Praising God Amidst My Problems, Part 1a

If you have your Bible, turn with me to 1st Peter chapter 1, and as you're turning, let's bow for a moment of prayer together.

Our most gracious Heavenly Father, we come tonight because we believe that your word is preeminent. We believe that your word speaks to every issue in life. The Bible tells us that your word has everything that pertains to life and godliness. And tonight, we ask that you would show us more about what it means to praise you amidst difficult circumstances. That we might learn to live in the light of what your word states, and that we leave this place understanding that when your word speaks, it gives to us the truth that if we live by and follow, you have promised to bless our lives.

And so may we be not just hearers of the word tonight, but doers of the word as well. In Jesus' name, Amen. Ella Wheeler Wilcox reminds us in the context of our Lord's experiences that there awaits each of us, without exception, a time of testing and a time of trial. This is what she has written. In golden youth when seems the earth, a summer land of singing mirth, when souls are glad and hearts are light, and not a shadow lurks in sight. We do not know it, but there lies, somewhere veiled under evening skies, a garden which we all must see, the garden of Gethsemane.

With joyous steps we go our ways. Love lends a halo to our days. Light sorrows sail like clouds afar. We laugh and say how glad we are. We hurry on and hurry go close to the borderline of woe that waits for you and waits for me, forever waits Gethsemane. All those who journey, soon or late, must pass within the garden's gate, must kneel alone in darkness there and battle with some fierce despair. God pity those who cannot say, not mine, but thine, who only pray, let this cup pass and cannot see the purpose in Gethsemane.

Her words are so true to our lives. We tend to go through life as if there are no problems or we go through life hoping we will never have to face difficulties, trials, tests, or hardships, and yet as Satan would leave in Job chapter 1, the presence of the Lord, he would leave to go out because there was a man he had set his heart on destroying, and that was the man Job. And as Satan would leave the presence of the Lord, he would go out to see if he could destroy the man's faith, and he would take Job through all kinds of difficult circumstances, trying to get this man to blaspheme his God.

The funny thing about that is that God recommended Job to Satan. Have you considered my servant Job? Have you thought about him? Try him. You want to unleash your flurry on someone? How about Job? And you know, you think about that, and we sort of hope that God doesn't do that with us. Don't recommend me, Lord, for Satan's devices. And yet, Peter would tell us in 1 Peter 5 verse number 8 that Satan does go around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. So Peter knows. Peter has experienced the attacks of the enemy.

He knows his directions, and he knows his devices, so he warns us. And yet, in the midst of all that, Peter wants us to understand from the very outset of his epistle that no matter what happens in your life, no matter how grave the circumstances, no matter how dark the night, no matter how difficult the pain may be, in the midst of all that hardship, in the midst of all that persecution, we have a responsibility to praise our God, to praise Him amidst the pain, to praise Him amidst the problems, to praise Him amidst the persecution and pitfalls that we face.

And that's Peter's objective. This epistle is filled with comforting words from Peter. It's filled with exhortations on how to live a life when everything around you is so bad. And we talked about last time, I mean, these people were being falsely accused because Nero wanted to destroy the Christians. And as they would hear their friends screaming in the night because of the pain brought upon them, Peter would remind them that they are to praise their God, they're to bless their God, they're to honor their God, because their God is at work.

And so whatever your situation this evening, and I don't know what it is, whatever you might be going through, or will go through, or know of those who go through great pain, God is at work. Before I went away last week, I called a pastor friend of mine who just began a church about nine months ago. This, he was in the hospital, and this was his second visit to the hospital for a cancer operation.

And I called the hospital room, and I had not talked to him since my days at Calvary Church in Santa Ana, which was a number of years ago. But he had started this church, and so I called him because I had heard of his situation, and I talked to him, and the very first thing he said to me, he says, isn't it good to know?

Isn't it good to know that suffering is God's platform to proclaim his purposes? That's the first thing he said.

Now, in the nine months they started the church, he's had two cancer operations, and yet his perspective is on how God is going to use the hardship in his life to help him proclaim the purposes of God. That's the perspective all of us need, and yet these people in Peter were facing things that we'll never face today. We'll face some hardships. We'll face some difficulties, and we'll face some trials. We'll face some temptations. We'll experience pain, some a little bit more severe than others, but there's coming a day as Ella Wheeler-Wilcox has said where we face our Gethsemane, and the question is what will we do, and how will we respond?

Peter was in Gethsemane. He was there with the Lord, and yet he couldn't even stay awake for just a little while on the eve of the crucifixion. But Peter would learn many things from his Lord, and thus he would write to us in his epistle explaining to us the truth. He wants us to put pain into perspective, and is it not true that for the most part our perspective is really out of whack when it comes to pain and persecution and trials, and Peter's going to remind us as to as to what we should be doing, and how we respond, and in the first 12 verses he is going to lay out for us five principles.

Five principles that will help us understand how we are to praise God amidst all of our problems. We're going to begin with the first one this evening, and we won't even get very far into it because there is so much just in one verse, verse number three.

He says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we're going to stop right there, because Peter is really going to get into something extremely rich for all of us to grasp, and the principle from the outset is this, that if we are going to learn to praise God amidst our problems, we must understand God's wonderful provision for our lives. Everything begins and ends with God, and God's provision for us is the provision of salvation that gives us hope, that gives us a living hope, and Peter begins by giving us a command, bless God.

Bless him, praise him, adore him, worship him. He has to do that because praise is not the natural thing for us to do when difficulty arises. Think of the last time you had a hardship. Think of the last time you experienced something that was, that was, that was from your perspective bad. Usually the first thing out of your mouth wasn't, wow, praise be to God.

Hallelujah! That usually isn't the first thing out of your mouth. We're not allowed to say usually the first things that come out of your mouth from the pulpit.

But the bottom line is, is that Peter says, look, this is what you need to do. Here's the exhortation. You need to bless God, and notice what he says.

He says, I want you to bless God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That phrase is loaded. Notice he doesn't say, I want you to bless your Father who is in heaven.

He says, I want you to bless the God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now think about that for a moment. You'd think that he'd be focusing in on the fact that, that God was our Father. Remember the Jewish mindset was different than our mindset. They never looked at God in a personal relationship as He being their father. Oh, they saw him as a father figure when it came to them nationally. He was their father as a nation, but individually, no. So when Jesus came on the scene, he would address God as his father.

And so that was a new concept to them. And that's why when he taught them to pray, he said, when you pray, pray this way, our Father who art in heaven. You see, that was, that was different for them. They didn't get that. They didn't understand that. They would see God as the creator of all things. So they would see him as sovereign. They also would see God as the redeemer of his people from Egypt. So they would see him as savior. But to see him as their father, they did not understand that. And so Peter would address them by telling them, this is what you need to do.

You need to bless God. You need to adore God. Now when you give God a blessing, you're not actually bestowing a blessing upon God. We can't bless God. We can't bestow a blessing upon God. We are actually adoring him. To bless him, as the psalmist said, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. We are praising the holy name of God. We are adoring his name. We are lifting him up on high. We are wanting to focus in on God. And that's what Peter's perspective is. He says, I want you to focus in on God, who is the father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now that is a Trinitarian phrase that expresses the nature that Jesus Christ is God. Let me show it to you.

If you got your Bible, turn with me to John chapter 5. John chapter 5 verse number 17. It says that Christ answered him saying, my father is working until now, and I myself am working. You say, okay, so the father's working and Christ is working. What's the big deal? The big deal is over in chapter 10. In chapter 10, verse number 30, it says this. He says, I and the father are one. The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, I showed you many good works from the father. For which of them are you stoning me?

The Jews answered him, for good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, and because you being a man, make yourself out to be God. You see, Christ would demonstrate the fact that this father was doing his work, and he himself was doing his work. Meaning that the father's work and his work are one of the same, because he and the father are one in the same. Over in John chapter 14, what did Jesus say to his disciples? When he said this, John 14 verse 7, if you have known me, you would have known my father also.

From now on, you know him and have seen him. And Philip said to him, Lord, show us the father, and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him, have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the father. How do you say, show us the father? Why? Because the father and Jesus are one in the same. And so here is Peter helping us to understand that we are to bless God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, emphasizing the fact that Jesus Christ is our God.

He says, Lord Jesus Christ. Lord meaning sovereign ruler, Jesus being his incarnate name, Christ being his messianic name, the anointed King. Meaning to say this, that we are to bless the Lord of the universe. We are to bless the Messiah. We are to bless Jesus Christ, the incarnate God, because he and the father are one. And that's how Peter begins his exhortation on praising our God. And he wants us to understand something very significant. And I want to begin tonight in Peter's epistle by looking first of all at the description of this wonderful provision.

And this is all the further we're going to get tonight. Okay, so you can use the rest of your paper to take notes because we're going to give you a plethora of them. I love that word, plethora. That's a good word. So we're going to give you all kinds of notes this evening. But we're just going to begin by looking at a description of this wonderful provision because you need to understand it. If you're going to praise God for this wonderful provision that he's given to you amidst all of your pain, amidst all of your difficulty, because that's where Peter begins.

He helps them understand these are Jewish believers who have given their life to Christ and they need to understand what it is they are to praise God for because everything around them is in shambles. Everything around them is falling apart. They don't know when they're going to die. They don't know when they're going to be persecuted. They don't know what suffering they're going to experience next. So Peter says, listen, even though you don't know, you bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Why? Here he goes. Who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again. You know what Peter does? Peter takes their eyes off of what is happening to them physically and looking at them on the inside spiritually and helping them to understand that their condition spiritually was far worse than their physical condition would ever be. Now you think about that. Because of God's mercy we are born again. He says, look, you in no way were able to do anything. I love what Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 13.

Can a leopard change his spots? No. Meaning to say that there's nothing you can do to get better. You can't make yourself better. You can't be gooder. It's not a good word, but it's the right word for this context. You can't be any better than you are. You can't make yourself better. Why? Because the Bible says that we are born dead in our trespasses and sin.

He's helping them to understand that before you were saved you were so spiritually sick. You were so dead. You were so immovable that nothing could happen for good in your life until God came along and bestowed mercy upon you. Mercy. Because we serve a God who is merciful. Exodus 34 Verse number six. The Lord is merciful, gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. That's our God. Ephesians 2 tells us that God is great in mercy. 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 verse number 3. God is called the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.

In Titus 3 verse 5, we are saved according to his mercy. In Micah 7 verse 18, God delights in mercy. In Lamentations 3, we are not consumed because of his mercy. In Psalm 108 verse number 4 says that God's mercy is great above the heavens. Meaning that God's mercy is voluminous. That means it's all-sufficient. It never runs dry. He says, listen, mercy is that which eliminates the pain. Grace is that which grants you the better condition. Grace says you don't deserve it, but I'm going to give you heaven.

Mercy says you deserve hell, but I'm going to eliminate that from your life. And what Peter says is that our great God has caused us to be born again because our God is merciful. He's merciful. He's kind. He's good. Now, listen to this. This is where it gets even greater. It says this. We are born again to a living hope. A living hope. Not a dead hope, but a living hope. Now, listen to this. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Know what Peter's doing? Peter is reminding them that God the Father brought Jesus Christ through the most excruciating, most painful suffering imaginable.

He took him through that. He took him through the pit of death and glorified his Son. He is telling us that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, we now have hope. We have hope. And this hope is that which enables us to keep our minds under control. Look at 1st Peter chapter 1 verse number 13.

Therefore, gird your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace we brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Look what it says over in 1st Peter chapter 3 verse number 15. Saint Ephraim Christ is Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness. He says, listen, set apart Christ as Lord of your life in such a way that you're living in submission to his lordship so people will ask you about this hope that you have and you can give a defense for this hope because the hope that you have is alive and not dead.

Listen to this. 1st Peter 3 verse number 5. For in this way in former times the holy women also who hoped in God used to adorn themselves being submissive to their own husbands. The context of course is the believing wife with the unbelieving husband. And he talks about Sarah learning to adorn herself in the proper apparel and learning to submit herself and hope in God instead of taking matters into her own hands like she did when she went in and told Abraham, listen, take Hagar have relations with her and the son, the promised seed will come through Hagar.

She took matters into her own hands instead of hoping in her God she trusted and hoped in herself to come up with a solution for God. But Sarah learned to hope in God. She learned to trust in God and learn how to submit to a husband who wasn't really a very good leader because Abraham really wasn't. And so there's a lesson here for for the women as well as for the men in 1st Peter 3 verses 1 to 7. When you notice there's six verses for the women and only one verse for the man.

We'll talk about why that's so and when we get there. But the bottom line is we have a living hope. I thought about that. And that's why we're just gonna not get any further than what we are this evening. I began to think about this living hope. Philip Brooks said it this way, the hope and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. Him about our Savior, about our Lord. Peter wants us to be able to understand the sufferings of our Lord in light of the fact that he hoped in his resurrection and that living hope now resides within us.

Have you ever done a study of hope? You know, we had the great children in the Bible, faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these of course is love. So we talk a lot about love, talk a lot about faith, but very few people ever talk about hope. And yet, hopeology is foundational to our lives. Hopeology is foundational to understanding how we can praise God amidst all of our problems. Why? Because the wonderful provision that God gives us is through his mercy, he causes us to be born again in order that we might have hope.

You see, when you go through difficulties and hardship, the last thing you're thinking about is there is hope at the end of the tunnel. There is hope here for me. We think we're hopeless. But no, Peter redirects our perspective to help us understand. No, there is hope. When the Bible speaks of hope, it speaks of confident assurance in truth, knowing for certain that it will happen because God said so.