the new birth to Nicodemus in John 3, this famous passage.
09:47
What Jesus explains to Nicodemus, who was supposed to be an expert in the Old Testament, but was in fact ignorant, what
09:55
Jesus explained to him is that the only way one can enter the kingdom of God is by being born again.
10:03
The new birth happens when one believes in Jesus and what happens is that a person who was once spiritually dead becomes spiritually alive as the
10:15
Holy Spirit enters that person. Before you are born again, you are alive physically, of course.
10:22
You have a heartbeat. You can breathe, but you are not alive to the things of God.
10:34
At that time, before the new birth, before being born again, the Bible is just another book.
10:41
There is no desire to pray. There is no desire to go to church. There is no desire to be around other believers.
10:51
When unbelievers see the beauty of the world around, they don't enjoy the Creator as they enjoy the creation and give praise to God, but rather they only enjoy nature without giving praise and honor to the one to whom it is due.
11:07
But when you become born again, everything changes. You become alive.
11:15
2 Corinthians 5 .17 says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
11:22
Behold, the old is gone. The new has come. You start to see the glory of Scripture.
11:31
There's a reason this book has been disseminated billions of times. If it was boring and not life -changing, it would have disappeared long ago.
11:45
When you become born again, you desire to talk to God through prayer. You desire to be with God's people on Sunday where you sing together, sit under preaching together, and fellowship together.
11:59
And when believers see the beauty of the world around them, they enjoy the
12:05
Creator as they enjoy nature. This is what the new birth does to a person.
12:13
As one is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit works in that person's life, making that person more like Jesus.
12:22
Peter highlights the amazing reality of the new birth in verse 3 when he says that the new birth gives someone a living hope.
12:32
I once heard a pastor say that the only way to survive in life is to have hope.
12:38
It's the only way. Everyone has hope in something.
12:44
But the question is, where is that hope? The only real hope that anyone can have is through Jesus.
12:52
And that's a controversial statement, but it's true. Outside of Christ, there is no hope.
13:02
Think of the hope that you carry with you as a follower of Jesus. As a believer, you carry with you eternal life.
13:09
You have eternal life now, and you have this forever and ever. To be a
13:15
Christian is to be alive. Genuine Christians are the only ones on earth who are truly alive, and you carry with you that hope that this life you have with the
13:27
Lord you have forever. If you are a genuine believer here today, you experience this life inwardly now, and those with this experience are heading to the grandest destination in the future.
13:42
I love what John 17 says. People think of eternal life just in the future. John 17 verse 3 says, this is eternal life.
13:51
That you know the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
13:59
So believers have eternal life right now, and you have it forever.
14:06
So Peter describes the eternal inheritance awaiting the believer in verse 4. It starts with this living hope that's in you, and something great is coming as you have this living hope in you.
14:18
Verse 4 says, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.
14:30
So Peter describes believers through their new birth, through being born again, which comes through faith, trusting in Christ's finished work.
14:40
He says here, something amazing is prepared for you.
14:46
And to say that is an understatement. Something beyond our comprehension. It's so great that we, our little minds, cannot imagine it.
14:59
This place is a very special place. In verse 4, Peter uses three words to describe what this place will be like.
15:07
In the future, believers will dwell in a place that will never perish, that will never be defiled, and will never fade.
15:17
It is a place that this present earth is not.
15:23
Not even close. This present earth is perishable. You know, you get those foods, there's an expiration date on those foods.
15:34
Your drinks, your foods, eventually they run out. This earth will run out.
15:43
In fact, Peter, in his second letter, describes the future end of this earth in 2 Peter 3 .10 where he writes, the day of the
15:50
Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved.
16:00
This earth is made of atoms. Atoms are all over the universe.
16:06
How is this place going to end? The atomic bomb, anybody? It's going to blow up the whole thing, and God's going to create in a new one day.
16:17
2 Peter 3 describes this event. This earth that we live in is temporary.
16:25
I have a good friend named Adam, whom I serve on the board of Valley Christian with.
16:30
Adam and his wife have a beautiful barn where they host weddings and wedding receptions.
16:36
And a ton of work went into them making it a beautiful place for weddings to happen. But what he has told people is that one day it's all going to burn up.
16:46
Could you imagine saying that to the people who are visiting? It's all going to be gone. He's right.
16:52
It catches people when he says this, but people with an eternal focus get it.
17:00
When Adam says this, he understands that everything in this world is temporary. Even if their beautiful barn survives the tribulation, which is in the future, the final seven -year tribulation, it's not going to survive to the very end.
17:13
Everything is going to be burned up. This is the future of the world.
17:19
This place will not be here forever. It's disposable. This world is not only temporary, it's also defiled.
17:29
This means that everything in the natural world is tainted by sin, even the most beautiful places.
17:37
Listen to what the Apostle Paul writes about this present world in Romans 8, verses 19 -21. The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
17:47
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
18:04
The present world is tainted by sin and corrupted, and Paul here in Romans 8 personifies nature by writing that the natural world desires to be released from its bondage to corruption, and that day will come.
18:24
The world is going to be new one day. When this will come is described at the end of the
18:30
Bible in Revelation 21 -22 in a place that Scripture calls the new earth.
18:38
And this earth we live on now will be called the old earth. This future earth will be an incorruptible place that will go on forever and ever.
18:49
When you surrender to the Lord, understanding your sin, and believing in Him for the forgiveness of your sins, this is the amazing future that He has prepared for you.
19:02
For many in this room, this is your future. And my prayer is that this would be the future for everyone here.
19:08
Acts 16 -31 says, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.
19:13
You won't die in your sins. You won't go to hell if you believe in the
19:18
Lord. That's what this book promises. That's what the Word of God promises. And God never lies.
19:26
Believe in Him today. So here we have seen in this first point, understand that the
19:34
Lord always works for the good of His people. And the first plan how is by preparing a place in Heaven through your salvation.
19:44
That's the first point. The first plan how. Preparing a place in Heaven through your salvation.
19:51
The second plan how you are to understand that the Lord works for the good of His people is this.
19:58
By strengthening you to persevere to the end. Strengthening you to persevere to the end.
20:05
So in the first point, we saw that this is your future as a believer, but we know that it's not easy to reach this destination.
20:14
Some of you have read Pilgrim's Progress. It really gives a beautiful description of what the
20:20
Christian life is really like as Christian travels from the city of destruction to the celestial city.
20:26
He meets all kinds of trouble along the way. And this is true of believers as you go through the life of faith.
20:34
You and I need help. So this is what Peter writes in verse 5. Who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
20:50
Now when we talk about salvation, we typically talk about that day when we come to faith in Jesus.
20:58
But Scripture talks about salvation not only that way, but also broader than that. And we see that here in verse 5.
21:06
When you come to faith in Christ, your future destination is determined. As Ephesians 1, verses 13 and 14 say, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, you were sealed with the promised
21:19
Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.
21:26
Think about this. When you go to heaven, just like any sporting event, or a concert, or whatever you might go to, you need a ticket to get in.
21:36
The ticket into heaven is the Holy Spirit. He is given to you at conversion.
21:43
He is the guarantee that you will go to this grand destination.
21:53
And we see this beautiful description in verse 4 of this place that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.
22:02
Heaven, that is, that is prepared for you. But it's hard to get there.
22:12
The salvation that Peter describes here is the future glory that you will experience that was guaranteed that day when the
22:19
Holy Spirit entered your life. So the glory of your salvation will be realized in the last time.
22:27
The reality of this future glory is shown through your past, present, and future faith on this earth.
22:35
Think about how amazing this is. As you hold tightly to your faith in Jesus, what this is showing is that you are a child of God, a child of glory, and God is going to make sure you get there.
22:52
He's going to make sure. As you go through the journey of the life of faith, you are guarded.
22:58
You are protected by God's power to reach the finish line. Now many of you know that I am a runner, and I used to be much more of a runner.
23:10
So when the Bible compares the life of faith to a race, it certainly resonates with me personally.
23:16
I know what it is like to be in a race where you feel horrible, where everything hurts, where it would be easy to drop out, but you keep going.
23:27
I put one foot in front of the other because I had my eyes fixed on the finish line. I had my focus on running a race that when it was over,
23:36
I would be pleased with. The most difficult race I ever ran was when I ran a marathon.
23:42
In fact, I ran two marathons. I finished one. I didn't finish the other. The one I didn't finish,
23:48
I actually collapsed at mile 24, and the only ambulance journey I ever had in my life was that day.
23:55
But the other marathon was every bit as bad as that one. The first marathon I ran,
24:01
I got to mile 17. My whole life, it was running a mile and 5K and a 10K and a half marathon.
24:10
It was shorter. I know a half marathon is not that short, but it was shorter. Marathon is a completely different ballgame because you start to lose the sugars that are stored up in your body.
24:21
You start to get so depleted that you just can't go anymore. And if you're not experienced in training yourself to take in fluids and to take in gels as you're going, you're going to be in for quite a rude awakening later on in the race.
24:37
And that was my experience. I got to mile 17, and I had nothing left. There was a guy who ran with me for the next four miles, and without him,
24:45
I would not have made the finish line. One of the ways the Lord got me to the finish line was sending this guy to run with me.
24:52
Jesus would not have made it to the cross without Simon of Cyrene helping Him carry His cross. The Lord does this.
24:59
One of the ways He empowers us to run to the finish line in the life of faith is that He sends people along to encourage you to get to the finish line.
25:12
So this man ran with me from mile 17 to 21, and then I ran the last five miles, and I remember when
25:19
I had about 3 quarters of a mile to go, I could see the finish line. Everything in me hurt, but once I saw the finish line,
25:28
I all of a sudden had a bounce in my step, and I ran all the way through the line, relieved that the difficulty of the race was over.
25:39
The life of faith is like this. It's hard, but God carries you to the finish line.
25:47
When He saves you, He will cause you to persevere to the end. He loses none of His own
25:53
Scripture promises. John 10, verses 28 and 29, this is what Jesus says, My sheep hear
25:59
My voice. I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.
26:07
No one will snatch them out of My hand. The Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the
26:18
Father's hand. Think about that promise. Eternal security in Christ.
26:26
The Lord, in His kindness, empowers you in different ways to persevere.
26:33
Sometimes He sends someone to encourage you, as I've already said, but really the way the
26:38
Lord empowers us is reminding us of His promises, what this book says. When a believer comes alongside you to encourage you, that's what that person is doing.
26:48
Every week when we meet for Sunday, we are reminding each other of the Lord's promises to press on.
26:55
That we would receive that great reward in the age to come. That we would receive that salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
27:03
As Peter writes, if it were up to you alone, you would not reach the finish line.
27:11
Your faith would fail. Remember when Jesus told Peter in Luke 22 -31 that Satan wanted to sift
27:20
Peter like wheat. But Jesus told Peter, I have prayed that your faith may not fail.
27:31
God guards you. He, through His power, causes you to persevere.
27:39
He will get you to the finish line. He gave you the gift of faith and strengthens that faith as you journey through the life of faith.
27:49
Understand that the Lord always works for the good of His people. And the second plan how is by strengthening you to persevere to the end.
27:58
The third plan how the Lord always works for the good of His people is by refining you through different trials.
28:07
And we'll see this in verses 6 and 7. Where Peter writes, In this you rejoice, though now, for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
28:35
What Peter is writing here is that with this grand future that is yours in Christ, you can rejoice in the midst of present trials.
28:47
I once heard a pastor say, and it hit me hard as he said this, he said, Every trial is temporary.
28:55
Every trial is temporary. This is true. But that's not the only amazing reality about our trials.
29:05
There's a purpose behind them. They're not for nothing. What Peter is writing is that we go through necessary trials that are planned by the
29:15
Lord and he informs us that these planned trials are various. Various means different.
29:24
What kind of trials do we endure as Christians? One is persecution. And this would have been the major trial of the recipients of this letter.
29:32
As Peter writes to these different regions in Asia Minor, who are living under the opposition of the
29:39
Roman Empire. Who many times were not friendly to Christians. But persecution is not the only trial that believers go through.
29:49
Sometimes you have a physical ailment and the Lord puts you through that trial to strengthen your faith.
29:57
I wouldn't be a pastor if I didn't go through trials in my early twenties. I came out of this trial a completely different person.
30:07
You can talk to people about my life before that trial and then after. I came out a different person.
30:16
I went through dizziness and head tension. It turned my world upside down. And people go through far worse than that.
30:22
But at a young age, it was devastating to me. Because I was a pitcher of health.
30:27
I was an athlete. I never had any major health issues. It changed my life.
30:33
It turned my life upside down. And what the Lord was doing is He was preparing me to be a pastor.
30:41
And I'm amazed. So when I read this, I understand because I've been through it.
30:48
And sometimes you go through mental trials and the Lord uses that to strengthen your faith.
30:54
Sometimes you go through relational struggles and the Lord uses that to strengthen your faith. But let me say a word about the trial of persecution that Christians will experience.
31:05
As our country and our world plunges into more and more darkness, this opposition inevitably comes.
31:12
It's the 4th of July weekend. Tuesday is Independence Day. We celebrate a great country.
31:21
One of the greatest countries in the history of the world. And I'm not ashamed to say that. It truly is one of the greatest countries this world has ever seen.
31:32
Think of the blessing this country has been to so many places all around the world.
31:38
No country, arguably, has been more influenced by this book than this country that we live in.
31:47
And as our world gets more and more secularized, you can see why they hate this country so much.
31:53
Because this is a country that was so influenced by the Bible. So hatred toward America, at the root of it, what's at the root of it?
32:03
It's really hatred toward the God of the Bible upon whom the principles of this country were built.
32:12
And as we move further and further away from God, as this country moves further and further away from the
32:18
Lord, inevitably opposition comes. It is difficult to be a
32:25
Christian in the public square right now because to believe the Bible means that the mainstream world sees you as a bigot.
32:33
In fact, there have been reports out recently about AI, artificial intelligence, creating a new
32:40
Bible that will be acceptable to the world. Imagine going into a secular company and saying, you know what, the
32:48
Bible runs my life. In the old days, they would have said, oh good, this is going to be a moral person, this is going to be a good employee, this is going to be someone we're going to want, we can trust.
32:55
Now it's, uh -oh, can't have him, can't have her. That's the world we live in.
33:02
This world does not accept the true Bible. You will experience opposition, but the opposition, like all trials, are meant for your good.
33:14
Romans 8 .28, great verse to memorize. And we know that for those who love
33:20
God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose.
33:26
There's a purpose in your trials as a believer. Every trial is meant to make you rely more on the
33:34
Lord and less on yourself. You might think, what's wrong with me? I feel weak.
33:40
I feel humbled. And God's like, exactly. That's exactly where I want you.
33:47
Because what did the Lord say to Paul? When Paul was experiencing the thorn in the flesh, remember,
33:54
Paul begged him, Lord, take this away. And the Lord said to him, My power is made perfect in what?
34:02
Weakness. This is the goal.
34:10
What happens is that through the suffering of life, the Lord makes you to become more like Jesus.
34:16
Peter describes what this process is like in verse 7. The process of the Lord growing your faith is like the process of gold being refined.
34:27
Peter describes what this process is. One author I was reading, Aaron Smith, who has a ministry of building strong biblical marriages, he describes this well.
34:36
He writes this, Did you know that gold goes through a refining process?
34:42
Raw gold is separated from the worthless rock and sand, cleaned up, and then refined through fire.
34:51
Fire is used to heat the gold to extreme temperatures. Impurities rise to the surface and are then removed, a process repeated until the result is pure gold.
35:04
He continues, In this life you will go through fire. You will experience hardships and trials, and they will draw impurities to the surface of your heart.
35:15
You will face things that will cause inner conflict as you learn to let go of your old ways while being transformed to live out
35:24
God's ways. Just as it is necessary for a skilled goldsmith to remove the impurities from the gold,
35:33
God purifies you, and His Holy Spirit sanctifies you.
35:39
And the Holy Spirit leads you through each season of challenge and change. You will become more refined, pure, and holy.
35:49
So the Lord uses our trials through the life of faith to refine you.
35:56
Another way to say refining is to make you more holy. Some of you are wearing gold rings, and necklaces, and bracelets, and watches.
36:09
It's amazing, by the way, how expensive a ring is. Thousands of dollars, this little thing.
36:16
Gold is valuable, but it doesn't get to you that way.
36:22
When gold is discovered in the earth, it doesn't look like it does right now as it's on you.
36:29
It looks nothing like that. It goes through this heating process. All the impurities are removed until it becomes pure gold.
36:39
And through the trials the Lord sends you, He rids the corruption from you and makes you into a better version of yourself.
36:46
Before you're saved, you're selfish. You live for yourself.
36:53
You don't love the Lord. But once you are saved, He changes you. You love
36:58
Him. You start to actually think about other people. He changes you. You reach the potential of who you can be in God's eyes.
37:09
How wonderful it is when a man or woman reaches the potential of what God created you to be. There must be trials to get you to that place.
37:18
The Lord loves you too much not to get you to that place. Because we think,
37:25
Lord, if I just didn't have this, I would be so more effective for you. And He says, you're missing the point.
37:34
This thing that I'm giving you is making you more effective. We need to remember that.
37:40
And not only does the Lord grow you through your trials, but He also tells us that through the trials, through this testing, our faith is proved genuine.
37:54
Remember the parable of the sower? The second seed and the second soil? It appears to be a genuine believer, but once trials come, it falls away.
38:05
It doesn't grow. It's scorched up by the sun. That happens to people.
38:10
It gets too hard to be a Christian, and they just fall after the world. But true believers persevere.
38:18
True believers have genuine faith as they are tested. So understand that the
38:27
Lord always works for the good of His people. And the third plan how is by refining you through different trials. The fourth and final plan how you are to understand that the
38:37
Lord always works for the good of His people is by filling you with joy through the life of faith.
38:44
And we'll see this in verses 8 and 9. As I alluded to in the previous point, this difficult journey through the life of faith is accompanied with joy.
38:52
And one of the reasons is because of what awaits you as verses 8 and 9 say. Where Peter once again writes,
38:58
Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
39:11
What Peter describes here is what faith is like. Hebrews 12 .1 says that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
39:22
We do not see Jesus with our eyes. We do not see the glory of heaven.
39:28
But we read about Christ and the great promises that belong to us in God's holy word.
39:34
In this world, our faith is our sight. In this world, we can taste the glory of heaven and the beauty all around us.
39:44
But what we see here pales in comparison to what we will see in the age to come.
39:50
What Peter writes in verse 8 is that even though you do not see Him, you love Him. I once heard a theologian asked about how to be sure that you are saved, how to be sure that you are heaven -bound.
40:02
His answer was a simple one. Do you love the biblical Jesus? Not do you love a
40:08
Jesus that the culture has made? You know, we like this about Him, but we don't like this about Him, so let's make
40:13
Him what we want Him to be. Do you love the Jesus of the Bible?
40:20
And if you answer yes, then you belong to Him. And this great future described in Scripture is yours in Christ.
40:29
It is true that none of us love Jesus the way we should, but if we have any love for Him at all, then you are saved.
40:41
That's one clear evidence that you belong to Him. An unbeliever has zero love for the biblical
40:48
Jesus. True believers love the Jesus who is tough and tender.
40:55
We love the Jesus who is gentle around children, hangs out with drunkards and tax collectors, heals the crippled, and the one who gave
41:05
Himself on the cross. But we also love the Jesus, as 2
41:12
Thessalonians 1 .8 describes, inflaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know
41:19
God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. That's the same
41:24
Jesus. He's tough and He's tender. He saves us, but He's also a judge.
41:31
And He will judge anyone who does not believe in Him. He will send that person to hell forever.
41:37
That's the biblical Jesus. And true believers love the biblical Jesus. True believers love the one who says the path is narrow, that few find
41:50
Him, and it is only through Him that one can receive entrance into Heaven. True believers, at the end of the day, love
41:56
Jesus more than anyone or anything in the world. He is the one you were created to know and you love
42:02
Him, even though our love for Him is not nearly what it should be. And as you love
42:08
Him and live out your faith, you are filled with joy, knowing that the outcome of your faith in Him means glory in the age to come.
42:19
The outcome of your faith is the future glory where you will dwell in eternal bliss with Jesus, His angels, and all of God's people forever.
42:32
So here we wrap it up. Understand that the Lord always works for the good of His people.
42:38
And in this glorious text, we have seen four plans how? By preparing a place in Heaven through your salvation.
42:47
By strengthening you to persevere to the end. By refining you through different trials. And lastly, by filling you with joy through the life of faith.
42:56
That's the fourth one. Filling you with joy through the life of faith. Peter wanted his readers, who were dealing with much difficulty, to remember that the
43:08
Lord is with them in their trials. And that all of this is preparing them for the greatest glory to be with the
43:17
Lord forever in His kingdom. Romans 8, Paul writes,
43:23
I consider the sufferings of this present time not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
43:35
So what we learned from Peter today was written for you. And with whatever you're facing, you are to remember who you are.
43:44
And my prayer again is that everyone here would be a true follower of Jesus. True followers belong to Him.
43:50
He is with you. He is here to help you. And He has a glorious inheritance prepared for you that is spotless and will go on forever.
44:02
Now next Sunday, we are going to look at how the prophets looked forward to the day of Christ and the glories that He would accomplish.
44:12
And we'll see that in verses 10 -12. But at this time, let's bow our heads in prayer. Father, what a precious word this is.
44:23
What glory is in this text. There's no book like this book. This book is the
44:29
Word of God. And my prayer here, Lord, is that this would be the future inheritance, this inheritance that is described, that is undefiled, that is unpolluted, that is imperishable.
44:43
My prayer is that everyone here, that this would be their future destination through believing that Jesus died and rose again.
44:53
And for every believer here, that every believer here would be greatly encouraged and motivated to press on in the life of faith, understanding that each believer is guarded by Your power to make it all the way to the finish line.
45:12
So, Lord, apply this through Your Spirit to everyone right where they're at. And I ask this in Jesus' name,