Introduction
Let me begin with a discipleship question: how will you follow Jesus in prayer and dependence on God this week?
Main Points
In this lesson shaped by Calvary Boise's teaching on 1 PETER: Excitement for Our Faith, Endurance for Our Lives, Christ invites us to receive truth with humility, practice repentance, and walk in faithful obedience.
Faith and Obedience
we are taking some time in between Easter and what will be the remembrance of Pentecost in between resurrection and the spirit poured out. on the first church to really consider what we celebrate when we talk about the empty tomb and so first Peter is this book. that gives us the Christian character as the born-again believer walks it out so we started this really when we celebrated Easter we said. how good is God that he raised his son from the grave and the same spirit that was in Christ is now in us. last week we said okay here's what the born-again life looks like we looked at first Peter chapter 1 and it gives us those. three things we studied last week the new focus of our lives is wow we radically love God the future of our lives in. the horizon of our lives that we're going to eternity with the Lord we stand on the foundation of a genuine faith that can. stand through trial and now we're gonna take that we're gonna continue in that newness of life walk by looking specifically at two things. this morning that really are the two things you need in your life to have a life of success it's that it's true of. your physical life it's true of your born-again life and it is realized these two things realized in the born-again the Spirit of God. dwelling in you walk that you have now here are those two things they are the excitement for life and the endurance for life. and you need them whether you're a believer or not just to walk towards any kind of success I was greeted as I walked. in by a newlywed couple and you better believe that newlyweds need that excitement praise God for the honeymoon and the excitement of the. wedding day turning into endurance because you're gonna have a long rest of your life together and excitement better be coupled with a willingness. to walk out what God has planned for your marriage first service we had a huge wave of Boise State students that came and. there's some here even now and you better believe if you're a college student you better have some excitement to get you through those. slow days which better have endurance remember when you got that acceptance letter you got into college all those years of your elementary junior. high and high school life was not wasted you have.
Faith and Obedience
the acceptance letter you're getting in College how excited you are but now you have to endure because there's a lot of hardship that. exists between the acceptance letter and the diploma and it's true of a season for my family right now it was so exciting to. hear that my wife was pregnant with our fourth child and now she's in the season of endurance because it is a hard and. challenging thing for a woman and a family to go through that season of marriage or that season of pregnancy what we have this. morning is the combination of excitement and Dew and endurance for the born-again believer in Jesus Christ the newness of life that you walk. in is a life that is full of excitement and a life that will actually be reserved by God until you meet him face. to face an eternity that will endure through the trials and the difficulties and we're gonna look at that thing the combination of excitement. endurance in a way that surprises you maybe because we're gonna look at it through the lens of the prophets leading up to Jesus. to start let's reread verse 6 this is where we left off last week really is an extension of where we're going in first. Peter from last week it says this in this meaning this eternal inheritance that you have waiting for you reserved by God in this. you greatly rejoice though now for a little while if need be you have been grieved by various trials so that the genuineness of. your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes gold that does not endure though it is tested by fire may be found. to praise honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ whom having not seen you love though now you do not see him. you believing you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory the excitement of the salvation offered to us by the power of God. in us is joy inexpressible and now we're going to look at something that Peter is going to use in an extension of this. as of this thought he's going to say here's a reason to be really excited about this and here's an example of how to. endure and so the passage of scriptures we're going to look at this morning very simply verse 10 11 and 12 are going to. give us the excitement and the endurance as a way.
Grace and Justification
to leave the sanctuary and hit the streets with both of those things intact verse 10 says this of this salvation the prophets have. inquired and searched carefully who prophesied of the grace that would come to you searching what or in 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 to them. the prophets 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 and. now there is a theme in those three verses that is the excitement that we should expel him in knowing what we know about. who God is revealed in his son knowing what we know about God's plan for salvation in the empty tomb the cross of Christ. this visible image of his son being the representation of the invisible God Peter is saying do you realize what you know that these. guys longed to know that angels long to figure out as they saw God's plan unfolding for Humanity who he loved enough to die. for the angels of what is God up to and for just a small picture of the excitement that we are experiencing in what. is preached now I'll share with you a way that I felt that in my own life I already mentioned that my wife is. pregnant it's not an uncommon thing for me to talk about over the last five years she's been pregnant a lot but this particular. pregnancy is different it's different because our first three kids have all been girls now this fourth one is different because it's going to. be a boy and we're expecting our first boy now that's not what makes it extraordinary in fact part of me was actually hoping. for an another girl because we've got supplies for that and we could just pass down the supply chain right to the fourth one. and make it very simple but God had other plans now here's what makes this interesting as a way to relate to the excitement. that we just read about my name is not actually Tucker I'm sorry to tell you that I feel like there's an exhale like. who is this guy yeah I go by Tucker because my.
Sin and Salvation
real name is Thomas Gilbert male v and so the name Tom is kind of confusing in our household it's my dad's name it. was my grandpa's name a great-grandpa my great-great grandpa and on before that even farther than the numbers have counted so I go by. the nickname Tucker now all my life as a child people wondered how is this tradition gonna get passed down my dad and my. grandpa and the stories that I heard about the pictures of me with my great-grandpa and they wondered how is this kid gonna fulfill. this tradition if he does at all and there was a little bit of a head-scratcher because of all the grandkids that this mantel. could have been placed on I was the least likely to succeed in this the very last one to get married and my first. three attempts to produce a son produced thank god these amazing little girls that I loved more than anything and the challenge of this. is that when my wife was pregnant with our second daughter we went back east and we visited my grandfather and he was actually. on his deathbed and we didn't know we were having yet and we were so I was so hopeful that maybe he could make. it long enough to meet this future namesake but it didn't happen he died my father passed away in the Year 2015 Winnie our. second child was born that's that winter and so he never got to know how it was gonna work out but I got to. experience something really amazing about a month ago I called my grandma her name's LC mail you can call her email for short because. she's so digitally savage salad savvy God calls things as though they were because she's not email savvy at all I called her and. I said grandma Danielle is pregnant we found out what we're having it's a boy and we are going to name him thomas gilbert. male vi and there was a pause and I could feel over the phone in that pause her holding back tears and she said. your grandfather would have been so excited to meet this young boy I hung up the phone I thought I am even more excited. now I'm more excited to meet this little guy and realized that he is the child that my grandfather's hoped for and it gave. me this rush of excitement I can't wait to come visit.
Grace and Justification
my grandma and say here's the little guy you were waiting for now if I understand that in this small way for a child. that was hoped for how much more this morning do we have a reason to be excited about what we know about God's love. for Humanity because the prophets who when I read the story of the prophets I think these were amazing men of God Isaiah Jeremiah. King David the way that God would speak through the people he raised up there's Moses and all of these stories of the heroes. of faith and they're waiting in there wondering and now what I realize is that I know the full revelation of God in ways. they don't jesus says there's no one better born of a woman than John the Baptist the final prophet pointing everybody to Christ but. he said if you're born again in the kingdom you're even greater because you've seen me John the Baptist didn't see the empty tomb. in his day but you know we know about God this morning what is going to be preached to you right now that God. is not distant that God is not a God who is waiting for a select few of mighty men of righteousness to raise up. to the level of His Holiness and say God have we found you that we know a God who so loved the world he. sent his son into the world and his son came not to be served but to serve humanity by laying down his life and. taking on the burden of sin and shame and distanced from God and God's wrath was poured out on the cross of his son. that's what we know about God we stand here preaching good news God forgives sins not based on your works but based off the. grace pour it out on the cross you know we know about God that death couldn't hold him down we believe in a God. who reached into the tomb of his son and pulled him out of the grave and he said the same life that conquers death. I'm giving to you we know that God how excited should we be how excited should we be week in and week out and. that's the difficulty why excitement needs endurance because you know more about the revelation of God's plan for salvation and the prophets and they. waited and they realize that what we're preaching this morning.
Sin and Salvation
is their excitement that's how it happened you know be excited about the God that has revealed his love to you today this morning. this God wants you to be excited about who he is in ways that righteous men who came before us he never got to. see praise God for the revelation of his son praise God that every year we look back at these verses pointing us to the. cross we realize it was pointing us to Jesus when we celebrate Easter when we celebrate in newness of life when we say now. go forth and walk in and we're celebrating the excitement of a revelation that was incredible to the ones who prophesied about it and. here's the here's the thing that we need to know now and we continue to the message of endurance because it says in verse. eight whom having not seen you love at a young man come up to me last week we're going through 1st Peter he's reading. through and he said hey I got to this part about the prophets they were hoping for Jesus now Jesus has arrived and we. know salvation we know the good news we know the gospel he said what are we waiting for I said we're waiting for a. lot there's a lot about the plan of God to redeem humanity and reconcile sinner to himself and take that creation that's wearing down. it's full of darkness and sin there's a lot of work left to be done that when we get to the fullness of glory. with joy inexpressible we're gonna say wow what an amazing work that we got to be a part of that we got to wait. for God is still doing a lot in this world he's doing a lot in our country he's doing a lot in our state. he's doing a lot in our city he's doing things in your life that have yet to come so you need to endure with. excitement and here's how we do that and this is what we're gonna study for the rest of our time with these three verses. not only do these prophets give us all of this excitement about who we are and the age we live in but they also. give us this amazing example of endurance they give us this god-ordained and this the scripture glorified example of how they were waiting and. then we fulfilled their they're waiting and I want to.
Grace and Justification
look at them and say well how can we wait like they waited how can we wait like they waited for the continued reconciliation. of the world to the Savior and I'm going to look at these three verses and just each verse representing one of their characteristics. look at this verse 10 it says they searched carefully searching carefully for how this salvation was going to happen verse 11 says they. waited eagerly can't wait to see it and verse 12 says that they hoped selflessly they searched carefully they waited eagerly and they hoped. selflessly the excitement of what was already preached God so loves you and you know it through his son now with the endurance of. the example of those who came before us we start with they searched carefully verse 10 of this salvation the prophets have inquired and. searched carefully who prophesize of the grace that would come to you what this says is and all of those prophecies and all of. those words of the Lord that are given to us in the Old Testament there were things in there that they could be looking. for that would point them to what this salvation plan was going to look like and then as we look back to Easter for. the period of our study we get Jesus explaining to his disciples what a careful search of the Scriptures leading up to the Gospels. will give you we look at Luke chapter 24 now this is the Easter morning this is the time where the risen Christ is. now revealing himself to his disciples to continue the mission and he finds two disciples that are walking with this sad countenance they're walking. away from Jerusalem to this town called Emmaus and they're just processing with heavy hearts all of the all of the ways their hopes. in Jesus were now gone Jesus approaches them this is why you sad it says in verse 21 of chapter 24 it says we. were hoping that Jesus was going to redeem Israel but it's been three days since all these things there happen nothing's changed we had. a hope set on Christ as the Saviour maybe it was Christ who was going to be the fulfillment of the prophecies but now. we know he's not and this is what Jesus says in verse 25 that Jesus said to them as they say this they're walking. they're sad they think their hopes are over and.
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.