Here we are in our Passion Week
this week. Historically, the week that we
celebrate the trials, the crucifixion, the resurrection of Christ. And
this week from today, the 24th, we will celebrate the resurrection
of Christ. It's amazing, and I say this
usually around Easter and Christmas, but it's amazing to me the amount
of pomp and circumstance that goes into Christmas. And yet
Christmas is not even celebrated, per se, by commandment at all
in Scripture. And how easily the resurrection
day goes without a trace in the world, have you noticed that? At best, you get Bradbury eggs,
peanut butter cakes, or whatever you call that, Easter bunnies
in baskets and pretty dresses. Nothing wrong with those things.
We can all enjoy a few peanut butter cups from time to time. But it's a good understanding
and a good picture in my mind of just how effective the church
really is in worship. I pray, church, that during this
Easter season, this resurrection season, that you would daily
examine your hearts. Last week, we began a little
two-part test series, if you will. This week will culminate
that. We looked at the significance of examining our hearts. We looked
at the purpose of examining ourselves. We also looked at the promise
of that examination. and that if we do test ourselves
to see if we are in the faith, we will see the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. I stated last week that there
were two purposes that I had for this message series, for
this short, brief series. Number one is that I wanted you
to see, church, I wanted you to see that we should examine
ourselves continually, constantly, ongoing every second of every
day that life flows through our veins. We should examine ourselves for
pride, thinking we already know that. We should examine ourselves against
arrogance. Thinking that we're good enough. We should examine ourselves for
deceit. That we might have been duped.
We should examine ourselves for anger. That it might be righteous
anger against sin. We should examine ourselves for
many reasons. Why do I think the way I do?
Why do I speak the way I do? Why do I feel the way I do? Is
the gospel the filter of those things? That is the test of the
true child of God. This is what I think. This is
what I feel. This is what I know. What does the gospel teach me
about my feelings and my thoughts, my actions? Am I really living
and fulfilling the power of God in my life, or am I walking in
the flesh? For the child of God, I walk
by faith. See, am I walking by faith? That's the test. And I
gave us many ways or things that we should look at last week.
Many of those, and I didn't finish. I'm going to have to finish last
week to get into this week. As more there was more things
than I thought, less time, more stuff to talk about. I guess somewhere inside of my
mind, I feel like if I just get it all out, you'll get it right. You know what, you're not going
to get anything until the Holy Spirit of God gives you understanding.
I don't care how good of oratory you get this morning, which is
not going to be that good. And so if you sit dumbfounded
sometimes at the sermons, it might be because you're not praying
for God to give you understanding and wisdom. When's the last time
you prayed for wisdom, church? When's the last time you prayed
for understanding? When's the last time you prayed for brokenness?
See, Americans want to fix themselves, want to be right, want to be
on top, want to be in control, want to be in charge, want to do what
we're supposed to do. We're the people. We're not the people,
we're a nothing. Only God's people are people. And it's by His grace
and for His namesake that we become a people. You who were
no people, I make you a people. For my glory, for my namesake
is what God told Israel. And He's done the same thing
with His church. When He dumbfounded the nations in Numbers, I mean,
excuse me, in Genesis. When He dumbfounded the nations
in Genesis chapter 10, And he told man after the flood, go
and fill the earth, go fill the earth. And make much of me, God
said. And man was fearful and man wanted
to be something to behold. And so man said, we will build
a city that the world will look at and say, look at mankind. And not only will we build a
city that the world will look at and say, look at us, but we
will build a tower, a ziggurat, that is higher than the floodwaters
of God. And so God said, let us go down
and confuse man. And then in Acts chapter 2, God
sent the Holy Spirit. And what He had confused for
millennia, He made one again. Are you in that one this morning?
Are you part of the family of God? Not because you sit here.
You could go sit in the lobby of a hospital and that does not
make you a surgeon. You can look like one. You can
know the lingo just because you're here. It does not make you part
of the family of God. Only God himself can create in
you a heart that is righteous and that is loving and that is
kind. Only God himself can give you
eternal life. And so I wanted you to see that
we should examine ourselves every moment. And the second thing
I wanted you to see through these two messages is that I wanted
to paint a picture of the joy that comes through passing the
test of faith. And that was the last thing I stopped with last
week, is talking about that joy. Church, the world doesn't want
to hear a gospel out of the mouth of a miserable man. God doesn't want praise and worship
out of a heart of misery. God doesn't want us to stand
before Him and praise Him with our lips as our hearts are far
from Him. And if our hearts are far from
God, they're miserable. That's a lot out of context there
of what Jesus was saying and whom He was speaking to. But
the truth sticks. We should test ourselves to see
if we are in the faith every second we are able. Why? My son has gotten in the habit
over the last few weeks of just walking up to people arbitrarily.
Are you a Christian? It's funny to see the frustration
in some adults. Why would you ask such a question?
And I'm thinking, because of the way you just answered that.
That's why. We should test ourselves. To see
if we're in the faith, this means if we're in the faith, what Paul
was saying last week out of out of second Corinthians. Is that we have Christ in us? We passed the test. It means
Christ is in us. And it also means that we are
in him. And so with that, the question
now is, what is the ultimate fruit of being in Christ and
Christ being in us and the ultimate fruit of that? of all the things
that I've talked about. And I think you can continually
go through all the Scripture and you can see faithfulness.
You can see obedience. You can see holiness. You can
see righteousness. You can see brokenness. You can
see all of these things. But I think the ultimate test
of the true believer to see if you're in the faith is you ask
the question, do I have joy in the depths of my soul beyond
measure? Wow. And is that joy? Because of Christ alone. That's
a bad word. Is that joy in Christ alone? In Christ, are you joyful because
your life is good, your marriage is good, your kids are good,
your health is good. Take all that away. And if your
joy diminishes, your joy is not in Christ. And friends, this is the battle
that we as the church should be fighting every day. It is
worthless to to minister to someone's need and ignore the call of joy
and the command of belief and faith in Christ alone. It is
worthless and godless and satanic to say such things without proclaiming
the joy that is found in Christ alone. It is worthless to teach
theology and doctrine and systematic exposition of Scripture as a
commentator and not call people to belief and to repentance and
to faith in Christ so that their joy may be full. And what circumstances warrant
examination, where what things in our lives should we be looking
at all of them? All of them, when we when we
doubt Doubt what? Anything. Of course, when we
doubt God, but we don't normally walk around going, I'm doubting
you, God. I don't believe in you, Christ, I know that you're
God of all things, but I don't believe you can help me. We don't
go around with that mindset. We began to worry and doubt the
outcome of small things. Is my back going to feel better? Is my car going to get fixed?
Is my marriage going to be strong? Are my children going to come
to faith? Is my job secure? Is my health OK? Are my grandkids
going to learn what they need to learn? Oh, I worry and I worry and I
worry and I worry. Worry is the opposite of faith.
And it is a sin before God. I actually think about worry
in my own life. I think sometimes worry is the epitome of pride.
Because I think sometimes when I worry about things, I can look
inside and really what I think is that I need to be the one
that fixes things. So that's arrogance. It's really
the spirit of God. So we should when we doubt anything,
when we worry about anything, we ought to examine ourselves
to see if we are in the faith. When we sin, we ought to examine
ourselves to see if we are in the faith. When we're angry,
we ought to examine ourselves to see if we're in the faith.
When we're depressed, we ought to examine ourselves to see if
we're in the faith. When we are bitter, when we're alone, when we're
fearful, when we're bored. I hate that word. I don't comprehend
it. Now, there are boring things. But I don't understand living
a life of boredom. It makes no sense to me. And
I talk to a lot of people. How are you bored? Does your
brain not work? Is there not something you can
think about? I like to think. Maybe that's the difference. But focusing and meditating on
God's Word is not boring to me. And I like having snow days. I don't get many of those around
here. I still look forward to snow days when we live back east.
Everything I had planned is not going to happen. Let's just get
in the Word. Just listen to God. Yes, thank
God for snow days. I guess there are earthquake
days around here and we don't want those. So we better plan us some snow
days. When we're dull, when we're tired,
even when we're energized, We ought to examine ourselves in
the glad times and the gloomy times. We ought to examine ourselves
in the glory days and the goofy days. We ought to examine ourselves
at all times. Examining our hearts, church,
will establish a continual reliance upon Christ and a continued expression
of faith and an eternal understanding of God's grace. There's a sermon
in that. Let me read it to you again.
Examining our hearts will establish a continual reliance upon Christ
and a continued expression of faith and an eternal understanding
of God's grace. Joy in Christ. Really, joy is
the ultimate test. Do we have joy? Do we have joy
in our pain? Do we have joy in our labors?
in our service, in our work. Do we have joy in our affections,
with our affections? Do we have joy in our struggles?
Do we have joy in times of peace and we have joy in times of depression?
Do we have joy in our marriage, even when it stinks? Do we have
joy with our kids when they drive us out of our minds? Do we have
joy when our health is good and joy when our neighbor wins and
we lose? Do we have joy when our children
live and joy when they are given unto death? Do we have joy when our grandfather
is doing well last week and this week he has cancer? Do we have
joy? If our joy is set on anything
but the person of Christ, then we will not see it for very long.
The measure of our faith is the extent of our joy in Christ. I really believe that, church.
Do you believe that? Do you hold to that? Not just
with your head. Have you put your faith on the person of Christ,
subjectively the subject of Jesus? He alone. Is He your treasure? Or is what He gives you treasure
to you? There's a huge cosmic difference
between Christ, the God-man, and the stuff He brings. The Scripture doesn't teach that
Jesus gives us a joy. The Scripture teaches that Jesus
is joy. And that's not metaphoric. It might be in the construct
of the language, but it's not in reality, theologically. He
is the eternal life. He is the joy. He is God. He is creator. He is. And what does Paul say in Romans
one that men have turned away from worshiping the creator and
began to worship the creation. If you're in love with your salvation,
you are worshiping the creation. For Christ is the eternal life,
he is the joy. This type of affection. This
type of joy, rather, reveals our full affection for Him. This
is the fruit of all fruit, really. I mean, we see this in John. We see it in 1 John. And we see
that there are things. Yes, we love each other. We are
obedient. We strive for holiness. We practice
righteousness. But there's an underlying stream,
if you will, this stream. I visualize this. There's all
this stuff floating around. And then there's a stream that
runs through it and that stream is joy. That's the way I look
at it. And so this stream that runs
through is joy. So as we love each other, we love it, love
each other, not with burdensome horror. Oh, I have to love. God, help me. No, I love and
I'm joyful over it. Oh, I have to serve. Oh, gosh,
help me. No, I'm joyful in my service.
Because an unjoyful love and an unjoyful service and an unjoyful
teaching and an unjoyful heart is worthless. It's not worship.
How can you worship the God of all comfort and the God of all
joy, the Christ without joy? Now, that doesn't mean that you
don't have times of brokenness, times of emotional despair, times
of unhappiness, but there's a difference in happiness and joy when it
comes to Christ. You're not happy-go-lucky and
jolly-good-willy that everything's falling down around you and that
your life is terrible, but you're joyful in Christ. That which we have seen and heard,
we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with
us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His
Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things
to you So that our joy may be complete. 1 John 1. Our joy may be complete. Jesus
says, these things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in
you and that your joy may be full. See, the joy of Christ
is in His children and therefore it overflows from every amount
of our DNA, every cell in our body. It overflows. And in the deepest sin of David,
remember King David, what does he pray in his cry of repentance?
Return to me the joy of my salvation. See, David lost his joy because
he'd taken his eyes off the object of his faith and he'd put it
on the object of a woman that was going to give him some temporary
pleasure. And oh, was it temporal, but
boy, were the consequences terrible. But the greatest consequence
was that David lost his joy, not his salvation, his joy. Church, do you have joy this
morning? Do you have joy? And some people say, well, why
would we have joy? Well, number one, because God commands it. How do you command joy? It's
like, you know, when I was a child and you're getting in trouble
and you start to cry. Don't you cry, son. You'll get that switch. Don't you cry, I'm going to give
you something to cry about. I thought you just did. But you have a
bad attitude. And I'm like, I'm confused, please
help me. I don't know what to do. Parents,
we really learn a lot, don't we? Learn that we don't know
what we're doing. And so this joy is a command.
Be joyful. It's not an option. It's not
an option. We can't walk around choosing.
Well, you know, today I'm going to be in a bad mood because I
deserve it. We do that. We just saying be
thankful with a thankful heart as a thankful heart, miserable. Is it is there any such synonym
of Miserable and thankfulness, do they ever meet anywhere at
any joint road somewhere on the map? Never. There's no crossroad
where misery and thankfulness meet in the sense of being miserable.
Because when misery meets thankfulness, joy is the fruit of it. It'll be evident. Joy must be
evident. God desires his children to have
the fullness of joy in Christ, because he is what truly brings
the satisfaction of the universe. But we look for everything else,
don't we? Look, just like Brian prayed this morning, God, help
us to turn our affections from the world and put it on Christ.
Do you pray that? Do you recognize, do you test
yourself and do you see the affections of your heart And you go, oh
God, look at how much I love that thing or that person or
this position or that power or that feeling. Can you help me
overcome that and place that affection on Christ? Please,
Father, put that affection on the Word and on the Lord and
on Your Son and on You. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Have mercy on me, O
sinner. who was crucified in weakness,
but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him,
but in dealing with you, we live by Him with the power of God.
Examine yourselves, therefore, to see whether you in the faith
test yourselves, or do you not realize this about yourselves,
that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless, indeed, you fail to meet
the test. I hope you will find that we
have not failed the test. Test ourselves for joy. Why? Let's look at the commands of
joy. I'm not going to go through them all because it filled up like seven,
eight pages of commands of joy. But let's just go to the Psalms
just for the word rejoice. Serve the Lord with fear and
rejoice in trembling to eleven five, eleven, but let all who
take refuge in you rejoice, let them ever sing for joy and spread
your protection over them, that those who love your name may
exult in you. Nine fourteen. These are all
Psalms that I may recount all your praises that in the gates
of the daughter of Zion, I may rejoice in your salvation. But
I have thirteen five, but I have trusted in your steadfast love.
My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. Fourteen seven. Oh,
that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion when the Lord
restores the fortunes of his people. Let Jacob rejoice. Let
Israel be glad. Thirty one. A psalm of David. I will extol you, O Lord, for
you have drawn me up and have not let my foes rejoice over
me. 31.7, I will rejoice and be glad
in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction and
you have known the distress of my soul. See, he's rejoicing
in affliction and distress, but he's rejoicing in Christ. Be
glad, 32.11, in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout
for joy, all you upright in heart. 35, 9. Then my soul will rejoice in
the Lord, exulting in the salvation. 40, 16. But may all who seek
you rejoice and be glad in you. May those who love your salvation
say continually, great is the Lord. Psalm 48, 11. Let Mount
Zion be glad. Let the daughters of Judah rejoice
because of your judgments. We see that also in Revelation
18, 19. Psalm 51, 8. Let me hear joy and gladness.
Let the bones that you have crushed David says, rejoice. Fifty three, six, oh, that salvation
for Israel would come out of Zion when God restores the fortunes
of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad. The righteous
5810 will rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He will bathe
his feet in the blood of his wicked and the blood of the wicked.
Amazing. We rejoice in the destruction
of wickedness. Psalm 63, 11. But the king shall
rejoice in God. Psalm 64, 10. Let the righteous
one rejoice in the Lord. 66, verse 6. He turned the sea
into dry land. They passed through the river
on foot where they did rejoice in Him. May all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you. 85, 6. Will you not receive us
again that your people may rejoice in you? Psalm 89, 42. You have exalted in the right
hand of His foes. You have made all His enemies rejoice. Ninety
fourteen satisfy in the morning us in the morning with your steadfast
love that we may rejoice and be glad in all our days. But
the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar
and all that fills it. Ninety six eleven. You get the
point. I've got another page of Psalms.
It's a command. Glory in his name, let the hearts
of those who seek the Lord rejoice. This is the day that the Lord
has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118, 24.
That's not just a song. Revelation 19, here's one. Then
I heard what seemed to be the voice of great multitude, like
the roar of many waters and the sound of a mighty peals of thunder,
crying out, Hallelujah for the Lord, our God, the mighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and
give him the glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come. And his
bride has made herself ready. So, friends, this is a commandment
of God. That we rejoice and be glad, that we have joy in Him. This is an example of Scripture.
As we look through Scripture, we see in Matthew's Gospel when
the disciples went out and began to preach and see things happen
and the power of the Gospel. And they came back and it says
the disciples returned with joy. The apostles wrote of joy. Jesus prayed that their joy may
be full. So we see the command of joy.
We see the example of joy. And like I said in Revelation
19, as I just read, there's an eternity of joy. Do you realize
that's what we're looking for? That's what we're looking for.
That is the Christ that we long to see. That is the fruit. is that He's going to wipe away
every tear from their eye. There'll be no more pain. There'll
be no more sorrow. There'll be no more anguish.
There'll be no more suffering. Joy will reign supreme. And His name is Jesus. And so last week, as I got to
the end of this message, Well, I've got ten things I need to
say, and so this week I'm going to intersperse these ten things
with this joyful message. How do we examine our lives? What is the process? Friends,
let me tell you this. The question was asked of me
two weeks ago Wednesday in this very room. And as I just shared
how God works in my life, I began to look at it. And as God has
shown me this text here in 1 Peter, It's not far off. So this is the part of the message
I believe everybody's been waiting on. But this is the part of the
message where you have to fill in your blank. And you have to
look at your life and you have to examine your heart and you
have to ask yourself, I don't have joy. I don't strive for
righteousness. I'm miserable. I'm doubting. My spiritual life is just, I
just come to church and I hear the preacher and I do my Bible
study and I go home and I read my thing, but I'm dry. My joy is gone. You feel like
that today? You feel like that sometimes,
church? If you're honest, you'll say
yes. Friends, there'll come a day, there'll come a season, there'll
come a long season of your life where the joy of the Lord doesn't
wane. And it may skip a beat. The wind may change direction,
but buddy, you'll turn to face it. You will turn to face the
wind of the joy of the Lord. And you will stop looking at
how to fix all that stuff that's blowing. Let it blow it. Let
the wind blow. For each of us in this examination,
our journey and our testing will be different. The process will
be a little different. But the exam and the outcome
are pretty much the same. We test ourselves to see if we're
in the faith, and we pass the test. And I believe when we pass
the test, joy is the result. Joy is the root. Friends, I am
praying. I'll tell you what, the first
time in history I've ever done this. I'm praying about reading a story
from a children's book next week. This is a story that I... had
as a narrator of the story, the author of the story read, and
I put it in on a DVD yesterday or the day before, and let my
children watch it, and it was glorious. Because it revived in me the
understanding of what Christ has done when He drunk the full
cup of the wrath of the Father, so that I didn't even have to
walk near it. And I could not compose my heart overflowed with
cleansing joy and tears for a long time. So I'm praying about it. It's only a few minutes. It won't
take long. But from what I'm about to share,
glean what you can. Take what you can and then ask God to give
you direction. Ask God to give you the wisdom
that He desires. But refer to the essence of the
test, how does one even come to the point of being tested
or examined? I think that's the. Question that needs to be answered.
And here's what I've concluded. I've concluded that we come to
the point of testing because of the word of the apostles.
The word of the apostles. So reading. And praying and hearing
the scripture is the key to the ongoing test and the ongoing
examination. Which is the key to ongoing joy. So as we read the word, as we
pray the word, as we hear the word, then that will bring the
test in our hearts and our lives, for we are not going to be confronted.
Within our own flesh, hardly because we can get numb to that.
If we're not in the Word. We can't just keep walking on
what we knew yesterday. That's good stuff. Alright, I
got enough of Jesus. Can you ever get enough of Jesus?
Please say no. Okay. Please say no. Even if you don't believe that,
say no to make me smile. You can never get enough. You
can never get enough of Jesus. Therefore, you can never get
enough of the Word of God. For you can't get Jesus apart
from it. You can't learn him. You can't even worship him because
you don't even know who it is you're worshiping. Staying with the theme of the
last few years, are we learning? And in turn, are our lives being
transformed by the power of God's grace that comes only through
his word? And are then we living as the scriptures command us
to live through the power that he provides in his word and through
his word? And are we loving as transformed
people, first Christ above all things, then each other? Now,
to 1 Peter. Chapter one, verse three. I'm
going to read this text again. 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, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven
for you, who 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've 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 Christ.
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not
see Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with the joy that
is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome
of your faith, the salvation of your soul. That is one of my favorite passages
of Scripture. I don't have really favorite
verses anymore. I'm working my way up to favorite
letters. It's tough. I pray that that's
a problem you have. I pray that your new favorite
verse is something that's new to you. And so with this, we look at
this text and we see these words and I'll, as best I can, walk
you through some things with some understanding of this sequence
of events of how we're tested and how we examine ourselves
in the faith. Notice how Peter writes, Blessed be the God and
father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, that's a that's a phrase
unto itself, it's there, it's isolated. It's isolated and actually
verse two, see, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. That
comes through what he's about to say. Grace is given through
the words of the apostles. Peace comes through hearing those
words and hearing comes through hearing those words, according
to Romans chapter 10. You can't hear it because you're
not hearing it, you're not hearing it, you're not going to hear
it, and all the way you're going to hear it is to hear it so you can hear it. Got it. Romans 10. How will they know
if we don't go, how will they? You know, faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the Word of Christ. And so here we are. Church here. God's Word teaches you who He
is. How can Peter say, blessed be
the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Because He
was given the words of Christ and then He wrote them down so
that we could have them. And Peter writes that phrase
Out of worship and out of joy. And we can worship because we
have these words written to us. This word. God's word teaches
you who he is. God's word teaches you who Christ
is. God's word teaches you who you
are. And God's word teaches you who
you are in light of him. And then God's word gives you
a reflection of your heart. God's word gives you an understanding
of his grace. God's word reflect gives you
a reflection of your own mind and God's word gives you an understanding
of his grace and God's word gives you. A clear picture of what
you truly deserve, and then God gives you his word that gives
you a clear picture of his grace. And so here there are 10 things
that I've sort of summarized here. And it's an absolute miracle
that in my thoughts it focuses here with some of this text. Look at what it says there. We have been given by the mercy
of God, rebirth. Look at that. Verse 3. According
to His great mercy, He has caused us, did you see that word? Caused
us to be born again. And Peter's not the only one
that says that. Every apostle in the New Testament
uses that same verbiage. And what does He cause us to
be born again to? A living hope. A living hope. Through what? through the atonement of Christ,
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And it's
not just stopping there. There's an adoption that takes
place. Christ, as we'll see next week, is the means and the vehicle
and the conduit. He is the conductor through which
God channeled his judgment and mercy so that he could forgive
sinful men. And Peter knows that and Peter's
joy is full. And at this time in history,
in the New Testament church, these Christians were suffering
greater than any of us have suffered. I'm not trying to minimize your
suffering, I'm trying to put it in comparison, the whole of
the New Testament narratives, the whole of the New Testament
letters, are from a foundation of suffering Christians being
persecuted, arrested, killed, beheaded, fed to animals, burned
on pyres as street lamps, hanged, stoned, dragged from
horses, drawn and quartered. That's what these people were
experiencing. Because they dared to believe in the son of God. And to preach. In his name. As we see the apostles. This
is Acts chapter five, we see. We see the apostles and they
were arrested and they were beaten. 30, 40 lashes. Because they were
told not to preach in Jesus name and they let him out and they
didn't even leave. They stayed in the court. They
stay in the vicinity. Usually you let a guy out of
jail. He's going to skip town before he starts doing something
else. These guys just walked out the front door. He started
preaching Christ. They brought him back where they
arrested him and they brought him back out, said, Go, don't
preach. They preached and then they said they arrested him.
Then they beat them. That's what it was. And then
what did they do? They walked out the front door
again rejoicing. They were excited that they've
been found worthy of being whipped. for the glory of the gospel. It is insane. And that is what the Spirit of
God does for His children. And Peter understood that. He
understood that when he said, God's great mercy has caused
us to be born again to a living hope through the work of Christ,
through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Important because
Christ didn't just die. Christ wasn't a martyr. Christ
was the Lamb of God. He came back to life, therefore,
verse four, we have an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled
and unfading. These people had lost everything.
Their homes, their families, Everything, because that's what
the gospel does, Church. The gospel splits relationships. If you haven't lost friends or
family over the gospel, test yourself, see if you're in the
faith. And pray for God to use you at all costs. You ever shared the truth of
the gospel with a family member and they won't speak to you?
With a neighbor? And when they see you come out,
they run back inside. They're like a yo-yo. Can't even get
you your papers. That's a minuscule issue. And so hearing this, the Word
of God, number one, the Word of God, the Word of God, testing
comes through our time in the Word. You hear me say this every
Sunday in some fashion, that if you aren't in the Word of
God, you are malnourished. And friends, some of us, we don't
have time. But ask yourself, do you have
leisure time? Do you have leisure time? What's
that leisure time spent doing? Is it in the gospel? Is it in
the Word? Or is it watching something? Talking with someone on the phone?
Nothing wrong with those things, but when we say we don't have
time to be in God's Word, but we do have time for everything
else, We are putting all those things ahead of our walk with
Christ and our intimacy with Christ. How does that work? And so the Word of God, God speaks
through His Word, God speaks through His Son, the living Word
of God, and the Word is useful in our lives. And so as you're
in the Word of God, God begins to show you something. He begins
to show you your heart. And that's number two. Through
the Word comes conviction of sin. Why is it? That he could say, blessed be
the God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he's caused us
to be born again by his great mercy, because Peter understood
what sin was all about, because he had a clear picture of the
holiness of God. How? Through the word of God. And so in the word, testing comes
because we see clearly who we really are in the flesh and we
see clearly who we've been made to be. So we see a new conviction of
sin, a daily conviction of sin, a reminder of what God has done
and what Christ has made possible, a reminder of His grace. And
through this impossible task number three, we're taken to
God's mercy and grace. That's what Peter says here.
according to His great mercy. It's ultimate mercy. It's infinite
mercy. Because when finite sins against
infinite, the judgment is infinite. And so when righteousness takes
the place of unrighteousness, the judgment is serious business. So with this impossible task. We see God's holiness, we see
our sin, we're broken over that. And it may be small things, what
is Paul saying Romans, it is sin is. How many of you know
that Romans chapter seven? Covetousness. How many of you wish I'd be the
only thing you dealt with? He broke himself over and over
and over and sounds like a schizophrenic. God, why can't I do what I want
to do? And I keep doing what I don't want to do. Over covetousness, he he appreciated
what someone else had. And long to have it. But yet that sin broke him. He longed for help, one. And so this grace, as we see
this grace, friends, number four, this grace reminds us of how
we truly stand before God. This grace that we're reminded
of helps us to see how are we standing before God? What does
Peter say? We stand before God with a living hope through Christ
and an inheritance that is undefiled. that is imperishable and unfading,
kept in heaven for you by God's power who is guarding us. Therefore, he says, in this, rather, you rejoice. We see how we stand before God.
The word for that is how we are justified. Justification. It's the biggest theological
thing the church needs to understand. Justification by faith alone
through Christ alone is what we believe. And friends, it is a gift of
grace. Every cult known to man that
claims Christ begins to take the doctrine of justification
and change it. How a man stands right before
God. A man stands right before God according to his great mercy.
On the back of Christ. To a living hope. And then we
worship. Number six. We worship. We worship. And worship takes place in our
mind. And worship takes place in our spirit. Worship takes
place in our soul. And we worship in spirit and
our truth and our hearts. pound and pant for Christ. Why? Because we rejoice that
we were enemies with God and now we stand justified before
him because of God's great mercy. We test ourselves and we only
test ourselves when we're in the scripture. And when we're
in the scripture, we see who God is and who Christ is and
who we are and how we stand before him. Because we either stand
before Him as recipients of grace who have been saved by Christ,
or we stand before Him as recipients of wrath that wait an impending
judgment. And this affection, this panting
for Christ, boils up to another thing. Number seven in my heart
is hunger. A hunger. And in verse 6 there, In this
you rejoice, though now for a little while." Look at this little while.
If necessary, you've been grieved by various trials. So verse 7,
the tested genuineness of your faith may be found to result. The hunger. We have a hunger
for the Lord. We have a hunger for His Word.
We have a hunger for the... And you know what that means?
We have the hunger for more testing. Because it is intimacy with the
Word of God that brings not just the self-examination, but the
external frustration. There's just some alliteration. Internal examination, external
frustration. And so the deeper we are in our
understanding of Christ, the deeper and more intimate we are
in the Gospel, the more we worship, the more we hunger, the more
we long, and the more we long, the harder life gets. And the
more pressure that comes, the more attacks that show up and
the more frustration that builds and it just gets harder. However,
Christ. Is our peace. Because. This test results, look at the
second part of our seven. The tested genuineness of your
faith. may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation
of Christ. See, it goes right back to the
Word, doesn't it? Right back to the Word of God. How do we
get the revelation of Christ? We read the Word. Right back
to the Word. And so we live for the true bread
of life, who is Christ. We eat it. We hunger for it.
And so then that bread empowers us to live righteously and live
holy lives and live sanctified lives. And we walk apart. We jump out of the world or away
from the world. We turn away from the world.
We don't leave it. Sometimes I wish we could. We will one
day. But we walk Against the grain,
that's a better way of putting it, of the world system, of the
world's government, of the world's way, of the world's wishes, of
the world's desires. And we walk toward Christ, the
founder and perfecter of our faith. And as we do that. We begin to step on and trip
on sin. But we're still in the word.
And this bread empowers us. Christ empowers us to love and
live with each other and celebration and joy and peace as we work
out our salvation and as we display the gospel through the making
of disciples, through the ministering of the needs and to the maturing,
to the maturing, the corporate maturing and the individual maturing.
We as a people mature into the headship of Christ. We grow into
that. And we rejoice. Look at this.
Though you do not see him. Let me just not go there yet. So, number eight, we're empowered
by God. Number nine, we walk together
in a battle against sin and we sometimes fail and we sometimes
wane in our worship. We start to get dull again. And
number 10, we take the test all over. Friends, this seems like,
wow, this is like, what, a month or two stuff? No, this is like
30 seconds. These 10 things happen in like 30 seconds, every 30
seconds. If you're trying to think, OK,
every Sunday, hey, that's a start. If you want to do this examination
every Sunday, that's great. Friends, I want you to do it
every second. So what we see here is that faith,
the test of faith, we see tested and believed and served and loved
and repented. I said last week, I think I said
this. Is it one of the biggest schemes of the enemy is to add
the letters E.D. to the end of those? I have repented. I have trusted. I have believed.
I have served. I have loved. I have... And those
in the New Testament are never listed that way. Ever. Ever. It's always present future. Ongoing. We must always be believing. We must always be trusting. We
must always be serving. We must always be loving. Must
always be worshiping. Must always be repenting. Because, friends, as we do these
things, we wait for that day when we are full and complete
with no condemnation because Christ paid it all. Now look
at verse 8. Though you've not seen Him, you
love Him. Though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and
rejoice. Look at this phrase. With joy. That is inexpressible. And filled
with glory. Obtaining the outcome of your
faith, which is the salvation of your soul. See, we have not
seen Jesus, though you have not seen Him. We've not seen Him.
We've not looked on His face. We've not seen the scars in His
hands and His feet and His side. We've not heard the audible tones
of His voice. or felt the embrace of His arms. But we love Him. Because Hebrews
says that God through many times and many ways has spoken to the
prophets, but today He speaks through what? His Son. And John
says that Son is the living Word of God. And Paul says in 2 Corinthians
that those who don't agree that the apostles' writings are the
Word of God without error are not recognized. John says the
same thing. In his first epistle, the word
of God reveals to us Christ. There's no other way. There's
no other means, there's no other option if you want to see Jesus
except the scripture. And so we have not seen Jesus,
however, it says you love him. You love what you have not seen.
You love what you have not seen. But see, listen to this. That
which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you. So that you, too, may have fellowship
with us and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with the
Son, Jesus Christ, and we are writing these things that our
joy may be complete. John, in his first epistle, the
very introduction. So you love what you have not
seen. For John has seen him. John has touched him. Peter's
seen him. Peter's touched. Matter of fact, Peter says he
not only met with us, but he appeared to 500 of the brothers
at once. And as he ascended into heaven,
John the Baptist says, I heard the voice that came down from
heaven and said, this is my beloved son. These people have seen the
glory of God, glory as What does God say? And we have seen his
glory. Glory, glory, the glory of God,
we have seen his glory, glory of the only son from the father,
full of grace and truth, and in that fullness, we receive
grace upon grace and not what he says, something of that nature. And so we love what we have not
seen because we read and we get through the Holy Spirit, the
great awesome reflection of the apostolic authority through the
Spirit of God. We see Christ. And we love him,
even though we haven't seen him, and so then we believe in what
we have not seen, we believe in what we are not seeing, though
you do not see now you believe in him. You believe in Christ. You are believing today. Are
you believing today, church? And if you are believing today,
it says and rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible. And so
you rejoice in what you see that you cannot see. That's what Peter's
saying. You think it'd be easier if Jesus
was in the flesh? No. Wasn't easier for the apostles,
for the disciples. Thomas, I will not believe. Stick my hands in his side and
his hands, fingers there, maybe. And this joy is inexpressible
and this joy is filled with glory. Do you know what inexpressible
joy is? Friends, when you think of the
atonement, when you think of righteousness dying for unrighteousness,
when you think of the holiness of God dying for the wickedness
of man, when you think of the substitute that Christ provides, when you think of the worthiness
of Christ and the worthlessness of man, and you look and you
see in the unwarranted and unmerited mercy that God gives His people
through the blood of the Lamb, There's nothing to do but rejoice
with a joy that is inexpressible. Are you in the faith this morning? Has your joy waned? Is your joy
filled with glory? Last week I went crazy and I
talked about roots. And how these roots, I want them
to grow deep into your mind, the roots of the gospel into
your soul, and I want them to come out and wrap around your face. I
was listening to that, I'm thinking, why did I say that? It's so ridiculous,
but I got the point across, hopefully. And what I want to see this week,
I want to add to that, I want to see that joy plants you deep
into the gospel. Because if you're planted deep
into the gospel, then joy will be the fruit of that rootedness. And then you will reflect that
you are truly a child of God. inexpressible joy. You know what
that means? No matter what life throws at you, nothing knocks
the wind out of your joy. Nothing. Nothing. Church, I'm not sure what's keeping your
joy from being full. I'm sure if we all had a card
we could write down a reason or six that we think that here's
what the Scripture teaches. Peter's saying, as we look at
this awesome gospel and we see the face of the gospel in Christ,
we see that joy is the fruit of it. So if your joy wanes today, it's
because you're not looking at Christ. And it's an act of unbelief.
Because believing is going back to the Gospel when you don't
know what else to do. Believing is going to the Gospel
first before you even think of other things to do. Believing
is staying and abiding in the Word of God. We want classes and instructions
and seminars and conferences to teach us how to walk in faith.
Friends, we need the Word. We need self-examination. And
when somebody comes to us and they need a shoulder to cry on,
we let them cry. And then we shake them a little
bit and say, you better have joy. You weep, but weep with joy.
You mourn, but mourn with joy. For you are a child of the King
who has put on himself the wrath of God. So what's your problem? That's not mercyful giftedness. That's how I do it at my house.
What's your problem? Don't you know Christ died for
you? Get over it! It didn't work too
well when I needed it. If we're in the Word and we're
believing, we're rejoicing. The Heidelberg Catechism reflects on these words, and
I'll read them in closing. I belong to Jesus Christ in this
life and in the life to come. I dedicate my whole being to
Him as His faithful servant. I present my heart to Him promptly
and sincerely. I oppose sin in the works of
the evil one. I long to be eternally with Christ. Numbers 1 and 32
of that catechism. It's amazing when we see things
like that. And this, well, last year I read
the life of Jonathan Edwards and I read some of his writing.
And when he was 18 years old, he made somewhat of a manifesto,
if you will. Resolves, resolutions, that's
what he called them. And He resolved that He would walk in holiness.
He resolves many, many things that He would do for the glory
of God. Friends, it's not our resolve
that makes this possible. It's God's power that makes it
possible. But have you even resolved to continually walk in joy? Do
you want it? Do you want the joy of the Lord
in you? And friends, if you want it, you're not just going to
be able to sit there looking like this and wait for God to
slap you with it. You've got to fight for it. The
joy is given by grace, but discipline keeps it fresh. In the hardest times of life
is when we fail to go to the Word and to His grace the most. But it's when we most need it. So my prayer for you, church,
is that you would believe in Christ. And you would be believing
in Him and trusting in Him right now and a year from now and a
hundred years from now at the Lord Terry's. And that you would test yourselves
to see if you're in the faith. Not today and be done, but today
and when you leave and when you move on this afternoon before
you go to bed. Do you see what I'm trying to
help you understand? Do you have the joy of the Lord
in you? Would you examine your heart? Would you go back, like
Jesus says to the church of Ephesus in Revelation? Would you go back,
repent, and go and do the things you did before? Because He says,
I have one thing against you. You've forsaken your first love. See, the whole idea of the people
of God is that God gets love and glory. Not that God's needy.
He's fine with Himself. And God loves Himself more than
anything because He's worthy. If He loved anything else more
than Himself, that would be God. But He extends His own self-love
to His people with a great mercy. And if we come to faith in Christ,
if we see and behold the great mercy of God in His holiness,
in His love, friends, our joy will be full. But be careful. You can't come for the feeling
because you want your life to be better. You come for the affection
of a person who is Christ, who is the joy of God. Let's pray. Lord, as we walk through A systematic
way, God, of looking at testing and things. It's interesting. Lord, I pray that each person
who hears this message, who has heard this message, would really
be looking and seeing where their joy lies, where their hope lies,
where their affection lies. And Father, I pray that You would
work in Your power to bring what might be dead to life and what
might be joyless to rejoice. Father, help us to truly reflect
on what You've done in Christ. God, You've promised to complete
what You've started in Your people. to never forsake your people.
You promised to never leave us for the enemy to devour. And
so, God, we have cause for joy. You promised, Father, that you
will save us in the end. You promised that you have conditioned
us to be able to resist temptation. You promised us that you've given
us understanding. So, Father, we thank you for
your promises. We place our trust in you alone. Our faith in You alone. Our hope
in You alone. You are our all. Christ is our all. So Father, as we leave today,
as we contemplate, let us evaluate ourselves. Let us ask some questions. And Lord, I pray that those who
are being saved right now, would come to the conviction of making
that profession public through baptism as an act of obedience.
That they would join the church. That they would come to understand
all good things they have in Christ by sharing their faith
actively. Father, we trust in you to create
us as the people you call us to be in your time. Let us be
patient with one another. Let us learn and teach and grow
and love and cherish and tremble at your righteous hand, but not
shrink back for perfect love, cast out fear. And we pray this
in the name of Christ. Amen.