Great and Precious Promises

What this episode covers

Blank Outline Completed Outline 2 Peter 1:1-4 2 Peter 1:1-4 Just a few verses from 2nd Peter chapter 1, and the first four verses you can follow along as I read. This is from Simon Peter. He describes himself as a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, have received a faith as precious as ours, gracious greeting, grace, and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Here’s our key phrase we want to focus on this morning. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. Let’s pray together this morning. Let me give you an update on Hardy Hunt before we do. So, if you were here last Sunday, we shared that Hardy Hunt had a tree trimming accident about nine days ago. He’s been in St. Joe Hospital since then and is making some progress. So, he had multiple fractures and a fracture in his face, 12 stitches in the side of his head. Many of you have been praying for him. Many of you have visited him. Thank you for that. That’s encouraged. Hardy’s a very much a people person. So, he likes to be around people. He likes visitors. And thank you to many of you who have done that. So, Thursday he got moved from the, I think it was the eighth floor to the fourth floor, and now he’s starting a little bit of PT. And as he says, it only hurts when he moves because he got two broken ribs, compression fracture in the back, broken tailbone, and a crack in his pelvis. So, no wonder it only hurts when he moves. But pray for Hardy and we’ll look forward to him being back with us at some point in time. Just a little side note on Hardy. I was talking to his neighbor’s father-in-law when I was visiting Hardy on Thursday. And the neighbor’s father-in-law told me that Hardy no longer has a ladder in his garage. So, the neighbor went over and took it. And like, no more ladders. No more ladders. So, all right. So, we’re going to jump into a topic here called Great and Precious Promises. That’s really from 2nd Peter chapter 1, the verses that we read. So, we finished up the book of Colossians about 3 or 4 weeks ago. Then if you were here, I think 2 weeks ago, David and Susan Sawatsky were here, who served the Lord in Siberia for many years. And they gave an update on his life and his journey in ministry and the book that he’s written, Iron Broom. Many of you bought that book. Then last week, we had Pastor Samai here, and he gave a brief report and had a Mother’s Day recognition. So, this morning, we’re going to head into a series on Great and Precious Promises, 4 or 5 messages. And then we will, probably for the summertime, jump into a book study, probably the book of Ecclesiastes. One of the most fascinating books in the Bible. So that’s kind of where we’re headed. So, let’s think about this verse here from 2nd Peter chapter 1, verse 4, where Peter’s writing to people who have been displaced because of persecution. The first letter that Peter wrote, he’s writing to people who were displaced because of persecution, and they’re scattered abroad. They’re being persecuted for their faith in Jesus. And so, the theme of 1st Peter is pain with a purpose. All of us go through pain in life, whether physical pain or emotional pain. One of the things that helps us get through pain is we realize, hey, there’s an ultimate goal in this. There’s a purpose in this pain. And Peter writes 1st Peter to let those believers know, yes, you’re going through difficult times and pain, but God has a purpose in your pain. God doesn’t want to waste any pain that’s in our life. He has a purpose for it. And so, Peter writes about these very

Distinct summary based on available episode metadata or transcript content.