Living Hope in a World of Hurt Week 3 | Living Hope Gives Us A New Identity

Let's pray together.

Father in heaven, God, you are holy.

You and you alone are holy.

You and you alone are worthy of our worship, our praise.

God, this morning we pray that you would speak to us in a clear and powerful way through your word, through Christ.

God, we pray all these things in the strong and powerful name of Jesus, our Lord.

Amen.

Alright, hey, you can have a seat.

Thank you so much to Dwight and uh the entire team for leading us in worship this morning.

I want to welcome you again to Family Church Downtown.

My name is Derek Simpson.

I'm one of the pastors here at our downtown campus.

It's great to see all of you here this morning.

Ordinarily, Pastor Jimmy Scrogans is our Bible teacher.

Pastor Jimmy is uh up in Georgia today.

Pray for him today, if you think about it.

He's uh he'll be speaking tonight to a group of pastors, hundreds of pastors across the state of Georgia, encouraging them.

One of the things that we want to do here at Family Church is we want to be an encouragement to all the gospel churches, all the gospel pastors, certainly here in Palm Beach County.

Just this past week, we hosted a huge gathering of gospel churches and gospel pastors and and ministers here uh at Family Church downtown.

Uh but we want to be uh we want to we want to resource and encourage as many gospel churches as we can across the U.S.

So pray for him while he's away.

He'll be back next Sunday.

Uh I love uh getting to sing with you this morning.

You sang so great, man.

Seeing all of our students serving all over the campus and leading us in worship through student takeover.

Uh Tiara, you getting baptized this morning was a a uh just an awesome encouragement and a great testimony to your uh family, to your little girl.

And uh I I just um love all the things that we get to do uh together.

We are in uh week three of a teaching series called Living Hope.

We're looking at the New Testament book of First Peter.

So if you have your Bible, you want to take your Bible out, turn your Bible on, find 1 Peter chapter 2.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

This is the third week of our teaching series.

We've already talked about how uh Peter was an apostle, he was a disciple of Jesus.

He's uh writing these, he wrote this letter to uh collections of Christians uh in churches that were kind of scattered across what's now modern-day uh Turkey.

Some of them were uh Jewish background, some of them were Gentile background uh Christians, and they had been exiled.

They were uh they were they'd been exiled from their communities.

The Jewish Christians uh no longer felt uh fully connected to their Judaism, they were pushed out from some of those groups.

Uh the Gentile believers, the Gentile Christians, uh were separated from their kind of Greco-Roman world, those kind of pagan uh world and community that they had had, and they were forming these new Christian communities.

And in chapter one, part of what pastor, uh part of what uh the apostle Peter does is he uh tells them, he reassures them that because of their faith in Christ, because of their new identity in Christ, they can uh they can endure trials and that they uh they should live holy lives.

They should be seeking after holiness.

And this morning, we're gonna talk about how we do that.

We're gonna get into uh in chapter two.

He starts talking about how you can pursue holiness because of this new identity that you have in Christ.

Now, uh about 15 years ago or so, um Megan and I, before we moved to South Florida, we were living in uh we were living in Kentucky, and we had four like super like small kids, like kindergarten and under.

Like we had four kids, and uh we uh my job was kind of stressful, and um, I'd always been kind of you know fairly fit, fairly athletic, but I I was uh getting ready for bed one night and uh I remember looking in the mirror, I'll never forget, I looked in the mirror, and I just kind of looked and I kind of did a double take and I looked sideways and I at the time I was about 25 or 30 pounds heavier than I am.

Now I was a little bit bigger, and um I was like, man, when did when did that?

I went stepped on the scale and I looked down at the scale and I thought, man, that can't possibly be right.

And I looked in the mirror and I was like, well, that kind of checks out.

And um and so I thought to myself, hey, I'll know, I'll just I'll do a couple push-ups, I'll do some sit-ups, I'll run around the block a few times in a couple weeks, and I'll just kind of, you know, I'll just I'll just it'll just go away.

Well, I did that, and um, it didn't just go away, it just stayed the same.

And uh I had a doctor's appointment, went to the doctor, and they drew labs, and I said, hey look, your labs look pretty similar to how you look.

And uh, you gotta do something here, buddy.

You gotta you gotta do some work on this.

And uh I think I I don't know what's I don't know why I can't lose this weight.

I've been I've been running a little bit and you know, do some sit-ups or whatever.

The guy looks at me super kind but super direct, and he goes, Um, hey man, you're 28.

You're not 18.

And uh when I was 18, I was eating pizza, burgers, fries, ice cream, 11, 12 o'clock at night, right?

Briscuits and gravy for breakfast.

And uh the problem was at 28, I was eating the exact same thing and the exact same amount, and just as late at night, and all those things is hey, you're gonna have to change your diet.

If you want to really want to change how you look, you're gonna have to change your diet too.

You're gonna have to diet and exercise.

You're gonna have to get some green stuff in your diet, you're gonna have to eat more like a rabbit, smaller portions, not as so late at night.

And so um you're gonna have to do because at 28, you're different than you were at 18.

That's the idea that Peter has for us.

You're you're different.

If you're a believer in Jesus, you have a new identity, you are chosen exiles, he says.

You are chosen exiles, and here's how you are supposed to live out that new identity that you have in Christ.

So if you have your Bibles, 1 Peter chapter 2, he's picking up on an argument that he's already making.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

He's he starts at the very end of first uh in chapter 1, verses 22.

He says that you are supposed to love one another with a pure heart because you've been born again because of that.

Verse 1, chapter 2, so put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.

If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

As you come to him, a living stone, rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For it stands in Scripture, behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone, chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

So the honor is for you who believe.

But for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and uh the stone, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

This is the word of God, and all of God's people said Amen.

We received God's word at family church.

Hey, if you want to take some notes, you want to write some things down in our Bible studies today.

This would be a great time to do that.

If you have that program, that listening guide, the back side of it, is a place where you can take some notes and write some things down.

Point number one on notice how to live out your new identity in Christ.

This is how we pursue holiness.

Point number one, you have to make a plan to be in God's word.

Make a plan to be in God's word.

Peter begins this part of the chapter by saying that as a Christian, he's reminding me, you are not who you once used to be.

That's no longer part of your identity anymore.

So the behavior, the things that you used to do when you weren't a Christian, you shouldn't do that anymore because it's inconsistent with the Christian life.

And part of the reason why is he's he's saying, hey, listen, if you behave like this, if you keep behaving like you weren't a Christian, it causes you to be isolated, it causes you to be kind of set apart from the Christian community, and it breaks down your ability to build the kind of relationships that you're going to need and that you were designed for as a believer in Jesus.

And he lists five different things there.

He says, uh, so put off, you've got to change, you've got to change some things.

You've got to put off malice.

Malice is the idea of wickedness or evil.

Put away things that are evil and wicked about you or about your behavior.

Put away deceitful things.

Deceit is projecting something that is not truthful about yourself.

Uh put away hypocrisy.

Uh don't act the opposite of your belief or afterwards.

Be consistent with what you believe and what you say and how you live your life.

Put away envy, he says.

Don't be looking around at what everybody else has and wanting what somebody else has.

Be content with what you have and don't let envy or greed motivate you.

He says, put away slander.

Slander is telling the truth about something or someone with an intent to harm.

So it's not necessarily lying, it's not being deceptive, it's maybe just saying true things to somebody who's not part of the problem or not part of the solution so that you can tear them down a little bit.

Telling the truth about them with an intent to harm them.

He said, hey, put away these things.

You've heard us at famous church talk about oftentimes about the fruit of the spirit.

This list reads like a fruit of the flesh.

And part of the reason it's so difficult for us uh to put away these things is because our hearts are naturally drawn to sinful behavior.

Our hearts are naturally drawn to pride and selfishness.

And it's even more uh say maybe more complicated by um by technology.

We all have these little devices in our pocket.

Uh Ben Sass calls it Las Vegas in your pocket.

You have uh instant access to uh all of the worst of humanity right here at a at a uh finger's tip length.

But not only does that lead us to sin, that that instant gratification of the flesh also leads us to sin, but it also leads us towards isolation.

Instead, what Peter says you should do is in verse 2.

He says, Instead, you should grow up into your salvation.

That's an interesting phrase.

That you are to grow, you and I are to grow up into our salvation.

How do you do that?

How do you grow up into salvation?

Well, you have to replace the cravings that you had, that you used to have for the things of the world, and you have to replace them.

You have to cultivate an appetite for the word of God and for spiritual things.

And the example that Peter uses is like a newborn infant that craves milk.

That that craving, that insatiable desire that a newborn has for nutrient and for for that thirst that they have for milk, that's what you're supposed to have for the word of God.

Now, if you ever had newborns in your house, Megan and I have had six in our home, and uh all of our kids are different, they're all very unique, they have different personalities, different uh talents and gifts and abilities.

They all of them uh share one thing in common as a newborn.

They all get hungry every three hours.

And so what happens when you have a newborn in your house is your entire world, your entire schedule, your entire rhythm of life gets completely broken apart and reordered around when the baby needs to eat and when the baby needs to sleep.

That's your entire rhythm of life for about the first year or so.

You can, but especially in those first several months, your entire world.

Some of you are nodding your head because you're living that right now.

God bless you, okay?

God bless you.

I know sleep is coming, and it it'll it you'll you will sleep eventually, I promise you.

All right?

Not maybe not tonight, but definitely in the future, it'll happen for you, I promise you.

But when everything is working good, man, when mom is available, when the bottle is available and that baby gets hungry and that baby gets that that that milk that he or she desires, man, everything is good and right in the world.

But if something is wrong, if mom is not available, if the baby wakes up early, if the if the uh if the bottle is not ready, uh if the formula is not available, you got that screaming infant in your arms, you can coddle, you can sweat, you can talk to them, okay, you can promise them things, you can promise them diamonds, gold, money, vacation, cars, anything that you want, anything that you could give them, you can promise them.

But they don't want any of that thing.

What do they want?

They want milk, they want that food.

Hey, that's the idea.

That's the idea that Peter says, hey, that's what you should crave.

As a believer in Jesus, if you want to put off all these old ways and all these old things about the flesh, you should crave, you should cultivate an appetite for the word of God, for spending time with God's people, for hearing from God.

Cultivate the real spiritual.

He actually uses salvation almost like he says, salvation.

He said, If you've tasted the tasted the joy of salvation, it's like an appetizer for the rest of your relationship with God.

That's the kind of hunger we're supposed to have for spiritual things.

So let me ask you this question.

What is your plan?

We said, hey, you should make a plan for spending time in God's word.

What is your plan?

What is your plan for how you're gonna regularly hear from God?

What is your plan for how you're gonna regularly study God's word?

What's your plan for how you're gonna pray and listen to what God wants you to do?

It's not gonna happen by an accident.

Uh just like any other good habit that you want to do in your life, you want to build into your life, you're gonna have to make a plan.

You're gonna have to set a time.

You're gonna have to have a place where it's gonna take place.

You might have to have some triggers in your life that that remind you and force you, oh yeah, there's something good I want to do in my life.

I need to go do that right now.

I don't know what it might look like for you.

For some of you, it might be, hey, no Bible, no breakfast.

Right?

Before I eat physical food, I'm gonna eat from the word of God.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna study God's word for a few minutes at least.

Maybe for some of you, it's uh no Bible, no phone.

Before you look at your device, you're gonna spend just a few minutes in the Word of God, praying to God, listening to God, letting Him order your day, spending time with God.

Maybe you're a nighttime person.

Maybe uh if you're somebody who sleeps uh with the phone next to you, uh at best it takes the prominent place in your bedside table, maybe you should charge your phone somewhere else.

And instead, maybe you should put a Bible there so that when you're tempted to reach for that phone, instead, at the end of the night, you're reaching for a copy of God's word.

I don't know what it might look like for you, but you've got to have a plan.

You've got to make a plan to spend time in God's word.

All right, second thing on your notes.

Uh, if you want to uh if you want to make a plan to live, you want to live out your new identity in Christ, you've got to build your life into your neighborhood church.

Build your life into your neighborhood church.

In verse five, uh Peter says, You yourselves, he's talking to the believers there, are like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

In the Old Testament, first in the tabernacle, then in the temple, the temple was the meeting place of the people with God.

It's where the Spirit dwelt, it's where true worship took place, it's where sacrifices were made to God for the sins of the people.

And now the Bible says the church actually fills this role.

But we participate with Christ, who is the cornerstone, who's who's without Christ, none of this function, none of it, none of it works, but we partner with Christ.

And the Bible says that we are the priesthood.

We don't need a priest to uh uh to represent us to God for the people.

We have the ability with Christ uh to form this living house, this spiritual house uh made of living stones.

So Christians, the Bible says, don't function like dead, lifeless objects in a church.

That's not the picture, that's not the imagery.

What's supposed to be happening is all of us, the Bible says, are living stones.

Okay?

So here's what I want you to do.

I want you to turn to your uh turn to your neighbor and say, you are a living stone.

All right?

Now turn to your other neighbor and say, Hey, I'm a living stone.

That's right, kind of weird calling each other rocks, but that's that's that's the idea.

The idea is we're living sons.

How are we living sons?

Well, we're living because we've been made alive by Christ.

We've been made alive by the resurrection of Jesus, and each one of us has a unique individual contribution that we make.

We're individually valuable, and we have an individual contribution that we make to this overall spiritual house that we're building together.

And every neighborhood church connects to one other neighborhood church in this ongoing kind of spiritual building plan.

So this is what one of the things that's really cool about Pastor Jimmy being uh in Georgia this afternoon, speaking to all these pastors.

Our churches are connected in mission and belief through our belief in the gospel of Christ.

And we're working on the same project together, even though we're separated by hundreds of miles and cultures and all around the world and all throughout time, since for the last 2,000 years, churches like Family Church and neighborhood churches like family church have been working together because of the participation and the collaboration of the people that build the spiritual house.

Now, the apostle Paul said something very, very, very similar in the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

I want to show it to you.

This is Ephesians chapter 2, verses 19 through 22.

Ephesians 2:19–22

This is what he says.

He says, So then you, talking to other believers in Ephesus, are no longer strangers and aliens.

Remember, Peter's word was exiles, no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and the members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, same idea, same language, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple.

Same idea, holy temple in the Lord.

In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

It is a spiritual project, a spiritual house that we're all building together, and God uses each and every one of us.

So, God, uh you and I are being built up into this spiritual house, which means as Christians, we're designed to be connected together in community.

You're designed to be connected into community.

There is no picture in the New Testament of a believer in Jesus who is just kind of a free agent Christian, who's not connected to a local church, not involved in the life of a local church, uh, not just simply uh existing on their own.

It is possible, I think, for you to have spiritual experiences without a church, but you cannot fulfill your spiritual purpose apart from a church family.

You can have spiritual experiences, but in terms of your spiritual purpose, that's designed for connection to a neighborhood church.

So it's not enough just to attend.

It's not enough just to be marginally involved.

You need to be connected.

And at Family Church, we've got some ways that you can connect.

There's a QR code coming on the screen right now.

There's all kinds of ways that you can connect.

You can you can scan that QR code.

You can fill it out in about 30 seconds.

You can do it later after church if you want.

But there's things on that QR code.

There's ways that you can raise your hand and say, hey, I'd like some more information.

I want somebody to follow up with me about how to get connected to something like First Connection or how to uh join a group or what it looks like to be like Tiara and follow Jesus in Believers Baptism.

Uh there's information you can get information about Wednesday nights and how to build some new discipleship rhythms uh for your family, how you can volunteer at an event coming up uh next month, or how you can join a serve team.

There's things like that that are accessible to you.

We talk about them every single week, but part of what this passage should do for you is it should be a little bit of a heart check and a little bit of a gut check that says, hey, you're supposed to be involved.

You're supposed to be connected.

And it's not just for me, it's for you too.

It's involved, it's it's I need you and you need me.

We're supposed to be connected in all these things together.

The neighborhood church is supposed to be the place where you grow your faith, where you learn to study the Bible, where you pray with people to power through temptation and power through trials, where you build your marriage, where you raise your kids, and where you form your your deepest and most meaningful friendships and relationships.

All right.

You gotta build into your neighborhood church.

Number three on your notes, uh, you gotta make Christ the foundation of your life.

Make Christ the foundation of your life.

In verse 6, Peter says, uh, he references, he says, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone, chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

Jesus, the Bible says, is like a cornerstone, just like the cornerstone of a building establishes the direction, it establishes the proportion, establishes the the the uh the the it's the foundation on which the entire building is built.

Jesus functions like the cornerstone of our faith.

He's the foundation for what we believe, he's the foundation for meaning.

And for purpose, he establishes our direction and his design for our life is where we're gonna have the most fun, we're gonna have the most joy, and we're gonna bring the most glory to God the Father.

Every dimension of our life, the Bible says, is supposed to be shaped by Jesus.

And so if you make Jesus the foundation of your faith, that means that Jesus, and the thing that the way that Jesus wants you to think about as a believer in Christ, it shapes how you how you uh work at your job.

It shapes how you organize your finances and how you think about what you spend your money on, what you invest your money in.

It even changes the way that you think about whether or not it's actually your money, but rather maybe it's the resources that God has entrusted to you.

Building your life on a foundation of Christ changes the way that you think about your time, how you organize where you invest your time and where you spend your time.

It changes the way that you think about your relationships, how you order your relationships, who you spend your most time with, who you're attracted to, and who you who you let into your life and who you try to influence with your life.

It also changes the way you think about your entertainment, how you spend your time.

There's a lot of people in our church have been walking with Jesus for a long time, but they can talk to you about what their life was like before they met Christ.

How Christ has changed and transformed different dimensions of their life, and they would all tell you that walking with Jesus may not be easy all the time, but it's better.

It's better when you build your life on that foundation because it points you towards something that is real and something that is good and something that is true.

Now, part of what Peter does here is Peter emphasizes and he doubles down on this idea that you have to believe.

You have to really believe this does.

He says, if you believe, you have received this honor of not being put to shame.

Jesus, the scripture says, even either functions like a cornerstone in your life or he functions like a stumbling stone.

A cornerstone or a stumbling stone.

You have to make a decision about what you believe about Jesus.

You can't just simply ignore Jesus and pretend like his claims do not matter.

You have to deal with it.

You have to wrestle with it intellectually, and you have to wrestle with it spiritually.

You can't ignore the history of Jesus.

You can't ignore the prophecies about Jesus that came true from the Old Testament.

You can't ignore the miracles and the claims of the miracles.

You can't ignore his moral teaching or the authority with which he taught.

You can't ignore the real people that talked about and testified to his resurrection.

You have to ask yourself, you have to wrestle with yourself about whether or not you really believe in Jesus.

You have to ask yourself this question: Is Jesus a living stone or was he a liar?

He was either a living stone that the Bible talks about in 1 Peter, or he was a liar.

He's making all of it up.

And making Christ the foundation of your life means that you also will take on his rejection.

It means that you are choosing to recognize that there's more worth and more value in being connected with Christ for eternity than being accepted by the world temporarily.

It means that you're choosing heavenly honor over worldly shame.

You're identifying with Christ.

Peter references in this scripture, he references Psalm chapter 118, verses 22 that says, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

Psalms 118:22

Jesus said it this way about himself in John chapter 15.

John 15 · chapter mention

He said, If the world hates you, know that the world hated me before it hated you.

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world.

Therefore the world hates you.

When we make Christ the foundation of our life, we choose to identify with him in his rejection, but also in his goodness and in his design.

The thing we don't do is we don't keep it to ourselves.

Point number four on your notes.

Live so that others see the goodness of God.

Live so that others see the goodness of God.

Turn your attention to verses nine and ten just for a moment.

Look at what Peter says about what we're supposed to be and who we're supposed to, how we're supposed to reflect Christ to the watching world as a church family.

He says, But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Peter is encouraging this mix of Jewish and Gentile believers about who they really are.

About who they really are.

Go and live different.

Go be transformed.

Go be holy.

It's okay.

Go care about the things of God.

Go pursue the things of Christ.

Get married.

Have kids.

Be a different kind of a boss.

Be a different kind of a neighbor.

Be a different kind of an employee.

Show the world how you can persevere through real trials, real tribulations, with hope in the future.

This is who you're supposed to be.

This is who you are.

Proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

This is part of what it looks like to be the people of God.

Isaiah, uh Isaiah 43 talks about this.

It says, The people whom I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise.

Part of what it means to be a Christian, part means being connected to a church, means that you're looking for ways to show others the goodness of God.

At the end of verse 10, Peter alludes to the Old Testament story of Hosea.

Some of you were with us when we studied the book of Hosea, the prophet Hosea in the Old Testament, where Hosea, I'm not time to go into the entire story, but Hosea redeems his wife Gomer, who had been unfaithful to him.

But they had several children together.

Two of the names of their children were No Mercy.

One of the children's kids' names was No Mercy.

The other kid was named Not My People.

At the end of the story of Hosea, the Bible says that God through Hosea, Hosea redeems Gomer and gives back to Hosea and gives back to us these new identities.

It's exactly what Jesus did for us.

He purchased us through a broken body and through his shed blood.

We are not who we used to be.

We're no longer who we used to be.

Instead, we're a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.

And every single week at Family Church, we celebrate the fact that Jesus has changed our identity through his sacrifice on the cross and through the power of the resurrection by taking the Lord's Supper together.

And we're about to do that here right now.

If you have received Jesus by faith, if you've turned from your sins and trusted in Christ, and if you've been baptized, believers baptism by immersion, we encourage you to take the Lord's Supper.

If you have children who have not yet been baptized, or if you're not yet a believer, we encourage you not to take it, but to wait and take it when you can take it with integrity.

We talk to us about how you can do that in the future.

If you're a guest with us today and you would normally take the Lord's Supper at whatever church you typically attend, you're welcome to take it as part of the worldwide family of God that goes all over the world.

But right now, what I want to encourage you to do is to reflect for a moment about your own walk with Christ.

I want to give you the opportunity to confess sin.

I give you an opportunity to think about the holiness of God, give you an opportunity to think about how are you doing being a living stone, identifying with Christ.

In just a moment, we'll take and eat together after Angelik Sings for a moment.

Right now, let's turn our attention to our confession, to our time with Jesus, and then we'll eat and drink together.