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On Sunday afternoons, my kids get to watch a movie. It’s a real special occasion in our home because we don’t keep a TV upstairs. It’s in the basement and meant to be a bit of a pain to use. So on Sundays, the kids know they get to watch a special movie.

One of their favorites is the classic: Toy Story. Most of us are familiar with that movie but in case you aren’t, Toy Story is a film series that centers around Andy (a boy) and his toys. His toys come alive when Andy isn’t around and get into all sorts of mayhem. In Toy Story 2, we’re introduced to a new character: Jesse. Jesse is a cowgirl who is about to be sold to a museum in Japan, alongside Woody and Stinky Pete because they are super rare toys. When Jesse is first introduced, she seems normal but over time, more of her story is revealed.

Jesse was owned by a little girl who loved her and played with her all the time. She was chosen and precious to this little girl. But over time, that little girl grew and grew – she got into nail polish and all sorts of other things. Eventually, Jesse is left behind by the girl and donated to a local thrift store. Once chosen and precious by that girl, Jesse has been deemed worthless and has been rejected. However, Jesse doesn’t know that’s she actually extremely valuable – so much so that Al from Al’s Toy Barn does all sorts of sketchy things to get Jesse so she can be sold for millions of dollars.

And because of that, she has deep trust issues and deep pain. As the story progresses, Woody works to convince Jesse to join him in going back to Andy and Jesse’s scars come through. She tries to dissuade Woody because of her experiences. She tries to convince him that Andy will abandon Woody eventually. Finally, her true colors shine as she is about to join Woody in being Andy’s toy where she says: “what if Andy doesn’t love me?”

I share Jesse’s character story because it’s relatable to us as followers of Jesus. What did this passage say?

It gave us two verdicts about Jesus. (SLIDE) Two verdicts that are both true at the same time. First, we see that the Living Stone, which is Jesus, was rejected by humans. But at the same time, Jesus is chosen by God and precious to him. Then, this passage goes onto force us into a choice: do we believe in the Living Stone or do we disobey the message? If we believe in it, Jesus becomes precious to us as well but if we don’t believe Jesus, he becomes a stumbling block we trip over instead of trusting in it to hold us up in a bit of a chaotic world.

So, here’s the tension we live in: do we trust in God’s verdict about who Jesus is? Do we trust God’s verdict about who Jesus is enough to completely re-orient our lives around that truth? (SLIDE)

As we live life in this tension, there are two things that we cannot do:

As hard as this is, we can’t force the world to stop rejecting Jesus. Like me, you likely have someone in your life who is outright hostile to Jesus and the Gospel. This is true in our time, Peter’s time, and in the Old Testament time – Peter is quoting from the prophet Isaiah and the Psalms in this passage.

Why is this such a timeless issue? Jesus doesn’t give the world a gray option – this passage in 1 Peter 2 is black and white.

You either view Jesus as precious as your Lord OR you reject him as your Lord. There’s no in-between. 1 Peter 2:8 tells us that those reject Jesus stumble because they disobey the message. And Jesus himself lays this out clearly for us in John 3:19-21 as he’s talking to Nicodemus: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

So, we shouldn’t be surprised that the world rejects Jesus. That may grieve us but it shouldn’t surprise us. We may wish things were different but it shouldn’t surprise us – Jesus came to bring a sword (not for war) but rather his message is inherently offensive and divisive according to Matthew 10:34.

The second thing we can’t do though has to do with us: we can’t conjure up more willpower to trust that God’s verdict about Jesus is right. Most of us can be like Thomas, Jesus’ apostle. Of the remaining 11 after Christ’s death, Thomas was the only who didn’t see Jesus alive in his resurrected body yet. It didn’t matter what his friends were saying. In Thomas’s mind, he couldn’t believe until he actually felt Jesus’ wounds from the cross. He couldn’t grit his teeth and say: “Okay, Lord – I believe in what you said.” It took the resurrected Jesus for Thomas to trust.  

We’re the same way – when we are struggling with some sort of suffering or belief, it’s difficult for us to trust. We may even want to trust but we can’t just conjure that up within ourselves. Why can’t do that?

We tend to treat human judgement as final because it’s what we can see and experience. We trust human judgement more in nearly every area of our life over God’s judgement. Many of you are likely familiar with the old childhood saying of: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” That’s a horrible saying because words will indeed hurt you. Even as I say that, you can likely think back to something that someone said to you that hurt deep (I know I can) and you took it to heart. If you’re a follower of Jesus, you know God’s verdict over you is the verdict that matters. But someone else’s verdict over you – an unkind word, rejection, whatever still holds weight on you.

Why do other people’s verdicts or judgements about us sting so bad when we know the truth? It stings because it’s immediate. It’s a person you know, it’s an unkind text message, or a person avoiding you – it’s right there in your face. God’s verdict is clear through what Jesus has done but our faith only becomes sight when Jesus returns or we die.

In Jesus’ ministry, we see this same thing. (SLIDE) Breaking under the weight of Roman oppression, many Jewish folks of the day placed their hope in a Messiah who would conquer Rome, usher in a golden age for the nation of Israel, and defeat their enemies through war. That was the human judgement at the time.

So imagine with me: Jesus arrives from a non-glamorous area, Nazareth. Instead of conquering Rome, he tells Israel to forgive their enemies and to pray for them. Instead of ushering in a golden age for Israel, Jesus begins healing and ministering to Gentiles. Instead of defeating his enemies through war, Jesus dies for his enemies in a humiliating way through voluntary sacrifice.

After his death, I imagine many people who were interested in Jesus walked away. Human judgement had rendered Jesus as a phony as a blasphemer and the religious authorities working with Rome had him killed. Many people may have thought, “Well, that’s it. Jesus isn’t coming back from this one.”

But, what if human judgement is wrong? Going back to Toy Story, the little girl who owned Jesse from Toy Story was wrong, Jesse was valuable and precious – both to Andy and to Al who wanted to sell her. What about Jesus? Is human judgement about Jesus wrong?

Yes, judgement about Jesus during his life was wrong and judgement about Jesus today has been wrong. The world rejects Jesus but we know that he has been chosen and vindicated by God. How can we know that?

(SLIDE) He’s the Living Stone – not the dying stone. Although he was rejected by humans which caused his death, Jesus Christ did not stay dead. 3 days later, Jesus appeared to some women disciples as alive. Peter and John discovered an empty tomb. And finally, Jesus appeared to his close friends in the upper room and later to over 500 believers.

In Matthew 28:11-15, Matthew reports that the chief priests tried to cover up the resurrection by bribing the Roman guards to say that Jesus’ disciples came in the night and stole Jesus’ body. But, does that seem likely? Something earth-shattering had to have happened if Peter had denied Jesus and then weeks later, during Pentecost, Peter preaches a bold sermon preaching Christ as King and as alive. That transformation only happens through resurrection.

So, the world can say what they want about Jesus but he is alive and he’s the King – whether they like it or not.

You don’t have to conjure up more willpower to believe on your own – you only need to look and experience the Resurrection. When Thomas doubted, what did Jesus do? He didn’t condemn him but invited him to experience the reality of the Risen Jesus. In the same way, that’s what Jesus offers you. Look at the evidence, look at Christ’s wounds, and see his love for you.

God’s verdict about Jesus is the one we can trust. It’s the only one that matters. So if trust God’s verdict about Jesus, verse 7 tells us that Jesus is precious to us. And if that’s true, how should we live our lives?

Verse 5 tells us – it reads: “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (SLIDE)

Here’s the thing, my friends: a single stone can’t be a house. And a stone that’s cut off from the Living Stone isn’t alive at all. In verse 5, notice the verb choice. It doesn’t say you’re building a spiritual house for your holy priesthood. It says: “you’re being built into a spiritual house.” That means God is the builder and we are all the stones he uses.

I’d invite you to let yourself be built in to the spiritual house instead of adding yourself on where you want to be added on. That means you’ll need to give up your personal preferences to be part of God’s church. That means you’ll have to have hard conversations and work things out with your sibling in Christ. That means you’ll have to make sacrifices but know that God is pleased with those sacrifices because they’re acceptable through Jesus Christ.

Practically speaking, I’d invite you to consider three ways to allow yourself to be built into the spiritual house: (SLIDE)

1.      Commit to being here, even when life’s busy: my friends, you can’t be built into a spiritual house if gatherings with the family of God only happen when you’re not busy with something else. Whether that’s a Sunday morning or sharing a meal together, commit to being here (vacations are totally fine) so that you can be built into a spiritual house. A house doesn’t get built sporadically – it gets built through steadiness and consistency. Before I trusted Christ, I treated Sunday gatherings here as optional or only if I didn’t have anything better to do. Katlyn would invite me to and I’d often give all sorts of lame excuses – I’m at a friend’s house and they parked me in. My parents are doing something or I have a lot of homework. Once I actually trusted the verdict God had rendered over Jesus — and over me (that I’m not my own, I was bought with a price) — Sunday gatherings stopped being an occasional errand and started being how I understood myself to belong to something.

2.    Commit to serving here, even if it’s unglamorous: I’ve never heard anyone say: “that’s a nice stone in the middle of that wall.” And yet, without that middle stone, the entire wall will just collapse. It’s the same way for serving. There are often unglamorous ways to serve here. These are things you may never get thanked for but you do it anyways, knowing that serving is how you allow yourself to be built into a spiritual house. One way you can do this is:  we could use more volunteers in our Tech Team. It’s unglamorous – you advance slides, adjust audio, and monitor our livestream. Our tech team often only gets noticed if something goes wrong. But, those sacrifices are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. God is looking for servants in his church, not just spectators.

3.    Commit to relationships, even when they cost you something. When stones are placed in a building together, they don’t get to pick what stone is next to them. They don’t get to remove themselves when the other stone is pushing up against them. And it’s actually that pressure and friction that holds the building together. In the same way, you don’t get to pick who’s a part of this church. If you only interact with people in this church who are easy to love or you get along with, you’re not allowing yourself to be built into anything – you’re just settling for a convenient social club. So being built in means you apologize if you need to apologize, you forgive if you need to offer forgiveness, and you speak the truth in love if you need to have hard conversations. Remind yourself what 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 teaches us that we are God’s temple and his Spirit dwells within us. So if that’s true, consider how you’d treat your other brothers and sisters.  

As we get ready to close today, I want us to go back to Jesse’s fear of: “What if Andy doesn’t love me?” That fear was only fixed when Jesse trusted that Andy did indeed love her and began to play with her alongside all the other toys. It was only fixed when she trusted Andy’s verdict about her and when she allowed herself to be used by him. It’s the same way for us in our faith journey. Look to the resurrection.

To help you search your heart, I’d invite you to reflect with these two questions: do I trust God’s verdict about Jesus? If so, am I allowing myself to be built into a spiritual house or am I trying to control the house myself? As we pray together, ask yourself those questions – plead with God. And if you feel something stirring, there are folks able to pray with you in the back.

God made the verdict clear through the resurrection of Christ. God does love you and he wants to use you to build his spiritual house. So, will you trust his verdict or the world’s verdict? Please stand.  Let us pray.

In my last role, I had a coworker and a dear friend who was difficult for me to love. They were often unorganized, would show up to meetings late, and get me details for important projects way too late. I found myself often picking up the pieces of important relationships and apologizing for their behavior to others. Although we shared the same faith and they were my sibling in Christ, I began to really get frustrated with them and begin holding malice towards them – and I felt tired of ‘cleaning up their mess.’ At times, I’d feel the temptation to give in to slander when others would talk about them and I wouldn’t rush in to defend them either.

I share that story though because it’s relatable and it fits our passage for today. As believers, we are commanded to love each other – deeply from the heart. That’s not a command for the super Christians; it’s a command for any follower of Jesus who has been born again through Christ. We know this and yet, if we’re honest with ourselves and each other, this is hard for us. For reasons that we’ll get into later, we know this command and yet, we struggle.

Years before Peter writes this letter, he’s in a room with Jesus and the rest of the disciples. He hears Jesus give this radical command to the 12 that they should love one another – right after they spend much of the night arguing with each other over who was the greatest. Same group of people, same night, and same failure we share in. And now, Peter is passing that command to the churches he oversees in Turkey.

But, is loving one another easy for us? If it was, Peter likely wouldn’t be encouraging us to love one other deeply. It’s hard because there are fleshly barriers that make it difficult for us to obey this command and Peter gives us those barriers in 1 Peter 2:1 which is what we can’t do. We cannot do these things if we want to love one another.

In this passage, there are actually five fleshly barriers that make it difficult and a struggle to love one another deeply. They’re all found in 1 Peter 2:1. For all of us, you may not struggle with every single one of these but you likely at least struggle with one of them. Here’s why we struggle (SLIDE):

1.      We fake love (hypocrisy) – this shows up in actually two places in today’s passage. 1:22 says we are to love one another sincerely (in the Greek, it means love one another unhypocritically) and verse 2:1 warns of the opposite which is hypocrisy. That means you can’t fake loving someone – performed affection is just that, it’s a performance not a reflection of your heart that’s been totally transformed by your new birth.

a.   This is like when you worked in customer service and you’ve had a really irksome customer who says “thanks” and you say: “I’m happy to help!”

2.    We hold malice – malice is this general ill-will you may hold toward your brother or sister. Maybe you’re holding onto an offense that someone caused you and you haven’t offered forgiveness to them. When something bad happens to this person, you’re secretly glad that it happened to them.

3.    We act deceitfully. You may love or serve somebody but for the totally wrong intentions. You’re only doing it to get something from them – it’s not true love because you expect something in return.

a.   This is like when you’re buying a car and the salesperson is asking you all these questions about your family, your dreams, and your hobbies. They don’t care, they just want you to buy a car.

4.   We envy others. You become jealous of your brothers and sisters who seem to have it better than you. Rather than being content with what God’s given you and what God’s given them, you desire what they have.

5.   We slander. You hear others talking about that one person in our church who is really frustrating or has made some bad decisions. Rather than defending them, you join in by agreeing with their insults. If that doesn’t happen, you may not slander them but you’ll join in by staying silent and complicit in the slander. You feel the conviction of the Spirit but you ignore it.

Which of these is your vice? Which one of these specifically makes it harder for you to love your brothers and sisters? Your brothers and sisters aren’t obstacles to overcome or people to use, they’re your sibling in Christ.

But moving forward, why in the world is this a struggle for us? 1 Peter just told us that we’ve been born again through the living and enduring word of God. And yet, we are encouraged to rid ourselves of these vices because these are the things that will erode and hurt a church. What’s our deal?

Those fleshly vices are our default setting. Last week, our passage highlighted this empty way of life that Christ’s blood ransomed us from. These vices are leftovers from that old way of life. We’ve been reborn but that doesn’t mean the old reflexes or ways we would look at things went away quickly.

Left to our own powers, we default to slander more than we care to admit. Left to our own power, we will love like the world loves – only to get something from someone. We’ve been given this new life and new birth that will never perish and yet, our default is these vices. Why is this default so deep?

1 Peter 2:1 uses the phrase: “rid yourselves.” Rid yourselves in this context really means putting off or removing clothing. (SLIDE) That means our default clothing as human beings is malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. It’s the result of the empty way of life that’s been passed down to us according to 1 Peter 1:18. Peter tells us to get rid of those things – recognize that they are dangerous and shed that clothing as fast as you can instead of treating this as an option. Take these clothes to Community Aid and never look back. The default will always be there and when you feel it creeping up again, your go-to is the same: off, immediately. But, is it that easy or is it actually difficult?

All of this can be a disheartening experience for sure because it always seems like we have so far to go. But, the major battle has already been won through what Christ has done.

God has given us a new birth and a new life – it’s imperishable, meaning it’s not going away. It’s a permanent change that begins today and stretches to eternity. How did God do this? He did this through the living and enduring word of God.

Peter quoted Isaiah 40 – this is a chapter right after the Lord just spoke through Isaiah to the King Hezekiah and Isaiah told Hezekiah: everything in your palace, your people, and more will be carried off to Babylon. When he says that “the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” What or who is the word then? Peter tells us in verse 25 of chapter 1: “the word that was preached to you.” Some translations render it as “the good news” that was preached to you. The good news of Jesus life, death, and resurrection. It’s the Gospel that brings life and will endure forever.

Although we have sinned with malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander, Jesus never did. Those sins lead to our death but Jesus intervened on our behalf. Instead of us, Christ died in our place – under the weight of what our vices deserve. But, he didn’t stay dead – he rose again three days later which means he will endure forever like Isaiah 40 said. Jesus is imperishable – he will never be destroyed or defeated. Romans 6:9 tells us that death no longer has dominion over him. And that’s why he is the only one who can give you an imperishable new life. But, it’s that good news that also feeds and nourishes our new life in him.

My friends, the Gospel is our starting point and our ending point. This is where you begin new life and where you continue to fuel the new life. That’s what this passage is telling us too – it says we’ve been born again through the Word. But then 1 Peter 2:2 tells us that same spiritual milk is what causes us to grow up in our salvation.

Put simply: the same word that gave you life is the same word feeds your life. (SLIDE)

My friends, never grow tired of the gospel. When you get tired of the Gospel or stop feeding on it, that’s when the vices of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander begin to rise up in you again. That’s why I want to encourage you to take 2 steps today:

First , crave the pure word like a newborn craves milk. In this passage, Peter is saying that every newborn needs and craves milk to survive and grow. The newborn isn’t forced to crave nor do they have to summon willpower to do it. It’s a natural response.

In the same way, that’s how it should be for the followers of Jesus. That’s why 1 Peter 2:3 says: “NOW, that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” It means that we are to crave the pure word because we have experienced God’s goodness. It’s about tasting and savoring the sweetness of God’s faithfulness and forgiveness to you despite your flaws and failures. It’s about recognizing the fragility of all the perishable things we put our hope in and realize that if we only had Jesus, Jesus is enough.

And here's what's remarkable: the word Peter uses for 'pure' in verse 2 — Greek word is: adolon — literally means 'without deceit.' It's the exact same word for 'deceit' you heard back in 2:1, just in the negative. Peter is telling you that the very milk you're starving for is the direct opposite of the vice that's starving you. You don't out-discipline deceit. You out-taste it with the Word. It means you realize God’s word is better than deceit.

So, have you tasted that the Lord is good? And I know some of you are going through some really hard trials right now but in the midst of that, can you still recall times or even recent moments where God has been good to you? If you search for them, you’ll find them and when you do, you’ll be reminded of his goodness and crave him more.

This is also one of the reasons why we gather as a church – to hear pure spiritual milk from the reading of the word, the preaching of it, and the reminders of it as we sing. 1 Peter 2:2 is actually an encouragement to the whole body, not just individuals.  

And going back to my old coworker, I soon began to feel conviction over our relationship. As I sat and would continue with my bible reading, I would be reminded of how good God has been good to me. While I was an enemy of God, Christ Jesus died for me. I tasted and saw how God was loving and pursuing me despite my own failures and weakness. I wanted to then love and pursue my coworker the way God pursued me. Malice, deceit, slander, hypocrisy, and envy may taste good in the moment but they soon turn sour – unlike the word of God.

And something began to change: my coworker and I began to pray together and as they prayed for me, I knew they loved me even if they frustrated me.

So crave the milk and allow that to be what drives you to remove the clothing of the vices that 1 Peter 2:1 warns us about. This is the only way we can supernaturally love each other. Don’t lie to yourself – holding the door open for your brother or sister is the kind thing to do but that’s not sincerely loving them. Sincere love means looking to your left and right and saying: “I will go to the cross for you. I will die for you because that’s what Jesus did for me and commands me to do.” Don’t confuse nice and polite things as radical love for your brother or sister.

Second thing I want you to do today, if I’m being honest with you, it’s going to be a hard thing. Peter doesn’t spell this out clearly either but he makes it clear that these vices have to go. (SLIDE) And for some of you, that means you need to have an honest conversation with yourself and with someone else. Bring what’s in the darkness into the light.

Ask yourself: have I sinned against anyone in this church through malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, or slander? If so, take time to go to the Lord about it as we pray. Pray that God would give you conviction around if you need to ask for that person’s forgiveness and walk in humble repentance. Will that be hard? You bet. Will it be uncomfortable? Oh yes. Will God be pleased with that? Most definitely.

And I realize that may be asking you for a lot. But if you have tasted his goodness, you’ll know this call to repentance and asking someone for forgiveness isn’t me being harsh – it’s exactly the kind of thing God’s word calls you to. If you feel the Spirit’s conviction to ask for someone’s forgiveness, don’t ignore it – talk to them after service or during our prayer time. If you can think of an example right now, that’s most likely a good indication to have a hard conversation with someone today. Don’t wait.

And dream with me: what could God do with a church that takes these vices so seriously that we’d own up to them and take responsibility for them? First, we’d find forgiveness for our sins but second, we would continue to reach maturity and deeper levels of faith as we actually practice what Christ commands.

So as we prepare to sing, examine yourself. Remind yourself: these vices are things we all struggle with but you’ve been reborn according to the imperishable seed of Jesus Christ. They don’t have to be your normal. You’ve been saved and tasted that the Lord is good. You crave him more and more. As you crave him, you can stumble your way toward loving one another deeply, from the heart because that’s how Jesus loves you. Amen?

I want us to talk about memory. Specifically, I want all of us to think about the major things we remember in life and what happens if we forget them. Back in 2011, there was a massive snowstorm that happened. School was cancelled for multiple days. I was ecstatic – we still had power and internet so this meant long days playing Call of Duty with my friends. Or so I thought. Now, my parents live on a farm and their driveway goes up and down a hill. Every time, it snows – there’s a massive snowdrift. In this particular snowstorm, it must have been around 2 feet. My parents couldn’t leave for work. So, my dad walks into the room as I’m gearing up for a day of video games. And he tells me that we’re heading outside to plow and shovel our way out. Keep in mind: my parent’s driveway is at least half a mile and the lane they live on is another half a mile. So, we’re talking at least one mile – shoveling and using a tractor to plow. I can remember feeling so irritated that I had to help. I hated every minute of it and the worst of it was we didn’t even finish it all in one day.

Why was I feeling so upset about helping my family? I had forgotten that I belonged to them as a kid and that I had a responsibility to help them when they asked for help. I didn’t stop being a son in my family, I just stopped living like one. And it reminds me of the quote “you remember what you want to forget and you forget what you want to remember.” And that’s a problem because we forget significant moments from our lives and end up acting in a way that produces more harm than good.

In the spiritual world, every day, we face a decision of: obedience to God or disobedience to God. When we disobey, we forget that we belong to God and he’s paid a price to bring us back into his care.

If you’ve read the Old Testament, this idea may sound familiar. Over and over again, God reveals himself as: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Why does God do this? He knows memory can be a powerful thing.

God is wanting the Israelites to remember that they are not their own people, they belong to God. And God went through a price to set his people free. Oftentimes, God lays out who he is and what he’s done first. Grace comes before the command. Then, he begins to lay out his commands for his people. Why?

He knows Israel will forget. And if they forget what God’s done for them, why will they bother with obedience? In the same way, that’s what Peter wants us to see in this passage. In verse 18, he says: “For you know that” and then he shares how God has redeemed them. This whole passage speaks of the intentional way that we are called to remember and to know that we are God’s and we were bought with a price. But, do we remember that?

When temptation comes our way, do you give in or remember who God is and what he’s done for you? Do you pursue holiness because God is holy? In case you need a reminder, holiness isn’t about a checklist that you mark off. Holiness isn’t about doing the right things and avoiding the wrong things. Holiness is about remembering what God has set apart. He sets things apart for sacred purposes. That’s why in Leviticus, God makes tables holy. And that’s why he invites us into holiness because he’s set us apart for sacred purposes – to love him and to love our neighbor.

Here’s our issue: we struggle with holiness because we forget that we belong to God and he has paid a high price for our redemption.

And here’s the thing: knowing that issue doesn’t solve it right away. Instead, we typically create two issues with holiness.

1. We can’t generate holiness on pure willpower alone.  You may hear a convicting sermon or feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit about some sort of sin. So, you tell yourself: it’s time to get serious and stop playing around. You convince yourself that you’re strong enough to do this on your own and are you? You’re not. I’m a huge ice cream fan and if we go to Half Pint, I convince myself that I’m strong enough to get just one scoop of ice cream. But then we get there, I see all the flavors, and I’m like I can’t just do one – I need two!

2. We can’t discount holiness because of grace. When we start talking about holiness, some of us may throw up guard rails and say – holiness is close to legalism, I’m about grace! Me too. But, holiness is what it means to be a follower of Christ. That’s what Peter tells us in verse 15 and 16 – it’s also what God commands Israel to be as well. When we emphasize grace and leave out holiness, we tend to downplay sin and the seriousness of it. We are to fight against sin – tooth and nail. If you can remember a few weeks ago, 1 Peter 1 opens up with the grand declaration that – “In God’s great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade.” In Peter’s mind, mercy and grace go right along with living holy lives – they’re friends, not enemies.

In 1 Peter 1:13, Peter gives us an insight on how to avoid these two areas: he tells us “set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.” He’s telling us that holiness does take intentional thought and discipline BUT it’s all motivated by grace (God’s blessings that he gives to us even though we don’t deserve it). Sit with that thought for a bit and we’ll see later why that does change everything for us.

But if we pursue holiness out of pure willpower alone or neglect holiness because of grace, we don’t grow closer to God – we grow further away and fall a sin that 1 Peter 1:14 warns us about.

In verse 14, Peter warns his audience by saying: “do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.” What are those evil desires? Peter tells us later in his letter – chapter 4:3 tells us: “For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.

That’s quite the list and you may think you’re off the hook. But, my friends, you’re not – we’re all condemned because of that last, all-encompassing phrase: “detestable idolatry.” So, Peter is warning us to not be conformed back to those levels of ignorance. That means there are pressures that are constantly trying to shape us to follow a god, not the God of the bible. There are these cultural pressures that want us to shift our focus from God, to our old ways of life.  

How can this play out for us today? The truth is we don’t just worship on Sundays, we worship every day of the week. People say church can feel too ritualistic but my friends, we follow rituals every single day of the week.

Think with me for a moment what a typical day looks like for most people:

1.      You wake up in the morning and the first thing you look at is your phone. Depending on your preference, you’ll either open up the news app, realize the world is in chaos, and you should hate your political enemies. If you dislike the news, you open Facebook or Instagram – hoping to see that you got a lot of likes only to be disappointed that someone else got more than you.

2.    After stewing on your phone for a bit, you get ready for the day and drive to work – passing by multiple advertisements trying to sell you discontentment and their product as a solution.

3.    You’re at work – you found out that a lazy co-worker of yours just got promoted. Instead of being happy, you’re angry and you join everyone else in ridiculing them.

4.   You get home from work – make dinner and eat it while watching TV. You’ve had a tough day so you do a combo of watching TV and scrolling – all while being shaped and formed by advertisers who only have shareholder profits in mind, not your flourishing in mind. You see a friend posting on social media who seems to have a better life than you and you go to bed disgruntled and annoyed.

Do you see what sort of person you’ll become if this is your day? Sure, you’re not sacrificing a golden calf but you’re worshipping something else throughout the day. And that’s what Peter is warning us about.

Throughout the day, you have no practices to remind you that you belong to God and he bought you with a price. Instead, the cultural pressures of our day are reminding you to partake in detestable idolatry – whether it’s finally making enough money, the perfect marriage, or easy circumstances, our natural default is to be conformed to the evil desires we have.

Left to our own devices, there is no hope for holiness. We need someone else to rescue us and to do what we can’t do.

That someone else is Jesus Christ. Our passage today shows us that it’s not those perishable things like silver, gold, great jobs, or fancy cars that redeemed us – it was the precious blood of Christ that set you free from the slavery of sin. Jesus was the perfect lamb without blemish or defect. As I explained a day in the life for a typical person, did you feel how it felt empty and meaningless? That’s what Jesus redeemed us from in verse 18 – the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors. But, with Jesus, we don’t have to have an empty way of life – he came to give us new life.

And here’s the thing – nothing else but Jesus has the power to do this for you. Nothing else will give you the hope that Christ does. This is why 1 Peter has hit on the idea that there are perishable things that we’ll be tempted to put our hope in. You may put your hope in pursuing holiness out of willpower but eventually you’ll cave and give into that temptation. You may put your hope in getting that promotion finally, only to get let go a year later when the company gets bought out.

All those things will perish or turn away from you. But, Christ will not. (SLIDE) Christ cannot perish. Faced with every temptation we face, he didn’t run away – he did what we couldn’t do. It’s with his precious blood that you’ve been set free. He can’t perish because he’s been raised back to life. He can’t turn away from you because he’s been glorified and is continuously interceding for you at the right hand of the Father according to Romans 8:34. And when you understand this, it solves the issues we talked about earlier with pursuing holiness out of pure willpower or discounting holiness because of grace.

1 Peter 1:13-21 wants you to see that you pursuing holiness out of pure willpower gets you nothing. Christ has already purchased you, has already redeemed you, and made you belong in God’s family. He’s bought you, he’s not going to return you like an amazon package.  

But at what cost? The cost of his precious blood which is why you can’t discount holiness. You finally see the great lengths that God underwent to redeem you, you understand what it cost him. And because of that, you’re devoted to God – you want to serve him, obey him, and love him.

Imagine with me that you have $50,000.00 in credit card debt. It grew faster than you ever thought and its finally caught up with you because the creditors are threatening to take your home, your car, and your future wages to pay off the debt. You’re feeling totally helpless and have no clue how you’re ever going to pay it. A few days later, you get a notice in the mail saying an anonymous donor has paid off your credit card debt. They paid it off at a real cost to themselves - $50,000.00. Now, are you going to live your life in the same way and rack up even more debt? Or, has your life dramatically changed because someone came to your rescue?

That’s what Christ does to our lives. He’s rescued us with great cost.

Since he’s rescued us and made us belong to him, how should we live holy lives?

First things first, we must recognize that holiness does indeed take intentional effort that’s enabled by grace. In verse 13, Peter uses language that is similar to “gird up your loins” which is a bit odd to us. But for Peter’s audience, they would know exactly what he meant. In that time, men would wear an outer cloak like this but as you can tell, it is not easy to move around in. You can’t run, you can’t stretch yourself, or really get down to work. So Peter instructs his readers to tuck this outer shirt into their belts so they can get to work. We would say something like: time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

That means, you have to be deliberate in setting your hope on the grace that Christ is bringing when he returns. It takes conscious effort to stop placing your hope in those perishable things that will disappoint you. That’s why we’re to roll up our sleeves. You literally need to retrain your mind. Ask yourself: does my day look like the typical day I described earlier? What ways am I forming myself to look more like Christ or am I allowing myself to be conformed back into the ways of life that Jesus rescued me from? Like John Mark Comer says, “We’re all being formed by something or someone. The question is: who or what is it?”

And when you begin to roll up your sleeves, something, by the Spirit’s help will begin to change. You begin to live your life in a way that’s actually oriented towards Christ returning instead of someone who lives in a way that forgets that Jesus is coming back.

Second, verse 17 likely made some of you uncomfortable because it talks about God as a Father and also as a judge. (SLIDE) Both things are true – God is a loving Father who calls us his beloved children. God is pleased with us on account of what Christ has done. At the same, our Father is judge of the entire world and he doesn’t pick favorites. That means believers and non-believers will be judged by the King of the Universe. As believers, our sin has been judged by God already and dealt with by Jesus Christ on the Cross. So hear me clearly: your sin is dealt with, full stop — and God still cares deeply about how you're living. However, Peter wants us to realize that just because our sin has been judged in Jesus, that doesn’t mean any of us are off the hook. I imagine him remembering his rabbi’s words from Matthew 12:36 “But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.”  

That’s why Peter tells us to live our lives in reverent fear – not because we’re afraid of losing our salvation or falling into eternal separation from God. But rather, we know we have a loving Father who also knows all things. He knows our heart motives. He knows our thoughts. He knows the things you’re afraid of other people finding out. He knows all things – so live your life in reverent fear. So, are you putting up a façade for others to see? If so, God sees through your façade. God is approachable but he is also fiercely holy.  

As we prepare to participate in communion together, this is a time for you to examine yourself like Paul tells us to in 1 Corinthians 11:28. This is a time to reflect honestly — not because you need to become acceptable to God, that's already settled by Christ's blood, but because a Father who knows all things is asking whether you're living like someone who knows what that cost him. Ask yourself: am I living my life as a redeemed member of God’s family or am I living my life however I want? Remember, God has set you apart (made you holy) for his purposes. When my dad asked me to help plow out our driveway, I was living my life in a way that showed I didn’t care about belonging to my family. I wanted my own way. I didn’t care about my dad’s purposes, I only cared about my own.

If that’s you today, my friend – take the conscious effort right now to set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus is revealed at his coming. Meet Christ once again here at the table and remind yourself of what it cost to redeem you. And we don’t come to this table just as individuals, we come to the table as a new family – as exiles with Christ as our King.

Note: this transcript has been created using AI. It’ll likely contain some errors.

So, as I shared last week, we're starting this new series in First Peter, uh, life is exiles, proclaiming Christ in a Christless culture. Because whether we like it or not, we do not live in a day and age in the United States of America where being a Christian earns you a nice gold star. Uh, youth group culture is no longer as cool as it was in the 90s and the early 2000s. Sundays for most Americans is just a second Saturday. So we don't necessarily live in a Christian culture that many of us may have grown up with. So how do we stay faithful to the way of Jesus? How do we live our lives according to the way of Jesus in a culture that has no regard for him? And so that's what we're kind of going uh through together as a church family. And so some of you will know this story. Uh but four-ish years ago, Caitlyn and I did a hosting through Safe Families for Children. And we had this adorable little girl who's one year old. And that girl's mom was homeless. And so that led to that little girl living with us for around four months the first time and then another four months uh a year after that. And the first time we had her was like our second long-term hosting with Safe Families. And to put it lightly, that was an intensely difficult season of life for our family. I thought I had this really pure heart for the work that we were doing. Was feeling really charged up, inspired. My family and I, we love kids. We love and want to love the least of these that Jesus talks about in Matthew 25. And we had this face in our home. So, it was a no-brainer. But over the time of that hosting of those four months, I quickly realized that my heart was not as pure as I thought it was because I would find myself getting frustrated at the mom's lack of progress. I found myself getting frustrated at the long drives to York, which some of you are like, "York's not that far." Looking at Brian, who drives for a living, York feels far to me. I have to drive like three minutes to my favorite restaurant. Like, York feels far. Um, but I would find myself getting frustrated at visitations because then we would be there and have to figure out something to do while we're in New York City and there were just challenges with that cute little girl who would find herself in all sorts of trouble. And I found myself more anxious and angry than I care to admit. And if you've ever adopted or if you've ever fostered or you've ever even just watched somebody else's kids for an extended period of time, I think you might know what I'm talking about. And I wanted that mom to express more gratitude for what my family and I were doing for her. I wanted others to weep with me and to acknowledge the hard things that my family and I were going through. And I wanted people to help, but at the same time, I was too proud to ask for help. You guys ever feel that way? You want people to help, but you're too proud to ask for help. And I also wanted God to make things easier for us because, hey, we're stepping out in faith, doing this hard thing for the Lord, and he's making things really complicated for us. So what are you doing God with this? At which point it's like wait I thought my heart was pure. I thought my reasons for doing this were accur accurate and uh wanting to be a blessing. And those few months revealed new sinful parts of me as well as new passions for me. It wasn't all bad, but it revealed new sinful parts of me. And even though it was hard, God was already doing something in me that I couldn't see yet. And if you guys were paying attention when Sharon was reading, that's what First Peter 1:7 tells us, too. Is that what suffering does, what these trials do in our lives is they reveal the impurities of our faith. Hard things reveal the impurities of our faith. And I share that story because it reveals something that is not unique to any of us here. Is that every single one of us here will face suffering or we will face deep trials. I hope you guys know that. If you don't, I'm glad you're here today. And when we're going through suffering or difficulties, our natural question is, why is this happening? Have you wondered this? Why is this happening? And for first Peter's audience, they face suffering. Like we talked about last week, they face suffering because of their social status and newfound faith. They're nobodyies in Greco Roman culture. They're women. They're slaves. They're children. Again, clarify, women are somebody's. Just want to make sure we're clear. But in Greco Roman culture, women held no value. I'm sorry, ladies. It's sad. It's barbaric. It's one of the gifts that Christianity has given to the world that we say women have value. Because before Jesus came onto the scene, that was not the way the world viewed women. Same with children, especially if they were girls. And same with people who were disabled. Same with people who uh were slaves or in a lower social class. And these are the people that first that Peter is writing to in this letter. They're nobodyies. And at the same time though, they've been chosen by the God of the universe. But because of that, they're facing unjust treatment and sporadic persecution in modern day Turkey. And I can imagine them thinking to themselves, if this is what it means to be chosen, I'm not sure if I actually want to be chosen because life is getting so hard. But in first Peter, he addresses kind of two types of suffering. Number one, there's this like general suffering that we go through in life. Again, as Sharon read, verse six says, in all kinds of trials. So, that's just kind of like the normal hard things that exist in our life. Do you guys know what I mean by that? And that's what Peter is most likely talking about based on our passage for the for the day. But then also later on in around chapter 4, we're going to get to a very specific type of suffering that Peter wants us to process. And it is the suffering that goes along with persecution of our faith. So we're talking about though this general suffering that we go through in life. And my friends, this suffering that we go through in life isn't meant to be an anomaly. It's not an anomaly to Peter's audience. It's a given. And it's not meant to be an anomaly to us. It's very common, I think, for most of us in Western culture who still in regards even though you may feel like money doesn't go as far as it used to, we are still extremely wealthy compared to the rest of the world. We have brothers and sisters who live on less than $2 a day and are in ex genuinely difficult and heartbreaking circumstances. And at least in my experiences working with some uh international nonprofits, they don't struggle with suffering, I think, in the way that we do. I've I've never heard my friends in Zimbabwe talk about, man, I don't know if I can believe in God if suffering is a part of the process. I think this is a very us issue. But thankfully, God's word has some answers for us because suffering is going to inevitably come our way, my friends. So, I'm sorry if you were really looking for like a super exciting message today, which it is going to get exciting, I promise. But hang with me. So when suffering does inevitably come our way, we wonder, God, why are you letting this happen to me or to that person? Do you guys know that question? And that is a valid question to ask of God because there are real painful things that we go through as human beings. But a better question may be, God, I understand that this is really hard and difficult right now, but how do you want me to view this trial? What are your purposes behind this? because God's never promised us an easy life, friends. So, I'm I'm hoping that through this time that we will see that asking why certain things are happening is maybe not where we should land. Instead, asking God, what do you want to teach me through this? And so, in light of First Peter and the rest of the scriptures, I think it's good if we talk about the things that we can't do when it comes to suffering because this is an area of the Christian faith where things can get really weird. And so I want to talk about three way three things that we can't do together friends. So when suffering does come our way there I think can be three reactions and we have Christians with really good hearts and really good intentions who give away nice and easy platitudes like God works in mysterious ways. Have you guys heard this story? Have heard that platitude? Or God gives his toughest battle or his hardest battles to his toughest soldiers. Have you heard that one? Those may sound nice and maybe some of you have shared those with people. I trust that your heart was in the right place. But if I can tell you something, those are not really biblical and they're not really helpful to people who are suffering to give you true hope in darkness. If you're walking through a rebellious teenager, just hearing some vague thing of, "Well, God works in mysterious ways is like, yeah, but I'm weeping because this is driving our family apart." Like that's not a super helpful thing to hear. But other times, what we as believers can do is we can end up being like Job's friends. And if you're unfamiliar with the story, Job is the greatest man in the East. Thanks, Aubrey, for reminding me of this story actually just a week ago. But Job is the greatest man in the East. He has a terrific family, has 10 kids, he has vast wealth, cows, he's richer than Elon Musk, most likely. And in a single day, he loses everything. He loses his family. He loses his wealth. He loses everything. And his wife isn't very supportive. She tells him, "Why do you bother following God? You should just curse God and tell him to die." Is what his wife tells him. But later in the story, Job has three really good friends, and they come and they come to just mourn with him. And they start out on a great foot. They're weeping with him. They're in sackcloth and ashes and they're being great friends. But unfortunately, they start to overstay their welcome because they start to probe Job. They ask him, "What sort of sin have you committed against God for him to punish you like this? What have you done that God needed to take away your family, your wealth, everything? What sort of sin did you commit that God needed to do this?" They tell him, "You better get things right between you and God to avoid any more pain in your life." And if you know the story, you will know that's not the case. Job was a righteous man. That means he walked with the Lord. He didn't commit sin. He didn't sacrifice to other gods. He was a righteous man. He followed the Lord. God was not punishing Job in that story. Job was under a spiritual attack and his friends were the ones who were wrong. And at the end of Job, what God does is he rightfully rebukes his friends for failing to understand God's purposes and suffering. Because what Job's friends believed is that if you do the right things in life, you won't suffer. If you do the right things in life, you won't suffer is what Job's friends believed. And then they also believed if you do sin, you are going to suffer. And what Job's friends viewed, they viewed God not as a loving father, but as kind of a vengeful drill sergeant who's just looking for you to mess up. And what God says to Job's friends is, "You're wrong. You have not spoken the truth about who I am. My ways are not your ways." And then on the flip side though, there are people who want to a avoid pain or suffering at all costs. And Job's friends weren't just wrong about God. underneath their belief system was a real fear about who God was. Because if we can believe that good behavior ensures no suffering in life, if good behavior ensures pain-free existence, suffering then is always somebody else's fault. You guys know what I mean by that. If we can always tie suffering to something that we've done, it's easier to get behind. But if suffering is just something that happens to all of us, that's a little scarier. It's a little less comfortable. But what Job in the larger narrative of the scripture shows us is that suffering happens to every single one of us because we live in a fallen world. Jesus, Matthew chapter 5, he says God sends rain on the righteous and the fill in the blanks unrighteous. Bad things come to good people that have follow the Lord and love him and good things happen to bad people who hate the Lord. And so in our culture, what we try to do is we try to avoid hard things in life. You guys ever avoid hard things in life? Yeah. Me too. If we're facing a big decision or we're needing to have a big and hard conversation, our natural tendency is most likely to avoid it. We don't like those things. Why do we not like those things? It may introduce new hard things in our life. So, for instance, if you have this extended family that is really unhealthy and toxic, you may need to have a hard conversation with them about boundaries and about what they're doing to your own family. But you're scared to have that conversation because I've had to have conversations like that. It's scary because what may happen in that conversation is you may be misunderstood. You may be it may lead to even more hard things. It may lead to isolation. It may lead to breaking of relationship. So instead, what we do is we stay put because we're afraid of the change. Because we don't want hard things to happen to us. And so why do we do those things? Why do we give easy platitudes to people who are hurting? Why do we blame people for their own suffering? And why do we avoid hard things? And the truth is, we all like to be in control. We all like to be in the driver's seat. I'm sorry. If I've ever ridden with you in the passenger seat in a car, I've always thought, man, they're driving too slow or too recklessly. I'm sorry. That's a confession uh in front of all of you. But we all like to be in the driver's seat, right? We like to be in control. But oftent times what happens in suffering is suffering reveals that we actually don't have very much control in our lives at all. You guys know what I mean by that? Suffering reveals how little control we have in our life because we don't get to decide to have a cancer diagnosis. We don't get to decide to get into a horrific car accident. Those things by and large are outside of our control. And when we give these easy platitudes to people who are suffering, we try to stay in control of that situation because those platitudes really cost us nothing. They make you feel wise and spiritual because you may say God works in mysterious ways, but it really doesn't cost you anything. What would cost you is sacrificing and being present to that person to just listen and share how they're feeling. And my friends, I say this with love. If you've shared those statements before, I know that you had a good heart in sharing it. But please stop saying those things. They're not helpful to people who are hurting. So if you let people share though, if you ever talk to a person who is going through a really hard time and you let them share and they start crying, are you in control of that situation? No. You're wondering, "Oh man, what's going to happen?" You feel uncomfortable because people are crying. For whatever reason, we get very anxious and unwilling to just let people cry in front of us or we don't cry in front of other people. And so we put on this facade. my friends, we can cry with each other. It's okay. Or on the flip side, when we try to be like Job's friends, when we obey God simply to guarantee a good outcome, we try to stay in control. We become like one of my favorite characters in the New Testament. We become like the elder brother in the prodigal son's story. And things may go okay for a while. That elder brother, he was doing his thing. His younger brother had left. It's great. He's getting the entire inheritance himself. His brother's nowhere to be seen. and things are going okay for him. But eventually a trial comes his way. His younger brother comes home. His father now takes the inheritance that was going to go 100% to him as the elder brother. And now he's going to split it. He's not going to get as much money. He's not going to get as much land. And what does the elder prodigal son tell his dad? After all I've done for you, dad, this is what I get. This is how you're going to treat me. You may have wondered that God, after all I've done to serve you, this is what I get. You owe me a good life, God. My friends, if you can show me the passage of scripture that says that, that God owes us a good life, let's talk because you won't find it. And I know that's hard. I'm not trying to discount that. It's hard. And when we avoid these hard things though in life, we try to stay in control because we limit difficulties. In modern America, we dislike difficulties. I like talking about Door Dash because Door Dash is a great example of this. Why drive 25 minutes to the restaurant when you can pay somebody $5 to deliver it. You don't have to interact with them at all. You don't even have to leave your couch. They can just deliver the food right to you. We kind of avoid these harder things. I'm not saying Door Dash can be clutch sometimes, but you guys know what I mean. We dislike hard things in our life. So, we try to stay in control by limiting the difficult things that happen to us. But what happens in that is you never take risks. You never take steps of faith because that'll cause you to lose control. And the fact of the matter is this, all of us here are control freaks. Every single one of us. You may not think you are, but deep down depending on the thing, you will it'll be revealed to you that you are a control freak. And suffering just reveals them in brand new ways. And what happens if you continue to grasp for control and suffering? The suffering is going to become totally unbearable. And there needs to be a better way for us. And that's the way of the cross. Because here's the thing, we all cling to control in our own ways because we're fallen people. But what first Peter 1:7 wants us to reflect on is what does happen when the fire comes. What happens when suffering and difficult things comes into our lives? Verse 7 talks about how fire removes the impurities of gold. So when we go through hard things, does your desire for control get exposed? Does it get burned away? Or do you hold on to control tighter and tighter? And Peter says that that's what refining does. When gold is mined from the earth, it's not 100% gold, my friends. It's got all sorts of impurities in it. And so they have to consistently refine it in order to make what you may get at a jeweler's. And it exposes what's already there so it can be removed. And so then once the process of gold refinement is finished, what's left is purer than what went in. And it's all because the fire did its work. And in the same way, my friends, that's what suffering is for us. Oops, sorry. Thought there was a slide there. There was not. Ignore that. Suffering is this refinement process that God uses to help us to trust less in our control. And it asks us to trust more in him and his control. Suffering is a refinement process that God uses to help us to trust less in ourselves and less in our control and trust more in him and in his control. And so I understand that that may be hard. It's hard for me, my friends. I'm a control freak just like you. I obsess over things. I like things to be organized a certain way and it really destroys me when I see clutter. Just being real. And there are more serious examples of that. But we need to trust less in our control. That's what suffering does for us. But you may be thinking to yourself, man, I I don't know. I'm not necessarily convinced. But what I want to share with you guys is, do you guys think that God gives us a good reason to see why suffering can bring about good? I think there is. Because if you again were following along as Sharon was reading, 1 Peter 1:11 says, "The sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow." The sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. My friends, Jesus Christ suffered himself. Matthew 26, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. Maybe you're familiar with this story. It's Thursday. It's the night before he's going to be executed by crucifixion. And Jesus is afraid. He's taken his three closest friends up there and they keep falling asleep. The people that Jesus was hoping would encourage him, cheer him on in this incredibly dark time continue to be kind of tired and poor friends by falling asleep at that hour. And we would do the same. And so Jesus is afraid. But what's Jesus doing in that story? He's praying. He's talking to his father. And that prayer is actually quite simple. Jesus shares with his father that if it's possible, dad, take this cup. The suffering that is to come, take it away from me. Is what Jesus is asking God to do. But he doesn't stop there. The second part of that prayer is he says, "But not what I will, but what you will." Not what I will, but what you will. Have you ever prayed like Jesus where you've asked God to remove this hard thing from your life? We all have. I would encourage us though to pray that second part though, too. Not what I will, but what you will. And what Jesus does in that moment, friends, is Jesus gives up control. He does the thing that doesn't come naturally for us. He gives up control and he throws himself into the purposes of God. He entrusts himself to his father's will. But my friends, if you know the story, that leads to more suffering, not less. Because later on, after Jesus says, "Lord, I'm trusting your will for this." The King of Kings, the eternal son of God, he's betrayed by one of his own. And the God man who has the power to raise Lazarus from the dead allows himself to be stripped naked to be nailed to a cross and to be lifted up on lifted up for all to see. You guys ever think about how crazy that is that Jesus who had the power to raise Lazarus from the dead trusted God the Father's plan so much that he was willing to give up that much to control to endure that much humiliation and shame and suffering. And on the cross, that's what Jesus did. He gave up the control. He absorbed the just consequences of sin and evil into himself because God is holy and we are not. He gives up his spirit and he dies. And unlike the elder brother in the story of the prodigal son who only obeyed to get something, Jesus obeys and he's given the cross. But first Peter 1:11 doesn't say that Jesus just suffered. There's a second part with that, friends. It says there were glories afterwards. And what was that glory? Well, after dying on the cross, my friends, Jesus came back to life. I know we kind of say that all the time and you're maybe thinking like, "Wow, Anthony, give me something amazing and new from the scriptures." I'm giving you something new and amazing in the scriptures. There was a man who was died and three days later he's alive. If we can't get excited about that, friends, I don't know what can get you excited. And so, the power of sin had no hold on Christ. And for those of us who have faith in Jesus, the power of sin no longer has any power on us. And Paul says, when these perishable bodies die, we will be given imperishable bodies just like Jesus. So, if you're worried that heaven you'll just kind of be this weird ghost that floats around, my friends, you're not going to be a ghost that just floats around. You're going to be given a body just like Christ has a body. It won't have that creaky knee that you got. So, you can take heart if you have a bad knee or a bad back or whatever. My friends, God is accomplishing his mission of living with his people once again, just like in the garden. And the kingdom of heaven is spreading out through the work of the church. And one day, Jesus is going to return. He's fully ushering in the kingdom. He's going to defeat Satan and evil once and for all. And he's going to bring the new heavens and the new earth, where we will dwell with him, where we will see him face to face, where everything wrong will be made right. And that's the glory of the gospel. Did you guys catch it at the end that even angels long to look into these things? We get interested in angels and yet angels are interested in what's going on in our lives because they don't get to experience salvation. They're spiritual beings that serve God. They're in the throne room and they're jealous of what we get to experience because of what Christ has done. But my friends, this future glory that is guaranteed because of what Jesus has done, it only happened because of Jesus's suffering. And so if we are going to be people that follow Christ, that means we are going to have to join Christ in his suffering. And then so how should we actually live our lives then in light of Jesus's example and in light of what first Peter says? Well, number one, here's what we should do. Instead of platitudes that cost us nothing, we enter other people's pain because that's what Christ did for us. My friends, if you ever study different world religions, you will know that Christianity is unique because God didn't stay absent from us. God became flesh and dwelt among us. That's what John chapter 1 says. He entered into the human story. He experienced real pain, real suffering, real misery. And if we are to follow Jesus, that means we follow his example. We take time to weep with those who weep just like Jesus did at the tomb of Lazarus. And we don't just weep though, my friends. We can't just stay there. We step in to help in any way that we can. As I was sharing earlier, that difficult hosting through Safe Families, I can remember another host family mom. Her name's Janita. She's a very sweet brethren home woman. Not brethren home woman, sorry. Brethren woman. Get them confused sometimes. She dropped off this stuffing casserole for us. Did it have probably three sticks of butter in it? You bet. It's delicious. And Piper loves it, too. It's one of her favorite meals. So, it's been a Snively family tradition now. But Janita just dropped off that stuffing casserole for us one day. And she listened without judgment to us about our struggles. And she didn't say much. She's not much of a talker. But her casserole and her presence was enough for us. That gave us the assurance that we weren't alone in what we were facing. And so instead of platitudes that cost us nothing, we enter other people's pain because that's what Christ did for us. But number two, instead of obedience to gain God's favor, we obey because Christ obeyed on our behalf and he gives us God's favor. You and I cannot perfectly obey God. If you think you can, you don't have to come here anymore. Maybe you do actually because Jesus needs to do a work in your life. But I think you guys know what I mean. We are imperfect people who are always going to fail. You may feel like you're doing really good, but eventually you're going to mess up and not live up to your own standards. But the only person who has ever lived up to our standards and to God's standards is Jesus. And because he did that, we get to have his favor. And salvation is this gift that God gives. It's not something that we earn. But because we've received a gift and we know we're deeply loved, we want to reciprocate that love through obedience. My kids know that I deeply love them, no matter what. Even Jude says this thing. He's he's been on a tear some days lately, and he'll just remind me in these moments after we sit in timeout where he just says, "Daddy, I love you." And I said, "I love you, too, buddy." And then he's like, "No matter what." And then you're just stabbed in the heart. And on my kids' best days, they obey me because they know my love for them is secure and my purposes for them are good. And God's love is the same way. You are going to be radically insecure if you feel like you need to earn God's love because there's always going to be somebody who is doing it better than you. There's always going to be more spiritual disciplines you could be doing. God loves you, my friends. Just believe that. Like genuinely believe that. That God does love you. And because he loves you, that's why we can live changed lives. And then lastly though, instead of avoidance to hard things in life, we can trust that God can bring good through our suffering because that's what happened to Christ. And I know that's hard and I know there are hard things that we go through in life. But the resurrection gives us hope. The resurrection proves that our fing future ending is secure in Jesus. And so we don't have to try to protect ourselves from hard things. We don't have to avoid the difficult things that come in our lives or think that God's forsaken us. Jesus already was forsaken by God so that we wouldn't be forsaken. So my friends, we can trust that the resurrection proves that whatever we go through in life, God can bring something good from it. And so this week, my friends, I want you to know that with suffering, you really only have two options. With suffering, you only have two options. You can either number one, allow suffering to become unbearable, which I wouldn't recommend, or number two, allow suffering to push you into deeper joy in Christ. And that doesn't mean you need to just try harder. It doesn't mean you need to minimize your pain. But rather, if you guys will think with me of the God that Jesus serves in the Garden of Gethsemane, that same God who strengthened Jesus because left to Jesus's own will, Jesus wouldn't have gone to the cross, but he submits himself to his father's will. So the same God that strengthened Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane is the one who's going to strengthen you, friends. like they're the same God. So the God that strengthened Jesus in that moment is going to strengthen you. And when I say this thing, deeper joy, that isn't this unrealistic call then to ignore your pain and ignore your suffering. Jesus doesn't want you to ignore your pain and suffering. If he did, when he saw Martha and Mary weeping because their brother Lazarus died, he would have just said, "Get over it, friends. I'm about to do something pretty crazy." Is that how the story goes? No. It's the shortest line in the Bible where it says Jesus wept. Two words, powerful reflection of who God is. So deeper joy isn't about ignoring our pain or ignoring our suffering. What deeper joy really means is smiling and trusting in Jesus while you are still crying and mourning. And Paul describes that feeling in second Corinthians when he says he's sorrowful. So he's sorrowful on this hand and yet he's always rejoicing. And it just takes a simple prayer, my friends, to orient yourself in that way. Not my will, Lord, but your will. And my friends, continue to stare into the glories of Jesus Christ like the angels do. Even angels long to look into these things, my friends. Angels long to look into what we get access to through Christ. They long to look into the glories of what Jesus has done for us and what he's going to do. Stare into the glories of Jesus Christ and remember just things like Jesus's amazing promise in John 16:33. He says, "In this world, you will have anybody fill in the blank? Trouble." Man, Jesus, that kind of stinks. The second part of that though is take heart for I have overcome the world. Christ is one. Christ is one. Jesus is the one who gets the final word. Not your suffering, not your circumstances, and not your control. Jesus gets the final word. And as we kind of prepare to sing to God one more time today, I want you to just take a reflective moment as we pray and ask yourself these two questions. That God, am I choosing control over you in this season? God, am I choosing control over you in this season? And then number two is when I am suffering, do I hold on to control or do I give it up like Jesus? And if you are a person who is going through a difficult season right now, my friends, come talk to me maybe after service if you haven't already done that to me. But there are also people in the back who would love to pray with you as well. They have new name tags as well, so you can easily find them out. Um, there are folks available to pray with you in the back. Or it doesn't even have to be them. If there's somebody that you trust that's a part of this congregation, go talk to them today. Share with them your heart. And if somebody comes to you, my friends, pray with them. Don't give easy platitudes like God works in mysterious ways. Listen to them, weep with them, and pray for them. And that's what the church is here for, friends. Not people who pretend to have it all together, but people who can be real with each other. And what you can do then is you can allow that person to speak truth over you and to encourage you to give up control and instead push towards deeper joy in Christ even through the tears. Even through the tears, guys, because God cares about those tears. Amen. Amen. All righty. I'm going to invite you to stand. Stand again, my friends. We're going to pray again as a family and just ask yourself this question. Am I choosing control over you in this season? And when I'm suffering, do I hold on to control or do I give it up like Jesus? Because I'm not inviting you to give up control just to give up control for control's sakes. I'm saying if Jesus is the one who did it and the resurrection came out because of it, you can trust that God is going to redeem all the broken things that happened to us, my friends. So, let's pray together. God, thank you. Thank you that you are not a God that is distant or far off from what we go through as human beings. human beings who live in a world where people get hurt, where bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. Lord, we thank you that your cross, that your resurrection reveals that there can be purposes behind suffering and pain that we don't know about. that God, we may not understand on the Friday that it happens, but three days later it may make the most sense in the world. And God, we may not always get that resolution that the early followers did. Lord, the resolution may come when we finally see you face to face. Because God, before you, all questions fade away. all worries that we had fade away because we will see you for who you are. We will experience you being good and faithful to us even when it was hard to maybe believe that down here. God, I pray that you would give us faith, give us belief, help our unbelief, help our doubts. God, give us the boldness like your dear friend Thomas who believed in you even though he had doubts. God, I pray that you would give us eyes to see, eyes to see your purposes behind our pain. Give us eyes to see the glory of the risen Christ. And that glory is that pain and suffering does not have the last word, but Jesus does. God, give us the eyes to see the glory of the new heaven and the new earth. Where our savior himself is going to wipe every tear from every single eye, which must be billions and billions of people who will trust you. God, give us eyes to see the glory for who you are. Lord, let us not grow weary of doing that, Lord. And even as we just sing this last song, I pray that we would be reminded that you are holy. You are set apart. Your ways are not our ways. But God, you are a good father. We can trust you because of what Christ has done. So Lord, I pray that you would bring conviction, that you would bring comfort where it's needed this morning, God. and that as we would sing to you, we would make a joyful noise even with some tears as well. So it's in Jesus name I pray. Amen. flows from your throne. You wear the crown of majesty.

When I started high school, I really wanted to fit in. My only problems were that I was intensely shy, I was self-conscious about my acne, and I felt embarrassed every time my mom dropped me off at school because she drove a loud, Ford F-250. These problems only increased when Winter 2010 rolled around: it was basketball team tryouts. For 2 weeks, I practiced every day after school with 25 other boys but only 15 of us would make the cut. I thought I was doing great but by the time the team was selected, my name wasn’t on the list.

I silently packed up my stuff and hopped into my dad’s car. I cried the whole way home because I wasn’t chosen. I felt embarrassed that I didn’t make the cut. I felt shame because I had worked hard but it wasn’t enough. Did I learn some valuable lessons through that experience? Sure but I’d be lying to you if I said it didn’t hurt in the moment.

I share this story because I think all of us have a moment or moments like this in our lives. We all have this deep desire to feel special and to feel chosen And yet, we know the crushing weight when we’re not picked for a team or that promotion or doesn’t invite us to a friend gathering/party.

The recipients of Peter’s letter knew this feeling well: they were women, slaves, and others who were the lower class of society. They weren’t special nor were they chosen by the world. They had no value in the Greco-Roman world. Scot McKnight describes 1 Peter’s audience as people who are homeless in the world. Here’s the cool thing though: these group of nobodies who have been rejected by the world have been chosen by the God of the universe. They have found their home in God and In his church.

But since they’re nobodies who have been chosen by God, they live life as exiles. What is an exile?

An exile is someone who lives in a country that is not their own, their true home or country is someplace else. Peter is being intentional with his word choice here because by using the word exile, he’s setting up the idea that the church (or God’s elect) are the New Israel. Israel had a deep history of exile which led to its people being scattered across Babylon and Assyria. People of Israel didn’t truly belong in Babylon or Assyria, they belonged in Israel. And so it is with 1 Peter’s audience. They don’t belong in Turkey, they belong in Heaven with God and that’s where they’re heading. But for now, they’re exiles – they don’t fit in with the culture and they’re not supposed to. Why?

Because they have something better. SLIDE Verse 2 shows us that the Triune God accomplished their salvation in three ways:

1.      God the Father chose them before the foundations of the world

2.    The Spirit worked in their hearts to set them apart and bring them to faith in Christ so that they may be obedient to him.

3.    Jesus cleansed his people from their sin and offered them forgiveness.

Peter's not writing a philosophy textbook here, and he's not trying to settle every question about how God's choosing and your believing fit together. But notice what he does say: you weren't chosen because you had something to offer God. You were nobodies to Rome and nobodies is exactly who God set his love on — not because of your track record or how special you are, but because of his purpose, sealed in blood before you had a vote in the matter.

But when you’ve been chosen, it also means you have a certain responsibility to the person who did choose you. If I was chosen for my basketball team in ninth grade, I would have had the responsibility to play ball. In the same way, that’s what we do – 1 Peter 2 tells us to be obedient to Christ. But, does obedience come naturally or is it hard for us?

Here’s what we must do

1 Peter is written to a group of exiles who are facing unjust treatment because of their faith. At this time in the church, there isn’t widespread and systemic persecution – that comes later. It’s more sporadic but what’s more regular is: unjust treatment like exclusions, slander, or insults. They’re low and they follow a ‘soft god’

So, they’re facing this pressure of obeying Christ in a culture that is hostile to him. According to verse 2, they’ve been set apart by the Spirit to look different from a culture that doesn’t have Christ in it. They’re called to covenant level loyalty like Israel was called to – to remain distinct from the crushing oppression of Babylon. They’re called to this even when it costs them something like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow to a golden idol. Peter isn’t just saying this to his audience, he’s saying it to all of us too. You and I are called to true allegiance to Christ and to remain distinct from our culture – no matter the cost. So, are you set apart or do you look like the culture?

Because my friends, we are past the days where it’s a normal and socially cool thing to be a Christian. Youth group is no longer the cool place it was in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Sunday is no longer a day to go to church, it’s just a second Saturday for the majority of Americans. In 1 Peter, you won’t see Peter wishing for easier circumstances – you’ll see him embedded in a hostile culture, resisting the cultural forces of Rome and proclaiming Christ. So, the question is: do we fold into cultural pressures or do we stay faithful to Jesus no matter the cost?

Why We Can’t Do It

Left to our own power, we can’t do this. When we are born, our desires are all out of whack. Here’s the thing: Katlyn and I spend a lot of time training our kids to make good and responsible choices. But, do you know what we’ve never trained them on? We’ve never trained them to hit others when things don’t go their way and we’ve never trained them to lie to avoid punishment. But, guess what they do sometimes? They hit and they lie.

Our heart’s desires are messed up. Even for us as adults who follow Jesus, our hearts are messed up. That can be bad news though because it means we fold into the cultural pressures of our day. Because we have a strong desire to belong, to be picked, to fit in — it doesn't disappear when you become a Christian. If anything, it's the very craving our flesh uses to keep us quiet, keep us blending in, keep us compromising exactly when Christ is calling us to be distinct.

And so, ask yourself:

1.      Are you afraid of telling other people that you’re a follower of Jesus?

2.    Have you compromised your faith to keep a relationship intact?

3.    Do you stay silent and ignore that burning in your chest when you know you should say something about your faith to someone but you don’t?

On the flip side, you don’t need to believe what Peter believes for you to feel this failure – it’s burned into every person’s conscience. We fail to meet the standards of obedience required by God and expected of ourselves. For instance: have you ever stayed quiet when you know that speaking out would have cost you something? Have you ever gone along with something you knew was wrong but you did it anyways?

So regardless of our beliefs, we can’t do this. We look for things like great vacations, well-paying jobs, or belonging in a group to fulfill us but they come up short. If we convince ourselves that once we get that special vacation, we’ll be happy. So, what happens? We go on that vacation, it’s great, and then it ends. We share a photo of it on social media but then get jealous because a friend of ours just posted about their cooler vacation. So, we plan a new vacation – this will be the one! But, it just repeats the cycle. Or if we convince ourselves that once we’re in a certain friend group, we’ll find that belonging we’ve been craving. We finally feel accepted but at some point, conflict arises and we feel misunderstood and rejected.

Those things like great vacations, well-paying jobs, or belonging in a group will eventually perish, spoil, or fade. And in our quest for those things to fill us, we sin against the God who loves us, who made us, and who knows what we need for our lives to flourish.

What is that? We need to be reborn through Jesus Christ.

How Jesus did it

1 Peter 1:3 opens with the phrase: “Praise be” – that means to speak well of. Why would we speak well of God? Well, the rest of our text tells us: Praise be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Put a different way, we no longer have to put our hopes in vacations, our jobs, or our friend groups, we can put our hope in Christ because he’s alive. This is not a distant or fools hope, it’s a confident expectation that Jesus will satisfy our deepest longings because his love has conquered death.

Jesus didn’t cave to the cultural pressures of his day. When pressured to hate, Jesus chose love. When pressured to avoid “unholy” people, Jesus chose love. When pressured to demonstrate his power and leave the cross, Jesus chose love. And here’s the thing: you and I couldn’t do that. We feel the pressure to stay quiet and to blend in to avoid the cost of sticking out. Jesus faced that pressure at the cross himself – where we fold under pressure, Jesus didn’t. He didn’t just succeed where we all fail, he did this all for you.

When Jesus saw your sin and how your heart was all out of whack, he didn’t turn away. He turned to the Cross – paying the punishment of sin but also conquering sin’s effects through his self-giving love.

And our new birth is only possible because of Jesus’ resurrection. Death couldn’t hold him and it won’t hold what God’s promised you.

That means we don’t look for an inheritance that will spoil, fade, or perish – we look to what Christ has promised and know that it’s guaranteed. Israel was promised the land as their inheritance. We get something even better: we get God and we have the certainty that Jesus will give us everything we truly need.

Jesus’ resurrection guarantees it. God’s power is so great that he conquered death. But, what does verse five say? Our future inheritance is made secure by God himself. God’s power keeps us in his hand. Our salvation is shielded by him so that we’ll arrive to our inheritance. If God beat death, he’s not going to lose us now. You may say: Anthony, I’ve really messed up this time – there’s no way God will forgive me. To which I say, Philippians 1:6 – he who began a good work will carry it into completion on the day of Christ Jesus.

And how do we get all this? Verse 5 tells us: by our faith or our trust in God.

So, have you trusted in God who alone can give you new life? Do you trust him like a person jumping out of an airplane trusts their parachute? If so, this glorious inheritance is yours. And when you mess up, what do you do? You trust again in the living hope that God has chosen you, the Spirit has set you apart, and Jesus has cleansed you.

Now that you have it, how do you live your life?

How we should live now

But, this rebirth means the old us has to die. You have to stop looking at others or other things for your sense of belonging and acceptance. Instead, you look to God – he chose you, he set you apart, and he cleanses you from sin. That’s who makes you belong and accepts you on account of what Christ has done. You no longer fear sticking out because you’re chosen by God and his view of you is more important than how others view you.

And when you belong to Christ, you also belong to his people: the church. Remember, 1 Peter is written to a group of believers – to God’s elect. God’s elect was Israel. But now, in Christ, the New Israel is everyone united to him whether you’re Jewish or Gentile – this is the church. And so we live with confidence because we have a living hope and future inheritance protected by God himself. Like Israel, we are meant to be a blessing to the nations.

That means we don’t exist to stay comfortable inside these four walls. It means every single one of us is sent out to see others join with us in praising God for what he’s done. Is it scary? Sure. Will we face rejection for sharing Jesus with others? Yep. But, it doesn’t matter – we’ve been chosen by God, we have an inheritance, and we have a living hope that matters more to us than worldy acceptance. And God wants more people for himself- will you join him In that work or stay on the sidelines?

So, my friends – let us be bold. Please don’t confuse saying something like “I go to the church” as the same thing as sharing the Gospel with them. Please don’t feel content to keep this glorious inheritance to yourself. Please don’t feel satisfied that we baptized three people a few weeks ago. Let’s be people who are sent out and resist the cultural pressures like Peter and his churches in Turkey. We live In the world but we don’t look like the world.

And I know that can be hard too, rejection still stings. Fear of man is still a real fear for many of us. You can’t resist these cultural pressures on your own so I’d encourage you to belong to God’s people through this church as well as joining a community group like we talked about last week.

Community groups are a unique space where people can remind you of God’s grace but also remind you of his invitation to obey him – no matter the cost. It’s a group of friends who want to live in a distinct way and a group of people who keep you accountable on that journey. It’s a group of believers who have been chosen by God to strengthen each other and resist the pressures of our culture.

To sign up, you just need to fill out a connect card in front of you. You can scan the QR code or fill it out with a pen and drop it in the offering box. You have this week and next week to sign up. Don’t wait.

As we prepare to pray and sing together once more, I want to encourage you to reflect. If you’re carrying the weight of not being picked or seen by others, talk to God about and thank him that he did choose you and he does see you – even when others don’t.

So this week friends, I want you to remember this: the world may not pick you. Like me, you may not make the cut for your basketball team. But, those things don’t matter. You have been picked and your name is on the list that truly matters because you’ve been chosen by God, you’ve been set apart by the Spirit, and you’ve been made clean through Christ. Amen? Let us pray.