Collierville First Baptist Church

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Hey, it's so good to see you. I am John Aaron, Pastor John Aaron here, discipleship and missions pastor. And it's been about seven months since I've been here, since we first came and we're loving it and we love you. We're so glad God brought us here. I get to have the privilege of preaching for Pastor Chuck this evening or speaking with you and going through God's word. And it's not about the messenger, it's about the message. So I know for those of you who are disappointed that Pastor Chuck's not here, I'm gonna be reading the same Bible that he reads. So we're good.

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Now, Pastor Chuck is, he's suffering

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on a cruise in Europe right now. (Congregation Laughing) He's celebrating his 50th anniversary and he's seriously with Darlene on a river cruise going through Europe. And so that's where he's at. And we're gonna pray for him, pray for safety, pray that they enjoy their anniversary and their time away.

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But it's my privilege to speak to y'all this evening. And it's also my daughter's birthday today. So I got to spend daddy daughter time with her all day. And so it's just been a great day and it's gonna end really well with the word. And so I'm just grateful to gather. So let me go ahead and go to Lord in prayer with you.

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Father, we thank you so much for this evening. I thank you that you've given us your word, that your word is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword.

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God, I pray that it will divide us, that it will divide us in the way that you want it to and the way that it will convict us of sin,

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maybe divide and do surgery to remove some things from our lives.

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Maybe Lord, that you will help us to hear your word and apply it to our lives and make some changes in our life as well by your word. So I pray that we'll be doers of the word, not just hearers only. Lord, we wanna lift up Pastor Chuck and Darlene. God, we're so thankful for them.

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We're thankful that they've been able to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. Lord, we pray for Pastor Chuck's cold and sore throat that he's been dealing with, and I pray that it just won't be a hindrance to them as they enjoy their time together. God, I thank you for this church. This is your church, Lord, that you have built and are still building. And so Lord, we pray that you'll have your way. God, I wanna lift up all those that are dealing with difficulties, difficult seasons, health issues, loved ones, or maybe people in the room. Lord, God, you know them. I pray you'll draw near to them, bring them comfort and peace, that you will just let your word remind them of your faithfulness and your goodness. It's in Jesus' name I pray. And all God's people said, amen. Let's go ahead and get going. We'll just jump right in.

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Go ahead and open your Bibles if you have not yet to 1 Peter chapter one.

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And so just kind of opening up here, wanna talk about how, really ask the question, have there been times when life didn't go as you expected?

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Or am I the only one? Am I the only one? No. There are times when life doesn't go as we expect. There can be a big gap between our idealistic expectations and reality.

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So one unrealistic expectations is when we think about couples. When I've talked with people who are getting married, there's sometimes, there's always a test to find out, okay, how idealistic this couple is? Because some couples believe that once they get married, all their problems will just go away. It's just gonna solve all the issues. And so no one prepares you for the death match battles over how to load and unload the dishwasher, how to operate a vehicle, how to fold towels, sweep the floor, use coasters. Yes, I'm speaking from experience.

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And my wife is here and she is always right. But I didn't know that there were more than one ways to fold towels. I didn't know there's different places that you put the spoons and the forks. And so we just had to work through that. And so there's things that we do not expect, issues that come up in life. It just happens.

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And so the book of 1 Peter is a letter written to first century Christians who were concerned, confused, and discouraged because their new life in Christ wasn't going the way they expected. They were facing troubles within the church and persecution for their faith. And Peter writes to remind them who they are in Christ

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and what they are called to endure as they follow Him until He returns.

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So let's just list some more things that can be difficult, more difficult in this life than we can expect.

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Marriage in a broken world is difficult because it's two broken people joining to become one. Parenting sometimes is much harder than expected. Can I get an amen from anybody?

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Family relationships can be strained. Careers can have unexpected setbacks.

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Health can suddenly decline.

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Living as a citizen of both a nation and the kingdom of God can be difficult to manage.

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Loving everyone in the church can be a challenge. And then you add onto this just the things that happen in this world like sudden loss, poverty, natural disasters, and persecution.

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We find out that there's a lot to this life that we cannot anticipate. So the passage we look at tonight will help us have the proper perspective when things don't go the way we expect them. So in 1 Peter chapter one, I'm gonna start with verses one and two.

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It says this, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God and Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. What a great prayer that Peter begins to start his message to the church. And the apostle Peter is the author of this book, obviously named after him, 1 and 2 Peter.

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Even the book of Mark is written by John Mark, who was a companion of Peter. So in a lot of ways, the gospel of Mark has also been influenced heavily by Peter as well. So he's got these two epistles plus the gospel of Mark with John Mark there. Apostles were the first Christian leaders commissioned directly by Christ. One question I commonly have had with college students is what's the difference between a disciple and apostle?

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And so here, try to make that distinct. The apostles were the first Christian leaders commissioned directly by Christ. And so the 12 disciples were then commissioned out as his apostles. Paul was also referred to as an apostle, as he saw him and was knocked down and blinded on that road and called to be a missionary and sent out by the Gentiles. So Paul also has that name apostle.

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Peter was one of the 12, the original 12 disciples in Christ's inner circle with James and John. So James, John and Peter, Jesus discipled many people, there were many disciples and he had his 12 that he called and they had three that he invested in. And with each one of those, Peter, James and John, he pulled them aside for some one-on-one discipleship. So Peter was one of those. Peter's life was filled with highs and low, high highs and low lows.

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Peter walked on water and then sank. Peter confessed Christ and later denied him three times.

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Peter had a past, but he was redeemed, filled with the spirit and sent out as a faithful witness of the risen Jesus.

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So does anyone else have a past that has needed redeeming?

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All of us have a past. We all need to be redeemed, but praise God.

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Praise God he gives new life, amen. So Peter reminds us, your past does not define your future.

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So many in our church right now are starting new schools. My wife is starting a new job as a first grade teacher at Briar Crest. We've got some students in the room. We've got people who are beginning things new and it just reminds us that God's mercies are new every morning. So I know Peter was grateful that the Lord strengthened him before recommissioning him out to shepherd the sheep of Jesus. And so here Peter is writing to, it says the elect exiles of the dispersion, the elect exiles of the dispersion. So let's just jump into that and get into what does that mean? He's addressing it to the elect exiles. What does elect mean?

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Those who have put their faith in Christ and become children of God. So I wanna address this because it's in the word, but it's not to be controversial in any way. We're just addressing it with biblical verses and just addressing it as God's word says, but basically it's Christians. Christians, we're referred to throughout scripture as the elect in some way in many places, as the church, as the elect, as those chosen and redeemed children of God. God had the plan of salvation to ransom sinners, adopt them and prepare them as his church, which was referred to as his bride, purified by faith in Christ, to live forever with him in heaven. So you and I, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, God calls us children. He calls us his children. He calls us elect. He calls us chosen. He calls us a rural priesthood.

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And none of that we deserve, but Jesus has lavished his love upon us and he has given us so much grace. Romans 8.28 through 30 says, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

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And those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified. God has a plan and he has a plan for you and he loves you. And he's called you and he has a purpose for you. John 3.16 says, whoever believes in him

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can be part of that elect group. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever or whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Peter is speaking to Christians,

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people from all kinds of backgrounds, but people who have called upon the name of the Lord to be saved. And so he's now speaking to them and he's encouraging them by saying you're special, you're loved, you may feel terrible with what you're going through right now, but you have been chosen by God and he loves you. You've been made on purpose and for a purpose.

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We see in 1 Timothy 2 that God desires all people to be saved. The Bible says here, this is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. Later on in Peter's epistles, 2 Peter 3.9, it says he is patient not wishing that any should perish. It says the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

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So bottom line, God is sovereign and he has made salvation possible through Christ. If you have faith in Jesus, God will use every twist and turn, every suffering you endure to shape you for eternity. Therefore, the church must share the gospel and make disciples. God is being patient. Isn't that good to hear? It's like, Lord, when are you gonna come back? Lord, when are you coming? Is it gonna be tomorrow? Is it gonna be in a few years? And Pastor Chucks, he's gonna start going through a series on Daniel and he's gonna be talking about some different things and he refers to end times and that's great for us to think about, but we need to think about it in this way.

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God is being patient right now because he could just say enough and one day he will. One day he'll say, that is enough.

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And in that one moment, his wrath will be poured out

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and his grace to all those who have their faith in Christ will also be poured out at the same time.

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And that will be the end, but until that time, it says he's being patient because he so desires

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our friends and our neighbors and our loved ones to come and to find repentance. So we should use that as motivation to say, until Jesus comes, let's go. Let's go and make disciples. Let's go and share the gospel. We've got some work to do church. God is building his church. So what does exiles mean? So elect exiles. The church was together in Acts two, we see that. It says they were all together in the upper room

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and so it was not just the disciples, but it was many, many disciples were there. I've been to what they believe is the upper room. It's a big place, it can hold probably 100 people.

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And so God has, they were all together, but then persecution arose and scattered believers. In Acts chapter eight, one through four, we see this. It says, and Saul approved, remember Saul who later became the apostle Paul, and Saul approved of his execution, meaning Stephen. And there arose on that day, a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him, but Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. You hear it talking about those who were scattered.

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This great persecution happened and it says that they were scattered, but those who were scattered continued to preach the word. So in Acts chapter two, in verse 41, it says 3,000 were added to the church that very first day. And so for a time, the church existed in Jerusalem, but when that persecution happened, they all scattered throughout the world.

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And so Peter's writing to Christians, living as foreigners, suffering persecution, but God used the scattering to fulfill Acts 1.8 to be his witnesses. The gospel's going to the ends of the earth.

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Isn't it good how God uses some things that we don't expect, some things that seem terrible, but he has a way of using those things for his glory and our good.

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There's times in my life where I'm like, okay, Lord, this is gonna be a hard one, but I know you've got it. I know you can work this one out for good. I'm trusting you. And it may not be till I get to heaven that I know how he's gonna work this difficult situation out, but I have faith that God's word is true when he says he'll work all things together for good, for his glory and for our good.

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So in a very real sense, you and I, along with all Christians everywhere, are living as exiles in this world because this is not our home, right? Heaven is our home. And so right now he's speaking, Peter's speaking to some specific exiles,

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but it was part of God's plan. He used that persecution to spread the gospel.

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And here we can say, well, we're living in the place. Maybe we're living in the United States if this is where you were born. Maybe you were born in Tennessee or in Collierville specifically, and you've been here and you don't feel like an exile.

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But we should feel like exiles because this is not our home. Heaven is our home. Let's not get too comfortable. We're just passing through. And it will be our home in heaven for all of eternity.

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So, however, there are differing degrees of suffering and persecution. While we're all exiles, what the early church was facing was terrible persecution.

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Tertullian was the name of a early church father in the second century. And he was quoted as saying, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."

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The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

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Tertullian lived in Carthage, North Africa during the height of Christian persecution. In those days, believers were fed to lions, sawed in half, burned alive, and imprisoned for their faith. And so at that time, Tertullian wrote, "Kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to dust.

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Your injustice is the proof that we are innocent."

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The more often we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow. The blood of Christians is a seed.

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That's some tough language from a man

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who had faith in Jesus and was leading the church through a very difficult time. But how amazing, how true did his words prove to be? Nothing stopped Jesus building his church and the spread of the gospel. They could not extinguish it. And people gave their life. They would not renounce Jesus. They would not deny their Lord and their Savior.

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And so they were killed for sport.

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So Christians throughout history have endured immense persecution. So I just wanna take a moment to look at what does persecution look like today? In India, there may be women,

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a woman who watches her sister dragged away. In North Korea, a man can be beaten in a prison camp. In Nigeria, a pregnant woman may flee a jihadist group called the Boko Haram. In Afghanistan, a pastor may receive death threats or even much worse.

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So in 2023, the persecution, the global Christian persecution statistics were that 360 million plus Christians face a high level of persecution.

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For me, that's hard to fathom. It's hard for me to consider. But there are Christians today, millions, hundreds of millions who are facing a high degree of persecution where they live.

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In the year 2023, it was recorded that almost 6,000 were killed,

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that over 5,000 churches were attacked, that over 6,000 Christians were imprisoned, and almost 4,000 Christians were abducted for their faith.

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The top 10 most persecuted nations on that list are Afghanistan, North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Eritrea, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, and India.

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So it's sobering, it was sobering to me to hear this, and I wanted to share it with you because these are our brothers and our sisters in Christ who we are eternally connected into the same family.

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And so let's take a moment, I just wanna say a prayer,

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and I wanna just ask the Lord to help us to remember to pray for our brothers and sisters who are enduring persecution. Father, I pray that you'll just help us to understand in some capacity, Lord.

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Some compassion, Lord, our brothers and sisters who are enduring difficulty and hardship, high degree of physical persecution.

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Lord, I thank you for them, I thank you for their bold witness, and I pray that their persecution will be used for your glory. I trust that you will bring it for good.

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God, we do know that in these most highly persecuted areas are also the places where the gospel is growing and spreading the most, so we thank you for that, Lord.

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And we just wanna lift up our brothers and sisters who are in difficulty or who are worshiping in secret. And God, I pray that you'll just bring them peace,

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bring them comfort, and help us as a church know how we can continue to work with other churches,

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partnering with other churches here in our nation

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to support our brothers and sisters around the world. Lord, we love you and we trust you. And it's in Jesus' name I pray, amen.

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So despite this, Peter reminds us, we have a living hope in Christ. So do you see who he's speaking to? He's wanting, as an apostle called by Jesus,

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he's writing a letter to encourage his brothers and sisters to persevere, to press on, to keep the faith. And he's reminding them who they are, and he's reminding them that the one that they worship

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is alive, and his words are true. So 1 Peter chapter one, verse three says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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"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."

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We are, this verse says, "Born again to a living hope "through the resurrection of Christ."

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In English, hope implies doubt, like I hope, I really hope this works out. I hope that it doesn't rain today. I hope that this employee gets the job done this time. I hope things turn out differently. It expresses some level of doubt.

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But in Hebrew, hope is confident expectation. Hebrew and in Greek, in biblical languages, hope is referred to as confident expectation. I have a hope in Jesus Christ, and he is alive. And so it's saying, I have a reason to persevere because my hope is not in this world. My hope is firmly resting on Jesus Christ. Hebrews 11, one says, "Now faith is the assurance "of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." So there's hope and conviction there in the same Bible passage, hoped for. And we have conviction that we know, even though we can't see it, this is a reality. We have faith. Our hope is living because Jesus is alive. Colossians 3, verse one says, "If then you have been raised with Christ, "seek the things that are above where Christ is, "seated at the right hand of God."

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In 1 Peter chapter one, four through five, it says, "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 a salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." So right now, Jesus is present in heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father. The Holy Spirit is present in this world and God in us, Christ in us, through the power of the Holy Spirit, our great comforter, our counselor. So God himself dwells within believers.

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Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus is present on the right side of the Father.

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And there is an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading. Think about how encouraging this must be for believers who fled Jerusalem, leaving everything behind and are living as exiles who have just run off for their lives in another country. Think about how encouraging this is for believers who have not been able to find work, who are having a hard time just living in a society because they're outcasts and they are being held down and people don't wanna do business with them because of their beliefs in Jesus Christ.

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So for Peter to say, "Listen, Jesus is alive, he's your living hope and there is an inheritance that is yours, it's imperishable, it's undefiled,

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it's unfading and it's kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." So Jesus has saved us, right? Salvation happens at the moment of belief.

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God's word says to continue to work out your salvation with prayer and trembling. So we have been saved, we are being saved continually by God's grace and him working through us, but one day that salvation will be complete when all things are done and he takes us to be where he is based upon his righteousness on the cross.

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And so salvation is going to be completely consummated

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in the last day when Jesus returns. And then we will receive an inheritance that no one could ever take away from us. Right now, I'll just tell you,

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I have to fight for a heavenly perspective.

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I have to fight and wrestle to keep an eternal perspective.

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God's word gives us lots of wisdom of how we should live our daily lives here on earth. But there are things that are out of our control, that everything's out of our control, to be honest, right? But there's things that happened that we could not plan for and not the wisest person in the world could ever plan for something. And it just maybe wipes us out in some areas and really sets us back. And then we can think, okay, what are we gonna do?

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But God's word says here, listen, don't worry about that.

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Have faith in me, hold on to that, because that is your inheritance. People who have faith in Christ who endure this life will have an imperishable, unfading inheritance in heaven. Because Jesus is alive, our inheritance is secure. Will I have an inheritance one day? I don't know on this earth, but I am confident

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because I have a living hope in Jesus Christ that I have an inheritance that I can't even fathom

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waiting for me and for you, for all those who believe in heaven. When Jesus says, welcome home, good and faithful servant. So in 1 Peter chapter one, verse six through seven, it says, in this you rejoice,

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though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the testing genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes through it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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So here's the truth, again, wrestling for that eternal perspective.

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And we have to wrestle with this truth that's outlined right here, relayed to us by Peter,

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that the struggles we are enduring are temporary.

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And we could say, well, you could say, brother,

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how is this issue I've been suffering with since I was a child, how is that temporary?

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How is the struggle that my child has been wrestling with

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daily, how is that temporary?

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You may say, how, you know, I've been dealing with these same things over and over again without any relief, how is that temporary?

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But listen, in view of eternity, what Peter's saying is,

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what we're experiencing here, no matter how long, even years and years and years of suffering and difficulty and persecution and torment and setbacks and injustices that Christians may face because this is a broken world and we have an enemy who steals, kills and destroys,

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God's word says, one day that I'll be done and I'll settle it.

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And then you'll have all of eternity. And so I brought this up as a little example, okay? So this is a charger for my phone. Does anybody have one of these around your house?

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This is not the longest charger I've ever had. I've had these long chargers. You might have like a really just long, ridiculously long charger in your house.

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There's also these little short chargers, they're useless. Just throw those in the trash can.

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(Audience Laughing) But you can get these long, this is pretty significant.

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I'm six feet tall, this is at least six feet, okay. It's a long charger and so what I want you to see is this USB connection at the end. Can you all see that there's a difference up here? There's a little USB connection

[01:32:54:21 - 01:33:13:17]
which doesn't work on like half of the electronics anymore. Don't electronics change so fast? I mean, can they just keep it the same? All right, I'm already explaining to my kids what a CD is and different, it's not good. All right, so imagine this, just think about this

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and then think about if this cord went longer than six feet and it went all around this whole room and out around out the doors and into the gym and around the gym and into the sanctuary and throughout the sanctuary and all around and outside

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and around Collierville and Memphis and further than we can ever see, it's just unending.

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Just imagine that this is what we see and the rest of it is just unending.

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What Peter's saying is like, this is your life right now.

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This little part up here, this is what you're experiencing

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and he doesn't make light of our suffering.

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Jesus suffers with us. Jesus suffered, he came and physically lived a life and suffered and died but Jesus and his word

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and Peter are telling us it's temporary.

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Peter uses the word a little while.

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While you're enduring this for just a little while, you have all the rest is eternity in heaven with God. The timetable from God's perspective, from a kingdom perspective, what we're enduring right now, it's not to be made light of but it's relatively so short. The best thing that we can do is always draw near to Christ.

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Always hold on to him, our living hope, indoor in faith.

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Continue, so Peter is writing to his brothers and sisters in Christ that he was pastoring while they were in Jerusalem who have now dispersed, he's writing them and they're circulating this letter around to everyone to encourage them, hold on, hold on, you've been grieved by various trials, right? Could sound like an understatement for those who are facing death and the things that Tertullian was describing. He says you've been grieved by various trials and he says that it's just for a little while and the second thing is that, point from this is that our trials in this life, they're a proving ground to show that our faith is genuine.

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And so it says you've been grieved by various trials so that the testing, genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes through it is tested by fire. Emily and I were talking just the other day in the car, just me and her and there's only so much you can say in front of the kids, right? But when the kids are not there, we can have a heart to heart and we can say, hey, this thing we're going through, like why? Why would God let this continue? Why is God not answering this prayer? Why is God not working this out?

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Is something wrong?

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And our conversation went to the truth of this passage.

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It was Emily.

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Sometimes you have to put an object into the fire so that all the things that are impure can burn away and what's resulting in what's left is pure gold. I said 14 karat gold, no, 24 karat gold or whatever, we can get more pure than that.

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And that's what Jesus is doing with us.

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He knows we're living in this broken world. Jesus endured the cross, but his passion was the result of eternity, that his inheritance is you and me.

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So Jesus endured all of the suffering. He endured his nail scarred hands. He endured the flogging, the beating, the mockery,

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all of his friends running away. All of his friends running away.

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He endured all of that, which went on for days and many hours and was brutal.

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He endured it because of the joy set before him. And so for us, we can endure life's difficulties. And Peter's reminding his brothers and sisters, endure because this world is testing your faith and it's gonna be shown that your faith is more precious than gold that perishes

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though it is tested by fire. And so it says, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So here's the bottom line.

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The bottom line is, in a world of trials, pain, and persecution, we have a living hope through Christ. An imperishable inheritance and a faith more precious than gold.

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So when we live life in light of Christ, all things of this world will grow strangely dim

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in the light of his glory and grace.

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Let's pray.

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God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you that you have given us your word, that you have given us an encouragement to endure difficulty and to endure trials.

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And God, I pray that you will just help us to hold on. Thank you for giving us your word, but also thank you for giving us church family to encourage us, to build us up. And Lord, I pray that we'll keep on our mind, our brothers and sisters around the world. Lord, we love you, we thank you, and it's in Jesus name I pray.

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Amen, amen.

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