Good Morning Friends,
Today we continue in a series of devotionals on 1 Peter. And as we prepare to contemplate the 4th Chapter, I figure it is a good time to review a little about the book. First it was written probably shortly after the death of Paul in the mid 60’s AD. by Peter with the help of Silvanus also known as Silas. And it of all the letters helps us to get in touch with the early church traditions and thinking portrayed in the book of Acts. It was being written primarily to those people who had already accepted the message of Christ crucified and resurrected. It starts with a proclamation and then goes further with ethical teachings that are relevant today. But it is not directed at those who have not yet repented, so much as to those who have repented and come to the faith but perhaps have not yet fully embraced the scope of what God has done for believers through Jesus and their responsibility to this as Christians. It is really not that surprising in the reading of the letter that Christ’s death is central. Many of the Christians then faced this reality. And though the word church may not have even been used in the letter, the concept is throughout the letter. Peter uses the image of a spiritual temple with Christ as the cornerstone, the terms the People of God and the Flock of God to describe what was happening. It is a book about that pilgrimage with a courageous people but moreover a book of hope in what we might become as the hands and feet of the Body of Christ now. Reflecting on the words of Peter we get the sense that what he believed about the Christian way of living he said. He says what he thinks and is impetuous at times but if you believe the words inspired then we need to be attentive to them. The thing is that we have no guarantee that tomorrow will come either. We have seen a lot of days come and go and Jesus has not returned. And the days seem shorter the older we get but we still have a sense of being and it is not all alone. God is always there and always will be. How many earthly tomorrows we have left is up to God, but it is most certainly less than it was yesterday. The truth is that someday we will have no tomorrows. Peter thought the end was at hand, and in one way this was true for him and others. But this begs the question of how we are to live in light of no tomorrows. There are a lot of questions today’s text might raise about the past or future, but instead I ask in the hope the direction of them all is the same answer, What Is Peter’s Message For The Church Today?
Scripture: Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin), so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God. You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme. But they will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does. The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, a criminal, or even as a mischief maker. Yet if any of you suffers as a Christian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this name. For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; if it begins with us, what will be the end for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinners?” Therefore, let those suffering in accordance with God’s will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator, while continuing to do good.
1 Peter 4: 1-19 (NRSV)
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
John 20:21 (NRSV)
Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and set up twelve pillars, corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed oxen as offerings of well-being to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he dashed against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, and said, “See the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
Exodus 24:3-8 (NRSV)
But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God! For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant.
Hebrews 9:11-15 (NRSV)
On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?” So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.” So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal. While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Mark 14:12-16, 22-26 (NRSV)
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
1 Corinthians 12:12 (NRSV)
Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
Matthew 18:21-35 (NRSV)
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.
Romans 8:29 (NRSV)
Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.
1 John 3:2 (NRSV)
Message: And what Peter tells us to do is threefold to become the Body of Christ together. We are to Pray harder. We are to Love deeper. And we are to Serve smarter. Maybe Peter was thinking about that time when Jesus was at the Mount of Olives and he asks the disciples to join in prayer and they are all snoring away. The passion was leaking out of them. Kind of like some days in church. The thing is that people even those calling themselves Christians pray very little. The latest data I have is 6 hours a year praying for the average Christian. Friends, the passion is leaking out. We are asleep when Jesus has asked us to pray. Come on now. What is dull about a conversation with the Creator of everything. And it is not just for praying over a meal. Prayer is powerful. And we are to have a passion about it. And so too we are not to leave our first love. Love is our birthmark as Christians. We need to stretch and strain holding nothing back in love. We are to love like we are fervently seeking God’s covering love and recovering love. Friends, when someone does you wrong you have a choice. How fervent is your love? And we are to show hospitality without grumbling. We can have the right action but the wrong attitude. God love needs to be pouring out of our hearts. For God never runs out of love and we should never run out of love either. And we are to serve smarter by using our gifts. Everyone has a spiritual gift in this regard. Think of Susan Boyle singing. Oh, the gifts are not all the same as talents, but we are to use our different gifts to God’s glory even though the Spirit that gifted them is the same. So, the gifts need to be shared. We need to have a dream of gifts realizing that some are seen, and some are not seen. But all are needed. And when we share them, we glorify God as being part of the manifold grace of God. So do not diminish the glory of God by hiding your light under a basket. When prayer is fervent and love is preeminent and serving is prominent, then God is glorified, the church edified, and the world notified that God is real. Friends, if we are all engaged as Christians like Christ the world would not have any other religions. So in summary, Bible uses lots of metaphors to describe the church. Sometimes it is described as a flock and at other times a marriage, but perhaps the most compelling is that of a Body. The Church is described as the Body of Christ to stress the connections that we all must share with one another, as well as our response to the direction of the head, Jesus Christ. In Christ…in this body we all have functions to perform around this common fruit. We all need each other in the Body of Christ because on our own none of us complete the call. We may be separated for a time but ultimately no person can be isolated and be part of the church. We cannot be islands forever. Certainly, we live in a society where individualism is cherished, but that is a dangerous thing about our culture. We are not complete in and of ourselves. That is why we share in the sacrament of communion. But even here in the remembering of the Last Supper, we realize that some who take it are traitors. Friends, the great sadness is that too many are oblivious to who the traitors are, and that Jesus loved even Judas. Friends, if we are responsive to the will of Christ just like our physical bodies are responsive to the will of the mind, then that body is going to look like Christ. Christians need to live on the edge of the ever new and ever becoming while all the while standing on the cornerstone of Being in words made flesh so that each of us might unite to glorify God in Christ’s mission. And we do not do a very good job of it at all being the Body of Christ. No wonder Peter raised the warning finger at Christians who settled down to a life of static complacency in the early church. That Peter was willing to endured beatings and imprisonment before finally being crucified, as tradition holds, upside down should give us some idea of how important he deemed this work. How Christianity turns everything upside down making it right side up is set forth in today’s text Peter thought important enough to die for. It is as a call for righteous living and demand to be ethical when facing the trials of life. It is a call of hope for those Christians walking the walk and an in your face exhortation today for those pew warmers who are more passive spectators rather than active participants. Sure, some people need to receive and be blessed but that is not your average pew sitter. Some Sundays I wonder if the Pastors everywhere are preaching to the spiritually dead. Here is the thing, the Old Testament saints believed the prophecy of the messiah to come and we believe the history of the messiah’s birth, life, teachings and death on the cross. They looked forward and we look back because the tomorrows in our life are fewer than the yesterdays. After 2000 years we tend not to be expecting Jesus. Frankly I do not know if we have it easier or harder, being so affluent as we are. But to be successful spiritually looking back is a problem. God’s purpose is clear. If we have been converted, saved and received new life in Jesus Christ, what comes next is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. We know that, and we believed it. We also believe we should love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. But there is more for we become like Christ and by Christlikeness, I mean in the will of God for the people of God. Peter is offering the call to Christlikeness while still not being Christ.
Billy Graham told this story. “During the war a church in Strasburg, Germany, was totally destroyed; but a statue of Christ which stood by the altar was almost unharmed. Only the hands of the statue were missing. When the church was rebuilt, a famous sculptor offered to make new hands; but, after considering the matter, the members decided to let it stand as it was—without hands. “For,” they said, “Christ has no hands but our hands to do His work on earth. If we don’t feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, entertain the stranger, visit the imprisoned, and clothe the naked, who will?” Christ is depending on us to do the very things which He did while upon earth. My friend, if the gospel we preach does not have a social application, if it will not work effectively in the work-a-day world, then it is not the Gospel of Christ.” This timeless love and mission is never more evident than in God’s story of Jesus…. God coming to live with us as hope and love and birthing in us this Spirit. We are that important. Sure, compassion costs us something. It is not free. Ask the mother of any child. But the grace of it, the hope of it, is as old as creation itself and as new as our last breath…the reality that Christ paid the price so we might live more abundantly should however humble us. Here in this story, history and His story and our stories converge. The hope is that we would be steadfast and focused on that which holds us together, so our endurance would carry us to the finish line.
And So, when prayer is fervent, when love is preeminent and when serving is prominent, then God is glorified, the church is edified, and the world in notified that God is real. Be smart about discovering our gifts and serving. Return to our first love. Engaging God’s people in mission now is what Peter was hoping we would do today. And not just missions plural but Jesus’ mission. Friends we are to become like Christ. The topic is about today and that is the focus but to live it properly we need to live it forwards with the end in mind not backwards if we hope to glorify God. We do not know in detail what we shall be in the last day, but we do know that we will be like Christ. There is really no need for us to know any more than this. We are to be in our very being content with the glorious truth that we will be with Christ, like Christ, forever. That is why Jesus came. We are to be like Christ in his Incarnation through the universal gift of the Holy Spirit. We are to be like Christ in His service as he did, washing the feet of others like a slave. We are to be like Christ in His love being all committed to the cause. We are to be like Christ in evangelistic mission and even suffering. And we are to be like Christ in His patient endurance in relating to others. We are to be authentic in the mission in being Jesus’ hands in the world. This entering into other people’s worlds in an incarnational way is exactly what this is all about. So, we are to be Christlike in His Incarnation, in His service, in His love, in His endurance, and in His mission. The consequences are that even though we might suffer we end up glorifying God in a way that benefits us. We become authentic and authenticity makes all the difference. God’s purpose is to make us like Christ. God’s way to make us like Christ is to fill us with his Spirit. So, the Spirit can give us gifts to use to the glory of God. Let us live like there is no tomorrow in the way we pray, love and serve. For in doing so we become more like Christ.
Pray we serve our Lord and Savior with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. Pray we are fed by feeding others. Pray God empower us in our speaking and serving. Pray we realize we are all called to ministry. Pray we realize our gifts and use them for God. Pray we give God the glory. Pray
we understand that obedience to God can be both dangerous and painful as well as a blessing.
Pray we realize that Jesus Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit changed the future of the world and can change our lives too. Pray we seek to honor this past even as we strive to build a better future. Pray we learn from history but not be trapped in it. Pray we see the old in the new and the new in the old, but also the hope of something even better. Pray, if things get difficult in the world and its disruptions of our routines challenge us, that we keep the faith, endure to the end, and follow Christ who was and is worthy of all things. Pray we are not afraid. Pray we shine a light of service into the world realizing that God does not so much want our sacrifices as our love shared for the sanctification of us all.
Pray
we accept what is, let go of what was and have hope in what we believe God wants us to be. Pray the God of hope fills us with the joy and peace in believing. Pray our minds and hearts are focused on the hope of Christ and the gift of love we experience in belonging. Pray we realize that Jesus is our Hope. Pray we have an abundant hope that spills over into the lives of others with great love. Pray we meditate on the Body of Christ. Pray we use our hands each day to help those who hurt. Pray we embody the very things we are hoping to convey to others about Christ, realizing that this is the best way to glorify God. Pray we use our gifts given by the Holy Spirit. Pray we love more. Pray we pray more fervently. Pray we make a conscious choice to obey Jesus. Pray we are changed and re-committed more deeply for the future of the whole. Pray we serve collectively with others. Pray we help heal the severed body parts and assist them in finding a home. Pray we realize that God wants fellowship with each of us and will initiate this relationship both through the Spirit placed in us and through the Spirit in others. Pray we are connected to the rest, recreation and restoration of the body. Pray our bond of love helps us to look like Christ.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 