as we continue to learn a few
things. There's a common thread in the
world. There's a lot of common threads, but there's one common
thread that's never going to change in this world. And that
is that people, good, bad, evil, ugly, righteous, saints, sinners,
all the like, are going to suffer. We're going to have pain. We're
going to have times of suffering in our minds and our bodies and
relationships, our thoughts. We're going to wonder if it's
ever going to get better. We're going to seek out ways
of avoiding suffering or escaping certain types of suffering. We're
going to be empowered to think, well, I can stand and do this
and I can make changes, only to find that it's only short-lived. And at the end of the day, the
New Testament teaches us that our joy is full in Christ. The New Testament teaches us
the apostles under great trial, a lot of constant turmoil, continues to encourage us to
rest. We sang about it this morning.
We rest. How are we to rest when there's
so much to do? How are we to rest when there's so much How
are we to rest when there are so many problems? How are we
to rest? Well, that's why the answer is
supernatural. It is out of this world. And
every religion and every iteration of Christianity and every faith
and every practice and precept of some type of philosophy will
always come to the same end and that is despair. Yes, we may trick ourselves,
we may establish a discipline in our lives to pretend as though
things are not bad. We may learn to speak and do
self-talk to such a degree that we are no longer focused on these
things. And I'm not saying that that's
a bad practice to affirm, but it doesn't produce peace. It doesn't produce joy. What
produces the fullness of joy, according to the Bible, is a
consistent confidence. Oh, I stubbed my toe, that's
okay, it'll heal. Oh, I fell and skimped my knee, that's all
right, done that before, it'll heal. Oh, I tore my shoulder
up. Oh, I broke my nose. Oh, I fell
down the steps, that's all right. And then one day, depending on
what age you are, you go, this isn't healing. So our confidence
wanes. We're strong. We can go. We can
do. Our brains are sharp. We can
remember things. What did I come in here for?
Do I have dementia? Am I going crazy? We used to
get along, remember? It was all fun. It was like a
honeymoon every day. We were best friends. Everything's
great. And all of a sudden, it's like, who are you? The way you dress makes me upset. Would you chew with your mouth
closed? Quit pointing fingers. But you see, everything ends. I used to make the joke before
I got accused of child abuse, the reason God made children
cute so we didn't kill them. I mean, could you imagine that
thing that you brought into the world, gave life to, that you
give everything for? And it talks back at you and
calls you names, and it was ugly. Oh no, it's over. Population,
be done. But we find beauty in the midst
of great pain sometimes, in certain circumstances, because our perception
in some of those situations has been molded to be what it is. It has been tainted by another
perception. When it comes to our children,
as hard as they hurt us, or as difficult as it may be as they
grow older and things take place and we wish that we could help
them more, we still love them and we love them by doing for
them and giving to them and being there for them, not how we feel.
Love is not what we feel for people, love is what we do for
people. Imagine Christ, imagine Jesus
for just a moment in a psychological way. Here is the God of creation
in his eternal decree and purpose to create the cosmos, to create
the earth, to create humanity and everything that lives, to
show His sovereignty and salvation and redemption through the creation,
and then to enter into this creation, through His creation, to be like
His creation, to save His creation. to be subject to our foolishness,
to be subject to temptation, to be subject to being the ruler
and the creator of all things. It's like drawing a picture and
then putting yourself on the page and hope someone else comes
along and finishes the story. Except God is sovereign in that.
He became part of the world, but yet he was still the God
of the world. Took on a new person. Took on flesh, not a new person. I messed up with that. Ignore
that. The son, the person of the son,
took on humanity. There you go. Just accidentally
preached modalism. And yet the world doesn't know
him. But yet everybody in our culture has some sense of what
it means to be a Christian, or what it means to be in the faith,
or what it means to go to church. And we still play some of those
games too, don't we? And we're always seeking a way to find
our purpose, to find a place to fit in, to do something, to
be bigger than ourselves, to try to help others. That's really
the genuine article of most of humanity is that we all want
to be part of something that matters. Or we are what matters
and everybody else needs to bow down to the part we are, you
know. And then we get into psychological profiles and things of that nature.
And then it's a bag of treats. And it's all been written in
a book. You can find them anywhere. Nothing new under the sun. Well, beloved, we're a beautiful
people in the eyes of our Father. And as much as I feel I can take
a particular subject and just process it and then explain it
and then give you details and then find all sorts of examples
and then pave it out there so simply that everybody's like,
this is great. We end up being enamored and admiring the language
and the process rather than the truth of the person of Christ.
So the greatest way for me to teach is to stick to the text
of scripture and let the Bible expose itself. But I must say
this, beloved, the Bible is only for the elect of God and even
then it is only reasonable to those who have been born of God
in time. And then those who have given
the discipline of study and silent humility to learn under shepherds
and elders who are literally teaching it, not trying to play
some, you know, self-help guru or play some community involvement
plan. There might be time for self-help and community involvement,
but it's not the point of the scripture. And so there are a lot of people
who claim to be in Christ who are not because they don't understand
who he is. They do not know anything about
him. They've just been told, if you
do X, then you will have heaven. If you believe these words, you
will be saved. If you confess with your mouth,
et cetera, et cetera, and so forth. It's a very contemporary
idea, but it has the same context as what happened with Adam and
Eve in the garden. They heard the possibility that
there was something more that they could have. They realized
that in their flesh, they could be greater than God or at least
like him by knowing something that he was withholding from
them. And just like Lucifer said in the council of heaven, I will
ascend to the throne and stand next to the most high. That's
a paraphrase. And Adam and Eve has done the
same thing, and all their progeny are born with that inherit inherited
countenance, that even when it comes to studying the Bible,
that's why there are more writings about the Bible than there are
Bibles. More possible. I mean, I have
been debating amongst peers. When I debate, I debate amongst
peers. I don't care about people who aren't my peers in debates.
You see what I'm saying? You can take that sound bite.
He doesn't care about people who aren't his peers. But I'm talking about
people who have camaraderie around the subject. I've been debating
Romans 8, the golden chain, for years. I hate that idea that
it's a golden chain. And that people have put that
out to such a degree that the average Joe in the house reading
the Bible in his easy chair cannot pull that out, so has to go online
and grab all this thick rhetoric and this deep philosophy and
this incredible system and go, now I get it! You don't get it
if it's not in the context of the first, of the whole of Romans. If we want to get it, if we want
to understand confident hope, which is the point of today's
sermon, we need to do it in the context of knowing that we are
God's children who have been born of the Spirit to believe
in the work of Christ. And then by the Spirit of God,
through the prescription and the commandment and the obligation
that God has imposed upon His people, we come together every
week, at least once a week under obligation, that we may hear
the Word of God so that we may be reminded, we may rejoice,
we may learn together to do the work of the ministry for one
another. And in the meantime, we support each other and we
provide for each other's needs as we have them. We don't come
to church to check off a box that we've been to church. We
are the church, we come together so that we can actually show
that we're the church. Because the very word, not literally,
goodness, it's a transliterated, I can't stand this. But anyway,
the idea of what the word church is supposed to say is the gathering.
It's not a spiritual thing, it's not a Christian thing. The assembly,
the ecclesia, was a word that was used for any group of people
in any form, in any fashion, anywhere in the world that got
together. More than two. But yeah, we have made it synonymous
with coming up with some kind of spiritual thing. It doesn't
have to be spiritual. Matter of fact, I would say that
probably 9 out of 10 church services going on right now in this community
are not spiritual, right, at all. They're not even using the
scripture except to prove a point that the pastor came up with
over the week. And now that we've got all this
software and all this internet, see, when I started, there was no
internet. You couldn't go look up somebody else's ideas. You
had to come up with them on your own. So I got very creative.
And then you find older men who has been doing it for years.
Well, what you do, James, is you get that 90,000-page book And you think of the word, the
word hope, and you look it up and you look up all the variations
of the word hope and all the 9,000 different versions of scripture
and find one with the word hope in it and use that word, use
that verse as your pretext, as your proof text. No, you don't. That's like sending me into the
grocery store and saying, I'm going to make this. Just get
the ingredients. What ingredients? Anything you
see. I'm coming back with Cheetos and Dr. Pepper. You know, anything
I see. Probably some doughnuts in there
too. The recipe for hope is found in the New Testament, which is
written to the people of God. and will only make sense to those
who are born of Christ, who are born of the Spirit. And that's
why we're gathered today under the assumption that all of us
desire to be together, that we may learn and be encouraged and
live. Listen to the word of the Lord
in 1 Peter 1, verse 3. 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, to an inheritance
that is imperishable, that is undefiled, that is unfading,
that is kept in heaven for you, who you, by God's power, are
being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last time. In this you rejoice. Though now for a little while,
if necessary, you have been what? Grieved by various trials. So
that the tested genuineness of your faith, which is more precious
than gold, that perishes when it is tested by fire, may be
found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation
of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen Him,
you love Him. Though you do not now see Him,
you believe in Him. And you rejoice with joy that
is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome
of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Verse 10, let's
listen. Concerning this salvation that I just spoke of, the prophets
who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched
and inquired carefully. inquiring what person or time
the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when He predicted
the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was
revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but You.
And these things that have now been announced to you through
those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent
from heaven, these things into which angels long to look. And then the very next thing
Peter says, therefore, therefore, therefore, preparing your minds
for action, being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace
that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And then he gives some instruction
and we all know this instruction. And this continues through the
rest of the letter. Instruction, instruction, instruction.
Because of Christ and His work and His love for you and His
power in you, therefore, What? Here. So here is the prescription
of hope in a nutshell in case the power goes out and we have
to go home early. It is because of the power and the sovereignty
and the work of Christ for his people to save us and to redeem
us and to secure us and all the promises therein which are absolutely
done that we are able to have a hope and confidence. Not only in the afterlife, but
in the life today, that even in light, I'll steal away from
Paul, light momentary affliction, we have a greater hope and a
greater joy because we know that we're going to make it through
it and have something larger than ourselves to look forward
to together with God's people. And this has been the point of
history. It's been the point of the world. It is so easy to lose
sight of this beloved that it is almost impossible not to lose
sight if we are not in the word of God every day. And even when
we are in the Word of God every day, it is so easy to dismiss
it, to dismiss our hope, because we become cynical and bitter
and frustrated and angry and, Lord help me to confess it, selfish.
We think about what's good for us and it's not wrong, we think
about what's good for us, we need to take care of ourselves, we
need to think, we need to set boundaries, but we also need to know and
understand that when the Lord has determined our suffering
is His purposes, Nothing will stop it, but His purposes and
His promises are the only thing that's going to help us stand
in the midst of them. Changing the outcome of our circumstances
is not where our hope lies. And we just heard that. We just
heard that. And one of the darkest times
of my life, when my mind was not healthy. You ever been there?
You ever been there where You weren't healthy. You're emotionally
unhealthy. You couldn't put your finger
on what was really wrong. Why do I feel this way? And then
all of a sudden, you're not so sure you're even thinking rationally. And you don't hate life. You're
beyond that, because at least hate and anger is something to
feel. You're emotionless. You feel nothing. And you just
don't know why. You ever been there? And there are temporal ways out
of these things. There's only one eternal hope
in them. And I remember opening my Bible to Hebrews chapter one
and hearing the words of Paul writing to these Christian Jews,
telling them and then allowing me to hear the word of the Lord
in that same context that God has spoken to our forefathers
through many ways, but in these last days, he speaks to us through
his son. through whom He created the world, and who now sits at
the right hand of majesty on high, of whom the angels look
at and adore and call their God. And I realize my place in the
scope of that, just like that. And this first section of Peter
is also another opportunity to just sit for a minute and breathe
it in like drowning. Let's unpack it. First, we need to know who this
is being sent to. In a short sense, the elect exiles
of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia. What was happening? These Jewish
people who had been saved by the grace of God, who had been
shown by the Spirit, the Gospel. See, we lose sight of the Gospel
and its importance in our life. We're Christians, we're doing
our thing, and the world around us has told us we're supposed
to be academic theologians, and that's not the point. Doesn't
mean we don't study academically, but doesn't mean we don't learn
theology, but we do so from the context of scripture as it affects
our lives together and our individual purposes in the process of this
life that we live. And so here, Peter is writing
to these people whose entire lives have been turned upside
down. Not because people hated them because of their doctrinal
stances. People hated them because they had to leave a false religion
and they had to tether themselves to the authority that actually
held them accountable to being able to spend their money, make
their money, and live their lives as a family. The tether to Judaism. in the first century Palestine. You were in or you were out. Much like evangelicalism today
in America. You were in the politics of this
nation or you were out. Hogwash. It's wicked. It's coming. Beloved, I'm nine
pages into an article on that very thing. It's coming. for our purposes. And there's a plethora of all
these. These people were suffering because God saved them and they
didn't know what else to do but stick together. And so they were
exiles. You leave here or we're going
to crucify you. You leave here or we're going
to burn you. You see? You leave here or we're
going to drown you. That's what our Presbyterian
friends did to the Baptists in the 17th century. You want to be baptized? Okay.
Put you in a bucket of water and hang you outside for people
to watch you rot. It's the first potluck, Baptist soup. Sorry. It's horrible. Church history
is wickedly horrible, exposing the reality of how people have
hated the gospel. Beloved, we're not experiencing
that today. Why? Because we're plural as
a society. The very Constitution of the
United States permits me to serve and worship any God I choose
to create. And I have a divine right by
some ethereal whatever, to be whatever I want to be, anywhere,
any way that I want to be. And there is nothing under the
law that permits me as a Christian to impose my thoughts, views,
politics, or anything else on anyone else in this country.
It is a crime to do so according to the Bible. Welcome to America. We were created to be pluralistic. Read your history. Read all the
Founding Fathers letters, beloved, if you're so interested in it.
I love this stuff. American Church history. You
know, I have spent too many hours reading it. So you want to debate
it, you want to talk about it, you better come with the source
documents. Not the Facebook posts, not the memes. Memes aren't real,
you see. But here are these people, they
are suffering for the gospel. Just because they believe, not
because of what they said, not because of what they did, because
they identified with the gospel. Not because they decided they
were going to separate. The first church didn't separate
from false religion. That's why we worship on Sunday. Because they continue to go to
temple, they continue to go to other things throughout the week
and continue to share the gospel, the revelation of their own religion
to the glory of Christ. Look, see the God that we've
been worshipping, His name is Jesus. And people are like, that's
nonsense. He died and He rose from the
dead. That's nonsense. But God would
cause some people to believe it and they would engage and
they would become part of the family of faith. And then when
that happened, people began to distance themselves. Well, I
can't be in your life. I can't be your friend. I can't
have lunch with you. Why does it happen? Verse two,
according to the foreknowledge of God, the father. And the sanctification of the
spirit. For obedience to Jesus Christ and for the sprinkling
with his blood. May grace and peace be multiplied to you. So see, quit thinking there's
a fortune cookie people here. This is not, nobody sat down,
nobody sat down who had ever authored any scripture and said,
hmm, what post should I write today? What's on my mind right
now? That's not how the Bible was
created. The Bible wasn't created by one person or one group of
people in a short amount of time so that they could get their
point across and change the world. No. The Bible was created through
intimate writings of letters sent by God the Spirit to nobodies
in the middle of nowhere. going to talk to somebody to
declare His glory. And the message never changed
for thousands and thousands of years. There's never been a contradiction
in the story of redemption. This is the purposes of God,
to sprinkle His people clean by the blood of His Son, Jesus
Christ. That He declared them clean before
the world began. And when Jesus died and said
it was finished, the sins of all those people were paid for
right then, washed away, wiped out, no debt, everything is good. And we share this gospel message
because through that hearing of this gospel message, not the
way you know it, 21st century America, but the way the Bible
expresses it, through the hearing of that message and the evangelism
of the gospel, God, as He deems fit, when He deems fit, causes
His people, whose sins are forgiven, to rest and trust in that truth.
Let's call faith. And if there's another gospel,
another anchor in your soul than what I just expressed, we need
to talk. If there's anything else that
tethers you to confidence other than the work of Jesus Christ,
we need to have a conversation because you are misguided. Like
the people of Galatia who thought maybe circumcision would give
me more confidence. Like Peter, I really don't want
to sit with these people. Doubt and confusion and error
is normal. It comes and goes. intimacy around the word, in
its context, in its instruction, as we're exiles, we have a hope. So here's this audience of suffering
saints who are complaining and frustrated. You don't think they
had fear? If you got home today and your house was on fire or
the government had closed it up, and we even have recourse,
we have the courts, we can tie it up for years. They had nothing. They had a man that under the
sovereignty of God was a supreme ruler. Kyrios, he was Lord. Caesar was his title. And the Jews of first century
were not free. And Peter writes this to them. Their motivation wasn't to get
free. Their motivation wasn't to create
a culture around their new faith. Their motivation wasn't to change
the political landscape. Their motivation wasn't to do
all sorts of cool things to try to get people in on this new
idea of Jesus coming back from the dead. Their focus was to honor him
and to take care of each other first and foremost. Beloved,
we are the richest People in the nation. Even if we're poor. Because we
have the riches of glory. But as Americans, we're the richest
people in the world. Materially. Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the God of heaven.
If you were a Jewish person in that day, when you heard Peter
say these words, it would have struck you to think, my Father
has abandoned me. Is our God, whose name we cannot
say and do not know and cannot write, is our God listening? Why are
we suffering this way? Because it is what they were
destined to do. Because we as God's people are
not of the world, but we are in the world. And we have great
responsibility there. And Peter says, Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Bless Him. Praise Him. The Lord Jesus is
the Son of the Most High. This is who He is. Do not fear,
beloved. They'd already heard. They already
knew. They'd already been taught. They'd
already become alive in Him. But it is not given that we're
going to just stand strong. You know those people who stand
strong? You got the examples of people who seem to always
stand strong? When you inquire, how do you
have such Strength in life. And I had someone say it to me
this way, because life is awesome. I'm having a blast. Things are
great. Are you not enjoying ministry? No! I've got 150 people who talk
to me every week about wanting to die. There's a dozen marriages
that are falling apart. There are people who are dying
of drug abuse. We're housing other people's
children who are addicted to crack. No, I'm not having a good
time. Is this the call of the Lord?
Yes. People who seem so strong usually have the answer because
nothing's wrong. When we are downtrodden, when
we are broken, when we are unable to stand, when we can't lift
our hands and the body of Christ comes around and people pray
for us and then the word of God comes alive for us in a few short
hours out of 168 in a week. We have those few short hours
of hope and light. That is strength. That is our
hope because we know that we can't stand but when we take
one gaze to the one who is the Rock of Ages and we stand upon
His promises, we are able to stand in that moment. Because He's holding us. Blessed
be that Father, the Father of our Lord, who put His Son on
the cross and crushed Him for our iniquities by His stripes,
we are healed. See, what else matters in this
moment? When the Word of God is alive to us that way by the
Spirit, what else matters? We've got a lot of junk going
on in our lives, don't we? We've got a lot of pain. We've got
a lot of concern. We've got a lot of things. We've
got a lot of stuff. But yet, when we hear these things,
we're not overwhelmed by them in that moment. In the very next phrase of verse
3, Peter begins to express why he's blessed. according to His great mercy,
His great grace. Now listen, He has caused us
to be born again, to be made alive, to a living hope. through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled,
and unfading, kept in heaven by you, who by God's power are
being guarded through salvation, ready to be revealed in the last
time. There's a lot there. I might
not even get through with it today. But let's look at it. According to
His great mercy, what has the grace of God done? What it always
does. Effectuates regeneration, the
new life, faith. It is by grace you have been
saved. It is by grace you have been saved. I want you to hear
that. How do you know you have eternal life? By grace, by the
mercy of God alone. That's how you know. And then what do you know? Where
does your faith lie? That Jesus Christ death. did not end it, but He came back
from the dead. We are born again to a living
hope. Sometimes life doesn't feel like
living. I've really been focusing over the last month or so about
living life in Christ. And it's going to be what I do
more in my personal moanings and groanings than anything else. Because the theologies of a man
don't qualify him for the ministry. I believe, as I said last week,
what shows that he qualifies is how he loves his neighbor. And that he has the truth. Don't
hear what I'm not saying, but the emphasis is unbalanced. according
to the scripture. And that's why Timothy is the
letter we're really in with this little sub series. It's focusing
on what that qualification looks like and why. So that the church
may grow in joy and peace and unity. In the midst of what? Supreme conflict. Supreme conflict. If there's
not conflict, there's no reason to be reminded of the gospel.
If there wasn't conflict, there would be no reason for the gospel.
So if the whole reality of our existence as divine children
born of God is to resolve righteousness and
the conflict between God accepting a sinful people who are unacceptable
and then making everything judicially right so that they are acceptable,
that's conflict. We need to realize that that's
the point of the Christian life, is that how we handle suffering
and conflict is telling of our maturity. I get very upset about the stupidest
things now. Stupidest things. Gas going up. Ah, stupid gas. Greedy billionaires. Gas goes down. Ah, politicians!
Why does that make me mad? Who cares? It's no value whatsoever
to me in the scope of the grace and the mercy of God. I've probably done 700 funerals
in my lifetime or more. Maybe not. Maybe I'm missing,
maybe I'm thinking weddings. But I've never seen a funeral
bury a bag of money, gold coins. As a matter of fact,
when the casket closes, most people take off the jewelry. Peter uses that example. We are born again to a living
hope. Even though we feel like life is not worth living, we
are living. We are alive in an abundant way. But if this sermon
is for me, and if you get to participate in its efficacy,
then more power to you. And if what I teach isn't for
me first, it has no effect for you, except that God would will
it, so. Beloved, I am preaching to myself
also. Don't ever think when I preach
from this podium that I am telling you how you ought to do. But
I am telling us how we ought to do. And the day I perfect it will
be the day God takes me from the world. Because that's the
only way I'm going to be perfect. So we have an inheritance that
is not of this world. The exile is lost at all. The gospel is
a promise of an inheritance. What is it? An imperishable inheritance,
an undefiled inheritance, an unfading inheritance. It's not
losing value. It's not like Our money market
in 401K's in February, March, and April, and who have gone
down 30 and 40 percent in the last few months. It's not like
the price of certain commodities who have gone down 70 percent.
People losing 70 percent of their wealth just like that overnight,
and if you're leveraged, any cash you had is gone because
you have to pay it back. God can take it all like that.
It's not about this world. Because this world belongs to
him and the devil's in it. And the problems and the praises
are all his to orchestrate. But Jesus Christ has raised from
the dead, proving his power, proving his promises, proving
his preeminence. And in all of these things, we
now have an inheritance. We are the adopted children who
are going to inherit Christ's glory. And nothing can take it away.
Moths do not eat it. It is not defiled. It is not
of this world. And it does not reduce in value.
It is kept in heaven. This idea, this is an image.
These are not principles to say, oh, now I understand the firm
theology of this. These are images, poetically, that Peter is writing
for these people to hear. You're supposed to hear it and
go, wow, God's not storing this in a perishable way. It's not,
nobody can overcome it. Nobody can take me from Christ.
Nobody can ruin what Christ has done for me. It's not even here,
it's there. Why? Because that's where Christ
is. See, the gospel is not a thing. It's a proclamation about a person,
whose name is Jesus, who is truly God and became truly man. And so by God's power, all that
Christ has in His hands, no one can snatch out. And all that
the Father gives Him do come to Him. He will raise them up
on the last day. So this promise, this power,
this grace of God is kept for us. We who, verse 5, we are the
ones who by God's power are being guarded. And the question automatically
comes, everything's just so bad, everything's just so frustrating,
my mind's not right, I just can't think, I don't know, I'm insecure,
I don't have hope, I don't have confidence, how do I know that
I'm being guarded? Look at my life, right? Because
God has gifted you something that you cannot muster in your
own power. And that is trusting and resting. in the Blessed Father and in
the Son and His promise. That's faith. Faith is not an
agreement of things. Faith is a trusting. It is a
inner working by the Spirit of God to cause us in the face of
absolute uncertainty to be reminded and resolved to rest. What does the flesh do? Let me
work a little harder. Let me put away something. Maybe
I'm being punished. God doesn't punish us. The Bible doesn't teach that
there's condemnation or punishment at all. Correction? Yes. What's another word for
correction? Discipline. What's another word for discipline?
Discipleship. We learn. Discipline is learning. We learn
those things that bring greater benefits to us through discipline,
like exercise or eating well or, you know, not reading horror
stories at night. Not getting into a tit tat with
our neighbor about the dog or whatever. We do learn, but God
is not punishing his people. He punished his son in our place. So by God's power we have been
guarded through faith. We believe, we rest, we trust.
In what? The salvation that has been declared
to us. The salvation that has been accomplished
for us. The salvation that has been applied
to us. Where is this salvation? Do I
have to die to have it? No, you have it right now. You
have it in the darkest hole of your soul. You have it in the
most blinding place. You have it in the most discouraging
moment. You have the salvation of Christ.
in every circumstance, in every second of your life. And beloved,
if we take our eye off of that for one moment, we will be overcome
by our flesh, but even when we sin and stomp our feet and curse
God, it is not going to change who we are in His eyes. We are
His beloved children, and Christ has paid for our sins, and nothing
can separate us from the love of God, not even God Himself,
for God cannot lie. I know there's a lot of text
in there. There's about three places in Scripture that just weave
that together, but you know it. But don't take my word for it.
Prove it to yourself through the Scripture. And by faith, I know that in
the last time, do you ever doubt that? Do you ever doubt? Do you
ever sit there and go, what if this is all just a joke? Because,
you know, most people are brainwashed in the context of Christianity.
And we're going to see some of that in the months to come. We're
brainwashed in certain aspects of our faith, culturally. Nonsense. Well, if you really love the
Lord, you'll fill in the blank. Well, this is a more godly. Christians
don't do, you know, that kind of stuff. And the reason I want
to teach in that is because the scripture calls for it, as we'll
see going through Timothy. And you need to be free. of the
overwhelming burden and bondage of people who don't know the
gospel, aka the culture at large. This salvation is going to be
revealed in the last time. What does that mean? On the day
of Christ's return, on the last day. Now see, we're already brainwashed
into thinking about eschatology. We're already brainwashed into
thinking about what it's going to be like. What is the rapture? There's
not one. not the way you know it, according to the scripture.
Jesus is coming back once, not twice, not three times. He's
not taking a trip, taking a side trip, taking a potty break, coming
back, picking up a few. He's not on a bus route. He's
coming back and when he comes back, in the blinking of an eye,
all things are new. The elect are with him in glorified
state and the non-elect receive justice. Abby asked me last night, Daddy,
are there going to be electronics in heaven? And I went, the people
that made them will be there. Maybe. We don't know. Don't worry about it. Oh, what
would I do? You know, when you think about
that, take a car ride, don't have a book, don't have a cross
stitch, don't have, you know, don't have something to do. What
do we do? We count murders of crows. That was my day yesterday. So the salvation, we're guarded.
How do we know? Because God gives us faith to
rest in the promise. It's coming. It is ours. We are
redeemed. And then verse 6, see here's
the outcome of it. Here is the impossible. I go to this, I'm
not kidding y'all. Verse 6 here, it is in my head
every single day. I say to myself, Often, every
day, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary,
you face all sorts of troubles and trials. Why? Why do we face troubles
and trials, various grievances? Why do we grieve? Why do we have
to deal with this? Why do we have to hurt in our
hearts? Why do we have to feel pain and
loneliness? Why do we have to have anger? Why do we have to
sin against people? Why do we have to have the need
for reconciliation because people just cannot get along? Why is
all this taking place? What's going on in the world
today? Exactly what God has purposed. And there's something else going
on that's not in the world and not of the world and that is
He's promised to redeem His people from the world. We will have
our day in the sun. And I'm not, but listen, I got
a lot of problems. I got a lot of suffering in my
life. A lot of fear right now in my spirit, a lot of fear and
anxiety. Scared to death about a couple
of things. But we get to a place to think
that, well, if I can just have enough faith, I won't be scared.
No, that's not the point. The point is, is to find that
place of rest and rejoice in the midst of it. Because God
hasn't promised. I know people mean well when they
say this, and I correct those who are close to me when they
say this. That's okay, God's gonna work it out, it's gonna
be fine. That's a true statement. But what they mean sometimes
is, nothing's wrong with you, James. Everything's fine, you're
gonna be fine. God's gonna heal you. How do you know? What if God's
purpose is that through my suffering, I may rejoice with a greater
purpose? and then get to be in glory through
death of this body. See, when I'm focused on the
promise, it's actually exciting. When I'm focused on the planet
and the people around me, it becomes depressing. Five years ago, one day last
week, I even posted and it came up as a reminder. Look what you
were thinking then. that it would be so much easier to just die, but that our greater purpose
is to rejoice in the promises of Christ, because He purposes
our sufferings. So in this suffering, in this
gospel, more particularly is what Peter is saying, In the
gospel, in the power of God unto salvation, you rejoice. Now I want to skip down to get
to the meat and potatoes of this rejoicing. What does it say?
Look at verse 8. Though you don't see Him, you
love Him. Though you do not now see Him, though you have not
seen Him, you love Him, though you do not now see Him, you believe
in Him, and you rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible and
filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, which
is the salvation of your soul. So here is this joy, because
it's easy for me to say, you just need to rejoice! You need
to rejoice! What am I thinking about if I'm
rejoicing? The million dollars I don't have? The million dollars
I do have. Which one do you think is going
to put a bigger smile on my face? I saw a picture yesterday that
a man shared. He says he tried to get his son to smile for a
picture. He said, look, son, smile. And he's going... And the one next to him was a
picture of this kid just elated and his face is lit up. He said,
I said the word poop and took that picture. See, we can't smile on command,
but we snicker when we hear the word poop. See? Half of it. I had an uncle one time that
called us turd knockers. I don't even know what those are. Do
they go on the door? I mean, I don't know. But it
makes you smile. Beloved, is not the promise of
the gospel enough to do that? Sometimes it's inexpressible.
It's easy to say, rejoice, just be happy, Bobby McFerrin. Don't
worry, be happy. It's easy to say, just, you know,
have a good attitude. Attitude is everything. That
was a mantra I had in middle school. Yes, attitude is everything.
Sure is. It'll get you in trouble. But in this gospel, you rejoice.
You rejoice, not in the circumstances. Not because of the pain. Not
this, not that, not the other. Beloved, the Christian life,
the experience of living in Christ ought to be one of hope and confidence and peace. But yet we're always fighting
to that end. Peter says that we rejoice in
the gospel in the midst of the suffering. He even says it after
the fact here, though, for a little while now, see that light momentary
affliction that Paul talks about, if necessary. Why would it be
necessary? Because we don't know what God's
purposes are in our lives. But if necessary, you have been
grieved by various trials. Why is this happening to me?
He answers it. so that the tested genuineness
of your faith. Now let's stop there for a second. When we have trials, remember
I talked about the two hours out of 168, and we look to the
hope of Christ and we find a sense of peace and joy in the midst
of that meditation, in the midst of that discipline, we are sometimes
unable to express the joy that it gives us and the calmness
that we have, but it is there. There's a focus. There's a perception. We're looking at something different
than the things of this world. We're looking at something that
is outside of this world. And it sounds crazy because it
is to a person who has not been granted that. It is to a person
who is in a works ideology of religion trying to please God.
We are not trying to please God. God is pleased with us because
He crushed His Son instead of us. We have escaped His wrath
because the wrath of God, the anger of God has been poured
out. on Jesus. So when we have trials, it tests
our faith. And we would think, well, we
pass the test if we don't get upset or scared. No, we pass
the test when we come back to the gospel. When? This hour. Just like we don't eat a Ritz
cracker on Monday and then try again Friday for some more food.
No, we're two or three times a day in it, and a snack in between
sometimes. We can't just say, well, I got
the gospel this past Sunday. Oh, man, it was so powerful.
It's how sometimes we have a church service and everybody feels like
God himself was sitting in the front row. Why was James preaching,
you know? God is in the front row, as long
as the Bible's being exposited. And then we leave out of here
and go, wouldn't it be great you don't get to the stop sign before
something happens, somebody runs out in front of you, you spill
your coffee in your lap, or somebody gets into a debate in the car,
or you remember that you're the same knucklehead that you were
before church, or that tomorrow's Monday, hallelujah. We don't
say, what a savior. I hate Mondays, right? I love
Mondays. I hate every other day, no, I'm
joking. And we think, where is this to
be found? In the same place we found it before we left the building
in the gospel. And I tell you what, beloved,
we need to be more encouragers in this than anything else. We're
not supposed to be theological taskmasters. We're not supposed
to be doctrinal police officers. We're supposed to be gospel encouragers.
That's the command of God to the church. Only to the church
is to be gospel encouragers and slaves unto one another as unto
the Lord. Therein is the law of Christ
fulfilled. So we learn to do that through
the assembly and we engage in such a way that when James Tippins
complains, which is a sin, and gripes and moans and whines,
instead of the rebuke that most people like to give because they're
hypocrites, myself included, It needs to be an encouragement.
I know this is hard. I'm sorry. Praise the Lord that we know
the gospel. It's not even a remedy. It's
not like, well, you're going to look at it. No, don't look
at it in a different way. Look at something different.
You see, that's the remedy. That's the inexpressible joy,
because when I'm in the middle of the mire, I'm not going to
jump up and click my heels like I just bought a Toyota. For those
of you who know that commercial. I'm going to wallow in the floor
and moan and cry and act like a baby and I'm going to have
an inner joy for a moment when I think about the gospel. When
I think about the fact that Jesus Christ took the full cup of wrath
and fury and He drunk every last drop. And my sins were in that. And so were yours. And so our faith is tested. It
shows us that our tether to joy is only in Christ. The true happiness
is only found in the slaying of righteousness, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the slayer of sadness, beloved. He's the bringer
of joy. He will crush the head of the
dragon. These are biblical phrases. Neither shall there be any tears,
nor shall there be any weeping. But we haven't seen Jesus yet.
But we love Him. Why? Because He loves us. He's
given us faith to know Him. Though you don't see Him now,
you believe in Him and you rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible
and filled with glory. obtaining the outcome of your
faith, the salvation of your souls. Our faith looks at the
promise of salvation, and in this promise we have confidence,
we have hope. Beloved, please let's learn to
encourage one another in the gospel, and let's learn to pray
for one another, and over the next few weeks as Trey and I
do some more teaching about the church, we are going to talk
more and more about faith, and we're going to talk more about
assurance, and we're going to work slowly as necessary so that
we can have an understanding of these things. So that at the
end of every day, when you look to your hope, you're not looking
at yourself and you're not looking at your faith. You're looking
at Christ. And you're knowing these things
based on God showing us who he is and what he's done through
his word. Let's pray. We thank you, Father, for the
beauty of your gospel, the beauty of your Son, Jesus Christ, the
good news of who He is and what He's done for His people. Lord,
that you have given a people to Him, that you have placed
a people upon His shoulders and the guilt of a people upon His
shoulders. And when you crucify Jesus Christ
in your purposes and in your way, You satisfied the debt of
sin forever. And Father, You promised this.
It was done before the world began. It was finished in Your own mind. And Lord, it
was finished and completed fully at the cross. And we should pay close attention
to the things of Your Word that show us this promise and show
us the fulfillment of it in the sending of Your Son and show
us the promise of glory in the resurrection and the ascension
of Your Son. And so God, as I meander through
these things week after week, Lord, I pray that You would do
a work that I cannot accomplish and that is to give confidence
to us, Your people. Lord, to grow our love for one
another more intimate, not because we like each other so much, but
Lord, because Christ is our Savior and we are His body. Lord, let
it be about the joy of Christ above all things, and everything
else can wane and change, but Lord, that will never change,
and so help us to focus there. And as we take the table to remember
the body and the blood of Jesus, I thank you that you've given
us this reminder. the cost, and the promise, and
the perfection of the gospel. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.