Joy In Dispersion
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmark: 1 Peter 1:1-9
Housekeeping Stuff & Announcements:
Housekeeping Stuff & Announcements:
Thank Donna. Welcome everyone to the family gathering. It’s good to be together again this morning to worship the Lord together. We are still in the process of our “soft opening” of the church building for the church family, but we’re getting there. Taking one step at a time. Many of our church family is still watching online, and there are likely folks out there who are looking for answers, looking for hope this morning. We pray that this time together will be a blessing to church family members and visitors alike.
We are still being responsible with social distance and wearing masks while we wait to be able to celebrate the whole church coming back together in this room. Don’t forget that we are doing this out of love for one another. My mask isn’t because I care about me. It’s because I care about you.
This morning, there might be some here or watching online who are just checking Eastern Hills out. We have a text response system called Text-In-Church that we use to helps us stay in contact. If you’re here in the building today for the first time, and you’d like to receive some follow up, prayer, are have some questions, we’d appreciate it if you would text the word SCREEN WELCOME to 505-339-2004. You’ll get a text back with a link asking for more information. Now, even though many of us are back in the building this morning, we know that many are watching who have never even been here physically. SCREEN If you’re visiting with us online, you can text the word LIVE to 505-339-2004. Like the local group, it will ask you to click a link just to provide us with your name and email address. We want to be able to pray for you, follow up with you if you have any questions, and keep you apprised about things here at Eastern Hills. Text LIVE to 505-339-2004 for online only. Text WELCOME for local. Thanks. One other way that you can connect is that we have this morning’s service all set up on YouVersion, so you should be able to see it if you get on YouVersion and look for our Live Event.
I want to let everyone know that, for the moment, we are planning a big day for Independence Day. It falls on a Saturday this year, and we’re planning on being together on the church property that evening for food, fun, and fireworks. I suppose that there is always the possibility of us needing to cancel or modify our plans because of COVID-19, but for now, mark it in your calendar that we’re going to be here together on July 4th. Plans are still coming together, but we’ve already gotten a commitment from Pop-Pops to be here, so that’s something to look forward to! I think that afternoon, we’ll start here at the building at 4, and go until we’re out of fireworks that night, assuming that we can actually have this event once we get there.
This week, I reviewed and discussed at length a new research experiment that was completed on singing and COVID transmission, and according to the research, our building and setup has a lot going for it that reduces the risk of transmission by singing:
Everyone in the sanctuary (with the exception of the vocalists on stage) are wearing masks. You will notice that we installed popscreens for all vocal mics on stage, as these were found in the study to work nearly as well as a mask (remember that masks don't protect us, they protect other people from us), but allow the singers to breathe and be understood more easily.
We are practicing social distancing of greater than 1.5 m (which is about 5 ft).
We are instructing people who feel unwell at all to stay away from the building.
Our ambient humidity is very low, which greatly increases the evaporation time of aerosol particles.
Our sanctuary is massive, given the number of people (still less than 200), thus reducing the possibility of a single ill person delivering a sufficient viral load to infect.
Our cooling system does not recycle air, it replaces it. Also, it does so from floor to ceiling, meaning that air enters the building through the floor, then constantly rises to the pressure vents high on the back wall.
Our ceiling is very high, which allows for a more extended time for evaporation and removal of aerosol particles, which go up first.
Our stage (containing those likely singing the loudest, and those without masks) is a great distance from the congregational area.
The issue in all of this has been that there hasn’t been much peace in singing prior to now. With this new research, which showed that singing doesn’t spread particles as far as originally thought, along with all of the risk mitigation measures that we have in place, singing should be a safe practice, provided that we in the congregation keep our masks on (unless medically necessary) and maintain social distancing while we sing. While it has been fun and educational to focus on other methods of worship in the last few weeks, I’m glad to say that we will get to celebrate and worship our Lord in that way this morning!
PRAY
Musical Praise & Worship
Musical Praise & Worship
VICTORY IN JESUS
GREAT THINGS
IN CHRIST ALONE
PRAY (WAYNE)
Opening
Opening
This is the 14th Sunday that we’ve had since the first inklings of a stay-at-home order began back in March. Our first live-streamed service was March 15. We had about as much that morning as we have this morning. By March 22, we had been told to stay home if at all possible, but in order to help everyone still feel connected to one another and in a familiar place together as we were online, Melanie and Abbie and I (along with Richard for sound help) would come here every Sunday to stream our services. It was a joy to do that… to be able to come here and lead the congregation, even though we weren’t physically together.
But it was also really difficult. Each week, we were reminded of the joy of fellowship together in this place. This is why last week, I got all choked up at the beginning of service, because it was such a joy to hear the church family again, and as we’ve slowly been coming back together, it’s been a joy to see you and talk with you.
But the fact is that we have been, and many of us still are, dispersed. We are still, right now, as we worship together here, incomplete because we aren’t all here together. And I’ll be honest: this has been a struggle for me. I know that it’s been a struggle for many of you as well. We don’t like being dispersed, because we go together. We belong to one another. We are a body, a family, a building, a single entity called the Bride of Christ at Eastern Hills.
So I have to admit that I’ve had some angst in all of this. But even as I have had that angst at our dispersion, I am reminded over and over again from the Word of God that there are constant reasons for rejoicing, even when we cannot be together, even when we are scattered and separated. Those reasons for rejoicing flow out of what God has done for us in Christ, and who we are in Jesus as a result, and the promises that we have from God in the midst of it all.
One passage that brings these things out is 1 Peter 1. Let’s stand together as we read this great passage, which will be our focus this morning:
1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ: To those chosen, living as exiles dispersed abroad in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, chosen 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ. May grace and peace be multiplied to you. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 4 and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. 5 You are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 You rejoice in this, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials 7 so that the proven character of your faith—more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
PRAY
When we are looking at the New Testament epistles, such as the epistles of Peter that we call 1 and 2 Peter, we need to remember that these were letters that were written to particular people in a particular place at a particular time. And those particular people in that particular place at that particular time had their own particular issues, and it is useful for us to give some thought to these things as we approach reading the letter.
Imagine for a second that you are going to write a letter to someone that you know right now during this time. What are some of the things that letter might include that you and the recipient of the letter have in common, especially during this time?
It would likely say something about the global pandemic that we are experiencing right now. So it would also likely include something about your personal health, maybe your state of mind in this time of stay-at-home, or some things you’ve done to pass the time.
It would probably say something about the protests and in some places, riots, that are taking place around the country and across the globe.
It might mention the fact that everyone has completely forgotten about the murder hornets.
You see, your writing would be contextual. Likewise, Peter’s writing is contextual as well. He has a people he’s writing to, and a purpose that he’s writing for, and a message that he’s trying to get across to a speak into the need of a particular people. So he opens with basically the address of his recipients:
1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ: To those chosen, living as exiles dispersed abroad in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, chosen 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ. May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
Peter is writing to Christian brothers and sisters who have been dispersed to all of these different places. We know they are Christians because he says that they are: they are “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.” My purpose today isn’t to go into foreknowledge and election and predestination.
We look at these verses and we can see that these believers have been scattered abroad to various locations in the Roman empire. They are not all together in one place. Whether or not they are actually exiles where they are isn’t clear. At the very least (as I mentioned last week), they are foreigners and exiles in this world from a spiritual perspective, as this place is not the true home of the one who follows Jesus Christ.
So Peter writes to these brothers and sisters in order to encourage them in the separation and persecution that they were facing and would continue to face. And he provides them with four constant reasons for rejoicing that those who belong to Christ today have as well:
1) Rejoice in our salvation
1) Rejoice in our salvation
Rejoice in your salvation, brothers and sisters. This is what Peter is doing when he kicks off verse 3 the way that he does:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 4 and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.
“Blessed be...” This is another way of saying that God is worthy of praising, of celebrating, of rejoicing in. And Peter goes on to say why is He praising God in that moment...
Because of what He has done through Jesus because of His great mercy!
I love how Peter puts it: “Because of His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...”
This is a celebration sentence, isn’t it? Because of God’s mercy as made evident in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we get to rejoice in an incredible gift: a new birth into a living hope because Jesus isn’t dead. He’s alive!
But how is that a mercy? Let me make this as clear as I know how to this morning for those who might be just checking out the church, checking out Jesus. All of us human beings have a problem. And that problem is sin. It doesn’t matter if we’re white or black or brown or green or purple. It doesn’t matter if we’re male or female. It doesn’t matter if we’re Republicans or Democrats or Independents; blue-collar or white collar; from the U.S. or somewhere else… we ALL have a problem with sin.
9 What then? Are we any better off? Not at all! For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin, 10 as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. 11 There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.
We’re all in the same boat: none of us is completely righteous. We all come up short when we are compared with the holiness and perfection of God. And since God is perfect, He has to punish sin, and that punishment is eternal separation from God called hell. And the standard isn’t a sliding scale, it’s not A, B, C, D, F… It’s Pass/Fail. We’re either perfect like God, or we’re imperfect. So all of us are imperfect. We can try and try and try, but we’ll never get back to perfect. We simply cannot save ourselves.
So there’s no way for us to be rescued. The beauty of the Gospel is that God loves us, because each of us is His precious creation, and we are made in His image. And because He loves us, He provided a perfect solution to our problem with sin: His Son, Jesus Christ, lived perfectly in our place, and then HE died for OUR sins. Since He died for our sins, then we get to have His perfection put in our account, and it wipes the slate clean. And it doesn’t matter what our sins were: Jesus paid for ALL of them.
But because He is God, He beat death and rose from the grave, and death no longer has any claim on Him. He lives forever in perfection in a perfect place that we call “heaven.”
And the promise is this: If we will stop trying to save ourselves and instead trust the sacrifice of Jesus to save us, choosing to follow Him as our Lord and Master instead of our own ways, then we will have that slate wiped clean by His perfection/… we have a new birth, and we will live forever with Him… we have a living hope. And you can have this hope as well, right now, right where you are, by placing your faith in Jesus to save you.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Because of His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead! This is something to celebrate every single day of our lives, Christian!
Even in our dispersion right now, even those of you who still can’t or don’t feel comfortable coming to the building on Sunday morning, the fact of our salvation is a constant reason for rejoicing. We have been given this amazing gift from God! So while we might still struggle, and we might still have some angst in all that is going on in our world, the truth is that if we are in Christ, then we are saved, and we can always rejoice in that.
But not only does this salvation provide perfection and eternal life, but an inheritance to receive as well! One that is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven” for us. Those words: imperishable, undefiled, unfading… those are words of great security.
2) Rejoice in our security
2) Rejoice in our security
We can and should rejoice in the security that we have in Christ. If you are a Christian, you never have to worry about what is going to happen to you when you die. It’s been settled. And since we don’t have to worry about that, then we can also be confident about God’s hand holding us securely in the day-to-day of life. Peter says that He is always guarding us by His power:
5 You are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
The point of our salvation isn’t even really us: it’s God’s glory. Since we belong to Him, He is guarding us by His power through our faith so that when the time comes, He can show the world how awesome His salvation work in our lives is! If I truly belong to Jesus through faith, then that is something that will never change. I am safe and secure in His hands.
There might be disease. There might be riots. There might be murder hornets (or not…). We might be dispersed, scattered from one another, but it is not in a location or being with a group of people that we draw our security from! It’s from God Himself. Look at what the Psalmist said about security with God:
1 The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom should I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life— whom should I dread?
6 He alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I will not be shaken.
I have to be honest with you that this is the hardest one for me. I know I’m secure in my salvation. It’s the ins and outs of the day that I struggle with. It’s walking moment by moment in the confidence that I have nothing to fear because God is for me, and so nothing can separate me from His love, as Paul said in Romans 8:
35 Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: Because of you we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Situations might be able to separate us from one another, but nothing can separate us from the love of God if we are in Christ. So we have a constant reason to rejoice in this! Our salvation is secure. Our inheritance is secure. Our eternal life is secure in God’s hands, even when we have difficulties come upon us, which Peter addresses in the next two verses:
3) Rejoice in our trials
3) Rejoice in our trials
We can rejoice in our trials, even the trial of being dispersed. Peter says it this way:
6 You rejoice in this, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials 7 so that the proven character of your faith—more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Notice what he says about our grief and trial: it is “for a short time.” Paul said something similar, also in 2 Corinthians 4:
7 Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. 8 We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; 9 we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed.
16 Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. 17 For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.
When compared with the distance of eternity past to eternity future, the time that we undergo our trials here in this life is miniscule, minute, microscopic even. Compared to the terrible trial of Jesus taking the weight of the sins of all mankind upon Himself on the cross, and compared to the “eternal weight of glory” that awaits us (which Paul says is “incomparable”), our trials are light.
It’s not that we as Christians should just put on a plastic smile as we look at the suffering that we are going through, and that others are going through, because of the brokenness of the world. It’s still suffering. Peter still called it grief. For us to put on a plastic smile and not mourn over our personal trials and the state of the world would be foolishness or arrogance.
I listened to a great sermon this week by Alistair Begg, and he said something profound about how the Christian can rejoice in suffering. He said,
I understand, and you do too, that when we read our Bibles, it speaks of the fact that there is a joy that is unassailable, that we can count is joy when we face trials of various kinds. But it is a joy that is faced in the midst of trials. It is a joy that exists contemporaneously with tears and with sadness. It is not a joy that says, “I am so joyful that I don’t cry,” but it is that strange paradox whereby even in my tears, I know that there is a joy that transcends what I am experiencing. If you like, one of the challenges we face as those who profess to be followers of Jesus is the challenge to show the world how to be sad… We’ve got it upside-down when we think that the way to prove to the world the reality of who Jesus is is for us to say, “No, I’m not sad.”
Of course we should be sad about being dispersed from one another for a time. I admit that I have shed many a tear over that fact over the past three months. Of course we should be sad about what is going on in the world. Of course we should be sad about the brokenness that encroaches upon our own lives which God allows in His sovereign will. But Peter argued that in Christ, these trials, these sufferings, this grief, can be used by God as a means of tempering our faith, of purifying our faith, of refining our faith, all for His praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. James said it this way:
2 Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
So in this, we have a constant reason for rejoicing, because God is at work in us, even through trials and suffering. This is where we find our hope.
4) Rejoice in our hope
4) Rejoice in our hope
At the end of it all, we have a hope that is based in what God has done in Christ, and the fact that we belong to Him through faith. Even as we are dispersed from one another, we can draw close to Christ. And as we draw nearer and nearer to Christ, we experience more and more of the beauty of being in that relationship with Jesus, and we become more and more like Him, and we receive the salvation that we started with in our first point as a practical working in our lives, as well as a future hope.
8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
We have this hope that allows us to rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, because we are actively receiving what has been promised to us by God through Christ.
But in addition to that, we still have the future hope, the confident assurance, of our salvation to rejoice in as well. I love how this passage from Isaiah 25 declares it:
8 When he has swallowed up death once and for all, the Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face and remove his people’s disgrace from the whole earth, for the Lord has spoken. 9 On that day it will be said, “Look, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he has saved us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him. Let’s rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”
We have a constant reason to rejoice because our salvation is both “now” and “not yet.” We are having our salvation worked out in us right now, but what we will be has not yet been made known, as John wrote in 1 john 3:2:
2 Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is.
That’s hope.
Closing
Closing
Because of what Christ has done, we can and should rejoice, Christian. In fact, even in our dispersion, we have constant reasons for rejoicing. We can rejoice in the fact that we are saved, that we have a relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. We can rejoice in the security that we have because of God’s provision in our lives. We can rejoice in the midst of our trials because God is at work in us through those trials, and we can rejoice because we have hope for a better day because of what Christ has done.
If you’ve never trusted in Jesus Christ for your salvation, I have presented the truth of the Gospel in as clear a fashion as I know how to this morning. Surrender your life to Christ right where you are, trusting Him to save you. Let us know by email or by text if today is the day that you are saved through faith in Jesus.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, I will share just one more verse of Scripture as closing:
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
Again, because of social distancing, we will not have a personal “come down” invitation this morning. But please reach out to me or the rest of church staff via email, Facebook, or Text-In-Church if you are in need of prayer or if you have made a decision this morning to follow Jesus.
Donna is going to play a piece on the piano for us as we reflect on our role as ministers and ambassadors of the message of the Gospel. You can also use this time to give your offering as an act of worship if you’d like to do so online.
PRAY
Donna
Thank you for being with us this morning in person and online. Please be in prayer for each other and encourage one another this week. You can get our PrayerLine on our website under the “Family Life” tab, so you can know some of what is going in that needs pray in our church family.
Before we go, can we just say a quick thank you to two ministry teams here at EHBC who have worked really hard during especially the past few weeks of this COVID crisis? Our Safety and Security team and our Audio-Visual team have put in a bunch of extra time and care over the last few weeks, and I just wanted to thank them for all that they are doing.
We pray that you have a blessed week, and we look forward to worshiping with you again next Sunday.
The safety and security team will release us, and make sure that you go out through the doors as they direct you. If you are parked in the north lot, feel free to go out that way.
Donna Postlude