Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church, located in Kernersville, North Carolina. I want you to turn to 1 Peter chapter 1. First Peter chapter one, I enjoy all the songs, the music.
I will admit to you, as a kid, I grew up in church. I was in church more than most people because I didn't go to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. Which already there, that's more than most. But my dad was an evangelist, so I grew up going to church Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night. Saturday, we traveled to the next church.
And you think I'm exaggerating? No, my dad always kept at least 49, hopefully 50 weeks a year in revival. We only had two weeks off. Normally it was at Christmas because nobody has revival during Christmas. And so we were busy, and I was always in church.
And how many of you know that sometimes you sing songs? and you get the wrong idea of what the words actually say. You've sung them your whole life, and then one day you see it and realize you've been singing it wrong. I don't even want to know what some of you have been singing over the years, but I had a few of those. Years ago, we didn't have screens, and so we had hymn books.
And sometimes, once you got used to the song, you felt like you knew it, you didn't use the hymn books. But that hymn that we sang today, up from the grave, he arose. With a mighty triumph o'er his foes. As a kid, I thought it was toes. And so for years till I got to college, I sang, you know, up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph o'er his toes.
I think maybe I felt that somehow For him to rise out of the grave, he had to get victory over his toes. I don't know. How that all equated, but uh Finally, one day I saw that it was foes. And I think about that every time I see that song now. We also in college, we would change words to hymns.
And y'all know the old song, I Was Sinking Deep in Sin, Far from the Peaceful Shore. We changed it to where I was sinking deep in sin, having a wonderful time, till my roommate turned me in, now he's no friend of mine. We would change words. And um So that's why we sing new songs here because I have ruined all the old ones. But thank you for being here today.
And I've enjoyed the music, it's prepared our hearts. And just briefly this morning, We celebrate this very special Um occasion. according to our faith. Really, we celebrate this every Sunday morning. The reason we have church on Sundays and that most churches, many churches have churches on Sund have services on Sundays.
Is because, according to the Bible, Jesus rose on the first day of the week, which is Sunday, meaning question about the Sabbath. And yes, in the Bible, often the Sabbath was Saturday, but we celebrate every Sunday the reason we have church. on Sunday is because we celebrate every week the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He resurrected on the first day of the week. This is special to us, and I'm going to go to a passage.
that you normally would not equate. With Easter Sunday morning. Our subject today is simple. Bye. the resurrection.
Bye. The resurrection. Do you know there's many things that you and I have? In our lives, that was made possible by the resurrection. of Jesus Christ.
It's only there. because of a resurrection. of Jesus Christ. And so we want to talk about that just briefly today and hopefully get a better understanding. of why this is so important.
to us. 1 Peter chapter 1. Look at verse one if you would. Verses will be on the screen for you. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.
to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus Galatia. Cappadocia, Asia. and Bethenium. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. through sanctification of the Spirit.
Unto obedience. and sprinkling of the blood Of Jesus Christ.
Now, Peter. begins this letter with a whole lot of doctrine coming at you. I mean he just unload, he backs up the beep beep truck and dumps it on you here. And he is talking to those that had been scattered, those who had come to the knowledge and faith. of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There's a lot of people that have the knowledge, but they've never come To the faith of Jesus Christ. It means they know the story, they know what the Bible says, but they have not personally put their faith and trust. in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
So Peter is writing here. to many that had been scattered. And he says, literally, grace unto you and peace. Be multiplied.
Now look at verse 3. Blessed be The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope. By The resurrection. of Jesus Christ.
From the dead. We are who we are. We have what we have. We look forward to what we look forward to. Because of by the resurrection.
of Jesus from the dead. And we're going to take just these few verses around it. And we want to brag on our Savior. today of all days to do it. on this victorious Day, Easter Sunday.
Lord, we love you. Thank you for every person here this morning. We're so glad they're here. We're so blessed with their presence. Thank you, Lord, that they wanted to celebrate this most special day.
with us. I pray that they'll feel loved and welcomed today. Thank you for all the work that's gone into the music. For the choir, for the specials, for the groups. Even last night, Lord, the violin solo that was so wonderful, the handbells.
Everything has been done. to bring honor and glory to you. And not to them.
So, Lord, I hope that you will accept our offering to you. Our offering of time to prepare, of talent to sing. Our offering to you of worship for what you've done. Worship for who you are. But most importantly Adherence.
to your word. And Lord, as we share the most important part of this service. As we look into your word. I pray that your word will look into us. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. Number one, I want you to notice, according to this passage, something that you and I have been greatly blessed with, and I'm very, very excited about this. Notice, number one, look at verse 3: we see abundant mercy. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, listen to this. According to His abundant mercy.
You and I wouldn't have any hope. We would have no reason to even be sitting in church today.
Some of you are thinking, Yeah, I'm looking for a reason to be sitting here at church today. I'm glad you're here at church today, but we would have no reason to be here in church today if it didn't start back from the beginning with the abundant mercy that God has showed us. None of us deserve salvation. None of us deserve Jesus to die for us. None of us deserve Him to resurrect from the grave.
The only reason He had to resurrect from the grave was for us. He was already God. Jesus was already perfect. He was already God. He was already in heaven.
But the only reason to be crucified and the only reason to be resurrected was us. And he did it for us. I don't know about you, you and I ought to be thankful for his abundant mercy. You say, Preacher, this morning, I've done too much. I've gone too far.
My sin is too great. May I say something? God does not have just enough mercy to cover what you've done. He has abundant mercy. That means whatever you've done, he's got enough mercy to cover that and what you're going to do in the future.
There is more of his mercy than there is of your sin. He didn't just have mercy. Listen, I have mercy. I have mercy. Which means There is a little bit of mercy in my life that I am willing to show on rare occasion.
But I do have mercy. There have been times And my wife has mistreated me. Pardon me. But I chose to extend forgiveness. From my heart.
With all humility. Because I have mercy. But there have been some times didn't. Show mercy. I said, where do you stand?
Look at me. Every one of us Maybe somewhere in our hearts. Have mercy. But we don't have abundant mercy. To say that Jesus has mercy, that wouldn't necessarily cover everyone's sin.
Because we would ask, well, he has mercy, but how much does he have? And if he has mercy, he might not have enough of what I've done, and he might not have enough of what my family's done. We just don't know how much he has.
So the Bible takes care of it. The Bible says that he has abundant mercy. That means whatever you come up with, he's got more of it. Today I want you to know that maybe your family doesn't have abundant mercy. Maybe you maybe your husband or your wife ran out of mercy.
Maybe you have some people in your life that have not shown mercy to you. And I want you to know that we love you and we pray for you, and everybody has a story to tell. But let me tell you one thing today, there is one person that has enough mercy for you. There is one person that is willing to show you mercy today for whatever you have done. That is Jesus Christ.
Abundant mercy. Notice number two. I love this little thing in verse 3. Not only were we blessed with abundant mercy, but can I tell you, secondly, By the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we were blessed because we were begotten again. What a fancy word.
Begotten. I don't sit at McDonald's and say, hey, would you like to have a bite of my begotten burger? I but got it for three dollars and fifty cents, you know. Would you like to have a bite of my begotten burger? You know, we just don't use that word a lot.
But can I tell you what the word means? This word begotten is interesting, and notice verse 3. according to his abundant mercy. I love this. Half begotten us again.
Now We would not Have the opportunity. to be begotten again. if he had not resurrected.
So you say, Preacher, what all does this mean?
Well, begotten. Literally, if you look it up in a dictionary. It means to brain In two existence. This is what my Bible says because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We were not just begotten.
We were begotten. Again. You see, you and I were brought into existence. We were given breath. At birth.
Because of God. The Bible says God breathed the breath of life. Into man. You and I have breath because of God. You say, well, I have breath because of my mom and dad.
No, you don't. You have breath because of God. And you were created by God. And the Bible says God knew how you were being formed when you were still in the womb.
So get this. We were begotten the first time. physically When we were born. But because Jesus came and he died, And he rose again. We have been begotten.
Again. Yeah. A second time. Spiritual, what do you mean?
Well, we were begotten. brought into existence when we were physically born at birth. But we were begotten again, spiritually made alive when we were born again. You see, through salvation, we are no longer now just created by God. We are now redeemed by God.
Our spirit has been made alive in Christ. We have been begotten. Again. Phew. Our sin produced the need.
His love supplied the answer. We have been forgotten. Again. Can I give you a third thing that you and I have been greatly blessed with this morning because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Number three, we have, according to verse three, a lively hope.
Look at verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again. On two. a lively hope.
So we have been begotten again when you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. You are begotten again. You are brought into existence again. You are made alive again, not just physically, but spiritually. And when that happens, you are now brought to a lively hope.
Which means before that you had no hope. You heard the phrase, no hope for the Pope? It's a true saying. Look at me, want you to get this? You and I now have Hope.
Look at me. What would we have to hope for if Jesus had not resurrected from the grave? If he couldn't bring himself out of the grave, we would have no hope that he could ever bring us out of the grave. If he is not able to live again, you and I would have no hope to be able to live again. But we do have hope now.
Why? Because he is alive.
So we now have a living hope. That word lively means living. We have a living hope. We have hope, and our hope is alive. Why?
Because our hope is centered in a person that is alive. who was dead, but is alive. Because he came out of the grave. You and I have hope. We're coming out of the grave.
Let me tell you something, if you had a loved one die, even through horrible, horrible circumstances.
Okay. And if they knew Jesus Christ. I want to give you some good news today. they are alive and well. Can I give you some better news?
They never even died. They never Died. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. The moment they took their last breath on earth, whatever circumstances it was, they took their first breath in heaven. Yeah.
They didn't die. Jesus died so we wouldn't have to. Many of you have heard On Psalm 23, when I preach on Psalm 23, I mentioned this of the pastor whose daughter passed away, I mean, his wife passed away suddenly. Dr. Jacob Gartenhaus, a wonderful pastor, preacher, evangelist, and he had a four-year-old daughter.
His wife got an illness and died within months. And so he was trying to figure out how to explain to his little girl that mommy was dead, that she was gone, that. We won't see her again, but we will see her again. She's alive and well in heaven. And he couldn't figure out the best way to explain it.
And so one day he was walking downtown to Indianapolis, Indiana. He had that little girl up on his shoulders, and they were kind of laughing. And this is a few months after she had passed away. And while they were downtown, the sun was shining on them, but you could see shadows of things coming at them. And he would act like it's going to hit us.
And he would jump away from the shadow and jump over here. Watch out, that person. And he was kind of having fun. And all of a sudden, he realized what an opportunity. And this big semi-truck trailer was coming down through the downtown area.
And you could see the shadow of that truck coming up the sidewalk. And he was holding his daughter. And he said, sweetheart, watch out. Look, that truck's getting ready to hit us, but they had nowhere to go. And so sure enough, the shadow got cast over them and she was laughing and...
He took her off his shoulders and set her down. He said, Sweetheart, let me ask you something. Would you rather be hit by that truck or would you rather be hit by that shadow. And she said, Well, Daddy, I'd rather be hit by the shadow. And he said, Sweetheart, I want you to understand something.
When mommy died, Mommy was hit by the shadow. It wasn't real. She didn't really die. She's in heaven with the Lord. He said, but when Jesus died on the cross...
He was hit by the truck. You see our Savior was hit by the truck.
So that you and I would only have to face The shadow. of death. See, you and I have a living Hope We've been begotten again. Because God Showed us abundant mercy. I want you to notice number four.
We have. An inheritance. My hope is built on nothing less. Than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
When he shall come, let trumpets sound. Oh, may I then in him Be found. Dressed in his righteousness alone. Faultless to stand. Before the throne.
On Christ, the solid rock. I stand. All other ground. is sinking sand. Because of his abundant mercy, because we've been begotten again, because we now have a lively hope.
We are on the solid rock. And according to this verse, I want you to notice this: look at verse 4. This is fantastic. Look at verse 4. to not just unto a lively hope We've already talked about that.
Verse 4, 2. Because verse 3 says, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Two, look at verse four. An inheritance. We have an inheritance.
Because Jesus resurrected from the dead, we now have not just a hope. But we have an inheritance. You say, Preacher, what do you mean by that?
Well, this verse explains it all. Notice first. Our inheritance is incorruptible. It's incorruptible. You can't take it away.
It's guaranteed.
Now you might have a earthly father or mother that's going to leave an inheritance, but There's a lot of things that can happen to take that away from you. And the government's going to take a piece of it anyway. But because of Jesus Christ, because He resurrected from the grave, we've not just been given an inheritance. We've been given an incorruptible heritage. Notice secondly, it's undefiled.
And Undefiled. Not only can nobody take it away from you, nobody can take anything out of it, nobody can take anything away from it. They can't do anything about it. When you've been saved by the grace of God, You have an inheritance. It's called heaven.
It's called all the blessings of Christ. It's called all the blessings of the Father because of what Jesus Christ has done. We have an eternity in heaven. We have a mansion in heaven. We have a home in heaven.
We have a new family. We have a new hope. We have a new future. It's our inheritance, and nobody can take it away. Notice thirdly, it's Eternal.
Not only can nobody ruin it, not only can nobody take it away, number three, it will never end. It's eternal. The Bible says here that our inheritance fadeth not Away. In verse 4. It's not like, hey, we get an inheritance for 100 years and then it's done.
We don't get in an arrogance for fifty years or five hundred years. Our inheritance will never, ever, ever fade away. We will have our inheritance. for an eternity. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
But can I tell you the best thing? about our inheritance. Look at verse 4. to an inheritance incorruptible. Undefiled.
that fadeth not away. Reserved. Reserved in heaven. For you. You cut a reservation.
It's already been put in your name. Nobody else is going to book that room. No manager's gonna overlook it and double book it. You've been given an inheritance that is incorruptible, it's undefiled, it's eternal, and it's got your name on it. It's been reserved.
It's waiting on you. All because Jesus Resurrected. From the dead. This all is ours. Bye.
the resurrection. Notice number five, we're almost done. Look at verse 5. Who are talking about us? Who are what?
Kept. He didn't save us and leave us. He didn't save us. And like show us abundant mercy, begotten us again, gave us a lively hope, gave us an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, eternal, and reserved. That would be more than we could ever ask for.
Right there, that's more than we deserve. It's more than we could ever earn. It's more than we could ever ask for. And if you agree with that, say amen. But he goes further.
He says, not only that. I'm gonna keep you. What does this word kept mean in the New Testament?
Well, in the Greek. This word kept means to be a watcher in advance, to mount a guard as a sentinel. to hem in, to protect. to surround. to keep with great care.
Yeah. Anybody else excited on the Easter Sunday morning? Hey, you're closer to food now than you were 15 minutes ago.
So at least get excited about that. Apparently you're the foes that that song talks about. Stead of the toes. You're the foes. Look at me.
God said, all right, I've done all this for you. Because Jesus resurrected from the grave. You're going to be begotten again. You're now gonna have a lively hope. You're gonna have an inheritance.
But let me tell you what else I'm gonna do. Because Jesus resurrected from the grave, I'm gonna guard you. I'm gonna protect you. I'm gonna provide from you. You're mine, and I'm gonna take care of you.
Look at me. How could you? The greatest news that anyone can receive is the news of the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is our desire for you to know him personally. Would you take a moment to hear this to-day?
Every man is born with a sin nature. Romans 3:23 says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. No matter how hard we try, We're not good enough to obtain God's glory. or to get to heaven. Because of that sin carries the penalty of death.
Romans 6.23 says, For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life for the through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of our sin, or the payment of our sin, only equals death and separation from God. But it's only through God's gift salvation through Jesus Christ that we can accept Him as our Savior. Jesus Christ paid for your sin debt.
The Bible says in Romans 5:8, But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. All you have to do is receive Christ. by faith as your Saviour. Romans 10.9 says That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Verse 13 continues, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
It's as simple as admitting that you're a sinner believing that Jesus is the only way. and calling upon his name. Bible says whosoever that's anyone can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Have you accepted Christ as your personal Savior? There is no greater day than today to take care of this.
Would you accept Christ as your Saviour? If you have any questions, please give us a call at 336-993-5192 or visit our website at Crowin Baptist Church. Dot com. or visits that person at one of our three service times. We hope you have a great rest of your day.
God bless you. Mm-hmm.
