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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

Now Converted: Lessons from the Life of Peter

David Wright

Lessons from the Life of Peter 1

So this morning I'm starting a three-part series.

It's called Now Converted, Lessons from the Life of Peter.

We're gonna kind of do a speed through, if you will, because it's only 3 parts.

But we're going to be looking at snippets of his life and how God led him and how he was prepared for some things and maybe not so prepared as he thought he was for other things as we develop this along.

I'm gonna ask, do you like to burn things?

Are there any pyromaniacs here in the house?

That's where you just love to start Anything and everything on fire.

Maybe it started with a magnifying glass.

Maybe you started melting some of your toys.

Just this week we were at Elizabeth's uncle's house and he had a torch that he said he paid 10 dollars for that attached to his propane tank, and he could strike that thing up, and there was literally a flame this big that you could barely see because it was blue, just going, whoo, and I thought, now that's cool.

But here we are burning brush, and you know the hard part is to get the fires going.

They say the best time to burn brush is when it's lightly sprinkling or raining.

But if you can get that going, and that can be the challenge, you get some dry wood under there, but once it's really hot, You can't even get very close to that fire.

You have to shield your face and other things and toss it in and at some point it doesn't matter what you toss in, it's going to burn.

I mean it can be green, you can you just cut it just 5 minutes ago and it's a great way to clear.

How many of you have poked in a fire for, I don't know, hours maybe?

What's so satisfying about poking into a fire?

I don't know, but It's mesmerizing, isn't it?

Or sometimes my kids like to put cans in there.

Here's 1 that you maybe haven't heard of.

If you take, this is not in my notes, this is just for free.

If you take a paper cup, and if you can balance that thing or stick a hole with a stick or something through the top and lay it in some hot coals, paper cup.

It will burn all the way down to the top edge of the water and then the water will boil but it will not burn the cup.

It will eventually evaporate out and burn slowly down, down, down.

But if you get it settled in there, all right, that's not what I'm here to talk about.

Well, on 1 specific occasion, I think it was almost 2 years ago, it was in February, it was 2021, the Wilkie family was not feeling well.

There was, I think Fay was still okay, but Ivan had COVID, Kathy had COVID, Bryce had COVID.

We were wondering how can we cheer them up from a distance?

You're saying, what does this have to do with the fire?

We still had our Christmas tree, Our live Christmas tree.

And so our tradition in our house is we take the tree out and we set it someplace and just let it cure a little longer until there's an opportune time that we can do what to the Christmas tree?

It's a little bit scary what happens when you burn a Christmas tree.

So we loaded up in the back of the pickup.

We drove over to the Wilkies because we're in the neighborhood now and this can kind of panic the neighbors, but we thought we can do it in the Wilkies field.

And we called them, so I'm on the phone with Bryce at the moment, we said, come out on the porch, we have a surprise for you!

But this is how we roll here in this, so we're burning our Christmas tree in their field, and there's the kids, I mean you can't get too close.

Okay, see I'm not the only redneck here this morning.

I hope there's nobody here from the fire department today.

Now there are some things, okay, I'm gonna transition now to there are some things that you burn them and they won't be consumed.

Well, gold is such an example of something that will not be consumed.

The melting point of gold is 1, 943 degrees Fahrenheit.

So it's 1 of the highest melting points of almost any metal.

And so when they extract gold from the earth, there's a lot of things they do to refine it, but 1 of the ways is to heat it so hot that any impurity does what?

It melts or it burns, it dissipates, it goes away in this process, and what you pour out is this pure gold substance.

And gold won't corrode or rust or tarnish.

Fire can't destroy it, at least not fires that I can manufacture.

They say the Egyptians used charcoal and some blowpipes to reach the temperature needed to melt gold, because there's lots of gold used in Egyptian artifacts and so on.

And they would take the slag or the impurities, they'd skim that off the top.

And in fact, Peter mentions or hints at this very process.

And so if you have your Bibles, I wanna jump in here.

I haven't kept track how many times I've used the word Peter.

So we are in 1 Peter, chapter 1, beginning verse 3.

Peter is writing this in what probably is the last few years of his life.

We don't know if he lived to be in his 50s, would probably be my guess, maybe he got to 60.

We think he was executed probably at 64 AD by Nero, but this is towards the latter portion.

But we read here, 1 Peter 1, verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope.

Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in, when?

In the inheritance that's reserved for you in heaven.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while it need be you have been grieved by various trials that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

So we have a hope, we have an inheritance, and we are so thankful and grateful for that, but he says in verse 6, now for this time you will be confronted with various trials.

That in a similar way like the gold is tried in the fire, you too and your character will be tried in the fire.

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Series

Now Converted: Lessons from the Life of Peter

Lessons from the Life of Peter 1

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

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The Atheist Who Found God

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Norman McNulty Weekend

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Overcoming Trials

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