Manna Online | Living in an Age of Outrage | Part 1

hey there i'm so thrilled that you joined us today my name is shade and i want to welcome you to mana church today we're diving into part one of our current sermon series living in an age of outrage but first let's prepare our hearts as mana worship leads us in worship through song grace that flows like a river washing over [Music] [Music] me thank you jesus you set me free [Music] christ my say you rescue me [Music] take this [Music] to see your kingdom come thank you jesus [Music] christ might take your rescue me thank you jesus thank you jesus you set me free christ my savior you rescued me [Music] [Music] when there was no way [Music] you've given me life you've given me life i love you lord i love you lord you've entered my heart you set me apart i love you lord i love you lord you've given me you set me [Applause] [Music] [Music] you've given me life you've given me [Music] you set me [Applause] [Music] you set me free [Music] christ my savior you rescue me sing thank you jesus thank you jesus you set me free [Music] me thank you jesus [Music] we're free in jesus name [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] before [Music] the praise of your glory [Applause] you have no [Applause] yours is [Applause] what a powerful name it [Applause] it is the name of jesus christ what a powerful name it is nothing can stand against what a powerful name it is [Music] [Applause] is [Applause] [Applause] [Music] name it is the name of jesus christ [Applause] what a powerful name it is nothing can stand against what a powerful name it is the name of jesus what a powerful name it is jesus what a powerful name it is the name of jesus [Music] hey again we're so excited that you are here i would like to welcome those of you who may be joining us for the very first time here on mana online if that's you we want to thank you so much for being our guest there's a simple way to let us know that you were here with us i invite you to go ahead and text the word guest to the number that you see on your screen right now go ahead and pause if you need to if you're watching this on our website manna.church you can either text or you can click the button under the screen that says first time guest now you may have been watching mana online for quite some time but you haven't let us know yet and if that's you we would really like to hear from you as well so go ahead and text the word guest to the number that you see on your screen we have a team that's ready and waiting to contact you this week to see how we can serve you and help you get connected so thank you again for joining us and we hope that you'll join us again very soon at this time i want to invite you to participate in worship through giving we give of our finances to the lord as a way of demonstrating to him that we are putting him first and that we are following in his ways if you currently give online through the web or the mana church app continue to do so and if you would like to give online today you can give via paypal simply by texting the word mana to the number that you see on your screen if you would like to write a check make it out to mana church you can also mail it in or drop it off at our clifton site in the fayetteville fort bragg region if you're our guest today please feel no obligation to give financially let's pray now over the offering lord jesus we thank you so much that you are the lord over everything you've created everything and you've purposed everything to be here in its time and so we thank you so much for placing us here god at this moment that we've received so much from you god simply right now with what we want to do with our tithes and offerings we just want to give them back to you knowing that it all comes from you in the first place so i pray that you would bless it that you would bless those who give god that you continue to multiply your military highway across the world lord into the ends of this earth may your kingdom be advanced and may we be so thankful and so privileged to help and participate in that in jesus name we pray amen right now we want to take the time to honor those who have served and are currently serving in the armed forces let's pray for our military men and women lord god we thank you so much for your sovereignty i thank you so much for your place in the throne lord that you are the ultimate measure of authority i thank you so much lord that you have protected and are protecting our military men and women as they serve here and as they serve afar god i pray that you would continue to be their protector would you be their banner lord as they go out and defend our country god i thank you so much that they represent and they show a real example of your love father god that agape love that sacrificial love i pray that their families will be protected that they would be bolstered god that they would come to know you and know you deeply and intimately lord that you would comfort each and every single family member and service men and women as well you would protect them from harm's way god that you would be their protection you would be their provider god they would provide and supply for every single need and you would be their promotion god we pray blessings we pray just all the good things for them lord in jesus name we pray amen well we are almost ready to dive into part one of our brand new sermon series living in an age of outrage but before we do check out these video announcements what's up man at church pastor riley here lead pastor of mana church va that's two up two down if you know you know and y'all i'm i'm pumped i am red bull excited mana cafe caffeinated to tell you about what you've done so last weekend we launched mana church in stafford virginia stafford quantico y'all we're doing some amazing things so shout out to pastor jake johnson his wife danielle their family and the amazing team of leaders who launched this life-giving church we saw over 230 people in attendance on launch sunday and not only that four people made decisions to make jesus their lord and savior none of this will be possible without you man and family none of this will be possible without your praying your giving you're going when all of our ads add we can multiply and we can absolutely change the world so we thank you we love you god bless you man of family [Music] [Music] what's up man of church we're super excited because today is what today is serve day we want our communities to experience the love of jesus no strings attached serving is what we do because of what jesus did for us and what he told us to do for others come back this afternoon and team up with others at your site to serve our communities there are a number of outreaches happening today all around our city such as laundromat blitz the first responders cookout neighborhood cleanup water giveaway regalando cajas de comida the free yard sale honeycutt park community outreach senior center clean up show up at your site at the designated time if you have a red shirt wear it if you don't one will be provided for you meet your team go out and crush this outreach mission then come back to your site to swap stories and celebrate lojar cancer son latido del corazon del iglesia so come on out let's show our community what it means to be the church [Music] [Applause] [Music] in a pandemic family can't visit yeah give me my six feet while they burying them six feet mask on mask off troops home troops gone send them back over now where they glassed off please hold the glute and while we see police shootings loud crowds organizing tell me who empathizing media selling sex but we still pay for advertising people in other countries dying for what we first amendment exercises hand sanitizing why gas rising this ain't surprising why are we supersizing and socializing some realizing that crystals and sage ain't making the way there's only one god in the age of outrage what's up mana online here we are again i'm so stoked to be with you that you're on the other side of this screen that we're gathering together again around the word of god and we are going to jump to a brand new series today we're calling this one living in an age of outrage and in that time we'll be studying the book of first peter and so you know even when i say that living in an age of outrage emotions images pop up in every single one of our minds and we recognize that almost everybody around is outraged for one reason or another and some of those reasons are really good and you go yes the outrage is the right emotion for this injustice or this thing that's happening and then some of those are are not so good it's outrage for for no reason like polarization that doesn't make sense right or wrong outrage has become one of the most dominant emotions of our era speaking of outrage i i heard a story about a guy who just found himself constantly outraged so he went to see his therapist and he's like i'm just so mad at all of these people there's like six people that are so mad at them and so his therapist said okay here's what i want you to do i want you to go write a letter just write them a letter and detail every reason why you're so mad all the stuff just write that out for them and then when you're done writing all those letters burn them and so the guy is like okay you know i'll do that so he wrote out the letters and then he burned them and and then he is like you know what you know i feel a little bit better that helped a lot but what do i do with the letters because of course he didn't burn the letters he burned the people all right anyway back to this idea we titled this series living in an age of outrage and i used the term age of outrage because that's what this time in history has been titled so you know i was just studying and i said okay i'd heard it before i'd actually seen it in a book that a guy wrote so i just googled age of outrage and you'd be shocked at what turns up there's article after article there's multiple books that kind of play on that title a little bit there's even a british comedy show i haven't watched it i'm not saying you should haven't watched it but there's a british comedy show titled age of outrage if you think for a moment and i do want you to reflect i invite you to just kind of ponder how many times have you felt at least what sometimes seems like even have you felt justifiable outrage or another way of saying it even outright rage in the last 12 months and the truth is it's not a made-up problem it's real there are vast chasms in world views and experiences even ideals of almost every population today people are angry and they feel like and many times they're right in this feeling that their rights have been violated or abused they're frustrated maybe you're frustrated at the direction that that you feel like that they feel like if we're thinking of hypothetical people that they feel like p the way that things are going and now of course we've got unprecedented access to give full vent to that outrage and maybe you've done that yourself or you know someone who has you got a family member and they're you know constantly you can tell they're on the thing and they're like again they're just giving full vents so you can tweet and post and comment and repost and cancel at will it's it's so pervasive and and let's not pretend that we're not a part of this probably all of us and maybe you and i maybe we're not the people that go online and i'm gonna show them or you know i hope that we're not that but probably we've felt that way about this or that this caused that cause the way that this group is acting or what's going on so we can all access this but we're probably aware that what used to be an open forum that's kind of the idea of the internet in many places is now because of outrage and what people are willing to say is now a cesspool in fact many news agencies have shut down the comment section on their articles because of how abhorrent the comments have become you can see that play out in our political process you can see the polarization in the last wild this is just crazy to me there have been elected officials on both sides accusing the other side of being basically hitler in my research for this uh for this message i was just kind of looking at age of outrage and what is this person written about it what is that person written about it and there they somebody literally made a satirical image of a children's book and the title says everyone who disagrees with me is hitler a child's guide to the political process and so you see that satire and go you know what that that absolutely kind of shows where we live today that people are willing to go almost immediately right to there to make an accusation against somebody they disagree with that's the age of outrage but here's my question is this fully unprecedented does the bible have advice for how we should live in an environment like this and i'm always so reassured with the reality that the answer is yes absolutely so here's what i want you to do go ahead even if you need to pause me right now i'm cool with that man online get out your bible find a bible get it out yes it's true right on the bottom of the screen we will put up the um the verses so that you can read along but i think it'd be so much better for us if you've got your own so whether that's on a device or with a paper bible pull that thing out and open up to first peter let me tell you what we're going to do with this series because the backdrop what we're talking about how we're going to kind of apply this is indeed looking at ourselves and where we are in an age of outrage and our world but what we really want to do is over the next six weeks we're gonna walk through every verse in this five chapter book that's what first peter is five chapters long and we're gonna see that god knows exactly how we should live and where we should important turn of phrase here where we should base our hope in an environment like the age of outrage so i want to start right off in verse one and usually what i do about now is i tell you okay you know here's the book we're gonna study colossians it's written by paul and all the rest of it but i'm just going to kind of introduce the idea of first peter and all the rest of that as we walk through this first chapter and even some over the next several weeks so first peter chapter one verse one peter the author starts out peter an apostle of jesus christ and i know you already know man of church that i am a nerd as it comes to the bible i love geeking out on the words and the greek word here and what this means so it should come as no shock to you that just those first two phrases we've only covered two commas peter an apostle of jesus christ there's so much there i'm not going to get too deep but it always makes me smile to read that from peter because peter's reconciled the pain of his denial of jesus you probably know that story in the gospels that right toward the end of jesus life he tells the disciples you're all going to run away from me i'm going to be betrayed and peter no i'll be with you till the end and then in jesus most difficult moment in his darkest moment there is peter sure enough three times denying jesus calling down curses on himself i don't know that guy as he watches jesus be falsely arrested and abused and yet jesus brings him back and so we see peter as a leader in the early church and even toward here the end of his life he's come to that place of peace with his past so that he's able to write as a leader in the church and that's what he's saying when he says peter an apostle of jesus christ he's kind of occupying that space as a leader and importantly in using that word apostle to define himself and point toward jesus what he's saying is i'm an eyewitness of jesus and he writes that and he's going to tell us in a second to pontus and bithynian galatia and asia and cabernet ocean he's going to say that in a second but he's also writing to you and me and it would be wise for us to recognize the authority that he has to speak even to our life as an eyewitness of jesus and how jesus would have us live this is one of those great places to go ahead and give the bible authority to tell you and to tell me how to live peter an apostle of jesus christ to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in pontus galatia cappadocia asia and bithynia three really important words elect exiles dispersion so with the elect what peter is doing a lot of times we think of peter as as working primarily with jewish believers so that's jews who come to believe in jesus the lord and savior but what he's doing here is he's writing not just to jews he's writing to all of those who trust in jesus you the church gentiles jews and gentiles are the elect and so he's drawing everybody who's trusting in jesus he's drawing them in and kind of he's helping us see that the promises that god has in the old testament are true for all of us who put our trust in jesus so the church as a whole and then he uses this word exiles that could that greek word could translate sojourners of the diaspora the dispersion that's the greek word for dispersion and and sometimes people are tempted to look at that and go okay i know kind of how peter works and so he's writing to people who've been cast out of where they live and they found themselves in all these different places and you know pontus glacier cappadocia asia bithynia that's if if you're not familiar that's kind of northern and then western turkey is modern-day turkey is where that is but i want you to understand elect exiles of the dispersion he's not saying that these people have been chased out of jerusalem no in fact he's talking to people who are citizens of pontus galatia cappadocia asia and bithynia they lived their whole life there sure some have been chased there but he's not saying hey your elect exiles from somewhere else because of persecution cut off from there and now finding yourself in this place no peter is drawing the distinction that they're citizens of heaven first over what is their earthly home it reminds me of philippians chapter 3 verse 20 but our citizenship paul writes the church in philippi our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior the lord jesus christ see this understanding both that paul wrote to the church in philippi and peter is writing to all of these regions and really he means this to be a circular letter read around and ultimately to you what we need to understand is that we've got to start again i'm talking about how do we live in an age of outrage how do we take the bible and apply it how do we what do we focus on where we take our next step we've got to start with this kingdom reality framed in our minds and that is this that i am that you are a part of the kingdom of god as our primary identity see that's why peter is writing to people who are from pontus and have always lived in pontus and he's saying hey you're an elect exile you're a chosen surgeoner of god's dispersion of his people all over the world you go in pontus you go but i'm from pontus yeah but when you come to know jesus as your lord and savior your kingdom of god first everything else is secondary and so for me i'm from fayetteville i live in fayetteville but my allegiance is to what god says over anything else we've got to start understanding that verse 2 says according to the foreknowledge of god the father in the sanctification of the spirit for obedience to jesus christ and for sprinkling with his blood i love this scripture it shows us the trinity everybody's man trinity's hard for me to understand don't worry the trinity one god in three persons god the father god the son god the holy spirit coequal coessential co-eternal one god expressing himself in three persons and then we see the role of each person in the trinity in this verse god the father picked you so before the beginning of time he chose you god the son redeemed you to follow him god the holy spirit is working to make you holy the theological term for that would be to sanctify you it's a cooperative between you and him as he leads you in following jesus more and more as he reveals jesus to you as he convicts you of sin as he brings you into more of the knowledge of him and i know that peter is writing this letter and so he's using a particular outline we'll see that as the verse continues may grace and peace be multiplied to you and i know that he that's kind of the form that a letter would take that he uses words this way but it reminds me again that even when it's difficult even when there are hard times grace and peace are available i want you to understand wherever you live whatever you're facing however the age of outrage has affected you you can live in peace in the following sections of this chapter we're going to cover quite a number of verses i'll zoom through some of them there are some deep theological truths there's some amazing stuff in this section of scripture but i want you to walk away with two really big ideas i'll say some more stuff but there's two really big ideas that we've got to get and the first is that jesus is our living hope might even say that in italics if you've got your paper bible out it might even over a section i'd call that a pericope it's a fancy word for section of scripture jesus is living hope or something about living hope so that's one big idea and the second is that god calls us to be holy verse 3 says this blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ that's always good news according to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again now why do we need to be born again why do we need his great mercy because you and i are sinners we're cut off from god by sin we're cut off from a relationship with him by sin we've done wrong we know that so the verse continues that he has caused us to be born again that's why we needed to be born again what are we born again to to a living hope how through the resurrection of jesus christ from the dead so there we were in sin desperate evil unworthy unrighteous unkind angry lustful jealous prideful that's where all of us were we know that and kind of explains the world we live in but jesus came to set us free you've heard to say over and over he lived the perfect life he died the perfect death here peter is emphasizing that he lives again resurrected he rose from the dead the cornerstone of christianity is the empty tomb that jesus paid the penalty for you and for me and he rose again and that is a constant reminder that you and i have a lasting perfect hope as this section of scripture is telling us a living hope that's where you got to start when everything seems like it's gone crazy and when everything seems it's difficult when you don't understand what's happening in the world when you find yourself scared and worried and frustrated because of this when you find yourself outraged because of that we come back and we start with this reality jesus is our living hope and what does his living hope guarantee us verse 4 he's a living hope to us to an inheritance that is imperishable undefiled and unfading man i want you want an inheritance forever a promise in eternity that's imperishable undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you i love verse five who by god's power you are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time see starting at this point is so critical in maintaining the joy and the peace and the grace that god brings to us that's what it is to walk with god is to is to experience or at least have available to us his joy peace grace sometimes we don't live it and there's a reason for that we'll come to that so regardless of what you face you have an inheritance in heaven that's secure it cannot be taken from you it cannot be touched you and your inheritance you and god's promises are being guarded by the mighty savior of the world that's so important for how we live because we don't have to worry about what happens in the temporal i don't need to worry about the trial that i'm going to face could it hurt me yes could it be difficult it will be but what i'm living for what i'm hoping for eternity with god with an inheritance with promises with provision is secure it's guarded it's safe man i can live with boldness and confidence without fear verse 6 tells me what that should bring about in my life and that's rejoicing in this you rejoice you got to understand worship and gratitude are powerful tools and difficult times not my message in this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you've been grieved by various trials you're on the other side of the screen you're like amen preach that peter i feel it i feel like i'm grieved by various trials what kind of trials are we talking about in this particular section it's important to note like i said earlier peter's writing this letter and it's around i think scholars would generally agree it's around 60 a.d and it's most likely that he's writing from rome why i'll explain that later in the series don't have time now just hold that in your head and you might be tempted to believe that these trials are the persecutions that come to the church in an official way so we are all familiar with the persecution of christians under rome even we know historical fact that peter is killed under nero a couple of years later and so ago that's probably what he's writing about but while that this letter and what he says would be helpful then the trials here are certainly external but these aren't the trials of course that we bring ourselves through sin sometimes we have that this is more about the rejection of believers by society so it's not that official roman we're gonna find you and kill you it is the opposition of the world system to the church it's the rejection of those who are sometimes around you who want to live not god's way and when you stand for righteousness sake they reject you it's a different value system that values what is wrong over what is right that's kind of the trials he's talking about it's the fact that they're separated because they've chosen to believe god's way and so some of the traditions that would generally be available to them are no longer available the rejection of other people in relationship is there does that sound familiar i feel like probably many of us have experienced the exact same thing so why do we have these trials verse seven so that the tested genuineness of your faith and then i love this he's gonna make a bigger point about the tested genuineness of our faith but he just pauses to tell us how important our faith is in our life and how we should value it so the tested genuineness of your faith and he's like how important is faith more precious than gold that perishes again this is not the point that i want to make it's not the message i'm preaching but don't miss this there's nothing in your life more valuable than your faith there's nothing more important you got up today and there's some stuff that was on your mind and maybe that you're worried about or you know is coming up i got to get this done i got to get that done we got to get this sorted got to get the taxes sent off and sometimes it feels like that's the most important thing there's nothing more important than your faith than your trust in jesus as your lord and savior there's nothing else that will last for eternity this living hope he's trying to tell us is far more valuable than gold my question is do we treat it that way so again it's talking about our genuineness of faith that's tested by fire though it may be tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of jesus christ this is a hard truth but it's necessary suffering is a part of the christian faith suffering purifies our devotion reminds me of the book of james james is writing in james chapter 1 verse 2 and says count it all joy you know that's hard to do my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing we studied james uh a couple years ago and and if you happen to remember that series remember what james is talking about here is walking into maturity into everything that god has for you and says you know what suffering is going to happen suffering is going to come along it's part of the christian faith and when we suffer focused on jesus as our living hope and we continue to walk forward not stepping back because of the trials that come not stepping away because others would say you shouldn't live that way or that that's not the right standard to have but when we walk in steadfastness god brings us into everything that he has for us and i'm telling you this is what our world needs right now people who have joy in an age of outrage even while they suffer people who can testify to a living hope in jesus though you've not seen him verse 8 you love him and though you do not now see him you believe in him this is the essence of faith i've experienced jesus i've not seen him but i trust that he is my lord and savior and he can control my life you believe in him and rejoice with joy verse 8 continues that is inexpressible and filled with glory obtaining the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls the greek word for joy there implies external vibrant joy sometimes we've got that joy that's internal and in the midst of a difficult time everything around us still seems dark but there's just that glimmer that little ember on the inside that says god is in control this is not that joy this is the joy that says man it could be tough but even from the outside even to other people they can see a visible expressible joy because i am sure i'm not just hoping i'm sure that jesus is my lord that's what a living hope is it's a surety it's faith it's trust it's visible to everybody who observes us concerning this salvation it gets pretty theological here in the next several verses in verse 10 the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully inquiring what person or time the spirit of christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of christ and the subsequent glories so remember the old testament prophets they receive a word from god and then they write that word down and the point that peter is making that even in their minds they're thinking while they're writing prophecies about a suffering savior it's hard for them to conceive even while they prophesied it so they're still thinking okay somebody's gonna come and then he's gonna be way in charge so that everybody sees it and so everything's going to be under his foot in an obvious way but jesus comes we know as the suffering servant to us the way up is up in the kingdom the way up is down and so he comes not on this mighty steed of course he wins and of course he's in control and of course he rules but he comes in humility because humility is the order of the kingdom of god peter's reminding us of that reality it was revealed to them the prophets that they were serving not themselves but you their writing so that you would know when jesus came and the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the holy spirit sent from heaven things into which angels long to look big idea salvation is a mystery it's revealed by the holy spirit the salvation that who jesus is and how that works revealed by the holy spirit and proclaimed by the church to the world that's what it tells us in the book of ephesians our living hope is not just a surety for us for the future it's our message of hope it's our message of peace and grace and mercy to the world around us so to live in this era we anchor ourselves in jesus as our hope that's where you gotta start for some of us maybe that means what we need to do is just take some time and disengage from all the feels around us and everything we're frustrated by and and everything that causes us to want to run to our outlet and type our outrage we need to pull back and set our focus and our heart on jesus as our living hope see our responsibility is to communicate that hope to others and this is the foundation that sets us up for our next step i need to i need to be in that place of trust and faith and surety to take the next step in living in the age of outrage because i got you got to know that how i live in the age of outrage takes instruction less from my circumstance that's how most people are living and more from the character of christ applied to my situation so what is the next step of how to live is to be holy holy means to be set apart to be set apart from god and the holiness here is to be set apart from my sin it's to be set apart from the way i used to live it's to be set apart from the world system the world's thought the world's emphasis it's to be for god first so am i are you set apart for god so how would i know that is god honored by my life how i live is god honored by my actions is god honored by my thoughts or my beliefs my viewpoints what i wrote what i tweeted what i said when i thought it was just me and a friend and no one else is listening is god honored by that it got honored by my passions verse 13 says this therefore i read the commentary and i love just this way of kind of helping us interpret the scripture when you see therefore think what is it there for so like something's coming we need to underline or write down or circle or whatever so in this case peter's about to set us up for this big idea of what it is to be holy and he gives us three ideas the first is preparing your minds for action the second is be sober minded the third is set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of jesus christ three ideas prepare your minds and the greek here is the same language as of those places gird your loins and we go i don't even know what that means that means prepare get ready get ready to take a step get ready for action so i've got to prepare in an active way i've got to gird up my mind apply it this way am i thinking the way god thinks romans 12 2 says do not be conformed to this world but be transformed we're going to find that just so you know this idea of transformation we're going to see this all the way through first peter part of following jesus is transformation following jesus is not just to pray a prayer that you pray so that you hope to one day be in heaven following jesus is not just a cultural convention okay i go to church or my church is watching online and i do that every sunday because that's what we're supposed to do or i don't know wednesday whatever god calls us to transformation so don't be conformed to this world don't live think the way the world thinks but be transformed how by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of god what is good and acceptable and perfect here's the question that goes with that how much of my thinking is being determined by what's around me versus god's word that's sobering to audit our thoughts say lord am i am i thinking your thoughts so how do i think better thoughts how do i think your thoughts be transformed by the renewal of your mind that means i've got to i've got to tuck into the holy spirit i've got to spend time in god's word so my reaction is not emotion based on where i'm from or what i think or how i vote or what social media tells me i should think or what the people who look like me sound like me say okay i gotta align with their thoughts no it's everything that happens i run that through the grid of god's thoughts and that's where i take my step can i see what's right and wrong in vague situations because i've put on the mind of christ got to prepare myself in my mind second big idea is sober minded what does that mean easiest way of defining that is self-control be self-controlled are your attitudes and actions submitted to god are you controlled by your emotions and feelings i think one of the first big steps into self-control is becoming self-aware and to be self-aware part of where we need to start is being god aware in other words is what i'm doing lining up with what you want and when i start to realize that it's not i can begin to understand how i'm being influenced by outside sources toward thoughts actions attitudes etc and i can learn when i detect that god is not pleased with that i can learn earlier and earlier to go up not going to go there i'm going to live god's way not the way my reactions dictate third big idea hope in the grace of jesus that means stand firm in faith or another way of saying it trust god like really trust him verse 14 as obedient children listen that's so important god calls us to radical obedience not my way his way not my thoughts his thoughts not my attitude his attitude as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance what he's talking about here is sin see jesus is full of grace he forgives us when we sin he renews us he cleanses us he washes us and at the same time he calls us out of sin don't sin it actually says in first corinthians 15 34 stop sinning how many times in the gospels does jesus say hey look he finds somebody that somebody's trapped in sin they bring him they encounter this circumstance they realize they're in sin and jesus says you're forgiven i set you free i cleanse you i release you my mercy my grace are there for you then go and sin no more i'm always challenged by hebrews chapter 12 verse 4 which says in your struggle against sin you've not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood it's true in my struggle against sin my natural predisposition is to make an excuse for myself is to blame somebody else is to try to remember well my intentions were good or i didn't mean for it to work out that way but here hebrews is in in um what's the best way to say that is imploring us the author of hebrews is imploring us to say listen we need to deal with our sin to live a life that's set apart to god we've got to deal strongly with our sin and notice i said our sin as in our own sin it's so tempting particularly we're talking about the context of an age of outrage to go yeah tell all the people who sin in the way that outrages me to stop i think peter's saying to all of us let's deal with the sin in our own lives the stuff we go back to those places where our attitudes or our actions don't line up with god's best because here's the thing listen to me when you do that when you really deal with the sin of your life when you bring it to god and you repent and you say lord before you i need your help to walk in your way then what happens because god is so loving and so graceful is when i bring my sin to god he always cleanses me he always gives me his grace and in that place i'm acquainted again with god's grace and in god's grace is the best way from that position of grace is the best way to be able to deal with others as i see their sin verse 15 but as he who called you is holy you also be holy set apart to god live in purity before god since it's written you should be holy for i am holy that you should be holy for i am holy is quoting from leviticus 11. and the point in the midst of all these laws for the jews you go man there's so many laws all they all day they had to make sure they were following the laws but the point of those laws was to help the people live in purity before god we have such an advantage jesus has made us pure if you know jesus as your lord and savior you're already pure we don't have to earn the right to be pure by following this this this this this and that we are pure that means from that place of purity we can live purely so let's reflect that in how we live verse 17 if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile he did say fear but the fear here isn't terror or condemnation okay i'm so afraid no fear here is the fear of the lord what's the fear of the lord reverent awe does my life reflect in every way that i'm living in reverent awe before the god who's given me a living hope verse 18 knowing that you are ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers not with perishable things such as silver or gold but with the precious blood of christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot see whenever we talk about sin we can't get away from this amazing reality we sin jesus saves dealing with sin just so you know that okay i want to deal with my sin you said that earlier jonathan how do i do it do i do troy farter no it's not about iron self-will making me victorious it's about jesus every time i love how peter also establishes your worth here he says you're ransom not by measly gold and silver no it's by the blood of jesus so your value is determined by what someone will pay for you are ransomed by the precious blood of jesus jesus set your value by trading his own life for yours we should live that way he was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in god who raised him from that god raised him from the dead and gave him hope so that your faith and hope are in god before the foundation of the world he picked you he set the plan into motion to save you and redeem you from your sin he didn't wait for you to turn out good he hatched a rescue plan when you were at your worst you have everything you need to live more than that you got everything you need to thrive in an age of outrage you can show the world a different spirit you can be a beacon of joy you can demonstrate true justice you can show people what it's like to have a hope a living hope you can live a life that is holy godly right we'll study the rest of first peter and see so many more powerful amazing things next week for now let's pray lord i pray two things that you would focus our eyes on you as our living hope and lord that you would help us to live a life that's holy before you in jesus name amen listen if you can hang out with me for just one more moment for just one more prayer maybe you're in that place where what you need is a living hope i told you that living hope is established because jesus has paid the penalty for your and my sin but maybe you're in that spot right now where you're holding your own sin where you've not yet trusted put your faith in jesus as your lord and savior if you're in that spot then you need to repent of those sins and you need to trust jesus as your lord and savior you need to let jesus take over your life if you want to do that that starts with a prayer so pray with me right now if you want jesus to be your living hope say lord jesus i repent of my sins i pray that you would cleanse me make me right with god right now i put my trust in you i put my hope in you you're my lord you're my savior from this moment forward i'm gonna follow you forever in jesus name amen man i'm so glad you guys prayed that prayer if you did our team's gonna put up uh a number on the screen i just want you to text the name we just prayed jesus to the number that's on your screen our team will text back and we'll help you as you start your journey with him living with jesus as your living hope god bless you have a tremendous tremendous day what a powerful message as we concluded the message we gave you an opportunity to begin a real relationship with jesus if you prayed that prayer please text the name jesus to the number that you see on your screen and pause this part if you need to once you text you will receive a prompt simply follow what's instructed this is a very exciting moment in your life and we at mana church would love to come alongside and assist you as you begin your personal journey with jesus mana church thank you again for joining us online today if you would like someone to pray with you take a moment to text the word prayer to the number that you see on your screen we have a team that's ready and waiting to connect with you and see how we can pray for you in any area of your life god bless you man at church we'll see you right back here next week [Music] we are the body of christ in your dwelling we lift your name high when we call on your holy name there you will be forever proclaimed [Music] is [Music] is your spirit is here [Music] together [Music] this in unity [Music] is [Music] your spirit is here [Music] [Applause] [Music] we live in a society where it's hard to get a decent job without a college education but let's be honest a piece of paper isn't the only thing that lands you a job employers want people that have education and experience the experience is a full-time college internship that combines both formal academics with practical hands-on training outside of the classroom while in the experience students take accredited bible classes at one of the top 20 christian colleges in the nation while gaining world-class leadership training from one of the nation's largest and fastest growing churches with several degree programs and track options available the experience allows you to tailor the internship around your personal and professional goals so maybe you're a young adult looking to pursue vocational ministry or maybe you're just looking to gain some professional skills and strengthen your biblical understanding before chasing after your dream either way the experience can help you forge a foundation of faith character and leadership to equip you for the road ahead [Music] uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] here [Music] hey there i'm so thrilled that you joined us today my name is chade and i want to welcome you to mana church today we're diving into part one of our current sermon series living in an age of outrage but first let's prepare our hearts as man of worship leads us in worship through song grace that flows like a [Music] found of heaven love of christ overflow in me thank you jesus you set me free [Music] you rescue me [Music] take this [Music] to see your kingdom come thank you jesus [Music] you set me free [Music] christ might say rescue me thank you jesus thank you you jesus me free christ my savior you rescued me [Music] you came down in your rescued knees [Music] when there was no way [Music] you've given me life you've given me life you've opened my eyes i love you lord i love you lord you've entered my heart you've set you've me me you set me [Applause] [Music] we thank you jesus we thank [Music] you've given me life you've given me [Music] i love you lord you've given me you set me [Applause] [Music] you set me free [Music] you rescue me sing thank you jesus thank you jesus you set me free christ my savior [Music] rescued me jesus [Music] oh we're free in jesus name [Music] [Applause] [Music] my god [Music] [Music] the praise of your glory again [Applause] [Music] [Applause] what a powerful name it is what a powerful name it is the name of jesus christ a powerful name it is nothing can stand against what a powerful day it is [Music] [Applause] your days yours is the kingdom yours is [Applause] [Music] the name of jesus christ [Applause] what a powerful name it is the name of jesus what a powerful name it is the name of jesus what a powerful name it is the name of jesus [Music] hey again we're so excited that you are here i would like to welcome those of you who may be joining us for the very first time here on mana online if that's you we want to thank you so much for being our guest there's a simple way to let us know that you were here with us i invite you to go ahead and text the word guest to the number that you see on your screen right now go ahead and pause if you need to if you're watching this on our website manna.church you can either text or you can click the button under the screen that says first time guest now you may have been watching mana online for quite some time but you haven't let us know yet and if that's you we would really like to hear from you as well so go ahead and text the word guest to the number that you see on your screen we have a team that's ready and waiting to contact you this week to see how we can serve you and help you get connected so thank you again for joining us and we hope that you'll join us again very soon at this time i want to invite you to participate in worship through giving we give of our finances to the lord as a way of demonstrating to him that we are putting him first and that we are following in his ways if you currently give online through the web or the mana church app continue to do so and if you would like to give online today you can give via paypal simply by texting the word mana to the number that you see on your screen if you would like to write a check make it out to mana church you can also mail it in or drop it off at our clifftail site in the fayetteville fort bragg region if you're our guest today please feel no obligation to give financially let's pray now over the offering lord jesus we thank you so much that you are the lord over everything you've created everything and you've purposed everything to be here in its time and so we thank you so much for placing us here god at this moment that we've received so much from you god simply right now with what we want to do with our ties and offerings we just want to give them back to you knowing that it all comes from you in the first place so i pray that you would bless it that you would bless those who give god that you continue to multiply your military highway across the world lord and to the ends of this earth may your kingdom be advanced and may we be so thankful and so privileged to help and participate in that in jesus name we pray amen right now we want to take the time to honor those who have served and are currently serving in the armed forces let's pray for our military men and women lord god we thank you so much for your sovereignty i thank you so much for your place in the throne lord that you are the ultimate measure of authority i thank you so much lord that you have protected and are protecting our military men and women as they serve here and as they serve a far god i pray that you would continue to be their protector would you be their banner lord as they go out and defend our country god i thank you so much that they represent and they show a real example of your love father god that agape love that sacrificial love i pray that their families will be protected that they would be bolstered god that they would come to know you and know you deeply and intimately lord that you would comfort each and every single family member and service men and women as well you would protect them from harm's way god that you would be their protection you would be their provider god they would provide and supply for every single need and you would be their promotion god we pray blessings we pray just all the good things for them lord in jesus name we pray amen well we are almost ready to dive into part one of our brand new sermon series living in an age of outrage but before we do check out these video announcements [Music] what's up man at church pastor riley here lead pastor of mana church va that's two up two down if you know you know and y'all i'm i'm pumped i am red bull excited mana cafe caffeinated to tell you about what you've done so last weekend we launched mana church in stafford virginia stafford quantico y'all we're doing some amazing things so shout out to pastor jake johnson his wife danielle their family and the amazing team of leaders who launched this life-giving church we saw over 230 people in attendance on launch sunday and not only that four people made decisions to make jesus their lord and savior none of this will be possible without you man and family none of this will be possible without your praying your giving you're going when all of our ads add we can multiply and we can absolutely change the world so we thank you we love you god bless you man of family [Music] [Music] [Music] what's up mana church we're super excited because today is what today is serve day we want our communities to experience the love of jesus no strings attached serving is what we do because of what jesus did for us and what he told us to do for others come back this afternoon and team up with others at your site to serve our communities there are a number of outreaches happening today all around our city such as laundromat blitz the first responders cookout neighborhood cleanup water giveaway regalando cajas de comida the free yard sale honeycutt park community outreach senior center cleanup show up at your site at the designated time if you have a red shirt wear it if you don't one will be provided for you meet your team go out and crush this outreach mission then come back to your site to swap stories and celebrate latinos so come on out let's show our community what it means to be the church [Music] [Applause] [Music] in a pandemic then we can't visit yeah give me my six feet while they burying them six feet mask on mask off troops home troops gone send them back over now where they glassed off please hold the glute and while we see police shootings loud crowds organizing tell me who empathizing media selling sex but we still pay for advertising people in other countries dying for what we first amendment exercise hand sanitizing why gas rising this ain't surprising while we're super sizing and socializing some realizing that crystals and sage ain't making a way there's only one god in the age of outrage what's up manna online here we are again i'm so stoked to be with you that you're on the other side of this screen that we're gathering together again around the word of god and we are going to jump into a brand new series today we're calling this one living in an age of outrage and in that time we'll be studying the book of first peter and so you know even when i say that living in an age of outrage emotions images pop up in every single one of our minds and we recognize that almost everybody around is outraged for one reason or another and some of those reasons are really good and you go yes the outrage is the right emotion for this injustice or this thing that's happening and then some of those are are not so good it's outrage for for no reason like polarization that doesn't make sense right or wrong outrage has become one of the most dominant emotions of our era speaking of outrage i i heard a story about a guy who just found himself constantly outraged so he went to see his therapist and he's like i'm just so mad at all of these people there's like six people that are so mad at them and so his therapist said okay here's what i want you to do i want you to go write a letter just write him a letter and detail every reason why you're so mad all the stuff just write that out for them and then when you're done writing all those letters burn them and so the guy is like okay you know i'll do that so he wrote out the letters and then he burned them and then he is like you know what that you know i feel a little bit better that helped a lot but what do i do with the letters because of course he didn't burn the letters he burned the people all right anyway back to this idea we titled this series living in an age of outrage and i used the term age of outrage because that's what this time in history has been titled so you know i was just studying and i said okay i'd heard it before i'd actually seen it in a book that a guy wrote so i just googled age of outrage and you'd be shocked at what turns up there's article after article there's multiple books that kind of play on that title a little bit there's even a british comedy show i haven't watched it i'm not saying you should haven't watched it but there's a british comedy show titled age of outrage if you think for a moment and i do want you to reflect i invite you to just kind of ponder how many times have you felt uh at least what sometimes seems like even have you felt justifiable outrage or another way of saying it even outright rage in the last 12 months and the truth is it's not a made-up problem it's real there are vast chasms in world views and experiences even ideals of almost every population today people are angry and they feel like and many times they're right in this feeling that their rights have been violated or abused they're frustrated maybe you're frustrated at the direction that that you feel like that they feel like if we're thinking of hypothetical people that they feel like p the way that things are going and now of course we've got unprecedented access to give full vent to that outrage and maybe you've done that yourself or you know someone who has you got a family member and they're you know constantly you can tell they're on the thing and they're like again they're just giving full vents so you can tweet and post and comment and repost and cancel at will it's it's so pervasive and and let's not pretend that we're not a part of this probably all of us and maybe you and i maybe we're not the people that go online and i'm going to show them or you know i hope that we're not that but probably we've felt that way about this or that this caused that cause the way that this group is acting or what's going on so we can all access this but we're probably aware that what used to be an open forum that's kind of the idea of the internet in many places is now because of outrage and what people are willing to say is now a cesspool in fact many news agencies have shut down the comment section on their articles because of how abhorrent the comments have become you can see that play out in our political process you can see the polarization in the last while this is just crazy to me there have been elected officials on both sides accusing the other side of being basically in my research for this uh for this message i was just kind of looking at age of outrage and what is this person written about it what is that person written about it and they're somebody literally made a satirical image of a children's book and the title says everyone who disagrees with me is hitler a child's guide to the political process and so you see that satire and go you know what that that absolutely kind of shows where we live today that people are willing to go almost immediately right to there to make an accusation against somebody they disagree with that's the age of outrage but here's my question is this fully unprecedented does the bible have advice for how we should live in an environment like this and i'm always so reassured with the reality that the answer is yes absolutely so here's what i want you to do go ahead even if you need to pause me right now i'm cool with that manna online get out your bible find a bible get it out yes it's true right on the bottom of the screen we will put up the um the verses so that you can read along but i think it'd be so much better for us if you've got your own so whether that's on a device or with a paper bible pull that thing out and open up to first peter let me tell you what we're going to do with this series because the backdrop what we're talking about how we're going to kind of apply this is indeed looking at ourselves and where we are in an age of outrage in our world but what we really want to do is over the next six weeks we're going to walk through every verse in this five chapter book that's what first peter is five chapters long and we're gonna see that god knows exactly how we should live and where we should important turn of phrase here where we should base our hope in an environment like the age of outrage so i want to start right off in verse 1 and usually what i do about now is i tell you okay you know here's the book we're gonna study colossians it's written by paul and all the rest of it but i'm just gonna kind of introduce the idea of first peter and all the rest of that as we walk through this first chapter and even some over the next several weeks so first peter chapter one verse one peter the author starts out peter an apostle of jesus christ and i know you already know man of church that i am a nerd as it comes to the bible i love geeking out on the words and the greek word here and what this means so it should come as no shock to you that just those first two phrases we've only covered two commas peter an apostle of jesus christ uh there's so much there i'm not going to get too deep but it always makes me smile to read that from peter because peter's reconciled the pain of his denial of jesus you probably know that story in the gospels that right toward the end of jesus life he tells the disciples you're all going to run away from me i'm going to be betrayed and peter no i'll be with you till the end and then in jesus most difficult moment in his darkest moment there is peter sure enough three times denying jesus calling down curses on himself i don't know that guy as he watches jesus be falsely arrested and abused and yet jesus brings him back and so we see peter as a leader in the early church and even toward here the end of his life he's come to that place of peace with his past so that he's able to write as a leader in the church and that's what he's saying when he says peter an apostle of jesus christ he's kind of occupying that space as a leader and importantly in using that word apostle to define himself and point toward jesus what he's saying is i'm an eyewitness of jesus and he writes that and he's going to tell us in a second to pontus and bithynian galatia and asia and cabernet he's going to say that in a second but he's also writing to you and me and it would be wise for us to recognize the authority that he has to speak even to our life as an eyewitness of jesus and how jesus would have us live this is one of those great places to go ahead and give the bible authority to tell you and to tell me how to live peter an apostle of jesus christ to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in pontus galatia cappadocia asia and bithynia three really important words elect exiles dispersion so with the elect what peter is doing a lot of times we think of peter as as working primarily with jewish believers so that's jews who come to believe in jesus the lord and savior but what he's doing here is he's writing not just to jews he's writing to all of those who trust in jesus you the church gentiles jews and gentiles are the elect and so he's drawing everybody who's trusting in jesus he's drawing them in and kind of he's helping us see that the promises that god has in the old testament are true for all of us who put our trust in jesus so the church as a whole and then he uses this word exiles that could that greek word could translate sojourners of the diaspora the dispersion that's the greek word for dispersion and sometimes people are tempted to look at that and go okay i know kind of how peter works and so he's writing to people who've been cast out of where they live and they found themselves in all these different places and you know pontus galatia cappadocia asia bithynia that's if if you're not familiar that's kind of northern and then western turkey is modern-day turkey is where that is but i want you to understand elect exiles of the dispersion he's not saying that these people have been chased out of jerusalem no in fact he's talking to people who are citizens of pontus galatia cappadocia asia and bithynia they live their whole life there sure some have been chased there but he's not saying hey your elect exiles from somewhere else because of persecution cut off from there and now finding yourself in this place no peter is drawing the distinction that they're citizens of heaven first over what is their earthly home it reminds me of philippians chapter 3 verse 20 but our citizenship paul writes the church in philippi our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior the lord jesus christ see this understanding both that paul wrote to the church in philippi and peter is writing to all of these regions and really he means this to be a circular letter read around and ultimately to you what we need to understand is that we've got to start again i'm talking about how do we live in an age of outrage how do we take the bible and apply it how do we what do we focus on where we take our next step we've got to start with this kingdom reality framed in our minds and that is this that i am that you are a part of the kingdom of god as our primary identity see that's why peter is writing to people who are from pontus and have always lived in pontus and he's saying hey you're an elect exile you're a chosen surgeoner of god's dispersion of his people all over the world you go in pontus you go but i'm from pontus yeah but when you come to know jesus as your lord and savior your kingdom of god first everything else is secondary and so for me i'm from fayetteville i live in fayetteville but my allegiance is to what god says over anything else we've got to start understanding that verse 2 says according to the foreknowledge of god the father in the sanctification of the spirit for obedience to jesus christ and for sprinkling with his blood i love this scripture it shows us the trinity every man trinity is hard for me to understand don't worry the trinity one god in three persons god the father god the son god the holy spirit co-equal co-essential co-eternal one god expressing himself in three persons and then we see the role of each person in the trinity in this verse god the father picked you so before the beginning of time he chose you god the son redeemed you to follow him god the holy spirit is working to make you holy the theological term for that would be to sanctify you it's a cooperative between you and him as he leads you in following jesus more and more as he reveals jesus to you as he convicts you of sin as he brings you into more of the knowledge of him and i know that peter is writing this letter and so he's using a particular outline we'll see that as the verse continues may grace and peace be multiplied to you and i know that he that's kind of the form that a letter would take that he uses words this way but it reminds me again that even when it's difficult even when there are hard times grace and peace are available i want you to understand wherever you live whatever you're facing however the age of outrage has affected you you can live in peace in the following sections of this chapter um we're going to cover quite a number of verses i'll zoom through some of them there are some deep theological truths there's some amazing stuff in this section of scripture but i want you to walk away with two really big ideas i'll say some more stuff but there's two really big ideas that we've got to get and the first is that jesus is our living hope might even say that in italics if you've got your paper bible out it might even over a section i'd call that a pericope it's a fancy word for section of scripture it's jesus is living hope or something about living hope so that's one big idea and the second is that god calls us to be holy verse 3 says this blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ that's always good news according to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again now why do we need to be born again why do we need his great mercy because you and i are sinners we're cut off from god by sin we're cut off from a relationship with him by sin we've done wrong we know that so the verse continues that he has caused us to be born again that's why we needed to be born again what are we born again to to a living hope how through the resurrection of jesus christ from the dead so there we were in sin desperate evil unworthy unrighteous unkind angry lustful jealous prideful that's where all of us were we know that and kind of explains the world we live in but jesus came to set us free you've heard it say over and over he lived the perfect life he died the perfect death here peter is emphasizing that he lives again resurrected he rose from the dead the cornerstone of christianity is the empty tomb that jesus paid the penalty for you and for me and he rose again and that is a constant reminder that you and i have a lasting perfect hope as this section of scripture is telling us a living hope that's where you got to start when everything seems like it's gone crazy and when everything seems it's difficult when you don't understand what's happening in the world when you find yourself scared and worried and frustrated because of this when you find yourself outraged because of that we come back and we start with this reality jesus is our living hope and what does his living hope guarantee us verse 4 he's a living hope to us to an inheritance that is imperishable undefiled and unfading man i want you want an inheritance forever a promise in eternity that's imperishable undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you i love verse 5 who by god's power you are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time see starting at this point is so critical in maintaining the joy and the peace and the grace that god brings to us that's what it is to walk with god is to is to experience or at least have available to us his joy peace grace sometimes we don't live it and there's a reason for that we'll come to that see regardless of what you face you have an inheritance in heaven that's secure it cannot be taken from you it cannot be touched you and your inheritance you and god's promises are being guarded by the mighty savior of the world that's so important for how we live because we don't have to worry about what happens in the temporal i don't need to worry about the trial that i'm going to face could it hurt me yes could it be difficult it will be but what i'm living for what i'm hoping for eternity with god with an inheritance with promises with provision is secure it's guarded it's safe man i can live with boldness and confidence without fear verse 6 tells me what that should bring about in my life and that's rejoicing in this you rejoice you got to understand worship and gratitude are powerful tools and difficult times not my message in this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you've been grieved by various trials you're on the other side of the screen you're like amen preach that peter i feel it i feel like i'm grieved by various trials what kind of trials are we talking about in this particular section it's important to note like i said earlier peter's writing this letter and it's around i think scholars would generally agree it's around 60 a.d and it's most likely that he's writing from rome why i'll explain that later in the series don't have time now just hold that in your head and you might be tempted to believe that these trials are the persecutions that come to the church in an official way so we are all familiar with the persecution of christians under rome even we know historical fact that peter is killed under nero a couple years later and so ago that's probably what he's writing about but while that this letter and what he says would be helpful then the trials here are certainly external but these aren't the trials of course that we bring ourselves through sin sometimes we have that this is more about the rejection of believers by society so it's not that official roman we're going to find you and kill you it is the opposition of the world system to the church it's the rejection of those who are sometimes around you who want to live not god's way and when you stand for righteousness sake they reject you it's a different value system that values what is wrong over what is right that's kind of the trials he's talking about the fact that they're separated because they've chosen to believe god's way and so some of the traditions that would generally be available to them are no longer available the rejection of other people in relationship is there does that sound familiar i feel like probably many of us have experienced the exact same thing so why do we have these trials verse 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith and then i love this he's gonna make a bigger point about the tested genuineness of our faith but he just pauses to tell us how important our faith is in our life and how we should value it so the tested genuineness of your faith and he's like how important is faith more precious than gold that perishes again this is not the point that i want to make that's not the message i'm preaching but don't miss this there's nothing in your life more valuable than your faith there's nothing more important you got up today and there's some stuff that was on your mind and maybe that you're worried about or you know is coming at me i got to get this done i got to get that done we got to get this sorted got to get the taxes sent off and sometimes it feels like that's the most important thing there's nothing more important than your faith than your trust in jesus as your lord and savior there's nothing else that will last for eternity this living hope he's trying to tell us is far more valuable than gold my question is do we treat it that way so again it's talking about our genuineness of faith that's tested by fire though it may be tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of jesus christ this is a hard truth but it's necessary suffering is a part of the christian faith suffering purifies our devotion it reminds me of the book of james james is writing in james chapter 1 verse 2 and says count it all joy you know that's hard to do my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing we studied james a couple years ago and and if you happen to remember that series remember what james is talking about here is walking into maturity into everything that god has for you and says you know what suffering is going to happen suffering is going to come along it's part of the christian faith and when we suffer focused on jesus as our living hope and we continue to walk forward not stepping back because of the trials that come not stepping away because others would say you shouldn't live that way or that that's not the right standard to have but when we walk in steadfastness god brings us into everything that he has for us and i'm telling you this is what our world needs right now people who have joy in an age of outrage even while they suffer people who can testify to a living hope in jesus though you've not seen him verse 8 you love him and though you do not now see him you believe in him this is the essence of faith i've experienced jesus i've not seen him but i trust that he is my lord and savior and he can control my life you believe in him and rejoice with joy verse eight continues that is inexpressible and filled with glory obtaining the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls the greek word for joy there implies external vibrant joy sometimes we've got that joy that's internal and in the midst of a difficult time everything around us still seems dark but there's just that glimmer that little ember on the inside that says god is in control this is not that joy this is the joy that says man it could be tough but even from the outside even to other people they can see a visible expressible joy because i am sure i'm not just hoping i'm sure that jesus is my lord that's what a living hope is it's a surety it's faith it's trust it's visible to everybody who observes us concerning this salvation he gets pretty theological here in the next several verses in verse 10 the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully inquiring what person or time the spirit of christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of christ and the subsequent glories so remember the old testament prophets they receive a word from god and then they write that word down and the point that peter is making that even in their minds they're thinking while they're writing prophecies about a suffering savior it's hard for them to conceive even while they prophesied it so they're still thinking okay somebody's going to come and then he's going to be way in charge so that everybody sees it and so everything's going to be under his foot in an obvious way but jesus comes we know as the suffering servant to us the way up is up in the kingdom the way up is down and so he comes not on this mighty steed of course he wins and of course he's in control and of course he rules but he comes in humility because humility is the order of the kingdom of god peter's reminding us of that reality it was revealed to them the prophets that they were serving not themselves but you their writing so that you would know when jesus came and the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the holy spirit sent from heaven things into which angels long to look big idea salvation's a mystery it's revealed by the holy spirit the salvation that who jesus is and how that works revealed by the holy spirit and com proclaimed by the church to the world that's what it tells us in the book of ephesians our living hope is not just a surety for us for the future it's our message of hope it's our message of peace and grace and mercy to the world around us so to live in this era we anchor ourselves in jesus as our hope that's where you gotta start for some of us maybe that means what we need to do is just take some time and disengage from all the feels around us and everything we're frustrated by and and everything that causes us to want to run to our outlet and type our outrage we need to pull back and set our focus and our heart on jesus as our living hope see our responsibility is to communicate that hope to others and this is the foundation that sets us up for our next step i need to i need to be in that place of trust and faith and surety to take the next step in living in the age of outrage because i got you got to know that how i live in the age of outrage takes instruction less from my circumstance that's how most people are living and more from the character of christ applied to my situation so what is the next step of how to live is to be holy holy means to be set apart to be set apart from god and the holiness here is to be set apart from my sin it's to be set apart from the way i used to live is to be set apart from the world system the world's thought the world's emphasis it's to be for god first so am i are you set apart for god so how would i know that is god honored by my life how i live is god honored by my actions is got honored by my thoughts or my beliefs my viewpoints what i wrote what i tweeted what i said when i thought it was just me and a friend and no one else is listening is god honored by that is god honored by my passions verse 13 says this therefore i read the commentary and i love just this way of kind of helping us interpret the scripture when you see therefore think what is it there for it's like something's coming we need to underline or write down or circle or whatever so in this case peter's about to set us up for this big idea of what it is to be holy and he gives us three ideas the first is preparing your minds for action the second is be sober minded the third is set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of jesus christ three ideas prepare your minds and the greek here is the same language as oh those places gird your loins and we go i don't even know what that means that means prepare get ready get ready to take a step get ready for action so i've got to prepare in an active way i've got to gird up my mind apply it this way am i thinking the way god thinks romans 12 2 says do not be conformed to this world but be transformed we're going to find that just so you know this idea of transformation we're going to see this all the way through first peter part of following jesus is transformation following jesus is not just to pray a prayer that you pray so that you hope to one day be in heaven following jesus is not just a cultural convention okay i go to church or my church is watching online and i do that every sunday because that's what we're supposed to do or i don't know wednesday whatever god calls us to transformation so don't be conformed to this world don't live think the way the world thinks but be transformed how by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of god what is good and acceptable and perfect here's the question that goes with that how much of my thinking is being determined by what's around me versus god's word that's sobering to audit our thoughts say lord am i thinking your thoughts so how do i think better thoughts how do i think your thoughts be transformed by the renewal of your mind that means i've got to i've got to tuck into the holy spirit i've got to spend time in god's word so my reaction is not emotion based on where i'm from or what i think or how i vote or what social media tells me i should think or what the people who look like me sound like me say okay i gotta align with their thoughts no it's everything that happens i run that through the grid of god's thoughts and that's where i take my step can i see what's right and wrong in vague situations because i've put on the mind of christ i've got to prepare myself in my mind second big idea is sober minded what does that mean easiest way of defining that is self-control be self-controlled are your attitudes and actions submitted to god are you controlled by your emotions and feelings i think one of the the first big steps into self-control is becoming self-aware and to be self-aware part of where we need to start is being god-aware in other words is what i'm doing lining up with what you want and when i start to realize that it's not i can begin to understand how i'm being influenced by outside sources toward thoughts actions attitudes etc and i can learn when i detect that god is not pleased with that i can learn earlier and earlier to go up not going to go there i'm going to live god's way not the way my reactions dictate third big idea hope in the grace of jesus that means stand firm in faith or another way of saying it trust god like really trust him verse 14 as obedient children listen that's so important god calls us to radical obedience not my way his way not my thoughts his thoughts not my attitude his attitude as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance what he's talking about here is sin see jesus is full of grace he forgives us when we sin he renews us he cleanses us he washes us and at the same time he calls us out of sin don't sin it actually says in first corinthians 15 34 stop sinning how many times in the gospels does jesus say hey look he finds somebody that somebody's trapped in sin they bring him uh they encounter this circumstance they realize they're in sin and jesus says you're forgiven i set you free i cleanse you i release you my mercy my grace are there for you then go and sin no more i'm always challenged by hebrews chapter 12 verse 4 which says in your struggle against sin you've not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood it's true and my struggle against sin my natural predisposition is to make an excuse for myself is to blame somebody else is to try to remember well my intentions were good or i didn't mean for it to work out that way but here hebrews is in in um what's the best way to say that is imploring us the author of hebrews is imploring us to say listen we need to deal with our sin to live a life that's set apart to god we've got to deal strongly with our sin and notice i said our sin as in our own sin it's so tempting particularly we're talking about the context of an age of outrage to go yeah tell all the people who sin in the way that outrages me to stop i think peter's saying to all of us let's deal with the sin in our own lives the stuff we go back to those places where our attitudes or our actions don't line up with god's best because here's the thing listen to me when you do that when you really deal with the sin of your life when you bring it to god and you repent and you say lord before you i need your help to walk in your way then what happens because god is so loving and so graceful is when i bring my sin to god he always cleanses me he always gives me his grace and in that place i'm acquainted again with god's grace and in god's grace is the best way from that position of grace is the best way to be able to deal with others as i see their sin verse 15 but as he who called you is holy you also be holy set apart to god live in purity before god since it's written you should be holy for i am holy that you should be holy for i am holy is quoting from leviticus 11. and the point in the midst of all these laws for the jews you go man there's so many laws all they all day they had to make sure they were following the laws but the point of those laws was to help the people live in purity before god we have such an advantage jesus has made us pure if you know jesus as your lord and savior you're already pure we don't have to earn the right to be pure by following this this this this this and that we are pure that means from that place of purity we can live purely so let's reflect that in how we live verse 17 if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile he did say fear but the fear here isn't terror or condemnation okay i'm so afraid no fear here is the fear of the lord what's the fear of the lord reverent awe does my life reflect in every way that i'm living in reverent awe before the god who's given me a living hope verse 18 knowing that you are ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers not with perishable things such as silver or gold but with the precious blood of christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot see whenever we talk about sin we can't get away from this amazing reality we sin jesus saves dealing with sin just so you know that okay i want to deal with my sin you said that earlier jonathan how do i do it do i do troy farter no it's not about iron self-will making me victorious it's about jesus every time i love how peter also establishes your worth here he says you're ransom not by measly gold and silver no it's by the blood of jesus so your value is determined by what someone will pay for you're ransomed by the precious blood of jesus jesus set your value by trading his own life for yours we should live that way he was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in god who raised him from that god raised him from the dead and gave him hope so that your faith and hope are in god before the foundation of the world he picked you he set the plan into motion to save you and redeem you from your sin he didn't wait for you to turn out good he hatched a rescue plan when you were at your worst you have everything you need to live more than that you got everything you need to thrive in an age of outrage you can show the world a different spirit you can be a beacon of joy you can demonstrate true justice you can show people what it's like to have a hope a living hope you can live a life that is holy godly right we'll study the rest of first peter and see so many more powerful amazing things next week for now let's pray lord i pray two things that you would focus our eyes on you as our living hope and lord that you would help us to live a life that's holy before you in jesus name amen listen if you can hang out with me for just one more moment for just one more prayer maybe you're in that place where what you need is a living hope i told you that living hope is established because jesus has paid the penalty for your and my sin but maybe you're in that spot right now where you're holding your own sin where you've not yet trusted put your faith in jesus as your lord and savior if you're in that spot then you need to repent of those sins and you need to trust jesus as your lord and savior you need to let jesus take over your life if you want to do that that starts with a prayer so pray with me right now if you want jesus to be your living hope say lord jesus i repent of my sins i pray that you would cleanse me make me right with god right now i put my trust in you i put my hope in you you're my lord you're my savior from this moment forward i'm gonna follow you forever in jesus name amen man i'm so glad you guys prayed that prayer if you did our team's going to put up a number on the screen i just want you to text the name we just prayed jesus to the number that's on your screen our team will text back and we'll help you as you start your journey with him living with jesus as your living hope god bless you have a tremendous tremendous day what a powerful message as we concluded the message we gave you an opportunity to begin a real relationship with jesus if you prayed that prayer please text the name jesus to the number that you see on your screen and pause this part if you need to once you text you will receive a prompt simply follow what's instructed this is a very exciting moment in your life and we at mana church would love to come alongside and assist you as you begin your personal journey with jesus mana church thank you again for joining us online today if you would like someone to pray with you take a moment to text the word prayer to the number that you see on your screen we have a team that's ready and waiting to connect with you and see how we can pray for you in any area of your life god bless you man at church we'll see you right back here next week [Music] we are the body of christ [Music] there you will be forever proclaimed [Music] the spirit is here the spirit is here one voice under one name the church will declare the spirit is here your spirit is here [Music] in the name of our lord this name in unity [Music] is will be there [Music] your spirit is here [Music] [Applause] hallelujah we live in a society where it's hard to get a decent job without a college education but let's be honest a piece of paper isn't the only thing that lands you a job employers want people that have education and experience the experience is a full-time college internship that combines both formal academics with practical hands-on training outside of the classroom while in the experience students take accredited bible classes at one of the top 20 christian colleges in the nation while gaining world-class leadership training from one of the nation's largest and fastest growing churches with several degree programs and track options available the experience allows you to tailor the internship around your personal and professional goals so maybe you're a young adult looking to pursue vocational ministry or maybe you're just looking to gain some professional skills and strengthen your biblical understanding before chasing after your dream either way the experience can help you forge a foundation of faith character and leadership to equip you for the road ahead [Music] so [Music] hallelujah [Music] hallelujah [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] is is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey there i'm so thrilled that you joined us today my name is chade and i want to welcome you to mana church today we're diving into part one of our current sermon series living in an age of outrage but first let's prepare our hearts as man of worship leads us in worship through song grace that flows like a river washing over me [Music] of heaven love of christ overflow in me thank you jesus you set me free [Music] christ my savior you rescue me [Music] take this [Music] your kingdom come thank you jesus [Music] [Music] me thank you jesus you jesus you set me free christ my say [Music] [Music] [Music] when there was no way [Music] you've given me life you've given me life you've opened my eyes i love you lord i love you lord you've entered my heart you've set me lord i love you lord you've given me you set your me [Applause] we love you [Applause] [Music] [Music] you've given me life you've given me using lord you've given me me [Applause] thank you you set me free christ my savior you rescue me sing thank you jesus thank you jesus you sent me free christ my savior [Music] rescued me thank you jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh my [Music] oh [Music] [Music] silence [Music] the praise of your glory for you [Applause] [Applause] yours is a name above all names what a powerful name it is [Applause] [Music] jesus christ my king what a powerful name it is nothing can stand against what a powerful day it is [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] is of jesus christ [Applause] what a powerful name it is [Applause] what a powerful name it is the name of jesus what a powerful name it [Applause] what a is name it is the name of jesus [Music] hey again we're so excited that you are here i would like to welcome those of you who may be joining us for the very first time here on mana online if that's you we want to thank you so much for being our guest there's a simple way to let us know that you were here with us i invite you to go ahead and text the word guest to the number that you see on your screen right now go ahead and pause if you need to if you're watching this on our website manna dot church you can either text or you can click the button under the screen that says first time guest now you may have been watching mana online for quite some time but you haven't let us know yet and if that's you we would really like to hear from you as well so go ahead and text the word guest to the number that you see on your screen we have a team that's ready and waiting to contact you this week to see how we can serve you and help you get connected so thank you again for joining us and we hope that you'll join us again very soon at this time i want to invite you to participate in worship through giving we give of our finances to the lord as a way of demonstrating to him that we are putting him first and that we are following in his ways if you currently give online through the web or the mana church app continue to do so and if you would like to give online today you can give via paypal simply by texting the word mana to the number that you see on your screen if you would like to write a check make it out to mana church you can also mail it in or drop it off at our ecliptal site in the fayetteville fort bragg region if you're our guest today please feel no obligation to give financially let's pray now over the offering lord jesus we thank you so much that you are the lord over everything you've created everything and you've purposed everything to be here in its time and so we thank you so much for placing us here god at this moment that we've received so much from you god simply right now with what we want to do with our ties and offerings we just want to give them back to you knowing that it all comes from you in the first place so i pray that you would bless it that you would bless those who give god that you continue to multiply your military highway across the world lord and to the ends of this earth may your kingdom be advanced and may we be so thankful and so privileged to help and participate in that in jesus name we pray amen right now we want to take the time to honor those who have served and are currently serving in the armed forces let's pray for our military men and women lord god we thank you so much for your sovereignty i thank you so much for your place on the throne lord that you're the ultimate measure of authority i thank you so much lord that you have protected and are protecting our military men and women as they serve here and as they serve afar god i pray that you would continue to be their protector would you be their banner lord as they go out and defend our country god i thank you so much that they represent and they show a real example of your love father god that agape love that sacrificial love i pray that their families would be protected that they would be bolstered god that they would come to know you and know you deeply and intimately lord that you would comfort each and every single family member and service men and women as well you would protect them from harm's way god that you would be their protection you would be their provider god they would provide and supply for every single need and you would be their promotion god we pray blessings we pray just all the good things for them lord in jesus name we pray amen well we are almost ready to dive into part one of our brand new sermon series living in an age of outrage but before we do check out these video announcements [Music] what's up man at church pastor riley here lead pastor of mana church va that's two up two down if you know you know and y'all i'm i'm pumped i am red bull excited mana cafe caffeinated to tell you about what you've done so last weekend we launched mana church in stafford virginia stafford quantico y'all we're doing some amazing things so shout out to pastor jake johnson his wife danielle their family and the amazing team of leaders who launched this life-giving church we saw over 230 people in attendance on launch sunday and not only that four people made decisions to make jesus their lord and savior none of this would be possible without you man and family none of this would be possible without your praying your giving you're going when all of our ads add we can multiply and we can absolutely change the world so we thank you we love you god bless you man of family [Music] [Music] [Music] what's up man of church we're super excited because today is what today is serve day we want our communities to experience the love of jesus no strings attached serving is what we do because of what jesus did for us and what he told us to do for others come back this afternoon and team up with others at your site to serve our communities there are a number of outreaches happening today all around our city such as laundromat blitz the first responders cookout neighborhood cleanup water giveaway regalando cajas de the free yard sale honeycutt park community outreach senior center cleanup show up at your site at the designated time if you have a red shirt wear it if you don't one will be provided for you meet your team go out and crush this outreach mission then come back to your site to swap stories and celebrate iglesia so come on out let's show our community what it means to be the church [Music] [Applause] [Music] in a pandemic then we can't visit yeah give me my six feet while they burying them six feet mask on mask off troops home troop stone send them back over now where they glassed off please hold the glute and while we see police shootings loud crowds organizing tell me who empathizing media selling sex but we still pay for advertising people in other countries dying for what we first amendment exercises hand sanitizing why gas rising this ain't surprising why are we supersizing and socializing some realizing that crystals and sage ain't making a way there's only one god in the age of outrage what's up mana online here we are again i'm so stoked to be with you that you're on the other side of this screen that we're gathering together again around the word of god and we are going to jump into a brand new series today we're calling this one living in an age of outrage and in that time we'll be studying the book of first peter and so you know even when i say that living in an age of outrage emotions images pop up in every single one of our minds and we recognize that almost everybody around is outraged for one reason or another and some of those reasons are really good and you go yes the outrage is the right emotion for this injustice or this thing that's happening and then some of those are are not so good it's outrage for for no reason like polarization that doesn't make sense right or wrong outrage has become one of the most dominant emotions of our era speaking of outrage i i heard a story about a guy who just found himself constantly outraged so he went to see his therapist and he's like i'm just so mad at all of these people there's like six people that are so mad at them and so his therapist said okay here's what i want you to do i want you to go write a letter just write them a letter and detail every reason why you're so mad all the stuff just write that out for them and then when you're done writing all those letters burn them and so the guy is like okay you know i'll do that so he wrote out the letters and then he burned them and then he is like you know what that you know i feel a little bit better that helped a lot but what do i do with the letters because of course he didn't burn the letters he burned the people all right anyway back to this idea we titled this series living in an age of outrage and i use the term age of outrage because that's what this time in history has been titled so you know i was just studying and i said okay i'd heard it before i'd actually seen it in a book that a guy wrote so i just googled age of outrage and you'd be shocked at what turns up there's article after article there's multiple books that kind of play on that title a little bit there's even a british comedy show i haven't watched it i'm not saying you should haven't watched it but there's a british comedy show titled age of outrage if you think for a moment and i do want you to reflect i invite you to just kind of ponder how many times have you felt at least what sometimes seems like even have you felt justifiable outrage or another way of saying it even outright rage in the last 12 months and the truth is it's not a made-up problem it's real there are vast chasms in world views and experiences even ideals of almost every population today people are angry and they feel like and many times they're right in this feeling that their rights have been violated or abused they're frustrated maybe you're frustrated at the direction that that you feel like that they feel like if we're thinking of hypothetical people that they feel like the way that things are going and now of course we've got unprecedented access to give full vent to that outrage and maybe you've done that yourself or you know someone who has you got a family member and they're you know constantly you can tell they're on the thing and they're like again they're just giving full vents so you can tweet and post and comment and repost and cancel at will it's it's so pervasive and and let's not pretend that we're not a part of this probably all of us and maybe you and i maybe we're not the people that go online and i'm going to show them or you know i hope that we're not that but probably we've felt that way about this or that this caused that cause the way that this group is acting or what's going on so we can all access this but we're probably aware that what used to be an open forum that's kind of the idea of the internet in many places is now because of outrage and what people are willing to say is now a cesspool in fact many news agencies have shut down the comment section on their articles because of how abhorrent the comments have become you can see that play out in our political process you can see the polarization in the last while this is just crazy to me there have been elected officials on both sides accusing the other side of being basically hitler in my research for this uh for this message i was just kind of looking at age of outrage and what is this person written about it what is that person written about it and there they somebody literally made a satirical image of a children's book and the title says everyone who disagrees with me is hitler a child's guide to the political process and so you see that satire and go you know what that that absolutely kind of shows where we live today that people are willing to go almost immediately right to there to make an accusation against somebody they disagree with that's the age of outrage but here's my question is this fully unprecedented does the bible have advice for how we should live in an environment like this and i'm always so reassured with the reality that the answer is yes absolutely so here's what i want you to do go ahead even if you need to pause me right now i'm cool with that man online get out your bible find a bible get it out yes it's true right on the bottom of the screen we will put up the um the verses so that you can read along but i think it'd be so much better for us if you've got your own so whether that's on a device or with a paper bible pull that thing out and open up to first peter let me tell you what we're going to do with this series because the backdrop what we're talking about how we're going to kind of apply this is indeed looking at ourselves and where we are in an age of outrage in our world but what we really want to do is over the next six weeks we're gonna walk through every verse in this five chapter book that's what first peter is five chapters long and we're gonna see that god knows exactly how we should live and where we should important turn of phrase here where we should base our hope in an environment like the age of outrage so i want to start right off in verse 1. and usually what i do about now is i tell you okay you know here's the book we're going to study colossians it's written by paul and all the rest of it but i'm just gonna kind of introduce the idea of first peter and all the rest of that as we walk through uh this first chapter and even some over the next several weeks so first peter chapter one verse one peter the author starts out peter an apostle of jesus christ and i know you already know man of church that i am a nerd as it comes to the bible i love geeking out on the words and the greek word here and what this means so it should come as no shock to you that just those first two phrases we've only covered two commas peter an apostle of jesus christ uh there's so much there i'm not going to get too deep but it always makes me smile to read that from peter because peter's reconciled the pain of his denial of jesus you probably know that story in the gospels that right toward the end of jesus life he tells the disciples you're all going to run away from me i'm going to be betrayed peter no i'll be with you till the end and then in jesus most difficult moment in his darkest moment there is peter sure enough three times denying jesus calling down curses on himself i don't know that guy as he watches jesus be falsely arrested and abused and yet jesus brings him back and so we see peter as a leader in the early church and even toward here the end of his life he's come to that place of peace with his past so that he's able to write as a leader in the church and that's what he's saying when he says peter an apostle of jesus christ he's kind of occupying that space as a leader and importantly in using that word apostle to define himself and point toward jesus what he's saying is i'm an eyewitness of jesus and he writes that and he's going to tell us in a second to pontus and bithynian galatia and asia and cabernet he's going to say that in a second but he's also writing to you and me and it would be wise for us to recognize the authority that he has to speak even to our life as an eyewitness of jesus and how jesus would have us live this is one of those great places to go ahead and give the bible authority to tell you and to tell me how to live peter an apostle of jesus christ to those who are elected exiles of the dispersion in pontus galatia cappadocia asia and bithynia three really important words elect exiles dispersion so with the elect what peter is doing a lot of times we think of peter as as working primarily with jewish believers so that's jews who come to believe in jesus the lord and savior but what he's doing here is he's writing not just to jews he's writing to all of those who trust in jesus you the church gentiles jews and gentiles are the elect and so he's drawing everybody who's trusting in jesus he's drawing them in and kind of he's helping us see that the promises that god has in the old testament are true for all of us who put our trust in jesus so the church as a whole and then he uses this word exiles that could that greek word could translate sojourners of the diaspora the dispersion that's the greek word for dispersion and sometimes people are tempted to look at that and go okay i know kind of how peter works and so he's writing to people who've been cast out of where they live and they've found themselves in all these different places and you know pontus glacier cappadocia asia bithenia that's if if you're not familiar that's kind of northern and then western turkey is modern-day turkey is where that is but i want you to understand elect exiles of the dispersion he's not saying that these people have been chased out of jerusalem no in fact he's talking to people who are citizens of pontus galatia cappadocia asia and bithynia they live their whole life there sure some have been chased there but he's not saying hey your elect exiles from somewhere else because of persecution cut off from there and now finding yourself in this place no peter is drawing the distinction that they're citizens of heaven first over what is their earthly home it reminds me of philippians chapter 3 verse 20 but our citizenship paul writes the church in philippi our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior the lord jesus christ see this understanding both that paul wrote to the church in philippi and peter is writing to all of these regions and really he means this to be a circular letter read around and ultimately to you what we need to understand is that we've got to start again i'm talking about how do we live in an age of outrage how do we take the bible and apply it how do we what do we focus on where we take our next step we've got to start with this kingdom reality framed in our minds and that is this that i am that you are a part of the kingdom of god as our primary identity see that's why peter is writing to people who are from pontus and have always lived in pontus and he's saying hey you're an elect exile you're a chosen surgeoner of god's dispersion of his people all over the world you go in pontus you go but i'm from pontus yeah but when you come to know jesus as your lord and savior your kingdom of god first everything else is secondary and so for me i'm from fayetteville i live in fayetteville but my allegiance is to what god says over anything else we've got to start understanding that verse 2 says according to the foreknowledge of god the father in the sanctification of the spirit for obedience to jesus christ and for sprinkling with his blood i love this scripture it shows us the trinity everybody's man the trinity is hard for me to understand don't worry the trinity one god in three persons god the father god the son god the holy spirit coequal coessential co-eternal one god expressing himself in three persons and then we see the role of each person in the trinity in this verse god the father picked you so before the beginning of time he chose you god the son redeemed you to follow him god the holy spirit is working to make you holy the theological term for that would be to sanctify you it's a cooperative between you and him as he leads you in following jesus more and more as he reveals jesus to you as he convicts you of sin as he brings you into more of the knowledge of him and i know that peter is writing this letter and so he's using a particular outline we'll see that as the verse continues may grace and peace be multiplied to you and i know that he that's kind of the form that a letter would take that he uses words this way but it reminds me again that even when it's difficult even when there are hard times grace and peace are available i want you to understand wherever you live whatever you're facing however the age of outrage has affected you you can live in peace in the following sections of this chapter we're going to cover quite a number of verses i'll zoom through some of them there are some deep theological truths there's some amazing stuff in this section of scripture but i want you to walk away with two really big ideas i'll say some more stuff but there's two really big ideas that we've got to get and the first is that jesus is our living hope might even say that in italics if you've got your paper bible out it might even over a section i'd call that a pericope it's a fancy word for section of scripture jesus is living hope or something about living hope so that's one big idea and the second is that god calls us to be holy verse 3 says this blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ that's always good news according to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again now why do we need to be born again why do we need his great mercy because you and i are sinners we're cut off from god by sin we're cut off from a relationship with him by sin we've done wrong we know that so the verse continues that he has caused us to be born again that's why we needed to be born again what are we born again to to a living hope how through the resurrection of jesus christ from the dead so there we were in sin desperate evil unworthy unrighteous unkind angry lustful jealous prideful that's where all of us were we know that and kind of explains the world we live in but jesus came to set us free you've heard it say over and over he lived the perfect life he died the perfect death here peter is emphasizing that he lives again resurrected he rose from the dead the cornerstone of christianity is the empty tomb that jesus paid the penalty for you and for me and he rose again and that is a constant reminder that you and i have a lasting perfect hope as this section of scripture is telling us a living hope that's where you got to start when everything seems like it's gone crazy and when everything seems it's difficult when you don't understand what's happening in the world when you find yourself scared and worried and frustrated because of this when you find yourself outraged because of that we come back and we start with this reality jesus is our living hope and what does his living hope guarantee us verse 4 he's a living hope to us to an inheritance that is un imperishable undefiled and unfading man i want you want an inheritance forever a promise in eternity that's imperishable undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you i love verse 5 who by god's power you are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time see starting at this point is so critical in maintaining the joy and the peace and the grace that god brings to us that's what it is to walk with god is to is to experience or at least have available to us his joy peace grace sometimes we don't live it and there's a reason for that we'll come to that so regardless of what you face you have an inheritance in heaven that's secure it cannot be taken from you it cannot be touched you and your inheritance you and god's promises are being guarded by the mighty savior of the world that's so important for how we live because we don't have to worry about what happens in the temporal i don't need to worry about the trial that i'm going to face could it hurt me yes could it be difficult it will be but what i'm living for what i'm hoping for eternity with god with an inheritance with promises with provision is secure it's guarded it's safe man i can live with boldness and confidence without fear verse 6 tells me what that should bring about in my life and that's rejoicing in this you rejoice you got to understand worship and gratitude are powerful tools and difficult times not my message in this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you've been grieved by various trials you're on the other side of the screen you're like amen preach that peter i feel it i feel like i'm grieved by various trials what kind of trials are we talking about in this particular section it's important to note like i said earlier peter's writing this letter and it's around i think scholars would generally agree it's around 60 a.d and it's most likely that he's writing from rome why i'll explain that later in the series don't have time now just hold that in your head and you might be tempted to believe that these trials are the persecutions that come to the church in an official way so we are all familiar with the persecution of christians under rome even we know historical fact that peter is killed under nero a couple years later and so ago that's probably what he's writing about but while that this letter and what he says would be helpful then the trials here are certainly external but these aren't the trials of course that we bring ourselves through sin sometimes we have that this is more about the rejection of believers by society so it's not that official roman we're going to find you and kill you it is the opposition of the world system to the church it's the rejection of those who are sometimes around you who want to live not god's way and when you stand for righteousness sake they reject you it's a different value system that values what is wrong over what is right that's kind of the trials he's talking about it's the fact that they're separated because they've chosen to believe god's way and so some of the traditions that would generally be available to them are no longer available the rejection of other people in relationship is there does that sound familiar i feel like probably many of us have experienced the exact same thing so why do we have these trials verse seven so that the tested genuineness of your faith and then i love this he's going to make a bigger point about the tested genuineness of our faith but he just pauses to tell us how important our faith is in our life and how we should value it so the tested genuineness of your faith and he's like how important is faith more precious than gold that perishes again this is not the point that i want to make it's not the message i'm preaching but don't miss this there's nothing in your life more valuable than your faith there's nothing more important you got up today and there's some stuff that was on your mind and maybe that you're worried about or you know what's coming at me i got to get this done i got to get that done we got to get this sorted got to get the taxes sent off and sometimes it feels like that's the most important thing there's nothing more important than your faith then your trust in jesus as your lord and savior there's nothing else that will last for eternity this living hope he's trying to tell us is far more valuable than gold my question is do we treat it that way so again it's talking about our genuineness of faith that's tested by fire though it may be tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of jesus christ this is a hard truth but it's necessary suffering is a part of the christian faith suffering purifies our devotion reminds me of the book of james james is writing in james chapter 1 verse 2 and says count it all joy you know that's hard to do my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing we studied james a couple years ago and and if you happen to remember that series remember what james is talking about here is walking into maturity into everything that god has for you and says you know what suffering is going to happen suffering is going to come along it's part of the christian faith and when we suffer focused on jesus as our living hope and we continue to walk forward not stepping back because of the trials that come not stepping away because others would say you shouldn't live that way or that that's not the right standard to have but when we walk in steadfastness god brings us into everything that he has for us and i'm telling you this is what our world needs right now people who have joy in an age of outrage even while they suffer people who can testify to a living hope in jesus though you've not seen him verse 8 you love him and though you do not now see him you believe in him this is the essence of faith i've experienced jesus i've not seen him but i trust that he is my lord and savior and he can control my life you believe in him and rejoice with joy verse 8 continues that is inexpressible and filled with glory obtaining the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls the greek word for joy there implies external vibrant joy sometimes we've got that joy that's internal and in the midst of a difficult time everything around us still seems dark but there's just that glimmer that little ember on the inside that says god is in control this is not that joy this is the joy that says man it could be tough but even from the outside even to other people they can see a visible expressible joy because i am sure i'm not just hoping i'm sure that jesus is my lord that's what a living hope is it's a surety it's faith it's trust it's visible to everybody who observes us concerning this salvation it gets pretty theological here in the next several verses in verse 10 the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully inquiring what person or time the spirit of christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of christ and the subsequent glories so remember the old testament prophets they receive a word from god and then they write that word down and the point that peter is making that even in their minds they're thinking while they're writing prophecies about a suffering savior it's hard for them to conceive even while they prophesied it so they're still thinking okay somebody's going to come and then he's going to be way in charge so that everybody sees it and so everything's going to be under his foot in an obvious way but jesus comes we know as the suffering servant to us the way up is up in the kingdom the way up is down and so he comes not on this mighty steed of course he wins and of course he's in control and of course he rules but he comes in humility because humility is the order of the kingdom of god peter's reminding us of that reality it was revealed to them the prophets that they were serving not themselves but you their writing so that you would know when jesus came and the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the holy spirit sent from heaven things into which angels long to look big idea salvation's a mystery it's revealed by the holy spirit the salvation that who jesus is and how that works revealed by the holy spirit and proclaimed by the church to the world that's what it tells us in the book of ephesians our living hope is not just a surety for us for the future it's our message of hope it's our message of peace and grace and mercy to the world around us so to live in this era we anchor ourselves in jesus as our hope that's where you gotta start for some of us maybe that means what we need to do is just take some time and disengage from all the feels around us and everything we're frustrated by and and everything that causes us to want to run to our outlet and type our outrage we need to pull back and set our focus and our heart on jesus as our living hope see our responsibility is to communicate that hope to others and this is the foundation that sets us up for our next step i need to i need to be in that place of trust and faith and surety to take the next step in living in the age of outrage because i got you got to know that how i live in the age of outrage takes instruction less from my circumstance that's how most people are living and more from the character of christ applied to my situation so what is the next step of how to live is to be holy holy means to be set apart to be set apart from god and the holiness here is to be set apart from my sin it's to be set apart from the way i used to live is to be set apart from the world system the world's thought the world's emphasis it's to be for god first so am i are you set apart for god so how would i know that is god honored by my life how i live is god honored by my actions is god honored by my thoughts or my beliefs my viewpoints what i wrote what i tweeted what i said when i thought it was just me and a friend and no one else is listening is god honored by that it's got honored by my passions verse 13 says this therefore i read the commentary and i love just this way of kind of helping us interpret the scripture when you see therefore think what is it there for it's like something's coming we need to underline or write down or circle or whatever so in this case peter's about to set us up for this big idea of what it is to be holy and he gives us three ideas the first is preparing your minds for action the second is be sober minded the third is set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of jesus christ three ideas prepare your minds and the greek here is the same language as of those places gird your loins and we go i don't even know what that means that means prepare get ready get ready to take a step get ready for action so i've got to prepare in an active way i've got to gird up my mind apply it this way am i thinking the way god thinks romans 12 2 says do not be conformed to this world but be transformed we're going to find that just so you know this idea of transformation we're going to see this all the way through first peter part of following jesus is transformation following jesus is not just a pray a prayer that you pray so that you hope to one day be in heaven following jesus is not just a cultural convention okay i go to church or my church is watching online and i do that every sunday because that's what we're supposed to do or i don't know wednesday whatever god calls us to transformation so don't be conformed to this world don't live think the way the world thinks but be transformed how by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of god what is good and acceptable and perfect here's the question that goes with that how much of my thinking is being determined by what's around me versus god's word that's sobering to audit our thoughts say lord am i am i thinking your thoughts so how do i think better thoughts how do i think your thoughts be transformed by the renewal of your mind that means i've got to i've got to tuck into the holy spirit i've got to spend time in god's word so my reaction is not emotion based on where i'm from or what i think or how i vote or what social media tells me i should think or what the people who look like me sound like me say okay i gotta align with their thoughts no it's everything that happens i run that through the grid of god's thoughts and that's where i take my step can i see what's right and wrong in vague situations because i've put on the mind of christ i've got to prepare myself in my mind second big idea is sober minded what does that mean easiest way of defining that is self-control be self-controlled are your attitudes and actions submitted to god are you controlled by your emotions and feelings i think one of the first big steps into self-control is becoming self-aware and to be self-aware part of where we need to start is being god aware in other words is what i'm doing lining up with what you want and when i start to realize that it's not i can begin to understand how i'm being influenced by outside sources toward thoughts actions attitudes etc and i can learn when i detect that god is not pleased with that i can learn earlier and earlier to go up not gonna go there i'm gonna live god's way not the way my reactions dictate third big idea hope in the grace of jesus that means stand firm in faith or another way of saying it trust god like really trust him verse 14 as obedient children listen that's so important god calls us to radical obedience not my way his way not my thoughts his thoughts not my attitude his attitude as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance he's talking about here is sin see jesus is full of grace he forgives us when we sin he renews us he cleanses us he washes us and at the same time he calls us out of sin don't sin it actually says in first corinthians 15 34 stop sinning how many times in the gospels does jesus say hey look he finds somebody that somebody's trapped in sin they bring him uh they encounter this circumstance they realize they're in sin and jesus says you're forgiven i set you free i cleanse you i release you my mercy my grace are there for you then go and sin no more i'm always challenged by hebrews chapter 12 verse 4 which says in your struggle against sin you've not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood it's true in my struggle against sin my natural predisposition is to make an excuse for myself is to blame somebody else is to try to remember well my intentions were good or i didn't mean for it to work out that way but here hebrews is in in um what's the best way to say that is imploring us the author of hebrews is imploring us to say listen we need to deal with our sin to live a life that's set apart to god we've got to deal strongly with our sin and notice i said our sin as in our own sin it's so tempting particularly we're talking about the context of an age of outrage to go yeah tell all the people who sin in the way that outrages me to stop i think peter's saying to all of us let's deal with the sin in our own lives the stuff we go back to those places where our attitudes or our actions don't line up with god's best because here's the thing listen to me when you do that when you really deal with the sin of your life when you bring it to god and you repent and you say lord before you i need your help to walk in your way then what happens because god is so loving and so graceful is when i bring my sin to god he always cleanses me he always gives me his grace and in that place i'm acquainted again with god's grace and in god's grace is the best way from that position of grace is the best way to be able to deal with others as i see their sin verse 15 but as he who called you is holy you also be holy set apart to god live in purity before god since it's written you should be holy for i am holy that you should be holy for i am holy is quoting from leviticus 11. and the point in the midst of all these laws for the jews you go man there's so many laws all they all day they had to make sure they were following the laws but the point of those laws was to help the people live in purity before god we have such an advantage jesus has made us pure if you know jesus as your lord and savior you're already pure we don't have to earn the right to be pure by following this this this this this and that we are pure that means from that place of purity we can live purely so let's reflect that in how we live verse 17 if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile he did say fear but the fear here isn't terror or condemnation okay i'm so afraid no fear here is the fear of the lord what's the fear of the lord reverent awe does my life reflect in every way that i'm living in reverent awe before the god who's given me a living hope verse 18 knowing that you are ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers not with perishable things such as silver or gold but with the precious blood of christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot see whenever we talk about sin we can't get away from this amazing reality we sin jesus saves dealing with sin just so you know that okay i want to deal with my sin you said that earlier jonathan how do i do it do i do troy farter no it's not about iron self-will making me victorious it's about jesus every time i love how peter also establishes your worth here says you're ransom not by measly gold and silver no it's by the blood of jesus your value is determined by what someone will pay for you are ransomed by the precious blood of jesus jesus set your value by trading his own life for yours we should live that way he was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in god who raised him from that god raised him from the dead and gave him hope so that your faith and hope are in god before the foundation of the world he picked you he set the plant into motion to save you and redeem you from your sin he didn't wait for you to turn out good he hatched a rescue plan when you were at your worst you have everything you need to live more than that you got everything you need to thrive in an age of outrage you can show the world a different spirit you can be a beacon of joy you can demonstrate true justice you can show people what it's like to have a hope a living hope you can live a life that is holy godly right we'll study the rest of first peter and see so many more powerful amazing things next week for now let's pray lord i pray two things that you would focus our eyes on you as our living hope and lord that you would help us to live a life that's holy before you in jesus name amen listen if you can hang out with me for just one more moment for just one more prayer maybe you're in that place where what you need is a living hope i told you that living hope is established because jesus has paid the penalty for your and my sin but maybe you're in that spot right now where you're holding your own sin where you've not yet trusted put your faith in jesus as your lord and savior if you're in that spot then you need to repent of those sins and you need to trust jesus as your lord and savior you need to let jesus take over your life if you want to do that that starts with a prayer so pray with me right now if you want jesus to be your living hope say lord jesus i repent of my sins i pray that you would cleanse me make me right with god right now i put my trust in you i put my hope in you you're my lord you're my savior from this moment forward i'm gonna follow you forever in jesus name amen man i'm so glad you guys prayed that prayer if you did our team's gonna put up uh a number on the screen i just want you to text the name we just prayed jesus to the number that's on your screen our team will text back and we'll help you as you start your journey with him living with jesus as your living hope god bless you have a tremendous tremendous day what a powerful message as we concluded the message we gave you an opportunity to begin a real relationship with jesus if you prayed that prayer please text the name jesus to the number that you see on your screen and pause this part if you need to once you text you will receive a prompt simply follow what's instructed this is a very exciting moment in your life and we at mana church would love to come alongside and assist you as you begin your personal journey with jesus mana church thank you again for joining us online today if you would like someone to pray with you take a moment to text the word prayer to the number that you see on your screen we have a team that's ready and waiting to connect with you and see how we can pray for you in any area of your life god bless you mana church we'll see you right back here next week [Music] when we call on your holy name there you will be forever proclaimed [Music] is [Music] [Music] your spirit is here [Music] together [Music] in the name of our lord [Music] the spirit is here [Music] your spirit is here [Music] [Applause] [Music] we live in a society where it's hard to get a decent job without a college education but let's be honest a piece of paper isn't the only thing that lands you a job employers want people that have education and experience the experience is a full-time college internship that combines both formal academics with practical hands-on training outside of the classroom while in the experience students take accredited bible classes at one of the top 20 christian colleges in the nation while gaining world-class leadership training from one of the nation's largest and fastest growing churches with several degree programs and track options available the experience allows you to tailor the internship around your personal and professional goals so maybe you're a young adult looking to pursue vocational ministry or maybe you're just looking to gain some professional skills and strengthen your biblical understanding before chasing after your dream either way the experience can help you forge a foundation of faith character and leadership to equip you for the road ahead [Music] hallelujah [Music] hallelujah [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] is the spirit is here [Music] is [Music] [Applause] is here [Music] you

Channel: Manna Church

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Keywords: Manna Church, Non-Denominational, Christianity, Fayetteville, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Military Highway, Multiply Conference, Empowering Leadership, Pastor, Michael Fletcher, Jonathan Fletcher, Chris Fletcher, Sermon Series, Sunday, ARC, Association Of Related Churches, One Church, Many Locations, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Coast Guard, The Holy Bible, Anderson Creek, Spring Lake, Hope Mills, Raeford, Multiply Movement, Church Online

Id: 5vaBArtciVQ

Length: 204min 41sec (12281 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 06 2022