Scriptures: 1 Peter 1:3–12

Sermon Focus: Listeners will be challenged to place their faith in Jesus. The insecurities of other types of faith will be contrasted by the consistency a faith in Jesus provides.

Introduction

In his book, Six Hours One Friday (p. 15, Multnohmah Books, 1989), Max Lucado tells the story of how he and his boat survived a hurricane. An old sea man gave Max the advice to take his boat to deep water, drop four anchors off each corner of the boat, and pray that the anchors held. Max survived that storm, but he says that he learned an important lesson: all of us need an anchor that will hold during the storms of life.

That anchor is our faith. What have you put your faith in? How important is it to have faith? Where do we find faith strong enough to make it through the storms of life? Peter knows how important faith is, and he gives us a great picture of faith: a faith that we can anchor deep with, and a faith that will hold us during the storms of life.

When Peter wrote his letter, things were changing. At the beginning of the first century, the government remained unconcerned about this new religious sect. As the church grew, the constrictions of the government increased. Peter is writing to people who are finding it increasingly difficult to live their faith.

Even today, it is not easy to be a Christian, but we must find a way to live our faith without compromise. Peter helps us gain some insight into how to live an authentic, Christ-centered faith in the midst of some difficult times.

1. Timeless faith (1:4-5)

The question is not if we have faith; everyone has faith. The atheist has faith that his rational reasoning has removed the possibility of God. He has faith in his intellectual ability. Others have faith in their abilities, skills, connections, friends, family, and themselves. Everyone has faith. The question is, “Where is your faith anchored?

Sooner or later the storms of life will begin to

Sooner or later the storms of life will begin to blow and then the question becomes will the anchor of faith hold. Peter gives us three reasons that it is important to anchor our faith in Christ.

A. Faith in Christ is imperishable.

How can that be? Well, look where faith in Christ is kept—in heaven. Jesus says that we are to put our treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy them or thieves cannot steal them. My wife has bought me

several garment bags for my suits. She puts cedar in them. She does this because she knows that the suits are the most valuable clothes I have and that they are mostly wool. Moths could destroy the suits in a short time, but she tries to make them imperishable. Not too long ago, I left one of my sweaters out of its bag. I did not think it would hurt to leave it out. I found it about four weeks ago with little holes all over it. The moths had destroyed it.

If our faith is set upon the things of this world, then our faith will perish. Countless kingdoms have come and fallen; economies have been built and destroyed; and nations have been established and vanished. All that is left of some of those kingdoms are the ruins you can see in a museum. Only the kingdom of God has remained constant in the past two thousand years. Our faith is to be set in heaven and not on the things of this world. That is the only way we know our faith is imperishable.

1. Our faith will be uncorrupted.

You have no doubt heard the phrase absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is a statement that indicates our sinful nature. History is full of leaders who started off with the best intentions, but pride, ego, or other flaws got in the way. If we place our faith in a leader, it is…

Summary: Everybody has some type of faith. People have faith in many different things. When we get into our car, we have faith that it will crank and get us to our destination. We have faith that our doctor knows what he or she is doing. everybody has this mindset.

1.What is faith?

To understand what faith is, we must get past certain misconceptions about it.

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There are people who think that as long as they are sincere about what they believe, their faith will be good enough.

But Paul says in 2 Tim. 1:12: “For I know whom I have believed,” so saving faith is not in an object or some self-concocted idea, but in Jesus Christ.

if your beliefs are not founded on the right person, it doesn’t matter what else you believe.

Hebrews, chapter 11, tells us what real faith is. Listen as I read our text again in Heb. 11:1-3 1Now faith is the substance of things hoped for; we notice the word “substance.”, A good way to understand the meaning of “substance” is to think of a sub-floor, it is what is holding up what is above it, it is the unseen support.

Faith is the affirmative response to God’s will and Word. Man possesses faith when he takes God at his word. We don’t need to see something to believe it. Faith is the acceptance of something simply because God has said it.

Jesus said in JN.20:29, “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” 

1. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hope is faith relating to the future; conviction is faith relating to the present.

2.By doing so, the elders obtained a good report.

Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things that are seen were not made of things that do appear.

No man was present to witness the creation; it must be accepted by faith. He created something out of nothing, so that things that are seen were not made of things that do appear. The book of Genesis explains the events of this creation, and that explanation must be accepted through faith.

True faith is simple obedience to and belief in God’s word in spite of circumstances or consequences. Faith is described in a two-fold way. It is the “substance of things hoped for,” and “the evidence of things not seen.”

Again, the word “substance” means literally ‘to stand under or to support.’ Faith is the foundation that gives the believer the confidence to stand. “Faith is the confidence of things hoped for.”

God has two ways in which men can come to Him today. The first is that you can come to Him through work. That is, if you can present perfection in your works, God will accept you—but so far, nobody has been able to do that. Adam didn’t, and no one since has ever been able to do it. Abraham didn’t, and David didn’t, and Daniel didn’t. None of them made it by being perfect. Therefore, this is not a satisfactory way to come to God, but many people are hobbling along that futile route.