When Life Gives You Lemons Make Lemonade! Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• WE have learned a lot from the book of 1 Peter concerning how we are to conduct ourselves in this world.

• Now, if we follow Peter’s instructions, everything in life will be smooth sailing for us, right?

• If you do what is right, if you spend your time doing what is right, your life will be problem free, won’t it?

• How many times have you suffered for doing the right thing in life? You know what I am talking about, you are doing what God has called you to only to face people making fun of you, or people who would try to get other people to persecute you.

• Sometimes even under the best of circumstances life will give us a bunch of lemons.

• I know for students, living for Jesus, trying to do good it life can be difficult. There are always people who try to make fun of people who do good, or they make fun of the boy or girl who wants to abstain from sexual activity until they are married.

• In the workplace, when you try to do good, it is sometimes met with resistance and trouble from other people.

• We look around us and see good people dying at the hands of the wicked and we see the wicked seemingly prospering.

• Life is not always fair.

• Sometimes life just gives us a bunch of lemons.

• Lemons are in my view something that I would not eat without a lot of sweetener.

• Lemons are so sour tasting to me.

• WE are getting ready to see kids go all over town in a couple weeks to get candy.

• We are going to have a Harvest Party on the 31st. We will have a lot of candy and other wonderful treats.

• Just imagine what would happen if we just handed out lemons to the kids and their families. I wonder how many would come back next year?

• When you do good you expect to get something good, but life does not always work that way.

• It is tempting to think that if we do what God calls us to do with our lives that we will not have problems, but it does not always work out that way because life is not always fair.

• Sometimes life just gives us a bunch of lemons.

• The question that Christians need at answer is, “What do we do when life hands us a bunch of sour lemons?”

• Do we complain do we quit serving the Lord? DO we throw the lemons?

• I think God wants us to make lemonade when life gives us lemons. I love lemonade! Nothing like a cold glass of lemonade on a hot summer day. (With sugar free sweetener of course).

• Today from our test we are going to look at how we can make lemonade out of the lemons that life gives to us.

• Let’s start with verses 13-14

• SLIDE #2

• 1 Peter 3:13-14(ESV) 13Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled,

• SLIDE #3

SERMON

I. Life will give you all the lemons you need. (13-14)

• Verse 13 asks us “Who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?

• This leads to the subject of the rest of chapter three which is, suffering while doing good can open other areas of service for us as it did for Jesus.

• To be zealous for what is good means to love doing good with the same passionate intensity with which the most fanatical patriot who loves his country has.

• The word “good” deals with a lifestyle of doing good, not just occasionally doing what is good. It is a lifestyle that loves to do the morally good thing even if the person we are directing our good works toward has been hostile to us.

• Have you been around people who seemed to get joy out of doing the right thing? That person who finds the wallet stuffed full of money and wants no reward for returning it to the owner, money in tact?

• Can you think of times in your life where you suffered for doing the right thing?

• Times when you did the right thing only to receive a bunch of sour lemons for your effort?

• Maybe you lost a friend with whom you would not follow down the wrong path they wanted to take you. Maybe you lost a boyfriend, girlfriend or fiancé?

• Maybe it was a job issue, the company is pressuring you to do something immoral and you refuse to do it, only to pay the price of losing your job or knowing you will never get the opportunity to advance.