Sermon

Genuine Faith: Living Hope for Life at the Margins

Do you feel like you are running a spiritual deficit? Financial pressures. Family drama. Failing health. Social pressures. And all that on top of a global pandemic. Its easy to feel like all these issues are the cause but could they be showing us something about our faith? The way you think about your past circumstances and your future hope is crucial in living out your faith in the present. It reveals where your faith is placed or misplaced. In 1 Peter, we find that we can have a genuine faith that endures through every trial and can’t be taken away. It's this faith which lies at the center of the Gospel and provides power that transforms the way we live today and hope that enables us to press on even in the midst of suffering. First Peter is a letter written by the apostle Peter to encourage early Christians to live faithfully and humanely in a faithless and inhumane world. The letter emphasizes our Christian responsibility as “resident aliens” in a world that desperately needs the influence of the good news of Jesus Christ. Therefore, Christians shouldn’t be surprised or ashamed to suffer for doing the right thing in an often contrary and at times hostile world. Peter gives us hope that we too can live like our Lord Jesus Christ, who entrusted Himself to God in the midst of His suffering. We can be sure that God will use our suffering to strengthen and purify our faith, as well as to demonstrate the truth and beauty of the gospel to the watching world.