Living as Servants of God - HCC
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Announce Text
Announce Text
Please turn with me in your bibles to 1 Peter, Chapter 2… We’re going to be looking today at verses 11 - 12. So 1 Peter, 2:11-12.
Scripture Introduction
Scripture Introduction
So this morning we’re going to be taking a look at what it means to live as servants of God in a hostile world…
One of the things that amazed me as I was preparing this messages on 1 Peter is just how timely they it is for us today… living in 2020…
In the passage right before this one, Peter talks abut the idea that as we come to Jesus Christ and are united to Him by faith, we are joined together with other believers…
We are built up together into a spiritual house… we become a royal priesthood… a holy nation… a people for God’s own possession…
And that nation is made up of people from every tribe and every tongue and every nation under heaven. So it’s not a nation with borders and geography… It’s not a nation based on ethnicity or race or language… but a nation based on a common faith in and allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ.
It’s what unites us together…
And it’s an idea that really helps us as we look at a world right now in 2020, because when we look at the world what we see is this particular nation being torn apart because of racial and political divisions…
It helps us because when we look at the craziness going in in the world right now, we’re not without hope… [pause]
We know that there really is an answer… we know that there really is a solution and a way to bring true healing to the nations…
So we proclaim His excellencies… and as we come to our text this morning, Peter shifts is focus from how we are to relate to one another to how we are to relate to the world…
A world that is suspicious of and hostile to believers… a world that looks increasing like the one we find ourselves living in today…
So if you would, please stand with in honor of the reading of God’s Word, and let’s read this passage together… again, it’s 1 Peter 2:11-12.
Hear now the Word of the true and living God… it says,
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Prayer for Illumination
Prayer for Illumination
Let’s pray…
Introduction
Introduction
As we look at our passage this morning, we’re going to focus primarily on three things… three things that Peter wants us to know as he instructs us on how we’re supposed to relate to the world…
Who we are: We are strangers in a strange land (v. 11),
How we live: We abstain from sin and live honorably (v. 11, 12),
What we do: We shine light into darkness and cause the nations to glorify God (v. 12).
So our first point…
1. Who we are: We are strangers in a strange land (v. 11)
1. Who we are: We are strangers in a strange land (v. 11)
Look with me at v. 11, it says...
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
So the first thing we notice is that Peter addresses his readers as those “beloved by God”… We are God’s “beloved”…
So as we go out and engage with the world… as we’re rejected by society and met with hostility… as we’re alienated by our friends and by our family… we’re reminded of the affection that God has for His people…
We are a people for His own possession… we are His, and He is ours… and no matter what comes our way… no matter what happens to us this side of eternity, because of our faith in Jesus Christ, we are God’s beloved children…
And because we are God’s beloved children… because God has ransomed us and adopted us and formed us into His holy nation, that makes us sojourners and exiles in this world…
Now, this isn’t some new status for people called by God… We stand in a long line of people chosen by God and called to be aliens and strangers in the places where we live.
After Sarah died, Abraham was looking for a place to bury her, and this is what he said to the Hittites:
4 “I am a sojourner and foreigner among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”
And it wasn’t only Abraham… the nation of Israel began their history as aliens in Egypt and lived for long periods of time throughout their history as resident aliens and foreigners in exile…
And now the church… because of our allegiance to Jesus Christ… we’re foreigners and aliens where we live, too…
The common theme that we see here is the idea that God’s people are just passing through… we’re not permanent citizens of the places in which we live…
And what that means is this… we have to re-orient the way we think about ourselves in relation to the society in which we live…
As Christians, we are first citizens of God’s holy nation… and that means that we are not primarily citizens of the nation in which we live.
So for us that means we are first citizens of God’s holy nation… then we are citizens of say… the United States…
And Peter isn’t talking about our legal status… what he’s talking about is where we place our allegiance and our loyalty…
You could be from another country, living in the United States… but if you’re a Christian, your allegiance and your loyalty should be given to God’s kingdom first, before it’s given to anywhere else…
If you’re a Christian, you’re a citizen of God’s holy nation first… then you’re a citizen of New York, or a citizen of the town of Hicksville, or wherever else you might live…
So what that means is, if we find ourselves in a situation where those two entities are in conflict… our allegiance… which means our obedience… has to be first and foremost to God’s kingdom…
But before we even get to the point of obedience, it has to start with what we believe… because what we believe really determines the way that we think… and the way that we think determines the decisions that we make and ultimately the actions that we take…
And that’s why Peter spends so much time in this letter hammering home ideas like election… and the new birth… and our living hope… and our inheritance… and perseverance through trials and tribulations and suffering… and the fact that we are united to Christ and united to one another… and that God Himself dwells in the presence of His people when they’re gathered together… and that we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation… a people for his own possession...
He hammers that home because he knows that it all starts at the level of belief… he knows that as God’s people and citizens of His holy nation, we’re moment by moment… hour by hour… day by day… living and working and functioning in hostile territory…
And the mission that we’re given… to proclaim His excellencies… is in direct opposition to society’s agenda… and it’s going to be met with open hostility…
And if we’re going to persevere as we’re made to suffer because of our faith… our understanding of who we are and all that we’ve been given in Christ has to make it’s way down to the level of belief…
For example, if you don’t fundamentally believe that your citizenship is first and foremost in God’s kingdom, and that’s where your allegiance and your loyalty lies, when your State and local municipalities enact legislation that actively opposes God’s kingdom, what’s your thought process going to be? What are your actions going to look like?
And when I say “believe,” I’m not talking about intellectual knowledge… I’m talking about conviction.
Every professing Christian I know will say that they believe that their citizenship is first and foremost in God’s kingdom… Every professing Christian I know will say that their allegiance is first and foremost to God’s kingdom and that’s where their loyalty lies… but is that their conviction?
Is the belief foundational enough that it will cause them to think and to act in ways that further God’s mission for the church in the face of opposition… or is it just lip-service because they don’t really believe it?
Is the belief foundational enough that you can truly rejoice in the midst of suffering… or does your joy go out the window in the face of opposition from the world?
That’s why Peter started his letter the way that he did… he wants us to believe… he wants that belief to be our conviction… because he knows that’s the only way we’re going to be able to stand firm as sojourners and exiles in a world that’s hostile to God.
And this is something that Peter knew first-hand… there’s a well-known scene from the book of Acts.... Peter and John were arrested for preaching the resurrection of the dead through Jesus Christ… and they brought before the council in Jerusalem and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus…
And how did they respond? They said,
19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, 20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”
So they defied the council’s commands and went on preaching and teaching in the name of Jesus… and they were arrested again… and the council said to them,
28 saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.”
And how did they respond? They said,
29 But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. 30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”
“We must obey God rather than men…”
And how did the council respond?
33 When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them.
So Peter knew what it was like to live as a sojourner and exile in hostile territory…
Now I want you to realize… Peter was a Jew… living in Isreal… in Jerusalem… but he knew primarily that he was first and foremost a citizen of God’s kingdom… a citizen of God’s holy nation…
And he had the conviction that he was chosen and set-apart by God… that he was born again into a living hope… that he had an inheritance that was imperishable, undefiled and unfading… kept in heaven for him… that this world wasn’t his true home…
He had the conviction that what Jesus told him was true when He said,
19 When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour.
And that’s exactly what happened… when he stood before the council, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and he spoke…
And the reason he was able to speak so boldly is because he was filled with the conviction that all of these things were true… he believed it to the point that it determined the way that he thought and ultimately, the way that he acted…
So when we think about our own lives and our own situations… do we understand what the Word of God says is true about us… and does that inform the way that we think and speak and act?
You see, the fact that he believed he was a sojourner and exile, even in his native Israel, caused him to think and to speak and to act in certain ways…
Now, in the ancient world, foreigners… whether they were taking up residence or just passing through… didn’t fully participate in the customs and the practices of their host culture.
And because of that, the societies that they were living in knew, by observing the ways they lived, that they weren’t permanent residents… that they weren’t permanent citizens…
They could tell, by the way the lived their lives, that they were different… that they were from a foreign nation.
One commentator writes, “The moral estrangement Christians experienced in their society was a consequence of not sharing the society’s values and customers. As citizens of God’s holy nation, the Christian was therefore an alien and foreigner in a pagan society, wherever that might have been.”
And that brings us to our second point… as sojourners and exiles, Peter then tells us…
2. How we live: We abstain from sin and live honorably (v. 11, 12)
2. How we live: We abstain from sin and live honorably (v. 11, 12)
Look with me at verses 11-12, it says,
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Peter urges us, “as sojourners and exiles,” to abstain from sin and live honorably…”
He says to, “abstain from the passions of the flesh...”
So what does he mean there? What are the “passions of the flesh”?
Well, the “passions of the flesh” are the natural desires that human beings have apart from the work of the Holy Spirit…
They’re basically the desires we have, if left to our own devices…
As Christians… we’ve been delivered from the penalty of sin… we’ve been delivered from the power of sin… but until Christ returns in Glory, we’re going to have to deal with the presence of sin.
And for the Christian… sin is present in the form of our natural… fallen… human desires…
And these desires wage war against our soul… Now, the way Peter uses the word “soul” here in verse 11… he’s talking about the whole person.
He doesn’t only mean the inner part of a person that thinks and wills and feels and desires… he also means the outer part of a person… the body.
And what he’s saying is this… when you sin… when you give in to the desires of the flesh… it not only affects you spiritually… it affects every part of your life… it impacts your thoughts… it impacts your behavior…
The consequences of sin affect your physical body… I counsel people all the time who are struggling with depression and they’ll tell me that their body hurts… they have aches… they have pains… You can see it in their disposition…
It affects your relationships… look at any person who’s life is characterized by unrepentant sin and you’ll see a wake of broken relationships…
And even when there is repentance, our sin may have outward consequences that stay with us for the rest of our lives.
And these natural desires are desires that we share with the rest of humanity… they’re natural, fallen, human desires that we share with the unbelieving world.
You see, when we turn to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith… and we give our allegiance and our loyalty to Him… Our sins are forgiven and God gives us a new heart with new desires…
And the Holy Spirit of God takes up residence in us… and He gives us power and the ability to act out on these new desires…
So in the power of the Spirit we can actually live in ways that please God…
The problem for us is, because we live in this space between now and glory, we aren’t fully redeemed… yet…
We still have within us natural… fallen… human desires… and these old desires wage war against us…
James writes,
1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
And the thing that we have to understand is… these natural desires are incredibly strong…
James says our passions “are at war within us”… Peter says they “wage war against your soul”.
You see, it’s a battle… and it’s a battle of allegiance…
So what Peter is saying when he writes, “as sojourners and exiles, abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul,” he’s saying is, “Since you’re no longer part of this world… stay away from the natural, human desires that are trying to keep you tied to it.“
In Romans 12:2 Paul writes,
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
When we give in to the passions of the flesh… those passions are conforming us to the world around us… we’re no longer living as sojourners and exiles but we’re being conformed to a pagan society to the point where we’re becoming one of them…
And when that happens, we’re no longer a light to the nations because we’ve become like the nations…
So what are the passions of the flesh and how do we abstain from them?
Well, some of them are quite obvious… Peter even lists a few “social” sins at the beginning of Chapter 2… he writes,
1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
But what are some others? In Chapter 4 of this same letter, Peter writes,
3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.
In Galatians Chapter 5, Paul tells us that the “desires of the flesh” are against the Spirit, and then he tells us what happens when we give in to them… he writes,
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
So those are the obvious ones… what about some not-so-obvious ones?
What about the natural desire that many of us have to please people?
Many of us… myself included… we want people to like us… we want people to be happy with us… we want people to think well of us…
Now, is that inherently a bad thing? No… not at all… but it becomes a bad thing when that natural human desire leads us to do things that oppose the kingdom of God…
For example, if Peter and John were to listen to the council and stop preaching and teaching in the name of Jesus…
They would have allowed their fear of man and their desire to please people to cause them to disobey the clear commands of the Lord…
But no… how did they respond? They said, “We must obey God rather than men…”
You see, it’s a battle of allegiances…
By saying “we must obey God rather than men” what they essentially saying is, “Our allegiance is to the Lord Jesus Christ and we are first and foremost citizens of His kingdom… and because of that, we have to obey Him rather than you.”
So how do we do it? How do we abstain?
Well, it’s a lot like crabs in a bucket… have any of you ever gone crabbing?
Right… what happens? You catch some crabs and you throw them into a bucket… you pile them one on top of another…
And what inevitably starts to happen? Some of the crabs are close to the top and they see a way out… so they start to climb…
And then what happens? The other crabs… the ones toward the bottom… grab on to them and try to pull them back in…
And that’s exactly what it’s like to live as sojourners and exiles in a world that’s constantly trying to pull you back in…
And no matter how hard we try… no matter how hard we strive… it seems like we can’t ever really break free… so how do we do it?
I think for many of us, the problem is, we try and abstain from the passions of the flesh under the strength of our own power…
We try and do it with white-knuckled determination… we try with all of our might to muster the strength… but this is war…
And it’s not just any kind of war… it’s a special kind of war… it’s not a war against flesh and blood but it’s a spiritual war. We’re engaged in spiritual warfare.
So that means we can’t fight a spiritual war with carnal or fleshly means… Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5,
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
So we fight this war with spiritual means… using spiritual weapons… weapons such as prayer and the Word of God…
And as we avail ourselves of these means, the Spirit of God works through them and we change…
We looked earlier at what Paul wrote in Romans Ch. 12… Listen to what he writes… he says,
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
You see, as we deploy the primary weapons of our warfare… prayer and the Word of God… the Spirit of God works through them and our minds are renewed and we’re transformed…
But the war starts in our minds… and through the power of the Holy Spirit we take our thoughts captive… we take them captive and we submit them to the Word of God…
12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
And then… when we get our thinking right… and our thoughts are weighed and measured against the Word of God and the Spirit convicts us where our thinking is wrong…
And then at the moment of choice… we can choose to either abstain from the passions of the flesh… which at first is hard but then later produces a harvest of righteousness…
Or… we can choose to give in to them… which is easy… and we let the crabs pull us down into the bucket and before you know it… we’re doing the exact same thing they are… we surrender to the passions of the flesh and give our allegiances over to the world… and instead of being a light to the nations, we’ve become like the nations…
And believe me… the world is watching… which is why Peter tells us to keep our conduct among the Gentiles honorable…
Now of course, God is watching… Peter reminds us of that back in Chapter 1…
But here in chapter 2, he lets us know that God isn’t the only One…
And what he’s saying is that same conduct… that same Christian lifestyle… that same abstaining from the passions of the flesh… it should, to whatever extent possible, resemble a way of life that even pagans could recognize as “good”.
There’s a well-known saying among Christians that I generally dislike… it’s often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, but no one’s really sure where it came from… but it goes,
“Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.”
Now, I would argue that it’s always necessary to use words when preaching the gospel and if you’re not using words, you’re not preaching the gospel…
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing of the Word of Christ…
But I do think there’s a valid point that we can take away from that saying… and the point is this - not only is it necessary to use words… but it’s also necessary to live a life that backs up what we say…
There shouldn’t be anything in our conduct that would bring reproach to the name of Christ…
Our words and our actions need to be congruent… which is a fancy way of saying they have to match… they have to line up…
Because the unbelieving world is watching, and they can spot from a mile away when Christians aren’t walking their talk…
As we proclaim His excellencies with our mouths, we have to also proclaim them with the way we live… James puts it this way when he writes,
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.
And I think this includes repentance… it includes taking responsibility for our sin and seeking forgiveness from others… And not only does it mean seeking forgiveness, it means granting forgiveness as well…
Nothing brings reproach to the name of Christ and the gospel like bitter, unforgiving Christians who withhold forgiveness from people who have wronged them…
That’s what pagans do… so what does it say about the power of the gospel and the forgiveness of God in Christ in our lives if we’re holding bitterness and unforgiveness in our hearts?
So our lives have to be living demonstrations of the power of the gospel and the mighty works of God… And when we live this way… when we live what what one commentator referred to as “beautiful lives”… when we live in a way that even pagans would call “good,” what happens is… We shine light into darkness and cause the nations to glorify God.
And that’s the final point in your notes…
3. What we do: We shine light into darkness and cause the nations to glorify God (v. 12)
3. What we do: We shine light into darkness and cause the nations to glorify God (v. 12)
Verse 12 says,
12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
What Peter is saying here is this… when we live “beautiful lives”… as engage and interact with the unbelieving world around us and they see our good deeds…
We shine light into darkness…
You see… as sojourners and exiles who haven’t adopted the ways and the customs of the world around us… our lives are different.
We don’t respond to trials and tribulations the way that unbelievers do… we don’t respond to suffering the way the world responds to suffering…
When we’re reviled, we don’t revile in return… when we suffer, we don’t threaten. When someone wrongs us or hurts us, we don’t seek vengeance but we seek to serve them…
The genuine love that believers have for one another is love that the world simply doesn’t have because our love isn’t based on circumstances or feelings or conditions but on God’s love for us…
God first loved us… and therefore… we love one another…
So the unbelieving world sees this… and it’s completely foreign to the way that they live… they see this and they see that even when they slander us and call our good deeds evil, we counter with more good deeds…
This beautiful life will cause them to glorify God on the day of visitation… In Matthew 5:16, Jesus says this…
16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
And Jesus’ words were most certainly what Peter had in mind when made his statement, that our good deeds cause the nations to glorify God…
Peter’s hope was that unbelievers will be compelled to admit that the lifestyle of Christians is morally beautiful… and this would bring them to saving faith in Jesus Christ and God will be glorified on the day of judgement…
You see… our good works have a purpose…
Paul tells us that we were created in Christ Jesus for God works… which God prepared beforehand… that we should walk in them.
And the purpose of our good works is to cause unbelievers to glorify God on the day of visitation…
Now, Peter was aware that not all will be saved when they observe the lives of believers… in Chapter 3:15-16 he writes,
15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
But never the less, his hope was that they would notice the goodness of our lives and some will repent and be saved, and as a result of their salvation, God will be glorified…
So the question I want us to ask ourselves is this… how does that happen if our lives are indistinguishable from the world’s?
One of the biggest platforms where believers have an opportunity engage with and interact with the world these days is social media…
And if you’d go on social media right now, you’d find plenty of posts from Christians… The problem is, if you didn’t know these people were Christians, you certainly wouldn’t be able to tell from what they post…
I’ve been guilty of this myself… so I’m talking to me as much as I’m talking to anyone else… but if you think about it… if social media is one of the biggest platforms we have to engage with the world, it’s one of the biggest opportunities for us to shine light into darkness…
Think about it… on social media right now all we see are posts about what’s wrong with the world… and don’t get me wrong…
I know for a lot of us, social media is one of the only outlets where we can plug in and find out what’s going on in the world… but think about this…
If most of what we see on social media is posts about what’s wrong with the world… in stead of joining in with them, we shined light into darkness?
In stead of joining in with complaining about politics and the government… and yes… I know… we feel like we need to make people aware… but instead of joining in with the complaining and adding to the fear and the worry and the anxiety…
What if we countered the fear and the worry and the anxiety with hope?
Social media is the perfect opportunity for us to shine light into darkness… and because it’s so pervasive… because it’s virtually everywhere… and because just about the whole world is on it… it’s all the more important that we keep our conduct honorable when we engage the world on it…
Why? So that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation…
In a world that is shrouded in darkness… we bring the light…
Earlier, we quoted Jesus from Matthew 5:16… he said,
16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
But listen to the verses that come just before it...
13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.
14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
Brothers and sisters… we are the light of the world… and all too often we put our light under a basket when we engage with the world on social media…
We need to let our light sine… we need to live as sojourners and exiles there…
And I know that there are a lot of us who aren’t on social media for that reason… because all you find there is negativity and dissension and debate… and you want no part of it… I certainly understand…
But think about other places where you routinely engage with the world… wether at work… or at school… or in the public square… or with your unbelieving families and neighbors…
Think about all those spheres of life and ask yourself… have I lost my saltiness… have I hidden my light under a basket… or am I letting my light shine before men, so that they may see my good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation?
Conclusion
Conclusion
Beloved, as God’s chosen people… as God’s holy nation… as people who have been called out of darkness and into His marvelous light…
As we engage with and interact with the world, is it evident that we are sojourners and exiles? Is it evident that we’re citizens of another nation… that our loyalties and our allegiances belong somewhere else?
When the world looks at how we live, is it evident that we’re just passing through, or does it look more like we’ve taken up permanent residence?
These are hard questions to ask… but we have to ask them because now more than ever… the world needs our light.
Now more than ever, we need to take seriously Peter’s call to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against our soul… Now more than ever, we need to take seriously Peter’s call to keep our conduct among the gentiles honorable, so that they may see our good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation...
You see, most of the people we interact with on a daily basis have completely lost hope… and for good reason…
We of all people know that hope set on anything other than the Lord Jesus Christ is no hope at all…
And now more than ever it’s become evident to the world that we can’t set our hope on people… we can’t set our hope on the government or in our politicians… we can’t set our hope on money…
God has brought that all crashing down in an instant…
We can’t set our hope on the idea that things will continue to be the way they’ve always been… if the last 6 months have showed us anything, it’s made that obvious…
But the thing we can’t miss is this… it’s made that obvious to just about everyone… Now more than ever, people are looking for somewhere to put there hope…
And we have the answer… You see… the world looks around and wonders why things are the way they are… it doesn’t make any sense to them.
But we know… the world is the way that it is because of sin… the world is the way it is because the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places have declared war.
But what the world also doesn’t know is that these spiritual forces of darkness have been put to open shame, because Christ our Savior has come…
He cancelled our record of debt… nailing it to the cross… He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame… triumphing over them and reconciling all things… whether on earth or in heaven… making peace by the blood of His cross…
And if you want to know what it’s like to have true peace… if you want to know what it’s like to have hope in a world that is completely without hope… if you want to know what it’s like to have your sins forgiven… to have the record of debt that stands against you canceled…
If you want to know what that’s like, turn to Jesus today… right now… right where you’re sitting…
He said,
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
He invites you to come to Him today…
Let’s pray…