Rev. Dr. James Ellis III: 0:00

Be still and know that I am God. Good words for us to think about this morning. The text I have today is one Peter chapter. Versus three through nine, as you, take some time to turn there. let me just remind you of a phrase that I was reminded of. It's an anonymous quote, but the person said, salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you your life. Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost your life. I hope that here at Maplewood, we are people who want to offer salvation, the free gift of salvation to. Comes in that we could be conduits for that, but also that we could let people know that that decision then marks you for dying to yourself so that you can live in Christ. Amen. Amen. All right. First Peter three, chapter one, verse three through nine. Praise be to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living. 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. Verse six. In this you greatly re. 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. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. New birth for old problems. New birth for old problem. When I was a child, you know, in my toddler years, pretty well up until my toddler years, I was chunky. I was curious and I was a little sideways, sneaky. And one thing that I loved to do was blow ashes out of ashtrays. It, it was my thing. I, I couldn't tell you where I, I got that, desire from, why it was such a big, big deal. But I. That it was a big deal. I, I got an absolute kick out of blowing ashes out of the ashtray. It's interesting because it's, it stopped, or my parents rather stopped smoking when I was into my adult years. So naturally the ashtrays were something that was in my home when I was growing up, and I, I don't think, the commitment that I had to huffing and puffing and blowing ashes everywhere was as successful in my own. Partly because my parents did not play and they were more familiar with the space. So they could kind of police me better as a little chunky kid that was very curious and, secretive. But if you were coming over to our house or we were going over to your house and you had ashtrays, which many of our friends and family did, you can imagine it was gonna be on with the ashes and the ash. Like it was yesterday. I remember kind of sinisterly biting my time. I was really plotting, inching over to the ashtray. I'd act like I was playing with something and just had no interest really in the ashtray. But I was locked in. I was locked in out the side of my eye, and believe me, if you didn't catch me before, my pint size thick little thighs got to moving. It was gonna be. I was already gonna be there at the ashtray. I was gonna put my face up to the ashtray. I was gonna fill my cheeks with as much air as I could stand, and I was gonna blow the ashes to smithereens, and I was gonna laugh. I wonder if you would be in agreement with me this morning that maneuvering across life's tensions is a source of serious. We, we don't understand or appreciate why it has to be that way. There's, there's an itch that we long to scratch for fantasy to conquer fiction someplace where pixie dust and ice cream trucks rule where money grows on trees and the good don't die young, where decency is rewarded and justice is punctual and it's unbiased. And the fountain of. Exists as merely one of the multiple pools over at the Holland Aquatic Center. You just pay for a membership or a day pass and you're golden. That's what we like to think. Yet time has a way of proving that not only is the mysterium Tremendum, the tremendous mystery of God, a dominant theme in life's gumbo, but it it helps us to. Whether we want to or not, that no matter how relentless we are in keeping our nose to the grindstone, the dollars sometimes just don't make sense. Come on now, somebody, the dollars sometimes just don't make sense, or, or we take three steps forward in life while we're out celebrating that night, and then we take three steps backward. We feel like we can't get ahead. It could be that despite our noble. A relationship never dissolves per se, but instead it marches forward with an air of imbalance and loud silence. Regular rhythms of resentment and rash. Words that make reconciliation pretty tricky. Let, let's be honest, human being. Meaning all of us past, present, and future, we like to think that we have more figured out than we actually do, and even within the few obligations that we've been benevolently granted by God to manage, well, not even the best of intentions, guarantees that you will receive a passing grade. Thomas Merton, A Monk wrote in a letter. This, he said like Jonah himself, I find myself traveling toward my destiny in the belly of a paradox, and that's how life feels sometimes, like a paradox. The, the neat and nice or or plain, sensible bow tie that we want life to, to be wrapped into. It doesn't always, Cooper. And it leaves us pondering what in the world, the Lord our God is gonna do about it. It feels like when we've finally tidied up our finances, or we've been the good Samaritan to a fellow sojourner, or when we've made it to the other side of a scary diagnosis, or when retirement status has been attained or, or in another way, we feel like we can breathe again or laugh again. Or worship again or love again more fully. That's when life just sas on over to you. It stoops down. It puffs out. Its chubby cheeks and gets as much air as it can, and it blows ashes everywhere leaving you and me to pick up the pieces addressed as it is to those committed to the resurrected Jesus Christ who were. And displaced throughout various provinces. Peter's letter is also addressed to us today. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, despite the mess that we may find ourselves in whether we've caused it or not. There's no better place than to begin with praising God. That's. Area for you to say amen praising God. That's a a great thing for us to do as Christians. Just as we start out and we encounter life's issues, we can praise God. But in verse four, there's this mention of ed inheritance that can never perish or spoil or fade, which merits some explanation because when we hear that today, we can kind of get off. We can get undone from the author's. Actual intent, eternal life with God or salvation as it were, is the object of Peter's affection. Here, though it, it is an assured outcome, confined to those who make Jesus their choice. It is quite distinct from stock options or a home. It's quite distinct from fairly family heir. Quite distinct from a family business that you bequeath to someone you know in the will. You can designate the fully loaded Jeep Grand Cherokee to your firstborn. You can say that you want the riding lawnmower that's in above average condition to go to your next door neighbor. He's been so kind to you. You can say that you want your considerable library to go and pass on to the English College student major that you've been mentoring, but well, what doesn't work is telling the estate planner. By the way, now that I think about it, let me go on ahead and sign my salvation over to my grandkids. That's not, that's not how it goes. What paperwork is needed to transfer that? God endows us his creation with a conscious capacity to accept or reject him and to sink or swim, as it were, to surrender or to rebel. Now, obviously as God, he knows the the end long before the beginnings beginning, long before he formed us in our mother's womb. But I must stand by my decision as you. By yours, just as everyone is held accountable for if they've elected to build their life on the rock, or if they've elected to build their life on sand and there's no proxy or absentee voting either. Each person can only cast a lot by himself or herself for himself or herself. Stevie Wonder had this popular song some years ago. It was Sign sealed, delivered, I'm yours. And that highlights how distinct this spiritual inheritance is from the earthly kind of inheritances come to mind. The Holy Spirit is the underwriter. He's the the guarantee, the Guaranteer not, not the F D I C. So when we trust Jesus with this life and what will come in the life, We were marked and we're sealed forever, we're signs sealed, delivered. Consequently, there's neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation that will be able to separate us from the love of God that is found in Christ Jesus. This inheritance will never spoil or perish or fade, and I want you to. Just how terrifically radical that is, that this inheritance will never perish. It will never spoil. It will never fade. What else can you even begin to think of that that is equal in its accessibility and can be accepted or rejected by all without co. What else is immutable in perfect permanence? Something that will be both immaculate and available precisely as promised when the time comes, no questions asked. My goodness gracious. I mean, vehicles absolutely do not work that way. Those things depreciate as soon as you drive'em off. Not to mention they can lose half their value over the first five years, and our bodies seem to do much of the same. Come on now. Somebody, our bodies are disobedience, scaffoldings of blood and bones, flesh and feelings. I mean, generally, you know, they, they work decently and may even be highly cooperative at some period of time in our life. But you just. You young people, you, you just wait, the strike is coming. Sunny cofaq Adam Sandler's character was right in the film. Big Daddy, when disclosing that when he was five years old, he too could eat anything he wanted, but, but now he says at 32, if he has a chocolate cake, chocolate shake, anything c. His dairy air jiggles for a week. That's what he said. The struggle is real. Many of us are, are intimately familiar with how when you reach a certain age and, and it happens sooner, then you think your body goes somewhat rogue. It betrays you, your, your skin gets a bit more elastic than you ever imagined it. And, and Gravity has a way of taking hold and refusing to loosen its grip. And your metabolism slows to a crawl and your eyesight takes a hit, and all the crossword puzzles in the world will not keep you from becoming at least some degree of forgetful because our bodies are erratic and our bodies are broken, and our bodies are just like the. The cash that is stuffed in your mattress can fade it. It can perish, not, not even a good name. As important as a good name is, is above being spoiled. White and blue collar crime can rob you of most anything detained down here that you might hope to pass on to your next of kin, and even if you are fortunate enough to hold onto. Even if that works out, you know the government is about to take its obligatory cut faith. However, the good news is that faith does not operate that way. Christ's life and death and resurrection denote that this inheritance is kept in heaven for you. Verse five, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be reveal. In the last time, it is more secure. This inheritance is than Fort Knox. It is a pledge. It is a vow. Better yet, it is a covenant between God and whosoever will wave the white flag to humbly commune with God forever through the shed blood of Jesus. And this is why for centuries, Christians have recited. The chorus, there is power, power, wonder, working power in what the blood of the lamb There is power, power wonder, working power. Power in the blood of the lamb, and that's plenty enough to rejoice over right there. That by grace through faith, you are safe and secure in the arms of the one who made. Eight, 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 end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Nonetheless, the tension described earlier has another side. And it is this as lovely and as priceless as redemption is, and oh, you need to know that it is Oh, so lovely. And it is oh, so priceless. Recognizing of course, that you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. Or recognizing that you can and should introduce others, as I mentioned at the onset to the salvific power of Jesus while accepting that, opting for God. Or Godlessness is their choice and their choice alone to enjoy the new digs that are offered in heaven. Demands One thing, it demands that you and I, we must die. We gotta leave this place, and I want you to know that death has a perfect memory. It's not gonna forget you. I'm sad to say. That not only that are we gonna die, but in the relatively little while that we do have here on earth, the, the 30 or maybe the 65 or maybe the 95 some odd years that we have Peter rights in verse six, that you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. Now no one really shouts at a point like, like that, that, that Peter is making. And we all inherently know why none of us wants to die. None of us wants to suffer or be oppressed because of our faith. Either we, we'd appreciate skipping all of that together if it were possible. It's, it's actually antithetical to what it means to be a human, to pretend that we are absent of angst or absent of anxiety or a absent even of anger. About the fact that one day we are all going to leave this place. And the thing is, it's gonna be at a day and it's gonna be at a time and a place. And by means that we were not consulted over. Even if it is, as it is, the only palpable way that we can be with Jesus, but the hardships they're not for. All this unrest goes down even to the point of death itself in order for us to be refined and to be cleansed. Verse seven is just about your faith being tested, partly because it, it helps you to know where you truly are regarding comprehension and applic. Going from what's in your head or what you're experiencing internally, what you believe in here, and then applying it. Without that, we're, we're really just flying blind. We're, we're potentially very proud, but proudly incorrect, assuming that we're on the cutting edge of maturity and we're brimming with love and joy and peace, and forbearance, and kindness and goodness, and faithfulness, and gentleness and self-control. In truth, it might be that we're in the remedial class for believers who've been, you know, just kept back a couple of years spiritually speaking in one of his devotionals. This New Testament scholar by the name of DA Carson, wrote the following. He wrote that people do not drift toward holiness, apart from grace driven. People do not gravitate towards godliness, prayer, obedience to scripture, faith, and the delight in the Lord. He writes that we drift towards compromise and we call it tolerance. We drift towards disobedience and we call it freedom. We drift towards superstition and we call it. We cherish the indiscipline, he says, of lost self-control, and we like to call that relaxation. We slouch towards prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking that we have escaped legalism. We slide towards Godlessness and convince ourselves. He writes that we have been liberated and this is why. Despite the shortcomings involved, nothing is perfect. This is why Vacation Bible School and Youth Catechism and Sunday School and children's sermons and Bible training Union and adult Christian education have historically been so vital to individual and corporate spiritual growth in Christ. These. Just provide measures, they're mechanisms to measure where our gaps are, and then for us to go get some help from fellow believers. And that's really the spirit behind Peter's notion that trials come so that the proven genuineness of your faith may result in praise and in honor and glory when Jesus Christ is re revealed. I wanna be clear. God is not tempt. He's not dangling cookies and bon bonds and bonette with all the good almond paste. He's not dangling that in our face, knowing good and well that we've been trying for a long time to lose these 15 pounds, but God is both producing on the one hand and permitting on the other hand, circumstances in this fallen world to act as a practic. By which we can put our faith into action because we learn by being instructed, obviously. But we also learn by doing one sport that I've continued to dabble in through the years is basketball. Any of y'all familiar with basketball? Okay. Couple people. These days, however, I've got zero interest in fighting for loose rebounds and trying to dribble as well as Alan Iverson, or getting my competitive juices going with pickup games at my age. The last thing that I need is, which I know has happened to a couple of guys, you know, at 40 something to tear my acl. Or to tear my Achilles tendon while I'm sprinting around at some pickup basketball game, trying to use my limited energy to win. But every so often what I'll do is I'll go to the gym, I'll find a court that's empty and I just shoot around all by myself. Few dribbles this way, few dribbles that way, and I shoot, and I. Keep doing that for maybe 45 minutes. It's a good workout. You know, it gets my heart rate up and it makes me feel good. But, but this is the kicker. You don't play basketball against yourself. I mean, the whole point of the sport, whether it's, you know, one-on-one or three on three, or traditionally five on five, is to compete against, Shooting around by myself is perfectly fine. So long as I'm okay that it renders me horribly. And I mean horribly cuz I, there's been a couple times I'm like, oh, I'll, I'll play with you guys. And I was like, it was horrible. It was horrible. Shooting by myself renders me horribly unprepared. It makes me an indisputable liability. If I were to one day play on a. Because I'm not accustomed to shuffling my feet and, and being in a good stance to guard someone or calling out screens or running plays and making quick outlet passes. I'm not accustomed to dribbling past or shooting over someone who is contesting me and spiritually speaking. Then hoisting up shots solo. It has its place, but it doesn't speak to the new birth, the sacred inherit. That we seek to steward well in Christian community, one with another. We need each other. And sadly, generations of people these days are Christian in name or theory only. I'll rewind that nowadays, which it has always existed, but it's, it's very prominent nowadays. There are whole generations of people. Are Christian in name or theory only. People of all kinds of ages and races and socioeconomic levels and denominational backgrounds, who they've been hard pressed, as it were to get in the game, is what I'm trying to say. They're, they've been stunned by fear of failure, or they fear hard work, or there's this fear that accountability might reveal. That an obedience to God that's that's been far less refined or robust already made as they have said or suggested, that it has been the ultimate fulfillment of our inheritance happens only when we pass on to see God the Father, through the sacrifice that the son Jesus made. But in the meantime, we bear witness. We bear witness to the, the already, but not yet truth of our new birth as God's kingdom is as well already, but not yet as verse nine explains what Christians anticipate is receiving the end result of our faith, which is the salvation of our. So on this sojourn, we just can't afford to get caught up laboring to tie life into a neat, nice bow where the, the calming Michigan blue in our cottages and our trips to Mackinac Island, or to Florida or to Spain become idols because you must work out your salvation with fear and trembling here. On compromised bedrock here in the mosh pit of competing ideologies and families like your own families that make you wanna holler and you have to do it in the midst of sorrow. And you do it in the midst of the lust of the flesh and the, the pride of life and the lust of the eyes. You know, like right down here on earth, this is where the wild things. So trust me when I tell you that life will find you no matter how fast you run, no matter how far you run, it will meander down to whatever size it needs to, or, or get up to your level and it will fill its cheeks with air and life will blow ashes all over the place because that's what life does. But in Christ. We have, you and I have. If we are in Christ, we have a living hope. Amen. Amen. Let me pray. Gracious, heavenly Father, you are our living hope. We've put all of our marbles in the basket of Jesus Christ. So God, would you convict us this week for us to be people of faith? N nothing more, nothing less that we would be. In who you have called us to be and by whom we are called to be that God. And I pray for those who may hear this message, those who are here hearing this message, if you are not confident, if someone's not confident in their salvation in Christ Jesus, God, I pray that they would run like not speaking metaphorically, but that they would run to find someone who could help them be introduced to Jesus, God that they could pray and they could. Lord that you love them, that you created them, and that Jesus Christ died for him. In Christ's name, amen.