Sermon Tone Analysis

How Should We Live?

1 Peter 1:10-25

Grayson Baptist Church - Nov. 4, 2012

*Any Christian who is paying attention knows that our society has descended into darkness over the last fifty years.

We need to understand that our rational world has been turned upside down by postmodernism, moral relativism and political correctness.

*As incredible as it may seem, Michael Duduit explains: “We live in a culture that increasingly rejects the very notion of truth.

Those with a postmodern worldview say Christianity is simply one truth among many other truths.

There is no objective meaning, and truth is simply what we want it to be for our own purpose...”

*Michael Duduit also asked, “Are those who don’t believe in truth more likely to lie, steal, cut corners, or do whatever they think necessary to advance their own agendas?

Those who think truth is simply an act of power are more likely to use their own power to suppress opposition and enforce their own will.

And when everything becomes subjective, moral principles are abandoned.

*As Gene Veith has observed, ‘Other people – even spouses and children – are valued only for what they can contribute to my pleasure.’

There is now little or no social sanction on the successful businessmen who abandons his wife and kids to take on a trophy wife – after all, who’s to say he is wrong?

In an absence of moral standards, how do you even define ‘wrong’?” (1)

*Our society has descended into the moral chaos we find in the Old Testament book of Judges.

There God’s Word described the situation by twice saying: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

(Judges 17:6 and 21:25)

*That’s how the world is living.

But how should we live?

As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, how should we live?

-- God’s Word shows us these verses.

1.

First Christians: Live with the Lord’s hope.

[1] As believers we have the only real hope in this world.

And notice that having this hope is a great privilege.

*This is Peter’s message to us in vs. 10-13, where he said:

10.

Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you,

11. searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

12.

To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven things which angels desire to look into.

13.

Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

*The Old Testament prophets could see some things about the hope that would come to us through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

They wondered about it, and they wanted to know more about it.

They studied and examined the Lord’s prophecies, because they knew that the gospel we have is a million times more precious than all the gold in the world!

*But even though the gospel was precious to them, the gospel didn’t come to them.

It came to us!

And it is impossible for us to measure how privileged we are to live on the resurrection side of the cross!

In vs. 12, Peter tells us that even the angels are interested in understanding what has been given to us.

*We live in a privileged time.

And we live in a privileged place.

*Much of the world lives in religious or political slavery.

And most of the world is deceived into believing pathetic, ungodly lies.

But we have been graced to live in a place where we can freely hear the gospel.

And we know that no one can save us but Jesus.

*Someone once said, “There are many religions in the world, but only one Savior: Jesus Christ!”

*Max Lucado once explained the truth this way: “Don’t believe in you; you can’t save you.

And don’t believe in others; they can’t save you. . .

Some historians clump Christ with Moses, Muhammad, Confucius, and other spiritual leaders.

But Jesus refuses to share the page.

He declares, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me’ (John 14:6). . .

*Many recoil at such definitiveness.

John 14:6 sounds primitive in this era of broad bands and broad minds. . .

This is the day of inclusion.

All roads lead to heaven, right?

But can they?

Can all approaches to God be correct?

-Islam says Jesus was not crucified.

Christians say he was.

Both can’t be right.

-Judaism refuses the claim of Christ as the Messiah.

Christians accept it.

Someone’s making a mistake.

-Buddhists look toward Nirvana, to be achieved after multiple reincarnations.

Christians believe in one life, one death, and an eternity of enjoying God.

Doesn’t one view exclude the other?

Somebody is wrong. . .

*Most supremely, every non-Christian religion says, ‘You can save you.’

Jesus says, ‘My death on the cross saves you. .

.’

-Christ came, not for the strong, but for the weak.

-Not for the righteous, but for the sinner.

-He offers a unique-to-him invitation in which He works and we trust.

-He dies and we live.

-He invites and we believe.”

(2)

*This is the truth and we have it!

We have access to the Word of God, and the freedom to study it openly.

-- Thank God!

*The hope we have is a great privilege.

[2] And it comes from a great power.

*In vs. 20&21, Peter stressed the power of God:

20.

He (i.e.

Jesus) indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you

21. who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

*Then in vs. 23-25 Peter stressed the power of the gospel.

Here he says that Christians have:

23. . .

been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,

24. because "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.

The grass withers, and its flower falls away,

25. but the word of the Lord endures forever.''

Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you.

*The Bible is the eternal Word of God that gives us the eternal life of God.

And if we believe in God’s Word, it has the power to work in our lives.

Paul put it this way in his first letter to Thessalonian church: “For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

*Here is the power of God’s Word in our lives:

-We receive spiritual birth through the Word of God (1 Peter 1:23).

-We are washed by the water of God’s Word (Ephesians 5:26).

-We grow from God’s Word like new-born babies grow from their mother’s milk (1 Peter 2:2).

-And we are fed by God’s Word just like our bodies are fed by bread (Matthew 4:4).

*Psalms 119:105 tells us that God’s Word “is a lamp to (our) feet and a light to (our) path.”

It keeps us from stumbling, and it shows us which way to go.

*The hope we have is a great privilege.

And it comes from a great power.

So live with the Lord’s hope.