05-10-09 Hard Times - High Calling Pt. 3

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been with you,

which means it’s been a few weeks

since we were last in our study of 1 Peter.

And since we left this study in the middle of a sentence,

we need to take just a few minutes

to remind ourselves of where we’ve been and how we got here.

Peter wrote this first of his two open letters to the family of God

in order to encourage his fellow Christians who were going through some very hard times,

and to give them the truth they needed

in order to live lives of victory

even when they’re under heavy attack.

Peter spent the first part of chapter one

preparing our minds for what’s going on.

In his opening words

he told us that we “reside as aliens” in this world.

We don’t fit here,

we don’t fit in this word system in which we live,

and we’ll never find what our spirits hunger for the most

in anything this world system has to offer.

But we do fit with our God.

We were personally chosen by Him for Him

because of the great value He places on us.

Peter then told us

that even when we’re under attack,

even when we are distressed by various trials,

our Lord has given us His assurance

that He can and will use those trials

to deepen our trust in Him.

As we see Him going through the pain with us,

and using that pain to bring about changes within us,

and as we find Him more than adequate for whatever we face,

we find our God doing for us

one of the things He does so well - transforming evil into good when we share it with Him.

From there Peter then begins to offer us

the weapons we need

for the warfare we face.

He shows us how to equip ourselves for the battle,

giving us first the attitudes,

and then the specific weapons we’ll need.

The first weapon he offered us

was a clear, simple call

that we keep our life within the moral framework of God.

Especially during the hard times

he doesn’t want us investing huge amounts

of mental and emotional energy

into dealing with self-inflicted wounds.

And there is nothing in all the world

that more powerfully equips us for life

than personal, practical moral integrity.

It does more to free us from guilt,

from fear,

from stress and anxiety

than any other single choice we can ever make.

And then, the last time we were in this study

we saw the second of the three great weapons offered to us by our Lord -

that of building strong love relationships

with the Christians our God has placed next to us.

1PE 1:22 Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart...

During the hard times of life

we urgently need to remember the truth -

the truth about our God’s love for us,

about His grace poured out on us,

about His kindness and compassion,

about His holding us in the palm of His hand.

But most of the time

we cannot tell ourselves those truths.

We need others close to us

who, with their words and with their attitudes toward us,

can reflect the image of our God to us.

And beyond that,

we need the kind of support

that can only be found in knowing

that someone who cares about us

is standing with us, going with us through whatever we face.

OK, that’s where we’ve been.

We’ve seen two of the three major weapons

that Peter wants to place within our hands -

practical, personal righteousness,

and strong love relationships with the Christians near us.

Which brings us to the third weapon we’ll look at today.

It’s found in the last three verses of chapter one where Peter says,

1PE 1:23-25 for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God. For, "All flesh is like grass, And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, And the flower falls off, But the word of the Lord abides forever. "And this is the word which was preached to you.

OK, there is something remarkable happening in these verses,

something that we can easily miss

because our minds just naturally go to the part of this passage that we most easily understand,

and then we miss the far more powerful message being communicated.

The phrase we’re most comfortable with, I think,

is that one where Peter says, "All flesh is like grass, And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, And the flower falls off But the word of the Lord abides forever. ”

Those words are a direct quotation from Isaiah 40:6-8,

and when we read them

we respond both to the powerful poetic imagery of the words

and to the truth they communicate.

They compare our time on this earth,

our entrance into the flow of history

to a field of wild grass that springs up in a few weeks,

flowers, and then withers and is gone.

When we’re in our teens and 20's we have the illusion that our life stretches out before us almost forever.

But many of you here this morning

have found yourself saying, “How could I be 30 years old already?”

“How could I be 40?”

“How could I be 50?”

“How could I possibly be in my 60's?”

Now, Peter is certainly not suggesting

that our being here doesn’t really matter,

or that we have no real value.

In fact, he’s just told us a few verses earlier

that God places a value upon us worth His own death.

But he does want us to have an accurate picture

of the nature of our time in these bodies on this earth.

Each day is a gift,

a stewardship given to us by our Creator,

ours to choose how we will invest it.

Are you a parent?

Do you think to yourself,

“I’ve got these kids for 18 years...or more.

I’ve got lots of time to get involved in their lives.”

How old is your daughter?

Is she two, or three, or four?

Do you know

that you have just 12 months

in which to know your daughter as a three-year old?

And then it’s gone forever.

And there are things that a daddy or a mommy can do in the heart, and mind, and soul of his daughter,

things that can only be done when she’s three years old.

I’m going to get a little bit off track here,

but I had no idea how critical, and how unique each age of childhood is

until I read something that my daughter wrote when she was in Jr. High School.

I believe I shared this with you a few years ago,

but I want read it again this morning

because it gave me more insight into the parenting process from a child’s point of view

than anything else in my life.

When Joni was in 8^th grade

her teacher gave the class the assignment

of writing out their earliest childhood memory.

What my daughter wrote

took place when she was just 3 years old.

Sandee, Joni, and I were living in Dallas, Texas.

I was installing modular office furniture five, and often six days a week.

We were living in an apartment,

driving a borrowed car,

barely making it from paycheck to paycheck.

Mostly I remember always being hot, and sweaty, and tired, and broke.

But this is what my daughter remembered.

I have many vivid memories of my childhood. I remember the excruciating pain of my first bee sting. I remember how on hot summer days, my cousin and I would don our swimming suits and spend hours running through the sprinkler. But of all the memories that come flooding back to me, the ones that are the clearest and most often bring a smile to my face, are the memories of the dates I would go on with my dad.

Every Saturday morning my dad and I would leave the house, hand-in-hand, off on some big adventure. Of all the adventures we ever had, I think I enjoyed the ones at the airport the most. To some people this may not sound very exciting, but there is one thing that they don’t understand. They don’t understand that things are always exciting when I’m with my dad, that’s just the kind of person he is. Once we reached the airport, we had the decision of what to do first. We could watch the planes come and go, ride the subway around the airport, or watch the small television supplied by the airport for people awaiting the arrival of their flight. The tv’s usually got my vote, and my father’s too. The small television sets were connected to chairs located throughout the airport. Once we found one that seemed to be in good working order, I would position my self on my dad’s lap. He would then deposit the quarter necessary to turn the machine on, and we would have ten minutes of uninterrupted viewing. When our time was up and the machine clicked off, I would beg my father to put “just one more” quarter in, and he always would. This would go on for quite some time, but eventually I would tire of it and it was off to the subway!

The subway was really no more than a small train that ran in circles around the airport, stopping at different terminals. We would board the train, still hand-in-hand, and me trying to match my father’s huge steps. After riding halfway around the airport, my dad and I would leave the subway for a snack. Usually we would get peanuts and pop, one of my favorites. When the peanuts were eaten and the pop drunk, we would reboard the train and ride the other halfway around the airport loop.

A trip to the airport was never complete if we didn’t watch the planes come and go. We would see the people boarding, and imagine where they were going and what they were going to do once they got there. There would always be someone who had just robbed a bank and was escaping to some foreign country to spend his fortune. This was usually the last thing we did before we would head home to tell my mom about our most recent adventure.

The thing that made those Saturdays so special was my dad, he always made sure I had the best possible time I could. I will always remember those dates, but what will stay with me the longest is the way my little hand felt in his big one, the way I always felt perfectly happy when we were together, and the feeling of total security I had. I will never forget my dad and the love he showed me.

We don’t have 18 years to raise our children.

What we have is a series of eighteen 12 month doorways,

each one providing it’s own unique access into our child’s life,

and once they’re gone, they’re gone forever.

And why in the world do I share that with you?

Well, I do it for the same reason that Peter says to us,

1PE 1:24 For, "All flesh is like grass, And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, And the flower falls off...”.

I do it because there are two huge truths

that Satan works very hard to blind us to,

two truths that, when we see them correctly,

provide us with the foundation for an approach to life

that enables us to do what our God has placed us here to do.

The first truth

is that we are each given just one brief life

to invest any way we choose to invest it.

And the second truth

is that life is never lived by the year,

or by the month,

or even by the week.

It is always only lived daily

and the choices we make today

are the only ones we can make,

and the ones that ultimately determine the legacy of our lives.

Don’t try to change the world today,

just make those choices

that make it easiest

for those who are closest to you

to see the image of your Lord within you.

Making those choices one day at a time

will allow you to make sense of your life 20 years from now

as nothing else could ever do.

But let me get us back to Peter

because there is something else happening here

that I urgently want us to see,

something else that we could so easily miss.

If you were with us two weeks

you’ll remember that, in verse 1:22 Peter talked with us

about a transforming, redemptive work that God has already accomplished

within the life of every true Christian,

a redemptive work that has “purified our souls for a sincere love of the brethren”.

And as we looked at that passage last week

we saw that Peter was telling us

about one of the many fringe benefits

of the transforming work God has done at the spirit level in every believer.

And it is because of that statement

that Peter then goes on to say,

OK, the critical thing for us to see here

is why Peter started talking about the word of God in the first place.

Do you see what he’s doing?

He’s just told us

that this remarkable transformation

has just taken place within us,

a transformation that he equates with being every bit as significant as our physical birth,

a transformation that has equipped us to love

in a way that was never possible before.

But he knows what self-doubters we are.

He knows our natural tendency to look at ourselves,

and see our frequently fumbling attempts

to be who he says we are

and to do what he says we should do.

He knows all too clearly

the power of the flesh

to muddle both our thinking and our actions.

He knows that left to ourselves

we’ll say to ourselves,

“Well, now, maybe I’ve changed,

and then again maybe I haven’t.”

And because of those self-doubts

he wants to offer us an absolute proof

that we truly have become reborn at the deepest level of our being.

So what does he offer as that proof?

...for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God.

What he does

is to take the most certain thing in all of the created world,

the one thing that is more certain,

more absolute than anything else,

than everything else put together - the words spoken by God to us,

and point to them as the ultimate proof

of the truth of what he’s just said.

Do you see the comparison he sets up?

He compares the union of a human sperm and egg,

a union that grows into a living, breathing, growing baby,

and he says in effect, “You think that’s something real,

something certain and alive and wonderful?

That little baby body

is nothing compared to what God spoke into being inside you when you came to Him.

That human form is simply a temporary, disposable house

in which you live for a very brief period of time,

and then discard forever.

That’s his point with that whole thing about the grass springing up and dying.

But then he sets that next to what God spoke into being within you -

a whole new, holy inner spirit that will never end, never die - eternal.

And what he wants us to see in all of this

is that there simply is nothing more certain,

more absolute,

more inalterable in all of human experience

than the words our God has spoken to us.

We’re not going to have time this morning

to finish what Peter is doing here,

but I want us to go just a little farther before we close.

Did you notice the two words that Peter uses

to describe God’s communication to us?

He talks about the living and abiding word of God.

Those words were carefully chosen by Peter

to emphasize the unique characteristics of God’s communication to us.

That word “living” is the same word used to describe the “living God”,

and the same word Christ used to describe Himself as “living water”.

It means exactly what it appears to mean -

that it has life within itself.

And the word abide means to remain.

God never withdraws what He has spoken,

never rewrites,

never crosses out.

What He has said is as certain and inalterable as God Himself.

God’s words are simply an extension of God Himself.

In every other kind of communication in human experience

words are tossed about on a trial and error basis.

We say something or write something

and if it doesn’t accomplish our purposes

we change it, retract it, redo it, redefine it, abandon it altogether.

Not so with God.

God’s words are never a work in progress,

the are simply an extension of Himself - perfect and certain in every way.

And part of what Peter is seeking to do in this passage

is to revolutionize, to transform our perspective

on the true nature of the words spoken to us by God.

In context what Peter is doing in this passage

is to offer us our third weapon for both defense and offense in the hard times of life.

And that third weapon is a correct understanding

of the true nature of whatever our God has spoken to us,

no matter how that communication may compare to our past experience,

or our present circumstances,

or the multitude of other voices around us

that may seem to contradict what He has said.

On what basis does Peter declare with absolute certainty

that we have been purified, cleansed, and brought into eternal union with God?

What proof does he offer?

What certainty do we have?

We have the most certain thing in all of human experience - God said it was so.

I love the way John said it in 1 John 3:1.

1JO 3:1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

God Himself has called us His children,

and because God said it, SUCH WE ARE!!!

There’s no maybe about it,

no doubt,

no confusion,

no possibility of misunderstanding.

Because God said it,

because He has declared our union with Him,

it is infinitely more certain, more sure than the sun, or the moon or the earth beneath our feet.

Well, I didn’t get as far as I wanted to with this today,

and we are leaving Peter in mid thought,

but we’ll come back to it again next week

and see where he goes with this.