“AMAZING GOOD FORTUNE”

1st Peter 1: 3-5

 

I read sometime back of a man named Jack Wurm – broke and out of a job, was walking along a San Francisco beach when he came across a bottle with a piece of paper in it.  As he read the note,  he discovered that it was the last will and testament of Daisy Singer Alexander,  heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune.  The note read: 

             “To avoid confusion, I leave my entire estate to the lucky person who finds this bottle and to my attorney, Barry Cohen,  share and share alike.”

 

The courts ruled that Alexander did  write the note,  and had thrown the bottle into the Thames River in London,  from where it had drifted across the oceans to the feet of a penniless and jobless Jack Wurn.  His chance discovery netted him over 6 million dollars in cash and Singer stock.  Q.  How would you like to have been walking in Mr. Wurm’s footprints?

 

Peter [1st 1: 3-5] tells us that the product of all this work by God is a “lively hope”.   Simply put this refers to a living confidence that we have a bright future!  Do you get it? When we, as believers, speak of our hope of heaven, we are not talking about “pie in the sky, by and by.” We are talking about a sure thing! We are talking about something that is more solid that the ground under our feet. We are referring to something that is settled by the inerrant, infallible, Word of God! Beloved, the world may be in turmoil today, but those who are saved possess a hope that is out of this world!  This alone is enough to shout about,  but Peter isn’t finished! We are slated for glory.

 

Peter says that we are the recipients of an “inheritance”. An inheritance is  something left behind by one who has died.  It is a gift to those still living from one who isn’t.  In our case, however, we do have an inheritance provided by One Who  died, but Who now lives.  “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore” [Rev. 1: 18].  We are mentioned in Christ’s last will and testament, John 17:22-24, and we will share that inheritance with the One Who gave it to us in glory some day!  Don’t worry about Heaven being a myth as some might say in our day.  I have it on good authority that Heaven is a reality for those who know the Lord, John 14:1-3!

A story told by Paul Lee Tan illustrates the meaning of redemption. He said that when A. J. Gordon was pastor of a church in Boston, he met a young boy in front of the sanctuary carrying a rusty cage in which several birds fluttered nervously. Gordon inquired, “Son, where did you get those birds?” The boy replied, “I trapped them out in the field.” “What are you going to do with them?” “I’m going to play with them, and then I guess I’ll just feed them to an old cat we have at home.” When Gordon offered to buy them, the lad exclaimed, “Mister, you don’t want them, they’re just little old wild birds and can’t sing very well.” Gordon replied, “I’ll give you $2 for the cage and the birds.” “Okay, it’s a deal, but you’re making a bad bargain.” The exchange was made and the boy went away whistling, happy with his shiny coins. Gordon walked around to the back of the church property, opened the door of the small wire coop, and let the struggling creatures soar into the blue. The next Sunday he took the empty cage into the pulpit and used it to illustrate his sermon about Christ’s coming to seek and to save the lost—paying for them with His own precious blood. “That boy told me the birds were not songsters,” said Gordon, “but when I released them and they winged their way heavenward, it seemed to me they were singing, ‘Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed!”

You and I have been held captive to sin, but Christ has purchased our pardon and set us at liberty. When a person has this life-changing experience, he will want to sing, “Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed!”

In “HIS” Service,  Roy