“Provisions For Survival”
I Peter 1:3-9
February 9, 2002
Introduction
I must admit that I like to watch the TV show, “Survivor”. I didn’t at first, but after I sat down and watched one episode I was hooked. They make it seem like they dump these 16 people out in the middle of no where with no food or water and they have to figure out a way to survive on their own. That’s not entirely true. They always give them a supply of water to get started as well as a supply of canned goods and rice to eat. They also give them a first aid kit that has bandages, ointments, personal items and other things in it. Despite the appearance that these people are left to fend for themselves, the people at CBS have given them a few provisions for survival.
We need certain provisions in order for us to survive. Food, water and air are essentials. It’s been found that man can live for about 40 days without food, about 3 days without water and about 8 minutes without air.
Tonight, we turn our attention to I Peter 1:3-9. As we talked about last week, Peter is writing to a group of Christians throughout the Roman Empire to encourage them and warn them of the impending persecution that they are about to face. Last week, we saw that Peter laid the foundation for this letter and its message by reminding these Christians of their unique identity in Christ and of the divine salvation that they possess through Jesus Christ. In I Peter 1:3-9, Peter encourages these Christians by telling them that God has made provisions for them to help them survive what they are about to face. God provides the provisions necessary for surviving life in the real world.
God always provides for our needs. We tend to get caught up in the material or monetary aspects of God’s provisions. Missionary statesman Hudson Taylor had complete trust in God’s faithfulness. In his journal he wrote: Our heavenly Father is a very experienced One. He knows very well that His children wake up with a good appetite every morning... He sustained 3 million Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years. We do not expect He will send 3 million missionaries to China; but if He did, He would have ample means to sustain them all... Depend on it, God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply. Our Daily Bread, May 16, 1992.
I know that there are some of you tonight that are facing some very difficult things in your life. Sometimes you don’t know how you can survive these trying times. Peter’s message applies to you tonight. God has provided provisions for you to survive life and its trials and challenges.
“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, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” I Peter 1:3-9
Tonight, I want to look at four different supplies that God has given us to help us survive life in the real world.
I. A LIVING HOPE (vs. 3)
Hope is the key theme in I Peter. Peter is attempting to give them hope for the future in spite of current sufferings they are facing. The hope that Peter is writing about is the hope of salvation. It’s not a hope that is in doubt like, “The weatherman says there’s an 80% chance of rain and I hope it doesn’t rain.” The hope that Peter is talking about is more like a conviction of faith.
Peter describes this hope as a living hope. Our hope in salvation and eternal life rests in Jesus. Jesus died and was buried, but was raised to life and now lives. Paul writes in I Corinthians 15:20, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Peter is able to testify to this on a first hand basis. He saw the empty tomb with his own eyes and he saw Jesus after he had been resurrected. Our hope for eternal life rests in Christ and it is a living hope because Christ himself is alive.
I was on chaplain duty again this week and I received a phone call from the hospital asking me if I would visit an elderly lady who had been crying for most of the day. She needed someone to talk to and pray with her. I visited her and we talked for a little bit. She was a little depressed, frustrated with her physical condition and a little lonely. As we began to talk, she started turning the conversation to what heaven is going to be like. As she talked about heaven, you could see her spirits rising. Her total complexion changed and she even smiled. She has a living hope for eternal life and she’s clinging to that hope to help her through this rough time in her life.
God has provided us with a living hope, hope for eternity, in the form of his Son, Jesus. God also provides us with another supply to help us survive:
II. AN INVALUABLE INHERITANCE (vs. 4)
Maybe you’ve heard of some stories of what people leave as inheritances in their wills. Here’s a couple of interesting wills: Mrs. Jones, 81, died without any survivors, that is, without any human survivors. She left three dogs to mourn her passing: Bozo, Dolly, and Skippy. She specified that her $72,800 should go for ‘the care and maintenance of the dogs.’ When the dogs are dead, what is left would be given to the Walnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. A veterinarian says the three canines are in ‘excellent health’ and the church may have to wait as long as twelve years to receive the money.
A Philadelphia woman in her will, instructed the executor to take one dollar from her estate, invest it and pay the interest on this investment to her husband, ‘as evidence of my estimate of his worth’. Another Philadelphian woman bequeathed her divorced husband one dollar to buy a rope to hang himself.
Patrick Henry, the great revolutionary war figure most famous for his words, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” was not the most business savvy person. After his death in 1799, they opened his will to read, “This is all the inheritance that I can give to my dear family: The religion of Christ will give one which will make them rich indeed.”
God has provided for each one of us an invaluable inheritance. No matter what we may lose in this life, may it be riches, homes, loved ones, or our very lives; we will gain a great inheritance in heaven.
Peter is painting a picture of the Israelites here and again identifying these Christians with the Israelites. The Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years, sustained by the promise of their inheritance, the Promised Land that God had told them was theirs. Edmund Clowney writes, “Like Israel in the wilderness, the New Testament people of God are aliens and pilgrims. They make their way through a world that is becoming more hostile. Yet they are not wandering beggars, cast off from their possessions. They hold a sure title to the inheritance God has given them.”
This inheritance Peter tells us “will never perish, spoil, or fade”. No one can take away your inheritance of eternal life with Christ. As a Christian, you are a member of God’s family and an heir to the inheritance that God has kept for you.
III. A PRECIOUS FAITH (vs. 7)
Peter tells us that our faith is of greater worth than gold. It’s precious, it’s valuable. Our faith in God is what really sustains us throughout our lives and especially in troubling times. Peter tells these Christians that they have been “suffering grief in all kinds of trials”. However, these trials and the suffering they are about to encounter will only strengthen their faith. James 1:3, “because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”
Our faith is compared to gold in that fire itself does not destroy gold but removes the impurities from it. Likewise, our fire is put to the fire during times of trials and the impurities of our faith are removed and our faith is made stronger. Times of trials and suffering strengthen our faith by removing the pride and dependence on ourselves and force us to trust in God even more and draw closer to Him.
I want to tell you a story of a man named David. He is an awesome picture of God’s using difficulties for good. During the Vietnam War, David went through rigorous training to become part of the ultra elite special forces team the Navy used on dangerous search-and-destroy missions. During a nighttime raid on an enemy stronghold, David experienced the greatest trial of his life. When he and his men were pinned down by enemy machine-gun fire, he pulled a phosphorus grenade from his belt and stood up to throw it. But as he pulled back his arm, a bullet hit the grenade, and it exploded next to his ear.
Lying on his side on the bank of a muddy river, he watched part of his face float by. His entire face and shoulder alternately smoldered and caught on fire as the phosphorus that had embedded itself in his body came into contact with the air. David knew that he was going to die, yet miraculously he didn’t. He was pulled from the water by his fellow soldiers, flown directly to Saigon, and then taken to a waiting plane bound for Hawaii.
But David’s problems were just beginning. When he first went into surgery -- the first of what would become dozens of operations -- the surgical team had a major problem during the operation. As they cut away tissue that had been burned or torn by the grenade, the phosphorus would hit the oxygen in the operating room and begin to ignite again! Several times the doctors and nurses ran out of the room, leaving him alone because they were afraid the oxygen used in surgery would explode! Incredibly, David survived the operation and was taken to a ward that held the most severe burn and injury cases from the war.
Lying on his bed, his head the size of a basketball, David knew he presented a grotesque picture. Although he had once been a handsome man, he knew he had nothing to offer his wife or anyone else because of his appearance. He felt more alone and more worthless than he had ever felt in his life. But David wasn’t alone in his room. There was another man who had been wounded in Vietnam and was also a nightmarish sight. He had lost an arm and a leg, and his face was badly torn and scarred. As David was recovering from surgery, this man’s wife arrived from the States. When she walked into the room and took one look at her husband, she became nauseated. She took off her wedding ring, put it on the nightstand next to him, and said, "I’m so sorry, but there’s no way I could live with you looking like that." And with that, she walked out the door. He could barely make any sounds through his torn throat and mouth, but the soldier wept and shook for hours. Two days later, he died. For this poor wounded soldier, knowing that his wife saw no value in him was more terrible than the wounds he suffered. It blew away his last hope that someone, somewhere, could find worth in him because he knew how the world would perceive him.
Three days later, David’s wife arrived. After watching what had happened with the other soldier, he had no idea what kind of reaction she would have toward him, and he dreaded her coming. His wife, a strong Christian, took one look at him, came over, and kissed him on the only place on his face that wasn’t bandaged. In a gentle voice she said, "Honey, I love you. I’ll always love you. And I want you to know that whatever it takes, whatever the odds, we can make it together." She hugged him where she could to avoid disturbing his injuries and stayed with him for the next several days. Watching what had happened with the other man’s wife and seeing his own wife’s love for him gave David tremendous strength. More than that, her understanding and accepting him greatly reinforced his own relationship with the Lord.
In the weeks and months that followed, David’s wounds slowly but steadily healed. It took dozens of operations and months of agonizing recovery, but today, miraculously, David can see and hear. On national television, we heard David make an incredible statement. I am twice the person I was before I went to Vietnam. For one thing, God has used my suffering to help me feel other people’s pain and to have an incredible burden to reach people for Him. The Lord has let me have a worldwide, positive effect on people’s lives because of what I went through. I wouldn’t trade anything I’ve gone through for the benefits my trials have had in my life, on my family’s life and on countless teenagers and adults I’ve had the opportunity to influence over the years. Gary Smalley and John Trent, Ph.D., The Gift of Honor, pp. 56-58.
Our faith is strengthened by our trials. We become closer to God. Peter describes their faith by saying that even though they don’t see Christ they believe in Him and love Him. That describes us. We have a precious faith from God and in God that is made stronger through times of suffering in our lives.
IV. AN INEXPRESSIBLE JOY (vs. 8)
God has provided us with a living hope, an invaluable inheritance and a precious faith which produces in us an inexpressible joy. Why? Because we know that God loves us and we have nothing to fear because we have a certain hope for life eternal after this life. We can rejoice because God has saved us.
Have you ever been so happy that you don’t know what to do with yourself? I felt that way when our daughter Hope was born. Holly and I walked almost every day during her pregnancy. We’d talk about what it was going to be like to be parents and who the baby would like and if it would be a boy or a girl. We were so excited. When the day finally arrived for the baby to be born, I could hardly wait. After being at the hospital for hours, it was finally time for Holly to push and right before the baby was born I handed my camera to a nurse and asked her to take a few pictures. The baby was born and they laid her on Holly’s chest and I have a picture of that moment. I’m smiling. I couldn’t stop smiling. I had joy in my heart that I had never felt before. I couldn’t contain it. All I could do was smile. There’s a section in Hope’s baby book about what Holly and my reactions were to Hope’s birth. Holly wrote in there that “Daddy just kept smiling.”
As Christians, there should be a smile on our faces so wide that people will wonder what is wrong with us. We should have joy in our hearts and in our lives because as Peter says in vs. 9, “for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” This type of joy is contagious. It’s infectious. Others want to know why you possess that much joy. You can tell them that it’s because God sent his Son Jesus to die on the cross for my sins and I’m forgiven and not only that but after Jesus died, God raised him back to life and he has promised to do the same for me.
Conclusion
God has provided the provisions necessary for surviving life in the real world. As Christians, we possess these four things that will help us make it through life’s demands: A living hope, an invaluable inheritance, a precious faith, and an inexpressible joy. These will carry us through life’s trials that we face.
