Our scripture today comes from 1 Peter, I am reading 1 Peter 1: 3-9 (International Children’s Bible)
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God has great mercy, and because of his mercy he gave us a new life.
He gave us a living hope because Jesus Christ rose from death.
4 Now we hope for the blessings God has for his children.
These blessings are kept for you in heaven. They cannot be destroyed or be spoiled or lose their beauty.
5 God’s power protects you through your faith, and it keeps you safe until your salvation comes. That salvation is ready to be given to you at the end of time. 6 This makes you very happy.
But now for a short time different kinds of troubles may make you sad. 7 These troubles come to prove that your faith is pure. This purity of faith is worth more than gold. Gold can be proved to be pure by fire, but gold can be destroyed.
But the purity of your faith will bring you praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ comes again.
8 You have not seen Christ, but still you love him. You cannot see him now, but you believe in him. You are filled with a joy that cannot be explained. And that joy is full of glory. 9 Your faith has a goal, to save your souls. And you are receiving that goal—your salvation.
This is the second Sunday of Easter. During the next few weeks we will be exploring the passages from 1 Peter in the Lectionary. Today, we open with these wonderful words: “Praise be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God has given us great mercy, and because of his mercy, he gave us a new life.
It is believed that Peter wrote these words to the churches while he served in Rome. Nero’s persecutions had just begun, and his own life was not yet on the line, although he would eventually be killed for his belief.
He is writing this to encourage fellow Christians in a time of trouble, which makes it especially appropriate for us to hear today. We are going to talk about three things this morning. Faith, Suffering, and Salvation.
The thing that is most notable in this passage is that he uses the word FAITH 7 times. So, what is faith?
Early believers would tell you that faith involved two elements. First of all, you had to have an understanding of who God was. Second, you would have the belief in God’s inherent goodness. You would place your trust in God based on this.
Karl Barth actually turned it around. He said that faith needed to begin with the one in which we have faith. The early Christians assumed God’s truth, in our century, people do not. So, let’s talk a bit about what Karl Barth meant and why it is important.
One of the key things I run across when talking about God is that people tell me things like “Well, the God I believe in would or wouldn’t do this or that.” Or they tell me, well, that is what you believe about God, but what I believe is this or that.
Now, obviously, we will have differing opinions on what God means and says. But there is one inherent thing we must base our belief in. That is the fact that God is, was, and ever will be the same. God does not change just because we do.
Why does that matter? Because if God can be however we define him, then God does not actually exist. If God exists, then we (like the early Christians) can come to know God and God’s truth. We can understand God. We can have faith in that truth.
We come to know and understand who God is by reading what scripture has to say about God’s interactions with humankind. We see who God is. We learn that God created us and loves us.
So, Karl Barth isn’t changing the meaning of faith, he is adding to it and incorporating the factual nature of God into it.
In today’s world, we are faced again and again with the challenge of finding truth. One news station says one thing, a different news station says something different. Social media often spreads lies, wishful thinking, and rumors. We are besieged by political ads that conflict with one another about what the truth is. And we want something solid to go on.
God is that center and is solid. God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. God does not change. We might be uncertain about everything else, but we can rest on the truth that God is and always will be.
That is actually the name that God called himself when he spoke to Moses. “Who are you?” Moses asked? And God answered, “I Am.” Just that. As opposed to idols made of gold by humans to serve their needs, God Is, and was, and will be. We were made for and by God.
So, our faith must be based on this solid foundation. God is knowable. God is faithful. God is unchanging. We do not base our faith on what people say about God, we base our faith upon the reality that God is. People can be wrong about God. But God’s nature will always remain the same.
Now, the second thing Peter mentions here is Suffering. Like “knowing God,” we need to be careful about how we apply this portion of the scripture. Telling people that God is testing their faith is a way people have been subjugated, and it is also used to keep people who should stand up for something down. How do we know the difference?
Well, first of all, Peter was not speaking from the outside in, he was speaking as one sharing this suffering. He was speaking as an encouragement to people who were undergoing trials with him.
When we speak from the outside in, we are preaching to others about their pain. That doesn’t work. But when we are speaking as sharers in the suffering, our words are different. “God will see us through” is very different that “God will see you through.”
We get that mixed up a lot. We tell other people going through trials that God will use it. The truth is, God will use everything in our lives. But telling people that their trials are because of their sins, or their testing, or their need for growth is putting yourself in the place of God.
God decides how God will use the bad things of the world. Just as we can’t define who God is, we cannot be prophets of what God is doing for and with someone else.
The third word we hear here is the word Salvation. A lot of people today would define salvation as the knowledge that when you die you go to heaven. But that is only a piece of the meaning of salvation. You have heard the expression “Pie in the Sky By and By”? If all salvation means is that we go to heaven, we miss out on a lot.
Salvation isn’t just about our forever home, it is about our home today. The early disciples had the privilege of living on a daily basis with Jesus, hearing him talk and being with him. It was there that they learned what it meant to be a disciple, to live out the Kingdom of God, not in some unknown future, but in the today.
The whole Sermon on the Mount is based on the concept of living in the Kingdom of God today. It epitomizes what it means to really love your neighbor as yourself, and to love and trust God with all of your heart.
We are living both in the now and not yet of the Kingdom of God, and that is our salvation now and our salvation for the future.
People sometimes ask if I believe in a deathbed conversion. I always answer the same way, “Of course, but they miss out on a lot of really good stuff.”
When we follow Jesus in our lives today, we don’t have to wait for the Kingdom of God, we can live in it. When we follow Jesus in our lives today, we don’t have to wait for peace, peace finds us. When we follow Jesus in our lives today, our worries are less and our hope and faith are strengthened. As Peter says in this passage, we can have Joy! May God bring that joy to you today.
Prayer for the People:
Lord, in this time of separation, we are lonely. We need to have faith and confidence in you, because the world is uncertain. In many ways we are suffering, financially, emotionally, and physically. Help us, encourage us, be with us. Be our salvation, not just for the future, but for our days today. In Jesus name, Amen.
