(3 reasons for worshiping God in the middle of suffering)A second reason has to do with what is going to happen when Jesus comes back.We can look back for confidence.We can look forward for confidence.Peter explains,“Blessed be…”v. 4because he has caused us to be born again . . .“to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, reserved in heaven for you.”Inheritance meaning a possession.That we are going to receive sometime in the future. In the Old Testament this word was often used to describe the land of Canaan, the people of Israel were going to inherit part of the Promised Land and in the New Testament, this word is used to describe something just as real, just as physical, but bigger, a last days gift from God to His people, something that we are going to receive in the life after this one.To help us appreciate just how big this inheritance is Peter uses four terms to describe it.The first is imperishable.Not subject to decay.The second, undefiled.Not stained by sin.The third, unfading.Never losing its beauty or glory.Each of those terms as you can tell are negatives. It is like as Peter tries to describe the inheritance we are going to receive, it is so good, so beyond our present day experience that he feels like the best way to describe it is by describing what it is not.It is not like this.And it is not like this.And it is not like that.How committed is God to our future good, he is going to give us an eternal inheritance that so far surpasses the value of anything anyone could ever receive as an inheritance here on earth, that we stammer and stutter as we attempt to describe it.Listen now.If you are a believer your future is much more glorious than I ever could begin to describe because God is the one who has designed it.It far surpasses anything in this world.For one thing it lasts.It is got no sin to mess it up.The problem with so much of the earthly joy we experience is that our sinfulness takes what is so good and sweet and just makes it into something ugly.Not this inheritance God is going to give us.It will always be as beautiful to us as it was the day we first received it.And it is reserved in heaven for us, that is the fourth term, meaning God Himself is keeping it and protecting it until the day we are finally able to fully enjoy it.If you are a believer your future is much better than I could ever possible describe because God is the one who has designed it and here’s the deal, it is certain because God is the one who is protecting it.And the more you understand just how good it is and how sure it is, because of God, the more you are going to be spurred on to worship Him.This is where worship in the middle of suffering comes from.Looking to the future.What God has in store for us.If we could get hold of how incredible this future inheritance really was it would completely change the way we think about the present.You know how that works in real life.The future changes your attitude in the present.I mean, just an earthly illustration.Think about a woman.Imagine this. Her belly starts growing bigger. She gets sick every morning. We are talking complete nausea. She’s got something that feels like it is kicking her from the inside out. How crazy is that? She keeps getting heavier and heavier and she can’t stop it.Man, imagine if that happened to ladies randomly. If that just happened for nine months and there was nothing at the end, how do you think she would respond when she discovered that it was starting to happen to her?I am guessing that woman’s attitude would pretty much stink.But when a woman becomes pregnant, how does she usually respond?The exact opposite.Complete excitement. Triumph even.Why?What makes the difference?Because of what she knows about the future. It’s not that all that other stuff becomes fun, it is that her attitude towards what is coming gives her joy in the present.And you know, the less excited she is about what’s coming usually the less happy she is in the present.Which if you think about it, it is not all that different for us as believers.As believers the more we anticipate what’s coming, the more we are sure of it, the more we worship God for it. And you know the less we anticipate what’s coming, the less sure we are of it, the more complain about God in the present.Think about it.If you know you are going to receive something in the future and it doesn’t change your attitude towards the present, what does that say about how you feel about what you are going to receive in the future?If you know you are going to receive something that so far surpasses something anything you could ever possibly imagine and that it is certain and it doesn’t produce an excitement about the one who is going to give it to you, what is going on?We say the problem is with God.We say the reason we are not worshiping is because our life is so difficult, but maybe the problem is really with us and the fact that while we honor heaven with our lips, we don’t really want it in our hearts.We think we become discouraged and depressed primarily because of our circumstances, when really we primarily become discouraged and depressed because we lose sight of all the good God is going to do us in the future. When we become overwhelming discouraged by the sufferings we experience in living for Christ in this world, no matter what we might say with our mouths, we do not really value the inheritance God has given them. And you know what’s worse, whether we realize it or not in our complaining and anger and mistrust we really are saying that we would prefer if God gave us an inheritance that was subject to decay, was defiled and did constantly fade away.That’s the crazy thing.The reason Peter was able to worship God in the middle of suffering is because he was putting his hope in God’s promises of this heavenly inheritance for his happy future.We can look back to our salvation, to what happened when we turned to Christ and find reason for confidence in the midst of pain.But we can also look forward to what happens when Christ returns to us and find reason for confidence. We are going to receive something better from God than anything we could ever imagine or describe.