Well, good morning. I'm glad to have survived that little incident. And even happier to be here to worship with you again this morning. It's a pleasure to look out and to see you all. We've been here for about 10 days now, and we've been very encouraged by the time that we've gotten to spend with many of you last Sunday, fellowshipping here in the morning, the afternoon at the Kayser's house with many of you. And then throughout the week, we've had meetings with some of you. We're happy to be here again today. And we're going to be here for the next week. Like Ryan said, we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the Mohammeds and also on the 27th on Saturday night. I'll come with some pictures and I'll make it fun and interesting to the best of my ability. We'll look forward to that. So as we get started here, we're going to be in 1 Peter 1. Verses three through nine, that's printed on page eight in the bulletin. It's also towards the end of your New Testament if you want to look it up. While we're getting situated, I'll start with a little bit of an introduction. I think probably everybody or almost everybody in here has insurance. In the United States, everybody has insurance. And you can insure lots of different things. I don't know if you knew this, but not only can you insure your house and your car, you can insure your pets. NFL quarterbacks insure sometimes their throwing arm. And you can even insure your mustache. Did you know that was a thing? That's not a thing for me because I can't grow a good mustache, so it's not even a temptation. But you can get insurance for just about anything, and insurance is popular because it's designed to protect us. It's a sort of guarantee of our well-being, despite all the setbacks that we might experience in our lives. So think for a minute about your car insurance. A few years ago, my father-in-law had a car accident right in front of our house. So he was pulling out of the parking lot in front of our house, merging into oncoming traffic, It was at night. It was raining. He didn't see a car that was coming. Bam! Huge crash. Lots of noise. We all came running out of the house to see what had happened. And thanks be to God, nobody got hurt. But I thought my father-in-law was going to flip out because he really likes his car. So if you ever meet my father-in-law, ask him about his car, his Range Rover. I think in English it's an Evoque. I think is how you say it. That's the model. He always keeps it clean. He's really careful with it. And we got out there, and we saw on the street that poor Range Rover was just crumpled. And I thought my father-in-law would be destroyed. And you know what? To my surprise, he wasn't. He was remarkably calm. And I asked him, how are you doing? And he said, I'm fine, because I know the insurance is going to cover it. So he had a guarantee that sooner or later he would get that car back, or maybe one like it if it was totaled. The insurance gave him a sense of peace and a sense of hope in the middle of a really difficult situation. Now imagine that you could have some kind of insurance policy that guaranteed your happiness in life. Wouldn't that be great? How would a policy like that function? What would be its terms? Well, in order for it to be effective, it would have to guarantee your health, your job, a happy family, and maybe just a constant flow of positive experiences in your life. Does such an insurance policy exist? No, it doesn't. Don't listen to that salesman that comes to your door telling you that it does. No such policy exists. But I can talk to you this morning about a better guarantee, one that offers true and lasting hope, and not through perpetually comfortable living in the here and now, but through a promise for the future. Trusting in this promise leads to a real, a different, but a real way for us to enjoy life now in the present. So that is what 1 Peter 3, 1 through 9 is about. Let's read it together. I'll read it. You can read along. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has called us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is 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. May God add his blessing to the reading of his word. Well, that passage is dense, isn't it? We're gonna try to unpack it together a little bit this morning. You'll notice that Peter starts off worshiping God. He sits down to write the letter to his readers, and the first thing he does is he praises God. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I think he wants his readers to worship together with him. but because he goes on to tell them why God should be praised in a really specific way. Do you ever wonder why at the beginning of our services we read a passage of scripture? Why did Ryan stand up here this morning and read from Psalm 95? Is that our cue to sit down and be quiet? Well, I hope by then we're sitting down and we're being quiet. No, the reason why Ryan does that, the reason why pastors and church leaders all over the world do that week after week is because We're not always the best worshipers. If you're like me, praise doesn't necessarily spontaneously flow out of you constantly. I know a lot of times I'm pretty slow and dull. Sometimes even on a Sunday morning after battling with other family members trying to get the church on time. So we need to be told about some of the many reasons that we have to be happy in God. And that's exactly what Peter does here. He reminds his readers, he knows their suffering by the way, and we'll get to that a little farther down. He knows his readers are having a hard time. And he reminds them of why they should worship God. But what does he say? Why should we worship God? Peter says right there in verse three that God gives us a living hope. Now you may know that the language of hope in the Bible is used a little bit differently than how we use it today. So a lot of times when we talk about hope, what we mean by hope is something more like a desire or maybe wishful thinking. I hope I pass my final exam. I hope I get a raise at my job. I hope the Padres can win the title this year. That actually could happen, couldn't it? Are they pretty good? I'm not following it closely. I know the Rockies absolutely stink. your hope in the Padres is a little more well-founded than mine might be in the Rockies. So, you know, a lot of times we hope for things that in and of themselves can be good, but we say, I hope that X happens. Usually we're expressing a desire. And that's not what Peter is talking about here. When he's talking about a living hope, he's not referring to a mere desire or wishful thinking. He's talking about assurance. a feeling of assurance that comes from the knowledge of something real and certain. So what is that real and certain thing that Peter wants to remind his readers of? He tells them in verse four that they have coming an inheritance. This is also an interesting word. You read the Bible and you see that God oftentimes, when he's talking about the gifts that he gives to his people, He classifies those gifts as an inheritance. And this is on purpose. This helps us to understand the nature of his gifts. Imagine a young man who grows up in a very wealthy family. Now, depending on how things go, when his parents pass, he stands to inherit a lot of money. And maybe he had nothing to do with the building up of the family business. He didn't contribute at all to the family's wealth, yet he will inherit it just by virtue of being part of that family. So an inheritance, even in our day and age when we talk about an inheritance, is just a family gift. That's all it is. In the Old Testament, Israel had an inheritance. Israel was given the Promised Land. And in Judges chapter 14, it's called an inheritance. Now, it's a free gift. God told the nation of Israel, you're no better than the nations around you. Yet he chose to be their father, he adopted them, Romans 9, verse 4, and he gave them an inheritance, which was the promised land. It was a free gift. How many of you would like to have a little parcel on the Mediterranean where you could sit under a fig tree in peace and prosperity? I'm claiming 1 Kings 4.25 this morning. I want my parcel. Wouldn't that have been great? I mean, the promised land was a really nice inheritance in a lot of ways. But our inheritance as Christians is even better. Our inheritance is different from the inheritance in the Old Testament, and not because, not just because, it doesn't have to do with geography. That inheritance in the Old Testament was corruptible. The land was defilable. And guess what? The nation of Israel defiled the land with their idolatry. And what happened? The land vomited them out. They lost their inheritance. They got sent into exile. Why did that happen? Because their inheritance, after they received it, it depended on them. It depended on their obedience. And they could not pull it off. The Christian inheritance is different. Look at what it says in verse 4. We have been born again to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for us. I think Peter uses that word undefilable on purpose because he's thinking about the inheritance from the Old Testament. The land was defilable and the people did defile it. And what does Peter say? Christian, your inheritance is undefilable and the reason why is because it's being kept in heaven for you by God. It's not being kept here by you for something else, it's being kept you somebody else is keeping it in heaven the person who's keeping it is God since our inheritance as Christians is maintained by God himself it will never fade it will never diminish and it can never be lost now I could quit the sermon right there if I wanted to I mean I Enjoying an imperishable inheritance from God that what could be better than that that's an amazing guarantee There's no better insurance policy in the world than that But I think we need to work a little more partly because we're only two verses into the passage But partly because there is a tricky part that comes with this. Here's the thing that inheritance is in heaven is ours, but we don't fully enjoy it yet. So in verse four, like we read, Peter says, it's being reserved in heaven for you. Not here on earth, it's in heaven. And at the end of verse five, he says that it will be revealed at the last day. That's not now. That's when Jesus comes back in the consummation. And so here's the rub. We're hoping for something that we don't fully possess yet. We possess it in part, but it's not wholly ours now. And it's a little hard to rejoice in that, if we're honest. I want it all, and I want it now. I'm just saying. Maybe you feel like me. This desire that we all have to maybe enjoy heaven on earth, I think, is the main reason why something called the prosperity gospel is so popular. How many of you have heard of the prosperity gospel? Okay, thumbs up or thumbs down? Down, down, down. Okay, that's just quick theology class here this morning. We'll have a chance to give a thumbs up later, for those of you who gave a thumbs up. Too many people Preach a message that says that God wants you to have your best life now, in the present. And if you would just trust Him enough, He would cure your diseases, He would make you rich, and He would make you really, really happy. That's a message that's preached here in the United States. It's preached around the world. It's believed by too many people, sadly, but it's attractive. You can see why. I mean, we'd all like to experience heaven on earth now. Is there anybody here that doesn't want to experience heaven right now? I do. But that's not what God is promising us. In this passage that we just read, and in lots of other passages, our hope is clearly based on a certain reality, but a reality that's future. It hasn't been fully realized yet. And so what does that mean? That in the midst of the ups and downs of our daily lives, we need to learn to hope in heaven. Now, how does that happen? How do I go from being somebody who wants it all and wants it now to being somebody who's content in a future promise that God has made to me? I can tell you it's not natural. If left to myself, I would try to find just about anything else to hope in besides something future that I can't fully grasp right now. To hope in heaven requires a miracle. And guess what? If you're a Christian, that miracle's already happened in your life. So Peter's writing to Christians, and he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's worshiping him, and he's gonna say, here's why you should worship. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again. to a living hope. We have a hope because we've been born again to it. So if you've been around the church for a while, the phrase, born again, rings a bell. It has to do with coming to life. Not physically, but spiritually. Think about John chapter 3, Nicodemus, and Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, and he says to Nicodemus, he says, you must be born again in order to see the kingdom of heaven. And Nicodemus doesn't get it at first. He's like, bro, I can't crawl back into my mother's womb. What are you talking about? Nicodemus doesn't understand. He's thinking maybe about something physical, something temporal. And Jesus is trying to get him to understand that you have to be born again spiritually to be able to trust in the promises that God gives. You have to experience new spiritual life. The new birth occurs when a person moves from being spiritually dead to being spiritually alive. And it's a before and after. It's crossing a line. It's a radical transformation. And if you're an adult, if you were converted as an adult, you may remember a time when you weren't a Christian, how you viewed Christianity. You might have thought that Christianity was, at best, irrelevant, maybe a fable. You might have even thought that Christianity is downright negative. It's a barrier to human progress. Those Christians, maybe you thought, were a bunch of strange birds. But the new birth changes all of that. It's a miracle. God supernaturally changes the orientation of our lives in the new birth. And where there was once indifference and opposition, God places in our hearts love and trust for Jesus Christ. The Bible talks about new birth in different ways. There's different metaphors, different expressions. We're given a new heart by God. God opens our eyes so that we can see the glories of Jesus Christ in the Gospel. And in the new birth, God converts us into something that we could never become on our own. People who can live lives, sadly, full of suffering, but are able to hope in a future promise that's being kept in heaven for them. He makes us into strange birds, quite frankly. So Peter says, you've been born again to this hope, to this assurance. Well, how did that happen? Peter says, back to the verse three here. We will get through the whole passage, by the way. Still in verse three, but we will get through the whole passage. By his great mercy, he's caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So here's the thing. You don't get yourself born again. You're not born again because you put in a lot of effort. One of the things that we've noticed, a cultural difference between Spain and the United States, is that people here in the United States wear a lot of spandex. I think this is true in California. It's true in Colorado, where we've lived this last year, there's gyms all over the place. This fitness center, the other fitness center, and there's people wearing spandex even in the wintertime when it's snowing to show off their popping muscles. This exercise culture, the self-improvement culture, if I work hard enough, I can remake myself, I can become a different person. Well, you might be able to grow your biceps by doing some curls in the gym, but you can't get yourself born again. This is something that God does. And only by His power, specifically, Peter says here, it's by the same power that caused Jesus to be risen from the dead, that same power works in you as you are united to Jesus Christ by faith. You're born again. Now, how does that happen? How can you be born again? Well, it's not like a ray of lightning just strikes you out in the field. God causes you to be born again. He unites you to his son, and the power of resurrection starts to live in you as you believe in Jesus Christ, you're born again. But that happens through a certain means. You have to hear the gospel. Now, why do I say that? Well, this isn't part of our passage, but a little farther down in verse 23, if you want to take a look at it, Peter says something really interesting. He says that his readers were born again by the living Word of God. And born again is the exact same word that he uses in verse 3. So that power of God that works in your life to change you miraculously, it comes through the Word of God. Look what Peter says. This is farther down in verse 8. We're kind of skipping around here a little bit. He says in verse 8, though you have not seen him, you love him. Isn't that interesting? Peter's readers hadn't seen Jesus. They're probably spread out in the Mediterranean world, maybe far away from Palestine. They never saw him. Well, how did they come to love him? Do you hear people today saying, like you're ever talking to a non-believer or you're listening to something on, I don't know, a podcast or whatever, what would people say typically? I'd believe in God if he would just show me something visible, something tangible, if he would appear to me. If Jesus would appear to me, I'd believe in him. That's not what Peter's readers said. They believed in Jesus not because they saw him with their eyes, but because they heard reliable testimony about him. They heard the gospel. And he says down in verse 23 that you were born again by that powerful word of God. It was the word of the gospel. It was the announcement that Jesus came to this world. He lived a perfect life. He died in our place on the cross. He rose from the dead so that we could be forgiven and so that we too would rise. Hearing that message is what causes people to be born again. This is why we preach the gospel to our non-believing neighbors. Romans 10 says that faith comes by hearing. This is why churches send missionaries. This is why we pray. for evangelists around the world, that they'd be faithful to preach that gospel message because God's not going to work apart from it. But through it, Holy Spirit accompanies that word of God, and it's powerful to radically change people's lives, cause them to see the kingdom, cause them to believe in Jesus. How many times do you need to hear the gospel? I heard it once, and I'm a believer now. Now it's on to the meat, to the steak. The Gospel's the milk. No, it's not. As believers, we need to hear the Gospel as well, every day. It was that Gospel that created, if you're believing in Jesus Christ today, that Gospel that created faith in your heart, just like God's Word, when there was nothing, created the entire universe. There was nothing in your heart. And God's Word, the Word of the Gospel, powerfully created faith in there, and you believe. But if that faith is going to continue, it needs to be fed. It needs to continue to grow, and how's that going to happen? Well, you need more of the Word. Oh, what a burden to go to church on Sundays. Oh, I've got to read my Bible every day. It's like a new legalism. Have you ever heard that? I've had people say that to me. I've got a good answer now. Here's what I say. If someone comes up to me and says, oh, what a burden to go to church. Oh, it's legalism, daily devotionals in the Bible, I say. Is it legalism to eat breakfast? Do you like breakfast? I love breakfast. My wife and I went to Tom's yesterday for breakfast. And we expected a little robot to come around and bring us our food, and it didn't. We deduced that the robot only waits on the tables that are on the outside and maybe not on the inside. I don't know if somebody can confirm that, but the robot didn't come for us. But I'll tell you what, I love breakfast. I enjoyed those eggs and those hash browns. What a joy it is. It's a privilege to eat breakfast, to feed our bodies, to strengthen us, for the day ahead. It's a privilege to read the Word of God every day. What an amazing privilege to have it in our homes, to have it on our devices, to have it all over the place. And as we read it, we're not reading it just to accumulate more knowledge so that we can do better at Bible trivia games. We're doing it because we need it to maintain and to strengthen our faith. That's interesting. Peter sounds a strong note of assurance here. Look what he says. In verse 5, he says that there's this inheritance, imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded. Now why would he say that? That word guarded, by the way, is a military term. So we're talking about God with force protecting believers. Why would he need to say that? Isn't it enough just to say, oh, you've got this heavenly inheritance that's waiting for you? I don't think it's enough, and here's why. Because I could read that I have a heavenly inheritance waiting for me as I believe in Jesus Christ, and if I think about it a little bit, I can come to the conclusion like, I believe today, but what about tomorrow? Wow, I mean, I might live for a while yet before I die and meet the Lord, or it might be a while before Jesus comes back, and that's enough time for me to fall off the train. And then I'm real honest with myself, and I think, oh wow, if it's left up to me, I will fall off the train. I never would have gotten on the train in the first place. How am I going to stay on? And so Peter says, you're being guarded. So not only is God keeping an inheritance in heaven for you, He's guarding you now to ensure that you will receive that inheritance. Through faith, Peter says. I think the only thing that that can mean is that in the same way that God worked in your heart so you would start to believe one day, He'll continue to work in your heart so that you'll believe until the end. He sounds this strong note of assurance. God is keeping an inheritance for us. He's guarding us by faith. He's sustaining our faith. Why does he need to do that? Well, I think Peter encourages his readers with assurance. He's talking about the assurance of salvation. So you're going to be saved. And I think he tells people that because sometimes it looks like God's not on our side. We need to hear that word of assurance because if we try to read God's love and favor in our lives based on how things go for us day to day, there's a lot of days that we could conclude that he's not on our side, that we don't enjoy his favor, and we'd be tempted to despair. So we talked about the prosperity gospel earlier. That sounds great. Your best life now. Wouldn't that be amazing? Well, it's not realistic. We know that from our experience. But we can know that, too, reading the Bible. Peter says, you're suffering. He knows that his readers are suffering. The Bible is really honest. It talks about suffering all over the place. The prosperity gospel promises something that it can't give. And it's based on bad theology. So let me give you an example of bad theology. There is, I won't mention her name, but a really famous female national US women's soccer player. She's really good. She was good for a really long time. And she was playing in her very last game. This happened last year, or the year before. It's pretty recent. She tore her Achilles tendon like six minutes into the game. So afterwards, they interviewed her, and they asked her what she thought about it. And she said, this proves that God does not exist. So that's the prosperity gospel, but upside down. The point is, if God exists, he ought to make my life how I want it to be. If he really loves me, and he's really powerful, he ought to set things up really according to my plan. But God doesn't do that. So if you believe the prosperity gospel, actually, the final deduction is God doesn't exist, because he doesn't fulfill those promises, not in that way. But Peter wants to lead his readers away from despair. And he says, kind of in the middle of the passage here now, he says that Christians can have joy in the midst of suffering. Look what he says in verse six. In this, you rejoice. What is this? It's the inheritance that's incorruptible, undefiled, unfading. Jesus is protecting us, God's power through our faith. In all of that, you rejoice. Here it comes. Though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials. so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's a mouthful right there. We'll look at verse six first. So Peter says, you're suffering, but you can have great joy. How in the world can you have great joy in the midst of trials? Peter says two things. So there's just two quick keys for joy, for having real, true joy. in the midst of serious, profound suffering in your life. Two keys. Number one, Peter says that we can have joy because trials don't last long. Our trials are temporary. Ha, you might say. Right. What about the death of a loved one? What about chronic illness? What about a broken family that's never healed? There are some trials that we suffer that never go away, and time does not make them better. So I remember reading somewhere in C.S. Lewis, where he talked about trials like this, and he said, it's like losing your arm. It doesn't grow back. You have to live without it for the rest of your life. What does Peter mean by saying that they suffer through trials for just a little while? Well, it depends on your perspective. If we compare our trials with the span of our lives, 80-something years, if the Lord blesses us, or 90, whatever, then to live half of your life with chronic illness, that seems like a really long trial. But compared to eternity, it's a drop in the bucket. This is why I asked to have 2 Corinthians 4 read for us earlier. And Ryan, in his prayer, talks about how some of us feel as we're getting older. our vessels, that we are bodies cracking and failing, and we suffer in so many different ways. And what does Paul say towards the end of the passage? Verse 16, we don't lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. And look at this. For this light, momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. So it really depends on your perspective, even The nastiest trials that we can suffer in this life are light and momentary compared to an eternal weight of glory that's being prepared for us. So Peter's first key for having joy in the midst of difficult trials is to remember that they're brief compared to eternity, compared to the inheritance that's being guarded for us in heaven. And the second thing is that Peter tells us that trials have a purpose. Trials aren't good in and of themselves. Sign me up to have cancer. Sign me up to be painfully poor. Sign me up to be persecuted for my faith, which, by the way, I think is the suffering that Peter's referring to. I think as readers, I think Peter has in mind here the fact that they were being perhaps violently persecuted for their faith. Is that good? In and of itself, it's not. I mean, the trials aren't good. Let's not say that the trials are good. But what we can say, we know from Scripture all over the place, that God in his sovereignty works even our most horrible suffering for good. May not know exactly what he's trying to accomplish in the middle of it, but we know he's doing good in it. Romans 8.28, we know that God works all things for the good of those who love him, who've been called according to his purpose. Or, to tie it into our sermon last week, Hebrews 5 and Hebrews 11, where the author to the Hebrews tells his readers that a loving Heavenly Father disciplines his children with love and affection. Sometimes that discipline's necessary to get their attention. How many of you can testify to maybe getting a little comfortable, maybe not being so aware, Communing with God on a daily basis until that moment of suffering comes and all of a sudden you're drawing near to God again. He uses that, doesn't he? Peter talks about another purpose here. So he says in verse 7 that our faith is tried. In the midst of trials, God is testing the genuineness of our faith. What's the purpose of that? Middle of verse 7? so that our faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." So when Jesus comes, as we persevere in faith through trials, there's going to be praise, honor, and glory. For who? Okay, so today there's a few more elders here. Well, I guess it's the same number. One of them's still on crutches. The other one, I know he could take me out because he looks like a linebacker, but he's in the back of the room. So I'm going to say something and we'll see what happens. All right? This is a good way to wake everybody up. Try to be provocative. Could it be that on the last day, our faith is shown to be true and genuine before the cosmos? In spite of our suffering, like Job, when maybe everything was taken away from us, we still trusted in God, not because of what He gives us, but because of who He is. Now that results in praise, honor, and glory for God, because it shows that God's not just some vending machine who dishes out blessings. We're recognizing, as we trust in God when we're suffering, we're recognizing that He is worthy of our praise, regardless of what happens. to us, and it could be that that's what Peter means here. On the last day, our tried, tested, genuine faith will bring more praise, honor, and glory to God. But it could also mean that as our faith is tested, the praise and the honor and the glory is for us. I love approval. I'm an approval monger. Is there anybody here who likes approval? Actually, we should all raise our hands. Approval's not a bad thing. It depends on how you're trying to get it, who you're trying to get it from. If I'm obsessed with people's approval, the people who are around me, if I'm so obsessed with their approval that I'll do anything to get it, and I'll be all things to all men, but not like Paul in 1 Corinthians 9, and I just need that approval to fill me up and make me happy, that's sinful, that's idolatrous. but to long for the approval of my Heavenly Father is a holy and righteous desire." Who doesn't want to hear from God on the last day, well done, good and faithful servant? Could it be, and I think it is, I think what Peter is referring to here is that he's encouraging his readers, he's telling them there's a purpose for your trials. One of those purposes is your faith is being tested. And as your faith withstands those fiery trials on the last day, you will hear from your father, well done, good and faithful servant. That's part of that future inheritance that awaits us. I think that gives us hope. That gives us strength. So let's bring it in for our landing. Conclusion here. What do you do when you suffer? How do you cope? Well, a lot of people binge Netflix. or worse things than that, to try to distract themselves. Other people engage in illicit activities or abuse substances to try to mask the pain. I think that we all know that none of that makes anything any better. It only makes things worse. A supposedly Christian way to handle suffering is the prosperity gospel. It promises that God will cure your diseases and solve your problems if you just believe enough But I hope it's clear to you this morning, just even from this passage in 1 Peter, that that is not God's design. By the way, that is really destructive. I don't want to get too far off track here. But if you tell somebody that God will fix your problems if you just believe enough, where's the burden for fixing those problems? Where does it fall? It falls on the person. And they will not bear up under it. Why are there so many cases of deconstruction, people walking away from the faith today? the new term, the deconstruction, and evangelicals from all different backgrounds leaving the faith. Sometimes there's intellectual doubt. Sometimes there's this, that. Sometimes it's spiritual abuse because these people have grown up under ministries where they've been taught the prosperity gospel. And then when life stinks and they can't muster up enough faith to fix things, they come to the conclusion that God doesn't even exist. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get off on that. But that's an issue. It's an issue in a lot of churches here in the US and also in Spain. But let me say something that's maybe a little closer to home for us. How do you cope with suffering? Well, sometimes we have the if-only mentality. What's the if-only mentality? We think, if only God would fix this family problem. If only God would resolve my financial difficulties. If only God would heal whatever ailment, then I could finally be happy. I could finally rejoice. Have peace. I think like that sometimes. The if-only mentality. What's wrong with the if-only mentality? Is it wrong to desire that God would heal your ailments? That he would resolve your financial difficulties? Is it wrong to pray for those things? Of course not. And does he do those things? Yes, he does. Many times he intervenes in our lives in amazing and surprising ways to resolve our temporal difficulties. And what should we do when he does that? We should praise him. We should give him thanks. But we shouldn't cling to that little blessing that he just gave us, thinking that's all we're going to get. You've probably all had this experience where you prayed, you prayed that God would intervene and he would do something for you, and he does it. and you rejoice and you celebrate and you tell other people and then right around the corner, wham, another problem. If you try to base your true and lasting joy on that, it's not going to work. It's sort of like if you go to somebody's house and they're making this amazing dessert. What was the name of that dessert that we had at our friend's house the other day? It was pretzel, oh my goodness, like strawberry pretzel cake. Salad, that's what it was. It was strawberry pretzel salad. It was not a salad. It was a full-on dessert full of lots of sugar, lots of butter. It's from Texas. So the key is a lot of butter. So imagine you go to somebody's house, and they're making strawberry pretzel salad for you. And you don't know what that is. And so they offer you a little spoonful of it before dinner, and you taste it. Wow, that's amazing. Well, that taste is a blessing. Enjoy it. But it points forward to something greater, which is the big fat helping that you're going to get after dinner. I mean, think about how silly it would be to stay there with your spoon and just lick it and lick it and it's gone and you lick the spoon till the metal comes off. Whoever invited you over had a better intention for you. And the same is true with God. He wants us to receive the blessings and the responses to prayer that he gives us in the here and now as foretaste of a much better experience that waits for us in the future. I think Peter preaches The true prosperity gospel. God does want you to live your best life. It's not going to be now. It's going to be in the day that Jesus Christ is revealed. That's when you'll possess the inheritance. Not just a spoonful of it. You'll possess it fully. You won't be resurrected only spiritually, as if that were a little thing. You'll be resurrected physically, too. Completely new, just like your older brother, Jesus Christ. And to give his readers joy, Peter's orienting them towards that future hope. And it's kind of like my father-in-law. His car was crumpled on the street there, a car that he so loved. And yet he had hope and he had peace in that moment because he knew there was a guarantee that it would be fixed. In spite of all the wrecks that we have in our lives, there's a guarantee that someday God's going to make it all right. I need to learn to lean into that promise better. I feel like I'm not very good at it. I feel like I'm very worldly. And I'm thinking about what's happening today, tomorrow, next week. We all need to learn to lean into this promise. What do we have to do? Well, we have to get rid of our crutches. Let go of those crutches that we use to try to hold ourselves up, hoping in what's going to happen soon, what's going to happen this week, what's going to happen next week. Let go of those and let ourselves rest in the only thing that's unchanging, that eternal inheritance, fellowship with God in heaven. And I think in order for that to happen, we have to meditate on our heavenly inheritance. And I'll say it differently. I think we need to dream about it. I mean, what do you daydream about? I daydream about all kinds of stuff. I don't daydream about heaven. like I should. Where does your mind go when it's in neutral, when you've got nothing else to think about? Wouldn't it be wonderful if God would work in our lives so that our minds would run to heaven and run to fellowship with him? That's the only thing that works. The only thing that's going to give us true joy, true peace, true contentment in this life. We have the best guarantee available. We don't see Jesus now. but someday we'll see Him face to face. Every tear will be wiped away and we'll receive the Father's commendation. Well done, good and faithful servant. May the Lord help us to look forward to our inheritance and to worship Him for it, amen? Let's pray. Father, we're grateful for the word of the gospel, which is craziness to the world, but it's your power unto salvation. We're grateful for the way you worked in your providence so that your word would reach to us. And that word came with the power of the Holy Spirit to give us new birth, enabling us to see the kingdom, enabling us to believe in Jesus. And we're grateful for that future inheritance that you promise us that's undefiled, it'll never perish, it'll never fade. We're grateful for the hope that we can have in that. And we pray that you'd help us to learn to rest in that, to lean on that promise. Help us to meditate on it, to daydream about it. Help it to be the thing that causes us to have joy and to praise you amidst all the ups and downs in our lives. And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.