Sermon 23rd September 2012

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Adjoa Andoh-Cunnell, continues our study series, Created to Become Like Christ, looking at the book of 1 Peter.  

Got any plans for the rest of the day?? Well Cancel them! I could be quite some time on this morning’s passage.

I could be…but much to the relief of many I suspect, I won’t be…

but maybe if we were all as hungry as a new born baby for spiritual milk, as Peter encourages us to be, we would stick around all day pondering and discussing and praying around these 12 verses from the second chapter of Peter’s first letter to his fragile fellow Christians, scattered across what is now Turkey.

And we could find plenty to keep us here! there is so much in these 12 verses.

Well for my allotted time we’ll be continuing our series on becoming more like Christ as the apostle Peter encourages us to do in his first letter to early Christian communities.

Peter has so much he wants to communicate, to teach, to warn, to encourage and to inspire.

His letter would most likely have been carried back and forth over great distances across Turkey and read out to gatherings of Christians in their early church groups, only some 30 years after Christ’s ascension.

Can you imagine the excitement for those listeners! To receive a letter written by Peter, the same Peter who had lived and travelled with and witnessed Christ at first hand! The same Peter who had heard Christ’s teachings, seen his miracles, felt his love and denied him out of fear, seen his death and resurrection and been filled with his Holy Spirit!

I’d definitely want to hear what he had to say to me.!

I was on a demonstration this week for the release of 5 Cuban men imprisoned under the most severe of circumstances in America. I was one of many speakers gathered outside the US embassy, and the last person to speak was Aleida Guevara - Che Guevara’s daughter.

 On that evening the astonishing fact of meeting someone, hearing them speak (and sing!) someone so intimately associated with this iconic man Che, this caused an excitement in all of us there, that it would be dishonest to deny.

How much more exciting then as a Christian in those early treacherous years when the faithful were constantly under threat, frequently isolated and needing strong guidance and encouragement, to hear from Peter, a beloved disciple of Christ!

And that excitement can continue for us some 2000 years later!

Cameron began our study by giving us an overview of Peter, an older more mature & Godly disciple than the man we met in the Gospels,

an overview of the circumstances in which early christians lived and worshipped at the time of writing this letter

and an overview of Peter’s intention in writing to those early christians.

Then we focussed ways forward raised by Peter, which are required for faithful living in hard times as we learn to grow more like Christ; first guided by Gill we focussed on Christ as our living Hope and how we can follow his lead as hope givers, then Trevor looked at what it means to Be Holy in a daily way and today I want to look at how we become those purified purposeful living stones reflecting Christ as the cornerstone of our faith.

In this morning’s passage Peter gives us

a ‘how to’ on becoming more like Christ ,

A reminder of who we were and who we are now complete with references to Jewish scripture

And names us according to that great two fold quality that we hold as Christians.

For not only does Peter call us

GN

‘the chosen race, the King’s priests, the holy nation, God’s own people’

NIV

 a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession

But also

 GN

‘strangers and refugees in this world!”

NIV

foreigners and exiles

Peter makes a connection between us as strangers and refugees /foreigners & exiles, and

 GN

‘the stone which the builders rejected as worthless’

NIV

The stone the builders rejected

Knowing that we as Christians are in Peter’s words the ‘chosen race, God’s own people’ means that WE, rather than being worthy of nothing more than rejection, will follow in the path of the one who

GN

 ‘turns out to be the most important of all’

NIV

The cornerstone

As the NIV has it

Peter  is aligning us with Christ the rejected cornerstone.

He calls us to come to Lord Jesus, The Cornerstone, THE living stone, as living stones ourselves, serving as holy priests. Strangers and refugees /foreigners & exiles, and yet also the cornerstone.

But what is a cornerstone? And from our position as Strangers and refugees /foreigners & exiles how are we to become Holy priests /a Holy priesthood?

Well, The cornerstone is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, so determining the position of the entire building.

So we as believers in Christ, are to set the course of our lives in reference to Christ and this in turn will determine the position in the world of his living church.

In this way Jesus as the Corner-stone, unites us all, the whole community of believers, into one eternal church, and bears the weight of the whole structure.

So how do we become this Holy priesthood serving Christ in the world?

Do we aim for holiness and set our life’s course by this cornerstone or do we stumble over it weighed down by all the behaviours and values we have that are of the world, but not of Christ?

As Cameron reminded us, it had never been easy being a Christian – but it became incredibly dangerous when the whole machinery of the Roman state bore down on believers, as happened around 64AD, when Nero blamed Christians for starting the great fire of Rome.

So when Peter writes to these GN ‘strangers and refugees’/NIV ‘foreigners and exiles’, they may well have been just that, but in also setting themselves aside from worldly priorities for Christ, as Peter urges in Verse 11, they and we become refugees and strangers from worldly goals and attitudes, that hinder our growing in Christ.

Is this hard work? is it a sacrifice?

What are we giving up?

As he opens this chapter Peter is incredibly to the point

 GN

Rid yourselves, then, of all evil; no more lying or hypocrisy or jealousy or insulting language.

NIV                                                         Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.

It’s one sentence but a tall order.

If we think about our daily interractions with the world, with other people , our friends, our loved ones, our work, the council, our neighbours, our shopping habits, the thoughts and conversations we have with ourselves about what’s happening in our lives, can we truly say we have ridden ourselves of (GN) - all evil, lying, hypocrisy, jealousy or insulting language –insulting language?...me when I’m driving - ouch..chats that are basically gossip?

(NIV )malice,deceit, hypocrisy, envy, or slander of every kind…slander?... me when I’m driving - ouch….

chats that are basically gossip? – ouch….

GN

The ‘then’ in Verse one is helpful, as in

‘Rid yourselves, then, of all evil;’

NIV

The  ‘therefore’ in Verse one is helpful as in

‘Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice’

because it points us back to what we have been told by Peter in Chapter One about growing in Christ

Lets look again at the end of ch1

GN

23 For through the living and eternal word of God you have been born again as the children of a parent who is immortal, not mortal. 24 As the scripture says,

“All human beings are like grass,
    and all their glory is like wild flowers.
The grass withers, and the flowers fall,

25 

    but the word of the Lord remains forever.”

This word is the Good News that was proclaimed to you.

NIV

‘For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For,

“All people are like grass,
    and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,

25 

    but the word of the Lord endures forever.”[c]

And this is the word that was preached to you.’

In coming to Christ we have been born again, born into a new life. In V 2 Peter tells us

GN

2 Be like newborn babies, always thirsty for the pure spiritual milk, so that by drinking it you may grow up and be saved.

NIV

V22 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,

We are to crave to thirst for that spiritual nourishment in order to grow, and emulating the sacrificing forgiving Love of Jesus is central to that spiritual growth,.

Love is the powerful healing response to all that Peter warns us against. Yet the reality is, that it is a struggle to shake off the habits and the norms we absorb all around us.

In the book The Developing Christian, theologian Peter Feldmeister addresses this struggle. He quotes The Russian novelist Dostoyevsky who wrote

Love in dreams is easy; but the reality is a dreadful assault.

Feldmeier responds to this as follows:

‘Love assaults our egos, our desire to dominate, to control. It exposes our fears.

Love’s risks are real because our fears, our anger and our greed seem so real to us.

But love’s possibility is freedom from these very things that imprison our souls.

It is the freedom for joy, the freedom for true peace, the freedom for unity – even in our diversity.

Love’s possibility is nothing less than being recreated in the image of Love’s Divine Son; that we, by God’s grace, might look like him, act like him, love like him, and become his very light to the world.’

In taking up Peter’s challenge to rid ourselves of all evil/malice we are in fact freeing our souls to grow as God intended them to, freeing our deepest selves to become who God made us to be.

In this way Faithfulness and freedom are inseperable

Paul writes in Galatians ch 5 v1 ‘For freedom Christ has set us free’

For St Augustine the souls deepest identity was something that cannot be separated from grace. Understanding that God in us was “deeper in me than I am in me.”

St Irenaeus wrote

‘The glory of God is the human being fully alive, and the life of the person is the vision of God.’

Do we want to live as God’s vision, to be his Holy Priesthood?

The first requisite is our desire for change,

 to know that life with God, with Christ as our model,

is the change we need in order to be our whole true selves.

When we are thirsty / craving that spiritual milk to transform the way we live and who we live our lives for, then we can begin the process of growing into the selves God created us to be, fully alive, his vision made real in Christ.

.

I read audio books from time to time and I’m in the middle of recording one for the RNIB, the Royal Institute for the Blind.

It’s called A Piece Of Cake and is the autobiography of a black American woman called Cupcake Brown.

Flicking through when I was first asked to read the book, I groaned outloud at the prospect of this long book dealing in what I call ‘misery porn’.

By which I mean a book where the most appalling things happen to an 11 year old girl once she finds her mother dead following an epileptic fit.

Her biological father appears for the first time and according to Californian law has custody priority over the rest of the family Cupcake has. She is given into his care, he promptly farms her out to the most brutal of foster mothers with whom he splits the welfare checks and then disappears. Thereafter the next 15 years of her life are filled with brutal rapes, prostitution, addiction, criminality and being at the mercy of a hopeless welfare and legal system which does nothing to protect a vulnerable grieving child. So far so misery porn  - but slowly a quiet voice begins to pop up every so often in her head, and when Cup listens to it she always manages to avoid circumstances that might lead to her death,

but this is not enough to change her dreadful life.

Not enough, until she catches sight of herself one day when her circumstances are so reduced she has been living in a dumpster for days filthy and high on crack, venturing out only to prostitute herself for the price of her next rock or strong alcohol.

When Cupcake catches sight of herself in a shop window looking unrecognizable, a feral animal, all she can do is stare and the word that comes to her is simply ‘help’.

 She has long since abandoned any hope in a God who would allow all the terrible things that have happened to her, to happen, and yet and yet.

In her moment of utter despair she turns to the only possibility left to her – God and in that single word Help her life begins it’s transformation.

And at this point misery porn transforms into a slow painful story of redemption and a growing lifelong relationship with God and the many ordinary saints he sends into her life.

Now for many of us our own stories and paths may not be so dramatically dreadful, but for some of us they may have their moments, and for all of us, I have no doubt that we have had our times of calling Help! in the absence of anywhere else to turn.

We like Peter’s early Christian bothers and sisters are on the same path as Cupcake Brown. Perhaps we are not fleeing the persecution of the brutal Roman Emporor Nero, perhaps we are not battling with alcohol and drug addiction and all the horrors surrounding them, but the desire to change our lives, that transformation and growing in our new life in Christ, is no different, and Peter’s words for the early Christians across Turkey, for Cupcake Brown and for us hold the same power and urgency.

AS Cameron told us at the start of this series Peter, was utterly committed to equipping God’s people so that they could stay standing firm in faith and hope and trust through the very hardest times.

In Chapter one peter tells us

“GNB

You were chosen according to the purpose of God the Father and were made a holy people by his Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be purified by his blood

NIV

[You] have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood”.

We are answerable to God for how we are living out His purpose, that we should become more like Jesus. 

And in Jesus’ resurrection God meets all our struggles with a definitive yes to us.

Yes life is stronger than death, yes there is hope beyond suffering, yes love will overwhelm hate, yes Christ’s peace will endure.

My favourite hymn, come ye disconsolate has the line

Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot cure

Peter writes to us

GN

V3“You have found out for yourselves how kind the Lord is.”

NIV

3  you have tasted that the Lord is good.

And the risen Lord Jesus’ constant greeting to his disciples was “Peace be with you”

So as we grow in the risen Jesus we know that we have his peace and so we are empowered to extend his peace to the world.

GN

So as we prepare to stand and sing Refiners fire

My prayer this morning is that we will heed Peter’s guidance and set ourselves apart for our Lord ready to do His will, and in doing so free our deepest godliest , truest selves to shine, knowing how utterly we are loved, knowing our purpose in growing more like Christ is to be his Living Stones, to extend his loving peace to the world, and in so doing return ourselves to the human beings we were created to be.Amen

And so let’s stand to sing.

NIV

So as we prepare to stand and sing How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds in A Believer’s ear

My prayer this morning is that we will heed Peter’s guidance and hold Jesus as the Cornerstone by which we set the course of our lives, the Rock on which we Build, our Shield and Hiding place, and in doing so free our deepest godliest , truest selves to shine, knowing how utterly we are loved, knowing our purpose in growing more like Christ is to be his Living Stones, to extend his loving peace to the world, and in so doing return to the human beings we were created to beAmen

And so now lets stand and sing

Sermon 16th September 2012

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, continues our study series, Created to Become Like Christ, looking at the book of 1 Peter.  

Be Holy

(1 Peter 1:13-25)

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, thank you that you are a God who speaks to us. Give us understanding, so that we may not merely be hearers of the word, but also doers of the word. Amen.

Be holy. Holiness. I wonder what your instinctive reaction is when you hear the words ‘holy’ and ‘holiness’. In today’s world, the idea of holiness and being holy sometimes produces a negative reaction. Christians are sometimes accused of being ‘holier than thou’. An insult that was used at the school I attended as a boy was ‘Holy Joe’, although I must confess there were plenty of far ruder insults that the boys hurled at each other! While love, faith and hope are widely seen as positive virtues, the way people feel about holiness is probably rather ambiguous. Why is this so?

I suspect it is the case that sometimes Christians can appear to be holier than thou. Sometimes there is a tendency for Christians to pull away from society and, often completely unwittingly, to adopt an attitude of superiority and to regard other people as beneath them. Perhaps that is why the idea of holiness sometimes gets a bad press. Yet if people were to read through the Gospels and look at Jesus’ ministry on earth with an open mind, I think it’s fair to say that most would agree that Jesus is a holy man – that the Gospels tell the story of someone who is deeply good and holy.  Jesus connected with all sorts of people. He often got into trouble with the religious leaders of his day. Why? Because he hung out with the so-called sinners – people on the margins of society. The holiness that Jesus gives us is not a holiness that leaves anyone feeling superior or better than anyone else. It is a holiness that moves out; it is a holiness that engages with people.

But poor examples of holiness in the church are not the only reason why holiness is often not seen as a virtue. There is also a cultural conflict with holiness. Moral freedom rather than holiness appeals to many people today. ‘Do what you like as long as it doesn’t hurt others’ is the popular world view.  Society says, ‘Do what you think will fulfil you.’

But ultimately what this world has to offer us won’t be fulfilling. If we simply take the approach of doing what we like as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, the chances are actually that we will end up hurting other people - and also ourselves. Moral freedom may seem attractive, but it doesn’t bring fulfilment. In this passage Peter offers us an alternative. Instead of moral freedom he offers us holiness – holiness in the true sense of the word. So I’m going to look at two questions.

The first is – what is holiness. And the second is – how do we move from thinking about holiness to leading a holy life, to embodying holiness in our lives. Holiness actually takes in a lot of things, but I’m going to focus on two points. The first is that holiness arises from a relationship, and the second is that holiness isn’t easy – it’s a struggle.

Holiness flows out of a relationship. I suspect that ‘relationship’ isn’t the first word that springs to mind when holiness is mentioned. There’s often a tendency to think of holiness as a checklist. I go to church on Sundays; I pray and read my bible regularly; I attend a home group; I give money to charity; I don’t commit adultery. Now all these are good things, but holiness isn’t a list of dos and don’ts. It isn’t a checklist. Peter centres holiness on a relationship.

The word holy means ‘set apart’. When we become Christians we are set apart from our former lives to serve God. And we enter into a relationship with a person – and that person is Jesus. As it says in verses 18-19 Jesus rescued us from an empty way of life through his precious blood – through his death on the Cross. And as Christians, we enter into a relationship with Jesus. It is our relationship with Jesus that defines us, not a checklist of dos and don’ts. Peter reminds us of our identity, and urges us to live out of that identity, the identity that flows from our relationship with Jesus. Live out of that identity; live out of that relationship. Be holy, because God is holy. Our identity is now in Jesus, the Son of God. Our story is now part of God’s story. 

In verse 14 Peter contrasts the holy life with the ‘evil desires’ we formerly held. What does he mean? The word translated by ‘evil desires’ is EPITHUMIA. Epithumia is the Greek word for strong desires, which can have either a positive or negative connotation in the Bible. Here in verse 14 it clearly has a negative connotation, and that is why it’s translated ‘evil desires’. Peter is writing about strong desires that have been corrupted and twisted in a way contrary to God’s will and plans. The picture here is of strong desires that take us over, that rule us. If Jesus isn’t at the centre of our lives, the danger is that these strong desires will overwhelm us.

Are there any epithumia in our lives that overwhelm us, that control us? In his commentary William Barclay describes the world into which Christianity came. His description is surprisingly contemporary. There was desperate poverty at the bottom end of the scale, but at the top banquets costing vast sums of money were held and the people would feast on rare foods such as peacocks’ brains and nightingales’ tongues. Immorality was rife, and faithfulness in relationships was becoming increasingly rare.

But even if we’re not tempted by debauchery on this scale, we need to beware strong desires that can take us away from God. Whenever a desire takes us over, even if that desire is for something that’s otherwise good, then it displaces God.

 Avoid those strong desires that can turn to evil, Peter says. Move away from them. Live instead out of your relationship with Jesus. Holiness stems from our relationship with Jesus, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.  Peter says holiness is a battle; holiness is a struggle.

We can realise that these strong desires can lead us away from Jesus and hurt us. We can see in contrast what Jesus offers and promises. We can come to him, but holiness remains a struggle.  In chapter 2 verse 11, Peter writes, ‘Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.’ These desires don’t disappear overnight when we become Christians. Peter’s view of Christian life is that it’s a battle. Even if we come to the Cross, we will struggle with these strong desires, the promises that this world offers. We think, ‘If I can only have my heart’s desire, then everything will be OK, I’ll be happy.’ But that’s not true, and the danger is that these desires can take us over and lead us away from God.

What epithumia, what strong desires could overwhelm us? Do we have the right attitude to our work, our money and our relationships? What desires will try to displace God in our lives? What are our particular temptations?

Holiness in the true sense of the word is a vital part of becoming like Christ. We need to put aside the strong desires that can lead is in the wrong direction, but it’s a struggle. We struggle to live a holy life; we struggle to live consistently in Christ.  Other things capture our imagination; they move us and drive us. How can we become more like Christ? Well, there are two things that Peter shows that I want to focus on. The first is that we need to see what is real, to wake up to reality, and the second is that we need to see Jesus.

We need to see reality. Peter starts the passage, with a call to use our minds – ‘minds that are alert and fully sober’ as he describes them. (vs 13) Prepare our minds. Think! We need to think. And in this passage Peter is helping us to think. He’s taking us through the Christian life and showing us what reality is. We live in a world that bombards us with opportunities to believe in other things and to behave in other ways. We need to see life as it really is. If we’re going to grow in holiness, if we’re to base our lives on something that lasts, we need to be centred on the right things.  So Peter in this chapter draws a contrast between the things that will last and the things that will fade. Where do we really put our hope and trust, because it’s not enough just to see the negative in our lives? How do we stop centring our lives on the wrong desires? How do we move beyond that? We do it by seeing Jesus, by looking to Jesus.

In chapter 2 verse 3 Peter writes, ‘you have tasted that the Lord is good.’ We have experienced his goodness, we know that he is good. Peter is helping us to grasp his goodness by showing us that he is a God who has moved towards us, a God who has spared nothing to get near to his people.          He is a God who has given us his Son. Peter reminds us of the costliness of salvation and of the great blessing of salvation. We have tasted his goodness.

We need to realise that the only way to move into a holy life, the only way to become more like Christ, is to focus on Jesus. We know that our hearts are fickle and that we are prone to leave him, that we are prone to move away from him and to move towards other things. So we need to deny ourselves those things, those strong desires that wage war on our soul, and instead of looking to them to complete us, we need to turn to Jesus to complete us. How do we focus on Jesus? By focusing on the reality! And Peter in this chapter describes the reality vividly.

·      In verse 3, he tells us that God has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have new life in Jesus; we have eternal life in him.

·      In verse 4 he reminds us that we have an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. We all know that the benefits of this life fade way. Even if we were to inherit an earthly fortune, one day we will die and someone else will get it.

·      In verse 7, Peter tells us that our faith is of greater worth than gold. Gold is very valuable, durable to the point of virtual indestructibility. Our faith will outlast even gold.

Peter is drawing out the contrasts. In verse 14 he tells us that we were once ignorant, but not any more. In verses 23-25 Peter says that the things that the world offers us are like flowers of the field that perish. But the word of the Lord, the story of the Gospels and the promises of God in Jesus – they will live forever.

Peter reminds us of the reality. We need to take that reality back into our own lives and see the particular shape of our struggles with holiness. We need to see the reality of the things that destroy, but we also need to see the reality of God. How do we make sure that we see the reality of God?

Quite near the beginning of this talk, I said that holiness isn’t a check list, that holiness doesn’t consist of going to church on Sundays, praying and reading the bible regularly and attending a home group. Holiness flows from a relationship with Jesus. But if you have a relationship with someone, you want to spend time with them. You can’t say, ‘I love my wife, but I don’t want to spend any time with her.’ Coming to church, praying, reading the Bible and attending a home group are all good ways of developing our relationship with Jesus. There are plenty of materials available in hard copy and on line that help us to study the Bible. To give just one example, CWR produces daily bible reading notes – Everyday with Jesus – which are available as a book, via email and even on kindle.

If we want to see things as they are, if we are to recognise the strong desires that can pull us away from our faith, then we need to centre on Jesus. Becoming holy, becoming like Christ, is a struggle, but we know that Jesus is with us in our struggles.

Let’s pray.

Lord, help us to see reality and to fight the strong desires that seek to take us away from Jesus. We pray that we will see that you are a God of love who showers his love upon us. Lead us, we pray, into a deeper relationship with Jesus.

Amen.

---

[i] 16 September 2012

Sermon 9th September 2012

Today our Curate, Gill Tayleur, continues our study series, Created to Become Like Christ, looking at the book of 1 Peter.  

LIVING HOPE 

(1 Peter 1 verses 3 - 12)

A couple had two little boys, aged 8 and 10, who were extremely mischievous. They were always getting in to trouble and their parents were getting to the end of their tether. The boys’ mother heard that the local vicar had been successful in getting some wayward children to change their ways, so she asked him if he would speak with her boys.  He agreed, but said he’d like to see them individually. So the 8 year old went to see him first, one Saturday morning, with the 10 year old lined up for later in the day. The vicar, a large man with a loud voice, sat the younger boy down and started with a question, “Where is God?” The boy’s mouth dropped, but he made no response, sitting there with his mouth hanging open, wide eyed. So the vicar repeated the question, “Where is God?” Again the boy made no attempt to answer. So the vicar raised his voice, and shook his finger, again asking, “WHERE IS GOD?” The boy screamed and bolted from the room, ran home, and into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. When his older brother found him there, he asked, “What happened?” The younger brother, gasping for breath, replied,

“We are in BIG trouble this time. God is missing – and they think WE did it!”

Does it sometimes feel as if God has gone missing?

In our Good News Bibles this section is headed up, A Living Hope, from v 3 in which Peter says, “this fills us with a living hope”. And the whole passage is about this hope, what it is

and why we have it and how we live in the reality of it. And that’s what we’re going to think about this morning. And the bigger picture of a living hope being part of our becoming more like Christ.

I know it’s only a few months since our series on Faith Hope & Love, when we looked at hope together, but I think this morning’s Bible passage throws up some slightly different ideas and questions than we had in the Spring. But as Simon Brindley did when he preached on hope in April, I draw from and highly recommend Tom Wright’s book,

Surprised by Hope. It’s quite meaty, and a very interesting and helpful read.

HOPE. These days hope is often not much more than wishful thinking. I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow. I hope I don’t catch Trevor’s cold.

But in the Bible, hope is much stronger than that. It’s a firm conviction. It’s an expectation based on something solid and reliable. It’s like the hope I might have that the P4 bus will take me to Brixton, when I’m already on it and going in the right direction! I hope it will take me there?! I’m convinced it will, I’m relying on it!

In the Bible, hope is based on God’s promises, and he is 100% reliable. Biblical hope anticipates good from God.

This is the sort of hope that Peter had in mind when he wrote this letter. If you weren’t here last week, you may not know that this letter was written by the fisherman disciple Peter

we know from the gospels, to new Christian believers scattered around what’s now Turkey, scattered because of the persecution of Christians by the Romans. To these Christian believers Peter writes about hope, about a living hope.

And as Cameron said last Sunday, Peter addressed his letter to God’s chosen people,

and what he wrote to them is applicable to us too, as God’s people today, fellow Christian believers, even in such different circumstances. We can have a living hope too. So let’s look at it together.

WHY can we have this living hope? WHAT can we hope for? And HOW can we LIVE in this hope? How can such hope be alive for us too, in 21^st century London? Why, what and how.

First then, WHY do Christians have such hope? Let’s read carefully what Peter says. From verse 3: “Because of his great mercy (that’s God the Father’s mercy) he gave us new life

by raising JC from death. This fills us with a living hope”. What fills them and us with a living hope? Christ’s resurrection and our subsequent new life!

Christ’s resurrection gives us hope because it is his victory over sin and death! They’re beaten! He is more powerful than them! And because Christ died and rose from the dead, we can be forgiven our sin and have our relationship with God mended.

That changes everything so much that it’s like starting life again, a new life of faith

following God and his son Jesus Christ. Christ himself described this change as a new birth, saying “you must be born again” to Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a very religious man, a member of the Sanhedrin, which meant he was a pillar of the community and man of the highest Jewish standing. Christ said to him, you must be born again. If it applied even to Nicodemus, it really must apply to everyone.

Whether we’ve come to faith in Christ gradually and gently, or in a more dramatic conversion experience, everyone who’s a Christian, who believes in Christ and his death & resurrection for them, has been born again, has a new relationship with God; it’s for everyone. And so every Christian can have this living hope.

As well as this new life and new relationship with God, Christ’s resurrection paved the way

for the resurrection of the whole of creation. That means us, that our earthly bodies will be resurrected one day, as Christ’s was. And it also means the whole of creation. More about that in a moment.

So, WHY do we have a living hope? Because of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

Then secondly, WHAT do we hope FOR? Peter says, “This fills us with a living hope,

and so we look forward to possessing the rich blessings that God keeps for his people.

He keeps them for you in heaven, where they cannot decay or spoil or fade away.”

What do we hope for? We look forward to God’s rich blessings, in heaven. What are these blessings and what’s heaven?

Heaven is God’s space, where God’s authority rules and his future purposes are waiting in the wings. Whereas earth is our world, our space. The two are separate, but touching, for now. But we know from a vision we read about at the end of Revelation, that God’s holy city, God’s place, will come down from heaven to earth when Christ comes again. God’s space and ours, heaven and earth, will finally be integrated in a newly recreated earth.

God and his rule will be central. It will be perfect. And that’s what we have, to hope for and look forward to for all eternity. That’s when the ‘rich blessings’ at present being kept safe in heaven, will be merged with our earthly reality, transforming it and soaking it through with God’s presence, his love and his mercy. Living forever, in that perfect place, under God’s perfect rule of love and justice and joy, will be rich blessings indeed; it’ll be heaven!

Peter says these rich blessings cannot decay or spoil or fade away, they’re being kept safe for us. What else cannot decay or spoil or fade away? Nothing! Life is by definition transient. Nothing on earth lasts forever. We don’t, our loved ones don’t. Ultimately life is a series of losses, as we have to let go of everything and everyone sooner or later. There is nothing we can hang on to forever apart from God.

But Peter says there is something that can’t decay or spoil or fade away – something that’s truly eternal – our future in heaven with God. That’s what we hope for, in the Biblical, confident, expectant, sense. How wonderful! Life needn’t end! Something can last forever and ever!

One way it’s described in this passage, is in terms of salvation. In verse 5 Peter speaks of

the salvation which is ready to be revealed at the end of time. And in verse 9, of the salvation of your souls, the purpose of your faith.

Salvation. Scholars say this word means rescue, deliverance or healing, used to apply in at least four ways: deliverance from danger, from disease, from sin, and from God’s judgement. Being delivered or released from that lot brings healing, wholeness, well being in the deepest sense, physically, emotionally & spiritually, as we relate to God

in perfect love and obedience. That’s what salvation is, and that’s what we hope for,

in the Biblical sense. We hope for that complete deliverance, that complete well being,

that perfect relationship of love with God, in his eternal, perfect heaven – forever.Now isn’t that worth hoping for?!

And if we do, what difference will it make to now? HOW do we live in this hope?

Yes we believe in Christ’s resurrection and are living a new life in relationship with God and following Christ – so how do we have this LIVING hope? How do we live in the reality of it? What does Peter say?

First we have faith that stands up to trials and suffering. Verses 6 & 7. Peter says suffering

tests a believer’s faith, and proves it is genuine, so that it may endure. In suffering, faith is strengthened, or purified, as gold is when heated to very high temperatures and impurities rise to the surface and can be removed.

Although we know that here in this letter Peter was referring to the suffering of persecution

that his readers were going through, there are other passages in the Bible that say all sorts of suffering can refine and strengthen faith. How? By reacting to it with a determination to keep trusting in God’s goodness and presence with us through the suffering. In hard times we can learn to depend on God in a way that we don’t need to when everything’s going well.

For the last few weeks we’ve seen Olympic and Paralympic sportsmen and women

pushing their bodies to the limit. We’ve heard about the intensity of their punishing training schedules, and about pain, muscle burn, cramps and exhaustion. But such training makes their bodies stronger. Just as athletic training can push the athlete’s body

to the limits of endurance, to make it stronger, so too suffering can make us stronger in faith, not that we’d seek it.

Suffering can make our faith stronger IF we carry on believing and loving God. Verse 8 says we love and believe in God and his son Jesus Christ, even though we don’t now see him. Peter of course had seen Christ, knew him well, but we haven’t. And Peter goes on to say, “SO you rejoice with a great and glorious joy which words cannot express, because you are receiving salvation”.

Our faith in Christ and love for him can bring rejoicing, even in the midst of suffering!

Not by denying the ghastliness of the suffering we’re going through, but because we hold on to the hope that eternity in heaven will see an end to all suffering, it’ll be perfect, with God’s love justice and joy in all their fullness.

In Hebrews 12 we read that Christ endured suffering, the horrendous suffering of the cross, because of the joy of heaven that was waiting for him. Nothing we go through will ever be as bad as the cross, in its physical emotional and spiritual pain, as he took on himself

the weight of the world’s sin and pain. But in a small way, we can become more like him

in our response to the suffering we face. We can become more like Christ.

There are many examples of people holding on to a living hope, in faith, in times of suffering, and being strengthened by that hope and faith. Some particularly come to mind today, Racial Justice Sunday, as people who have suffered due to their race.

I think of slaves in the last two centuries, who wrote marvellous gospel songs and hymns

about the hope of heaven, like Steal away to Jesus, Swing Low Sweet Chariot. The hope of their eternal future strengthened them as they suffered injustice and dreadful abuse.

And some people today who suffer because of their ethnicity, their caste or religion,

find a surprising joy in the hope that comes from their faith.

But how do we react to trials and suffering? I’m sure we’ve all experienced suffering of one sort or another. Maybe the physical suffering of a chronic illness or disability, or the mental suffering of depression or acute anxiety. Or the suffering of the death of a dearly loved one, or betrayal, or separation. Or desperate financial need. Or having been forced to leave our home, or home country. Whatever we have to face, we can hold on to our hope of heaven – and on to our faith and love for God NOW. Hold on to the truth that God is good, and God is with us, NOW, whatever we’re going through. Hold on to the new life and new relationship with God that we have, thanks to Christ’s resurrection.

How marvellous that we know the truth about these things! The last verses in the passage

we’re looking at this morning point out how prophets in Old Testament times wrote about the expected Christ, but knew and understood very little about him. But in Peter’s day, and now, we are privileged to understand and grasp the truth about Christ and his resurrection, leading to the marvellous hope we now have.

So, how do we have a living hope? By holding on to faith, even in suffering, by loving Christ, by remaining joyful! Hope, faith, love, joy – as we grow in them, then surely we will be growing to be more like Christ, as we were created to be.

One final thought. In his book, Tom Wright points out another implication of the truth that

our living hope is not just a hope for after death, it’s hope for now too.

Tom Wright says, “God has brought his future, his putting-the-world-to-rights future, into the present in Jesus of Nazareth, and he wants that future to be implicated more and more in the present.” So, he goes on to say, Christians are to anticipate that future in the here and now. “Every act of love, every deed done in Christ and by the Spirit, every work of true creativity, every time justice is done, peace is made, families are healed, temptation is resisted, true freedom is sought and won – these earthly events take their place among things which anticipate the final new creation, and act as signposts of hope.”

We live in faith and love for God, because of Christ’s resurrection and his new life in us,

that gives us a LIVING HOPE, hope for now and hope for all eternity.

So let’s pray, as we sit. God our Father, we thank you for the living hope we can have because of the wonderful things you’ve done and have planned for us. May that hope strengthen us in times of suffering, and help shape us to become more like Christ. In his name, Amen.

Sermon 2nd September 2012

Today our Vicar, Cameron Barker, begins a new study series, Created to Become Like Christ, looking at the book of 1 Peter.  

Here’s a quandary: there isn’t just one good way to get into this new series; but two. Well, as some people are probably still in holiday mode, I thought that I’d best use both of them.

So, first is the story of a teenage boy who was complaining to his granny about how everything was going wrong for him: school; family-life; health; girls; everything. His Granny just listened quietly, as she baked a cake.

After a while she asked her grandson if he wanted snack – which, being a teenager, of course he did.

“Here, have some cooking oil.”

“Yuck!” he said.

“How about a couple raw eggs?”

“No, Granny!”

“Would you like some flour then? Or baking soda?”

“Gran, those are all horrible!”

“Yes, they do each taste bad by themselves”, she replied: “But when they’re all put together in the right way, they make a delicious cake. And God sometime works like that in our lives too, you know”.

The second one is less twee – because it’s about a pirate, who walked into his local watering-hole one day. The landlady checked him out, and said, “Long time no see: but what has happened to you? You look terrible.”

“What do you mean?” said the pirate, “I feel fine.”

“What about the wooden leg? You didn’t have that the last time I saw you.”

“Well,” said the pirate, “We were in a fierce battle, and I took a cannon ball through the knee; but I’m fine now, look.”

The landlady the said, “And what about that hook? What happened to your hand?”

The pirate explained, “That happened in another battle. I boarded a ship, and my hand was cut off in the sword-fight. I got fitted with this hook, though, so I’m fine, really.”

“And that eye patch?”

“Oh, that,” said the pirate, “As we were approacheing this island, a flock of birds flew over the ship. While I was looking up, one of them pooped right in my eye.”

“No way!” said the landlady. “How could you possibly lose an eye just from a little bird poo?”

“Well, it was my first day with the hook.”

Now, this isn’t some sliding-doors-moment. It’s not that one of those stories takes us down one road into Peter’s first letter, and the other story down a different route. No, both of them could and should perform the same function. There’s no way to avoid the fact that – in some ways, at least – we are in for something of rough ride between now and Advent. We also can’t avoid the fact that how we respond in such times matters. So here’s that warning again in case you perhaps missed it. It came in that very short part of this letter that we heard. 1 Peter was written to those who “(GNB) Live as refugees / (NIV) [are] exiles, scattered throughout... ” this list of places that are fairly obscure to most of us now.

If you want to know, those places would all be in modern-day Turkey – if they did still exist today. They are probably listed here in the order that post would have been delivered around the provinces in that part of the Roman Empire. From each of the centres an important piece of post (such as Peter’s letter was) would then have been circulated around the wider area, and so reached even more people. We can’t know how many churches existed there, or what size they were. What we do know is that there were Christians living throughout that region by this point in the 1^st Century. To some extent they had left Jerusalem or Rome for such backwaters precisely because they were so far away from the heart of action.

Maybe we should say “heat” instead, though. You see, far away meant safe – relatively speaking anyway. Safe from the rising tide of persecution that had begun to target what was being seen as a dangerous new anti-imperial religion. There had been trouble between Judaism and Christianity right from the start. That had led to some problems, of the kind that we can read in pages of Acts. People like Paul were forced out of towns, arrested, or beaten; some even died. It wasn’t easy being a Christian – but it was very different when the entire weight of the Roman state crashed down on it. That happened for real in 64AD, when Nero blamed Christians for starting the great fire of Rome. But the signs of persecution had begun a good while before; many people saw what was coming, and ran!

Now of course there is, as usual, a degree of reading between the lines required to say all of this. But there are historical documents other than the evidence of this letter itself, and from other New Testament books to work from. And the sum of all those various parts adds up to pretty solid grounds that we can rely on. Scholars are as sure as they can be when, and why this letter was written; and also by whom. Doubts have been raised more recently, but no convincing ones. So, what we have here is a letter bravely written from Rome itself; in the early-mid-60’sAD; by Peter himself – the same Peter who we know and love, warts and all, from all four of the Gospels.

He had changed significantly by the time he wrote this. No longer was Peter that brash, outspoken, know-it-all who had denied even knowing Jesus to save his own skin. Being forgiven for that was humbling, and life-changing, enough in itself. To be entrusted with the task of leading the implementation of Jesus’ on-going mission, as Peter was, made him more than he had ever been. The early stages of that process are clear to see in Acts. The man who then wrote this letter comes through as mature, wise, Godly, and humble. He was utterly committed to equipping God’s people so that they could stay standing firm in faith and hope and trust through the very hardest of times.

I’m sure you’ll agree that this is all great stuff! It’s impressive and very admirable – and such a long way removed from where we are here. Our circumstances could hardly be more different to those of the people who first received this letter – unless there are some rapid and very unexpected dramatic changes coming our way. I don’t know of any – though of course the Bible advises us to be ready for all things at all times. But actually it’s beside the point whether that happens or not. Peter’s letter was written to this people, in these particular circumstances, in those times; just as each book of the Bible first was. But they all still have much to say, to all people, in all times, and in all circumstances – very much including those that are as comfortable and safe as ours are.

So hopefully you didn’t miss that first group of people Peter addressed letter “to: God’s (GNB) chosen people / (NIV) elect”. Simply put, to some extent Peter always intended to write a general letter. Modern scholars now see 1 Peter as his follow-on to the input that he’d had to Mark’s Gospel. Of all people, Peter knew that what really mattered was keeping on following Jesus, becoming ever more like him – in any, all, and every circumstance. So this letter really is also for us; it’s for you, then, in whatever place you are: spiritually, materially, emotionally, and in all other ways too. Its purpose now is to help you to keep on following Jesus, to help you become ever more like him, in all the ways that you need to – which are doubtless many!

Perhaps you don’t believe that? Read again, then: “(GNB) You were chosen according to the purpose of God the Father and were made a holy people by his Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be purified by his blood. / (NIV) [You] have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood”. This may not be the language that you’d necessarily use to express it perhaps; but this is still the identity, and the purpose, of anyone who calls themselves Christian. This is who, and what you already are: you have been chosen by God; one of His people; you are set aside for Him, by His Holy Spirit; you have been put right with Him, through the death of Jesus on the cross; and your purpose is now to obey Jesus – in all things, at all times.

Now this should be ringing at least a few bells, for at least a few people. Those who were here at the start of 2011 should remember that we worked our way through a book called The Purpose Driven Life. I won’t try and summarise it: as ever, all those sermons are available on our web-site if you missed them. Hopefully you will remember that we focused on the five key purposes that this book suggests God has made each of us for. As part of that, we saw how in order for any of these purposes to happen then we must choose to live on purpose. So that’s what we have been doing ever since: what has been running in the background, as it were, is us intentionally growing in these five purposes that God has made us for.

Perhaps the penny has already dropped? In case not, one of those purposes is that we have all been ‘Created to Become Like Christ’. That was certainly the purpose that was uppermost in the collective mind of preachers when we met to hear God’s purpose for this term. We think that He wants, and needs, us to become more like Christ, as a church, and as individuals. So there is the statement of purpose in why it is that we are studying 1 Peter from beginning to end. There really is no better place in the Bible that sets out this particular purpose – and then shows us how to live out becoming ever more like Christ.

Essentially 1 Peter was written to help, to teach, and show, people how to become like Jesus. What makes it so special was the situation that it was written into. Peter wrote this for people facing some of the toughest circumstances imaginable. So what does it mean to become more like Jesus if these looming threats become real? How will you be judged if you lose your livelihood; your family; your life even? How can you live your daily life for and in Jesus in the light of that stark a reality? Of course such questions and issues do gain a real urgency when we realise that we might not have time to sort them out, whenever. So what does matter to us? What do we believe, really? And then what will we then do about that, today; if tomorrow might not ever come?

That’s the background to the issues and questions that will be explored and answered as we work through this letter. Hopefully the preachers will keep these key facts in front of us week by week: always assuming that we do have these weeks! The challenge at the outset is for each of us to try and find that perspective that for ourselves as well. Like me, you are answerable to God for how you are living out His purpose, that you should become more like Jesus. We may have time to do that at a slow, comfortable pace; and we might even get to it, when we can, of course. It may be you are facing specific issues that press you to do it now; urgently, though; while you can. Either way, what matters is that you recognise that doing this will take time, effort, and need work. It is so worth it: both because of what God has already done for you in Christ; and also because of who He intends you to become in him. “(GNB) You were chosen according to the purpose of God the Father and were made a holy people by his Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be purified by his blood. / (NIV) [You] have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood”. So let’s get on with doing just that, then: on purpose; and “May grace and peace be yours in (GNB) full measure / (NIV) abundance” as you do so. Now let’s pray ...