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“The
Gift from God”
a sermon by
Thomas L. Jenkins
Text: 1 Peter 1:3-9
“Although
you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him
now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious
joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of
your souls.”
DEAR SISTERS AND BROTHERS yes, I am repeating myself: a focus on the
very love of God the Father is a deeper vision of the truth which God is
giving us to experience. No
one in the Old Testament; probably no other person in the whole world,
had ever called God their Father; except Jesus.
He told everyone that he is the Son of God and no one knows God
the Father, other than him. This
is the main reason for which he was crucified.
And after Jesus’ death and resurrection, when the New Testament was
written, there are about 15 epistles, letters written by Apostles to
sisters and brothers in Christ, which begin with praise and thanks
giving to God the Father. The
first major truth that Jesus ever shared with this world is that God is
His Father and that His whole mission was to bring us into being adopted
into His relationship with God the Father.
God, the Father of Jesus, is our heavenly Father.
Okay, God is our Father, and this has a lifelong experience with regard
to learning what this means. And
St. Peter is sharing with us, this morning, one of the major issues of
our new birth into a totally new kind of life.
A few weeks ago we talked about the conversation between Jesus and
Nicodemus. Nic was asking
Jesus, “Who this world are you?”
And Jesus basically answered him, “Nic in order for you to be
born into the life God the Father wants for you, I as the Son of God had
to come into your world so that I could take you back into our
family.”
The aspect of our new birth, which Peter is teaching us, is about Jesus
taking us back to be with God the Father.
And this new birth is because God the Father has given us the
gift of faith. Faith is not
something we design and activate all by ourselves; faith is the gift
from God.
The final and ultimate aspect of
salvation is going to come to us at the end of our world’s time, and
God by His very power, is putting the kind of faith is us that will keep
us ready for this happening. And
even though we are going through trials at this time, we really can
still rejoice about this truth.
The faith God gives us is even more precious than gold that is
tested by fire.
God is not testing us so we can prove to Him we have faith; He is
allowing us to go through certain suffering trials so that we can
experience the power of the faith he has put in us.
Because of the faith God has given us we still praise and honor
Jesus, even during our sufferings.
You have not literally seen Jesus, but you truly love Him because
of the faith God has given you. And
you are going to receive the final aspect of your faith, the salvation
of your souls.
When religion tells us that it is our own faith, which we are
responsible for, that saves us through God, then we all have times
questioning whether our faith is good enough.
The grace of God does not throw us back upon ourselves. The grace of God shows us that God comes to us, in us, and
does for us what we cannot does for ourselves.
If we are drowning in a lake, we cannot pull ourselves out by pulling
our own hair. And then God
allowing us to suffer through trials, He is not testing us to see if we
have enough faith to pull ourselves out of the lake by our hair.
God is allowing us to go through a trial so the He can show us
the faith which He has given us, that sees that through Jesus Christ, we
are being pulled out of the lake by their right hands.
When my little girl, Jennifer, was learning to walk, and we were walking
up and down stairs together, was she making it through these trial
because she was holding my had or because I was holding her hand?
“Although you have not seen him,
you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him
and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are
receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
This last verse of our reading from Peter is one of the most fascinating
verses in the Bible. Go
home and underline it in your Bible, to help you remember it.
This verse is not telling us about something we must do to make
ourselves right with God. It
is telling us something that is already true about us, because of the
gift of God the Father, whether we even know it or not.
Even though you have not seen Jesus, personally in the past, you do love
him in your heart. And you
are not seeing him in these days with your eyes, but you have such a
faith in him that at times you experience joy in your heart that you do
not even have words for.
Now, some of us may hear these words and feel like, “Yes this is great
and true; I hear and feel what this is saying.”
Some of us may hear these words and feel like, “Yes, I may have
some love for Jesus, based on what I’ve heard in church, but I don’t
know if I experience this kind of indescribable joy.”
Well the first group is not more righteous with God, and the second
group is not to feel guilt and shame because you don’t exactly see
yourself that way. This
love for and joy because of Jesus is the outcome of the gift of faith
God has already give you.
If it has not come out yet, I promise you it will; because God
the Father has already given you this gift of faith and placed it deep
in your souls. Why?
Because your souls have already been saved in Jesus Christ, for
God the Father, by the Holy Spirit.
The gift from God to you is faith.
The gift from God the Son to God the Father is you, and because
of this outcome God the Father has an indescribable love and joy in the
Holy Spirit.
Let us pray...
Amen.
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