03-15-09 Things Into Which Angels Long To Look

For the past seven weeks

we have been listening closely

to what Peter says to us in the first 9 verses of his 1^st letter to his fellow Christians.

And what we’ve heard him telling us

is wonderful beyond measure.

We have heard him talking with us about our God -

about the eternal Being who brought us into existence,

who brought this world into existence.

And what he’s told us about this God

is so different from anything we would have expected.

We’ve heard him telling us that this God possessed absolute and perfect knowledge of us

before we were even born,

knowledge not just of who we are,

but of what we would do.

He knew it all,

and yet with all that knowledge

still He chose us for Himself,

and called us to Himself

because of the high value He places on His friendship with us.

And we heard Peter talk with us

about a relationship with us

in which God takes on Himself

not just the responsibility of calling us to Himself,

but then, when we respond to His voice,

He begins within us what Peter calls “the sanctifying work of the Spirit”,

a life-time work in which, moment-by-moment,

He works in our life to break us free from the lies we have believed,

the lies that keep us bound in fear and bondage.

It is a daily redemptive work within each Christian

that, as we co-operate with it,

brings about what Peter calls “the salvation of our souls” -

real practical changes in our thinking, our emotional responses, our choices,

resulting in “joy inexpressible and full of glory”.

Peter also talked with us

about how God has reserved for us an inheritance

which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away,

and then told us that we are now protected by the power of God

until the day He brings us into His presence.

Certainly He also talked honestly with us

about the way in which our union with Christ

has now caused us to be distressed by various trials,

and he talked about a sometimes painful process in which the proof of our faith takes place.

But his strong, clear message throughout everything he’s said to us in these opening verses

is that even though we now reside as aliens in this world,

yet because of our union with our Lord

we are members of the most fortunate group of people ever to live on this earth.

Which brings us to what Peter does next.

But what he does will only make sense to us

to the degree that we see things...

to the degree we see life as it really is.

And here again

we’re going to find our two great enemies

warring against our understanding of the way things really are.

We’ll look at where Peter goes next in just a few minutes,

but first let me remind you what we’re up against.

The first of the two great enemies we face will not surprise you

if you’ve listened to me teach for any length of time.

It is the great religious empire in all its forms

that is in place in our world.

And more specifically,

it is that aspect of religion

that tells us our relationship with God

is something that each of us should seek to integrate into our life.

It is that message that says

that the well-rounded, well-balanced person

has a clearly defined spiritual dimension to his or her life.

And what in the world is wrong with that?

Well, the problem is that it views our relationship with God,

our interaction with Him as an “add-on” to the balanced life.

Religion takes our relationship with God

and makes it a distinct section of our lives,

telling us that a greater sense of spirituality will enhance and enrich our life,

and then it offers itself, in whatever form we’ve chosen,

as the guide into that greater spiritual awareness.

Do you know what that’s like?

That’s like suggesting to a fish

that his integrating some measure of water-awareness into his life would be a good thing.

Our interaction with our God is not just something it would be good to integrate into our life,

it is, in fact, the foundation of our entire existence,

it is the ground on which we walk and the air our spirits breath.

The amazing fact that we enter this world totally unaware of this truth

does not change the way things really are.

A fish is completely unaware of the water in which it lives,

but that unawareness does not change the fact

that it is utterly immersed in its reality.

We enter this world

with spirits that are absolutely blinded to the presence of our God with us,

but that blindness does not alter the fact

that He is always present with us,

always reaching out to our spirits,

always focused on us,

seeking to communicate His love to us every instant of our lives.

Religion intensifies our blindness

by telling us that there is some value in adding a spiritual dimension to our lives

when the truth is that everything we do is spiritual.

We are not physical beings having an occasional spiritual experience,

we are spiritual beings

who are having a brief physical experience on this earth.

I understand, of course,

that each of us follow our own unique path

into the discovery of our God.

We each have our own unique past experiences,

our own unique lies obscuring the truth,

our own unique fears and broken places used by our enemy

in his attempts to keep us from seeing our God as He really is.

And I know, too,

that some of you here this morning

are just on the edge of your discovery of your Creator.

Right now about all you know about Him

is what you pick up here once a week

and when you hear me this morning

talking critically about those who just want to expand their spiritual awareness

or add a greater spiritual dimension to their lives

it makes you a little uncomfortable

because, to be honest, that’s exactly what you feel like you’re doing,

and it seems like a very good thing - a huge step forward for you.

And at the risk of sounding as if I’m contradicting myself,

let me say that it probably is a very good thing and a huge step forward.

But if that’s what’s going on in your life right now,

I also want you to know

that if that process continues as God intends

what right now you view as simply an added dimension of spiritual awareness

will grow until it consumes your entire life.

It will not remain a nice, controlled, contained dimension of spirituality

that you add on to the other existing aspects of your life

unless, of course, you choose to encase it within some comfortable religious structure.

But if you allow it to grow as your God intends

it will, in fact, erupt into an uncontainable reality

that will have a profound and altering affect on every area of your life.

It will become not just what you believe

but who you are.

Though I didn’t realize it at the time,

looking back now on my own entrance into the family of God,

I realize that, for reasons known only to Him,

my Lord gave me a bit of a head start in all of this.

I know that, after being your Bible teacher for more than a quarter of a century,

most of you would find it hard to imagine a time

when I was not a Christian,

a time when I had no conscious awareness of God in my life whatsoever.

But in the fall of 1966

I was just a 19 year old college sophomore

whose closest friend was heavy into psychedelic drug use

and whose chief life goal was simply to stay in school so that the U.S. Government

wouldn’t send me to Viet Nam.

And then, without warning and without invitation,

God Himself blasted into my life.

I didn’t know it was Him at first.

All I knew

was that, for the first time ever,

I had this fascination with the Gospels.

I wanted to read the Bible.

In fact, I couldn’t keep away from it.

It certainly wasn’t something I was doing for God -

I couldn’t have cared less about doing anything for God.

It was just something God was doing in me.

For several weeks I was consumed with this hunger to read

and everything I read had such power,

such life,

such intense reality.

And then came that night in my dorm room

when I knew that, just like Jesus wanted those disciples of His 2000 years ago to choose Him,

to submit to His leadership in their lives,

so He also wanted me to choose.

He wanted me to choose Him -

not just as a nice added dimension to my life,

but as the center of it.

And the great, glorious head start my God gave me

was that I knew from the very beginning

that this had nothing whatsoever to do

with any religious system or organization of any kind.

I wasn’t even going to church at that point in my life

and I certainly had no illusions that this thing going on inside me

had anything to do with my joining some group

or promising God that I would become more faithful in church attendance or daily devotions.

This thing happening inside me

was just between Him and me

and I knew it.

And even then I also knew

that if I said yes,

it was going to mess up my life, my future forever.

And when I told Him “yes”,

from that time on He was just simply THERE as He had never been there before,

and He’s been there ever since.

And it was all so strange, so unexpected because I wasn’t the religious type.

I skillfully avoided every religious meeting I could avoid.

It was one of the things I did best.

I wasn’t earnestly trying to add a religious or spiritual dimension to my life,

I was simply trying to figure out how to cope with this God

who was suddenly, constantly, inescapably THERE.

I knew exactly what David was talking about when he wrote,

PSA 139:7-10 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.

That kind of God awareness has nothing to do with adding a spiritual dimension to our life

or cultivating a meaningful God-consciousness.

David was simply acknowledging the way things really are

whether we know it or not.

We cannot be a created being

and not be immersed in the presence and reality of our God

any more than a fish could be a fish

and not be immersed in water.

And I got into all of this

simply because I want us to know the way things really are.

Our God is not simply something we should add to our life

so that we can be balanced and well-rounded people.

He is our reason for being

and nothing in life will ever make sense

until we understand it in the context of Him -

His presence with us, His love for us, His life both in us and through us.

And as long as I’ve gotten way off track here,

before I nudge us back to Peter

let me just say that, if you are still on the edge, looking in,

wondering what all of this God stuff is about,

please don’t let my comments about this all-consuming God terrify you.

I know that natural human longing

to keep all things under your control,

to keep your “religious dimension” under your control.

And I know all too well

that fear of what would happen if you ever gave in to Him.

And I’ll be honest with you -

if you do, He will indeed mess up your life.

He will remove some things you’ve been clinging to for years,

and He will bring in others that you would never have chosen on your own.

But if some of those fears are going on inside you right now

I hope and pray that you can go deeper than those fears,

to see with courage and honesty

what it is that your spirit is hungering for with such desperation.

And maybe it will help

if I put it into words for you.

You don’t really want a God you can control and compartmentalize.

You don’t want simply an added spiritual dimension to your life.

What you want, what you long for most

is an all-consuming God who loves you with an all-consuming love,

a God who will joyfully allow you to immerse yourself in Him,

sharing with your spirit the truth about why He brought you into existence,

openly confirming what you’ve desperately wanted to believe -

that you have both eternal value and eternal purpose in Him.

Let go of that tiny god of your own creation,

that one you have so carefully caged and controlled through that reasonable, sensible religious system of yours,

and bow before the God who’s really there.

It’s not complicated, you know.

If it helps, I can tell you the words I used.

“OK, God, if you really want my life, you can have it.”

And then let me offer this one additional word -

though He certainly is what your spirit hungers for,

you also need to know

that there is nothing passive about His love or His involvement in our lives.

He will indeed tear your world apart,

but He will also put it back together

and He’ll do it in a way that finally allows you to begin to make sense

both of who you are and why you’re here.

But let me see if I can quickly get us back to our friend Peter.

We were looking at those great forces

that work against our correctly understanding the way things really are in life.

The first is religion, and the second

is the physical world system around us,

a system that tells us that the only things that matter

are those things we can get out of life in the few years we spend in these bodies on this earth.

If we can’t feel it or hear it or see it or smell it or taste it

then it doesn’t really matter.

It’s all about me and here and now.

I have a right to do whatever I think works best for me

and I’d be a fool not to do whatever makes me feel the best right where I’m at.

Of course once we bow before our King

and His Spirit begins His reconstructive work within us

we will begin to see things very differently.

We’ll begin to discover

that choosing what feels best right now

may be the worst possible choice we could ever make,

and we’ll find a growing ability to love those around us,

to love them in a way that motivates us to make choices for them,

sometimes at tremendous personal cost to ourselves.

But my point in all of this

is that it is never ever easy

for the Christian to see the truth about who we are

or what we entered into

when we entered into Christ.

And the voices of religion and this physical world system around us

do all within their power

to keep us blinded to that truth.

But in His grace and kindness to us

God has made certain that the human race has always had at least a few voices

who are proclaiming the truth above the lies.

Which brings us back to what Peter says to us next in his letter.

When we left this study last week

the last thing we heard Peter saying to us was, 1PE 1:8-9... though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

And we saw that when we see our Lord as He really is,

and when we gain even a tiny glimpse of what He has given us

it will cause our spirits to be flooded with joy,

and it will put into motion

a redemptive process within our minds, our emotions, our psychological make-up, and our wills,

a redemptive process that will rebuild our lives profoundly.

We will become very different people

than we could ever have become apart from our union with Him.

The heart of this whole thing, of course,

is what Paul calls, COL 1:27 ...Christ in you, the hope of glory.

It is Christ literally joining His Spirit to our spirit,

and then His living His life out through us

in a way that frees us to be exactly who our God designed us to be from the very beginning.

It is a living, daily, intensely personal interaction between us and our Creator

that defies all explanation.

And when we see it as it really is

it is remarkable almost beyond belief.

And of course Peter knows, better than any of us ever will,

how amazing it is,

which leads him to say what he says next.

1PE 1:10-12 As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful search and inquiry, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven-- things into which angels long to look.

And the picture Peter paints for us in those three verses

is one that is designed to wake us up

to the glory and magnitude of what we’ve really entered into through Christ.

He tells us that long before Christ made His appearance on this earth

there were a few people scattered throughout history

who saw glimpses of what was coming.

And what they saw

filled them with such awe,

with such excitement,

with such utter amazement

that they longed to know more - to see more.

And do you know what they saw?

They saw what simply couldn’t be - and yet it was.

They saw a chosen people of God

who all stood before Him clean and pure and holy - righteous.

And they saw those people - everyone of them

living in unbroken unity with God Himself,

with each one filled with the Spirit of God,

each one equipped by God for a special purpose in this world,

each one immersed in His love.

They saw a whole race of prophets and priests

spread throughout every tribe and nation,

proclaiming the truth about the endless love and awesome majesty of the Creator God.

And when these ancient prophets saw what they saw

they hoped that maybe, just maybe they would live to see what was coming,

but it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things.

And why does Peter share this with us?

Well, I think he does it, at least in part,

because he knows that there will be many days in our lives

when we will get lost in the pain or the confusion or the drudgery or the seemingly endless routine

of what’s happening in our lives here and now.

And he wanted to remind us once again

of the incredible magnitude of what we entered into

when we entered into Christ.

This is not some meaningless religious routine we are fulfilling,

and if it seems that way

then we haven’t even begun to see who we are or what we have.

For what we have in our daily life with the King

are things...well things into which angels long to look -

the greatest work of God in all eternity - an endless love relationship between the Creator God and His creation.