Jesus Christ Is Coming Again Soon!” Series

1. I have GOOD NEWS… AND… I HAVE BAD NEWS.

a. Don’t you just hate that? Good news & Bad News.

b. I always think, “couldn’t you just give me good news?!”

c. But they usually comes as a couple right?

NOTE: Well today, I want to share with you the GOOD NEWS.

• Jesus Christ is Alive & Is coming again soon!

John 14.1-3 "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 "In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

• This has been & continues to be the most encouraging promise of Jesus Christ that Christians have held onto over the centuries!

• Flip over to 1 John 3:1-3

• That’s just the best news I can hear as a Christian.

• My Savior, My Lord, Our King is returning!

YES… times can be tough right now. YES… difficulties abound.

• Notice 1 Peter 4:12… don’t think it’s strange. Not surprised.

• Yet the good news is that Jesus is coming again and we get to be a part of His work on the earth!

I. (4:1-6) LIVE IN NEWNESS OF JESUS

1. (1-2) A new Direction!

a. With all this talk of suffering, Peter reminds us that true suffering is seen in Jesus.

b. He died for us, he took our sins upon Himself.

c. And by our faith in Him, when He died, we died!

d. The battle He fought was not for His sin, He was sinless.

e. But it was for our sin! And Jesus won that fight!

Romans 6.1-2 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

REALIZE now that since you died to sin, you don’t have to live for your fleshly desires anymore! You’re dead to them all!

• And now we can live for the will of God!

• The will of God is to live for Jesus!

ARM YOURSELVES… Peter says. Why? Because living for Jesus Christ is a battle!

• FIRST OF ALL, there is a battle against the flesh.

• Flip over to Galatians 5:16ff

• So there’s this constant question… who will we present ourselves to? The flesh or the Spirit?

• Because if we WALK IN THE Spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh…

BUT FOR SOME OF YOU, there is also the battle against FRIENDS!

2. (3-5) You don’t hang with them anymore.

a. For some of you, this is so true isn’t it!!

b. We lived so much of our past doing the will of the world.

c. Lewdness & Lusts. Drunkenness, fights, parties, idolatries!

d. But now our lives aren’t just being spent & wasted.

e. They’re being invested & redeemed!

So what’s the response of our friends?

• Peter says in v4, they think it STRANGE.

• Next to that you can write, “FOREIGN, ALIEN”

• They think from a another planet. What happened to you!?

1 Cor. 2.14 (NLT) But people who aren’t Christians can’t understand these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them because only those who have the Spirit can understand what the Spirit means.

THEY just don’t understand you anymore… You puzzle them.

• Hey, want to go to a great party tonight? No bro, I have Bible study. -- What!? Bible study? C’mon man!

• Hey, want to catch that latest flick with all the sex & violence?

• No, I have a home fellowship group we’re praying for our city!

• Are you crazy?! That’s it, they think we’re nuts!

• Sometimes, your friends can become your persecutors!

• That’s why you rub them the wrong way.

• They just can’t understand you and so they try to pull you back into their world… But you can’t go guys.

Peter described that journey back in some pretty graphic terms.

• Let’s flip over to 2 Peter 2.21-22

• Lately we’ve seen our dog Molly make that decision.

• We have to let her out of the house real quick, and then after a few minutes of sickness, she goes over and well… you know!

• I’m thinking, “MOLLY WHAT IS WRONG WITH You?!”

• But it’s even worse with us…

• And so when our old friends want to stumble us, we can just say look, I can’t go, “I’m not a dog anymore, I’m a sheep!”

LET ME BOTH CAUTION & ENCOURAGE YOU HERE…