God’s Gypsies
1 Peter 1:1-12
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Everyone’s a gypsy
Just over a hundred years ago (1897), Paul Gaugin painted his masterpiece “Who are we, where do we come from, where are we going?” It is not only Gaugin’s most famous work, but it pretty much sums up what art is about – not so much to create pictures you would want to hang in your living room, but to probe the big questions of life. Those three questions are the big ones, and they remain unanswered.
They are dangerous questions (which is why we tend to avoid them) shortly after this picture was painted, Gaugin went into the hills near his home and took arsenic. The suicide attempt failed. Gaugin knew that human beings are lost… we don’t know the answers. Gypsies, traveling from place to place trying to make the best of things.
Read 1 Peter 1:1-3
Peter is Jesus’ accredited and personally trained representative (1:1) he is seeking to build and pastor the churches. He is writing to people who live in the country that we know as Turkey, but look at the address label, it is strange; to God’s chosen people living as foreigners. Peter’s readers were natives of these countries, yet he calls them foreigners, why?
If you have just arrived in Sunderland as a student, you probably know. It is great to travel and stay in new places, but there is something quite wonderful about going home, the place you really belong! I loved my time at university but there were times when I would sit quietly and think, “I wish I was home”. You know that you are just passing through, a gypsy. Well that is the way it is with every Christian, this is not our home we are just passing through.
Once we were lost like everyone else, trying to make the best of things. But now God has rescued us and given us a sense of direction. We are still gypsies, but we are God’s gypsies.
God the rescue team
If you look at this greeting closely you will see something very important (1:2):
- The Father has chosen some of us
- The Holy Spirit is changing some of us
- Jesus has ‘cleansed’ some of us and is leading some of us
That word chosen is a bit controversial, and Christians have debated it’s meaning for centuries. Some feel that God chooses us to be Christians and we have no say in the matter. The good thing about this view is that it gives glory to God – he gets the credit for our rescue. Other Christians have spotted a difficulty with this. If we are not free to choose, then we don’t have free will, so they insist that God only chose those that he could see beforehand were going to make the choice through freewill.
As you can see – this gets complicated!
So let me tell you how to sort it out; both of these views are true. God chooses and you choose. God gets the credit, but we have responsibility. This is a paradox, just live with it! If you find this hard to get your head ‘round, this next thing will blow your gasket.
When the first Christians described God at work they often spoke about three different persons working as a team to save and transform us into new people (Remember this expression, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” - 2 Corinthians 13:14). Peter does this here (2)This gave rise to a unique and revolutionary way of understanding God, as a Trinity; a team of three persons who are, at the same time, one God.
This divine team is working together to bring lost gypsies home: Peter dives into a description of how he does this…
God’s gypsies are ‘born again’ (3)– just as you were once born into the physical world, when you trust in Jesus your spirit comes to life and now it is growing and learning. If you want to achieve your fullest potential as a human being, you need this new birth.
God’s gypsies have a priceless inheritance (4) – Jesus once said that if you give someone a cup of water you will not loose your reward. This inheritance cannot be taken away from you. In Peter’s culture, an inheritance was regarded as the property of the child, not the parent. So it is guaranteed.
God’s gypsies are traveling to heaven (4) to claim that inheritance – we were just wandering around trying to make the best of things – now we know where we are going. This is why we are foreigners, we are citizens of a distant country and our journey ends when we get there.
God’s gypsies are protected by God’s power. Once you begin this journey, you cannot fail to finish it (5). Yes, you are responsible to keep trusting and keep going, but God has promised that he is going to help you to do that.
This is what the Trinity is doing, and all we have to do in return is to put our faith in him. Trust him… (5) because you are trusting him. What does ‘trusting him’ really mean?
Trust, faith and belief
Peter gives us a beautiful definition of faith; trusting God
You love him even though you have never seen him. Even though you do not see him, you trust him.
1 Peter 1:8
Trusting in Jesus and loving Jesus seem to be two different things. In fact, they are two sides of exactly the same coin. There is evidence of this in the way our words for ‘belief’ have evolved. In Middle English the word beleven meant to love. In Latin the famous word, credo originally meant to give your heart to someone. Faith and love are intertwined. Trust and believe are relationship words, they lead to love.
There’s something else too; faith is not so much about believing a set of ideas about God or Jesus it is trusting Jesus with your life. Putting your life in his hands.
On December 21st 1978, The Captain of the Air New Zealand Boeing 767 diverted from his course to search for a tiny single-engine private plane lost over the Pacific Ocean. The Cessna had lost some crucial navigational equipment. Fuel was low and it was getting dark.
The Cessna’s pilot was ready to give up and ditch his aircraft in the sea. But the Captain of the 767 could speak to him by radio and refused to allow him to do so. Patiently, like a father with his child, he encouraged, cajoled, and bullied the lost pilot to keep on flying. All the while, the airliner flew back and forth looking for the other aircraft. Suddenly, there it was, staggering along just above the waves. The lost was found! The private pilot followed the 767’s lights to safe landing at a storm-swept Auckland airport.
The private pilot was saved because he believed the commercial pilot and he did what he was told. T rusting God is about more than accepting that something is true; it is loving him and committing ourselves to him. Look at the promise again (5) He will bring us home through hell or high water!
Can you put yourself in that definition of faith – like this?
I love him even though I have never seen him. Even though I do not see him, I trust him.
1 Peter 1:8
God is a rescue team; he has done everything possible to save us. Faith is reaching out and trusting him.
Quality-control for your soul
People who have this practical trust in God frequently find that their faith is tested (6-7).
Peter’s first readers were starting to get problems with their neighbours. Serious persecution came later, but this was the beginning; the kids getting picked on, not getting promotion at work, malicious gossip at the school gate; all this was happening because of their faith in Christ.
It is hard to continue to believe in those circumstances, isn’t it? When the rescue team seem to have gone on a coffee break, the radio is dead, or they have just lost interest?
What is a test of faith? It is anything that leaves you feeling that God has forgotten you.
Peter tells us that this sort of thing is part of the rescue plan, intended to test the quality of our faith.
He was thinking of a goldsmith when he wrote this – the man who tested the quality of precious metal during the smelting process. Taking a sample and heating it to melting point, scraping off the scum and heating it again until he could see bright metal where once there had just been dirt. That is what God is doing to you and me when we feel as though we are in the fire!
If that is you, then you need to know the next bit – your perseverance in the teeth of trials gets noticed, and it will be rewarded (7) “… it will bring you much praise and honour”. Christians (quite rightly) shrink from not giving all honour to Christ, but just this once this verse turns you into the hero!
There’s going to be a tremendous celebration when they get you to touch down on the tarmac in heaven… and a real sense of achievement too. You see, you are part of the team!
So there are going to be times in your life when he seems not to be in control; the kids are getting picked on, you are not getting promotion at work, people are saying cruel and untrue things about you. God is still in control, but he is testing your faith. The tests we face are quality control for your soul.
So whatever happens, don’t stop loving Jesus and don’t stop trusting him. Keep going.
And in case you think you are unique, Peter tells us that the greatest people in the Bible faced the same challenge as we do – keeping going, keeping trusting, when you can’t see the person you are trusting in (8-12)
The prophets looked forwards in time, we look back into the past, but we both trust the Jesus who died for us – following the professional pilot through the storm until we arrive safely home.