Being a Christan is not easy. It was never meant to be. It is a gift and an opportunity to embrace and demonstrate a new quality of life in a troubled and sin-cursed world. To do this well, we need to develop a deep faith that not only helps us endure suffering but grow because of it.
We become more like Jesus as we learn how to live like Him in difficult times.
Peter was one of the original twelve disciples Jesus called and taught during His ministry on the earth. Peter began his ministry in Jerusalem where he helped launch the New Testament church. Later he spent the final years of his life in Rome, the seat of empire in his day. From here he wrote a letter (First Peter) that was circulated to the new churches in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) to encourage them in their suffering and persecution.
Over the next ten weeks we are going to study this letter with the hopes of learning and growing a more resilient faith in our lives today.
A Chosen People
In the opening words of this letter, Peter seeks to give these young believers a new identity. He does this by inscribing them into Israel’s Scriptures, the Old Testament people of God. Like the ancient Israelites, we too are God’s chosen people, God’s elect. Not a people in a geographical exile, but people who feel like we no longer belong to the world we live in. Strangers now living in a strange land.
Because of our new identity in Christ, every foreign territory is a homeland and every homeland a foreign territory. But we have an inheritance in heaven, shielded by the power of God, ready to be revealed at the end of time.
A Holy People
The letter of First Peter also concerns itself with issues of Christian identity and formation. The very heart of this formation is a call to personal holiness, to be set apart for the service of God wherever we live and whatever we do.
But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” 1 Peter 1.15-16
To live a holy life means we are to demonstrate God’s character in our attitudes and behavior. We have not been called to withdraw from the world or live in opposition to it, but to serve it in the way of Jesus. What separates us from the world of First Peter is not the strange ways of the first century as much as its inconvenient truth claims on our lives.
Holiness in itself is no holiness whatever. There can be no inside to that domain so long as there is no outside.
-Karl Barth
A Suffering People
One of the key themes in First Peter is suffering. Yet the letter was not written to resolve the question of the suffering of God’s people, but to give significance to it — to help us see its greater purpose in God’s plan for our lives.
And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast. 1 Peter 5.10
As the New Testament people of God, we are called to participate in the sufferings of Christ. To suffer as a Christian is one way we bear His name in the world.
A Gifted People
Finally, as a redeemed people, a holy nation, we are called to a new way of life. A new way of being in the world.
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. 1 Peter 4.10-11
I invite you over the next ten weeks–with your small group, a few friends, or by yourself—to take time to read the letter of First Peter and let it read you. Take your time and read the complete letter carefully. Perhaps a few times over this series. Then, prayerfully, pose some questions to yourself about your faith:
Do you see yourself as part of a chosen people, a royal priesthood?
Do you possess a living hope in your daily life?
Are you striving to live a holy life?
Are you using your gifts to serve God and others?
Then allow the sanctifying work of the Spirit to help shape you into a greater obedience to Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1.2).
I look forward to experiencing a new growth in my faith along with you.
Pastor Rob
