And I was going to give you a hard time, and now I can't. I wanted to hear you too, Pastor. You were one of my favorite speakers, and I'm not saying this just to butter you up. You were more mature than when I ever saw you. Sure. Yes. Yep. I'm just kidding. Well, as Pastor said, consider, am I a little too loud? Should I lower this? I won't be there. I'm gonna be in Arizona. Do you know Ray McCormick? I'm going to be the youth pastor this term. If you have any questions, we have a table with some brochures. Please stop by. Yeah, that's on. All right. I'll just set that right there. All right. Check out our table. We also have some CDs there. If you enjoyed the music. He's so rich, I promise. You can have good gospel music in your home, in your car. The Bible says speak in yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And that's why we have the music. It's one for 15, and then two for 20, so you might as well get two. That's what I always say. Stop by and check that out. Thank you guys for letting us take Elizabeth this summer. I know that her parents are here, and I've seen them. I think this is our third time. Third time, and they keep stopping by. They live in Wisconsin now, so we were up there and they got to see her, but we like Elizabeth. The major that she's studying, Drama, fits her personality just perfectly, so we're glad to have her. If you got your Bibles, turn to 1 Peter 1. First Peter chapter one, pastor said to be done by seven, but my watch ran out of battery. So sorry. Oh, there's a clock. Okay. There's a clock. I see it. No, I'm just kidding. We should be out with plenty of time, but, um, I, I just, I pray that this will be a blessing. I pray that that music, the songs were a blessing. I love the hymns that we sang this evening, but the song service, I hope you got the progression. They talked about Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross. He gave his life for ours at Calvary. And then they said, he's coming back one day. That's exciting. And then they said, we're still on earth. Let's be faithful to the cross. And I hope that you were able to put that all together and say, God, thank you for what Jesus did for me. Now, here on earth, will you let me, allow me to be faithful, use me as a faithful servant to the cross of Christ? And that's a great thought, and that's good. Let's pray before we get in the Bible, and then we'll get into it. Heavenly Father. I pray that you will help me tonight, that you will put anything that's in me aside and fill me with your spirit. I pray that you will use me and the power of your word to speak. I truly pray that hearts will be changed tonight. Again, not because of me, but because of your word and the truth that we find there. I pray that we won't just... hear it and just leave without being changed. But as James says, hear the word and then go out and do the word. I pray for myself, pray for these here that we will be truly changed by your word tonight. In Jesus name I pray, amen. First Peter is written to it's written by Peter to Christians it seems to be written mostly to Jews but he says in well let's look at verse 1 1st Peter chapter 1 verse 1 Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered through Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit and unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you, and peace be multiplied." So he's talking to Christians here, and he's telling them in 1 Peter, this is what's coming. He talks about some tribulations. He encourages them in their Christian faith, and he says, the gospel that you heard from me, that you've heard from Paul, that you've heard from other Christians, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the truth. And he wants to make them certain that they know this is the gospel, that Jesus Christ came, died on the cross, was buried, and rose again. And if you put your faith and trust in him, you will be saved. And he wants them to be certain of that. But then he gets into verse 3, and he starts talking about heaven. And so I want to look at two things. I only have two points. So that's pretty good, only two points. Not too bad. Should be out in plenty of time. But I want to see the first thing is, well, I'm going to read and then I'll tell you my first point. So let's look at verse 3. Verse 3 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. So my first point is this, we have a lively hopefulness. Amen. Amen. I saw one amen. Thank you. We got two amens. That's good. All right. I just wanted to make sure you're all with me tonight. A lively hopefulness. And I'll be honest, when I was studying for this message and I saw the word lively, I thought, oh, man, that's a fun word, lively. You know, jump up and down, lively, like at a basketball game or maybe how a pastor felt when a president got elected this last term. I can imagine at 3 o'clock in the morning, you got pretty lively. Did you run around your house jumping up and down? He did. OK. Lively, right? We go and watch a sports game and we get excited. So I was like, oh, perfect. Lively, that's an awesome word. I can preach this and say, hey, we have a lively Hope jumping up and down and excited. I'm still not seeing a lot of smiles here. We have a lively hope, OK? But then I realized that that word actually more means living. We have a living hope. But you know, that's just as good. Jesus Christ, He is alive. He sits on the right hand of the Father, and He is our hope. Our complete faith and trust is in Jesus Christ. Paul says, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, we were of all men most miserable. But he did. He's in heaven. He's alive. So, amen. We have a lively hope from this. And I want to look at this. What? As a lively hopefulness, let's get excited about that. As Christians, we should be excited about it. It should be something that makes us happy. When we're reading the Bible or we're singing songs about Christ living, man, amen, we should be excited. And we see, look in verse three, he says, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy. Aren't you thankful for God's mercy? I am. I can say today, truly, I do not deserve to be serving God. I do not deserve to go to heaven. I have failed my Savior time and time and time again. Even after I got saved, I've still failed Him. But I can ask God, say, God, will you please forgive me? And never one time has He looked down and said, no, not this time. Every time, He's been merciful. And it's abundant mercy, overflowing mercy, more than we can handle. You may think to yourself, I just don't know if I can serve God. I don't know if he's got enough mercy for this sin. Trust me, our God has abundant mercy, and it's great. And we can be excited about that. But then we keep reading. He says, according to his abundant mercy, he hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible. What else can we be excited about? We have an inheritance. And it's not an inheritance here on Earth. It's an inheritance from God, incorruptible. That means it cannot be corrupted. Corruptible kind of has the meaning of getting worse and worse and worse. I look at my bank account. It gets worse and worse and worse. Taxes going up and up. Well, actually, they're going down right now. But who knows what they're going to be in the next couple of years, OK? And it's like, oh, man, everything's just slipping away and fading away. God's inheritance, it only gets better and better and better. The more we serve Him, the more we lay up in heaven, our inheritance gets better and better. And it's not coming from a bank. It's not coming from our parents. It's not coming from anyone else. It's coming from Almighty God. And His resources, they never run out. We have an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled. That word undefiled is pure, from heaven. Isn't that great? Isn't that exciting? You have an inheritance that's in heaven. It's not on earth, it's in heaven. No matter what happens, if you lost every single penny that you had, if everything in your life went terribly wrong, you still have an inheritance in heaven. And that's something we can bank on. He says, an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. So he says, not only do we have this inheritance, we are kept by the power of God. I'm glad that my salvation isn't dependent on me. Because if it were, I wouldn't be on my way to heaven. But it's not me. It's Jesus Christ. And we have a lively hopefulness. And I hope that you are excited about that. If you're a Christian, you should be excited about that. It's something that we can say, God, thank you. I'm reading my Bible. And there's times when I read something and I start getting a little antsy. I'm like, oh man, I got to write this down. I got to tell somebody else. You can ask my team. There's times I read something. I'm like, guys, you got to see what I just read. I mean, it excites me that I serve a risen Savior. And then you keep on reading. He says that we have something to be excited about. We can even be excited through trials. Look at verse 6. wherein ye greatly rejoice. Though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. You know, as Christians, there are some trials that we go through. And I've heard people say, oh, America, we don't go through the trials like other countries. And it's true. You go to North Korea and see how the Christians fare over there. It's a rough place. We were just talking to a pastor or a man who had gone to a missions trip in India. And as soon as they left India, the national pastor there was beat so that he was unrecognizable as himself. You couldn't recognize him because he had housed Americans and they had proselytized. And that's illegal, at least in his county or his area in India. And he was beat. truly beat. And that doesn't happen here. And we can be thankful for that. But we still go through trials. There's still things as Christians in America that we say, man, this is not so easy. And God never promised that life would be easy. He never promised that we wouldn't have any trials. But He says that we can rejoice through those trials. We can know that when we go through trials, when you say, God, what is going on? Why is this happening? God says, hey, don't worry. It's to refine you. It's to make you even better for me. It's okay. We can rejoice. We can smile and say, God, I don't understand this. But I know that it's for the best. I know that you've got a plan for me. And we see that right here, that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Then look down to verse 12 with me. I'm almost finished with point one. I got to hurry up. Unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves But unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost, sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into." Even the angels want to say, hey, What's going on down there? What's this salvation I'm hearing about? Man, this is pretty cool. People are getting saved. We sang a new name written down in glory, and there was one part that says even the angels are excited. They're like, hey, what's going on? And the white-robed angels sing the story. A sinner has come home. Man, this is exciting. Somebody show me some excitement. Please let me know, OK? Are you excited? I'm excited, OK? Do I need to spin around in circles and jump around? OK, let's get excited. We have a lively hopefulness. Amen. Can we get an amen? Amen. All right. I know it's Indiana. We're like up north. You guys don't amen and stuff like that. I'm from Michigan, and I never amened in my church. But now that I preach, I like when people say amen. It's pretty nice. Amen. Thank you, pastor. It is helpful. Lively hopefulness, number two, we have our call to a living holiness. All right, this is where it's gonna be a little more tough to amen, but you need to keep on amening, because this is part of the Christian life. So he says, hey, we have a lively hopefulness, a living Savior who called us to an undefiled, incorruptible inheritance. He saved us to the glory of heaven. Now look at verse 13. Wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy. OK, Peter says, hey, you've got some exciting stuff. It's great. Jesus saved you. He called you to heaven. He called you to glory. You're going to go through some trials. Listen up. Wherefore, because of what I just said, gird up the loins of your mind. That's a military term. Get ready for what's coming. OK? Get ready. You've got to go out and be holy. As Christians, God did not save us so that we could just live for ourselves. And we should be excited about salvation, but we shouldn't be excited about sin. We shouldn't be like, OK, thank you, God. I'm going to heaven. Now I'm just going to live my life for myself. No. God says, if you're a Christian, if you're saved, be holy, for I am holy. Jesus Christ shed his blood on the cross of Calvary. He died on that cross. His blood ran down that cross. And it's that very blood that cleanses us from sin. But every time that we do sin, it's like taking a hammer. and pounding that nail in just a little bit deeper, and say, hey, I know you saved me from this, but I'm going to do it anyway. And you may say, man, that's kind of rough. Well, look at what the Bible says in verse 14. As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance. You want to hear some real truth from the Bible? When you sin, you're being ignorant. When you say, God, I know you've got a plan for me and you want me to be holy. but I'm gonna live how I want to, that doesn't make any sense. He saved us so that we could be holy. He saved us to look a different way. That word holy means set apart, separate. If you look exactly like the world, if you watch the TV shows that the world watches, if you listen to the music that the world listens to, if you dress the way the world dresses, and you know, we're in a Christian Baptist church, if you've got bitterness like the world has bitterness, If you get angry like the world gets angry, if you struggle with pride, which I have to raise my hand and say, I'm proud sometimes. We like to get on people as independent Baptists. Oh, you watched what? You did what? You drank what? You know, we have anger and bitterness and pride. Hey, we need to be set apart. We need to be different. Why do we need to be different? Look over at 1 Peter 2. I'm going to read two verses out of 1 Peter 2. Verse 11. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Why should you be holy? What's the point? Why should we live differently? Because when people come and they say, oh, you Christians, you don't do what you're supposed to, you can say, no, I'm living holy. And they can see by your life that you're different. And they should be able to. So that when you give them a track and you say, hey, God wants to save you. Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. They won't say, but you don't live any differently than I do. They'll look at your life and say, because of the way you live, I know there's something to this. I see the truth. They'll see their sin and see that you're blameless and say, man, they've got something. There's some truth to what they're saying. I got to hurry up. We saw that lively hope. Amen. A living holiness. Let's do what's right. As we do what's right. Be holy. And then I want to say this. What's our reason for holiness? Let's read verse 17. We're going to read down through verse 21. And if you call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. For as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. OK, hear me out. I'm finishing up tonight. We have a lively hopefulness. Amen? Amen. God, Jesus Christ, died on the cross for you. He shed his blood for your sin and my sin and the sin of the whole world. He died. But if you've accepted that, you're on your way to heaven. And then he says, OK, you're on your way to heaven. Now you're on earth. Be faithful to the cross. Serve me, do what's right, because I paid for you with my blood. The Bible says that Jesus Christ died so that we could die to our flesh and be new unto him. A new name in glory, but we got a new name here on earth too. We're Christians now. There's supposed to be something different. And I ask you tonight, pray to God and say, God, am I holy? I remember when I was growing up and preachers would come. And I struggled a lot with the music that I listened to in high school. I didn't listen to godly music. And I knew it. And I just did it anyway. I was rebellious. And I remember preachers would come in, and they would preach on anything. It didn't matter what they were preaching on. God would always prick my heart and say, hey, you're listening to wrong music. And I would say, they're not preaching about music. Hey, you're doing wrong. And I ask you tonight, what did God just put on your heart? When I said, hey, you need to be holy. You need to get sin out of your life. What did the Holy Spirit put right here? Maybe you said, yeah, pride, that's me. Maybe you said, man, I spend too much time watching television, or maybe I'm watching TV shows that Christians shouldn't be taking part of. Say, you know, there's some things that I need to change. Are you holy? You know, there's people out there who need to see holy Christians. There's people who aren't saved. My wife and I checked into our hotel last night. And the lady at the register, she checked us in, friendly older lady. And I smiled at her. I said, thank you for checking us in. And she was just very friendly. And God just put on my heart. He said, David, go give her the gospel. I'm already in my room. And I was like, I don't really want to. And he put it on my heart. He said, go give her the gospel. And I said, OK. And I'm not saying this to brag. I'm saying this because it's what we need to hear as Christians. And I walked down, and I said, hey, do you know that you're going to heaven? If you died today and God said, why should I let you into heaven, what would you say? And she said, you know, I believe in God, but I've never really thought about it. And I said, you know what the Bible says? The Bible says all you have to do is place your trust in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, was buried, and rose again. And I handed her a tract that had some verses. Do you care about the lost? Do you live a life that shows those around you that you care? Are you giving out the gospel? It's so important. There's people dying on their way to hell in your city. Maybe your next door neighbor. Pastor told me his next door neighbor isn't saved. A little boy, 10-year-old, 11-year-old boy, and he knows he's not saved. We gotta be a light. People need to know. Jesus didn't die just for you. He died for the whole world. So, let's go out. Let's be holy Christians. Let's set ourselves apart. Let's do what's right and live for that inheritance that's incorruptible. Don't live for the stuff on the earth. It's gonna fade away. It's gonna be gone one day. But what you do for Christ, that's what's gonna count. Let's pray tonight as Audrey goes to the piano. Heavenly Father, I ask that you would help me to be more holy. I thank you for what Jesus did for me on the cross. I do, and I'm so grateful for his precious blood. I pray that you would help me not to put more sin on, and I pray that you would help me to gird up the loins of my mind, to soberly approach this Christian life. It's serious. It's a serious thing. We have to live for you and it's important because there's people who need the gospel. There's people who need to see holy Christians set apart because the blood has cleansed us. I pray that you'd help me to live for you. I pray that this church would be Christians that are wholly set apart, living for you because of what you did for them on the cross. Thank you for what you've done for us. In Jesus name I pray, amen.