1 Peter 1

Intro

Once again welcome to CSM

We are so glad you are here

To get us started off I wanted to get right into scripture

So for the next few weeks

We are going to be going through

The book of 1Peter

How many of you have read that book before?

Before we get into any book

I always like to give you guys some background

On why any book is written

The book of first and second peter were both written by

WHO

Peter good job

If you know your bible

This is the same Peter that was one Jesus closest diciples

Same Peter that walks on water

Same Peter that cuts a mans ear off to protect Jesus

Same Peter that also denies Jesus 3 times

Same Peter that Jesus tells he will build his church upon

Scholars believe that Peter wrote the book

Sometime between 62-64 A.D.

Which most scholars belive was only a few years before Peter was matyerd for his faith

And he was primarily writing to scattered Christians

likely in Modern day Turkey

Around this time mass persecution of Christians hadn’t happened in Rome yet

But it was starting to become more difficult

Alot of them were experiencing

Social rejection Insults and slander Economic hardship Family tension Increasing pressure from Roman culture

Overall scholars belive that Peter simply wanted to encourage early Christians to continue in their walk of faith

Later over time they would come deeply presecuted

Today as we look at the book I want to just look at chapter 1

You will learn as we go through this book

There is alot of content

And honeslty I would encourage you

Read, read, read this book on your own

Because I could do an entire series just on Chapter 1 of this book

But we aren’t going to do that

You will learn that as we go through it

Its all about your walk with God

When I walk with Jesus how should i live?

How should I act?

How should I think?

These are all things that this book tackles so well

So to get us started off today

we are going to be looking at chapter 1 of 1 Peter

There isn’t like an over all theme

These are just great reminders for following Christ

1. Your Inheritance is undefiled

1 Peter 1:1–5 “This letter is from Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. I am writing to God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. May God give you more and more grace and peace. All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.”

How many of you guys like camp fires?

How many of you have had some so far?

I love campfires I think they are super relaxing

How is one thing you gotta have at a campfire

SMORES

When it comes to smores

There is an age old debate

HOW DO YOU COOK THE MARSHMALLOW?

I think that when you burn if you defile this perfect marshmallow, ready to be a smore

Now why do I use that word?

DEFILED

Who knows what the word defiled means?

Defiled - refers to the corruption, spoiling, or degradation of something or someone that is meant to be pure, beautiful, or sacred

In my opinion that is what you do with this marshmallow

You take something great

You ruin it

WHY DO I SAY ALL OF THIS?

In our scripture it talks about the price that Jesus paid for us

It says that

“and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation,”

because of what Jesus did for us we can have salvation

We have been freed from the weight of sin

For some of you

You have heard this many times before

Its not new in your head

But I think that statement holds more weight

When we realize that salvation is being kept for you

And it is being kept undefiled

Here is what I want you to hear

Jesus keeps clean what we would only defile

Its such a beautiful thought

One day I get salvation

One day I get to be in heaven

Yes that is amazing

But this scripture makes it clear

The only reason you have that waiting for you

is because of Jesus

If that salvation was there becuase of me

You think it would stay clean

You think it would “undefiled”

of course not

I would lost it faster than I got it

But its not based off of you and I

It didn’t come from our works

It didn’t come from our achievments

It came from the innocent shed blood of Jesus Christ

2. You will be tested

1 Peter 1:6–9 “So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.”

I need a volunteer

How many of you guys use regular pencils?

Have you ever been using one, and it needs sharpened

Right but why do we have to sharpen it?

So we can use it right

If you don’t use a pencil then we don’t need to sharpen it

But even more so WE CAN’T USE A PENCIL IF YOU DON’T SHARPEN IT

WHY DO I SAY ALL OF THIS?

In our scripture it talks about how God tests us

But all of this happens so that

“Glory and honor” can be brought to Jesus

Why does this matter so much

It matters because

there are times when we find ourselves in trials

And with our trials

We can begin to ask why?

We can begin to think:

God why do I have to go through this

God this is so difficult

And we can loose hope

But what does our scripture tell us

“These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold”

Don’t get me wrong

There is pain that we face in this world that is not from God

The Devil has power

And he like to bring us away from God

But at the same time

When we put out faith in Jesus

We are protected by God

And though we may face trials

It could be the very thing that God wants to use to grow us

To bring us closer to him

Don’t be afraid of the sharpener

God using our struggles

He can use our trials

So many times he is sharpening us to make us better

So I would say don’t be afraid

It is so easy to just assume the worst

God may be trying to do something

3. The past is meant to stay the past

1 Peter 1:13–16 “So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.””

How many of you guys ever read this book when you were a kid?

The Very Hungry Catipiller by Eric Carle

Is one of the most iconic and to this day one of the most sold childrens book of all time

it was written in 1969

but it has sold over 55 million copies world wide

and has been translated into over 60 differnent lanuages

Now if you have read the book

Than you know what its about

There is a catipllar who is very hungry

throughout the book

He continues to eat

more and more

eventually he does what catipillars do

Who knows what they do

Catipillars become butterflies

You may be thinking

ADAM I KNOW THAT CATIPILLARS BECOME BUTTERFLIES

But here is the thing

When a catipillar becomes a butterfly

Does it ever go back to being a catipillar?

NO

its not like there are catipillars out there with wings

once thy go through

Crisilss they become butterflies

and that is how they stay

They don’t go back

AND THERE IS A VERY SPECIFC WORD FOR IT

Metamorphisis

In our scripture

Peter talks about a call to Holy living

And he explains to us

that once we come into a relationship with God

we are called to live as the Bible says

“obedient children”

And Peter explains

That apart of doing that

means that we don’t do the same sins that we used to do

Do we still fall short and mess us

oh absolutley

But we don’t look at our mess ups the same way anymore

We push closer to following the direction that Jesus wants us to go

Here is what I want you to hear

Stop trying to reverse God’s metamorphosis

The exact definetion of metamorphosis

Is more than just a catipillar turning into a butterfly

But it means - a profound, dramatic change in form, structure, or character

When we encounter God

And we say we want a relationship with him

He transforms us

In the book of 2 Corinthians it literally talks about

the old life being gone

The new life has come

in other words

God has brought a:

PROFOUND, DRAMATIC CHANGE IN FORM, STRUCTURE, AND CHARACTER,

My only challenge to you

is to stop trying to reverse it

stop trying to undo what God has done

Just as I shared last week

there are times when we are faced with that pressure to do so

We want to fit in

We want to look cool

We want to make everyone laugh

We don’t want to be the ones left

God is saying, look I have called you to something greater

4. You are a temporary resident

1 Peter 1:17–20 “And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time here as “temporary residents.” For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days he has been revealed for your sake.”

Some of you know

Some of you don’t

When I graduated high school I went to the university of Toledo

And I was pursuing a 4 year degree

And in my first 2 years of being there

I lived in a dorm rooms

how many of yall know what dorm rooms are?

They are rooms that are owned by the university

That you can pay a crap ton of money

To live in

I will say in my pseronal experience

I loved living in the dorms

It was tons of fun to have roomates.

It was cool to get to walk to class everyday

However When I think about my house now

I would never ever ever want to go back and live there again

Not just because my house is bigger and whatever else

But because when I was living there I was a temporary resident

I wasn’t going to be living there

For the rest of my life

I knew that

In fact when you choose to live in a dorm

They make you sign something

that says you know that

You know that you can’t:

Paint the wall a different color if you wanted

You can’t put in a wall and make little window if you wanted

Heck you can’t even put nails in the walls to hang pictures

WHYYYYYY

because I am only a temporary resident

What does our scripture tell us??

“So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time here as “temporary residents.” For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors”

Live as temporary residents

The point that Peter is making here

Is that we are not going to be on this Earth forever

Even more so

Some day we are meant to spend eternity with our father in Heaven

What does that mean for us?

It means we gotta start living like we are temporary residnents

Does that mean I can’t put any nails in the walls at your house

But just like me in my dorm

Though i liked living there

I knew it wasn’t forever

And because I knew it wasn’t forever

It effected the way I looked at my time there

It didn’t get so caught up how my dorm room looked

I didn’t worry about if i had every little thing exaclty how I wanted it

Some of need to do that in our lives with God!!!!

We can get so caught up in the details of this life

We can forget that one day we are going to spend eternity with God

Man I hope I get to play this posistion on the team this year

Man I hope I get the Switch 2 for my birthday!!!

All my friends have it

Man I hope I get to sit next to this friend in this class next year

Man I hope that she notices me

Man i hope that he notices me

There are all kinds of layers to this

And I know I only gave examples for you guys

But this happens with adults too

instead its chasing jobs

Money

Houses

relationships

We can get caught up in so many things

1 Peter 1:21–23 “Through Christ you have come to trust in God. And you have placed your faith and hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory. You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart. For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.”

Here is what I want you to hear

Jesus has already paid for the keys to your permanent home

You don’t need to live in the dorm room anymore

Jesus has paid the price for our permenant home

It has already been taken care of for us