Text:\u00a0 1Peter 1:3-9<\/p>\n
The other day we read these words in Bible class.\u00a0 They seemed so meaningful I decided to preach on them today\u2026then read <\/em><\/p>\n It happens this time each year.\u00a0 Easter Sunday is special and filled with joy.\u00a0 We sing the great hymns.\u00a0 The church is adorned with the sight and the smell of lilies.\u00a0 We join our many voices to praise our risen Savior.<\/p>\n We leave here on a high note, but life soon catches up with us and there\u2019s a let down.\u00a0 Fewer people.\u00a0 The lilies don\u2019t smell so fresh and new.\u00a0 And for me, something far more serious.\u00a0 Last Sunday afternoon I was called out as police chaplain to respond to a terrible, senseless tragedy in Petaluma.\u00a0 I spent the day with witnesses, police officers and firemen who did a great job in a terrible time. Tomorrow I will meet with a man who witnessed the shooting.\u00a0 He can\u2019t sleep.\u00a0 He keeps reliving the awful scene.\u00a0 So for me after Easter, life has brought some tough experiences.<\/p>\n But one very important thing hasn\u2019t changed.\u00a0 Jesus is still risen. And here\u2019s the beauty of it.\u00a0 It\u2019s a light shines that through every darkness.\u00a0 So we still have reason to rejoice.\u00a0 And here the apostle Peter helps us keep that joy alive.\u00a0 That\u2019s what we want to see today:<\/p>\n THE JOY WE HAVE IN OUR LIVING SAVIOR<\/strong> 3 <\/sup>Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, <\/span>Those words are so joyous I am tempted to say Amen right now and sit down.\u00a0 But let\u2019s take some nice sips of this word and savor what God says.<\/p>\n In his great mercy<\/span>, Peter writes.\u00a0 What\u2019s mercy?\u00a0 On whom do you have mercy?\u00a0 What\u2019s their condition?\u00a0 You have mercy on someone in desperate need.\u00a0 You have mercy on someone who deserves something worse.<\/p>\n That was you and me:\u00a0 you were dead in your transgressions and sins,\u2026<\/span> <\/span>Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath (Eph 2:1,3) <\/span>But in his great mercy, God promised a Savior to rescue us from ourselves.\u00a0 And in his great mercy he sent his own Son.\u00a0 He sent his own Son to take our sin to the cross and suffer the punishment and death that we deserved.<\/p>\n And now in his great mercy, God our Father has given us a new birth into a living hope<\/span>.\u00a0 Think about it.\u00a0 Children are sometimes born badly disfigured with a cleft palette.\u00a0 In a poor country like Mexico, that can spell a very hard life.\u00a0 These children face ridicule and rejection.\u00a0 Often they can\u2019t get a job and are condemned to abject poverty.\u00a0 But there are surgeons who donate their time and skill to go down there and repair that deformity.\u00a0 I have to think that when they do it must seem to the parents that their child was born again.<\/p>\n Well God has given us a new birth.\u00a0 He has given us a new birth into a living hope<\/span>. And what makes that hope real.\u00a0 What makes it alive is this.\u00a0 We have more than some dead and gone religious leader.\u00a0 We have a living Savior.\u00a0 In Him we have the joy of a living hope<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Peter calls our living hope\u00a0 an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade\u2014kept in heaven for you,<\/span> You\u2019ve seen the bumper sticker on the back of some big, expensive RV.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re spending our kid\u2019s inheritance.<\/em> It gets a laugh, but it reminds us of something.\u00a0 So many things in life disappoint when the time comes to enjoy them.\u00a0 Not so, our living hope.\u00a0 Not so, the place Jesus has gone to prepare for us in heaven.\u00a0 It can\u2019t shrink like our 401k.\u00a0 It can\u2019t be stolen by identity thieves or wrecked by vandals.\u00a0 And it won\u2019t be anything less than God has promised.\u00a0 No sadness, no tears, no ugly evil on a Sunday afternoon, but joy, joy in the blessed presence of the Lord.<\/p>\n And to help us rejoice, Peter paints us a picture of certainty.\u00a0 You see, twice he uses a word that means to stand guard and keep something secure.\u00a0 Well first he says this, this inheritance is kept in heaven for you<\/span>.\u00a0 No one is going to mess with it there.\u00a0 And more than that, the Lord is guarding you until that time.\u00a0 Peter says it this way:\u00a0 through your faith in Jesus, you are shielded by God\u2019s power<\/span>.\u00a0 You are shielded from anyone or anything stealing you away from the Lord.\u00a0 That is the promise of your living Savior.\u00a0 What does he say?\u00a0 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.<\/span> Well that hand is powerful and alive.\u00a0 For it is the hand of your living Savior, the Son of God.\u00a0 He gives you this joy of a living hope.<\/strong><\/p>\n Peter couldn\u2019t help but notice the joy in these Christians.\u00a0 He writes, in this you gladly rejoice<\/span>.\u00a0 And it wasn\u2019t as if they were living their life in Disneyland.\u00a0 In this letter, Peter speaks of the painful trials they are suffering for being Christians.\u00a0 So here we remember something else about the joy we have in our living Savior.\u00a0 It\u2019s a joy in the midst of life\u2019s trials. <\/strong><\/p>\n God\u2019s people are no strangers to suffering.\u00a0 Jesus said, in this world, you will have trouble<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0 We are not immune to things like cancer or heart disease or depression.\u00a0 And sometimes we suffer what many Christians do around the world. \u00a0Persecution for following Jesus.<\/p>\n But even if our pain or trouble should last a lifetime, this joy is ours.\u00a0 It\u2019s ours in our living Savior.\u00a0 For what can we know about any trouble.\u00a0 First, it lasts only for a time.\u00a0 though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials<\/span>. That pain, that sadness may seem unending, but in our living Savior is only a little while.\u00a0 When compared to our living hope it is only a little while.<\/p>\n Of course, when those trials come we might feel that God has forgotten us or cast us off.\u00a0 The moment we feel that way we need to grab hold of this.\u00a0 God has a good and loving purpose.\u00a0 One purpose is this.\u00a0 7 <\/sup>These have come so that your faith\u2014of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire\u2014may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed<\/span>.<\/p>\n At one time, people used fire to prove the purity of gold.\u00a0 They turned up the heat.\u00a0 If it was gold it would remain.\u00a0 If not, it would go up in smoke.<\/p>\n Suffering is like that fire.\u00a0 It hurts but it proves our faith genuine.\u00a0 In fact, when it forces us to turn to God\u2019s promises and depend on him, our faith comes out even stronger with this final result.\u00a0 When we see Jesus on the last day, we will praise him and honor him.\u00a0 We may not understand now how he works, But then we will look back at our lives and praise God for what he did through our suffering<\/p>\n So look at the joy we have in our living Savior.\u00a0 It\u2019s ours even with tears in our eyes.\u00a0 For we know God\u2019s purpose and we know where it all leads. In fact, at this very moment it is ours.\u00a0 The goal of our faith is now ours in our living Savior<\/strong>.\u00a0 And this too is a joy.<\/strong><\/p>\n Think of Jesus standing outside of Lazarus\u2019 tomb.\u00a0 He calls out to a man now dead for four days.\u00a0 Come out!\u00a0 And he does. He is alive. A blessed miracle!<\/p>\n The Holy Spirit has worked a miracle no less amazing in your heart.\u00a0 Think of Thomas who saw the risen Jesus and believed. \u00a0We haven\u2019t seen him.\u00a0 We\u2019ve not seen his face or heard his voice. So here is the miracle.\u00a0 8 <\/sup>Though you have not seen him<\/span>, you love him<\/span>; You love him because of his dying love for you.\u00a0 and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him<\/span> You now trust he has lived and died for you.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s the joy.\u00a0 you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls<\/span>. Notice something here.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t say, you might receive or even you will receive.\u00a0 It says you are receiving<\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s like Jesus says elsewhere.\u00a0 He who believes\u2026has crossed over from death to life.<\/span> For our living Savior has already done it.\u00a0 He has already made that crown of life your own.\u00a0 And now it\u2019s only a matter of time before you wear it.\u00a0 It\u2019s only a matter of time before you live that life to the fullest.\u00a0 There is joy in knowing that, isn\u2019t there?<\/p>\n Marin Luther once said:\u00a0 One can never speak of Easter without rising to his feet\u2026Hearing its message and assurance is like Jacob hearing that his son Joseph was still alive after all those years.\u00a0 It is almost incredible.\u00a0 It appears too good to be true<\/span>.\u00a0 But it is true.\u00a0 Wonderfully true and so enjoy what is yours in your living Savior.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Text:\u00a0 1Peter 1:3-9 The other day we read these words in Bible class.\u00a0 They seemed so meaningful I decided to preach on them today\u2026then read It happens this time each year.\u00a0 Easter Sunday is special and filled with joy.\u00a0 We sing the great hymns.\u00a0 The church is adorned with the sight and the smell of lilies.\u00a0 We join our many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions\/317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ni.\u00a0 The joy of a living hope
\nII.\u00a0 Joy in the midst of tough times
\nIII.\u00a0 Joy in receiving the goal of our faith.<\/p>\n