It is my particular pleasure to introduce to you Dr. Paul Carter. He is married to Julie. He is a graduate of Virginia Polytechnical Institute, better known as Virginia Tech. That's right. He also has a Master of Divinity from Reformed Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry from Covenant Theological Seminary. After serving with Campus Crusade for Christ for about five years, he took the call at the Grace Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Virginia in 1984, and he's still there pastoring. Have you completed your new building? Just started a new building, and the Lord has blessed their ministry. I would say one thing about Lexington is just a little bit less pretty than around here, but it is a beautiful area of Shenandoah Valley, and he comes to minister to us about the Word of God and the grace and mercy that God has for us in missions. Thank you. remiss if I didn't tell you I've got four boys that are basically gone. My youngest is 22, my oldest is 32, and have twins in the middle of that that are 30. And I have four grandchildren now, and one is a little girl, the first girl born in my family in 63 years. So we were extremely pleased to finally have Pink. And my wife especially is happy. We've got about 16 minutes, I'm told, and so you have to listen very fast, because I'm not prepared for 16 minutes. We're in 1 Peter chapter 1 this morning. My conviction, and I suspect many of you, if not all of you, share it with me, is that mission responsibility of the church is not to simply send money to folks that live somewhere else, but we are a mission, a mission itself. You are in Johnson City, I am in Lexington, but the churches were planted for the purpose of sending, of reaching this area for the cause of Christ, being an influence for the cause of Christ, but not only here, but beyond, and none of us want to be simply throwing money at people and then feel our consciences are are staffed. But instead, our outreach overseas is the very same intent. And ministry is the one that we have here. That is the cause of Christ to expand and succeed. There's some motivations for that that we'll talk about today, a necessary motivation or just the one that Peter talks about. And and then tonight, There's another title that I can't remember, but it says it relates. If anybody sees it written down, let me know. Well, it doesn't matter. I don't have time. Don't have time. Look it up yourself. First, Peter, we'll start. I want to give you some context. And so I'll take about 40 seconds of my time and to read through starting Really, in verse 1, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with His blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused 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 a 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's tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. In our verses, though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And though you do not see Him now, 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. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicated when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. And it was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you and the things that have been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Things into which angels long to look. It's glorious, isn't it? Let's pray. These are glorious words. We weep with joy to hear them again of this salvation kept in heaven, guarded by the power of God through faith. We who love you come now to remember, to think again, to push farther, and what it means to follow You and what it means to be the Church of Jesus Christ together. We ask the filling of Your Spirit as we come. We ask that You would guide and lead. We ask You would be honored. In Jesus' name, Amen. You, of course, understand that we are a church of the crucified, the resurrected, the ascended Jesus, who is Lord of all, and that we have a mission to go into the world. That, of course, is why we're here. But what resources do we have to keep us progressing in our goal to be a church, as the Bible describes that we are, so that we can fulfill our mission? your mission here in Johnson City and of course across the world. John wrote at the beginning of 1 John what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked upon, what we have touched with our hands. And of course we know the 12 disciples witnessed the person, they witnessed the events that they had experienced, They could almost hear His voice when they retold the stories and when they wrote them down into the Gospels. They remembered the feelings, for example, when that storm threatened them, but then it simply died down because Jesus controlled nature. They remembered the looks on the faces of the people that were healed, that were delivered from demons, and even raised back to life, and they remembered Him, with the crucifixion wounds still visible after He had risen from the dead, and how He had eaten with them, and talked to them, and how He fed them, just like before His death. And then, they witnessed Him rising into heaven, and the angels saying, He's going to return in the very same way. That personal experience kind of motivation, I can understand that. That makes sense to me. But probably none of that was true for the people that Peter is writing to. They never saw Jesus or any of the things that he did. They had reports, of course, but no experience. But amazingly, they were people, as Peter wrote in his second letter, who had a faith of equal standing with all the apostles. They were lovers of Jesus, as you saw in this passage. People who believe in Him. People who are filled with joy. People who are living witnesses experiencing the very same salvation that Peter himself was enjoying. They, of course, are now us. We're receiving this letter. These words are up to us now. The motivation they had to be the church in this world came from the life of Jesus that's within them. And thankfully, what is true of them is also true for us. Because Jesus is the resurrected Lord who continues his ministry today. And this passage explains to us why that's true. And so my first point is, We're the church because he filled us with his love. That's verse 8, the first part of verse 8. Though you've not seen him, he said, you love him. What makes this a most remarkable and unexpected thing is because our love for Jesus isn't simple admiration for a life well lived. It's not infatuation with him. It isn't even acceptance of the weight of evidence that Jesus must have been God the Son, so of course we're going to be in this church because the evidence points that that's exactly who He is. But it isn't anything less than what Peter was experiencing. That's what's inside of us. That's what our motivation is, this deep abiding and a motivating love for Jesus and the things that He loves. I mean, isn't that exactly what has happened to you? Isn't that why, in fact, that you're here today? And isn't that why you see yourselves as witnesses to Johnson City, to the county surrounding, to Tennessee, to the world? You may moan because you say, I really don't feel like I love him enough. But you don't feel that way because you don't love him. It's because you do love Him and because you long to give Him all that He deserves. And you feel like you're not there yet. You may feel that you don't have enough concern for those who don't know Jesus. But don't you long for people to know Jesus? Think about it. People in your own family. People you work with. People you live around. And you may not be sure what is the best way to talk to them about the Gospel. But you long for them to love the one you love. And you're happy to serve them when you do so in the name of Jesus. Here's what Paul has written that explains why we feel that way. In Romans 5, he said, the love of God has been poured out in our hearts. The love you have for Him has its source in His love that has been poured out upon you, upon every Christian sitting around you today. And even more, the love He has poured out in us is also the same love with which He loves other people. What that means is that you have the source and the motivation for loving Him and for loving others already. It's Jesus Himself whose Spirit lives in you. Amazing! It's not by magic, then, that you love Jesus or you love other people. It's the work of God that's in your soul. Your love for Jesus is a sign of His working. And it explains the reason that you and every other believer are willing to give up time, money, future plans, even your lives, for the sake of the gospel. What other explanation is there? It's not just so a message will go out. It's the motivation of Christ in you. It's God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit who is love and who has joined himself to you so that this love that is his is now also yours. This love becomes a characteristic of our lives, just as it is a characteristic of Jesus. So Peter is excited then to see the love for Jesus in these people who haven't seen him because it means that the living Christ is at work in them. Which means that their faith is genuine. Which means that the gospel will spread as they go about serving Jesus and in Jesus' name throughout the world. They are just being the church together. My second point, we are the church because he gave us not only this almost unexplainable love, but an unexplainable faith. In verse, the second half of verse eight, though you do not see him, you believe in him. The same thing we said of love is said of faith, saving faith and love always come together. We have to talk about them separately, of course, because it won't make sense if we don't do that. But in our lives, they come together. You don't have one without the other. One of our favorite verses is for by grace, you are saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It's not of your own doing, the ESV puts it at that point. It's a gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. So what's the gift? Is it grace or is it faith? Well, I believe that faith is the gift that Paul's referring to here. Certainly, grace is exhibited to you and grace is shown to you. God looks on you with gracious favor, but saving faith is given by that grace. The author, the perfecter of faith is Jesus, which says that he's the source. We don't create faith in ourselves, but if you believe, it's because Jesus is at work in you and in everyone who shares this faith. This faith is the invisible but ever-present gift of God who brings us together. And we will always have lots of questions about how things happen in our lives, how it's going to turn out, why they happen as they do, and how is it our obedience is going to result in growth in the kingdom. But as Paul wrote of the hardships in his own life that came to him as a result of his membership in Jesus' church, he said, you know, we believe. We believe and so we speak. knowing that He who raised our Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus. So that His grace extends to more and more people, it will increase thanksgiving to the glory of God. People who talk that way do so because of the living gift of God through Christ Jesus giving faith to our dead souls, building us together and all the while using us as his witnesses wherever we are. But we can't help but just to live this way. We are the church of Jesus Christ. This is what's happening to us. This is what's changing us. It's the only way now that makes sense because of who we are in Christ Jesus. We live in this church here and we send others to be the church where his name is not yet honored. The reality of the risen Christ in our souls motivates, compels us to that end. It was by this same faith Abraham left the land of his birth to go where God sent him. But he was always looking for a heavenly city, you remember. By faith, Moses chose to suffer with the people of God rather than to enjoy the comfort of the place of the palaces of Egypt. They chose to join themselves with the people of God. Stephen Cull in Acts said it was the church. Hebrews describes the church of the firstborn. They exhibited the characteristics of the people in Jesus' church. If they exercised the faith that is given to them, they repented. They believed. They lived faithfully with God's people. By faith, we came. We repented, believing the promise of God that in Christ there is forgiveness. By faith, we came today. And why? To meet our God. To offer worship in Christ Jesus, just as they did years and years ago. By faith, we give our tithes, knowing He has promised to care for us. Our eyes are on a different city, not the comforts here. By faith, we pray for each other, we serve each other, we encourage each other, we love each other, we forgive each other, even as we've been forgiven. And we live together for Him who died for us. By faith, you've entrusted your own soul to the God who has promised. By faith, though unseen, you are motivated, are you not, to obey the Savior? But not alone, not in private as some do, but together where it is seen publicly. Perhaps we might say where it counts. It's too easy to be a lone ranger Christian who doesn't have to practice half of what the Bible calls us to do and to be. Were we to separate from God's people, but I congratulate you on being here and being part visibly. of God's people. It doesn't have to be the big things that we do in the church that extend His kingdom. It doesn't have to be those giant visionary things we read about that bring the applause of the Christian world. Faith motivates faithfulness to obey the Lord who says a cup of cold water in my name is sometimes called for. And it is considered by Him to be a faithful and holy offering. All of that is simply being the church together, is it not? And my third point, I've reached the negatives, I'm afraid. We're time to quit, but I'll have to talk even faster. We're the church because Jesus is the source. Jesus is the source of our inexpressible and glorious joy. And that's the last part of verse eight. And we rejoice with joy that is inexpressible, filled with glory. See, we witness to Him we can't see, motivated by the gracious gift of love and faith that no one can steal, no one can touch. And we're called to use these words, inexpressible. How do you tell people the joy that you feel in your soul in the times of the deepest sorrow? I mean, how do I talk to you about it today if it's inexpressible? The only way is that many, if not all of you, know exactly what I'm talking about already. So do the people that Peter's writing to. They're scattered around the world, yet they're the church of Jesus. Their lives are so tightly knit together in Jesus. Many of them lost possessions, they lost families, they've wept tears, real tears, real aches over those losses as you have. And they have also rejoiced, thanking God that they are in His hands, experiencing a love that will not let them go. They live their lives knowing that Jesus is not just with them. That would be enough, wouldn't it? But He is at work, at work in every situation, so they're not just sleep-sheet led to the slaughter. But in all things, they overwhelmingly conquer through him who loves them. So these persecutions that sit them around the world are those things that work together for the good of their souls, to prepare them for the place that is prepared for them at the Father's side, where they will rule with Jesus forever. That's what he's doing in our lives. They're prepared by the capacity of their souls being enlarged by these events to take in more and more of the Jesus that they long to experience, that they do experience. And they grow in faith and in love through these very things. More and more of them, they're able to recognize Him who is certainly at their elbow. But more than that is working in them to will and to work His good pleasure. And what is true for them is true for you. Isn't joy a great motivation? But inexpressible joy is a bit hard to explain to someone who just doesn't know. But if you know Jesus, you trace the rainbow through the rain, as the song says. And it reveals a joy full of glory because Jesus is revealed in your soul. And you're brought to rest then in the promise of God that there is only reconciliation and joy between you and the Father. Every path you walk then is a path in and to greater fullness of His joy with His song surrounding you in your life. No damnation. No curse. No hatred. No disdain from the Father towards you. No rejection. Nothing but gracious acceptance in Christ Jesus. Nothing but the joy of those delivered from this world below. That's what took place in you at the very moment of Jesus' resurrection in all of God's people. And that motivates us whose minds are in heaven where Christ is. There's no sadness that overcomes Jesus in your soul. And so we rest in Him and with Him. And so we go in Him and we go with Him. We don't ignore the world around us. We don't have to say that we aren't as hurt as the next person we are. We get fired. We get sick. We need money. We face death. We deal with intense problems. But all in the name of Jesus. and all the time connected to Jesus, who as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, was filled with the spirit of joy beyond measure. This joy is inexpressible, and it is full of glory, but it is real. And it is the fruit and the proof of the life of Jesus in us. And so we simply go and live our lives in this world together, filled with a joy inexpressible and full of glory. We're His church. And that leads me to the end, and that is we're the church because we are experiencing salvation now. Verse 9, obtaining the outcome of your faith, Peter writes, the salvation of your souls. Our salvation is not complete until Jesus returns and all things and all of God's people, body and soul, are fully redeemed. But we have His Spirit. Jesus' Spirit is the down payment of that time. And He is constantly at work redeeming every part of our lives. What's the Spirit doing every moment of our lives, but making us holy, conforming us to Christ, giving us a greater and deeper heart of worship, revealing Christ to our souls more and more each day. We're maturing in Christ. We're learning to recognize that we have nothing apart from Jesus, something that we'll see all the more clearly that very moment we stand in the threshold of heaven. We're learning now the depths of sin, but we're learning more than that, aren't we? We're finding that grace is deeper still, something we will marvel at for all eternity. We're learning to live by faith, something that is blessed here and for all eternity. Salvation is when that process is complete so that sin and death are no more in us. But we're experiencing this salvation even now. is sin no longer has dominion over us, and death cannot hold us who have life. Nothing is happening that is not contributing to our ability to know Jesus, which is a picture not of sin, of course, but of that which will always be happening in heaven as well. but will always be happening in heaven as well. In short, we are experiencing our salvation in part, but in reality right now. We're sent to the world to be witnesses, there's no question about that. But more than that is true of us. We are sent to be the church. What happened in the New Testament is that the Church of Jesus went out and wherever they went, churches with elders and deacons were founded. Sinners who loved many other things became a congregation that loved Jesus. were called together to live as Christians in community. They're given as love for each other as we've seen. Joy that was inexpressible. Experiencing the salvation of their souls. And all the time sharing life together, growing together, exhibiting grace together. In the middle, in the middle of the real life strains and struggles and the real deep sins. And that being true, then it's no surprise the majority of the teaching of the New Testament is about how we are to live together as the Church of Jesus. God's provided what we need to do that. God's provided. The Bible describes that we are fulfilling the commission to make disciples as we go throughout the world being the Church. Missionaries didn't come here in those early days to preach and leave and go somewhere else, but to establish churches. That's what we are together. God's given us the gifts to fulfill his command together. Finally, the witnesses we are together in being the church here will be used of God to bring forth worshipers of Jesus who also experience what Peter is describing. And being the church here will cause many to continue to be sent to the church across the world. The way to fulfill the mission of Jesus for the whole world is to be the church of Jesus where we are living the reality of the gospel together for the praise of the resurrected Christ. Let's pray. Father, we do come and pray in great thanksgiving and joy of what you have done in their soul. Will you continue to do? Many of us have years of experience of seeing these very things happen. Use us, we pray. Use us here. Use us even more greatly in the fields that we've heard reports upon about today, but help us never to be simply a people who throw money at various causes. But as the church, Show our unity, our solidarity with the cause of Christ by involvement in the mission of Jesus Christ here and abroad, naturally because of who we are. Thank you for your gifts. Thank you for your salvation. In Jesus name, Amen.