Wayfaring Strangers
A study of 1 Peter
Part 4
“Gloom, despair and agony on me”
I know I may be dating myself when I used the words Gloom, despair and agony on me
But many of you recognize this term from the television show Hee Haw
(Show youtube clip of Hee Haw)
This is funny
But it is actually sad
Many in this world go though life
Feeling these exact feelings
Gloom
Despair
And agony
They don’t have or can’t find
Joy
Peace
Comfort
Many can’t find these things because they do not know Jesus
They are living their lives separated from the author of Peace, joy comfort and love
But
Others
Believers in Jesus
Know the orchestrator of peace , joy, love and comfort
But their trials
Troubles
Hardships
Storms
Wrecks
Have caused them to lose focus
To
Put the spot light on the problems
Instead of spotlighting Jesus Christ
Once again today we are going to continue our study of 1 Peter
Titled Wayfaring Strangers
Over the last few weeks we have seen how God sees us
And how we should see ourselves
We have talked about trials a little
Problems a little
But we have focused mostly on the praise we should be giving God
Because of our salvation
As we have discussed
Salvation begins and ends with God
But
We as knot headed humans
Must accept this grace
We must reach out and receive this gift of love
And then
We are chosen by God
Called by the spirt
And cleansed by the Son
And once this happens
We are filled with hope
Promised a priceless inheritance
Protected and kept by God’s power
And Born again
No longer who or what we used to be
But many times, in our lives
The tough stuff
The storms
Wrecks
Persecution
Hardships
And such
Can steal the joy we should have
And we can begin to sing if only in our minds
Gloom
Despair
And agony on me
Peter tells us
This is unacceptable
It is unhealthy
And it is unnecessary
Remember from last week
Peter addresses problems
He searches for solutions
But he always places God first
This puts problems in perspective
Lets
Open our bibles to 1 Peter
Chapter 1
And read verses 6 and 7
Then we can break it down and apply it to our lives
1 Peter 1:6-7
6 So be truly glad.[a] There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. 7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.
Once again
Peter begins with excitement
He is excited about God
And about what he has done
He is excited to have been changed by Jesus
And he is excited at the prospect of change in our lives
So, he begins
Once again
With focus on Christ
Instead of the problems
Verse 6a
6 So be truly glad.[a] There is wonderful joy ahead
Be glad
Because of what God has done to and through you
In causing you to be born again
There is wonderful joy ahead
Notice he does not say
There may be wonderful joy ahead
He says there” is”
This is the hope
The assurance
And the inheritance we talked of last week
Then and only then does he begin to unpack some of our problems
Verse 6b
“even though you must endure many trials for a little while. “
Be glad
Look forward to the joy that is coming
Even though you will have some hard times
I want you to notice once again
The word
Must
Peter does not say
Might
Or if
He says must
Will
As believers we will face hardships in many forms
So, I would like to discuss first some types of trials we will face
Persecution
I think many times we in this country used that word too liberty
Many will say well such and such happened, and I am just suffering persecution
I need you to hear me on this
Persecution is suffering
For Jesus
For the cause of Jesus
For your belief in Jesus
Getting fired or demoted for taking a stand for Jesus
Being rejected by friends and family for your beliefs
Being rejected, abused, harassed, even harmed of killed
For your belief in Christ
This is persecution
I was told by a friend one day that he was suffering persecution
I asked in what way
And he said he was witnessing to someone and they became very agitated with him
A few more questions revealed that his way of witnessing was to
Berate someone
To talk about judgment
To forcefully
Brow beat
Someone into a relationship with Jesus
I was young in my ministry and my faith
And should have told him
What I am about to tell you
If this is your way of telling the world about Christ
By speaking hate
Condemnation
By hitting people over the head with the bible
And you want to be a jerk
Don’t call it persecution when people call you what you are
Or don’t care to be around you
You need to add a bit of love
Or better yet a lot of love to your program
Persecution is suffering for Jesus – nuff said
We also suffer hardships in the way of physical illness and injuries
We were made by God originally to be perfect
Adam and Eve were originally immortal
Then
They made a choice that bought sin into the world
And the reality of death and pain
To all people for all times
Till Jesus comes back
Sometimes we suffer injury and illness because of bad choices
Sometimes simply because people get sick and die
God does not promise us a life of health
Any more than he promises wealth
Or prosperity
But he does promise to be with us every step of the way
And he does promise that if we focus on him he will get the glory
Other trials may be relationship issues
We all know about those in varying degrees
Others may be finical
Emotional
Spiritual
Temptations
You have all seen the cartoons where a devil is on one shoulder
An angel on the other
Trying to get
Donald or Buggs to choose
Right
Or wrong
Temptations can be big trials
Remember
Being tempted is not sin
Surrendering always is
I could spend weeks
months
Most likely years talking about all the different trials
Hardship
Wrecks
Temptations and persecutions, you may or may be going through
But I think you understand
So, let’s focus for a moment of the cause of these trials
Persecution as I said is suffering for the case or belief in Christ
And persecution comes straight for Old Slick
He is the author
He wants to discourage all believers
He wants to derail their faith
Make them doubt God
Make them doubt Their selves
Make them doubt their salvation
Make them doubt their own worth
And then he can win by rendering them ineffective at spreading the gospel
Ineffective at Spreading the light and love of Jesus
Other trials and hardships can be caused by
Bad choices
Bad decisions
Lack of faith
Lack of engagement
God’s discipline
And I could go on and on
But
Peter wants us to focus not on the trials
Not on the hardships
Not on the persecution
Not on the heath issues
Not on the family of finical problems
He wants us to take these things and consider them as Joy
Thank God for them
You may be saying
Do what?
Thank God for the hard times?
That just goes against everything I feel in my heart
That just don’t make sense
Why would I do that
Back to 1 Peter
Verse 7a
7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold.
All these hardships
When endured
When overcome
When not allowed to become us or define us
Show the strength and depth of our faith
They show God to the world
They show what God can do with the hard times
They show we are Bona Fide
Just as Gold is melted and refined
Tried by heat and fire
To remove the impurities
Our faith
Is refined by pressure
By heat
By fire
I can tell you
There is not a stronger testimony
Or a more powerful witness
Then the hear from someone who has been tested and tried
And have overcome
And kept the faith
And let God be glorified in the hard times
And there is not a sadder story in the world than
That of someone who gave into despair
Depression
Someone has given up
Turned away from the faith
And has lost hope or sight of the promises of God
The promises are still there
They are still valid
The hope is eternal
But that poor soul can’t see the solution for the problem
They Can’t see God
Because the problem blocks their view
Verse 7b
So, when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.
So, when you endure
When you overcome
When you remain focused on Jesus
Peter says it will bring you much Praise and glory
And honor on the day when Jesus is finally revealed to the whole world
We know that as the second coming
So, we have seen
That we will face many types of trials
From
Many causes
And that if we focus on Christ those trials will strengthen our faith
They remove self-reliance and promote reliance on God for all things
Those trials will make the promise of our future glory sweeter
They teach us not to be so comfortable or dependent on this life, this world but to look at our eternity
Those trials will help us grow in patience and perseverance
Heat and pressure are a requirement for gaining patience
Those trials when overcome will help us overcome future trials and temptations
They show us the worthlessness of our all the world can offer and cause us to devote ourselves to God
And
Those trails can bring blessings from God
Trials and troubles of this world are short when we look at the whole picture and see the joy that God has promised
Here is where I want to leave you this morning
We all will suffer in this life
Some more than others
But we will all have troubles in this world
We can be like the unbelieving world
And ask why me?
Why does God allow this?
Where is god in this?
Or we can Gain
Confidence
Confidence to know that God is in charge
That he knows the plans and wants good things for us
And if allowed will lead us to a better future
We gain perseverance
In doing this we defat the tricks of the devil which include
Bitterness
Anger
Gloom
Despair and agony
We gain Courage
Because we have Jesus
Because we are Chosen
Because we have been called because we have been cleansed by the blood
We can face this old world with courage
Because we are not facing tit alone
He who suffered and died for us
Will never abandon us
Let me leave you with 1 Peter 1:6-7 again
Think about it
Pray about it
And apply I t to your life
6 So be truly glad.[a] There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. 7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.
Close from the heart
Pray
