Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTENTION

It’s a great and amazing invention, but it also is one of the great abusers of our time.

It victimizes many.

It’s the internet and one of its greatest victims is . . . the Truth!

In fact let me give what one person says is some of the top lies told on the internet, especially in social networks:

6) Here’s a picture of me!

5) Click here to remove your name from our mailing list.

4) You are receiving this e-mail because you signed up for the "HyperWonderful Opt-In Deals Club"...

3) I like the internet because here people like me for me, not because I just happen to be fabulously wealthy.

2) You too can make a $100,000 a year from the comfort of your own home!

1) Yes, I look like Brad Pitt except taller with more muscles.

This loss of truth in the world of hard drives only reflects the culture that created it.

Its not just online where honesty is at a premium.

We struggle with the truth generally.

Consider these examples:

George O’Leary resigned his position as coach of the fighting Irish of Notre Dame when it was discovered that he had embellished his resume

Historian, Stephen Ambrose, hardly winced over the discovery of his plagiarism.

Joseph Ellis, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his book, Founding Brothers, invented his own Vietnam War record.

I could go on, but there are just too many examples to name.

James Patterson and Peter Kim, co-authors of The Day America Told the Truth, estimate that 91% of us regularly embroider the truth.

Ok, that’s the politically correct title.

The truth is, we lie!

And do you know the worst kind of lies that we tell?

They are not the lies we tell one another.

While those are certainly wrong and harmful, the worst kind of lies are the ones we tell ourselves.

Self-deception is the worst deception of all.

In fact, you can tell a lie so long, you actually start to believe it.

This is dangerous in any endeavor, but its especially true in spiritual things.

NEED

You see, there are two particular groups of people I want to talk to this morning.

Some of you are deceived.

You think you are a follower of Christ, but you’re really not.

You may say things that sound spiritual and you may even wear the Peace Church uniform (you know a coat and tie).

You may serve in some ministry and you may even give money, but if you died right now you would not go to heaven and the worst part about that is, you think you would.

You’re deceived.

Now there are other people here who may or may not be saved.

The truth is, you really aren’t sure if you are or not.

The problem with group number one is that they think they are saved, but they aren’t.

The problem with this group is that they aren’t sure and they need help to figure it out.

No matter which group you’re in, I really want you to tune into this message today, because I want to share with you, right from God’s word, two good evidences that let you know if you’re the real deal.

Whether you’re deceived or doubtful, these two biblical evidences lay out for you just how you can answer the question, “Am I for real?”

You find them in 1 Peter 1.

There Peter opens the letter telling these beleaguered believers that, even though they may be suffering in the world now, they have an amazing salvation and an incorruptible future.

Then he continues in 1:6:

In this (that is in this great salvation you have been given and in this wonderful future you are promised) In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials,

And why are they having to go through such grief and distress?

Why are they undergoing trial?

Peter tells them:

that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 8 whom having not seen you love.

Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.

Don’t miss what Peter is saying: He says in that seventh verse that the whole reason that they now suffer is so that their faith will be proven to be genuine.

That word genuine means to be tested.

It carries the idea of putting something through a “crucible.”

By the way, do you know what a crucible is?

It is a container, highly resistant to melting heat, which is used to hold things that you want to melt.

So Peter, when he speaks of the genuineness of their faith, he is talking about that quality of their faith that has been severely tested by fire and found to be the real deal.

It’s genuine.

Now, in talking about this “tested faith,” he gives us a couple of clues which help us determine what it takes to have that kind of “real deal” faith.

Let’s take a look at them.

The first element that proves your faith to be real is this:

DIV 1: ENDURANCE

EXPLANATION

Now the reason endurance is needed is because things get rough in the Christian life.

They were getting rough for these folks.

Peter doesn’t back away from this fact at all.

In fact, he acknowledges it right up front in v 6.

He says, In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire,

Now, when I say that in our American church, we have a little trouble relating to it, don’t we?

I mean we have troubles, yes, but we really have not had a lot of outright persecution.

You ever ask yourself why?

Why is it that we get off so easy when around the world, other believers live in fear of their lives.

One commentator wrote this:

I . . .

contend . . .

that our lack of suffering is, in part, due to a lack of nerve on the part of the church to challenge our contemporary world with the message of the cross and to live according to the teachings of Jesus with uncompromising rigor . . .

As a guiding principle . . .

those who live faithful lives in an unbelieving world will find opposition to both their ideas and their practices.

There will come a time for every believer where they will be faced with either undergoing pressure, threat or actual persecution for what they believe.

Now here’s the important point: It is at that point of pressure and trial that your real mettle is tested.

Genuine believers, Peter says, take the heat and keep standing.

They endure their trials and, in that endurance, prove themselves to be genuine

ILLUSTRATION

I do not hold myself up as some super example here because I am not.

Sometimes I look at me and think, “What have you really suffered for God.

I get to pastor a great church and spend time studying the Word of God.

Where’s the suffering?”

But I will have to tell you that there was a time in my life when God spoke very clearly to my heart.

I was at a crossroads.

He was calling me into ministry and I did not want to go.

I wanted to stay where I was and serve Him on my own terms.

And as I was driving from one Dr.’s office to another in the mountains of NC, there was one thought that kept popping up in my mind.

It was something like this: “Rusty, if you’re for real, you have to obey me and go into the ministry.”

Look, I don’t know what it will be for you, but this I do know.

God will not leave you unchallenged if you belong to Him.

There will come a time when serving Him costs you something and you’re going to have to decide to I obey Him or not.

And at that moment, listen to me Christian, at that moment there will be more at stake than whether or not you teach that class, or take on this new ministry, or go to that Christian college, or go to that mission field.

At that moment, my friend what will be at stake is the genuineness of your faith.

Every believer, that is every genuine believer will have trials and difficult decisions to face.

Genuine believers face them and obey God!

They endure trials