1 Peter 1:21-25
A friend of mine works in a church in London that attracts a large congregation. Some years ago they had a problem with a man who turned up to heckle the preacher at every service. “If there’s a God, show us your God!” he kept shouting. Most churches would ask someone like that to leave, but my friend is not like that, so he hatched a plan. Weeks later, in the middle of a sermon, the man started up again, “If there’s a God, show us your God!” My friend stopped and looked straight at him, “OK”, he said, “I will, I am going to ask God to come down into this room right now!”
It was a tense moment. The preacher had gone right out on a limb. What was going to happen? “If there’s a God, show us your God!” the man repeated, “Oh God!” the preacher said solemnly and quietly, “Show yourself to us now!” In the distance a bell started to ring, and then a big man in a Santa Claus outfit strode into the church. There was a little nervous laughter before everyone got the joke. My friend looked at the heckler, “If you ask a silly question”, he said, “You will get a silly answer!”
The church’s one foundation (21)
For centuries, philosophers have tried to prove the existence of God. They came up with some pretty nifty ideas but people today are rarely convinced by them. This is because most people see straight through these so-called proofs; this is something you just cannot prove, you have to accept it by faith – believe it.
This sounds desperate, doesn’t it, a blind leap of faith.
It doesn’t have to be like that… God has made things a little easier (21).
Someone once described Jesus as “God with skin on” – now that’s a little crude but it is essentially correct. When Paul was writing to the church in Colossae he described Jesus as “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). The word translated image is the Greek word icon – and if you use a computer you will know exactly what an icon is – it is a small picture that represents something much bigger and more complex.
Microsoft Word is a word processing programme with over a million lines of computer code. It is so complex that only a few people in the world understand it. Yet when I need to use the programme, I don’t need to understand the code – there is an icon on my computer screen, I click it and, hey presto! All the functions of Microsoft Word are at my fingertips.
Jesus is the image of the invisible God – he made the invisible God visible. This is what Peter is saying here – before I understood who Jesus is and what he has done for me, God was just an idea, and not a very convincing idea at that! But Jesus changes everything; his life, death and resurrection are the evidence I need to know that God is there. Because of his life, I know God loves me and is committed to me – so I can trust him confidently. ‘Click’ onto Jesus – believe in him - and not only does the invisible God make sense at last, but the power and love of God become accessible to us.
Sounds good doesn’t it, “The power and love of God become accessible to us”. But frankly, that’s the kind of pseudo-spiritual waffle that preachers love to dose their congregations with!
What does it look like when the power and love of God become accessible to us? When we click on Jesus and the zillion lines of code in the God-programme begin to work in us? What happens?
At least two things happen
First, you are born again (23-25)
Physical birth gave you physical life, but it left you incomplete; part of you was dormant. Trusting Jesus enables the zillion lines of code in the God programme to get to work in us, bringing to life that part of us that was dead. Your body will die one day, but this new life can never be extinguished (23b).
Life is short; I cannot say how many years I have left, neither can you. There is a poignant reminder of this in the prophets, and Peter quotes it here (24). Grass withers; flowers fall, one day you will die.
It is worse than that, actually. The day you were born you began to die; your very first breath was one of the last you will ever take. Life is a process of slow and steady disintegration.
[the Seven ages of man]
Now, when Jesus rose from the dead everything changed, he paved the way for you and I to rise from the dead too, that is good news!
But it is better than that, actually. The moment you are born again, you began to live spiritually. Your new life is a process of slow and steady renewal and restoration.
Have a look at how Paul puts this in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. You can see this sometimes in older Christians – they just seem younger and more alive than others their age… something is happening inside them!
But how do you tell if this new life is inside you?
Second thing, the mark of the Christian (22 & 2:1-3)
When you click onto Jesus – believe in him – the zillion lines of code in the God programme begin to so something else in you too.
You begin to love others in an entirely new way (22). The sure sign, the one real sign that someone has come to life spiritually is that they love others sincerely and from the heart. Every New Testament writer is unanimous on this, folks – love is the sure sign that you are who you say you are, a child of God.
Have a look at 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 if you don’t believe me. It doesn’t matter how spiritually advanced you think you are, or if you are wired directly to the most exciting Christians on the planet, if you do not love others - you are a complete dud.
That little word, “you” (22) is quite important. It is not singular, it is plural, Peter is telling Christian communities to make sure that they are gatherings of sincerely loving people. That is what the church is meant to be like, and our society is desperate for communities like this.
Underneath its glossy and confident surface our society is fragmenting. The problem is growing; some are becoming more isolated, and though they are warm and well fed, it’s cold comfort to those who need love and understanding as well a couple of square meals a day. Others are not exactly lonely, but keep to their own little cliques. Wherever you go people form gangs; youths on street corners, old folks in day centres, yuppies in wine bars, ramblers on hilltops. We learn to live in our own little sub-culture; we live by its rules and think with its prejudices. Sometimes the cliques gang up on each other. Everyone is working to a different self-centred agenda, behind the scenes, society is dis-integrating: isn’t it about time someone thought of a way of re-integrating people, before it’s too late?
Wouldn’t it be great if you could get people of widely different ages, attitudes and outlooks to meet and communicate and learn to love and value each-other? How wonderful it would be if children could grow up in a large extended family that includes the rich as well as the financially excluded, black as well as white; a place where class-distinction or racial prejudice don’t matter? If such an energetic mixed community committed itself to serve those who do not yet belong, imagine the impact they would have! I would love my kids to grow up in a community like that wouldn’t you?
Communities like this exist, they are called churches. Churches are a great idea, they are God’s idea; the New Testament calls them “the body of Christ” they are the body beautiful!
Love is…
Now that little word “love” is a problem for us. In our world, love just means gooey feelings and being nice. I am afraid that this anemic concept is nowhere near the New Testament concept of love.
Love is seeing someone else’s need and then taking action to meet that need.
Peter’s vision of the body beautiful is a community of people with many different needs seeking, as far as possible, to meet each other’s needs in the name of Jesus.
Love can be a negative thing; Peter points this out as he tells us to get rid of the things we do that hurt others, 1 Peter 2:1-3. This is a perceptive passage!
Listen to a conversation in the office, at school or on the bus and you notice that the only thing some people talk about are the failings of others! Malice, gossip and backstabbing are everyday things. It is so easy to take this into the life of the church – and so we behave just like pagans.
Love is about seeing someone else’s need and taking action to meet that need. So what do you do if you have a friend who is always talking about people behind their back? Go and tell everyone else?
Here’s a plan. Next time you hear someone slagging off an absent friend, ask them this, “Excuse me, but have you told all this to the person you are talking about?” That is usually enough, and it is important to be gentle. If that fails, try this; while they are speaking take out your mobile phone and dial the victims number, when you get through tell that person, “Hi, there is someone here who has a few things to say to you”, then hand the ‘phone over to the gossip.
I know you are thinking, “No way, I’d be far too embarrassed to do that!” Sure you would, but not nearly so embarrassed as the person you gave the ‘phone to!
A community of love will gently eliminate behavior that hurts its members. It will keep on signaling its intolerance of that kind of thing.
Life is tough, and we are all under pressure for different reasons, we need love, not criticism. We need acceptance, not more hoops to jump through before people will let us into their circle. That is what the church is meant to provide – let’s do it!
But love is a positive thing, an active thing. Love seeks to understand people, because you cannot meet their needs if you don’t understand. So we need to take time to listen and understand one-another. Love seeks to meet the needs of someone else, this takes time too, to be bothered to go out of your way and do what needs to be done.
Do you see this? Gooey feelings and being nice to each other is not the half of it; we need to see the needs around us and take action to meet those needs.
What love can do…
My friend got a bit of flack for the stunt he pulled with the bell and the bloke in the Santa Claus suit, and he never did answer the heckler’s big question. But a few months later the guy became a Christian.
Why? In that great city there was only one community with the kindness and patience enough to love and accept him unconditionally. The man wanted to experience God, and he did so, not through a direct vision of the almighty, but through the love of this community – the body beautiful!