Are You Living or Dying Message on First Peter

Are You Living or Dying?

First Peter 1:3-9

“To a living hope…”

I.                  Ours is a living hope not a dying past

a.     “A man approached a little league baseball game on afternoon.  He asked a boy in the dugout what the score was.  The boy responded “ Eighteen to nothing- we’re behind, wow I bet your pretty upset, the boy said Upset, why would should I be upset we haven’t even gotten to bat yet.”

b.    Living “potential for and full of”

                                                             i.      “ born again to a living hope”

c.     Isaiah says those who hope in me will not be disappointed.  

d.    "Living" means that our faith gains strength the more we learn about our Lord. It is not dependent on feelings or emotions; it is dynamic not static.”

e.     Peter has a way to help us in troubled times, that word is Hope. “ A living hope”

II.              Ours is an eternal  relationship not a  temporary one

a.     “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading…”

b.    Have you ever noticed how disappointing placing your faith in human things can be?

                                                             i.      It’s so easy to get wrapped up in things that can never truly reward our fondest hopes, rather than the things that really matter.

c.     Peter says a living  hope though won’t ever  die.  decay, deteriorate, or be destroyed. It doesn’t tarnish, or break down, Ours is eternal….

d.    Joni Ericson Tada, She became paralyzed after a diving accident. And because of the paralysis, she doesn’t feel when she bruises herself, or accidentally cuts herself; how she knows though is when her temperature or blood pressure goes up…. She writes in article that she had a moment like that, and had asked her assistant to pull out the sofa bed, just so she could lie down… and as the assistant was preparing her lodging, Joni looked up to heaven, and said “ I want to quit this where can I go to resign, from this stupid paralysis?” The assistant didn’t say anything until she got to the door and then said “I bet you can’t wait for the resurrection!”  The article said Joni’s eyes welled up with tears “ a flood of hopeful promises filled her mind.” Then she recalled the words of another apostle “and The perishable shall put on the imperishable.… The corruptible, that which is incorruptible … That which is sown in weakness will be raised in power.… Peter words He has given us an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade.

III.          Ours is an enduring relationship not a bed of roses

a.      In 1978 M. Scott Peck wrote a book called The Road Less Traveled.  “Life is difficult”, he wrote. This is a great truth. One of the greatest truths. It is a great truth, because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. ….What’s the truth? Life is a series of problems [And] Problems, depending upon their nature, evoke in us frustration or grief or sadness or loneliness or guilt or regret or anger or fear or anxiety or anguish or despair.

b.    But It is only through problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn.

c.     Benjamin Franklin said, “Those things that hurt, instruct.”

d.    Rick Warren is pastor at Saddleback Community Church

                                                             i.      He wrote Purpose Driven Life….” God’s ultimate goal for your life on earth is not comfort, but character development. [God] wants you to grow up spiritually and become like Christ. . . . Every time you forget that . . . you will become frustrated by your circumstances. You’ll wonder, “Why is this happening to me? Why am I having such a difficult time?” One answer is that life is supposed to be difficult! It’s what enables us to grow.”

e.     C. S. Lewis once said it this way: “Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.

f.      only as we fix our anchor in eternity that we find stability for life in these stress-filled days before our Lord’s return.

g.    "The Christian hope is the hope which has seen everything and endured everything, and has still not despaired, because it believes in God. The Christian hope is not hope in the human spirit, in human goodness, in human endurance, in human achievement; the Christian hope is hope in the power of God." --William Barclay,