Hope in Christ

Today we begin a sermon series entitled Strangers Like Me. The inspiration from this sermon title actually comes from one of the greatest Disney soundtracks ever created, Tarzan. And Phil Collins writes this awesome song called “Strangers Like Me.” Most of us know the story of Tarzan, an English couple and their infant son escape from a shipwreck and end up near a rainforest off the coast of the Congo. The couple builds themselves a treehouse but soon are killed by a leopard. But a gorilla hears the cry of the infant and finds him in the treehouse, and a gorilla raises a human child naming him Tarzan. Eventually, some English explorers consisting of Professor Porter and his daughter Jane come to study the gorillas where they meet Tarzan. And as the story progresses, Tarzan is intrigued by these human begins who are strangers but also very much like him. Thus, the name of the song Strangers Like Me. At the time of the making of this movie in 1999, Tarzan was the most expensive animated movie Disney had made with a production budget of $130 million. In the song Strangers Like Me, Phil Collins wrote the following: I want to know, can you show me? I want to know about the strangers like me. Tell me more, please show me something is familiar about the strangers like me. For Tarzan, he was intrigued by these foreign human begins that appeared to be so much like him. And today as we begin the book of 1 Peter we are going to see that as believers in Jesus Christ this is not our home, but rather a temporary dwelling. And yet, there are people all around, who are strangers like me. So how are we to operate in this world that we live in as believers in Christ. Knowing that our home is with Jesus, but still realizing that Jesus has left us here to make a difference in the culture where we live. Peter writes to a group of people who are living as spiritual exiles. Some of the themes we will explore this summer are suffering and persecution, the relationship between church and society, submission, and imitating Christ.

The Source of Salvation:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," — 1 Peter 1:3

Peter begins with a typical greeting. Remember that the New Testament is primarily comprised of letters written to churches. So they have many of the elements that we would find in letters today. Address, greetings, the reason for writing, and a closing. We have more forms of informal communication than at any other time in history. An email, a text message, a Facebook post are usually very informal ways of communicating. In fact, in our world, today, letters are not nearly as common as they were before the invention of the internet and the telephone.

Peter is writing to churches that are in modern-day Turkey. More than likely, this letter would have been delivered to each congregation along a travel route. There were no copy machines or cameras to take pictures of it, so the letter had to make a stop off at each location. Most likely read aloud for the whole congregation to hear, copies were not available for each individual in the church to take it home with them.

Peter explains the source of salvation to these churches. He praises God, the father, who is the initiator of our salvation. You and I bring nothing to the table when it comes to salvation. The working of God in our lives for salvation is completely his doing. It is God’s mercy given to us that through his effort that allows us to be born again. This born again language comes directly from Jesus during his conversation with Nicodemus in John 3. And Peter being one of Jesus’s closest followers would have certainly adopted this type of language from Jesus himself.

We are born again not to die, but to have hope. But the hope is only possible through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. NT Wright, a British New Testament scholar, points out the significance of the empty tomb because even in first century Judaism it would not have been uncommon for someone to have a vision of a dead person but because the tomb of Jesus is empty, it proves that this is not just a vision. There is tangible evidence that the body is not there.

Peter gives his audience some of the characteristics of this salvation: it is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. Keep these characteristics of salvation on your hearts and minds. When you doubt your salvation in Christ or when you feel distant from God, these characteristics should be an encouragement to you.

Peter talks about a salvation that will be revealed in the last time. This is an indication of the different dynamics in salvation. We have been saved, we are currently being saved daily, and we will be saved in the end. Salvation doesn’t begin and end upon one’s confession in Jesus Christ through prayer, but a daily saving and a future saving when we are united with Jesus forever.

• We can never emphasize enough that salvation begins with God’s initiative, not our effort. We must constantly communicate that to people because so many religious people are still believing the lie that their eternal destiny is secure because they are good person or because they do good things. We must constantly speak the truth in love that salvation is God’s free gift to us. On April 17, 2018, a fan blade broke in one of the engines in a Boeing 737 plane. The debris from the fan hit the plane shattering one of the windows and causing chaos among the passengers. Now before the plane took off the flight attendants clearly showed how to put on the oxygen masks, and once the window broke in the plane the passengers went to grab their oxygen masks and most of the passengers put their masks on wrong as you can see from this picture. The instructions say to clearly put your nose and mouth inside the mask, but people were not paying attention. 

Suffering is Inevitable:

"In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials," — 1 Peter 1:6

 It makes sense that Peter would give his audience this reminder about their salvation in Jesus Christ because his audience was experiencing suffering specifically suffering through persecution. The type of persecution that these believers in Jesus were experiencing was nothing official from the Roman empire, but rather local and sporadic persecution. You could make an argument that while the form of persecution was different between Peter’s audience and ours, the conditions were similar. For example, you and I in America are freely allowed to worship Jesus Christ without any fear of official persecution from the government, but instead, our persecution is sporadic. Following Jesus for us might cost us in our relationships with family or friends, it might even make us miss out on a job opportunity or promotion but it is not something that will cost us our life.

Peter explains that during our suffering we should rejoice but our suffering in and of itself is not a joyful experience. Peter is not saying that the suffering itself will be fun or exciting, but we can rejoice because we know that the suffering will not endure forever. Peter is quick to point out that this will be only for a little while. A little while for us might seem like a long time, but not when you compare a little while to eternity.

So why does suffering happen? Well verse 7 tells us, Suffering happens to test the genuineness of our faith. Does suffering cause one to fall away from the faith? If so, there is a good chance that faith was never authentic to begin with. But suffering doesn’t just test our faith, it also purifies our faith. Because suffering if approached the right way, will only increase your dependency on Jesus.

I would caution all of us to be very careful how we communicate the Gospel to those that are not believers in Jesus. It is my preference to tell someone on the front end the cost involved in following Jesus. We prefer to focus on all of the great benefits regarding following Jesus and we should certainly make people aware, but not at the expense of letting them know that following Jesus even in America will make your life harder not easier. But the reward is greater should you persevere till the end.

• Joni Eareckson Tada is a Christian author who writes a lot about suffering. When she was a teenager she dove into the Chesapeake bay misjudging the depth of the water, and as a result is now a quadriplegic. Listen to what she says about her suffering, “My quadriplegia constantly clamors for my undivided attention: empty leg bag, deal with pain, arrange for help, adjust corset, charge wheelchair, look for access, and grab that handicap spot before someone else does. It’s my world. Then again, it is definitively not. My world, my breath and very being – my identity – is in Christ and Christ alone. Suffering will come, but on the other side of it Jesus is still with us.

The Finished Product:

"obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." — 1 Peter 1:9

The outcome of your faith is salvation through Jesus Christ. It is not riches in this world, a big house, a fancy car, an executive position at work.

Ask yourself the question this morning, why are you really following Jesus? Is it because you think it will make you a better person? The Gospel is not about behavior modification. There are a lot of books and teachers that can help you be a better person. That is not why you need Jesus. Are you following Jesus because all your friends follow Jesus? The Gospel is not a social club. You don’t need Jesus in order to make friends Are you following Jesus because that’s what you do in America? The Gospel doesn’t force anyone to believe and it was never intended to be a state sanctioned religion but rather a movement.

The benefits for following after Jesus certainly exist. We have hope, peace, forgiveness, unconditional love, eternal security, but at the most basic and beautiful level of salvation you get God. The good news of Jesus reconciles broken humanity to a holy God, and that is at its core what salvation really is.

• Perhaps you saw this picture last week. It is a picture of the traffic jam as people are awaiting to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. The weather on Everest only allows for a few good days of summit weather. But the problem is that human beings can only survive for a certain amount of time in the “Death Zone” of Everest which is the altitude level when the human body begins to attack itself because it is oxygen deprived. The death toll is up to 11 this year so far. The brutal conditions, frostbite, and even on Mt. Everest for hardcore climbers do not outweigh the benefit of climbing the highest peak in the world because at the end of the day the reward outweighs the suffering. In the same way, the reward of following after Jesus and getting relationship with God far outweighs the alternative of dying without him.

Return the Favor:

"It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look." — 1 Peter 1:12

 The prophets in the Old Testament predicted the coming of salvation. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel in particular foreshadow the coming of Jesus Christ and what his life on earth means for all of humanity. They investigated and searched carefully regarding the coming Messiah.

Peter tells us that their prophecies were not just their educated guesses or predictions, but their prophecies were composed with divine inspiration. This is not a case of some random guy predicting the date of the end of the world, or some guy guessing when the stock market will crash again. Jesus’s spirit before he was even brought into the world was alive and well in the prophets of the Old Testament.

None of these prophets, however, get to experience what Peter’s audience experienced or what you and I get to experience. Peter tells us they were not serving themselves but us. Every one of us in this room is the recipient of someone else proclaiming the good news of Jesus to us. More than likely, someone shared the good news of Jesus with you. Even if you just picked up the Bible and read the Gospel accounts and came to faith in Jesus that way, someone gave you that Bible, or printed that Bible, or translated that Bible into a language so that you could then have the opportunity to read it.

Returning the favor to others is not optional for us friends. It is a mandate that Jesus clearly gives us.

• We have been out at Central City now partnering with a church for a little over two months now. We play with the kids on the playground, feed them a snack, and then teach them about God. The kids are flocking to the playground when we arrive. Some weeks we have had up to 50 kids join us. I have an obligation to those kids to tell them the good news about Jesus. I have a friend whose father has terminal cancer. We go to lunch every couple of weeks. He’s not really interested in Jesus but I have an obligation to keep that conversation in front of him. I have a neighbor that has some health problems right now, and a couple of months ago I started doing her yard for her. We’ve been neighbors for two years and have always had good conversations, but since I tangibly began serving her she is really beginning to open up. We all have an obligation and a mandate to return the favor of the Gospel to someone who needs to hear it. So here’s what I am going to ask you to do. You took that sticky note and you wrote one intentional way that you could serve your family member, neighbor, coworker, or some other friend you have. Sign your name to the bottom of that idea, and during our response time today I want to ask you to come and place that sticky note on our display. As a visible reminder to all of us that we are obligated to return the favor to someone who can hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.