Why the bizarre Christian teaching to be strangers and fearful actually makes a lot of sense

Photo by Grant Whitty on Unsplash

“Live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.”  I love that phrase.  It even rhymes.  You know where it is from?  It is from the biblical book of 1st Peter, chapter 1 verse 17.  I’ve been posting all week about being strangers.  You can read the previous posts (here, here and here) to see why this guy Peter was telling Christians that they were strangers in the first century Roman Empire.  Now he says that that should live as strangers in reverent fear.  What is reverent fear?  In the original language that Peter wrote, Greek, this is just one word: “Fear”.  In fact Peter uses the standard word for “fear” which you would use if you were scared or afraid.  So why does the New International Version, which is the English version of the Bible we use at Faith Church, use two words to translate one word?  “Reverent fear”.  They could have just used the word “fear”.  It is because in this context, the translators who were writing the New International Version felt that this use of fear was not the scared or terror kind of fear, but the fear of respect and awe.  Reverence for God.

The most literal translation of this phrase is “conduct yourselves in fear during your sojourn on earth.”  There you can see how the NIV is trying to help English readers understand what Peter was saying when he said, “live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.”  I like “sojourn” a bit better than “live your lives.”  A sojourn is commonly understood as a temporary stay.  It is not permanent.  Peter wants us to remember that we are temporarily here on earth.  This earth is not our true home.

Peter explains this further in verses 18-20.  Why should they live not as citizens of an earthly nation, but as citizens of heaven? Because of the costly price paid to save them (Jesus’ gave his blood, his life for us!).  This is an oft-repeated New Testament teaching.  Paul once said in 1 Corinthians, “You are not your own.  You were bought with a price.”  Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection were an incalculable price paid to rescue you.  Therefore, we have a wonderful, deep reason to live our lives as strangers here in reverent fear.  We have an allegiance to a new master, to his new country: the Kingdom of God.

And so, not only on Ash Wednesday when many churches write the cross in ash on people’s foreheads, but at all times, we live our lives under the sign of the cross.

Peter describes this allegiance to Jesus further by saying,”We were redeemed.”  Redeemed is a slavery word.  Slavery was a huge part of their society.  Those ancient Christians would have understood what it meany to be bought and sold, to be redeemed.  You paid money to buy slaves.  A slave in the Greco-Roman era could even do this for themselves.  So slavery was different then from what we know of slavery in our American past.  Peter says it was not with money that we were set free from the empty way of life.  We couldn’t pay for it ourselves. It had to be and only could be through the blood of Christ.  The crucifixion of Jesus is pictured here.  What a huge price was paid for our redemption.

Notice that Peter says even more about this.  We were redeemed FROM the empty way of life.  The empty way is the way of following selfish or sinful desires.  Another word for the old kind of life is “futile.” One author says, it is a way of life that is “useless on the basis of being futile and lacking in content.”[1]  That’s a pretty strong statement.

But in our culture, we can see this as true, can’t we?  How many people pursue an empty way of life?  Think about the many problems in our society.  Broken families.  Drug addiction.  Sexual predation. Racism.  Gender inequality.  Greed. Celebrity worship.  Screen time. Video game, sports, and entertainment addiction. Obesity.  I could go on and on.  These kinds of things were going on 2000 years ago in the Roman Empire when Peter was writing this letter.  He nails it all in one phrase: An empty way of life.

Praise the Lord, though, Peter is saying, we have been redeemed from that way of life.  We have been set free!  Those that life their lives as strangers here in reverent fear have been set free from the empty way of life, and follow a new way, the way of Jesus, the way of the Kingdom of God.  Peter, earlier in the letter described this new way of living by using the word “holiness”.  That’s another way of saying, “Allow Jesus to be the new master of your life, to follow his way.”  It doesn’t mean that every follower of Jesus will become instantly perfect.  Instead this reverent fear is a life of respect for God that desires to know him ever more deeply and seek to make his ways our ways.  In other words, we learn from Jesus how to live because his Spirit has given us new birth, redemption, freedom, to pursue a new full life.

Want to learn how to get started? Comment below!  And check back in tomorrow as we’ll see Peter describe another way to live our lives as strangers here in reverent fear.

[1] Louw, Johannes P., and Eugene Albert Nida. Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains 1996 : 624. Print.

What my sons’ mugshots taught me about citizenship

How about those two cute little mugshots?  They are my two oldest sons in September 2000, when they were 3 and 2 years old.  Our family of four had just moved to Kingston, Jamaica, and we had to apply for immigration status as legal aliens.  That meant we had to get photos taken and use those photos for immigration cards which we carried with us.  Even the boys at 3 and 2 years old had to have legal alien status.

Something curious happened, though, when the photographer took our photos.  What you see above is round 2.  In the first round of photos, he took the photos, developed them, and surprise, they showed nothing by eyeballs and hair.  Two eyeballs on a plain background with no body!  What?  The photographer had not adjusted the camera settings to account for our light skin tone!  That was one of the first times we felt a tinge of what strangers and aliens feel.  After a good laugh and a few setting changes to the camera, the photographer retook the photos and all was well.

We often felt like strangers in Kingston, and we were official aliens in Jamaica.

All week long we’ve been talking about strangers and aliens.  (You can review the previous posts here and here.)  That might sound odd, depending on how you are thinking about the word “aliens.”  Creatures from outer space?  No.  Peter is using the word “aliens” like we do when we use the phrase, “illegal aliens.”  In our society, an alien is a person from one country that is trying to set up a new life in another country, just like we did in Jamaica.

So why would Peter use that concept to describe Christians?  In our study of 1st Peter 1:17-21 and 2:11-12, Peter tells the Christians in the Roman Empire around 65 AD that they are aliens and strangers in the world.

It’s like the words of the old spiritual: “This world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ through.”  All Christians, Peter says, are living in a foreign land.  We have another true home country.  We are from another place.

But what other country is he talking about? First of all, many of the Christians Peter was writing to were actual strangers and aliens.  Some had fled for their lives, leaving their home country, and became refugees in another country, in order to escape persecution.  They could easily have felt like strangers in their new country.  Second, as Christians, followers of Jesus were a unique, tiny minority in the Roman Empire.  Christianity was relatively new, only about 30 years old, and very few people understood it or accepted it.  So Christians were perceived as strange in regard to their beliefs.  In both areas the physical and the spiritual realms, those Christians were strangers and aliens.

Likewise, though we Christians today might not be strangers and aliens in our earthly country of citizenship, we are strangers and aliens in a very real spiritual sense.  We are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.

We believe that, we claim it, but if we are honest it can be very hard for many of us to grasp how our citizenship in God’s Kingdom should impact our lives.

Why?  Because we get so entranced by what we see, touch, and feel.  It is super easy to get focused on what affects us.  It is all too easy to think, “I am an American.”  We were born here, we live here, we are comfortable here.  It is all we know.  Alien?  Stranger?  It sure doesn’t feel like it.  It is hard to see ourselves as citizens of the Kingdom of God, because it is invisible.  It is much easier to identify as an American.  So what Peter has to say is difficult and radical: you’re actually an alien, from another place.   That American birth certificate, passport, voting card, social security number, ID card, and driver’s license?  None of it depicts your true identity, or your true home.

Remember that concept of new birth in Christ, being born again, that Peter talked about in verse 3?  When you choose to believe and follow Jesus, you are born again into his country.

I didn’t choose to be a citizen of the USA.  I was born here, in Virginia.  My birth certificate proves I am a citizen of the USA.  When I travel abroad, I carry my US passport, and when I return to an airport in the USA, at the immigration checkpoint the officer glances at my passport and says, “Welcome home!”

What I need to dwell on more is that I did choose to be a citizen on the Kingdom of Heaven, through new birth.  Christians, disciples of Jesus, have been born into a new place, and thus we are citizens of the Kingdom of God, and that citizenship is the true one.

How do citizens of an earthly country see themselves also as citizens of the Kingdom of God?  Can we hold dual citizenship?

What Peter is saying is that we Christians do have a dual citizenship.  But our citizenship in an earthly nation is temporary.  That whole nation is temporary.

Tom Hanks’ movie, The Terminal, illustrates this well.  Hanks plays a man who is from a small country.  The man is traveling outside his country, and on the way home, while in a foreign airport, he is shocked to learn about a revolution in his country.  In a very short time, that country is dissolved and a new one forms.  The airline will not let him back without proper identification.  What country did he belong to?

Some of us might have a change of citizenship like that while we are on this earth.  And for all of us, no matter if they drape an American flag on our casket, when we die, our citizenship in the USA is over.

Citizenship in heaven, however, is forever.

So Peter is saying that we Christians must choose to live now during our earthly lives, by the principles of the Kingdom of God, which is forever. How do we do that?  Check in tomorrow and we’ll begin to look at what Peter says Christians should do to live as strangers and aliens in the world.

The one thing you need (to make it as a stranger in the world)

In a world of partiality and discrimination and bias, where is the one place that still considers everyone impartially?

The church?  Nope.  Martin Luther King Jr. said years ago that Sunday morning is one of the most racially segregated places in America, and it is still true today.

I read an article this week that posed the question I started with. The one place in our society that still considers everyone impartially is the field of medicine.  The author, Atul Gawande, tells a story about how he had to treat a scary prisoner who was making threatening comments.  How would you feel if you were supposed to treat that patient? You’d have to be impartial.

Today as we continue our study in 1st Peter, Peter mentions the concept of partiality as foundational to the concept I mentioned yesterday, strangers.

I mentioned how off-kilter we can feel when we are placed in the position of being a stranger.  Today Peter addresses his readers as “strangers”, and he connects strangerhood with partiality.

Read 1 Peter 1:17-21 and 2:11-12.  (Then glance back at 1 Peter 1:1-2 where Peter started his letter by calling his readers “strangers in the world.”)  Did you see how Peter repeats this description of his audience?  In 1:17, he calls them “strangers”, and 2:11 he calls them “aliens and strangers”.  The Christians Peter was writing to were more than likely refugees in their lands.  Some of them had to flee to new areas to avoid religious persecution.  Some of them were ethnically different from the people around them.  But Peter has another deeper reason for calling them strangers and aliens.  He seems to hint that their status as aliens and strangers is as it should be.  Why?  We’ll get to that tomorrow.

Before he delves in the importance of them living as strangers and aliens, Peter reminds them that God is impartial. He says “Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.”  Why does he bring God’s impartiality into this discussion?

The author of the article I mentioned above wasn’t saying that all doctors and nurses and hospitals are perfectly impartial, but he was saying that impartiality should be their goal.  I thought it was also an argument that should be made for Christians and the church.  Why? Because Peter is right, our God is impartial! He treats everyone the same.  We are all equally loved and valued in his eyes.  We love to apply that thought to ourselves.  God loves me!  But when we start to apply God’s impartiality to the whole world, it can be hard to take.

ISIS people who chop the heads off captives?  Equally loved by God.

Registered sex offenders who live in our neighborhoods?  Equally loved by God.

Muslims celebrating Ramadan?  Equally loved by God.

The super annoying neighbor or family member or co-worker or Facebook-poster?  Equally loved by God.

Republicans and Democrats?  Equally loved by God.

Illegal aliens from Mexico who want to jump over a border wall?  Loved by God.

You are all loved by God.  The people you hate are loved by God.  The people who have hurt you are deeply loved by God.

And when you have that kind of love going for you, you can live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.  Our ability to live as strangers is rooted in the impartial love of God.  God is for us.  If we feel alone at a new job, if we are having a hard time making friends at a new school, if our neighbors are not speaking to us, and if we have a broken relationship in our family, all of these things can make us feel like strangers in the world.  But in the midst of any situation that leaves us feeling like strangers or aliens, we can always know that our impartial God loves us.  Other people may judge unfairly and make us feel like strangers, but God will always love us impartially.

The impartial love of God is foundational for living our lives as strangers here in reverent fear!  Do you need to be reminded of how much God loves you?  Do you need to spend time alone with God, just soaking up the passages of Scripture that affirm God’s love?  Do you need to reflect on the amazing self-giving love of Jesus, of his birth, life, death and resurrection?

One of my favorite reminders of God’s love is Romans 8:31-39.  Maybe read this a couple times, and let the truth of God’s love for you sink deep into your heart and mind:

31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Check back in tomorrow as we hear what Peter says about how to live as strangers in the world!

The day I felt like a stranger and couldn’t find my car

Photo by Ian Valerio on Unsplash

Years ago I was delivering a meal to refugees in the city of Lancaster.  They had newly arrived from years of living in a refugee camp in a faraway country, having fled for their lives from their home country.  They arrived at the refugee camp with extremely few possessions and hardly any opportunity.  Imagine the feeling of not just losing all you have, but also having to leave your home and country and start over with next to nothing.  It’s almost impossible for us to imagine.

Thankfully, many countries like the USA allow refugees to come to their countries to start over.  After what usually takes at least 15-18 years, organizations like Church World Service helps families through the resettlement process.  I was delivering a meal to a family that had gone through that long process and had just arrived in Lancaster, scared and anxious to start a new life in a country where they wouldn’t have to flee for their lives because of their beliefs or ethnicity.  Imagine how unsettled they felt, moving to a new country, with a new language, new customs, new people, everything new.  Imagine how it would feel to receive a meal from a stranger.

It was nighttime, and I was unfamiliar with that part of Lancaster city, so I was feeling just a tinge unsettled myself.  Nothing like the unsettled feelings the refugee family was experiencing of course, but I still felt those uncomfortable feelings we all feel when we’re trying to find a house on a dark, unfamiliar street, and we are going to meet people we don’t know.  Further, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to communicate with them.  None of this was bad.  I was glad to do it, but it definitely had me on edge a bit.

I finally found the house, parked outside it, delivered the meal, chatted with them briefly, as best I could, and then I needed to be on my way. I walked outside…and my car was gone!  Immediately that feeling of fear and disaster took over me.  You know it, right?  Flushed red, body heat radiating from me, heart racing.  I quickly scanned up and down the street.  No car.

I was starting to really feel the nerves, when way down the block at the intersection, I noticed a car stopped in the middle of the intersection, waiting under the stoplights.  It was my car!

What the???

Then it hit me.  I had been thrown off, mentally and emotionally, trying to find the house, preparing to meet the new family, that when I parked my car, I must have forgotten to put the emergency brake on.  My car at the time was a manual transmission, and the grade of hill in front of the house was just slight enough that when I stopped and put the car in neutral, I didn’t feel like I was on a hill.  In the few minutes that I was in the house, the grade of the hill was enough that the car, with no e-brake on, slowly drifted down the street, into the intersection where the grade of the hill evened out, and the car stopped!

Whew!  Even though I was super thankful my car was safe, as I ran down the street hoping no one was watching, my heart was really pumping at the disaster that could have been. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how off we can be when we are feeling like strangers.

I thought about how it feels to be a stranger in a new area.  How much more the refugees must have been feeling like strangers.

How about you?  Do you know the feeling of being a stranger?  Have you ever been the new person at work?  Have you ever had to change schools and start at a new school?  Have you moved to a new neighborhood, new state?  It feels awkward and difficult, right?  Have you ever been in a new country, with a new language and new customs?  In 2016 when I joined my wife Michelle on a trip to visit her work in Cambodia, with all the Buddhist temples and almost no evidence of Christianity anywhere, it was awkward.

The people Peter is writing to in 1st Peter are living the stranger’s life.  They are a tiny minority.  There were few Christians in the Roman Empire.  So what does he say to them?  Check in tomorrow and we’ll find out.

Reflections on perseverance in difficult times

This week, I’ve been reflecting on suffering and salvation from 1 Peter 1:6-12.

In verses 10-12 Peter takes a moment to talk about this salvation.  He says that prophets in past spoke of this salvation.  The Spirit of God, he said, was at work in these prophets.  In verse 11 the Spirit of Christ in them, and in verse 12 the Spirit at Pentecost.  He says that through the Spirit, the prophets predicted the Messiah, Jesus.  These prophets looked forward to the day that the Christians receiving this letter were getting to experience.  Peter is again trying to encourage the people.

He is saying, “Though you are going through hard times, you have the benefit of salvation brought to you by Jesus the Messiah.  And the prophets never had that.  They looked forward that!”

And then he says something that is shocking.  Not only do the Christians get to experience the salvation of Christ that the prophets look forward to, Peter says, even angels long to look into these things.

Get that?  The Christians have something that the prophets of old, and the angels don’t have.  Salvation through Jesus the Messiah!  Peter wants these persecuted Christians to know how special they are.

Salvation in Christ is such a compelling narrative that angels long to experience it!

I get it that there is much speculation about angels.  If we could pull back the curtain and see the spiritual realm, we would be astounded.  There are numerous places in the Bible that describe that curtain being pulled back, and people are shocked to see what is going on in the spiritual realm.

Because Peter differentiates between Christians and angels, it is clear he means us to understand that we will not become angels when we go to heaven. Clearly what we have is far better than what angels could offer.

McKnight:  “Salvation in Christ…is so great that even the angels are looking down to gain a view, like wedding attendees attempting to steal a glance at the bride before her appearance. The angels are brought in here, not to invite us to speculate about their activities, but to press on our minds the privileges of salvation; neither the prophets nor the angels experience what the church assumes and enjoys.”[1]

Therefore, Peter is saying to the Christians in his day, and he is saying to us: Press on in the faith!

Though you may be going through persecution for your faith, continue to love Jesus.

But what if we are not being persecuted for our faith?  Does this passage not apply?  I think it still does.

  1. It could be that so few Christians are persecuted because we are so private about our faith. That is a tragedy.
  2. Are you faced with choices at work or at home that cause you to pursue actions that are not in line with the Kingdom of God? What about at school? Keep the faith.  Choose the way of Jesus, even if it means life will be harder for you!
  3. Do the people in your life have any idea that you are a Christian? And what kind of Christian are you?  Judgmental?  Angry?  Or Gracious and loving and kind? If people stop talking to you because you are judgmental or angry, then you are not being persecuted for Christ.  You are being pushed aside for being unkind.  The way we present Jesus matters.
  4. What will it look like for you and I to be courageous and loving and gracious and bold about our faith? What will it look like for us to rejoice with great joy?  What could be more attractive to that?  Christians who rejoice in the Lord, not in an arrogant way, but with humility and grace and fun?

And, what will it look like for us to take on the challenges of the day with joy?  Not necessarily happiness – but, inner joy – knowing we have hope in Christ.  And, all suffering will come to an end.

[1] McKnight, Scot. 1 Peter. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996. Print. The NIV Application Commentary.

When following Jesus seems to make no sense…think about Oreos

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

“We’re being saved by someone we cannot and never will see.”  In a way, that describes the Christian faith, and I have to admit that at first glance it sounds ridiculous.  Being saved?  What is “being saved” all about?  Christians talk about being saved, but what do we mean?  Saved from what?  And saved by whom?  Jesus?  A guy that lived 2000 years ago?  How does this work? Does it seem illogical or anti-intellectual?  If you say “yes” to that, I don’t blame you.  It does sound odd.

As we continue looking at 1 Peter 1:6-12, Peter delves into this issue because the people he was writing to are like us, they never met Jesus and never would.  He was gone 30 years prior to this writing.

Start by reading verses 6-7 and the post about those verses.  Then look at verses 8-9 for how Peter’s thought proceeds.  When you keep the faith in the midst of trials, what happens?  First, he encourages the people because even though they didn’t have the privilege of knowing Jesus in the flesh, like Peter did, they still love him and believe in him.  That is pretty deep.  It describes you and I, and our belief in Jesus.  We never knew him in the flesh, and yet we still believe and love him.  It takes serious faith to believe in that which you cannot see or touch or hear.

Peter’s goal is to be very encouraging to the people because if they wanted to, they could feel that they are really far removed from Jesus.  Not only did they never meet the guy, and never have the experience of his touch, his miracles, his teaching, and everything that made him so compelling, they are now being persecuted for faith in him.  It’s almost ridiculous.  You can hear the people in their towns.  Maybe their family and friends saying “So you’re telling me that you are following the teaching of some prophet from Israel who died 30 years ago, and you never met him?  Are you sure about this?”  Add in the persecution, and a person could have less and less reason for keeping the faith.

So Peter just calls it all out. “I know you are suffering trials.  I know you didn’t see him. But you still love and believe in him! That is awesome.  Rejoice!”  Peter is saying, “you are doing the right thing. It might seem ridiculous, it might not make sense to the people around you, and they might try hard to get you to stop it, but you are doing the right thing.   So rejoice in that!”

In fact, the words the Peter uses in the original are “greatly rejoice joy inexpressible and praise”.  That’s three rejoice words, and two emphatic words all jumbled together.  That means he thinks they should really, really be happy about this situation.

But there’s more.  They should be super excited and happy not just because they are doing the right thing in the middle of a difficult situation, but also because the benefit to them is amazing.  He says, “For you are receiving the goal of your faith, salvation of your souls!”

Wait…what? Aren’t they already saved?  Yes.  Why does he say “you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls”?  He makes it sound like salvation isn’t fully theirs yet.

Jesus and the apostles taught that we were saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved.  Sound confusing?  It was surprising and confusing to me, too, the first time I hear that.  That word “saved” is a Christian word we throw around a lot, but what is this salvation, and how can it possibly be saved in the past, being saved in the present and saved in the future?

Let me explain.  You can be saved from something, and you can be saved for something.  When a person is drowning in a pool, a life guard jumps in and saves them.  The life guard saves that person from dying.   Or you can go to the store, and find that packs of Oreo cookies are on sale, buy one, get one free.  Jackpot.  You buy them, bring them home, and you don’t want your family to ravenously eat both packs in one day, so maybe you hide it in the back on the pantry.  You are saving that pack for use another time.

Like the drowning man, Jesus’ life, death and resurrection can save us from the penalty of sin, which is separation from God.

In other words we were saved in the past, as we talked about last week, when we were born again.  Remember that phrase?  Born again. We talked about it last week.  Look at verse 3 and you see the words “he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus.”  New birth, or born again, we saw last week, is from Jesus’ teaching in John 3.  Being born again is when we believe in Jesus, and his Holy Spirit enters our lives, and we follow Jesus.

But that doesn’t mean that you have suddenly become all that God wants you to be. There is still a process of transformation that God is working by his Spirit in our lives.  In other words, we Christians are not finished works, we are in process, we are being changed, and because of that we say that we are in the process of being saved.  We were saved from the penalty of sin, and we are being saved, like the Oreos, for a new life of following the way of Jesus.

But there is still that day in the future, that day of Jesus’ revealing Peter said earlier in verse 5, that day when we will be finally and completely saved, either when we die and go to heaven or when Jesus returns.

We are saved, we are being saved, and one day we will be saved.  So keep the faith, Peter says, no matter what you are going through, keep the faith.  Even though you have not seen and do not yet see Jesus, choose to love him and follow him, even if you are being persecuted for him, because you are being saved.  And in that you can rejoice!

4 pieces of advice to those who are suffering

Photo by David Beatz on Unsplash

Have you ever suffered specifically because you are a Christian?  I don’t know that I have, at least not in ways that would be considered significant suffering, or suffering that led to bodily harm or loss of opportunity or privilege.  Yesterday, I related a story from author Scot McKnight who counseled a teenager who did face discrimination and suffering because that young man began to follow the way of Jesus.

But maybe you have faced suffering for being a Christian.

So how do we have the right perspective about this suffering for Christ?  That is a huge reason Peter is writing the letter of 1st Peter, which we have been studying for a few weeks now.  If the Christians don’t have the right perspective about their suffering, they could easily say “Forget this.  If this is what I get for following Jesus, I’m done.”  And they could give up. So Peter gives them numerous reasons for looking at their suffering. Let’s continue looking at 1 Peter 1:6-12 to see what Peter has to say.

First, Peter says that they need to remember that suffering is for, “a little while”, and contrast that with our inheritance in heaven, which is eternal.  For those that suffer for Christ, that is one way they can have a healthy perspective on their suffering.  Suffering won’t last forever.  But heaven will.

When you are in the midst of suffering for Christ, it can seem like it will last forever.  That’s how it is for anything difficult we go through, right?  Not just suffering for Christ, but any suffering.  There seems to be no end in sight.  I can think like that when I am struggling. It’s called worst-case scenario thinking.  Peter says, “Time out on that thinking.  Your trial is only for a little while.”

Second, he says greatly rejoice.  Greatly rejoice?  In what?  We greatly rejoice in the hope we have, Peter says. Remember that Peter talked about hope in verses 3-5 which we studied last week? Even though we are currently in the midst of trials, we have hope of our inheritance in heaven.

Because we have hope, we can rejoice in the midst of trials.

I don’t want to hear that.  I want God to take the trials away.  I don’t any of this business of rejoicing in the midst of trials.  I’ll rejoice after the trial is done.  Anyone else with me?

But that’s not what Peter says.  He say that because we have hope, we can rejoice while we are still in the middle of the trial.

Third, he says trials are the good stuff in life.  Ugh.  More words I don’t want to hear.  Trials are the good stuff?  I’m not sure I agree.  But let’s at least try.  Peter doesn’t use those actual words. “Trials are the good stuff” is my paraphrase.  Look at what he says in verses 7-9, “Trials have come so that faith may be proved genuine.”

Here he uses an analogy, a comparison to gold.  Faith is of greater worth than gold (because gold perishes in fire).  That might be a shocker.  Faith is greater worth than gold?  I can very, very easily want gold.  Money.  I can believe that money will take care of me.

My prayer often goes like this.  “Lord, if you just drop $10,000 in my lap…well…better make it $20 grand…then my life will be so much easier.  Now that I think of it, can it be $30 grand?  That would really do the trick.”

I think about how much we can be tempted to value huge sums of money.  We can be tempted to think that money is the solution to our problems in life.  And no doubt, we need to pay the bills and provide food and shelter.  Money is necessary.  But it is so tempting to think money can care for us in the hard times of life.

So when Peter teaches that faith is of greater worth than gold, we can wonder if Peter is nuts!

When the hard times come, especially the financial hard times, will we believe what Peter is teaching?

He is convinced, and he wants us to agree, that our faith in Christ is worth more than gold.  Therefore he wants our faith to be proved genuine.  Peter knows that when we are persecuted for our faith, we can turn back on our faith.  During those hard times, it is our faith that is causing hardship to enter our lives.  Get rid of the faith, and hardship goes away.  That is tempting.

But Peter says, don’t do that.  Keep the faith, pursue your faith, grow your faith.  And what you will find is that keeping your faith in the midst of trials will bring you joy and maturity that you will value far more than gold.

Finally your faithfulness will result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus is revealed some day in the future, either when you pass on or when he returns.

The point that Peter is trying to make here is that Christians view and respond to suffering differently from the rest of the world.  When we are persecuted, we respond with joy because God has not left us.  We are not alone.  We can keep the faith and actually grow in him!

Satan did not break my lawn mower

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Are any of you suffering?  Any of you going through a hard time?

How does it feel?  Lonely, right?  Maybe you feel people just don’t understand.  Or your suffering might be ongoing, and you feel you are a burden to the people around you.  You worry about that, and your worry only compounds the suffering.

Have you ever wondered if you’ll ever be done suffering?

What can be so hard for us Christians is that we know we are to cling to Jesus in the midst of our suffering, but it can seem like he is not there.  That’s scary, right?  Suffering can lead to a crisis of faith?  Why is Jesus allowing me to go through this?  Does he really care about me?  Does he know what I am going through?  Of course he knows.  So why he is letting this suffering drag on so long?  What does my relationship with Jesus matter during the hard times?  Am I just supposed to get through this on my own?  I don’t know that I can do that.

As we continue to study Peter’s first letter, we find that he has a word for people who are suffering.  But not just any sufferers. Before going any further in the post, please stop and read 1 Peter 1:6-12.

First of all, what are the trials that Peter was referring to?  Remember that Peter was the leader of the church in Rome, and he was writing to Christians around the Roman Empire that had been dealing with some persecution.

I know this is not fun to talk about.  Persecution.  But we need to have at least a basic grasp of what Peter and the Christians in that day were facing before we can apply this passage to us.  Especially because there have been Christians facing persecution for hundreds of years in many places around the globe, and there still are many Christians being persecuted today.

If we don’t have a good sense of the trials that Peter is talking about, we could very easily apply Peter’s words to every situation that we find difficult.  Getting a bad parking space at the mall.  Having your dryer make funny noises, like ours was this week.  Well, actually, the first comment was “Dad, there is a bat trapped in the dryer…we need to get it out of there.”  Over the course of a few days, the sound went from trapped bat, to full-on shrieking.

You can think about the difficulties and griefs that you’ve had this week.  Are they in any way related to the trials that Peter is talking about?  My concern is that we can trivialize what Peter is talking about.  Missing an important family event.  A sports team losing a big game.  A dryer breaking.

These situations are nothing like what Peter is talking about.

Scot McKnight says it this way: “Peter was addressing the impact salvation had on one’s life and how a person’s changed life (and status) ran counter to the culture in which these Christians lived.”[1]

In other words, the people in Peter’s day, and Peter himself, were suffering specifically because they were Christians.  Their suffering was completely and totally connected to the fact that they had decided to live their lives according the way of Jesus.  Peter is not talking about bad things happening to people who happen to be Christians.  They are suffering because they are Christians.

As I said, my dryer broke last week, and thanks to YouTube it was easy to fix, but also my mower broke…in the same week. Equipment breaking has nothing to do with me being a Christian, or being a pastor.  Now some may say, “What about the spiritual realm?  Couldn’t that be an attack from Satan meant to discourage you?”  I will admit that I don’t know for sure, but I highly, highly doubt it.  That, to me, sounds more like a plot line in a Christian fiction novel than it sounds like how Satan really works.  We need to be careful to avoid spiritualizing things.

Here’s what actually happened.  It was anything but spiritual.

A couple weeks ago, my mower stopped working.  You would pull the cord, the engine would fire up and immediately stop. So Daniel, a teenager in my church, fixed it for me. Daniel is learning small engine repair in an internship, and he did great! I mowed my whole yard, and the mower worked like a charm.  Then a few more days went by, days filled with rain and warmer temps, and the grass was growing out of control.  But there was no end in sight to the rain.  So Friday a week ago, we had a break in the rain, and even though the grass was wet, I had the kids start mowing.  They did their portions, and then I was going to finish up.

I didn’t get far, and the mower died.  Same thing as before.  Pull, start, die.  Pull, start, die.  Pull, start, die.  Ugh.  I thought, how dumb of me to mow wet grass.  And tall grass to boot!  Totally my fault.  Probably got the carburetor clogged again.  So the next day I took it to Daniel again.  I was hoping he could teach me what he did before. But this time there was no fixing it. Same thing: pull, start, die.

He said he would take it to his internship and look at it.

Well the streak of rain and warm temps continued. The grass grew like crazy.  On Wednesday I asked my neighbor if I could borrow her riding mower, and she said I could.  I got it out of her shed, it started, and I drove it maybe 20 yards, and it died.  I couldn’t start it. So I checked and it was out of gas.  Whew.  I filled it up, and I still couldn’t start it.  It would turn over a little, but never really start.  So I pushed it back into her shed.  When she got home, she was able to start it.  It looked like I didn’t have the throttle in the right place.

So I walked over to get started using it, and when I tried, it wouldn’t work.  I thought I must be the lawn-mower anti-Midas.  Whatever I touch breaks.  Then she got on it, and this time, even she couldn’t start it.  She said she had just had it serviced a few months ago, and wasn’t having any problems, so she would call her mechanic.

I was really frustrated, and my grass was super tall.

Then I got a text from Daniel.  “Your mower is fixed.  There was two-stroke gas in the engine.”

What???  Where in the world did I get two-stroke gas?  I have no two-stroke engine equipment like a chain saw.  I never bought two-stroke gas.  What was going on?

Then I had a scary thought!  I had filled up my neighbor’s riding mower with the same gas!  I ran over to her house hoping she was still home.  And she was.  She graciously allowed me to empty her gas tank of the two-stroke gas.  But neither she nor I had regular gas.  As I write this, days later, her mower still isn’t working.

Daniel dropped off my mower, and it works great.

But where did this two-stroke gas come from?  I realized that my father-in-law had been at our house a few weeks ago using his chainsaw to cut some of our wood.  That gas can must have been his, but it looks incredibly similar to our extra gas can, and it had no markings on it!  You know, like a label that would say “two stroke gas”  or something?

There was no demon.  It was the wrong gas.  We need to be super cautious about spiritualizing difficult situations in life and blaming them on Satan.  So many times difficulties come as a result of our own actions and choices.  When we blame the consequences of our poor behavior on the devil, we are trvilializing the actual suffering that people are going through around the world, specifically because they are Jesus-followers.

This week in my prayer app, Prayer Mate, which I have mentioned before, it pulled in a prayer request for Sabina in Tajikistan who became a follower of Jesus. Several members of Sabina’s own family, including her father, beat her when they found out. That didn’t stop her from giving a Bible to her friend Madina, who is now a follower of Jesus.  Sabina and Medina are following Jesus at the risk of their lives.

McKnight told the following story, “I recently spent some time with a young athlete who had some rough experiences at his local high school with his “former” friends. As a senior he had a track record of drinking and drugs but was converted to Christ. His conversion made a sudden and immediate impact on his life, so much that he found himself on an island. After games, he was no longer invited to the parties; during games, he was no longer given the same opportunities to shoot the basketball; and in the hallways at school, he was no longer a “hit” with either the girls or his friends. He came to me for consolation. I explained that at least part of this was suffering and that he needed to guard against retaliatory speech and bitter attitudes. He began to see, in a painful way, that commitment to Christ can involve suffering.”[2]

That is who Peter is talking to.  Peter is writing to people who started living life in a very differing way because they began to believe in Jesus and learn from him how to learn. As a result, other people in their communities starting mistreating them.  As we start looking into this passage this week, it will be very helpful for us to have a proper perspective on the kind of suffering we’re facing.

Tomorrow, check back in, as we look at how Christians have a distinctly different response to suffering.

[1] McKnight, Scot. 1 Peter. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996. Print. The NIV Application Commentary.

[2] Ibid.

How to have an inheritance that cannot be squandered

Image result for squandered inheritance

Michelle and I both had grandparents pass away in the last few years, and we have watched our parents and their siblings handle their parents’ estates.  Sometimes inheritances are smooth and easy.  Sometimes they are a bit complex.  One time Faith Church received a bequest from a parishioner who passed away, and it took nearly two years to receive it!  After a person passes away, there can be many details to process in the settlement of their estate.  Those details are often bills that eat away at the inheritance.  Imagine the frustration when what initially appeared to be a nice inheritance is reduced to pennies.

As Peter continues his teaching in 1 Peter 1, verse 4, he says the living hope based on Jesus’ resurrection, which we looked at the past few days, gives us “an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”

What inheritance is Peter talking about?  That word “inheritance” is defined as: “to receive something of incredible value which has not been earned.”  Human inheritances can be squandered away quickly.  My father-in-law loves to joke around that he is going to write us out of the will, for example, if we don’t help him split firewood.  I love to say back to him, “Good, because all you have to pass on is junk!”

But not the inheritance that Jesus promises to those who are reborn.  We read that it can’t perish, spoil or fade.  Peter goes to enough trouble to use three individual words to describe how indestructible this inheritance is!  It is imperishable and undefiled and unfading, which is a word that means “pertaining to not losing the wonderful, pristine character of something”.

Like a new white shirt.  You know what happens: in a couple months or so, they lose that bright color.  But imagine a shirt that stays just as white as when you bought it at the store, even if you wash it 1000 times.  Paul says our inheritance in heaven is even better than that.  It will never fade.

So not only do they have hope that gives them inspiration to keep the faith now, even though they face persecution, they also get to experience the inheritance of God in heaven.

In other words, Peter is saying, “Christians, you can do this!  Though life is rough when you are going through hard times, remember the hope you have.  That hope can motivate you to stay true to God, to follow him, even when people come against you.  And what’s more, if they kill you, then you get that inheritance in heaven!”

It begs the question: just what will this inheritance in heaven be like?

Probably the most frequent thing I hear at a funeral is that heaven is a better place.  The person who died “is going to a better place.”  What is that better place?  A mansion in Heaven? The Good Place?  Have you seen the TV show The Good Place?  It is a comedy about a lady who, after death, goes to The Good Place, but it becomes apparent very quickly that a mistake was made, because she was supposed to go to The Bad Place.  And in the show, The Good Place is amazing!

Is that what our inheritance in heaven is?  Peter doesn’t tell us.  Instead he assumes that his readers who are going through hard times will know that their inheritance in heaven, which God has gone to great lengths to make available to them, and which God preserving for them, is far superior to what they are going through now.

Remember that Peter is talking to people who are being persecuted or who are threatened with persecution.  He is not intending to give them a full blown treatment of what heaven is like.  Instead he wants to remind them that they have hope now and an inheritance in the future.

For people living in uncertainty, there is certain hope that inspires them to stay true to God now, and an inheritance that will be waiting for them in heaven after they die.

I have to admit, during a prayer time last week, I was thinking about this passage and my own struggles in life, and I said to God, “Lord, I am intellectually thankful for hope of an inheritance in heaven, but I want to feel better now, to be done with my struggles now. I want that inheritance now.”

And instantly, you know what happened?  Thoughts flashed in my mind, thoughts I take as from the Lord, saying, “That’s what the prodigal son said.”

Bam! Conviction hit me hard and fast.  It’s true.  I so often ask for my inheritance now, just like the Prodigal Son saying to his father, “Give me my share of the estate,” while his father was still living.  What a slap in the face.  Do you ever do that to God?  I admit I do. I want my troubles to be done now!

But Peter is not telling these Christians going through a hard time that the hard time will stop.  The persecution might not stop.  Some have already died for their faith.  When we are going through a hard time, we usually want it to stop immediately.  Peter doesn’t say that though.

Instead he concludes in verse 5 that they are being guarded and protected by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in last (moment in) time. In other words, we can learn to wait for our inheritance in heaven.  We can learn to trust in God in the difficulties of the here and now, remain faithful to him, keeping that hope, that inheritance set before us.

But there is even more to this hope, Peter tells us in verse 5. By faith our salvation is shielded by God’s power. The word “shielded” is the idea of a guard that is posted until the time that God’s salvation is ready to be revealed.

Do you see the overall theme? Though you are going through these hard times, you can still have hope of a great inheritance, and it is secure.

You and I are not being persecuted.  But that doesn’t mean we don’t have challenges in life.  What are the difficult situations you are going through right now?  Know that your future is secure and your hope in Christ can enable you to face any challenges.

Nothing is certain in our world.

It is hard to watch the news.  Our country and world seems unstable.

The stock market is up and down. Bills keep coming and finances might be tight. Maybe we get laid off from work.

Health fails.  All of a sudden we can be on death’s door in a hospital bed.

Family and relationships go sour.  A person has to admit to their friend, “My relationship with my spouse is on the rocks, and we are headed for divorce.”  Friendships can tear apart.

Something in the house breaks.  The car dies.

A school shooting.  And our kids go through active shooter drills now.

Life feels very uncertain. We cannot count on the things of this world to take care of us.

But the good news is that we have a living hope.  And it is kept secure for us in heaven by the power of God.  That is our solid rock that will not be shaken.  What is that living hope?  That God is alive.  That he is active in our lives.  That he gives grace and mercy in the midst of the struggles.  That he loves us unconditionally. That he has made new birth in Christ available to us, so that we can have an inheritance in heaven.  This motivates us to pursue him in faith now!

That’s why it makes incredibly great sense to follow the way of Jesus, even when it gets hard, even when it doesn’t make sense, even when our bodies and emotions tell us to follow a different way.

Jesus’ way is the one true solid rock.

This is not just knowledge we need as we face difficulty and uncertainty!  We can access this hope to make actual choices to keep following Jesus, to keep being his disciples, to keep living like he wants us to live, even when life is falling apart around us.

Have you experienced this new birth?  Following Jesus starts with new birth that Peter refers to in verse 3.  It means believing in him, and living your life the way he wants you to live.  Or maybe you have received the new birth of the Spirit, but you know you have not allowed that to fully define your life.  Today is the day to make the choice to follow Jesus.  Let’s talk about that.  Comment below!

How we can know that hope is alive

Photo by Hillie Chan on Unsplash

Last week I did a search on our local website, as I was looking for the word “hope” in the news.  You know what I discovered?  Hope is a very flexible word, used many ways for many situations.  Here are a few of the recent headlines.  Maybe you remember some of them!

First, here are a couple articles where something was done that brought change:

  • “Sewing Hope in Sierra Leone” – April 16 – It was about a local ministry that makes “pillowcase” dresses for girls in need.  So cool!
  • “Trump’s bid to help Chinese firm draws fire but raises hopes” – May 14 – I didn’t take the time to learn all about this situation but the news report thought it would raise hopes.

Then there is the most common use of hope.  Aspirations for the future!

  • “76ers hope to keep thwarting history in Game 5 vs Celtics” – May 8 …those hopes were not realized, sadly for all you 76ers fans, and happily for all you Celtics fans.
  • “Billboards warning against prescription painkillers hopefully will combat opioid addiction in Lancaster County” – May 8 …they hope billboards will combat opioid addiction?  How do you think that will work out?
  • “US hopes North Korea will become close partner, Pompeo says” – May 12

In our lives we experience lots of these hopes and dreams.  What hopes do you have? What do you hope will happen?

So often we talk about hope as something that we want to happen, but we have no idea if it will actually happen.  We use the word “hope” a lot in our conversation.  “I hope my team wins!”  “I hope I get an iPhone for Christmas.”  I hope…I hope…I hope for a lot of things.  We call that wishful thinking.

Wishful thinking is fun, but it can’t sustain us at the point of our need.  And wishful thinking is not the hope Peter is talking about, as we continue looking at 1 Peter 1:3-5.

As we saw yesterday, when, by God’s great mercy, you have been born again, you have a living hope. For those who are going through a difficult time in this world, you who are born again have a living hope that matters right now.  You have a living hope that shapes you right now. It’s not something that you are just waiting for one day.  It is living.  It is active right now.  This hope we have impacts us now, helping us to the have the proper perspective of what we are going through. It means that no matter how difficult it is now, you don’t have to turn away from God, you don’t have to give up, because you have a living hope.

And what is the foundation of that hope?  How can we prove that hope to be true?

To answers those questions, Peter takes us back in time 30 years or so.  In your Bible, turn to to John 19.  Remember that scene when Jesus is arrested and talking with Pilate?  It is wild. Look back in chapter 18 quickly, and you’ll see that Jesus had already stood trial before Pilate earlier that day.  Pilate found no reason to convict Jesus, and sent him away.  Now he’s back.  You get the sense that Pilate is just done with this whole thing.  I imagine a look on Pilate’s face, and a tone in his words, and they are saying, “Are you serious? I have to deal with this ridiculous situation? A guy who is clearly innocent, but these Jews want dead?  Geesh.”

Now in the beginning of chapter 19, he has Jesus flogged, hoping that will get these bloodthirsty Jews off his case.  He is very wrong.

You see what is going on here? Pilate is saying, “Jesus, come on, man. I know you aren’t guilty.  Why are you doing this?  Don’t you know that I have the power to kill you?”  When Pilate says that very thing, he reveals what is in his heart.  Pilate knows the normal power structure of the world.  The threat of death.  Whoever has the power to kill others holds total control.  That is the normal way of the world.  We see this every day in the news.  It’s why the threat of nuclear war around the world is so serious.

But three days later, something astounding would happen to that power structure.  Jesus, who Pilate did crucify, that same Jesus, would defeat death.  “Death where is your victory?”, the apostle Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 15.  Death has been swallowed up in the victorious resurrection of Jesus!

And that, Peter reminds us, is the basis of our living hope.  Jesus defeated death, and when we are born again, when we believe in him and give our lives to be his disciples, we have a living hope that one day we, too, will experience resurrection. The power of death has no hold on us anymore.  The power structure of death has been overturned.  Jesus’ resurrection is the new reality we live with.  Thus we have a living hope in the future that impacts us now.  But how?  More on that tomorrow!