SPEAKER_00: Good morning again.
SPEAKER_00: Allison and I are glad to be back with you.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we were in Kansas City, Missouri area visiting Allison's parents, so Joshua can see Grammy and Grandad.
SPEAKER_00: But it was a good thing because I was not able to preach last week anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Two weeks ago, after the second service, I lost my voice and was not able to speak for about uh nine or ten days.
SPEAKER_00: And I I learned something during that time.
SPEAKER_00: I've never lost my voice before, but I learned that during that time period that it's very hard to be a parent when you cannot speak.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm still still recovering.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Lord willing to have a voice after this service.
SPEAKER_00: So if the Lord causes you to pray for me, pray for my voice.
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad to open God's word with you again this morning as we look together at Peter's letter to the church.
SPEAKER_00: Church tradition tells us that the Apostle Peter was crucified upside down, sometime around 65 or 66 A.D., likely following a period of intense persecution that was generated by the great fire of ancient Rome.
SPEAKER_00: In 64 A.D., a massive fire destroyed a significant portion of that ancient city.
SPEAKER_00: One report by the Roman senator and historian Tacitus says that the rumor was that Emperor Nero was the cause of the fire, that he had it started.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the emperor cannot be to blame, and so he began turning the attention to Christians, saying that Christians were the cause of the fire.
SPEAKER_00: And that began a period of persecution which most likely took Peter's life.
SPEAKER_00: We do not know if Peter wrote his first letter before or after that great fire.
SPEAKER_00: Before is most likely, since Peter doesn't say anything about it.
SPEAKER_00: But if the letter was written before the fire, it shows us that life for Christians was not easy.
SPEAKER_00: Suffering, trials, and hardship are repeated themes throughout this short letter.
SPEAKER_00: But suffering, trials, and hardship are not the theme of the letter.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Peter took it upon himself to write a letter of encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: He exhorted Christians, believers in Christ, to direct their focus not on their sorrows, not on their trials, but on the living hope that they have in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Peter is often called the apostle of hope.
SPEAKER_00: The letter of 1 Peter, that we call 1 Peter, is full of rich theology.
SPEAKER_00: But the hope to which Peter calls us is not found in theology.
SPEAKER_00: It is found in the God expressed in the theology.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope is not found in the depth of doctrine, but in the God the doctrine describes.
SPEAKER_00: But we ought to live our lives immersed in theology, in truth about God, so that we might know Him, might love Him, and thereby live through Him.
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to study 1 Peter, but studying 1 Peter is not like reading a theology textbook.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good thing to do.
SPEAKER_00: But 1 Peter is not like that because Peter writes about theology in a very practical way.
SPEAKER_00: Look at it with me this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to cover just the first two verses, the introduction that Peter gives.
SPEAKER_00: Peter writes, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ, and for sprinkling with his blood.
SPEAKER_00: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
SPEAKER_00: First, hearers, listeners, readers of this letter would have desperately needed grace and peace.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you need grace and peace.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever suffered?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've suffered through the death of a loved one.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you've suffered through a long-term family squabble or other kinds of family issues.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've suffered through abuse, addiction, abandonment, hurt caused by another, physical pain or disease.
SPEAKER_00: Suffering comes in many forms, and it will come to you.
SPEAKER_00: Often at the most unexpected time, right?
SPEAKER_00: In his confessional psalm, David wrote, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.
SPEAKER_00: A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
SPEAKER_00: Broken.
SPEAKER_00: A heart that is that has suffered brokenness.
SPEAKER_00: A broken spirit.
SPEAKER_00: There are two primary options that come to us in our suffering, in our times of brokenness.
SPEAKER_00: We can take the road of offense and hurt and anger and disagreement and bitterness that will then shut us off to the grace and mercy and kindness of God's healing, or we can humble ourselves by acknowledging our brokenness.
SPEAKER_00: And when we humble ourselves before God, it opens us up to a restoration that leads to a living hope.
SPEAKER_00: The underlying truth that we see all throughout Peter's letter is that each of us will suffer.
SPEAKER_00: Each of us will suffer.
SPEAKER_00: It has come to you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's here right now.
SPEAKER_00: Or it will come.
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, hear me very clearly.
SPEAKER_00: The only sufficient place to rest your hope is in the God who has a purpose in your suffering.
SPEAKER_00: That's how Peter begins.
SPEAKER_00: He begins by telling us God is working.
SPEAKER_00: In order to be prepared for future suffering, or to survive present pain, or even to settle past trials, we must plant ourselves in the truths of God's purposeful work deep within us.
SPEAKER_00: God is at work, and Peter begins to show us in this encouraging letter how God is working.
SPEAKER_00: And he reminds us first of God's choosing work.
SPEAKER_00: Begins by telling us Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect exiles.
SPEAKER_00: There are two examples of God's choosing work here.
SPEAKER_00: The first is Peter's choosing.
SPEAKER_00: When Peter says he is an apostle of Jesus Christ, he says it in a way that indicates possession and appointment.
SPEAKER_00: Peter belonged to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Later on in this chapter, he talks about knowing that we were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from our forefathers.
SPEAKER_00: Peter is one of those ransomed ones.
SPEAKER_00: A price was paid for his ransom, and as a result of that price being paid, he belonged to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And in that purchase, in that possession, was an appointment to be an apostle, a sent one.
SPEAKER_00: He was chosen to be an official emissary of the king.
SPEAKER_00: He was chosen to be an apostle of Christ, conveying the message of Christ to us, and chosen to die.
SPEAKER_00: The other statement about God's choosing work is very direct.
SPEAKER_00: To those who are elect exiles.
SPEAKER_00: Elect exile stands at the head of the rest of the sentence.
SPEAKER_00: And it describes two realities.
SPEAKER_00: It describes an earthly reality and a spiritual reality.
SPEAKER_00: The earthly reality is one of exile, of being a stranger, someone who's not in his homeland.
SPEAKER_00: Similar, we might say, to our current term of refugee.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason for this exile is given to us in verse 1 because of a dispersion.
SPEAKER_00: This is the first hint we get of persecution of believers in 1 Peter.
SPEAKER_00: As persecution came to Christians, their only options were to remain where they were and seek to endure whatever trouble and trial was coming against them, or they could flee to a place of greater safety.
SPEAKER_00: And many fled.
SPEAKER_00: In this case, into areas that cover most of modern Turkey.
SPEAKER_00: The names listed here were the regions of ancient Turkey listed in sort of a circular pattern.
SPEAKER_00: Most likely, as Peter wrote this, he would have handed it to a courier, and the courier would have gone in a country by country, region by region area, sort of in a circular pattern.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's listed here.
SPEAKER_00: But the physical reality of these elect exiles was one of suffering, of suspicion, of pain, of loneliness, of wariness, anxiety, depression, uncertainty.
SPEAKER_00: You can imagine, just try to imagine.
SPEAKER_00: Try to imagine the thoughts that might run through the mind of an exile.
SPEAKER_00: Will this pain ever go away?
SPEAKER_00: What will I have to go through to have needs met?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you know that reality through personal experience.
SPEAKER_00: You have been or even are in an exile of sorts.
SPEAKER_00: Others know that that experience through the similarity of thoughts and feelings.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the uniqueness of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Regardless of the details of our personal experiences, we can all connect and even relate to the emotions of suffering and trials.
SPEAKER_00: But don't forget that there is a sense in which every single Christian is an exile.
SPEAKER_00: If you are a Christian, you are an exile today in this very place, because we're told in Philippians 3.20, our citizenship is where?
SPEAKER_00: In heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We don't belong here.
SPEAKER_00: This is not home.
SPEAKER_00: We are exiles, we are refugees whose true home is somewhere other than here.
SPEAKER_00: That's the physical reality that Peter's addressing.
SPEAKER_00: The spiritual reality seems at first to be at odds with the physical reality.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual reality is that God is chosen.
SPEAKER_00: That's what elect means.
SPEAKER_00: It simply means to be chosen.
SPEAKER_00: Peter closes this book with this statement: peace to all who are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Good way to end it, right?
SPEAKER_00: These people are elect exiles.
SPEAKER_00: They need to have peace again.
SPEAKER_00: Peace to all who are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: To be in Christ is to be a part of Christ through faith in him.
SPEAKER_00: It is to be possessed by him.
SPEAKER_00: It is to be his people, just as Peter was his apostle.
SPEAKER_00: If you are in Christ, you have been chosen by God.
SPEAKER_00: But that seems to be at odds with the physical reality.
SPEAKER_00: If I have been chosen by God, then why am I an exile?
SPEAKER_00: If I have been chosen by God, then why am I suffering?
SPEAKER_00: If I belong to God, then why this pain?
SPEAKER_00: Why this agony?
SPEAKER_00: Why this trial?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that one of the repetitive things that races through our minds when we're in the midst of difficulty?
SPEAKER_00: God, why?
SPEAKER_00: How does this fit into your goodness to me?
SPEAKER_00: And then if we allow ourselves to go down that road, that begins to morph into something like this.
SPEAKER_00: If it's true that all things work out for good, I can't see how this is good.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we even get to the point of anger saying something like, Don't you dare throw Romans 8.28 into my face.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Been there?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: In our finite minds, we struggle to synchronize the physical reality with the spiritual reality.
SPEAKER_00: It makes no sense to us.
SPEAKER_00: But that's where faith enters in.
SPEAKER_00: Peter encourages us to trust in the God who does his choosing work.
SPEAKER_00: Exercising faith in Christ means we accept what God says to be true, even if my circumstances say something different.
SPEAKER_00: Faith in Christ means I believe and I know that this world is not my home.
SPEAKER_00: You ever sung that old song?
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
SPEAKER_00: My home is in heaven from which I await a Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Faith in Christ means that as long as I am away from Christ, I am an elect exile.
SPEAKER_00: Faith in Christ means that God's choosing work is not impacted by my location, by my circumstances, or even by my feelings.
SPEAKER_00: No matter where I might be or what I might be experiencing in life, I belong to Him.
SPEAKER_00: We must find hope in God's choosing work.
SPEAKER_00: But we see God's further work later on in verse 2, and that is God's knowing work.
SPEAKER_00: We need to rest in God's knowing work.
SPEAKER_00: Peter says that these elect exiles are elect exiles according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: If you pay attention to the details, you will see that this is not the beginning of a new sentence.
SPEAKER_00: It's the continuation of the first sentence.
SPEAKER_00: And as a continuation, it describes the elect exiles.
SPEAKER_00: The recipients of this letter are elect exiles according to God the Father's foreknowledge.
SPEAKER_00: Foreknowledge simply means to know something beforehand.
SPEAKER_00: But it's more than foresight.
SPEAKER_00: Follow me here.
SPEAKER_00: God could and did see each of his elect in eternity past.
SPEAKER_00: But more than seeing them, he knew them.
SPEAKER_00: Foreknowledge is personal, it is relational, and it is determinative.
SPEAKER_00: It determines things.
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: I think we we see this clearly in Acts chapter 2, verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father knew God the Son in eternity past.
SPEAKER_00: That has to be true for God to be God.
SPEAKER_00: There is knowledge there.
SPEAKER_00: But do you see that that knowledge determined when God the Son would die?
SPEAKER_00: That knowing was determinative.
SPEAKER_00: It determined something.
SPEAKER_00: We see all three aspects, the personal, the relational, and the determinative, in God's statement about the prophet Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_00: In Jeremiah chapter 1, verse 5, we read, God saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.
SPEAKER_00: I consecrated you.
SPEAKER_00: I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: There is a personal knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: God knew Jeremiah himself.
SPEAKER_00: It is relational.
SPEAKER_00: There is this entering into a relationship where God says, I consecrated you, and it is determined that you are going to be a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: We can stretch this even to groups.
SPEAKER_00: God says a very similar thing of the nation of Israel in Amos chapter 3, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: You only of all the families on the earth have I known.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's be realistic.
SPEAKER_00: God knows everybody, right?
SPEAKER_00: God knows all the families.
SPEAKER_00: So what is he saying?
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, I know you, this family, in a very unique and relational way.
SPEAKER_00: It's personal.
SPEAKER_00: As we think about this in connection with what Peter says, we see that this knowing work of God was before.
SPEAKER_00: That's what for means, foreknowledge, to know before.
SPEAKER_00: Before when?
SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
SPEAKER_00: God didn't tell us.
SPEAKER_00: Peter didn't tell us.
SPEAKER_00: Was Peter thinking of before the dispersion?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
SPEAKER_00: Was he thinking before persecution began?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
SPEAKER_00: From the eternal perspective, we know from Ephesians 1:4 that God chose his elect before the foundation of the world, right?
SPEAKER_00: So the timing doesn't really matter.
SPEAKER_00: God had foreknowledge of these elect exiles.
SPEAKER_00: To bring that to our lives, we could say that God knew you before your suffering.
SPEAKER_00: He knew you personally.
SPEAKER_00: Relationally.
SPEAKER_00: And in a determinative way before you ever experienced pain.
SPEAKER_00: Before you ever grieved, before you were ever in sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: And the circumstances of your life have not changed that.
SPEAKER_00: God's knowledge of his own is divine.
SPEAKER_00: That may seem obvious, but it's an important truth for us to think about and to be reminded of.
SPEAKER_00: It's not Peter that has foreknowledge.
SPEAKER_00: It's not Paul who knows them.
SPEAKER_00: It's God.
SPEAKER_00: And God's knowledge is complete, it is pervasive, it is thorough.
SPEAKER_00: Because this knowledge is God knowing, it is complete knowledge, but it is also fatherly knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: Do you notice who does the foreknowing?
SPEAKER_00: God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: When the scriptures speak of God the Father, it's not referring to the sinful characteristics of earthly fathers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank goodness.
SPEAKER_00: When God loves, he loves perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: When God directs, he gives absolutely right directions.
SPEAKER_00: When God disciplines, he does not do so in anger, but in righteous loving kindness.
SPEAKER_00: He does not abuse or maliciously accuse.
SPEAKER_00: He does not molest or malign.
SPEAKER_00: He is the perfect father.
SPEAKER_00: And that is essential to remember when we endure the trials of many kinds of which James speaks.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father in heaven knows, as only a perfect father knows.
SPEAKER_00: He knows personally your trial.
SPEAKER_00: He knows relationally your pain.
SPEAKER_00: And he has determined that you would be where you are this very moment, just as he determined exactly when his son would die, and just exactly as he determined that Paul, Peter, would be crucified.
SPEAKER_00: Resting in this kind of foreknowledge is the only road to hope in the midst of despair.
SPEAKER_00: But notice also God's transformation.
SPEAKER_00: Again, describing these elect exiles, Peter says, in the sanctification of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we think of sanctification, our minds often go to the process of becoming like Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
SPEAKER_00: We are being changed.
SPEAKER_00: We are being made into the image of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We are being sanctified.
SPEAKER_00: But the use of the word here is more like it, it's used in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: There the Apostle Paul said to the church in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ called to be saints.
SPEAKER_00: Both 1 Corinthians 1 and 1 Peter 1 speak of God setting his people apart when they come to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When God calls people to himself, and those who are called put their trust in Christ, they are set apart.
SPEAKER_00: That's the meaning of sanctified.
SPEAKER_00: Once they were not in Christ, now they are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They were now old, now they're transferred into the kingdom of his Son.
SPEAKER_00: Where the realm of holiness rules.
SPEAKER_00: Here again we see the divine nature of this work.
SPEAKER_00: Foreknowledge is in God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Here, this work of setting apart is associated with God the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: As the Holy Spirit comes in and dwells God's people, they are set apart for him and to him.
SPEAKER_00: We don't set ourselves apart.
SPEAKER_00: God sets us apart.
SPEAKER_00: And that is a distinguishing work.
SPEAKER_00: Those who are in Christ are different.
SPEAKER_00: They are unusual.
SPEAKER_00: They are unique.
SPEAKER_00: They are distinguishable from all who are not in Christ because the Holy Spirit has set them apart.
SPEAKER_00: Now that may only be visible to God, but it is real nonetheless.
SPEAKER_00: Peter speaks more of this in chapter 2, verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: He says there, once you were not a people, now you are God's people.
SPEAKER_00: Once you had not received mercy, now you have received mercy.
SPEAKER_00: In that light, being an exile is a good analogy for the Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Exiles sometimes struggle to fit in.
SPEAKER_00: They're often not readily accepted.
SPEAKER_00: They're sometimes seen as being different.
SPEAKER_00: And all of those are true of you as a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: If you feel out of place as a Christian in this world, that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Because it is a sense of what is true.
SPEAKER_00: That you have been set apart by God's Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's a powerful work of God.
SPEAKER_00: The end result is that we will be like Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But now, before we are made to be like Christ, it should be a comforting truth that brings living hope to you.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever you feel out of place as a Christian, whenever you feel as though you don't fit in, whenever you feel rejected because of your faith, remind yourself that those are identifying marks of someone who has been set apart by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a sign that he has left you alone.
SPEAKER_00: It's a sign that he has marked you as his own.
SPEAKER_00: It identifies in part the result, but more so the purpose of God's work.
SPEAKER_00: According to the foreknowledge of God the Father and the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ, and for sprinkling with his blood.
SPEAKER_00: On the one hand, this shows us the result of God's foreknowledge in the Spirit setting us apart.
SPEAKER_00: The result is a people who are obedient to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Peter's version basically of Ephesians 2.10.
SPEAKER_00: For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which were prepared beforehand.
SPEAKER_00: The result of God's electing and setting apart is that we are a people who now obey God.
SPEAKER_00: But I think the primary thing going on here is that this doesn't show us result, but it shows us purpose, telling us that we ought to hope in God's purposeful work in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: On the one hand, obedience is what comes from salvation.
SPEAKER_00: In another way, obedience describes conversion itself, being obedient to God's command to trust in his son for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Here we see that God's purposeful work produces obedience, but it also produces cleansing and setting apart.
SPEAKER_00: Now, everything that we've looked at here has to do with coming to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God knowing us, determining that we would be elect, the Holy Spirit setting us apart, and then us obeying Him and coming to faith in Him through that obedient faith.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's this idea of sprinkling with His blood.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds a little gross to our culture.
SPEAKER_00: Unless you've been raised on a farm or a ranch and they're familiar with slaughtering is a little gross, especially before lunch.
SPEAKER_00: But it would not have been that way for Peter's culture.
SPEAKER_00: They were still very familiar with animal sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: But this specifically refers to the Old Testament, where the act of tossing or throwing or sprinkling blood from sacrificed animals served to illustrate God's cleansing of his people and him setting them apart for himself.
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 24.
SPEAKER_00: Moses is concluding basically his statements about what God showed him on the mountaintop where he received the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: In Exodus chapter 24, verse 3, it says, Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules.
SPEAKER_00: And all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words that the Lord has spoken, we will do.
SPEAKER_00: So Moses wrote them all down.
SPEAKER_00: He rose early in the morning and he built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He sent young men of the people of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins.
SPEAKER_00: And half of the blood he threw against the altar.
SPEAKER_00: Then he took the book of the covenant and he read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.
SPEAKER_00: And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people.
SPEAKER_00: And said, Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you, in accordance with all these words.
SPEAKER_00: You might be saying, Boy, I'm glad we don't do that anymore.
SPEAKER_00: We don't, because this is a physical expression, a literal expression of a spiritual reality.
SPEAKER_00: Because what Peter tells us is that now Christ, our sacrifice, had his blood shed, and through the blood of his covenant, we have now been sprinkled with his blood, which in essence serves to show that we have been set aside by the Holy Spirit, cleansed of our sin, set apart for his use as his people to be elect exiles in this world.
SPEAKER_00: Peter wants us, Christians who are exiles in this world, people who experienced the agony and the pain and the curse of sin on creation, to see what God has done in salvation.
SPEAKER_00: God has worked powerfully, personally, and practically to bring us to Himself.
SPEAKER_00: So exiles and sufferers and those who are in the midst of trials of many kinds, those whose bodies are ravaged by disease, and those who are mourning and grieving all kinds of losses can have hope in God's good purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Exiles, trials, pain, and anguish are part of his purpose for those whom he has chosen.
SPEAKER_00: Now we don't always see that purpose.
SPEAKER_00: We may never understand it.
SPEAKER_00: But it is the place to rest.
SPEAKER_00: Peter wants us to know this.
SPEAKER_00: He wants it to become such an integral part of who we are that we are defined by this theology.
SPEAKER_00: And when we arrive there, when we get to the point where this truth has sunk deep into our being so that it comes to define who we are, then we can have living hope in our exile as followers of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Will we believe that?
SPEAKER_00: Or will we complain, whine, grieve, and suffer hopelessly?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are blessed in that you are still young enough to have never suffered.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let that keep the truth of God's purpose from settling deep into your bones.
SPEAKER_00: Because the day will come when you will need this truth.
SPEAKER_00: The day will come when you will wonder where God is.
SPEAKER_00: The day will come when you will question God's goodness to you.
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, you will need this truth to gird you, to undergird you, to support you through those questioning, hurting, wondering times.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have suffered, but are not currently suffering.
SPEAKER_00: How do you view your past pain?
SPEAKER_00: Do you look at your trials as pointless?
SPEAKER_00: As though you endured them for no reason?
SPEAKER_00: Use this truth to help orient your thinking about your past suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Put on Peter's glasses.
SPEAKER_00: I assume he wore glasses.
SPEAKER_00: Put on Peter's glasses and look at your suffering through the lens of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: For the Christian, trials, suffering, and pain are not without purpose.
SPEAKER_00: We only choose to see them as being without purpose.
SPEAKER_00: But we would never choose that perspective if we could see things as God sees them.
SPEAKER_00: Let me finish with this.
SPEAKER_00: Because God has a purpose in our exile, because he has a purpose in our trials, in our suffering, in our pain, and our anxiety, and our depression, in our diseases, we cannot look at one another's trials and stand by the wayside.
SPEAKER_00: There is good purpose in our trials, and one of God's good gifts in that pain is one another.
SPEAKER_00: If you are in Christ, you are an exile, and exiles need one another.
SPEAKER_00: We may not want one another, but we need one another.
SPEAKER_00: You are God's good gift to someone enduring trial.
SPEAKER_00: There may be a stranger here in our midst this morning who needs you.
SPEAKER_00: Who needs you to introduce yourself to them and encourage them.
SPEAKER_00: You are God's good gift to someone enduring trial.
SPEAKER_00: Come alongside one another.
SPEAKER_00: Come alongside to understand, to listen, to grieve with those who grieve, to weep with those who weep.
SPEAKER_00: Come alongside to support and encourage one another because we're all just waiting to go home.
SPEAKER_00: Someday our Savior will return to take us home.
SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, He has given us truth to drive deep into our souls to give us living hope until we do get home.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, it is so hard to not focus on the present.
SPEAKER_00: It is so difficult to not become mired in our exile.
SPEAKER_00: Lift up our eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Give us hope.
SPEAKER_00: Give us encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: Give us strength.
SPEAKER_00: Use one another in the body of Christ to come alongside and help.
SPEAKER_00: Most of all, we pray that you would be our strength, that you would be our guide.
SPEAKER_00: And that you would fulfill your promise to bring us safely home.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.