God's Sustaining Power: Faith, Hope, and Eternal Perspective

If God is saying if God through Peter is saying I guard you if and through your autonomous production of faith if you without my causing it produce it I show up and guard you for your inheritance I don't think there's much left to guard because I've already done the decisive work right I mean what what is going to threaten what's going to keep me from having the inheritance unbelief right what will keep me from having the inheritance is if I throw it all away I don't believe you anymore don't love you don't trust you it's all been a shame anyway I'm gone I'm out of here I don't have faith anymore don't want Faith anymore never did have faith it was all just to show if that happens I'm in hell so if I can keep that from happening then Faith unites me to Jesus and Faith overcomes the world and faith is the means by which my sins are forgiven and Faith opens the door of heaven and what's left for God to do in guarding me for my inheritance I don't think there's anything left for him to do decisively which means I don't think that's what this means I don't think that's what this text means I don't think this text means who by God's power are are protected after they autonomously produce the necessary Faith because there's nothing left to do the faith is the issue will I have faith as I die now God says yeah if you have it I'll be there to guard you well from what the faith is it now that's my that's my take just reading the verse itself that this means god guards his children by preserving and sustaining their faith himself he keeps you by keeping your faith so I I I like to ask people I'll ask you what makes you think you will wake up tomorrow morning as a Believer and your answer to that question shows what kind of theology you have and how you live your life if you say well I'll wake up tomorrow morning believing because that's that's what I do I I will to believe I bring about faith every morning I put my trust fresh I say well that's a pretty flimsy foundation for waking up a Believer I'll tell you what I think I'll wake up a Believer tomorrow morning cuz he who began a good work in me will bring it to completion at the day of Christ that's my my only hope my only hope is that he keeps his own by Awakening their faith is that what Peter means here's a sequence of thought to broaden it out in the New Testament and see if this fits where your mind is in chapter 5 verse 8 you're all familiar with uh take heed your adversary the devil prows around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour resist him firm in your faith and after you've suffered a little while the God of all Grace will himself restore establish and strengthen you so what does the the lion eat what's to devour you that probably does doesn't mean your muscles flesh bone it it's your faith I think now a confirmation so the the devil right now is in this room he hates what's going on here and he wants to just eat your faith and he has all kinds of ways of sewing thoughts in your mind that cause you to see anything faith building I might say as ridiculous so he wants to eat your faith he if he can eat your faith and consume it and destroy it he doesn't care what else you do do you remember Luke uh 20 232 Luke 2232 Jesus looks at Peter and he says Satan has demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat now what's that what is that picture so you got a sifter here right and you got Peter and the sifter and Satan wants to sift you Peter like weat so he's got to he pushes you through the sifter what what does he want to stay in the sifter or what do you call the Civ or whatever the right word is uh and and what comes out the bottom and my answer is he just wants to push Peter through through and out comes Peter and up here is Faith right I want Faith out of your life Satan has demanded to half you I think that's what he did with job as well Satan comes to God says uh let me just take him uh to to let me just wipe out his kids and then he won't believe anymore and that didn't work let me attack his body and he said well but just don't kill him so he diseases him and that didn't work he kept trying to sift him and get Faith out of his life with suffering which is what the context is in 1 Peter 5'8 and here's what Jesus said Jesus says I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail and after you have turned strengthen your brothers not if you turn Jesus is looking right into Peter's face and saying okay we're going to do a job kind of thing here job wanted to sift I mean Satan wanted to sift job J and I'm going to I'm going to let him have you tonight up to a point and no further because I have prayed for you that your faith fail not so my question is did his faith fail he denied him three times he denied Jesus three times I don't know him I don't know him I don't know him and Jesus said I'm praying that your faith won't fail after you have turned strengthen your brother and he made Peter a rock for the church so he writes letters like this about suffering and satanic attack and faith and God's preservation of it I don't think his faith failed utterly isn't it wonderful I mean that's just wonderful there is such a thing as us failing you will fail today probably in some particular way that Faith would cause you to act in in a bold way and you don't do it Faith fails but you haven't failed utterly Jesus is praying for you Romans 8 he is interceding for you at the right hand of God and what is he asking God to do he's asking him to do verse Five By God's power you are being guarded through the the god sustained Jesus sustained Spirit sustained faith for a Salvation ready to be revealed so that's my take on verse five so the the point of verses 3-5 is hope hope hope is so strong and so fixed and so firm and so trustworthy and it's so valuable unfading undefiled imperishable infinitely better than anything in this world because you're an inheritor of God being born into his family and he's he's keeping it there for you he won't let it go away and if you worry about whether you're going to get there because of the suffering and the fiery ordeal that's about to come upon you don't worry I'm going to guard your faith wow that's so encouraging to me so why am I going to wake up a Christian tomorrow morning he's going to guard me with the instrument of Faith he's going to open my eyes to see the trustworthiness of the gospel and believe and if he if he left me to myself I would not be a believer in this you rejoice we'll go another 15 minutes or so and then take a break in this you rejoice amen do we not so what's the role of the Holy Spirit right now if you're you're feeling some measure of happiness about your inheritance and your safety in Jesus the holy spirit's at work in your life right now in this room if you're not if you're bored with this he passed you over and you should be scared scared enough to to ask him not to pass you by I I pray like that all the time Don't Pass Me By don't don't leave me to myself as I read my Bible Come Holy Spirit help me to do this right here it says it's it's going to happen what if it doesn't happen then you cry out to the Lord I ow you s my little acronym I ow you s in I incline my heart to your testimony oh open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things out of your law you unite My Heart To Fear your name s satisfy me in the morning those are three four prayers from the Psalms which show me the psalmist deals with what I deal with so right now I'm praying incline my heart to these words as I teach them and incline your hearts open our eyes to see The Wonder of 3-5 unite our hearts unite meaning they're they're they're fragmented they're going in a 100 directions right now you're thinking about this afternoon or tomorrow something hard is coming in your life and you're it's hard for you to concentrate right now and oh God unite my heart and then satisfy me in the morning at 9:56 with your steadfast love that you've just revealed here that's the way I pray and I hope you do in this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuiness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it's tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ though you have not seen him you love him though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with Glory obtaining the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls so this is a description of the response of the born against soul to the news of The Inheritance and the keeping and the response is joy and it's a joy in in hope this this right here is is is hope it's it's the inheritance we're not rejoicing mainly according to verses 3-5 in something that we're going to experience this afternoon or between now and when we die a lot of people think oh if you if you become Heavenly minded if you set your hope fully on the things that are coming to you you'll become of no worthly earthly good Peter believes exactly the opposite the only way you will respond to suffering in a Christ exalting other helping way is if your hope is outside this world that's that's the argument of this book if you don't have an inheritance in heaven beyond the resurrection that Thrills you now in suffering you won't make Jesus look good in suffering and you won't cause other people to glorify God on the day of visitation verse 12 chapter two you won't you'll be so angry that your present inheritance was taken away oh how sad you know maybe this is of the Lord if if your mom or dad has just passed away or is in hospice right now and you and your brothers and sisters are at each other's throat but who gets the piano and who gets the house and how this is going to be dived up can I just say that you magnify Jesus and not fight over that if you lose everything don't fight over it that's that's what's going on in First Peter that kind of freedom I'm going to inherit all the pianos in the world and and I will be able to play them I I think that's going Beyond scripture the first one's not the first one's not I get all the pianos whether we'll all be able to play I don't know I I hope so cuz that's one of the regrets I have when I was seven that I gave it up [00:00:13]