So, have you ever broken down on the side of the road? Yeah, when the kids were little, we were somewhere near Sylva north Carolina out on the interstate and the car broke down. Um, we had to cram into a hotel room for the night, but thankfully found a nice mechanic who had us back on the road the next day. And there was a Mcdonald's next to the hotel. So hot cakes and happy meals. Got us through everything right? I mean there's not a whole lot that won't solve years before that, when I was a youth pastor in Arkansas, we were bringing a youth team back from a mission trip in Iowa and we were about an hour, hour and a half from home, we were almost back to north little rock and the bus just started making a smell. We were somewhere around the hazing Arkansas exit I think. And, and so jerry Massey was driving the bus, he pulled over and he and I got out, we walked around to the back and, and when we looked at the back we, we saw it was red And while we stood there it caught on fire. Yeah, like right before our eyes. So we're trying to shovel everybody off the bus and get them away and then we step back out and the amazing Arkansas Breeze, it blew the fire out. I don't know what happened. By the time we got back around the fire was gone. So we were kind of thankful it was, it was late at night, I think it was about 9:00 when the bus broke down. So we had to move to a hill kind of on the side of the interstate and we sat there in the dark and until I could call enough people from our our church to come and pick everybody up. And and just on an interesting note, I thought about this, I'm pretty sure of the 20 people that were on that mission trip Jerry and I were the only people that owned cellphones. Yeah, think about that for a minute. Yeah, it's 1995. The summer of 995 out of 20 people, only two people owned a cell phone. Yeah, come on. Just hold your phone up right now because we all got one now. Right man. So it's a whole another world. I saw a story about a guy whose car broke down outside of pizza hut. So he walked inside, ordered a pizza to be delivered to his house and jumped in the car with the delivery guy and got a ride home. That is totally real. That's that's that's a good move. Tell you that's how you adjust. See that's the thing about your car breaking down when your car breaks down. Your plans change. I've been there far too many times and and your plans changed when you got in the car, you were heading in a certain direction. But then the car breaks down and you're riding home with the pizza guy. You know, things, things change, there's a, there's a difference. But what if the change of direction is not because your car broke down? What if the change of direction is because there's a breakdown with your emotions? What if there's a breakdown with your health? What if there's a breakdown with society around you? What do you do then for direction? When those types of of breakdowns happen? Where do you find direction in those moments? We continue our series doors notice I said continue because I think we're going to do one more sunday after this sunday. Uh we continue our series doors where we have been looking at some of the most defining doors that we face every day of life. And today our message is corridors. And we're going to be looking at second Peter chapter one verse four, We're going to ask Simon Peter to help us think through this. And what Peter's going to do is he is going to give us direction for the moments when we are lost and broken down. And what is that direction? Well, let's find out. 2nd Peter Chapter 1: verse four. Peter writes through these. He has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises. Have you ever walked into a conversation that was already started and you felt a little left out? Well, that's kind of what's happening here, right because Peter begins and he says through these? Well what is the these when the sentence right before this? Peter said this about jesus verse three for his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and Godliness, that's a stunning sentence. And it's extremely comforting. Peter says that everything we ultimately need in life comes from knowing, Jesus Christ, Everything you need ultimately in life comes from knowing Jesus Christ now, to most people in the world. That sounds like religious mumbo jumbo. And even to those of us who are professing christians at times, that sounds something that doesn't feel legitimate. And why would I say that? Well, because all we have to do is look at how we actually live. We don't always truly believe that jesus is everything we need if we really were honest with how we do life far too often we do life primarily focused on our plans and our possessions and our philosophies. We try to find everything that we need in life through family and friends and and sports and politics and food and and you know, souped up cars or jacked up trucks or are spruced up front yards. You know, we we have all of these things that we pour our life into. We we seemingly with all of those things are are after that crusade, that elusive journey of trying to find ourselves and the danger of trying to find ourselves is we never tend to find ourselves. And it's not that any of those things that I mentioned are are bad or evil or wrong, it's not, it's just that if we're honest, we seem to be in the practice of trying to find everything we need in everything else but christ, we tend to not turn to jesus. And yet if we were to seriously consider the overwhelming evidence of the birth and the life and the death, the resurrection, the ascension, the divine nature of jesus, we would actually discover that he is ultimately everything we need. Now someone may ask everything that means when I get sick, I'm not supposed to go to the doctor. No, that's that's not what we're talking about. When we look at the most defining practical way that we know the truth about jesus. We would say we know that truth from the bible. We would say that that God's word, the bible in a sense is our highest practical authority. That the truth of God's word is where we get the truth about God. But the bible is not the only authority in life, right? It's not the only authority that we read. You see, the bible doesn't say anything specific about how to perform open heart surgery. The Bible doesn't say anything specific about how to fix the tailgate on a 57 Ford Ranchero. You know, the bible doesn't say anything specific about how to upgrade the software on the servers at work or or how you're supposed to do things like run a split t offense, you know the bible doesn't speak to those things. So yes, we look at other disciplines in life. We look at medicine and history and philosophy and and so many other things. So there are other ways that we gain knowledge. There's other authority in life. But someone has said that those are the lower courts of authority and that the highest court of authority when it comes to truth and knowledge is God's word. It's the bible and the highest court, the Supreme Court of Truth tells us that what we need the most for everything pertaining to life is jesus. That jesus is what we need most for life most for Godliness. And then Peter goes on in verse three, he says this this divine power of Jesus. We get it through the true knowledge of him who called us the called the saved, the redeemed the elect, the rescued. These are the way the bible describes what it means to be a christian. If you are a christian, you did not call, you were called the scripture says that God is doing this amazing work all the time drawing people to himself. Therefore, it's God's truth. It's changing our lives. It's not just religious knowledge, it's power. The divine power of jesus is what called us and what calls us. Somebody used the illustration of a prisoner of war. You have a prisoner of war has spent a long time in a dark dungeon. Almost every shred of hope is gone. They just have nothing to hang onto. And then one day they hear some rumblings among the guards and the guards start talking about how the the two armies, the opposing armies, they've they've worked out a deal for a prisoner exchange. And a few days later the one of the guards starts walking through the dungeon and and he starts calling prisoners to himself. It's going to lead them to freedom and then he gets to you and he points at you and he calls you. It's not an announcement, that's not religious knowledge, it's not religious information. It is power. It is power because in your darkness you were just called into the light. There is power in that moment that cannot be explained. The power of being called by God. The power of being called by the power of jesus. It matters when your car breaks down the side of the road. It does the power of being called to salvation by jesus. It matters when you're broken down with stress at home or work or church or school or anywhere else. You are the power of being called by. The power of jesus. It is power when you're broken down with anxiety, uncontrolled emotions at the lawyer's office or the doctor's office. Its power, it's not just information, it's not just stuff in a sermon. Its power. So you you may reject jesus, you may deny jesus, you may ignore jesus, you may try to unplug the lamp or turn the switch off so that you can't see the light, but make no mistake, the power of Jesus doesn't fail. The power of jesus never fails because Jesus cannot fail. If you are not a christian, the power of Jesus is on you right now because you're hearing the truth about him. So don't waste that power. Don't ignore that power. Don't deny that power. Don't reject that power. Let this be the moment that you repent and turn to jesus. There are no magic words that have to be said in a magic spot. There's just a need for a humble heart that cries out God, I am a sinner. Please save me if you are a christian, the power of christ is on your life right now. You don't need a sign. You don't need a special blessing. You don't need any of that. If you're a believer, the power of christ is on you right now? And that power has given you everything you need pertaining to life in Jesus Christ, You have everything that you need. And how does this call come? How does this powerful call? Come on Our lives. Peter goes on to say in verse three, through the true knowledge of him, who called us by his own glory and excellence. That's what Peter means by through these, we are called by the power of Jesus through his glory and his excellence the divine glory of jesus. The divine Excellence of Jesus calls you to salvation. It is the power of jesus in and through his glory and his excellency. That sounds great. But what do we get from that? What happens with that power Again? This is what Peter said in verse four through these through the glory and excellence of jesus. He has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, Jesus christ is exceedingly great, Jesus Christ is magnificently precious. Therefore if you are a christian, you have exceedingly great promises. You have magnificently precious promises. This is what you have in jesus. And what are those promises? Well, they're endless, endless. I saw something the other day about if you're standing at the shore of the ocean and you're looking out on the horizon, there's some kind of square Rudy math stuff that says that you are about three miles from where you're looking. It doesn't feel that way though, does it? Because when you're looking at it feels like it will never end that it just goes on and on and on. Listen on April 20, 1996, I made some promises to my wife. I try to keep them. I mess up a lot but my promises are limited. They're not endless. But the promises of Jesus Christ, they have no end. They are endless. They go on and on and on. That's why they are magnificent. Your spouse, your kids, your pastor, your politicians, your doctor, your lawyer, every single person in your life will make promises to you that they can't keep. Not because they're mean and evil, but because they're human. And guess what? You are going to make promises to your spouse and your kids and your pastor and your politicians and your doctors and your lawyers that you can't keep because you're mean and evil. No, because you're human. But jesus has endless promises. They are magnificent. And he will keep every single one of them. Because he is not just human. He is truly God and he is truly man. So what are these promises? Well, if they're endless, I mean, y'all want to go to lunch, right? So I mean, y'all really don't want me to go over the promises of jesus. So let's just pick two. How about that? Okay, christians have received the promise of the Gospel. The Gospel. The word Gospel is this word that means good news. It's a message of good news. So what is the message of good news? Well, here it is. You are not alone in this world and God has done something to reach. Yeah, what do you do? Well, he sent jesus, jesus loved. You gave himself up for you. So that things between you and God could be made right? And if things between you and God are right. It matters when your car breaks down. It matters when you're broken down with stress at work at school and home. It matters when you're broken down in spirit at the lawyer's office or the doctor's office. The truth of the Gospel, the good news of the Gospel. It matters every second of every day, and it surely matters when we breathe our last christians have the exceedingly great and magnificently precious promise of the Gospel. Just one more christians also have the promise of forgiveness. Paul was writing to the church at Rome, he said, there is therefore now no condemnation. None at all for those who are in christ jesus. In other words, part of what it means to be a christian is that when the moment comes, that you stand before God, jesus will say this one is with me that the just and right penalty of sin, jesus has removed. And so it's only through jesus in that moment that we will hear the words not guilty, christians have been exceedingly great and magnificently precious promise of forgiveness. That that's just too two pretty good ones. But the promises of jesus, there are endless and peter says that those promises have been granted to us. The greek verb hears, it means that it's been given to you once and then it's given to you again and again and again. You see Christianity and the gift of salvation is not just a one time thing. See this is not just a one time thing we did this morning with charlotte and Riley. It's not a one time deal. It's not like, oh, they got baptized, they're good, they got their ticket. No, that's not what baptism is baptism is a reflection of a repentant heart that says my new passion in life is to follow jesus and I would dare say this. Some of us need to rekindle the kind of passion that charlotte and Riley have for jesus. We do, we've gotten cold in our faith, were so mad at change, were so mad at everything being different, were so mad at things not going our way that we've forgotten how stunning graces every time there's a baptism, we we should walk backwards and go, oh God, thank you for saving my soul. The gospel of Jesus Christ? The salvation of jesus? Christ is not a one day one time thing. It is a gift that is granted to us and then it's granted again and again and again. I am saved. I am being saved. One day, I will be gloriously saved. That's the conjugation. That's the grammar, that's the work of the Gospel. The gift of jesus keeps giving and giving and giving. The promises of christ keep giving and giving and giving in the hardest moments of life. The promises of christ matter. So the question for us is are we trusting in the promises of christ? Or are we looking for something else? Are we trusting in the promises of christ? Or are we looking for something else. I think you all know this by now. But long before I get up here. These these sermons pummel my personal life. Long before I preach them and long after I preach them. So let me tell you the practical moment of how today's sermon hit me last night. I don't even know what time it was. So I'm I'm cruising by the gas station now look, I just need to confess, I don't look at gas prices never have my dad, it drives him nuts. My dad was in the the whole the petroleum business and he, he knows every time it goes down, you know, 3/4 of 1/10 of a cent. I don't know, but, but my dad always knows God, I never, I just don't look, you know why? Because I need gas, you know some what am I going to do? I'm just going to put the gas in the car. There's no reason for me to be stressed out about it because I will get stressed. So last night, you know, since I don't pay attention to gas prices, I'm sitting at the stoplight, I'm on the phone, I look up and I went, oh my goodness, what what did I miss? I'm like the last time I looked it was like 396, it's not 396 anymore. And so I had this little moment where the promises of Christ, we're not in the car with me. You know I mean, I had a little moment, I just started freaking out. I was like, God does that say 425. Incidentally if I've never shared this with you before, just remember when you think of all the different hands that that gas goes between before it gets to us. It's stunning that we have been been paying $10 a gallon for the last 50 years. It's it's crazy that that the middle man don't don't don't ramp it up more, but I had this moment and I'm telling you, I'm like okay dude, you got that sentence in your sermon tomorrow. You know that sentence about are we trusting in the promises of christ? Are we looking for something else? So it's real stuff. We we tend to look for something else. We do, we're looking for our our spouse to do something. We're looking for our kids to do something. We're looking for the pastor to do something. We're looking for the politician to do something. We're looking for gas prices were looking for other people and other things to do things. And that's not wrong until those things become more important than the magnificent promises of Jesus Christ. And it's easy we all we all go there and we all get there. But it's a fight and it's a great fight for us to say, well wait a minute I have these promises in jesus and they are magnificent. But they aren't just magnificent. Look what Peter says next in verse four so that by them by these promises, you may become part takers of the divine nature, Peter's going way over the top here, right. Peter is saying that salvation in Jesus Christ means that christians become part takers of the divine nature that we share in the divine nature of jesus. What in the world does that mean? Let me tell you what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean we become little gods. Okay, that's that's not what it means. But it doesn't mean this that salvation means we are no longer shut out of the divine natures of jesus. We're not we're not shut out of of this divine nature, his love, his grace, his mercy, his piece, all that he is, we're not shut out from the divine nature, but we now get to share in it. I'm not shut out of the the attributes of my parents. You know, I share in the attributes of my parents were not were not shut out from the attributes of God. Once we become a christian, we we share in those attributes, they become part of who we are. And see the reason that's amazing it is for this reason. See God could have just sent jesus to the cross to die for our sins to rescue us and that would be fantastic, awesome, wonderful news. But God decided to go farther further. Whatever the grammar is, he decided to go more. And what he did was he threw jesus adopted us into his family, the only way we can get into the family of God is through jesus. But once we're adopted into that family, God lavishes us with his love. So it's not just being rescued from sin. We are part of the family. We get to share in the divine nature. We get to share in the grace and the love and the mercy God meets the most desperate need of our soul in the cross. But then in his kindness, he brings us into the family, he loves us, gives us the gift of promises that are magnificent that are endless. They never end. And you know what makes those promises even more magnificent is when you open the car door and you get in and you start driving and you look in the rear view mirror at where you've come from. That's what Peter says next year for having escaped the corruption that is in the world on account of lust. The word for corruption here means decomposing. There is this sense that without christ and according to the bible and really according to to what all of us really know in our inner person, we are decomposing. We are decaying. We know if we're really honest, there is this sense of corruption of of ruin of of being rotten to the core. We know because we know how we think sometimes we try to say that we're good people but we really know that we need to be saved. We we really know that we need to be rescued. And so peter he and kindness, rights of our rottenness so that he can say, Hey, look in the rear view mirror, look at where you've come from. You've been rescued. You are no longer buried alive in your sin. That's that's true. That's that's the nature of sin. Were buried alive in our sin until we come to christ. We're no longer dead in our sins and dead in our trespasses and and dead in our rebellion because of jesus. We've escaped because of jesus. We've been rescued, Charles. Wesley put it this way in his grand on him long. My imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night, teen I defused a quickening ray. I woke the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth and followed they The magnificent promises of jesus. Help us see that our chains have fallen off, we are free. We have escaped. That matters when your car breaks down. It matters when you're broken down with stress at home or work or school. It matters when you're broken in spirit at the lawyer's office or the doctor's office, escaping. It matters now. Does that mean we'll escape bad stuff in life? No, the reality is some of the worst things that could possibly happen to any human being on this earth might happen to me and might happen to you, they might being a christian does does not exempt you from pain and suffering. But the truth of the Gospel means that although I might experience pain and suffering the worst that could happen on this earth, I will never experience the pain and suffering. The worst that happens beyond. Yes sir, to the truth of the Gospel, the great news of the Gospel means I will not be separated from God forever. That is the ultimate amazing greatest escape. Does that escape mean that you'll escape sin on earth that you'll escape lust on earth? No it doesn't look you all know how much I talk about donuts, I haven't had a donut kylie eight weeks maybe something like this is crazy and I'm telling you when I go through Q. T. And and the fresh donuts are there. I mean it is every look you won't talk about lust, I'm going to tell you I understand lust when I'm standing in front of that donut thing. But you know what I do, I've just learned to walk around that corner go the little chocolate health section by my little quest peanut butter cups and I'm alright, less than one g of sugar in each cup. You know just a little pitch there. Um But but I understand lust. You understand lust, We're not going to escape it. Someone put it this way so long as we live in this world, sin will never completely lose its fascination for us. So we're fascinated with sin but in the presence of christ We have our defense against that fascination. What's that defense? The magnificent promises of jesus. But that's our defense over and over again. These promises that we have in christ. That's our defense for the fascination of sin. I asked you earlier if you'd ever broken down on the side of the road. And how about this one? Have you ever been pulled over on the side of the road? Yeah, don't don't raise your hand. It's all right. Mhm. In November of 2015, the mountain view California police pulled over a car and they pulled him over for my guess is the same reason that many of us have been pulled over for driving too slow. Right? I mean that's that's what your ticket was for, right? Yeah. This car was driving more than 10 miles below the minimum speed. So they pulled the car over. Officer got up to the door when he got up to the door. There was no one at the wheel did he find himself in an episode of Knight Rider? No, no, it was a google prototype self driving car. There was no driver in the car. That's one of the reasons it was going so slow. Listen, I want you to know your life doesn't have to be that way. Your faith doesn't have to be that way. Don't be driverless. Don't be driverless. Maybe you're not old enough to drive yet. Or maybe you're old enough that you don't drive anymore. The reality is all of us are driving, even if we're not behind the wheel of a car, we're all driving, we're driving our mind, we're driving our heart, we're driving our attitude, we're driving, our emotions were driving all the time. So how are you driving? What what direction are you heading? I just want to give you a very simple invitation. I want to invite you to open the car door to climb in behind the wheel, turn the key, push the button, whichever one it needs to and drive your faith drive it. Let it be a part of of who you are. That's what we're praying for, charlotte and Riley right? We're not praying that their baptism would be this great thing and that's the end of the game. We want it to be the beginning. We want it to be launching them. We want them to drive their faith. We need to drive our faith and when you're driving your faith and you feel lost and broken down, let your direction, let your hope be fueled by the exceedingly great and magnificent promises of Jesus Christ promises that he guaranteed with his crucifixion and his resurrection promises that guarantee that no power of hell and no scheme of man will ever pluck you from God's hand. These are the promises of christ, dear christian your chains have fallen off you have been set free. That means no matter how many twists and how many turns and how many times your car breaks down. In christ, you will always reach your destination. Why? Because that is the power of christ and you.