Wayfaring Strangers Part 4, " Gloom , Despair And Agony On Me" Series

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