— Brother Phil Enlow: You can’t fix Adam! You and I were born with Adam’s life, and you can’t fix it! It’s so corrupted, there’s only one thing you do, is kill it. But what He offers us is another life.
Have you ever experienced that? That needs to be the cry of your heart, that you come to a place where you know you have been born again of His Spirit. He has imparted the very life of God to you, shared it with you. You don’t deserve it. I don’t either, but He’s given me a brand-new life. Praise God!
Every life that’s part of this world will perish but this is a life you cannot kill! You go on, later on in this chapter, the end of the chapter and the beginning of the next one, it talks about how it’s immortal, it’s God’s own immortal life! What an amazing thing to possess! What is there in this world that you could possess that’s greater? Nothing! Nothing!
And that gives us what He’s talking about. He looks back to see what’s He done for us. He’s given us this new birth, but to what purpose? A living hope! That means I can come here this morning and it doesn’t matter what’s going on right now, in the middle of my life and what it looks like, what it feels like, I have a hope that goes beyond that!
( congregational amens ).
It isn’t dependent upon my perfect performance! It’s dependent upon a God who cannot lie! You read Hebrews 6 again, and you’ll read about a God who speaks, a God who cannot lie, who can look us in the eye and say, I have planted in your heart a hope.
And it’s not a just wish. We think of hope as a wish. This is an expectation of something that is as solid, that’s more solid than anything you see. It’s more real. I’ll tell you, we got to have something supernatural in here to have that kind of conviction. You can’t just psych people into this. I don’t want to psych anybody into anything. I want you to have an encounter with the living God…
( congregational amens ).
…where He will impart to you His own conviction, His own life on the inside, where you know that you know that you know that He’s real! And He will do it!
I know many of you know what I’m talking about. But if you don’t, oh my God! Cry out! It’s, “…a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (NIV).
What a glorious song we sang this morning about the power of what God did at the resurrection. How many times have we talked about all hell would have kept Him in there! And even His followers were completely disheartened. It’s all over, I don’t understand what’s going on. And a Roman guard standing there with a sealed tomb. And all hell, the unseen world, ganged up on him, having a party, saying, we have won! And in the face of that, God said, no…time to come out. And death itself could not hold him!
( congregational amens ).
In the natural course of events, every one of us is gonna wind up in a tomb. But this is a life that we saw come forth in Jesus Christ that you cannot kill! It’s real! Praise God!
That’s the…I mean, you can go back in history and look at that even from an intellectual standpoint and people have tried to do that, trying to disprove the Christian faith and wind up coming to faith because they couldn’t! God has given us so many witnesses. If there’s any honesty in a human heart, you’re gonna wind up with a conviction that Jesus Christ is real, that God’s word is real, that truth is real, that this world is gonna pass away and we need to be connected to Him.
( congregational amens ).
“…A living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead….” That authenticated everything that he had said, everything that God had promised. And the result of that is, “…an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.” Remember how Jesus again, talked about the treasures of this world and how they’ll pass away? But here’s a treasure that you cannot pass away. Let me ask you this, does Jesus deserve an inheritance in that kingdom?
( congregational response ).
You think? Yes. But we’re fellow-heirs. See, that’s God’s purpose. It’s not just for Him as an individual, He shares that with everyone who puts their trust in Him! He has the power to make us fully fit for that! That’s what life becomes all about, is getting us, taking us from what we were, transforming us on the inside, making us ready to inherit that for all eternity!
( congregational response ).
If you’re His, you have an inheritance, that no demon in Hell can possibly do anything about. Praise God!
( congregational amens ).
“…It can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you. Do you think the Devil can go up there and do anything about that?
( congregational response ).
He can talk…he can try to talk you out of it, discourage you, but that doesn’t change what’s true up there. God has done something no devil can stop. Praise God!
All right? Now again, who’s he talking about? “…For you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power….” Again, faith is not just some vague thing that I work up or come up with somehow. This is a supernatural thing that God produces in the heart, but it also releases God’s power into my life. And there is a protection, there is a shield.
In fact, doesn’t Paul talk about the shield of faith? Yeah, there’s something that stands between me and the efforts of the devil to take me down! And it’s not because I have anything, it’s because of God’s power! I don’t have any power, do you? I can’t stand up to any of this. But my hope and my confidence are not in anything that I am or that I’m capable of doing, it’s in Him! And He is faithful! That’s what Peter is conveying here. What an amazing picture. Praise God!
We, “…are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” So, you see, Peter on the one hand talking about where we’ve come from and how we got here. God reached out in mercy to awaken us to our need, to bring us to a place where He could beget in us His life. And he points to the future and says, look what I’ve got for you. There’s nothing that could ever touch that!
All right, now you come back to the middle. That’s what this is about, because we need to understand both ends. Folks, if you’re trying to be a Christian in your own strength, you need to go back to the starting line. You need God to do something supernatural in your life. And I’m not talking about some spooky experience. I’m talking about a reality. You’ll know. You’ll know when God has done something down in here. There will be a witness of His Spirit and yours. But, praise God! In this, “…in all this you greatly rejoice…” And there’s the word though…
( laughing ).
…That follows that. Though. In other words, this is awesome. But there’s something you have to deal with that kind of gets in the way here that’s coming against that. Though. All right? Where was that…oh, there we go.
“…Though now for a little while…” Thank God, it’s only a little while. Like Paul said, you know…all this that I’m going through, it’s just for a little short time but what’s coming is forever. You can’t compare the two. How do you compare, eternity with a little bit that we go through? Of course, it doesn’t feel like that sometimes, does it?
“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.” So obviously, with a God that has prepared all of this, has planned all of this, this has got to be part of His plan, right?
Do you think this is just sort of happening? Is this happenstance? Is the devil kind of coming in here and saying, I get to mess up God’s plan, I get to fight against it? God has absolutely placed us in an arena for a purpose. And everything He is doing in us is absolutely central to where we’re headed.
But, it’s not only that, it’s central to us living here and being effective as Christians. I sense the Lord’s burden to get us ready. I mean, the stuff…the kind of stuff that we heard about with Brother Kumar is not just for folks some place off in another part of the world. We don’t know what God may call upon us to face here. With the spirit that is over-running our society and transforming our culture into an anti-Christ culture, don’t you sit here and think the American way of life is just gonna go on and on and on and on. We’re gonna to need something that’s real down here.
( congregational amens ).
And folks, if you’re trusting in Him and you’ve given your life and your heart to Him and your eye is single to Him as a source of truth, you’ve got what you need. And regardless of what we may experience in the flesh, what He’s given us is real and it will hold. Okay?
But then he goes into something that’s interesting. This is kind of what drew me to this passage in the first place. “These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
God is gonna do something here to demonstrate how real He is and how great His power is, that there’s nothing here that can separate us from the love of God. Read Romans 8 again. Nothing can separate us. All the things the devil can throw at us, nothing is stronger than this.
Interesting that he compares our faith with gold. And you think of earthly substances…and gold would have to be near the top of the list of those that are pretty indestructible. I don’t care how hot the fire is, gold ain’t gonna suffer. Gold is gonna stand there. In fact, gold is gonna get purer, the hotter it gets its gonna get purer, isn’t it? You kind of see a little bit of an analogy going on here?
And yet, there is a fire coming. Peter talks about it, particularly, in the second letter. There is a fire coming that is so hot, gold itself will not stand up to it. Folks, you want to live for something in this world? Seriously? If even gold won’t stand up to it, what else will? That’s God’s Word, isn’t it? That’s sobering.
But yet, there’s enough of an analogy that we can understand something of what God is seeking to do in our daily lives. There are things, there are imperfections, there are areas of need. You know, we’ve talked about it so many different ways, how God needs to transform our mind and all of that.
But folks, there are so many things that we have…that have become a part of our life, part of our thinking, part of how we live and react, that just doesn’t come from God. And just like the impurities that you put gold in the fire in order to burn them out, we need things that will burn them out.
We don’t just sit in a seminar and God says, here’s what you need to do, here’s how you do it…good, I’ve got that. It doesn’t work that way anymore than if you bring gold in there and say, look, gold, get rid of that junk that’s in there so you can be pure. There’s a process that makes it pure.
And this is one we prefer not to have. But the reality is, if God is going to purify that amazing faith that He has put in here, it’s going to have to go through stuff. And it’s gonna have to stand up to something that’s very, very real. And that something is gonna have the power to burn up the stuff that God wants to get rid of in you and me. Anybody here got any of that?
( congregational response ).
Yeah. I mean, you think about how we sing on Sunday about all the wonderful things that we have in the Lord and then we go out and the simple circumstances of life, produce all kinds of reactions that don’t come from faith. We get angry. We get discouraged. We get…you go on, and you name all the things that we’re prone to. We react to so many things in life…discouraged, weary, hopeless.
I’ll tell you, we’re gonna go through life, God is going to deliberately bring us to places where we’re gonna need to stand in faith. The Word of God is full of those examples. Abraham didn’t become the Father of Faith by simply going to a seminar and learning about it. He had to stand up under real-world issues.
And I’ll tell you, there are places we get in this world, where God will be silent… seemingly. And a thousand voices will be screaming in our heads saying, it isn’t so, you’ve done something, you’re bad, God doesn’t…maybe God doesn’t even exist, this is all a fantasy! You’re gonna hear those voices. Everyone here has heard those voices.
And I’ll tell you, at that time, that’s when we need to ask God to keep our eyes single and say, God, I need Your help! God, give me the strength to stand and simply believe You even when it doesn’t seem like it, I don’t feel it, nothing! I have nothing to go on that’s natural. But I know what You put in my heart! I know who You are.
See, Abraham just didn’t believe…we’ve said this many times. He just didn’t believe what God said, he believed God!
( congregational amens ).
It was a character issue. I know the character of the One who has talked to me, and whatever He tells me is right! And then what an amazing demonstration of that faith came when God told him to sacrifice his own son. And he got to the point where the knife was raised and he would have done it. Phew! And he didn’t have the Bible!
We’ve got a God who will lead us in so many ways. You know, Brother Steve was telling me last night about going through some stuff and how the Lord brought him. God leads us along. You know, there are times when God leads us beside the still waters and in wonderful meadows. And there are other times He leads us in dark valleys, the valley of the shadow of death.
But what does David say based on his heart experience? He said, no matter where I’ve been You’ve been with me. You’re walking right beside me. I didn’t even feel that You were there. There were times in his Psalms that said, oh God, where are You? I reach out, I can’t find You. What’s going on? I don’t understand. But somehow, there was something God had placed in the heart.
Is that in your heart? It needs to be. God wants to give it to you. He wants to give you that anchor in your soul.
Think of Jesus, at His weakest point and the Devil comes and says, “…If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” What did He say? “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (KJV).
Now he didn’t say that when he had just finished a nice meal and was feeling good. He’d just finished fasting for 40 days, and he was hungry and he was needy and he was at his weakest point. But somehow, his eye was so single, that conviction of his heart was so real that he was able to say, these natural things are not what I live for. This isn’t what I go by.
You know, God can take care of those needs while we’re here, but there’s something that’s more important. I need to live by what comes out of His mouth.
( congregational amens ).
And I’ve got to say this again. This has to get beyond words on a page. I thank God for every word that’s on these pages. And we can search them, and we can read them. But it’s got to get beyond my intellectually…taking hold of what it says here and trying to cobble myself a religion. I need a living relationship with a very real God who talks to me!
( congregational amens ).
And so do you. Because I don’t live by just the natural resources, I live by what He says. And I’m not talking about some spooky experience, I’m talking about the fact, that many of you could testify to, you were in a dark place and suddenly, finally, God spoke. It wasn’t a long speech, but just a quick word. It could be three, four or five words. But suddenly peace took hold. And you knew that God was real and that His Word was more powerful than anything you were experiencing at the time. Folks, that’s the kind of a God that we need.
( congregational amens ).
That’s the kind of a relationship we need. God wants a people that will walk with Him because we’re headed into difficult territory! Just living in this world is difficult enough. But we need a God with whom we walk.
We need the same thing Noah needed when he walked with God and God showed him what to do and protected him and brought him through in spite of the condition of a world that was headed for judgment. We’re in that same situation today.
And the God who was with Noah, the God who was with Abraham is with us. And we need to be with Him. We need to be saying, every day, when those voices scream in your head, and wanting you to give up and wanting you to go this way and believe this and believe that, we just need to cry out and say, oh God, I believe You, help my unbelief.
( congregational amens ).
And sometimes it’s gonna take standing. Sometimes it’s gonna take just standing in faith because you know what He has said to you in the past. But I’ll tell you, we have a God who knows how to speak in the present when there is a need. You and I need Him! In whatever situation you find yourself in, that would cause you to do something other than rest and trust and believe in this God who has called you out of darkness into light, and has set before you a hope that cannot be countermanded, we’re gonna need to have a heart that looks to God, consistently.
We stand by faith, we look to Him, we know where our help comes from! And whether it comes on our timetable or in the way we think, we’re gonna say, God, I know who You are. I need Your strength. I can’t do this on my own, but Lord, I receive this.
Do you know the effect of that is the same as putting gold in fire? Do you know there are things in our lives that lose their power over us when we stand in faith when the fire is burning? God is literally setting us free. That’s what he’s talking about.
We read the end of this passage, “…Even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” You see the process there? See, Peter’s talked about the beginning, he’s talked about where we’re going, but now we’re in the middle, we are receiving something.
God wants to impart something to me that I don’t have! There is no other way but for me to have to stand in times of difficulty, and praise Him anyway, and just look to Him. But I’ll tell you, what’s gonna get me through is the same thing that got Jesus through. I don’t live by earthly provision, whatever it is. I need to hear from heaven.
You could tell me all this stuff, but I have one source of truth, and it comes ultimately from God. And I’m gonna listen, and I’m gonna trust Him to speak to me exactly what I need, when I need it, and that is gonna be the anchor for my soul. I’m convinced of who He is and that He is truthful and faithful. And no matter what you say, Devil, I’m gonna stand, and I’m gonna put my trust in Him and He’s gonna bring me through.
God is gonna take His people through. But He wants us to understand what’s going on right now. So that every single day, instead of…we’re allowing God to deal with us. We’re allowing God to bring circumstances to allow us to go through valleys and difficult places, and they will bring up the conflict between ideas that come from the other source, and His truth.
And what we need to do is to cry out to Him and say, God, I believe You and I’m gonna stand fast, and I am looking to You for Your strength. Give me the wisdom I need, speak, if it’s just a word or two, whatever I need to give me the confidence to stand in this time.
And I’ll tell you, God’s gonna to burn that stuff up that’s held you captive, and me. God’s got a plan for that. It ain’t gonna…it’s not gonna be here. You know, there’s gonna come a day when nothing that afflicts you right now that’s ungodly, it won’t be here. But God wants to do something about a lot of it right now. And He knows how to do it and He’s faithful to do it. Praise God!
So, I want to be…I want to have my eyes single. I want to have a heart that says, Lord, I know that I’m in need. I know how I got here. I know You called me even though I don’t deserve it. I know what You’ve set before me, but also know that You’re with me right now, and I need to hear Your voice. I just want to hear from You, Lord, because You are the only source of truth that I trust. Whatever this world tells me is gonna lead me to destruction, but I need You.
And I’ll tell you, there is a God who is faithful to His promises. He is faithful to you. It doesn’t depend upon your strength or wisdom or any natural quality that you have. You can be the smallest child who puts their trust in Him, and you are stronger than the greatest giant in the kingdom of darkness, because it’s not you, it’s Him in you. Praise God! Do we have something to rejoice in this morning?
( congregational amens ).
We also have things to be sober about and to realize where we’re at, and what God has laid before us and how we get from point A to point B. But I’m so thankful He’s going with us.
( congregational amens ).
He’ll never leave us nor forsake us. And He is faithful. To Him be the glory. Praise God!
