This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom, and I want to welcome you to week five of our look
through the New Testament. Our last week, we're going to finish this week, so
you're going to have gone through the entire New Testament in just five weeks.
We start this week with 1 Peter.

As we begin our look at this letter written by the Apostle Peter, I just want
you to think with me for a moment about the experiences that Peter had with
Jesus, and maybe which of them was the greatest of those experiences. Maybe it
was the day that Jesus called Peter from his fishing business to follow him, or
maybe it was the day on the Mount of Transfiguration when he was there with
Jesus and he saw him as white as the sun, or maybe it was seeing Jesus walk on
the water and then walking to him on the water. Maybe it was the day of
Pentecost, or what about the day that God called him to visit Cornelius?

As you read 1 Peter, something begins to dawn on you. You begin to realize that
none of those experiences affected Peter quite so much as the day that he met
Jesus for breakfast on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. You might remember that
story that Peter wasn't sure what direction his faith would take him, so he and
some of the other disciples went fishing and they met Jesus there unexpectedly,
and Jesus had a word to say to Peter.

He said to him, "Feed my sheep. " He said it three times, "Feed my lambs, feed
my sheep," and that is what Peter spent his life doing, feeding the sheep. 1
Peter, in many ways, is written in response to that command that Jesus had given
Peter so many years before.

Peter is writing to some of the sheep in Asia Minor, giving them some
much-needed spiritual food. So look at 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 1 to 3, "Peter,
an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God's elect, strangers in the world scattered
throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who have been chosen
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying work of
the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood. Grace and
peace be yours in abundance.

" So Peter writes to this group that he calls "strangers scattered. " It was a
group that was facing increased persecution against the Church. They were no
longer a protected religion.

They were being persecuted. This date of this letter is probably before 64 AD,
maybe the beginning of Nero's persecutions of the Church. He's writing to this
mixture of Jews and Gentiles who are feeling lonely in an increasingly hostile
world.

They're feeling like strangers, like outcasts. They're sensing how really
different they are from the world that's around them. In many ways, this is a
letter for today.

This is a letter for right now. Now I don't know how these people in Cappadocia
and Pontus and Galatia and all those regions first heard the good news. But
those three, Cappadocia, Pontus, and Galatia, are mentioned in Acts chapter 2 on
that day that Peter preached the first sermon that the Church would ever hear.

The Church began. So just what if, and the Bible doesn't say this happened, just
what if some of them heard Peter's first sermon? They were baptized that day
with the 3,000 and they took the message back.

Now there's nothing to tell us that that's a fact, but it is a compelling
thought that Peter might be writing to a few of those who were saved on the
first day of the Church. When Peter calls them strangers, he's telling them, and
us, to embrace the truth about who we really are. Embrace the fact that you are
different from this world.

That's your hope that you're different from this world. Stop trying to blend in
and decide to stand out, because you do as a follower of Jesus Christ. You can
see this throughout this letter.

It's the message of this letter. All through the letter he talks about how we're
to be different. How we're to live a cut above in this world below.

In fact, the letter, 1 Peter, is eight specific ways that we do that. That we're
different and that makes us live different. In chapter 1 verses 2 to 5 he says
we have a different hope.

When it comes to hope, world below living is, hope is wishing. Just sort of
wishing everything's going to come out okay. Cut above living is realizing that
hope is living.

It is a living thing that God has given to us that works every day in our lives.
1 Peter 1, 3, "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.

" So we're different. We have a different hope. Verses 2 to 13 says we have a
different faith.

In the world below, faith is feeling. In the cut above living, faith is
trusting. It's trusting in God.

1 Peter 1, 14 to chapter 2, verse 2 says we have a different character, the
character of holiness. "In the world below we're conformed to those who are
around us. When we live a cut above because of who we are in Jesus Christ, we're
transformed by his love for us.

" 1 Peter 1, 14 to 15, "As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires
you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so
be holy in all that you do. " Transformed.

Just as he who called you is holy, be holy. We're transformed because we're
looking at who he is. We're following him.

We have a different character. We have a different faith. We have a different
hope.

Chapter 2 also tells us that we're a different people. We are a different
people. In the world below, people live for pleasure, popularity, or power.

In the cut above living, we live for God's purposes. 1 Peter 2, 9, "But you are
a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God,
that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness and into
his wonderful light. " That's who we are.

Because we know Jesus Christ, we also have different relationships. Chapter 2,
verse 13 to 312 talks about that. "In the world below, relationships are
governed by selfishness.

Relationships are forgetting. In the cut above living, relationships are about
submission. Relationships are forgiving.

" The word "submission" means I give myself to someone else to love them. I
don't live in selfishness anymore. Chapter 3, verses 13 to 22 says we have a
different message.

World below, the message is good news. Cut above, the message is good news.
Chapter 4, verses 1 to 19, we have a different response to suffering.

In the world below, you defend your life if you're suffering. In the cut above
living, you give your life even when you're suffering. That's an entirely
different way to live.

The only way you can live that way, the only reason you can live that way, is
because of what God has given you in Jesus Christ. You don't have to defend your
life because you realize your life is not in you, it's in him. And your life is
not in this world, it's in eternity.

So even when you're facing suffering, you continue to be able to give to others,
even in the suffering, because of what he's done for you. And then chapter 5,
verses 1 to 11 talk about a different leadership. In the world below, we have
selfish leaders.

When you live a cut above, you learn how to be a servant leader. And if you're
going to be a servant leader, you need a quality, an attitude, a character of
life that's talked about in 1 Peter 5, 6. Humble yourselves therefore, under
God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up.

If you're going to live a cut above, you've got to live the kind of life that
recognizes that he's the one that's going to lift you up. As long as you're
trying to lift you up, you're going to find that you might have some major of
success in this world, but you're never going to lift yourself to where he could
lift you to. And even if you do have some measure of success, you still have a
deep sense of loss, because you know what could happen.

More often than not though, when you try to lift yourself up, you find yourself
falling again and again and again. So you humble yourselves under God's mighty
hand, that he may lift you up. This whole book is written to tell us that we are
different.

We're to live a cut above in this world below. We are a hopeful and holy people.
We are a submissive and serving people.

We suffer with the confidence of victory, and we lead with the humility of a
shepherd. So with that heart and mind, that we are to be different, I want to
take a minute to pray together. Would you pray with me?

And in prayer, would you just say, "Jesus, help me to embrace the fact that I'm
different, that you want me to live in a different way. Thank you that I have a
different hope, I have a different faith. Thank you that we are a different
people, selected by you, but thank you also that there's a different kind of
leadership that grows out of that, the leadership of humility.

So the fact that I am different, I don't want to make that a measure of pride in
my life. I want to humbly let other people know that the only reason there's any
difference in my life is because of what you've done, Jesus Christ, because I
want to see that same difference happen in every person that's around me. Jesus,
you offer this different kind of life to all of us, and I pray that you bring us
into contact with some people today that would see the difference, and you'd
help us to share the difference in a way that lets them know that they're
invited to.

Thank you for the invitation to a different kind of life because of you, Jesus
Christ. In your name we pray, amen. Tomorrow we're going to look at 2 Peter,
which talks about how to have a fall-free faith.