The Weekend, October 10 –
We’ve come to the weekend and another New Testament book in
our quest to read through the New Testament in a Year. This weekend we’re
reading from 1 Peter 1:1 – 2:3. After you’ve finished, please return here that
we might walk through it again, and Thanks!
Without a doubt, Peter was the most prominent of the
disciples of Jesus. He was always willing to step to the front of the line
whenever Jesus asked a question, or in some cases, when he thought he knew
better than Jesus – look at Matthew 16:13 – 23 to see both together. Jesus had
told Peter that “Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat, but I
have prayed for you” (Luke 22:31-32). Peter had a heart bursting with energy,
and he wanted so badly to please Jesus, but he wasn’t always prudent in what he
said or did. Still, Jesus loved Peter. When the death of Christ took place, it
was Peter, along with John, who ran to the empty tomb, and although they were
baffled, they didn’t dismiss it. It was Peter, after the resurrection and
ascension of Jesus to heaven, who, newly filled with the Holy Spirit on
Pentecost, proclaimed Jesus as risen Savior and Lord. It was Peter who God
called to evangelize the first Gentiles in Cornelius’ household (Acts 10).
Peter was ordinary, a fisherman. He had worked hard to build a fishing
business, and then Jesus came one day, looked at him, and said, “Come follow me
and I will make you a fisher of men” (Luke 5:1 – 11). From the day Peter heard
those words to the time he wrote this letter, thirty or more years have passed.
Yet Peter has not lost his zeal, passion, or love of Christ Jesus, and his
letter makes that clear.
Peter introduces himself in 1:1 as “an Apostle of Jesus
Christ”. Even at the onset of his letter, there is a humility that Peter
has learned over the years of maturing in the faith. He does not say, “I knew
Jesus, I was his right-hand man”, instead, he stands alongside all of the other
disciples as “apostollos” - ones sent out to represent Jesus Christ. His
letter is sent to “exiles in the Dispersion” – Jewish believers
scattered all over Roman-ruled Asia (modern Turkey). Peter writes to encourage
them, give them instruction, and remind them of things they already had
learned. There is a deep sense of Peter understanding that God is sovereignly
at work in these scattered believer’s lives -
“…elect exiles of the dispersion… according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for
obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and
peace be multiplied to you” (1:1b-2).
Foreknowledge is God’s sovereign providence and their
salvation is rooted in God, as well as their sanctification, which always leads
to obedience in Christ, because of God’s grace and peace (shalom) to all who
are his. The basis for God’s foreknowledge and sanctifying grace is His love,
which is demonstrated in sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to shed his blood for
the remission of our Sin. It is the Spirit of God who does this in our hearts
and in our lives.
His theme at the outset is to remind them/us of who they/we
are in Christ Jesus. It is their (and our) identity as Christians – those
redeemed by the work of Jesus Christ. This identity is what he wants to remind
us of, and in a brilliantly crafted style, he proclaims it all in theological
and practical ways -
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living
hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance
that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by
God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time” (1:3-5).
God’s great mercy is based on God’s great love, and it alone
is why any of us can proclaim to be “born again” (John 3:3-8). Our new birth is
a “living hope” – not a wishing hope, or uncertain hope – but a hope as alive
as Jesus was when resurrected from the dead. It is a hope that is confident in
our status as God’s children, co-heirs with Jesus Christ. Lastly, he reminds us
that God guards all of us in first giving us grace, and then in supplying faith
that is our fortress and defense in our salvation – past, present, and future. The beauty of grace, mercy, faith is that it
operates in all areas of our lives, at all times, and in both good and bad
times. This is Peter’s point as he reminds them that even in suffering – which
by now many of them had experienced – they can have confidence in God -
“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if
necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested
genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is
tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the
revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though
you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is
inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the
salvation of your souls” (1:6-9).
For every believer down through the ages, including us
today, the fact is that life in a sinful fallen world for a redeemed believer
in Jesus is not always easy. How do we maintain faith in the midst of
suffering, circumstances that are difficult, pain that is never diminished? We
rejoice! We learn to praise God who knows us, called us, given us new birth,
and asks us to trust Him. This is the “the tested genuineness of your faith”
he speaks of. We are God’s witnesses of God’s power, glory, and grace, and
even though we have never seen Jesus, we believe, and we rejoice with joy,
proclaiming his glory in worship and praise because we believe he has saved us,
he is saving us, and he will save us into eternity. Difficulties in life are
never fun, and suffering is even worse. Yet they are part of the “testing of
our faith”, and are never capricious, or without purpose. The fact that we have never seen Jesus is not
a barrier to faith in Him if we but consider that before Christ came, the Old
Testament Prophets were in the same place (1:10 – 12). The words in verse 12
are especially interesting, as he says that salvation in Christ was so unique
that even the Angels in heaven were, as it were, “looking, longing to see
how it would occur”. The Angels were as if “standing on their tip-toes”,
peering over the landscape to see how it was going to work out (Ephesians
3:10).
Now, having reminded them/us of the great work God has done
for them (us), he calls them to live it all out in obedience, with grace as
their source, to live holy lives (1:13 – 15). The particular call to our lives
in Christ is summed up with the words, “… as he who called you is holy, you
also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for
I am holy” (1:15-16).
Trying to tell someone to “be holy” in our present culture
is filled with questions. “What does it look like to be holy?” “What are the
practices of being holy?” “Will I stand out as someone who is trying to be too
serious, and not fit in with others in normal life?” Peter says it starts in
our minds –
“preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded,
set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation
of Jesus Christ” (1:13).
We begin to see that living holy is living thoughtfully, by
grace, looking discerningly and looking forward with the end in mind when
Christ is revealed to us in heaven. If this were the way in which we lived – on
a daily basis – we would see that holiness is practical, and not another world.
To be holy, biblically, is to be “set apart for God’s purpose”. It is the same the thing Paul said to the Romans when he wrote them –
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of
God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what
is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (12:1-2).
To be holy is to live life with God in view in all that we
do, or say. It is to live purposefully, with the awareness that our lives are
not our own, for we have been redeemed by God, through Christ’s shed blood for
us on the cross, for God’s purposes, to the glory of God –
“knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways
inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or
gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without
blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was
made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are
believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your
faith and hope are in God” (1:18-21).
Peter knows personally how Jesus Christ can change a
person’s life – he experienced it. He also knows how grateful he was for what
Christ Jesus did for him, and the sacrifice of Christ changed the entire world
giving all who would turn to Christ a “faith and hope (that) are in God”.
Now that we know, what do we therefore do? We live out our
faith in genuine love for others (1:22), and with live out our faith in an
awareness that what we have been given by God, in Christ, is a gift – a gift
that we did not deserve, and a gift that gives us a new perspective on what
life is all about – and how that must spill over into our lives personally. He
says this at the end of chapter 1, and the first few verses of chapter 2 -
“Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed
but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh
is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and
the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is
the good news that was preached to you, So put away all malice and all deceit
and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure
spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have
tasted that the Lord is good” (1:23 – 2:3).
Living for Christ Jesus is not possible apart from Grace –
the awareness that God loves us, and demonstrated that love by giving us his
Son who died for us, shedding his blood, for the forgiveness we now have
received. Now, having been born from above, how do we let the above take over
the below? The higher nature of faith is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, etc… the produce of the Spirit, fruit! Our lower nature though is not
yet eradicated but can change. We are like grass and flowers, destined to die;
but the word of the Lord never dies, and so we are called, in holiness, to
leave behind the lower part of our nature (malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy,
slander) and “grow up into salvation”. It is a process, not an immediate
action. We don’t gain it by spending an hour on Sunday in a church service. It
is at the heart of our faith that God is at work in us twenty-four seven, three
hundred and sixty-five (or six) days a year!
Peace
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