"Understanding Our Great Salvation Causes Us to Worship God and have Joy!" (1 Peter 1:3) P

Our passage says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3). Christ followers who understand the mercy of God will praise God! Notice that apostle Peter worships God specifically because of God's "great mercy." Mercy withholds what was deserved! It focuses on how awful and deplorable the Christ follower's condition was BEFORE Jesus Christ! One of the reasons for waning or no joy is we have forgotten how bad our condition actually was BEFORE Christ! Apostle Paul reminds us, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience." (Ephesians 2:1-2). Paul continues, "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)" (Ephesians 2:4-5). Paul says we were in bad shape! He says we were "dead in our transgressions and sins." We were separated from God and could not commune with God. He says that we "were by nature children of wrath" (because of our sin nature we were under God's wrath). The Christ follower who has lost sight of the bad shape he or she was in BEFORE being saved will often struggle with worshipping God! Brothers and sisters, it's the gravity of just how deplorable our condition was that makes our salvation so wonderful! Many have lost their joy because they've forgotten how much the Lord has rescued them from! Thank God for His mercy! That's why Peter is blessing God and that's what Paul emphasized with the words, "But God, being rich in mercy!" WHEN WE'RE PUT IN REMEMBRANCE OF WHERE WE WERE WITHOUT GOD, WE SEE JUST HOW GREAT HIS MERCY REALLY IS! Understanding God's mercy causes us to be filled with joy and praise to Him! God's great mercy has changed us from "having no hope and without God in this world!" Remember that Peter is writing to Christ followers that are being persecuted for their faith and have been scattered from their original homes in different parts of the Roman Empire! Peter is encouraging them as well as us because he understands that whatever they may have lost on this earth was extremely small to what God had done in their salvation! This is called, "keeping the main thing, the main thing!" Your move. Be encouraged!