Teaching service 14–04-2024 Theme: Our only comfort in life and death Location: Reformed Church Groot Ammers Leader: Rev. K (Krijn) Hak Scripture reading: John 1 Peter 1:1-25 1 Peter 1 1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2. Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied. 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4. to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. 5. Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, 7. That the trying of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested with fire, may be found to praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 8. Whom having not seen, you love; and though now you do not see him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, 9. Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 10. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently who prophesied of the grace that would be shown to you. 11. Searching what and what time the Spirit of Christ who was in them meant when he testified beforehand about the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would follow. 12. It was revealed to them that not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which have now been reported to you by those who have preached the gospel to you with the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into. 13. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts in your ignorance. 15. But as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all your conduct. 16. Because it is written, “Be holy; for I am holy.” 17. And if you call on the Father, who without respect of persons judges according to each one's work, walk in the fear of the Lord all the time you are a stranger here, 18. knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19. but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot; 20. who indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21. through whom you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory; that your faith and hope may be in God. 22. Seeing then that you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned brotherly love, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently, 23. Having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. 24. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower thereof falleth away. 25. But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which was preached among you.