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1 Peter 1 – Why Believers Fall and Fail
At Home in this World and Is This World is our Home?
I’m concerned. If there was one succinct answer as to why so many believers fall away, it might be this: Are we living as “strangers” in this world (1 Peter 1:1)?
Two ways Christians can fail in this:
1. At home in this world – Are we comfortable living according to the standards of our times or contrariwise by living gospel ethics?
2. This world is our home – Are we mainly focused on this as our home, or looking to the next?
Further in 1 Peter 1, Jesus’ apostle shows how these believers were NOT at HOME in this world:
• “you suffer grief in various trials” (1:6)
That world did not consider these believers to be part of their HOME! Does this world?
Further along in 1 Peter 1 we see how these believers were NOT at HOME in this world by their “gospel ethics”:
• “Do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance…Be holy for I am holy” (1:14-16)
Again in 1 Peter 1 we see how these believers did NOT consider this world their HOME:
• “a new birth into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1:4)
• “set your home completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:13)
Notice these two points as the old gospel hymn has us sing:
This world is NOT my HOME
I’m just a-passing through
My treasures are laid up
Somewhere beyond the blue
The angels beckon me
From heaven’s open door
And I CAN’T feel at HOME
In this world anymore
Want to experience the new birth into a living hope?
1. Don’t be at home in this world.
2. Don’t let this world be your home.
Live as “strangers”.
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