1 Peter - 2022

Okay. If you've got a bible, then please do turn to 1 peter 1. And we're going to read verses 1 to 12 of of 1 Peter 1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to God's elect exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Capatyusha, Asia, and Befinia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God, the Father, through the sanctifying work of the spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood.

Grace and peace be yours in abundance. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. This inheritance kept in heaven for you, who through faith, are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all of this, you greatly rejoice. Though now, for a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come, so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes, even though refined by fire, may result in praise glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him. And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy 4, you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the Gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, even angels long to look into these things.

Well, good morning. I'm Pete Woodcock. I'm 1 of the pastors the church. If you're visiting on you, it's good to have you with us. We've been going through 1 Peter for a few weeks now, and it's very exciting.

Let me pray. Father, just help us now. Please settle us so that we hear and that by faith, we put into action what we hear you say. In Jesus' name and I'm him. Now, what I want you to do is to imagine a 6 layer cake Got that in your head?

6 layer cake. Everybody got that? Just in case it doesn't work, here's picture of a oh, it's cut off the layers. I don't know why the layers are cut off. But there's a 6 layer cake here.

This is Lani here on her twelfth birthday. Tucking into a 6 layer 6 layers, isn't it? Did you make that? No. Oh, it's monsters about well, there we go.

With stuff on the top as well, it's 6 layers with extra. And there she is, look at her tucking into that. So you don't have to imagine. But what you see on a 6 layer cake is all the different layers. You can see the different layers when it's cut cut like that.

But eating it is a different experience, isn't it? Because when you eat it, sometimes you taste just 1 layer, chocolate or jam or cream or the sponge. And then sometimes the layers sort of meld into into just 1 whole taste and that's that's that's what happens. And sometimes you just don't know when 1 layer ends and the other starts or when 1 starts and the other ends. That's the experience of eating a 6 layer cake.

You can turn that off now. Now, I want to give that illustration because I hope it will be helpful in what we're going to see in these few verses. We're looking at 1 Peter, chapter 1 verses 6 to 9, just 4 verses. And in those 4 verses, you get 6 layers of the Christian experience. 6 things that I think Peter is telling us in these 4 verses.

Peter is describing the Christian experience. Now we know and we've seen before that Peter is writing to lots of Christians and they're scattered all over, you know, in in different places and in different situations. And so I guess those people are very different people. There'll be different personalities. There'll be different cultural upbringings.

With those people that people Peter's writing to. There'll be different personal battles that those people are having. There'll be different ages and skills and intellect and audily abilities and all of that sort of stuff. But even though they're different people scattered in different places, They all have this experience and they're all experienced these same 6 layers. That make up the Christian life in this world, that make up the Christian experience.

And you can see that that he's describing their experience because If you just look down at those 4 verses 6 to 9, you'll see he uses the word you or yours 10 times. You, yours. You, yours. 10 times. Yeah?

Now why is Peter telling them what they know they're experiencing? I think he's doing that 1 for us, because this is the Christian experience. And 2, he's trying to tell them and therefore us that Don't drift away from this. Don't move away from these 6 layers of the Christian experience. Keep living them.

Keep in them. So we have 6 layers of the Christian experience. And like the cake, biting into the cake, sometimes you're going to taste 1 layer more than the other. Sometimes you don't know where 1 layer starts and the other finishes and the other it ends and the the other 1 starts. You're just not sure.

Sometimes as we look at these layers, it's going to say to you you need to bite in a bit more on that layer. You need to consider that 1 more in your life. So that's what we're going to do. And the reason why I want that illustration is because as I go through each layer, you'll notice I can't help but go into the next layer. They all sort of a part of 1 cake.

So let I hope you got me. Yeah. I hope about illustration. Here's layer number 1 then. Layer number 1, in the Christian experience, greatly rejoice.

See it in verse 6, greatly rejoice. In all this, you greatly rejoice. Though now for a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. In all this, you greatly rejoice. Lay 1 of the Christian experience is greatly rejoicing.

Greatly rejoicing. The words that Peter uses in the original language are very strong. It means very much jump. That's what it means. Very much leap.

Greatly very much jump. In other words, you're so glad you jump with celebration. Yes. You jump with celebration. It's used of children dancing for joy when they don't even really know anyone's looking at them It's not, you know, choreographed.

They're just leaping and jumping and praising God. The illustration of this is in acts chapter 3, when there was a lame man at the temple Peter and John come along, heal him, and he jumps up and he leaps and jumps and praises God and some of you know the song, don't you? Leeping and jump I'm sure Steve loves it. Leeping and jumping and praising. God, you know, it's weird, isn't it?

But it's It's The word isn't used in that story by the way, but that's what the word means. Now, what's causing the Christian to leap and jump and praise God, dance. Well, he says this in verse 6. In this, you greatly rejoice. Now Peter's talking about the things he's already said that we looked at last week and it took, you know, long enough to go through them once.

I can't go through the whole thing again. But I could at least read those verses. He's talking about the blessings we saw last week. The blessings that Christians have. So let me just read it.

Look at verse 3. Praise, be to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last times. In this, you greatly rejoice.

In those wonderful truths that we saw last week, you greatly rejoice. Yeah? These are not theological truths to argue over. These are truths that make us live. These are these are written into our new nature.

We are born again into these truths, and these truths are alive in us. In those truths, of the mercy of God in Christ, giving us this living hope, this inheritance that will never spoil or fade. In those truths, we are born, we're alive, and we greatly rejoice. I was given new life in the lord Jesus Christ many years ago. But it was about the same time that the singer songwriter, very famous singer songwriter Bob Dillon was professing Christ.

And 1 of the songs he wrote at that time absolutely expressed how I felt. At the time. It's called Saved. It's 1 of the albums that I'm allowed to listen to during media fast. Because it's all about Christianity.

So I normally listen to lots of secular music. I'm sorry if you think I'm but there we go. But this is 1 of the albums I put on and I'll put this on nice and loud. It's an energy song. It starts off with telling you truths about us before we were saved and then what Christ has done and then it blasts into the chorus.

I'm gonna read the whole thing. I was blinded by the devil, born already ruined, stone cold dead as I stepped out of the womb, By his grace, I have been touched. By his word, I have been healed. By his hand I've been delivered. By his spirit, I've been sealed.

I've been saved. By the blood of a lamb. Saved by the blood of the lamb. Saved, saved. And I'm so glad.

Yes, I'm so glad. I'm so glad. So glad I wanna thank you lord. I just wanna thank you lord. Thank you lord.

By his truth, I have been upright. By strength, I do endure, by his power. I have I've been lifted in his love. I am secure. He bought me with a price freed me from the pit full of emptiness and wrath and the fire that burned with it, but I'm saved by the blood of the land.

Saved. By the blood of the lamb. Saved. Saved. And I'm so glad.

Yes, I'm so glad. I'm so glad. So glad. I want to thank you, Lord. I wanna thank you lord.

Thank you lord. Nobody to rescue me. Nobody would dare. I'm going down for the last time, but by his mercy, I've been spared, not by works, but by faith in him who called. For so long I've been hindered, for so long I've been stored, but I've been saved by the blood of the lamb.

Saved by the blood of the lamb. Saved, saved, and I'm so glad. Yes, I'm so glad. I'm so glad. So glad I just wanna thank you lord.

I wanna thank you lord. Thank you lord. You got the picture? That was what I experienced in those days. In this in this, you greatly rejoice.

The Christian life is a life of joy. The emotional life of a Christian is changed at conversion. You were born into this. There is an element in our life that should be rejoicing, and there's gladness, and that's the Christian experience. Dr.

Martin Lloyd Jones, 1 of the greats of another era. A Christian is not merely 1 who is a little less miserable than he was. I love that word. Misurable. He can't help laughing at the word miserable.

I mean, are you a miserable Christian? It you just have to laugh if someone asks that. Anyway, a Christian is I gotta read this. A Christian is not merely 1 who is a little less miserable than he was, he is 1 who rejoices. And because a Christian rejoices in this living hope, that he's been born into.

Because a Christian has been born into this living hope by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, It means that whatever we meet in this life, whatever monsters, whatever pains, whoever we experience sort of violence towards us. Whatever suffering we face, whatever the experience, it's not the end of the story because we've been born into this living hope. We are on a journey. And if we're facing pain at the moment, we haven't finished. There's a final meeting that we're going to.

Our journey ends in the imperishable inheritance that's kept in heaven for us. Our journey ends when we meet the Lord Jesus face to face, the resurrected and glorious 1. So in all this You greatly rejoice though now for a little while, you may have to suffer grief of many kinds. In the Harry Potter stories, many of you will know, there are some creatures that utterly depressing. They bring utter despair and hopelessness.

They're called the dementors, the dementors. Wherever they go, they bring darkness and coldness and hopelessness and despair. A dementors kiss when it comes to kiss you, this dementor will suck the soul out of you. It's a really horrible, dark monster. Stuff.

The only way to deal with dementors is that you shield yourself by calling up a patronus. It's interesting that it's called patronus because that obviously comes from the word father or patron. You call up a patronus. What is a patronus? A patronus is a positive force A projection of hope and happiness, a memory of happy times and safety.

Expectopetronus when the dementor comes to suck out. When the trials and the griefs of many kinds come, we don't say that's just a story, but this is real. Peter says that in those trials, you greatly rejoice. You dwell on the things of hope. You think about what Christ has done for you.

And even in the suffering, even when the dementors are coming against you, you shout out the truths. You sing out the truth. You feel these truths. In them, you greatly rejoice. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when the dementor comes.

Or you go and do the Bob Dylan song. By his truth I can be upright, by his strength I do endure, by his power I can be lifted in his love I am secure. He bought me with a price freed me from the pit, full of emptiness and wrath and the fire that burns with it. I've been saved. In this, you greatly rejoice.

Now do you see what I've done? That's layer 1. I've already moved into layer 2. And here's layer 2. All kinds of trials, verse 6.

This is the Christian experience. Verse 6, in all this, you greatly rejoice. We've just seen that Though now for a little while, you may have to have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. The word grief again is a strong word. It's it's distress actually.

These these are distressing It's emotional pain. These are distressing emotional things. It's severe sorrow and what causes this grief Well, he says all kinds of trials. All kinds of trials are gonna cause these distressing, severe, emotional attacks. All kinds of trials can be translated various kinds, diverse, actually is many colored I think it's where we get the word, I may be wrong, polka dot from.

It's like you know dots of colors all over the place. It's many colored So we're going to experience mental and physical and emotional and relational attacks and trials and difficulties in our lives. Some of them will be attacks. Some of them will just be bodily from within. There's not a Christian who's a stranger to tears, he's saying, I think.

The Christian life is 1 of trial. 1 of difficulty. The people that Peter writes to are scattered all over but they're united in suffering. So at least 15 times in in the letter of Peter, he refers to suffering in the letter and he uses 8 Greek words to describe that. Various types of suffering.

We all have 1 thing in common in this room. Everybody hurts sometimes. Everybody hurts sometimes. Suffering is a universal language. There's an old preacher, teaching his young preachers, how to preach, And he said preach to the suffering and you'll never lack a congregation.

There's a broken heart in every pew. You want a congregation, preach to the suffering. In all this verse 6, you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. It sounds like a contradiction. Layer 1 and layer 2, what?

Is it possible? You can greatly rejoice and then suffer these horrific trials. Can the can the same heart At the same time, rejoice and suffer grief. Spurging gives a great illustration about the sea. So very often, you can get a sea with 2 currents on the top, the the current is going 1 way with the waves crashing 1 way.

But underneath is a not like another sea and it can it can literally go the other way. It literally goes the other way. 2 c's or really 1 c, but 2 things are happening. 1 is 1 is surging that way with crashing waves and the other is going underneath in the opposite direction and that's the Christian life, isn't it? On the surface, there are streams of grief sometimes, rolling over us, dark waves, crushing us.

Almost going to drown us. But underneath, there's this strong current of rejoicing that is flowing in the other direction. That's the Christian experience. Notice notice the words in verse 6. Notice what he says.

Look, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. Had to. Yeah. If you didn't, you'd be in a worse situation. These are had 2 trials.

In other words, there's a purpose in this grief. They're sent by God, actually. He has to do this for your benefit. These things are not accidents in the path. There's not rocks that just happen to be randomly put in in your way.

Do what puts them there? Do they hurt? Oh, yes. Are they crushing waves? Yes.

Is there pain in them? Absolutely. Do they cause grief? Yes. But they are all sinned by a fatherly hand for a reason, they have to happen.

If they don't something worse would happen to you, They're not meaningless. Can I speak Can you speak that truth into yourself? That whatever difficulties you're going through, whatever difficulties you're going through, they are not meaningless. They are given by the good hand of God that is keeping the inheritance for you that will never spoil or fade The good hand of God that's keeping you for the inheritance and the inheritance for you, the good hand of God that will bring those 2 together This is the good hand of God in your life. We may have difficulties, but that's because God wants them.

We have to have them. They're only be for a little while, they won't necessarily be every day They're seasons. Sometimes the seasons has no no sun and only cloud. But it's a season, it's a little while. That leads me to the third layer of the cake.

See how these bleed into each other? We're back in a sense to the first layer because you're rejoicing these things and you remind yourself of what you've really got, during the sufferings, but we're sort of moved on to the third layer, which is tested faith. The third layer is tested faith. This is the Christian experience. Look at verse 7.

These have come, they're the trials and griefs. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire may result in praise glory honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. See what you're saying? So are these trials and tribulations and difficulties and griefs? Are they going to stop you Tasting the first layer.

Are they going to stop you dancing and rejoicing and the answer is no. Why? Because of faith. But the faith, which really is sort of trusting God, that's what faith means, must be genuine faith. Otherwise, it won't survive.

You're drowned. And the faith that trusting God needs to grow also and be purified. It's a living thing that needs to put have life in it constantly. So look at verse 7 again. These, that's the trials and griefs have come, notice they've come again, Gotta sent them.

They've come for a reason. They have come. There's a purpose in them. They have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith and then if you missed a little bit out, may result. There's a result of this.

There's a purpose for this. In praise glory, honor, when Jesus Christ is revealed. Do you see that? Now in the middle of that sentence, Peter has this little illustration about refining gold. He says, we refine gold.

Even though gold will perish, I mean, everything in this universe will perish and there'll be a new universe. So even gold is going to perish. Gold will be no more at 1 time. But even though it perishes, Therefore, in 1 sense is of little value. It's certainly of no eternal value.

Even though it perishes, we refine it. That's that's his argument. So faith then, which is more important than gold, we need to refine. If we refine gold and it's just a sort of thing that's here and gone, then faith needs to be refined. If we refine gold, God will refine faith because it's much more important than gold and money.

Now why does gold go through the fire? Gold goes through the fire to see whether it's genuine. Have you really got faith? Do you really trust? Well let's see, says the trial.

And then, faith has to be purified, make it more gold, Make it more pure, make it stronger. That's why the trials come. Trials will show you whether you really are trusting God. It's very interesting. The whole COVID thing has been a really revealing thing.

In churches up and down the country and around the world. Every pastor is saying the same thing. Some have given up the faith. The trial came and we were surprised it was those people. The trial comes and then they're nowhere.

It's quite interesting, isn't it? See, a trial will show you. Do I believe that God knows best for the world and God knows best for me or do I believe that I could have done a lot better job if I was God? Yeah? Yeah.

It shows you what you believe, didn't it? And only difficulties will show you whether you're really trusting priced or you're just kidding yourself. Our faith is full of impurities and the only way to get rid of those impurities is stress, and grief, and trials, and then it will make it more pure. This is how it often goes, isn't it? Let's be honest.

It's often the case that in difficult times we find ourselves flinging ourselves on God more. In difficult times suddenly you realize you're not in control and you throw yourself on God and selfishness and self dependent is stripped away and you did but it doesn't start like that in a trial, does it? That's the end result. It starts like, who is why is God and we question God. You know, but where is he?

Why is he taking that away from me? I wanted it. And it shows I was putting my faith in that thing. Or how can it be a good God that loves me when this happens? So I absolutely think God, I'm a better planner of my life than you want.

Get out of my life. Why would you do this? It shows us up, doesn't it? Is he the big God that I trust in even with my life or am I better at it? Through fires of suffering, we actually learned to have become more holy and godly and loving, but it doesn't start like that.

I think I am wholly godly and loving until a trial comes, then I realize I'm not, and then I have to have God to clean me. I mean, a silly, pathetic but everybody knows illustration is that on a Sunday morning, I'm godly and loving and kind to everyone. And I get in the car and I've left it slightly too late to get to church. And I'm godly and kind to everyone, but everyone hates me. And why are they in my way?

I'm a patient bloke. Yeah. The trial shows me up. You weren't that ever. So come to God and ask him to change you.

Come to God and ask him to heal you and to cleanse you. Trials show us up. Who are we trusting in? Who knows better? Every bit of difficulty we go through, God can use and will use to make us more like himself If you want to change the illustration from gold, go to the old wonderful illustration of the sculptor.

God is a sculptor and we're a block of rock. God wants to turn us into something beautiful, a sculpted piece of art that looks like his glorious son and every chip and every thump of the hammer and the chisel hurts and breaks the rock. But those trials are changing it into something gorgeous. The son of the living God that we would be like Jesus. Look at the end result of trials.

Verse 7. Look at the end results that they may result in praise. There's that word again. Glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Do you see suffering like this and pain like this?

Do we have this long term perspective that it's God chipping away? It's the gold in the refiners fire, getting rid of the drawers. God wastes no tears of your grief, Can you get that in your mind? Beautiful, beautiful line in Psalm 56 verse 8 which talks about God putting our tears in the bottle or a wineskin. He puts our tears.

They don't just fall to the ground and the ground soaks them up. He counts them. He records our misery, it says. In that song. Every tear, every broken heart, every grief, every disappointment, he They're not just wasted.

They're stored. He counts them. He knows them. He uses them. For his own glory.

And then think about it. Think if you want to bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. You're suffering trials and griefs and yet you'll still love him like Job. Ouses Satan to Job. He only loves you because he's prosperous.

God says take away his prosperity and you'll see a man that will love me. A local lady that I've given this illustration many times before, but it's the best 1, pastor's wife, Brian Edwards was a local minister for many years in this area. His wife, Barbara, suffered massively in her life. Her her body was a wreck. She was riddled with arthritis everywhere in her neck she had it, in every finger, in every toe, she was in massive pain.

And the last quite a number of years of her life every morning was crying with pain, crying. Along comes many Christians, And they said we'll heal you. And because she wasn't healed of this, they said you lack faith. You lack faith in God because you're not healed. What a wicked anti Christian secular pagan way of thinking.

That is not Christian. Here was a woman in her pain. Crying with pain, looking for the day when she will be released and loving the Lord Jesus and committing her life and her energies and her days and her praise for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. This was a woman who declared the praises of Christ in the very pain she suffered. Do you see that?

Which leads me to my next layer. Greatly rejoice all kinds of trials. Faith is tested. Are we going to bring glory to Christ even when it hurts? Will we love him like Barbara Edwards?

Well, they are 4, look, we love him. Verse 8. This is the Christian experience remember. Look at verse 8. Though you have not seen him, you love him.

And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inner expressible and glorious joy. See, 3 melts into 4. I hope you see this. Look, the the the true Christian believer loves the Lord Jesus Christ and yet he hasn't seen him. So He has faith in other words.

So you're back to the layer 3. Real faith. We love the unseen. That's what faith. Faith doesn't operate in the world of sight.

Faith operates in the world of I don't see. The eye of faith looks for the day when the physical eye will see But the eye of faith doesn't see. Or let's put it like spurgeon puts it this way. He's way better, isn't he? He says, seeing is not believing but believing is seeing.

You believe your faith you see. And how do we see? Well, it's the next section that Tom's gonna deal with next week, but I'm gonna creep into it a little bit. You see it in verses 10 to 12, but I'm not gonna read them. But you you see through the Word of God, that how you see.

The eye of faith sees through the word of God. That's why we sit under preaching of the word. Isn't it? That's why we're here, isn't it? What what are you here for?

Do you want to see me? Oh, I'm here. See Pete. Is there something mental about you? You'll hear hopefully to see Jesus, to see Jesus through his word.

Isn't it? And that's what the eye of faith does. When we preach the gospel of Christ, you can see Christ more clearly than the people that actually lived in the gospel. Think about it. There's Brian Bartimaeus.

He's blind, he doesn't see Jesus. Jesus comes along, he hears him and he sees Jesus. But only for that moment, He stays there Jesus moves on to Zachius and moves on to to the woman of Maine or whoever he moves on to. The blind man only sees the situation that he clearly sees Jesus physically for that moment and then we see the other stories where Jesus healed and touched and loved and had compassion on. And we love him.

We love him when he heals the blind man, and we love him when he touches Zacharias. Zacharias, now what's his name? Zachius, that's the word. Zachius. We love him when he goes to Gerico.

We love him when he's we see him. And we love him. We see the whole story. We see him on the cross. Why?

Dying on the cross for us. The people that were there were just saying, oh, poor bloke. When we call Elijah, What's going on? That was a waste of time. We see why he died on the cross because he loved us to take our sin.

To bring us into the family of God. We see the resurrection, we see the ascension, and we love him. We read the old and we read all of the stories and we now know all those stories about the Lord Jesus Christ, and we see him. We see him. We see him by faith.

In the word of God, and we love him. Don't we? It's so adorable when we're reading Romans, in the media fast. Instead of watching the box set, we're reading Romans where Paul is going into detail. Strong details, some stuff we're gonna have to grapple with how brilliant Jesus was and all the stuff he's done for us and call digs to the depths.

We love him. We see him. We love him. We're aliens and strangers in this world, and so we come together as a sort of group of people sort of pre the party. Yeah.

We're eating the canapes before the big party. That is to come and we're reminding ourselves, praise God. Praise the God. Praise be to the God. And father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We love him. That moves me into my fifth layer. Still with me? Still eating cake. Do you wanna bite into this 1 or should we leave it?

It's joy. It's a joy layer. It's a bit like those jam layers and those cream layers. It's sort of come back to rejoicing. There's another layer of this, you know.

Double, rejoice and joy. Look at verse 8. Though you do not see him, you love him. Even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and our filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. It's another joy layer.

The word joy here means delight and gladness. The word in expressible means unable to fully describe it so mind blowingly good. And the word glorious means praise magnify celebrate. Yeah? Though you don't see him, you're filled with joy of what it will be like to be with him.

The joy that is so powerful kept in heaven for us seeps out and blasts. Do you remember lockdown? 20 20? Do you remember lockdown? Do you remember Tom and Safron trying to get married?

It was tragic, wasn't it? They were living apart. Safron went and lived in Bracknell, But hold it, he lived in Liverpool and you had these 2 lovers and they were apart and they loved each other. They were apart. They were apart for ages.

And then every time they put a date in the diary for the for the wedding, Then there was another party at number 10 and that they weren't allowed to have their party. Every time every time the laws changed and they weren't allowed to have their party every and it was tragic. And we we felt for Safran. I I hope you did. And she saw this girl in her room.

So I think it was upstairs. And there was a sadness in her. She was crying. We cried with not in front of her, of course. But we cried.

I sort of feel for this. She want I just want to get married and then we're all talking about let's go and do a secret party and, you know, if we invited the prime minister, it would have been alright. But, you know, let's go and and then we were thinking about ways around it and there was no way around it and there was 1 date after another and there was this sadness on the top but there was a great joy that she was going to get married. It's it's hard to describe that, isn't it? There was this joy she's got a bloke.

Yeah? Even from Liverpool, she's got a blow and it was going to happen. It was going to happen but not yet but not yet but not yet but not yet but not yet. There was joy under the sadness. Now, I'll show you what the difference would be.

If Tom said I've had enough, we've tried so many dates. I'm calling it off. I've got a Liverpool girl. You know, met her on the mercy and I'm gonna marry her. If Tom shoved off and did that, then the grief would be in both levels.

Did you the reason for saying that is because You can know this joy even though there's a sadness, and you know it if you would know the difference if Tom just shoved off. That would be the difference. Jesus won't just shove off. There's a marriage day coming. It's for certain.

The grief might happen now, but there's this joy. Here's what John Piper says what joy is. Let me read it to you. I think it's gonna come up. Should be before that.

Should be before that. 2 slides, I think. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Okay. Forget it. I'll read it. This is what he says. Joy in Christ is the deep good feelings in loving him and believing him.

Now just see how the cake layers all come together here. Joy in Christ is the deep good feelings in loving him and believing in him, it's the echo in our emotions, our hearts, of experiencing Christ as precious and experiencing Christ as reliable It's the deep good feelings of being attached to him for who he is and the deep good feelings of being confident in him for what he will do. Okay. You can turn turn off that that off at the moment. He goes on, but I think that's good enough.

In other words, joy is built on these other layers. It's built in who crisis. I think Piper is saying this and if he isn't, I'm saying it, so it doesn't really matter. That joy is the underlying knowledge that you are where you should be in the universe. You are at home or at least on the way home.

You are with the 1 that you were created to know and to love and be loved by. You're with him. You know the lover of your soul. And he knows you. You are beginning to walk with him and talk with him.

Your future is utterly cure. You are on the road home, you see the end of the journey which will be beginning of a brand new life. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain, that's joy. It's all wrapped up in Christ. And when you know that you'll be married 1 day face to face, then you can put up with the time weight.

Joy, on top of that, is a gift that we receive when we trust him. This verse I think sums it up. This is from Romans chapter 15 verse 11. Have you got that 1? I saw it, I think, here up here, the top 1.

Listen to Paul that Again, all those layers are there. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. That's a great line, isn't it? That sums up everything I've been saying. You're thinking, gosh, how long does he talk for?

He could have just read this. I'm gonna read it again though. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope. That's the praise word by the power of the Holy Spirit. Joy, that gift of God from Christ, as we understand who he is, and we bite through those layers is a flag flown high from the castle of our hearts.

Because the king is in residence there. That's joy. Leia 6, gosh. It's very quick. Receiving now.

This is the Christian experience and it's receiving now and I hope you are. First 19 first 9 rather. For you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. This is the bottom layer, but you know, Mary Berry would be happy with this bottom layer. There's no soggy bottom here.

This is a beautiful lice layer. Okay? You are receiving. In other words you are experiencing the results of your faith, something of that right now. So let me finish.

Keep growing. Keep working on. Keep living on. Keep trusting in Christ. Keep receiving.

Yeah? Keep tasting the cake. Keep understanding your salvation now. Go through those 6 layers. Why don't you in your home group?

Say to someone before you meet, you take layer 1, you take layer 2, you take layer 3, you take layer 4, and then come back and share. Keep going over and over the layers of this cake in media fast. Come on. Let's do it. Let's read the scriptures.

Let's pray together. Let's meet together with God's people. Let's give up the world for a week. Just a week, just for 5 days. Let's read Romans.

Let's get in together. Let's pray together. Eat together. Serv together. Because as we love Christ, we serve each other.

As we love Christ, we serve each other. As we serve each other, we love Christ. And those who are suffering particularly around us, We should know them and weep with them and pray with them and try to show them the Lord Jesus Christ in their sufferings. 6 layer cake. Let's go back to that picture.

The delight on Lania's face. Come on. Oh. Look at that face. It's Look at those teeth going into that.

Get biting. Get praising God. We're gonna sing a song in a minute. After Tom's parade or whatever he's gonna do. And we should sing it with great volume and shout it out at full volume really should go it because we're singing praise to our God.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for that great hope that we have that your name and your kingdom will never perish and never fade and that all blessing and honor and glory power belongs to you, and 1 day, every knee is gonna bow before you and every tongue confess that you are lord. And we thank you for that great hope which we have and which we've been born into and which we look forward to. And we thank you, lord Jesus, that even though we do not see you now, And even though we do go through trials of various kinds, we thank you that not a single 1 of those is meaningless that you use the trials and the difficulties to refine our faith to grow our confidence in you to deepen our trust in the gospel and until the day when we see you. So help us please to digest and enjoy all the layers of this cake to look forward to our hope to enjoy what we have now, to encourage 1 another in our difficulties.

Help us to keep rubbing these things in in Jesus' name. Our men.