Today we come upon one of my favorite pairs of verses, 1 Peter 5:6-7:

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

I love this verse because it reminds me that I am to take my struggles, I am to take my pain, I am to take the hurt I feel, everything I am feeling that is pain-related and I am to send that God’s way...I am to push that up to Him and struggle with Him; He is the only one who can fully take it in stride and to whom is was designed to go anyways...and it reminds me that He loves me, He is there for me, He will comfort me when I do that...and that is what He desires.  Frustrated with my work - take that to God.  Frustrated with the relationship with my wife, or my with my kids...take that to God.  Frustrated with my life in general, and my repeated struggles with sin and shame - take that to God.  That is humility...taking it and laying at God’s feet and admitting, I would even add ‘out loud’, and leaving it for God to work on.  And we do this because (a) God is really the only one who can ultimately do anything about it, and (b) because God cares for us and desires this from us.  That is a part of having relationship with God.  I love this invitation from Peter.

And then one of the greatest encouragements and reminders of God’s presence as Peter goes on in the next few verses, in 1 Peter 5:8-10:

8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

It is the reminder that the devil is lurking and looking for a victim, and one little crack or one little stumble and he will insert himself into our lives.  We can’t ever think we’ve won the battle...the struggle with temptation and with sin is a perpetual struggle in this life, and we have to accept the reality that it never ends.  Otherwise, we get complacent.  I am fairly certain that with the exception of people leaving the church because the church didn’t love them and appreciate them and made them feel judged, the number one reason people jettison their faith is just fatigue...it is that they are worn out trying to live rightly.  It is easier to live how we want and to just live for momentary happiness...at least for a while.  That’s one of the devil’s greatest tricks...living for ourselves rather than God is typically ‘in the moment’ just easier.  But, this goes back to that hard-easy principle we’ve discussed several times...when we do what’s hard in the moment, life eventually starts getting easier.  When we do what’s easy in the moment, life eventually starts getting harder.  We are going to experience hard and easy, and we get to choose the order in which we experience them...it is an interesting thing to realize and to appreciate about life.

Great message to close our 1 Peter this morning.  Tomorrow is the background on 2 Peter, then the read through, and then we’ll dive in as always.

Live under self-control, be loving to others - clear themes of today’s reading.  Peter also encourages us to use our unique gifts to bless others, that we are stewards of the blessings we’ve received.  I love that, in verse 10, “...as good stewards of God’s varied grace”, just a wonderful phrasing in the ESV.  And then Peter gets to some of the suffering theme...specifically, suffering as a Christian.  Now, one thing I say is that most of the people that would potentially read this probably don’t have to worry about this; here in American, I really don’t know that I have seen or really even heard of a lot of suffering for being a Christian.  I am sure it happens, but thankfully we don’t see the real persecution that Peter and the folks of this time saw here in America.  That said, there are still sufferings as Christians...just different ones.  How about a lifestyle you had, and friends associated with that lifestyle, and all of the sudden you realize you need to go in a different direction with your life?  They may not ‘persecute’ you, but you will no doubt struggle and suffer when making that change.  That’s a tough deal.  You thing about persecution is that it comes at you and you just have no choice but to take it on.  With what I am talking about, one of the challenges is that you have to decide to turn and face it...and that’s difficult.  You can become subject to a sort of social persecution that you didn’t want but that often is triggered with your choice to change.

Regardless, there is encouragement here...Peter reminds us that God is with us in that struggle.  God is asking us to trust Him with our soul and spirit.  That’s a strong encouragement this morning.

So I kind of ended my reading with two questions in mind for myself to consider:

Great questions to wrap up the reading this morning.

Yesterday we landed on this question of “Have you ever noticed___?”, and I asked you to think about it and fill in the blank.  As a reminder, here were a few of mine:

Have you ever noticed that most people have a sense of right and wrong that is mostly congruent with what other peoples think?

Have you ever noticed that people tend to want to know that they are a part of something bigger, that their life in some way has purpose and has meaning?

Have you ever noticed that you do things that you know you ought not do, but you do them anyways, and you feel guilty about it at times, and that wears on you at times, but still, you struggle to live the life you know you ought to live in some ways - what is that?  Have you ever noticed that?

And I said, I used to NOT be a Christian, and I noticed that I always felt like no matter how good science got, there were always questions science couldn’t answer, there were always obstacles for me to believing that something came out of nothing, and that everything I see around me was just truly random and coincidental...I don’t know, have you ever thought about that?

Whatever your thing is, and I actually think having 2-3 handy would be better, because you increase your chances of striking a chord in their mind when you cast a bigger net with 2-3 vs. just using 1....but once you do that, then you come back to the part 2, which is... “For me, my experience and my life finally brought me to a place where I could approach what Christians’ believe with curiousity, along with skepticism, but I was looking for answers rather than looking to make a point finally, and when I looked, it seemed like all of the questions I could come up with were either resolved or at least reasonably addressed as I came to understand Jesus.  I am not saying Christians or the Bible have all of the answers...not at all, I probably have at least as many as I started with, but I what I am saying is that when I approached the Christian faith that way, I found way more than I had thought would be there.  So I hung around, and I found more, and more, and I believed a little, then a lot, and then more.”

So, think about that, process that...come up with your part 1 and part 2.  I have done this so many times since kind of bumping into this idea and I am telling you, it always ends well in that it isn’t challenging or confrontational, and it gets me off of the hook from trying to get into an apologetics arguement.  Now, I have gotten to where I enjoy those conversations anyways, but most people don’t want to go down that rabbit hole, and for a long time I certainly didn’t, which is why I thought through this framework and really got it fleshed out for myself.

Hope it helps!

We ended yesterday at the start of a dicsussion about defending our faith, or really just being able to express WHY we believe what we believe.  And I started to get into my opinion about how we should be prepared to answer the question, “Why are you a Christian?”, or “Why do you believe what you say you believe?”.  We are going to unpack this in 2 parts...today is part 1.

So, let’s make sure we are good with “What do you believe?”.  For me, I would answer that question with a simple response that I believe Jesus is the Son of God, that He is God’s human representation, we typically call Him God’s Son, and that He was sent to the earth to live as a man, like me, and who lived the sinless life that I can’t seem to pull off, who died the death of a sinner that I actually deserve to die acccording to God’s law, that my belief in Jesus’ death as a substitute for mine allows me to be saved from that death that I deserve, and as a result I am made right with God and can have relationship with God now and forever.

I realize that’s the world’s worst run-on sentence, but I am writing that in the way that I would say it and I don’t speak ‘periods’ and ‘commas’ unless I am dictating to Siri for a text message!

But that’s what I believe.

Have you ever noticed that most people have a sense of right and wrong that is mostly congruent with other people?  Like, most people agree that killing other people is wrong, or that stealing isn’t good.  And have you ever noticed that kids dont’ have to be taught how to be evil, they just figure it out, and they also learn to hide and to lie in their evil.  Have you ever noticed that?

Have you ever noticed that people tend to want to know that they are a part of something bigger, that their life in some way has purpose and has meaning?  Have you ever noticed that?

Have you ever noticed that you do things that you know you ought not do, but you do them anyways, and you feel guilty about it at times, and that wears on you at times, but still, you struggle to live the life you know you ought to live in some ways...have you ever noticed that?

I used to NOT be a Christian, and I noticed that I always felt like no matter how good science got, there were always questions science couldn’t answer, there were always obstacles for me to believing that something came out of nothing, and that everything I see around me was just truly random and coincidental...I don’t know, have you ever thought about that?

What is it for you?  What is the thing, or what are the things that you wonder about when you think about life and living at 30,000 feet that truly makes you scratch your head?  That’s what this first question is about...have you ever noticed THAT THING...

Think about that today, and let’s pick up there tomorrow this part 2.

First verse, look at what it says...nope, not going there today guys.  That is written to my wife and I am not stepping on that landmine!

But looking at verse 7, notice what husbands are commanded to do...to understand our wives, to honor them.  And look at the little ‘barb’ at the end of these couple of verses... “...so that your prayers may not be hindered”.  Wow - think about that, God may not hear me as clearly as he otherwise would if I am not honoring and seeking to understand my wife.

How am I doing?  That’s hard...I know I could do better.  We are in the throws of parenting a 12 year old and a 3 year old, and I know I could lead them better in seeking to understand and honor their mother.  Man, tough stuff this morning, I have to say.

And then the biggie, a pair of verses that are just rich with application...I mean rich:

15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy,...in other words, be right with God yourself, and be faithful to His teaching

...always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; ...we talked about this yesterday, or in the read through, but this idea of defending our faith...are you able to defend your faith?  Not are you a Christian apologist expert...but do you have your faith on a solid philosophical footing?  If I were to ask you, “Why do you believe what you believe, why are you a Christian?”, what would you say?  If your answer is ‘because the Bible says so’, or ‘because that’s the way I was raised’, you aren’t ready for the storms of life.  I am not judging you if that is your best answer, I am just suggesting that you should have a better one...because people that come to steal your faith, people that want to convince you that they know a truth that you don’t know have been more intentional about that thought that you, and you are ‘at risk’ as a Christian.  In fact, I think tomorrow will be dedicated to this very idea of defending our faith.  But think about it.

Why are you a Christian?

yet do it with gentleness and respect, ...and I love this, once you have your answer, it should be something you reserve for the right moments, with the right person or people, and it should be something that is expressed in love and in a way that is inviting of others...or, said another way, not an ‘I gotcha’.

16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. ...then this little gem...having a good conscience, so that we can be confident in ourselves when things get hard.  It always feels better when we are hit hard and we feel like we’ve given it our best.  Isn’t that true?  That’s not only what FEELS good, but that makes God proud as well...and that is how we build spiritual strength.  We can keep dropping the ball and coming back to the forgiveness well, sure...God will always give us more.  But at some point, we want to move forward and change and be more like Christ.  This is a reminder that part of the reward for that is a confidence.  A little here, a little there, and before long, we can do things we didn’t think we could because of a confidence, a spiritual confidence, that we’ve built over time, piece by piece.  Love that.

Great reading today...tomorrow we will dive into defending our faith and take a quick pause from our study.

The big idea today is about loving each other.  Look at the very first verse in this chapter: “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander”.  Notice that these are sins that are committed against one another...we do these to each other.  These aren’t private sins, but public ones.  So, Peter is saying, “stop hurting each other”, there is enough struggle in this world apart from all of that!  Then he goes on to reiterate the salvation story of Jesus, emphasizing the suffering Jesus endured as a motivation to these Christians who were being oppressed.

He tells us to put away the passions of the flesh, that we should own our bodies and have our bodies work in service to the Lord rather than being controlled by them.

My favorite verse though, is the second part of verse 8, “...They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

The reason I like this verse is that it reminds me that we are all human...we all fall, we are all tempted, we all fall into this trap of slandering each other and we do exactly what we are supposed to avoid back up in verse 1.

The encouragement though is that we can press on, and we can turn the page on a new day and we can be united with God at any moment...God is there waiting.  We are God’s people, we are a tribe.  We are united in our struggles and united in our victory in Jesus.  Peter is giving them the community encouragement.  It is refreshing to me.

And then he tackles the topic of authority, with a clear command that we should honor the authorities that we have in place in our lives.  Now, you could take this too far and assume that he is saying we should just rollover and never challenge authority of any kind, and you could take it too far in the other direction and say that we should only accept authority from leaders in which we agree - both of those miss the point.  What God ultimately wants from us is our trust.  And, this authority idea plays into that.  If we trust that God loves us and God is with us and that God has authority over this world, then submitting to our leaders and to each other is not such a huge deal.  In fact, think about this...if I am not submitting to you as a leader, I essentially am shutting down your ability to influence change and to create community.  It is through submission that community can be created.

And there are a lot of subtle ways that we can see this idea playing out...practical ways.  For instance, I didn’t vote for Joe Biden for president.  I differ in my opinions of how I think a government should be run and in how I think an economy should be stimulated and maintained.  But I don’t have a problem with Joe Biden the person.  I don’t have negative emotions about him being president.  I don’t think of him as the enemy.  I don’t agree with some of the things Congress is pursuing at this point either, for that matter...but I am part of a country, a community, and the worst thing I can do is to rebel everything he is doing and sow seeds of discord in my community.  That’s not going to help anyone?  And how can I feel confident that I am be peaceful in my political dealings and beliefs?  Simple...because God shows us in God’s word that God is in control and has been in control for quite a while now, and I can guarantee you that you can find far worse.

I don’t think that this is necessarily the point Peter is making, but it is the idea that was brought to mind for me in reading 1 Peter 1 this morning.  The chapter is broken into kind of a ‘here’s what we profess to believe’ and then a ‘here’s what we do about it’, separated by a transition word that we see so often in the New Testament scriptures, “therefore”.  And here is my thought...I have seen a fair number of people who have turned from faith because they struggle with accountability.  What happens is this...they live their life a certain way, then they realize it isn’t congruent with the life of a believer or a Jesus follower, then they go back and challenge the existence or the authenticity of Jesus rather than examining themselves and holding their own feet to the fire.

Peter is writing this chapter with a ‘since we believe this, then we should consider and do that’ point of view.  And I think that is a big part of living life as a Jesus follower.  It is similar to how a successful relationship, I am especially thinking about marriage, works - it works best with a mindset of ‘since I am all in and leaving isn’t an option, then here’s how we ought to move forward’ kind of a mindset.

So that brings me to the simple question that chapter one really got me thinking about today...am I am ‘all in Christian’?  Have I thoroughly examined this Jesus thing to the point where I find it easier to trust in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus rather than to believe the opposite?  I think there are far too many Christian’s who haven’t done this work in their lives, and they are standing on shifting sand in their faith...a little bit of a scientific breakthrough and they feel their faith is challenged.  A strong position of faith is represented by the reaction “Oh, so that’s how God did that” when science brings us a discovery instead of a “oh wow, the Bible doesn’t mention that”.  “The Bible says” isn’t an element of a good defense of our faith.  Is that what you were taught when you were growing up?  Is that ‘all you got’ when it comes to defending your faith?

Why do you believe what you believe?

This morning, I see Peter writing with power to this group BECAUSE of what they believe.  Once we are on the same page, then the challenge he gives can be felt by us too.  We can ‘since-then’ kind of a life.  That’s how we live a life of powerful faith, drawing from our belief rather than pushing back against it.  It’s like Peter said to Jesus when he and the disciples were on the front end of their ministry and Jesus scared away a bunch of on-lookers with the truth about what living in faith would look like, and it was really hard, and Peter said, in John chapter 6, “66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Let’s be all in with out faith, that we may accept challenge and that we can wrestle with ourselves and each other as to how we should live out our faith without constantly playing this game of having to prove our faith...we typically play that game because we are afraid to be accountable, and let’s not let that be us.

In reading through Peter, I definitely got a tone of urgency, like Peter really is eager to encourage this group of Gentiles.  It is fairly consistent throughout the reading as well.

The first theme I got was this idea of strength in suffering, just as talked about during the pre-reading and background yesterday.  It shows up right in the first chapter and then again towards the end.  However, where it shows up in the last chapter, it is accompanied with this encouragement that we should cast our struggles and our pains on Jesus (as opposed to each other) because He cares for us and He can handle them.  In fact, He is the only person who can both handle them and do something with them.  I have always loved that part of chapter 5 in 1 Peter.

There is definitely an action-orientation as well - Peter is telling us what to do, not just what to think.  He is connecting action with understanding.  And, of course, that’s something that I love personally...Peter and Paul are much more my style of writers and teachers.

He also talks about love, and that love is what we do, love is how we are to be known, and that love isn’t something someone EARNS from us as much as we give to them.  In this way, he encourages us not to lash out against others, but to let God deal with the sins of others and to simply let our job be to love those around us.

He says that the way we live life should honor God...which really ties into this idea of love...that the way we honor God is really to love one another.

And lastly, I picked up on this idea that, in Jesus, we can have a purpose in our suffering...that suffering isn’t pointless if we are serving God in our lives.  It eludes to this idea that though God may not always ‘rescue’ us from pain, He will always USE that pain for a purpose that will benefit us and those around us.  This is a really hopeful idea for us as Christians, and learning to embrace this truth is a big part of our faith and our walk with Jesus in our daily lives.

Great read-through this morning...I am looking forward to diving into chapter 1 tomorrow!

Who was Peter?  He was one of Jesus’ first disciples, and he was certainly one of more commonly seen and entertaining of the group.  You can’t really read the New Testament without getting a sense as to the kind of person Peter was - emotional, passionate, out-spoken.  And when Peter finally ‘got it’, he became an amazing and impassioned ambassador for the Christian faith.  His name WAS Simon originally, and was famously renamed by Jesus as Kephas (Kay-fas), in Aramaic, which means Rock, and was translated as Petros in Greek, or Peter.

When was this letter written?  Given that Peter doesn’t mention the Neronian persecution that occurred in Rome in the mid 60s AD, it is most likely that this was written in the early 60s.  So, we are talking about something written within about 30 years of Jesus’ death, by someone who was with Jesus, had eaten with, touched, experienced life with, and watched Jesus’ ministry and death take place.

What is the story behind this letter, 1 Peter?  He clearly indicates that his letter is written to gentiles - and, specifically, to gentiles dispersed across Asia Minor which is modern day Turkey.  There are several themes or ideas that jump out the way that this letter is arranged, first that suffering paradoxically produces hope and purifies the spirit, then he talked about a new family that is born out of believers uniting and how there is a newness to life in following Jesus.  Then he moves on to discuss further the theme of suffering and how that ties into being a witness for Jesus and really spends a fair amount of the back half of the letter developing that theme.  A major takeaway that is so powerful from this is a the idea that violent resistance isn’t the solution to oppression, it isn’t through violence that we are to make our point and make our voices heard...that is a great message for our day and time.

The Bible Project says that 1 Peter is a reminder that God’s people have always been at least a somewhat misunderstood minority, because we are living under a different King and in a different paradigm, and that persecution offers a chance to show others the generous love of Jesus.

Strength in suffering, seeing suffering as a tool for our development and our witness to others...these are what we’ll really be diving into in the days ahead.  Tomorrow is the read-through, and I am looking forward to that.

I think I have decided to dig into 1 and 2 Peter starting tomorrow, and we’ll continue to use Proverbs as a buffer to break up some of those readings.  Just a heads up...so, tomorrow I will do a day of background, and then a read-through, and then we’ll dive into the text a little deeper as always.

For today though, I see a theme woven throughout this chapter that I really liked, coming from these verses:

1 The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.

5 The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.

11 When a scoffer is punished, the simple becomes wise; when a wise man is instructed, he gains knowledge.

24 “Scoffer” is the name of the arrogant, haughty man who acts with arrogant pride.

29 A wicked man puts on a bold face, but the upright gives thought to his ways.

The thing that all of these verses have in common as I am reading them is this idea of humility and teachability.  Am I open to God’s direction?  And not only that, am I open to God’s direction from the people in my life?  That’s a big question.  It is hard to be teachable...it is hard to be humble...sometimes it really takes an effort.  But we can’t grow if we aren’t open to being challenged.  And, we won’t be challenged if we constantly push back when challenged...if we aren’t approachable, we are going to cut ourselves off.

Great thoughts to consider this morning.