Born to Live

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever experienced a time in your life when you felt as if you just can’t breath? Your heart is pounding out of your rib cage and your mind is racing 100 miles an hour. Maybe we have even asked ourselves the existential questions: Where am I? How did I get here? What if I did now? If I only had a year to live, what would I do? While the sudden panic attack subsides after a few minutes, and I start to get my bearings again, it felt like hours of contemplation.

By nature I tend to be a fairly high strung individual, in case you haven’t notice. I don’t hide it under this calm demeanor - I put it out there. I’m intense-so what? My confession this morning isn’t meant to draw on your sympathy or admiration. The truth is that I can honestly relate to the core of 1 Peter’s message: I am journeying through this world of ours and again, and again, how far I am from living up to who I am meant to be for the kingdom of God.

If you are like me, you’re slow to offer yourself GRACE. First Peter is about acknowledging your weaknesses, and that it’s only the grace of God that is worth having in Jesus that amounts to anything in this life. First Peter is about humbling your mind. It is not about calming down, but learning to rest in God’s goodness. In this letter, Peter tells us how to endure the struggles that we are going to face. Oh, and yes they are coming, and show true love to others, follow leadership well, and lead others well.

In First Peter we are going to learn that no matter what we encounter, it is possible to find peace in who God is and what he wants to do. There is a way for us refugees on this earth - us Christians - to find “home” in Jesus.

ILLUSTRATION

Positive Thinking

Do you tend to see the glass as half empty or half full? You have probably heard that question plenty of times. Your answer relates directly to the concept of positive thinking and whether you have a positive or negative outlook on life. Positive thinking plays an important role in positive psychology, a sub-field devoted to the study of what makes people happy and fulfilled.

Is there any power in Positive thinking?

One definition for positive thinking is “the act of reviewing thought processes in order to identify areas that need improvement, and then using the appropriate tools to change those thoughts in a positive, goal-oriented way.”

The idea of the power of positive thinking was popularized by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale in his book The Power of Positive Thinking (1952). According to Peale, people can change future outcomes and events by “thinking” them into existence. The power of positive thinking promotes self-confidence and faith in oneself; it leads naturally to a false belief in the “law of attraction,” as Peale wrote, “When you expect the best, you release a magnetic force in your mind which by a law of attraction tends to bring the best to you.” Of course, there is nothing biblical about one’s mind emanating a “magnetic force” that pulls good things into one’s orbit. In fact, there is much unbiblical about such a notion.

Rene Decartes - “I think therefore I am”

NOTE: In many way’s this idea has crept into what is called the prosperity Gospel, or name it claim it. “I speak it therefore it will happen, and if it does not happen then I must not have enough faith.”

Big Idea: True Christianity is like swimming upstream in a river of hopelessness.

NOTE: Notice that Peter is telling Christians what they are experiencing, if they are genuinely Saved. Peter wants to describe in simple terms what true Christianity really is. Also, if they every walk away, or stray away from this inexpressible joy they will remember, or have a focal point of where they need to get back to.

I picture it like this (it's not a perfect picture, but it helped me get a handle on why Peter would tell them about their own experience): True Christianity is like swimming upstream in a river of godlessness—for us, secular American godlessness. We swim with the stroke of love to Christ, and the stroke of faith in Christ, and the stroke of joy in Christ. And while we swim, we do not get swept away with the godless toward the terrible current of judgment down river.

God keeps us, as verse 5 said, through faith. He enables us to keep on swimming against the stream with the strokes of faith, love, and joy, so that we don't get carried away in the current of Godlessness.

1.The Origin of genuine hope

1 Peter 3a

Genuine Faith is not an idle wish, it’s not something you can manufacture and fake!

All real hope is established by God through Christ.

HOPE: The idea of an assured confidence in God, whose goodness and mercy are to be trusted, and relied upon, and whose promises cannot fail.

LIVING: One of God’s intentions in the regeneration. This also, points to the emphasis in verse 4 of the permanent nature of what is yet to come.

CAUSED: Aorist, Active, Participle, being brought to new life in the past, this is an action done by God alone in the past, much like at the point of conception in a new life, however, there is not a set gestation period of time. Therefore, this is act does not have a set ending.

AGAIN: Bringing to a previous position of condition once more.

Illustration

John Paul Sartre - gives a vision of Hell in his play “Not Exit.”

Two women and a man, doomed to a state of eternal punishment, enter a room that seems to threaten no torment. But they are sentenced to remain together in that same room for ever - without sleep and without eyelids. All three enter with pretensions about their past. The man pretends that he was a hero of the revolution. When in reality, he was killed in a train wreck when he tried to escape after betraying his comrades. The women have even more sordid lives. In the forced intimacy of the room their guilty secrets are all wrung out. Nothing can be hidden, and nothing can be changed. Sartre’s imagination has well prepared us for his famous line, ‘Hell is other people.’ But the moral of the play is the line of doom to which the drama moves: ‘You are your life, and nothing else.

Sartre rejected Christianity, but his play invites heart-searching.

Who wants to say that he is what he has been rather than what he meant to be, or what he hopes to be? Sartre implies that hell begins when hope ends. Sartre’s image falls far short of the reality of hell, for God’s judgment exposes sinners not simply to the lidless eyes of other sinners, but to the all-seeing gaze of God himself.

Sartre reminds us of how desperately we need hope. While there is life, there is hope, we say. But if hope dies, what life can remain?

All real hope is a gift of God’s mercy.

Born Again: The re-birth is based on God’s mercy.

BORN: Regeneration of a living organism. Much like regrowing tissue of an organ. Bringing new and vigorous life.

What is real Mercy? How have you experienced God’s true Mercy?

Illustration:

We used to play a game called mercy. We would interlock fingers with someone, the game started when you and the other person began to wrench each others fingers around until someone yelled mercy. This is the majority of the worlds idea of mercy, seeing how much we can take before we cry out for help. Many people do this with God, they have not use for his mercy much of the time until things get really bad then we cry out for his mercy. The one think that this kind of mercy will not get you is into the kingdom of God. This mercy is based on your circumstances, the mercy that Christ showed us at the Cross had nothing to do with anything you have done to deserve or gain God’s favor.

All real hope is a result of our Salvation. (we were born into a living hope.)

NOTE: The hope that Peter is writing about is not what we call a fond hope. We cherish fond hopes because they are so fragile. We hope’ against hope’ because we do not really expect what we hope for.

Peter writes of a sure hope, a hope that holds the future in the present because it is anchored in the past.

NOTE: Peter’s encouraging statement regarding the believers Salvation transitions into the more somber discussion of the current reality of persecution, a “many sided series of trials.” Peter’s audience was facing the line in the sand of many different kinds of testings.

2.The foundation of genuine hope

1 Peter 3b

The foundation of our hope is through the Resurrection.

The resurrection of Jesus is crucial in forming genuine hope. (It makes all the difference.) Note that Peter does not mention Jesus death here as he did in the opening. In the resurrection we see evidence for the imperishable, secure inheritance that awaits us in heaven.

NOTE: The resurrection of Jesus was life-changing and completely transformational for Peter. When Jesus died on the cross, it was the end of all Peter’s hope. He knew only bitter sorrow for his own denials. The dawn could not bring hope; with the crowing of the rooster he heard the echo of his own curses.

Hope was reborn in Peter’s heart with the sight of his living Lord. Everyday should be resurrection day in your life and mine. Now Peter writes and praises God about a living hope.

NOTE: The great renewal has begun, at the triumphant dawn on the third day after Jesus death. That new day has already dawned for you and me. When we speak of new birth, we think of the change that God’s grace works in us. We are brought from death to life.

NOTE: Christ has not only made Salvation possible, he had made it a sure thing! Jesus Christ is the only sure thing in your life.

Some have seen this whole letter as a instruction that is given in a service for a Baptismal service. 1 Peter 3:21

Like Paul, Peter also speaks of baptism as the sign of our union with Christ in his death and resurrection.

The foundation of our Hope is anchored in the past.

NOTE: Peter focuses not so much on the visible sign, but on the spiritual reality of our new LIFE IN CHRIST.

MAKE NO MISTAKE: it is the Father who gives new birth to his children through the resurrection of Christ. Remember Jesus said at Lazarus death, “I am the resurrection and the Life,” do you believe this?

How does our Church culture fall back into the power of positive thinking: Anytime we try to attach any other requirement to Salvation.

3.The durability of genuine hope.

1 Peter 4-5

INHERITANCE (NT). The Gk terms are klēronomia, “inheritance”; klēronomein, “to inherit”; klēronomôs, “heir”; sugklēronomos, “joint heir.” In the NT the content of the terms can move all the way from a simple judicial concern for personal property (Luke 12:13) to a heavenly and imperishable inheritance beyond history (1 Pet 1:4). What is distinctive is the way NT writers relate their varied uses of inheritance language to Jesus Christ and to his followers.

NOTICE: Up to this point Peter has used the plural person distinction, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he has caused us to be born again.” Now he turns to the first person singular, “kept in heaven for you, in this you rejoice.”

KEPT: verb (past and past participle kept)

1 have or retain possession of.

▶ retain or reserve for use in the future.

▶ put or store in a regular place.

▶ (of a perishable commodity) remain in good condition.

2 continue or cause to continue in a specified condition, position, or activity: keep away from the edge | she kept quiet about it.

NOTE: What does it mean to be kept in heaven? The inheritance of God’s people is the new creation in which the “home of God is among his people, to establish the new Jerusalem in the midst of the nations, and to make creation home of his own righteousness. God reigns in the new creation with his own presence, holiness, and glory, the inheritance of God’s people in turn participates in the eternal qualities of God’s own life; it is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.

ILLUSTRATION

How many have ever secretly wished you had some rich relative that would die and leave you a fortune. Son’s and daughters of wealthy people are heirs to the family fortune. I have told my children before, sorry you are out of luck with us. Daddy Warbucks I am not. Peter had heard Jesus talk about a better treasure stored up in heaven; no moths are there to eat the robes of glory, no rust can corrode the crowns of gold, and no thieves can break in the city of God. God gave the land to Israel as an inheritance, and in the land he gave every tribe and family an inheritance, with the lasting right of ownership. While they wondered in the wilderness, the New Testament people of God are aliens and pilgrims. They make their way through a world that is becoming more hostile. Yet they are not wondering beggars, cast off from their possessions. They hold a sure title to the inheritance God has given them.

NOTE: The Salvation that God has prepared for us does not need any final touches from us. It comes to us already perfected in the person of Christ Jesus. Have you ever secretly wished you could experience perfection just once in you life? The only perfection you will ever experience is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Cultural Note: The thinking that gets in the way of us truly experiencing all that he has for us here in this life and the life to come is our own humanity that continues to try and seek our own perfection and glory.

It is an imperishable inheritance. (speaks of its essence)

NOTE: We no longer suffer the corrosion of sin, bondage, and death.

The Land of Israel was at times ravaged and destroyed by invading armies. The prophet Isaiah describes the utter destruction of the whole world in God’s Judgement.

“The Earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered......”

It is an undefiled inheritance. (speaks of it’s purity)

God declares that he gave Israel a fertile land, ‘But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable. Israel’s inheritance, was defiled first by heathen inhabitants, then by Israel’s idolatry. In total contrast, to the inheritance we have that is undefiled.

It is an unfading inheritance. (speaks of it’s beauty)

NOTE: Even the greatest treasure here on this earth will tarnish and fade over time. The light of God’s glory is unfading, time has no effect on the inheritance he has prepared for us.

Matthew 6:21 “For where you treasure is there your heart will be also.

READ Matthew 6:19-34

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Illustration

Scientific American magazine reports a lot of confusion and disagreement as to exactly what is genuine authenticity. We are taught to be ourselves and to get in touch with our "real self." In recent years a science of authenticity has arisen in order to discover what the authentic self truly is. As Scientific American reports it “Turns out, authenticity is a real mess.”

The writer asks the perplexing questions:

- Are you being most authentic when you are being consistent with your emotions?

- Or are you being most authentic when you are consistent with your beliefs?

- Which is the real authenticity? Was it the time you really gave that waiter a piece of your mind? Or that time you didn't tell the waiter how you really felt about their dismal performance because you value kindness?

The famous psychotherapist Carl Rogers observed that many people are asking “Who am I, really?” The latest research finds that … many people report authenticity when they … express compassion toward others or are living for something bigger than themselves.

Possible Preaching Angle: As Christians we recognize our truest authenticity as we follow God and become more conformed to Christ. It is when we follow our beliefs and not our emotions that we are most genuine.

4.The Power of Genuine hope.

1 Peter 4:6-7

vs. 6 Begins with “in this” this may be a reference to “in the last time” meaning Peter understands that suffering Christians are living in the last days. Whatever the case it assures Christians that whatever their struggles might be, their sufferings are a shared in in the sufferings of Christ, so they will also rejoice when his glory is revealed.

NOTE: Peter sees his own age as the “end time,” then the suffering of the righteous community of the faithful, they are a sign of our unity with Christ.

Cultural Problem: Modern readers do not feel that the return of Christ is imminent. Why? perhaps it’s because our faith is not being tested, or we go out of our way to avoid persecution or difficult situations when it comes to boldly standing on the truth of God’s word. The Power of Genuine Hope comes when it is tested by suffering. There is no urgency in the modern world we live in.

It helps us face our trials with courage.

Guarded: The same power of God that is keeping our heavenly inheritance as if we could loose it, is keeping it under guard. The same word used for being under protective custody. God has put us under arrest, as it were, to keep us safe for his day. It’s much like the pillar of fire as the Israelites were fleeing captivity in Egypt. God formed a wall of fire between the Israelites and the advancing chariots from Egypt. In the same way God has put up a wall of fire to protect and keep you safe for the day of his return. Come on let me here it Church. Does that not make you want to shout from the top of your lungs, Hallelujah.

Cultural NOTE: A testimony of the truth of the Gospel stirs up anger, taunting, skepticism, accused of being closed minded, the aim of which is to demonstrate that the righteous are not in fact what they appear to be. The distinctive behavior of believers under trial witnesses to the power and truth of the gospel. Other forms of suffering such as natural disasters or catastrophic illnesses are not in view here.

The danger here is that at the hand of such trials it will shake our faith, especially through consistent prodding of friends and associates. Interacting with people who do not share our faith much of the time. It is easy for believers today to feel that something must be wrong with their witness to the faith when family and friends do not come to share that faith.

It helps us to face our trials with joy.

TRIALS SHOW THAT INDIVIDUALS AND THEIR CHURCHES ARE SUCCEEDING IN PLACING THE CHALLENGE OF THE GOSPEL BEFORE THE WORLD.

NOTE: People have asked at times why isn’t Christianity more effective?

The top two reasons people gave for not wanting to Go to Church are:

1) It’s Boring

2) It’s not relevant to their life.

It’s easy for believers at times to feel that something must be wrong with their witness to the faith when family and friends do not come to share the same faith. Grandparents, or parents may speak with frustration over the lack of religion among their kids or grandchildren. Why isn’t Christianity more effective? However, if that were really true then Jesus suffering as the righteous lamb of God would make no sense. In fact it would be the greatest travesty of injustice that the world has ever known.

NOTE: Jesus did not choose to overwhelm his enemies with power. Persuasion, love, and faith are very different realities. They leave the pathway for rejection or merely civilized disregard wide open. So “rejoice,” 1 Peter says. Trials show that individuals and their churches are succeeding in placing the challenge of the gospel before the world.

Cultural Note: Perhaps the true reason that people feel that Church is boring, or irrelevant is because they have failed the genuine test. They are living a cheap imitation faith, one that is not genuine faith that has been tested by fire.

ALL THAT COUNTS IS THE FAITH THAT IS PROVED BY TRIALS.

NOTE: It’s worth is incomparable it cannot be evaluated by this worlds standards. The value of a testimony to the Lord will only be known when he turns in glory that causes us to:

We have a deep Love for a person we have never seen. We have a deep longing to go to a place we have never been.

WHAT DOES A JOY THAT IS INEXPRESSIBLE LOOK LIKE?

Note: Sometimes we have a tendency to evaluate the performance of Christians in the present. Sometimes the Christian message is “sold” with the promise that accepting Jesus as Savior will lead to personal peace and prosperity in this life. First Peter insists that such promises are false. All that counts is the “faith proved by trials.” It’s worth cannot be evaluated in the present.

James 1:2 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.”

Philippians 1:29 “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him but also suffer.”

CLOSING

True Christianity is inexpressible Joy in the invisible Christ.

True Christianity is like swimming upstream in a river of godlessness—for us, secular American godlessness. We swim with the stroke of love to Christ, and the stroke of faith in Christ, and the stroke of joy in Christ. And while we swim, we do not get swept away with the godless toward the terrible current of judgment down river.

God keeps us, as verse 5 said, through faith. He enables us to keep on swimming against the stream with the strokes of faith, love, and joy, so that we don't get carried away in the current of Godlessness.

Our swimming coach, the apostle Peter, is on the shore watching us and following us. When we are swimming well, he calls out to us, "Look here, you're doing well, I'm putting a flag here even with where you are in the river. Now mark this. This is where you are." That's what he's doing in verses 8 and 9.

The reason is so that if we stop using the swimming strokes of love for Jesus, and faith in Jesus, and joy in Jesus, and begin to just float downstream in the river of godlessness, we will be able to wake up and look to the shore and notice that the flag is upstream.

We will have a fixed point of reference to call us back to what real Christianity is.

APPLICATION

Where are you at today in the river? Are you just floating going with the current of the culture and world today, or are you swimming upstream with the inexpressible joy of Christ to guide you? It’s allot easier sometimes to just float along with the rest of the world.

If this is you then I want you to do something this morning. Take a piece of paper sometime today, or even before you leave this morning. I want you write down at least 5 ways you have experienced the inexpressible joy of Christ in your life. This week I want you to take time to meditate on and recapture the inexpressible joy of Christ in your life. (note some of the times I have experienced the inexpressible joy of Christ in my life have been through some of my greatest struggles.)

If you cannot think of one time where you can honestly say that you have experienced the inexpressible joy of Christ in your life that only comes through being born into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, then today the inexpressible Joy of Christ needs to come to your house.

Not physical house but spiritual house, your body and being.