Go Higher

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. We are finishing today our series called Resolve. We started it the first Sunday in January and it's finishing today. And through this series, I hope you found it a bit practical and also inspirational to understand when we face conflicts in this world, be they with people, situations, or when we face things that are difficult in this world, how we can see a bigger picture, a bigger reason maybe behind it all. And today, that's exactly what we're going to be focusing on when we get to the book of 1 Peter chapter 1 and how Peter reframes everything for a higher purpose in your life and mine when we face difficulties here. And I think we're finishing up this series today with a great passage and an understanding I think that seems to be missing in our culture these days. I have a feeling other places in the world understand this a bit better than we do here in America anymore. But Peter is talking to Christians in the first century that are facing a difficult time and I think we've kind of lost that sense. And yet, he sums it up. There are three points that we're going to be looking at in this passage. You can find it in 1 Peter as we walk through it, but these are the three points we're looking at today. That you have a living hope, a tested faith, and a glorious salvation. So let's read 1 Peter chapter 1. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. So that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. It's a powerful passage. Peter wrote it to Christians who are facing a very perilous time in their lives. A minority of minorities, small little churches of 30, 50, 100 scattered throughout the Roman Empire that was not a hospitable place for a new faith to form. But he says we have a living hope. A living hope. I love that. Peter writes as well, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope. Did you see that in that line? Yeah. Now, that is in contrast now to our society, by the way, I think. What a contrast to how people are feeling these days. As I shared last week, Michael Bonner wrote a piece in, I think, the Atlantic. And he was just reporting statistics and things that he had heard and read. He found that the percentage of teenage Americans right now who claim not to enjoy life or to believe that their lives are basically not useful has grown to nearly 50%. Half of our young people now, yeah, life is not enjoyable and I don't think I'm useful in any way. That is a 20% increase just since the 1990s. So this is something new that is happening. It seems the world is filled as well. We've got more comfort. We've got more amusements than ever before. But somehow there is a feeling of pessimism. Not just, I think, among young adults, but among the whole culture. It's ironic, really, because I don't really want to go back to when I was a child to black and white television, right? I don't want to go back to a lot of those issues because we've come a long ways, a long ways in some very positive things from medical breakthroughs to technological, all that stuff. And yet it feels like there's less hope today than ever before. Too many people are feeling like they've got a dead end going on. Jean Twenge has written a phenomenal book called Generations. And in it, she describes in her research, both qualitative and quantitative, what she is finding among what she calls Gen Z, which starts in 1995 to 2012-ish, 2010. But that's who we're seeing as young adults right now. And she says this, every indicator of mental health and psychological well-being has become more negative among teens and young adults since 2012. Teens also began to show signs of depression and self-doubt. Starting around 2012, they became more likely to agree with statements like, I can't do anything right, and my life is not useful, and less likely to agree with, I enjoy life as much as anyone, all classic symptoms of depression and low self-esteem. These were, again, sudden and large changes after several deca...