Sermon Transcript
This morning, we’re starting a new series in the book of 1 Peter. We’ve just finished a 40-day journey through the Bible and looking at the subject of unity. We’re starting, like I said, a series in the book of 1 Peter, so you can turn there in your Bible if you have one, if you have an app, or some of you may have grabbed one of these Scripture workbooks that we have in the back. You can follow along verse by verse as we go through over the next several weeks through the book of 1 Peter. And some of you want to know, if you’re visiting with us or if you’re new or newer, here, how do we decide what we’re gonna preach on?
And those of us who are on staff as pastors every year get together and we pray and we listen to what God has laid on the heart of our elders and on the heart of people that we have been praying with and listening to. And God last summer laid on our heart that there are different focuses we wanted to focus on, one of which is so many different themes that are covered in this book of 1 Peter. So typically Again, if you’re newer here, we preach through different books of the Bible. We go verse by verse. It’s not because we think that the Bible is some sort of textbook or history book that we can look at and then look at it from a distance.
We want to hear from what God has to say to us from His Word and then apply it to our lives. That’s something that we believe, that God’s Word is living, it’s active, and it’s something that we’re to apply into our lives. We’re to hear, we’re to receive it, we’re to live it out. And so, I’m excited about kicking off this series. I dropped off my son yesterday, my youngest son, CJ, at his school early, early, early in the morning because he and his classmates are— were leaving on a field trip, a mission trip, actually, to go to Mexico.
And so, he’s in Mexico right now with several hundred other high schoolers. Don’t you wish you were there with those high schoolers? They’re going to be building houses, doing a variety of things in Mexico. CJ’s been to Mexico before. I took him on a mission trip there before, and doing similar types of work, building houses.
And some of you have traveled internationally. It’s not lost on me that many of you travel internationally just about every week or every other week. I don’t travel internationally all that often, but anytime I do, I look forward to it. I look forward to being in some sort of place that I’m unfamiliar with. I like learning phrases and languages.
I like thinking about the food I’m gonna try. The food I want to avoid. I’m thinking about the kinds of things that I will enjoy exploring. I want to think about— maybe you think about how to avoid starting an international incident while you’re in one of these places. You don’t just drop everything and travel somewhere internationally, especially if you’re going there for the first time.
You need to plan. You need to think in advance. And I think of one of the trips that I took as a college student with Shannon when we went to Mexico with our college group. To go build houses and to do a variety of different mission work in Mexico. And we had learned different phrases, uh, and one of the phrases or words that I had learned, because we were going to be sharing about the gospel of Jesus Christ with people that we were going to be interacting with, one of the words that I learned was the word pecados, which means sins.
But that is very similar, I came to learn, to pescados, which is fish. And so if you’re not careful, you can do what I’ve done and you share with somebody who speaks Spanish, and you’re trying to tell them that Jesus died for their sins, and you might get a quizzical look back like I did the first time and wondered what was going on. And I came to realize that I may have inadvertently told this person that Jesus came to die for their fish. I’m not positive. That their fish separated them from God, and that all of us are fishermen, and that the wages of our fish is death, or something like— I’m not even sure.
If that happened. I also took a couple mission trips as I got older in life. Shannon and I got to go with our church from Texas to Morocco, North Africa. I got to go there 3 consecutive years, and I learned different phrases. And I remember one of the first times that I led the trip, I took a buddy of mine named David, and David’s one of the friendliest guys in the world.
And we had learned some Arabic phrases, and so we got off the airplane there in Casablanca at the airport A gentleman there from Morocco was helping us with our luggage, and David was eager to use his new Arabic, and so he was trying to ask, what’s your name? What’s your name? And the guy just looked at him and just sort of shrugged his shoulders and smiled and didn’t really understand, apparently, what David was trying to say to him. So David would say it slower. You know how you do in another country where you say a little bit slower, maybe a little bit louder.
What’s your name? Well, later on we met our host, and David was concerned. He said, I don’t understand. I was trying to be friendly and trying to ask this guy, what’s my name? Or, what’s your name?
And inadvertently, there’s a little phrase, what’s your name? That sounds a lot like, what’s my name? And so that’s what David was asking this guy repeatedly. Hi, what’s my name? Guy’s like, I don’t know.
No, what’s my name? Didn’t really work. So maybe you have your own stories of being in another country and feeling far from home, feeling like you don’t really connect with what’s happening there. You may be there just as a visitor, and at some point many of us are like, okay, I’d rather be back home in a bed that’s familiar. I’d rather be back home not living out of a suitcase.
I know in my home, I’ve lived there long enough now for the last 7 and a half years that I can close my eyes and I can make my way around without stubbing my toe throughout my house. Because I know how everything’s laid out. I know where everything is in the bathroom. I know where things are in the dresser. I can do laundry there.
I know where to find familiar foods. I know the streets. I know a variety of ways so that I can get to the grocery store. If one road is blocked, I can know other ways there. When you’re in another country, that’s a little bit harder, right?
You realize that you’re far from home. And that’s kind of the idea here of 1 Peter. Writing to a group of people, Peter is, as we’ll see, who feel like they’re far from home. They feel like they’re in another country. Maybe you can relate to this, that you live in this world, and yet, if you’re a Christ follower, you don’t really feel like you belong.
You don’t really relate to the customs or the traditions of this world or the values of this world. And the more you grow in the faith, the more you feel like, I’m in a foreign country. I don’t really feel like I belong. And that’s sort of this idea. That’s why we’re calling this series Between Two Worlds.
You’re in this world, But you’re not really in heaven just yet, and so you’re sort of in between. And so it’s, how are we supposed to live? And how do I find hope? Because when you’re away from home, we begin to lose hope. We lose our bearing.
I asked some friends of mine last week for their input on, what do you think of whenever you think about home? Like, not just where you live, like the physical structure, but what does home make you think of? Most of us I’ve grown up with the idea that home is a positive feeling and a positive place. Here’s what some of my friends shared when they think about home. One person said, home is climbing into your bed, squishing your favorite pillow up to sleep on, and it’s knowing where everything is.
Another person said— and this is from someone who’s originally from the East Coast, and they’re not from here, and they still call their— they call this place home, but they call that place home as well. They said, even though I don’t live anymore where I grew up, I feel that it’s a place that I still belong, no matter how long I’m away. I know every street there. I know the best places to eat, the parks that I played in as a kid, and the church where I attended. And when I plan a visit, I tell people there that I will be home soon.
Another person said, home’s the place where I’m most comfortable. I used to think of it as a specific physical location, but for me now, home is being with those I love and trust the most. Home represents unconditional love. Another person said, home is a place where I’m accepted, secure, loved, where memories are made, and where I feel most free to be myself. The idea of home to me is a combination of a feeling of physical safety and an emotional feeling of trust and belonging.
It’s a feeling that I have impact and influence and that I matter and am valued, that I have a place that only I can fill where I can be fully myself. And then one more person said, home is somewhere safe, a place where I’m accepted for who I am and welcomed back. No matter what I have done. And I like those thoughts because it reminds us that when you are in another place, you know, very often you walk back home or you walk back into your home and you feel like, ah, I’m home again. But when you’re in between and you’re not home, you sort of feel out of sorts.
And that’s the idea here that he’s getting to. And so again, where do you find hope? That’s what Peter’s gonna share with us here throughout this letter. So in 1 Peter, we’re just gonna look at the first 2 verses this week. It says Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.
Peter was, uh, one of Jesus’ original followers, and he was a learner. A disciple is somebody who’s a learner, and now he’s an apostle. An apostle is someone who is sent out. That’s what it means to be an apostle. He was a witness to Christ’s sufferings.
We see that in chapter 5 of 1 Peter. We’ll get there in a few weeks. But he’s saying Peter, a follower and a messenger of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect. So he’s writing this letter to God’s elect, and you may want to circle or highlight or star that word. To God’s elect exiles.
Some of you may have the word foreigners in your translation, or strangers. Some translations say aliens scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Verse 2, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood. Grace and peace be yours in abundance. So we know that Peter is writing this, and historians believe that Peter wrote this around the time of the Roman persecution of Christians that really began in around 64 AD when the Emperor Nero was there and the heat was turning up if you were a Christ follower.
You might not live very long. There was increasing intensity and hostility and persecution in the world which caused people to feel out of sorts, that they were again wanted people, people who, who, who were very much in danger because of their Christian faith. So Peter’s writing to encourage these people. He says he’s writing to exiles, and these are people who are in— if you look at a map, these are 5 places that he mentions: Pontus and Galatia and Cappadocia and Asia and Bithynia. These are places that are in Asia Minor.
These were Roman provinces that entered modern-day Turkey. And these were people who were scattered among there. He uses that term scattered. Were they literal foreigners, literal exiles? We can assume so, because as Christianity was spreading, there was also persecution that was spreading, and people would often be scattered to different places.
So very much possible that you would have people here that Peter is writing to who are literal foreigners. But he’s talking about something else. He’s talking about that idea about being 2 worlds. He’s talking about the idea that, first of all, you’re foreigners. If you’re a Christ follower, if you’re here today and you’re a Christ follower, you are a foreigner.
You’re an exile. You’re an alien. You’re a stranger in this world. And so he’s saying the fact that you don’t feel like you belong is natural. You shouldn’t feel like you belong.
And the fact that you, as a Christ follower, can’t relate to some of the things that this world values and cares about, how it defines success. That’s natural. That should happen. Why? Because you’re a foreigner.
You’re not from here. Your citizenship is somewhere else. The Bible tells us our citizenship is in heaven. And so you have an eternal perspective. But he’s also getting to the fact that when you’re in this place here, you’re just here temporarily.
You and I know this. When we’re in a foreign country, we pack our bags for however long we’re going to be there. And maybe you’ll end up staying longer than what you expected because of unforeseen circumstances, but regardless, you know you’re just there temporarily. And so you have that mindset that anything you have to go through that’s difficult while you’re in this foreign place is just temporary. And that’s the idea he’s trying to get through.
You are going through ordeals as a Christ follower. You’re going to go through trials, fiery trials, 1 Peter talks about. So expect those things to come, but just realize that you have hope because these things are just temporary. You’re in exile here. But he also is encouraging us to say, don’t get too comfortable.
So God allows trials and difficult times in our lives because we do get comfortable and we begin to feel like, I have to suck everything out of this life that I can because I only have one life, and so I’m, I’m gonna fear missing out if I don’t get everything in here, so I’m gonna chase after this and this and this and this. And Peter is saying, Relax. You’re just here temporarily. You’re on your way to someplace else. So he has a word of encouragement but also a word of caution in the midst of this.
And again, maybe you can relate to this idea of what it means to be a foreigner in a strange place. I began to feel that first as a middle schooler when I was in 6th grade and I went to a school and I just began to realize not everybody around me was a Christian. I grew up in the church and I was around many friends who were Christ followers at my church, but at school that was not the case. And so people talked differently and they acted differently. And so very often, in order to fit in, I would try to act like them and speak like them, but that wasn’t what God wanted.
And I began to realize that I sort of stood out. And then as I got older, in high school and then eventually into college, I realized that that’s what the Christian life is all about. And maybe again you’ve discovered that. Maybe you’re going through something right now where you’re being persecuted at your work or by your family members or by someone around you who feels that your faith is irrelevant, it’s extreme, that it’s wrong, and you’re being treated with hostility because of that. You stand out.
It’s to be expected. Peter, though, has 3 words of encouragement that I want to share with us here, and they’re found in verse 2, that to me give me hope. One is, is he says that you were chosen by God the Father to belong to Him. See that word there in verse 2, chosen? And back in verse 1, he uses the term elect.
That word, the Greek word for elect is eklektos, and that means to select or to choose. And it’s not like me going to the grocery store where I see the produce in front of me and I’m just randomly grabbing produce that appeals to me. There’s something more personal in this word word that Peter uses here, that you are God’s chosen. If you’re in Christ, if you’re a Christian, God chose you. He hand-selected you.
He chose you because he wanted you. And it’s not because of who you are in terms of what you’ve done. You couldn’t earn that. I couldn’t earn that. It wasn’t random.
No one forced God’s hand. He chose you because he wanted you. He wanted a relationship with you. The book of Ephesians puts it like this: You don’t have to turn there, but we have the verses up here on the screen. Chapter 1, verses 4 through 6 of Ephesians says, for he chose us— us meaning Christ followers, those who’ve made a decision to follow Jesus— he chose us in him, in Christ, before the creation of the world.
Isn’t that amazing that God chose you? If you’re a Christ follower, God knew you and chose you long before you were born, even before, it says, the creation of the world. And He chose you to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will. It pleased God to adopt people into His family and to open up the way for a person to have eternal life, in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves.
Again, He’s freely chosen us. We didn’t choose him. If you’re in Christ, you didn’t choose to follow him. He chose you. And now you may have made a decision to say, yes, I want to receive that invitation, but ultimately it was God’s choosing of you.
And that confuses different people because this idea of we’re chosen according to the foreknowledge of God— so God knew me beforehand and he knew what I was going to do. Does that mean I’m a robot, that I have no choices to make? And there are some people who go to that extreme who say that God has predetermined everything. He knows who will follow Him and who won’t, and we’re just merely robots following His predetermined will. But then why does Scripture give us so many things that we’re supposed to do or not do?
So that can’t be entirely true. And then people sometimes go over here to this extreme, and they say, well, God is sort of sitting up in heaven biting His fingernails. I don’t know that God has fingernails, but go with me on this, that God’s up in heaven biting His fingernails. He’s not sure what we’re going to do. And He’s waiting on us to make a decision, and then whenever we make a decision, He quickly scrambles, and then He adjusts His agenda to fit our decisions.
But then doesn’t that water down the fact that God’s all-knowing and omniscient? What is the truth here about God being omniscient and all-knowing and sovereign and no one forcing His hands? And I can’t argue this with you. I can’t convince you one way or the other of what is the right way to think about this, except that Scripture teaches that God is fully sovereign. Fully sovereign and all-knowing.
There’s nothing that God doesn’t know, and that God’s foreknowledge intersects with our choices, and we have very real choices and decisions to make, and His knowledge and His sovereignty connects with our decision-making in such a way that the decisions we make carry out God’s purpose and will in such a way that we end up where God wants us to be. That’s a mystery. It’s confusing to us. And there’s lots of permutations of this, and I was talking about this after the first service with a few folks. Maybe you want to talk about this sometime.
I have different ideas and thoughts of it, but the point that Peter is trying to make is, is God knew you. He chose you. You talk to any adoptive parent and they want their children to know— and I know this for a fact because I’ve adopted 3 children— that every adoptive parent wants their children to know, I wanted you. You’re in my family because I chose you. I could have picked, I suppose, others, but We wanted you.
We chose you. And adoption brings pain sometimes and loss. There’s definitely loss anytime somebody’s adopted.
There, there may be abandonment that’s a part of your story, but that’s not the whole story. God adopted you to be in his family. And that’s the similar idea. Each of us comes from the same place. We come from our mother and father, Adam and Eve.
And all throughout our life, we, like Adam and Eve, go our own way, and we rebel against God. And each of us has a past that is full of rebellion. And you may say, I don’t— I’ve never rebelled against God. We are enemies of God. Our sin casts us apart from God and separates us from God.
And yet God is making the way possible for anyone, anyone who calls upon God to save them, to be saved. God makes that possible. He chose you. He selected you. And that is not meant to confuse anybody.
It’s meant to encourage somebody to say, what a privileged title. You are God’s elect. You are God’s elect exiles. And to be an exile is just a temporary term, but to be elected, to be chosen, to be in God’s family, that’s eternal. And the suffering that you and I go through as a Christ follower is just for a moment, but God’s election of us, His choice, His selection, is eternal.
That should encourage you today. That should encourage you when you encounter suffering and hardship to know that God chose you in Him to live here in this world and to be part of His family, and He’s preparing us and causing us to long to be home one day in eternity with Him. That should give you encouragement. But he not only stops there, he goes on to say that not only are you chosen by God the Father to belong to Him, you are— he uses the term sanctified— you’re set apart for God by the Holy Spirit. He says— he uses that term sanctified.
Sanctification is the word that we get our word saint from. And some of us came from religious backgrounds where maybe you grew up thinking that a saint is somebody who performs a certain number of miracles and then they’re made a saint. Or maybe a saint is something you become once you’re in heaven. Yet the Bible teaches a person is a saint when they have the Holy Spirit in them. They’re sanctified.
That word means to set apart, to separate. Maybe some of you own something at home that you need to wash or you need to cleanse in such a way that you’re not going to put it in the washer with all the other clothes. You don’t want it to get ruined. You don’t want it to get tainted or discolored in any way. It’ll get ruined.
Maybe you have to hand wash it, or maybe you wash other things separately from it. And that’s the idea of being set apart. To be set apart, it says, for obedience to Jesus, meaning we’re not just set apart. We don’t just have the Holy Spirit. In us for the sake of us being in heaven one day, but God puts the Holy Spirit within us so that we may be holy, so that we may be pure.
And so God makes provision for us to be set apart. When a person makes a decision to follow Jesus, in that moment, they are sanctified, they’re set apart. The Holy Spirit comes into that person’s life. That person has been sealed, secured. Their salvation is secure.
But there’s also a life of responsibility that you and I have, and that’s really one of the major themes of 1 Peter, is that we are to be holy. We are to choose things that are pleasing to God. Why? Because we’re sanctified. We’re set apart.
We’re not to be like the rest of the world. We’re not to blend in. There should be something unique and different about our lives. And so, he’s saying, I want you to be distinct. Later on in chapter 1 here, a couple weeks, we’ll get to it, He says, just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.
So God makes provision for our sanctification and holiness and purity, but we also have a responsibility to choose holiness and to walk in that. How am I to live in this world when I am a foreigner, an exile, and I can’t relate? That’s one of the major themes of 1 Peter, and that will be unfolded for us as we go through this book. But the point here that he’s trying to say is, you are distinct, you are unique, you’re chosen by God. And you’ve been set apart for obedience to Jesus.
You’ve been set apart for a special purpose. And then he also says you’ve been cleansed from guilt by the blood of Jesus. You are cleansed from guilt by the blood of Jesus. He uses that term sprinkled, sprinkled with his blood. And that goes back to the Old Testament picture of what would happen when Moses, uh, when the priests would make a sacrifice, and they would then take the blood of the animals that they’d sacrificed and they would sprinkle it on the people.
As weird as that sounds, as gross as that sounds, it was a symbol of cleansing. It was a symbol of a blameless sacrifice that then would cover the people’s sins as they were sprinkled with the blood. And that foreshadowed eventually Jesus coming, the perfect lamb, innocent, his sacrifice for us. We are sprinkled with his blood, we are cleansed, we are made pure. And what are we cleansed from?
We’re cleansed from our guilt. We’re cleansed from the fact that each of us sin and go our own way. And so Peter is trying to remind his people here that you’ve been chosen by God, you’ve been set apart, and you also have someone who substituted his life for you so that you could be made right with God. And as with sanctification, that’s a one-time thing. The moment that a person comes to Christ, their sins are forgiven.
But it’s also an ongoing thing. We’re going to fall short. We’re going to mess up. And 1 John 1:9 says, if we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins. So each time we sin, we’re to confess our sins, not so that God will accept us again.
He’s already accepted us through Jesus. That sacrifice— if you are a Christ follower, that sacrifice has already been sufficient, and it’s enough, and you’ve already been accepted. But that said, we need to receive cleansing once again to make us in a restored fellowship with God. Not that we’re out of relationship with Him, but to recognize that Jesus died also for our ongoing sin. And so that’s the idea that Jesus— or that Peter’s trying to get here, that you’ve been set apart, you are cleansed from your guilt by the blood of Jesus.
And I don’t know if you noticed it here, but we have all 3 members of the Trinity that are at work in your story. And in my story, if you’re a Christ follower. Do you see that? He talks about God the Father being the one to choose you according to His foreknowledge. The Holy Spirit is the one who sanctifies you and sets you apart and makes you a new person.
And then Jesus sprinkled you with His blood. That’s a pretty cool thought if you think about it, that all 3 members of the Trinity are a part of your faith story and a part of my faith story, that God knew you before the foundation of the world. God knew you, and He chose you, and He said, I want you. I want you. I want you.
And the Holy Spirit then draws us so that we can then make a decision to realize, I need forgiveness, I need a Savior. Jesus died for my sins on the cross, and I can be sprinkled with his blood so that I can be made clean. And then the Holy Spirit comes in, makes me a new person so that I become distinct, and my citizenship is no longer in this world, but it’s in heaven. That’s the idea that Peter’s trying to get here. And the result of that— you saw it there at the end of verse 2— Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Grace and peace be yours in abundance. This is a blessing that you would say to someone, hopefully in a genuine, sincere way, to say grace and peace to you. But it’s more than a blessing. It is a reality that we have received, if you’re in Christ, the grace of God, and we are at peace with God. And the grace piece that Peter’s talking about here, of all the apostles, No one knew grace like Peter.
You know anything about his life? He was an impulsive guy that spoke before, uh, he would think about it, and then he would act quickly. And sometimes he would make wise choices, but very often he would make foolish choices. He would put his foot in his mouth. And because he was so eager, there were times when, for instance, little children would come to Jesus and Peter would be among the followers saying, get away, children!
Get away, children. And then when Jesus was saying, I’m going to sacrifice this, my life for yours, Peter was among those saying, no, don’t do that. And Jesus had to rebuke Peter. And then there was a time when Peter said, you know what, Jesus, you’re going to die, I will die with you. Jesus said, no, you won’t.
You’re going to deny me. You’re going to die— deny even knowing me. And sure enough, That night, Peter denied 3 times knowing Jesus, the night that Jesus was arrested and crucified. But after Jesus resurrected from the dead, He restored Peter to a relationship and forgave him. And so Peter, this idea of God’s unmerited, unearned favor, and forgiveness, and grace became a marking point of his life.
And in fact, it’s all throughout 1 Peter. It’s mentioned 10 times in these 5 chapters, this idea of grace, grace, grace. Grace, grace. You, you can’t demand grace. We’re saved only by God’s grace, and that’s the only thing that we can boast in, is God’s grace.
And the result of having God’s grace in our life and changing our life is peace. We’re at peace with God. We’re no longer God’s enemies, but we also have the peace of God in our lives. So the result of grace is peace, and it’s not just a little bit, a symbol full of grace and peace. It’s ours in abundance.
If you were in Christ, these are wonderful promises. God chose you. He selected you, handpicked you, set apart by the Holy Spirit to belong to God and to live for God, be obedient to him, sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, forgiven, cleansed from our guilt, recipients of grace and peace in abundance.
As a Christ follower in the Bay Area in 2018, you and I are going to have to live to learn as exiles and foreigners. And strangers. We’re going to have to live with that tension of saying, I belong, but I don’t belong. You’re going to have to live with the reality of saying there will be people in your life who find out that you go to church and maybe that you give money to the church, maybe that you pray, maybe that you read your Bible, and people are going to say, what, what, what’s wrong with you? It’s extreme.
That’s irrelevant to my life. I was talking with a friend of mine after the first service who was sharing about an individual that she’s been trying to encourage, and a person who has hardened their heart against God. And no matter how much you try to share with a person like that who has hardened their heart against God and just refuses to receive God’s love, there’s going to be a point at which that person is saying, I don’t want anything to do with you. Your faith That’s fine, that’s for you, but don’t preach that to me. Maybe you’ve experienced that.
Maybe you’ve experienced that tension again of being in this world but not being of the world, and we have to learn to live that way. But the good news is, is we have a Father who has selected and chosen and adopted you, and the Holy Spirit within us to work within us to help us to want to do and then to be able to do what pleases God so that we can choose to be holy. Not that we’re better than anybody else, but He’s at work within us to change us and to become conformed to the likeness of Jesus. And we have a Savior who died for us. And we don’t have to go back to that again and again and again.
He made a one-time payment for your sin, once for all. And anyone who wants to be chosen as part of God’s family, the door is open for anyone. But there will be that tension. But Peter would say, and I think the Lord would say to those of us here in this room, don’t be discouraged by that. This world is not your home.
You don’t belong here. You’re just here temporarily. Continue to live, depend upon me, and lean upon me. Don’t lean on your own understanding. Cast off anything that gets in the way, that hinders your relationship with God, submit yourself to the Lord.
This is— so many different scriptures come into mind here, but the point is, is have hope that God is preparing you for a world yet to come. And in the meantime, while we wait, we wait with peace, we wait with grace in abundance. Be encouraged by that this morning. Let’s pray. Father, we come to you Boy, desperately needy.
I don’t think many of us even know just how needy we are, just how needy we are to be accepted into your family, how needy we are to receive cleansing and forgiveness, just how needy we are to have the gift of your presence, your Holy Spirit within us, how needy we are that in this world where there is trouble and trial and hostility and turmoil, how needy we are for your presence and the hope that only you can give. I pray, God, that we would lean on that hope. Thank you that this world is not our home for those who are in Christ. Thank you, Lord, that we have the opportunity to look forward to heaven, but here in the meantime, we can experience eternal life even here. And I pray, God, at the same time, that we would not be so comfortable here that we only think about heaven.
I pray that we would also have a deep burden for people around us, that, Lord, we would seek to share your good news with those around us and to realize that you’ve called us to be here to be distinct and holy, but to share your love with people around us. I pray this week that you’d help us to cling to your promises and to share your love. Thank you for sending your Son. Thank you for Him being the perfect Lamb, perfect Savior, whose blood cleanses us from our sin. We pray all these things in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
