Passage: 1 Peter 5:1–14 (focus vv.1–11)
Speaker: Steve Hands
Series: Heaven Touching Earth – Community
Being Real with Authority
*due to technical difficulties portions of this sermon are missing.
“I love Jesus but hate the church.” Many people want to connect with the life-giving grace of God without the messiness of the church. Yet God’s grace flows through means. In the face of suffering, persecution, and displacement, we are called to stand firm in the grace of God (1 Pet 5:12). How? God’s grace flows through people, prayer, and perseverance.
This Sunday we conclude our series on our first value of Community: a place to belong and be real in Christ. Community means that we need one another. Community means that the Christian life is not to be lived alone. In fact, we cannot live the Christian life alone because God’s grace flows through people, prayer, and perseverance. Together we receive God’s grace until we receive a crown of glory (1 Pet 5:4) to which we are called (5:10). Yet this glory is not only for the future; we taste of that glory now (5:1) as we feast on the riches of his grace. May God’s grace abound to us as it flows through people, prayer, and our perseverance together.