Sermon 4th Novemer 2012
Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, continues our study series on Becoming like Christ, looking at the book of 1 Peter.
“The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer”. That was the verse from this passage that a preacher focused on one Sunday in small-town America. As you can tell from the language, this was before the days of Children’s Church; so 10-year-old Johnny had weighty matters on his mind as he walked home with his Grandpa.
On the outskirts of that town, there was a big pecan tree, just inside the graveyard fence. On that Sunday, two boys had sneaked in there to collect the fallen nuts. As Johnny walked past, the boys were sat by the tree, out of sight from the road, dividing the nuts: “One for you, one for me; one for you, one for me”.
Also unseen by Johnny, several nuts had rolled toward fence. He didn’t need to see anything, though; he just knew what he’d heard. He ran off to his Grandpa, who’d fallen behind. “Come quick,” he said; ‘The end is here: I’ve just heard Satan and the Lord in the graveyard, dividing up people’s souls.”
His worried Grandpa hurried with Johnny to the graveyard. As they stood by the fence they heard: “One for you, one for me; one for you, one for me”. Johnny’s Grandpa said, ‘Well, let’s see if we can see the Lord, then.’ Shaking with fear, they peered through the fence; but of course they couldn’t see anything. The old man and the boy gripped the iron bars of the fence tighter and tighter as they waited to catch a glimpse of the Lord. Soon enough they heard, “One for you, one for me: that’s all of them. Now let’s get those nuts by the fence and then we’ll be finished.” The story has it that Johnny’s Grandpa made it back home at least 10 minutes before the boy did.
What follows isn’t going to focus on the fact that the end of all thing is near. It also won’t be majoring on how God’s judgment is certain. Yes, the end is near – whatever ‘near’ means, given that these words were written almost 2 000 years ago. And yes, God’s judgment is surely coming, for the living and the dead. The fact is that Christians do live in the context of eternity. But our focus, as Peter’s so clearly is throughout this part of his letter, must be on living a life that’s transformed now, in the present. And that has to happen in the real world: it is to be done through relationships with real people; and it’s set in the context of real circumstances – all of which lot are less than perfect, as we well know.
Peter knew of life’s imperfections too: he knew them from all sorts of personal experience – both what he had done himself, and also what had been done to him. His readers knew the same at least as well. Remember the main reason that Peter wrote this letter to them was because of what was being done to them. These Christian in modern-day Turkey were facing a life-threatening persecution, on top of what they had already been through. They knew that life wasn’t perfect, like they knew that they weren’t perfect. No wonder, then that Peter began his next section by telling them to ‘arm themselves’!
What’s so instructive is what Peter said they were to arm themselves with: the same attitude (NIV), or way of thinking (GNB), as Jesus had. Once again, Peter says that is to be based on the fact of Jesus’ own suffering. I trust that those who have heard, or read, even only a few of these sermons that we have had on this letter have picked up this theme already. For Peter, Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross was absolutely central, to absolutely everything. Not only did it bring us to God; Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross has also accomplished our forgiveness by Him; and our healing too; and then, as we have been hearing over and over again, Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross is what sets the example by which we are to live, every part of our life, in any and all circumstances.
So, here we go once again, then: our own starting place is to be Christ’s suffering. That has changed everything, and makes all things possible. Some of those who had had that kind of experience themselves might now live very differently, Peter said. In verse 1 he quite specifically meant those who had already suffered for their faith, and had stood firm. To come through that experience, and get to the other side of it, would indeed sharpen the mind as to what really matters in life. But for all believers, whether they have been through that kind of suffering or not, Christ’s suffering is now also to be our launch-pad. What it’s to mean this time is that we are to live the rest of our earthly life for God, rather than for what our fallen human nature might perhaps naturally choose.
However long you have already spent living that way, Peter said, that’s enough. It’s time to stop, even if you did used to be well into it; and, yes, even if you are still associating with those who do continue to live that way. Peter referred to them here as heathens, or pagans, because that is what most of his readers’ fellow-citizens actually were. In those days life was generally far more overtly religious than it is here today. But lots of the same unGodly behaviour that’s very much still with us today was then part of particular religions, in a way that’s no longer the case. We could say that there’s still plenty of idolatry about. People still find lots to put before God: not much of it looks so religious today. But in a time when most people did follow some religion or other, those offering the first-century equivalent of sex and drugs and rock and roll were often very popular!
Of course people tend not to like it when you make a moral choice to stop doing what they still do. They feel judged in some way, and can then let you know about it – as you may have experienced yourself. Peter’s readers had faced that, it seems; but in this too they were to stand firm. And once again the example of Jesus was to be how they did so. He had suffered the cross to make the crucial, eternal difference. Everyone will face God’s judgment in the end, whether we’re alive or dead when Jesus returns to bring that about. And it’s only at that point that the truth can, and will, be seen for what it is.
On the face of it, in both GNB and NIV, verse 6 is the most puzzling one here. “That’s why the Good News was preached also to the dead, to those who had been judged in their physical existence as everyone is judged; it was preached to them so that in their spiritual existence they may live as God lives. (GNB) / For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit” (NIV). There’s a full range of views as to what it actually means, of course. The consensus is best summed up in how The Message version puts it: “Listen to the Message. It was preached to those believers who are now dead, and yet even though they died (just as all people must), they will still get in on the life that God has given in Jesus”. It seems that some people who were living it up were telling the believers that their faith must be making no difference, if they died just like everyone else did. Peter reassured his readers here that the decision that people made when alive to believe in Jesus did make all the difference eternally; and also that eternity was the bigger context they lived in.
You see, the end of all things was near: then, as it is now! Advent Sunday is the day we specially focus on this idea. As no doubt I’ll remind us then, 2 000 years isn’t so long in the context of eternity. What matters most, though, is how we live for Jesus between now and his return. So that’s the theme to which Peter then turned, in final part of today’s passage. And yes, you’ve got it; that too is to be based on the suffering of Jesus. Again, that is what makes this new, radically different life even vaguely possible. Love does cover over multitude of sins, as it says in the Proverb that Peter was quoting here. But it doesn’t pass over them. There is a significant difference between those two things. Crucially, through the suffering of Jesus, God’s love shows how to deal with sin, through forgiveness and restoration – not by pretending that it’s not there.
As with many things in the Christian life, the theory of that is rather easier than the doing of it. Peter gave more than a hint of that by telling his readers not to grumble when they opened their homes to each other. It must be said that this wasn’t 1st-Century believers being precious about their own space. To offer hospitality to a fellow believer could have been both expensive and dangerous for people then. If you took in a family who had lost their livelihood and home, how long would they stay for? And if you were wanting to have any chance of keeping your faith secret, that was at risk too. You might well be risking your own livelihood, home, and even your life. That lot was cause to grumble about, you’d think!
But offering hospitality was one expression of a believer’s love for God and His people. And that, like forgiveness, is now possible because of the self-sacrificing example of Jesus. The question that I’ve been known to ask about such things is: “Easy?” And of course the answer to it is: “No, far from it!” But that’s no excuse not to try – and at least sometimes to succeed, even if it does prove to be at great personal cost. But this is about a life that’s being lived for the God who gave His all for us. And that has to impact every area of life, as Peter reminds us here. Whatever gift God has given you – and don’t ever doubt that He has given you one – you are to use it for the good of others. In closing this part of his letter, Peter picked out just a couple of example. Like all New Testament lists, this isn’t meant to be an exhaustive one. It’s only illustrative – though speaking and serving do cover a fair amount of ground between them!
The key principle – in offering hospitality, in speaking, and in serving, and in every other way besides – comes in the final words of our passage. It is “So that in all things praise may be given to God through Jesus Christ. To him be glory and power forever and ever” indeed. And that is what it’s all about – as our learning throughout this series has constantly reminded us. It’s not about you; it’s all about, and for, him. It’s about us becoming more like Jesus, who has set the example of self-sacrifice, suffering, and service – and who wants us now to live for him, and in him, until his return, and beyond. We are to do that by living a life that is being transformed now, in the present. And that does have to happen in the real world: it is to be done in and through relationships with real people; and it is set in the context of our real circumstances – all of which are bound to be less than perfect. But we are to do it “So that in all things praise may be given to God through Jesus Christ. To him be glory and power for ever and ever, then. Amen.”
“The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer”. That was the verse from this passage that a preacher focused on one Sunday in small-town America. As you can tell from the language, this was before the days of Children’s Church; so 10-year-old Johnny had weighty matters on his mind as he walked home with his Grandpa.
On the outskirts of that town, there was a big pecan tree, just inside the graveyard fence. On that Sunday, two boys had sneaked in there to collect the fallen nuts. As Johnny walked past, the boys were sat by the tree, out of sight from the road, dividing the nuts: “One for you, one for me; one for you, one for me”.
Also unseen by Johnny, several nuts had rolled toward fence. He didn’t need to see anything, though; he just knew what he’d heard. He ran off to his Grandpa, who’d fallen behind. “Come quick,” he said; ‘The end is here: I’ve just heard Satan and the Lord in the graveyard, dividing up people’s souls.”
His worried Grandpa hurried with Johnny to the graveyard. As they stood by the fence they heard: “One for you, one for me; one for you, one for me”. Johnny’s Grandpa said, ‘Well, let’s see if we can see the Lord, then.’ Shaking with fear, they peered through the fence; but of course they couldn’t see anything. The old man and the boy gripped the iron bars of the fence tighter and tighter as they waited to catch a glimpse of the Lord. Soon enough they heard, “One for you, one for me: that’s all of them. Now let’s get those nuts by the fence and then we’ll be finished.” The story has it that Johnny’s Grandpa made it back home at least 10 minutes before the boy did.
What follows isn’t going to focus on the fact that the end of all thing is near. It also won’t be majoring on how God’s judgment is certain. Yes, the end is near – whatever ‘near’ means, given that these words were written almost 2 000 years ago. And yes, God’s judgment is surely coming, for the living and the dead. The fact is that Christians do live in the context of eternity. But our focus, as Peter’s so clearly is throughout this part of his letter, must be on living a life that’s transformed now, in the present. And that has to happen in the real world: it is to be done through relationships with real people; and it’s set in the context of real circumstances – all of which lot are less than perfect, as we well know.
Peter knew of life’s imperfections too: he knew them from all sorts of personal experience – both what he had done himself, and also what had been done to him. His readers knew the same at least as well. Remember the main reason that Peter wrote this letter to them was because of what was being done to them. These Christian in modern-day Turkey were facing a life-threatening persecution, on top of what they had already been through. They knew that life wasn’t perfect, like they knew that they weren’t perfect. No wonder, then that Peter began his next section by telling them to ‘arm themselves’!
What’s so instructive is what Peter said they were to arm themselves with: the same attitude (NIV), or way of thinking (GNB), as Jesus had. Once again, Peter says that is to be based on the fact of Jesus’ own suffering. I trust that those who have heard, or read, even only a few of these sermons that we have had on this letter have picked up this theme already. For Peter, Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross was absolutely central, to absolutely everything. Not only did it bring us to God; Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross has also accomplished our forgiveness by Him; and our healing too; and then, as we have been hearing over and over again, Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross is what sets the example by which we are to live, every part of our life, in any and all circumstances.
So, here we go once again, then: our own starting place is to be Christ’s suffering. That has changed everything, and makes all things possible. Some of those who had had that kind of experience themselves might now live very differently, Peter said. In verse 1 he quite specifically meant those who had already suffered for their faith, and had stood firm. To come through that experience, and get to the other side of it, would indeed sharpen the mind as to what really matters in life. But for all believers, whether they have been through that kind of suffering or not, Christ’s suffering is now also to be our launch-pad. What it’s to mean this time is that we are to live the rest of our earthly life for God, rather than for what our fallen human nature might perhaps naturally choose.
However long you have already spent living that way, Peter said, that’s enough. It’s time to stop, even if you did used to be well into it; and, yes, even if you are still associating with those who do continue to live that way. Peter referred to them here as heathens, or pagans, because that is what most of his readers’ fellow-citizens actually were. In those days life was generally far more overtly religious than it is here today. But lots of the same unGodly behaviour that’s very much still with us today was then part of particular religions, in a way that’s no longer the case. We could say that there’s still plenty of idolatry about. People still find lots to put before God: not much of it looks so religious today. But in a time when most people did follow some religion or other, those offering the first-century equivalent of sex and drugs and rock and roll were often very popular!
Of course people tend not to like it when you make a moral choice to stop doing what they still do. They feel judged in some way, and can then let you know about it – as you may have experienced yourself. Peter’s readers had faced that, it seems; but in this too they were to stand firm. And once again the example of Jesus was to be how they did so. He had suffered the cross to make the crucial, eternal difference. Everyone will face God’s judgment in the end, whether we’re alive or dead when Jesus returns to bring that about. And it’s only at that point that the truth can, and will, be seen for what it is.
On the face of it, in both GNB and NIV, verse 6 is the most puzzling one here. “That’s why the Good News was preached also to the dead, to those who had been judged in their physical existence as everyone is judged; it was preached to them so that in their spiritual existence they may live as God lives. (GNB) / For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit” (NIV). There’s a full range of views as to what it actually means, of course. The consensus is best summed up in how The Message version puts it: “Listen to the Message. It was preached to those believers who are now dead, and yet even though they died (just as all people must), they will still get in on the life that God has given in Jesus”. It seems that some people who were living it up were telling the believers that their faith must be making no difference, if they died just like everyone else did. Peter reassured his readers here that the decision that people made when alive to believe in Jesus did make all the difference eternally; and also that eternity was the bigger context they lived in.
You see, the end of all things was near: then, as it is now! Advent Sunday is the day we specially focus on this idea. As no doubt I’ll remind us then, 2 000 years isn’t so long in the context of eternity. What matters most, though, is how we live for Jesus between now and his return. So that’s the theme to which Peter then turned, in final part of today’s passage. And yes, you’ve got it; that too is to be based on the suffering of Jesus. Again, that is what makes this new, radically different life even vaguely possible. Love does cover over multitude of sins, as it says in the Proverb that Peter was quoting here. But it doesn’t pass over them. There is a significant difference between those two things. Crucially, through the suffering of Jesus, God’s love shows how to deal with sin, through forgiveness and restoration – not by pretending that it’s not there.
As with many things in the Christian life, the theory of that is rather easier than the doing of it. Peter gave more than a hint of that by telling his readers not to grumble when they opened their homes to each other. It must be said that this wasn’t 1st-Century believers being precious about their own space. To offer hospitality to a fellow believer could have been both expensive and dangerous for people then. If you took in a family who had lost their livelihood and home, how long would they stay for? And if you were wanting to have any chance of keeping your faith secret, that was at risk too. You might well be risking your own livelihood, home, and even your life. That lot was cause to grumble about, you’d think!
But offering hospitality was one expression of a believer’s love for God and His people. And that, like forgiveness, is now possible because of the self-sacrificing example of Jesus. The question that I’ve been known to ask about such things is: “Easy?” And of course the answer to it is: “No, far from it!” But that’s no excuse not to try – and at least sometimes to succeed, even if it does prove to be at great personal cost. But this is about a life that’s being lived for the God who gave His all for us. And that has to impact every area of life, as Peter reminds us here. Whatever gift God has given you – and don’t ever doubt that He has given you one – you are to use it for the good of others. In closing this part of his letter, Peter picked out just a couple of example. Like all New Testament lists, this isn’t meant to be an exhaustive one. It’s only illustrative – though speaking and serving do cover a fair amount of ground between them!
The key principle – in offering hospitality, in speaking, and in serving, and in every other way besides – comes in the final words of our passage. It is “So that in all things praise may be given to God through Jesus Christ. To him be glory and power forever and ever” indeed. And that is what it’s all about – as our learning throughout this series has constantly reminded us. It’s not about you; it’s all about, and for, him. It’s about us becoming more like Jesus, who has set the example of self-sacrifice, suffering, and service – and who wants us now to live for him, and in him, until his return, and beyond. We are to do that by living a life that is being transformed now, in the present. And that does have to happen in the real world: it is to be done in and through relationships with real people; and it is set in the context of our real circumstances – all of which are bound to be less than perfect. But we are to do it “So that in all things praise may be given to God through Jesus Christ. To him be glory and power for ever and ever, then. Amen.”
posted by Andy Parry at 6:34 pm
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