Your Inheritance, Part 1

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Jesus shared the parable of a man who, after finding a treasure in a field, sold all that he had to buy the field. Christ is the great treasure our hearts long for. When we realize the inheritance we have in him, we loosen our grip on everything else.

He's our highest good and our deepest satisfaction. Let's look at 1 Peter 1, 3 through 5 as Rich shares the message titled Your Inheritance. Live as people who are free is the title of this whole series. And the whole series through 1 Peter will be five different series. And there are, in this first one, the identity of a free people. The second sermon for this series is Today's Your Inheritance.

We're going to be looking at verses 3, 4, and 5 of 1 Peter 1. Let me take you to a small town called Rubio in Venezuela. This was 1975. I was in fifth grade. I was living in the junior boys' dorm of Christiansen Academy. And in my bedroom that I shared with, I don't know, four or five other boys in bunk beds, I was lying on the bottom bunk. I distinctly remember as if I was right there, lying there, choked up, because I missed home. I wasn't home. It was a two-day trip just to get home in Colombia where my parents were serving as missionaries.

I distinctly remember those feelings of homesickness. Now, there is a Welsh word for that. I studied that because I am part Welsh. You got that, right? I mean, you get that.

Just listen to me. And I know, I just look and sound Welsh, don't I? At first I thought I was Scottish, and I thought, well, you know, William Wallace is my heritage, but, well, that was shattered, so anyway. Let me introduce you to a word today. The word is hirraith. You can say that with a Welsh, to say it properly, hirraith.

You have to kind of roll the R. Can you say that? Hirraith. This is a word, it's a Welsh word, and it means the consciousness of a person being out of his home area and that which is dear to him.

Hirraith. As we studied last time, Peter is writing to believers, and he refers to them as elect exiles. Exiles in the sense, you're strangers where you are. You do not belong here. Your home is actually somewhere else. So, live in the values with your hope anchored home, in your homeland. He says, but you are elect exiles, meaning God is saying to his people, you are mine. You have been the object of my loving concern from eternity.

That's powerful, folks. So, whatever circumstance you find yourself in, know this. A, you don't belong here, this is passing, this too shall pass. B, and this is an even greater truth, you have been the object of God's loving concern from eternity.

That doesn't change. There's great comfort in that. So, this homesickness, this hirraith, let's talk about that. Now, there might be some of you sitting here today, probably a fair amount of you.

Either you're young, you're like, you know, I just don't think about that. Life, I got so much life in front of me, or some of you might be sitting kind of pretty. You're comfortable, life is good. I'm pretty happy, I'm not really feeling homesick. Rich, all this homesick talk, it's just, you know, end of life stuff. You're getting up there, Rich, that's why you're talking about this.

No, I'm not, it's right here in the text. God gives all good things for us to enjoy, but listen, please, God gives all things for us to enjoy. But they are not our end. That is not what defines us. And do you know why there is so much stress and despair in the world today? Because people are looking for things to define them. Not just things, but relationships. But they're looking for things under the sun to define them.

They're looking for their purpose and their ultimate satisfaction in the things that will eventually no longer exist. And if you might be sitting there thinking, you know, I'm not really feeling homesick these days. I'm enjoying life pretty well.

One thing I can say is give it time. You walk the path under the sun long enough and you will have a sense about you that you respond to it in the same way that Ernest Hemingway did. That was his take on life. Ernest Hemingway, a prolific literary career, and the man had every available pleasure, every possible pleasure available to him. And he took advantage of it. He could have written Ecclesiastes, except for the final chapter, which says, remember now, you're creator in the days of your youth. He never got there. This was his view on life.

Something we need to understand is the sense of homesickness is natural for all people. For all people. You say, what are you talking about, Rich? Well, this here, right? Augustine said it well. He says, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.

C.S. Lewis said, if I find in myself a desire which no experience on this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. He's also the one that said history is a long, terrible story of man trying to find satisfaction in something other than God. And it's true because we all have that longing. Believers are not able to identify what that longing is. But the image of God in every person and every person is made with the image of God. That image of God in every individual longs for a greater purpose and an ultimate good.

That's the Imago Dei in every human being. That's that homesickness in us because that ultimate good, that higher purpose is not found just here under the sun. We can be a part of it, but that's not where we find it. Randy Alcorn in his book, Heaven, I've mentioned Elise Fitzpatrick's book Home. I strongly recommend you read that book, particularly as we're studying First Peter.

And then Randy Alcorn's book's been around a little longer, but it's entitled Heaven. He says this, nothing is more often misdiagnosed than our homesickness for heaven. We think that what we want is sex, drugs, alcohol.

And a lot of you are saying, yeah, yeah, all those things because I don't struggle with that. He goes on, a new job, a raise, a doctorate, a spouse, a large screen television, a new car, a cabin in the woods, a condo in Hawaii. We think these things are what we're really longing for. He says what we really want is the person we were made for. Stop and think about that a moment. What we really want is the person we were made for.

It's absolutely true. The satisfaction of our souls has a name. He is the one who made us, and he made us for himself. You see, the believer knows that that is Christ himself. As the apostle Paul wrote, my desire is to be with Christ, for that is far better. That doesn't mean he hated life. It meant he knew that there was something far better than this very transient temporal experience that we have right now. This is not what defines me. This is not where my hope is found. So what does Peter do here?

He begins in the right place. He's writing to the elect exiles. Remember, they're experiencing slander, they're experiencing reviling. The home has just burned, the Christians are being blamed. To be a Christian is to be persona non grata in the Roman Empire at this time.

Christians were experiencing a colossal canceling. They were not feeling at home. And this is why Peter is drawing their attention to where home truly is.

Not just as an escape mentality, but to understand who you are, where your hope lies, and how all of that impacts how you engage your present reality. Peter begins in the right place. Look what he says in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the right place to begin. Regardless of what your circumstances are, adversity or prosperity, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Notice Peter does not begin with a whole list of all the adversities.

I know you're going through this and all that and all these grievances against politicians and all the bad things that are happening in life. That's not where he begins. That's not the right place to begin. Because that's beginning with us and our experience.

He also does not begin with a prescription of a whole list of behaviors that, well this is what you should be doing. No, that's not where he begins. He begins with blessed be God. That could be translated as praise be to God. Praise be to God. Regardless of what circumstance you find yourself in, praise be to God.

Your perspective in every circumstance begins with God's goodness. If that is the case, that's a good indicator of what is at your center. In fact, whatever your response is to whatever circumstances in which you find yourself, that's a good indicator of what is at your center. What do I mean what is at your center?

Remember I used to draw a circle representing a wheel and in the middle is the hub and then all the spokes going out from the hub. And everything revolves around that hub. That's the center. That is the place of preeminence, the most important position. Because everything revolves around what is at the center. What's at your center? What is, or who is preeminent in your life?

This is an indicator. How you respond to either prosperity or adversity is a good indicator, is what is at your center. What is at your center is what controls you, is what motivates you. It ultimately is what you worship.

You could call it your core strength. We know how important that is. I think Job was a really good example of this in scriptures. We studied the book of Job here.

Remember what happened to him? Satan goes before the Lord God Almighty and he says, and the Lord says, have you considered my servant Job? Because the Lord knew what Satan was up to. And he says, listen, it's not that you're worthy, it's that you're bribing your people for their worship. We're so glad you've joined us for Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. You can hear this message and others anytime by visiting our website, www.delightingrace.com. You can also check out Pastor Rich's book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life, where he unpacks from God's word the very purpose for which you were designed. Seven Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace weekdays at 10 a.m.