Plymothian

 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹ for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Joyful

I have moments of joy.  I love them.  It feels like my stomach is full of tingling bells and that my perception is clear and free.  I usually respond to a situation with profound gratitude and wonder at God’s grace.  I know that I should be dead.  I should be horrifically executed for my disobedience, my behaviours, and my attitude.  Before the throne of God I am nothing of consequence.  Except that I have all the appeal of a skid mark on new, white, cotton, underpants.  However, Jesus washes me clean.  Jesus has presented me as pure and he makes that perception a reality by his constant care and work of compassion.

I feel tears as I feel joy, but something fights their flow.  When I counsel a student in my office, I feel the joyful privilege of sharing biblical truth and the joy moistens my eyes.  I wish tears would flow.  There is a dreadful blockage that I constructed in the years when I fought all emotion.  I constructed a damn because I wanted to be a socially acceptable male.  In so doing, I dammed the fear and the hate and the pain, but I also dammed the joy and the compassion.  Jesus saves me from my errors, but still I find it hard to embrace the weakness of tears so that I may know more fully the strength of being alive.

When I was depressed even bold colours seemed muted.  I was relieved that, as I reengaged my feelings, the colours I saw seemed more vibrant.  Christ has led me so far that I can access joy, but I do not live in a permanent condition that I would call joyful. If we address my entitlement, and the belief that I am forced to do things I don’t choose, I will access more of the continuous salvation that the passage describes.

Prayer

I long for joy.  I long for moments of joy to become that joyful assurance that I am unconditionally loved and accepted.

Questions

1. What words describe the Christian’s joy?
2. From where does a Christian’s joy arise?
3. What are we receiving now?
4. Why do some Christians today cease receiving joy from God?
5. How do you experience joy?

Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

Lover of God

The first commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  How does one love in a vacuum?  How does one keep love fresh and passionate?  How does one keep love new?  There has to be an inexhaustible source of love that keeps all loves constant.  There has to be an eternal love.  There has to be an infinite love.  If there is no eternal, infinite source we do not have the resources to guarantee that we will be constant in our love.  We often draw from shallow wells of affection and we find that we start scraping the bottom and draw up our own sludge and dirt before ultimately the well runs dry.  What if we met Jesus and drew from his well?  The Bible says that we, as Christians, love because he first loved us.  We do not initiate our consistent love life, the infinite and eternal Word of God speaks love into our lives.  It is up to us to stay close and listen to his words of love.  For example, he tells us some things that often we find it hard to believe.  Jesus accepts Christians unconditionally.  He does not love us more because we behave well.  He loves us enough not to leave us as he finds us.  He changes us and sometimes allows pain and brings hardships so that our character will be formed.

As we see the cross and all that it does for us each day, we respond with love that has been gifted to us.  As we see the sacrifice Jesus makes for us, we sacrifice ourselves for others.  The one for whom we ultimately sacrifice ourselves is God.  We have not seen God with our eyes, we have not sensed God with the five senses, but through faith we sense him around us in other ways.  As we allow that life’s circumstances, that creation, and that our relationships communicate God’s presence to us, so we feel more enveloped and enraptured by his love.  The day we are broken and understand mercy and grace is a day when we throw ourselves into the arms of our redeemer.

Prayer

God, warm the passions of my heart.  Let me see your constant, eternal love for me.  Let me respond appropriately with love for you and for my family, friends, and enemies.  Let me be grateful and content with all that you have given me.  I rely on your emotional and physical strength because I am mortal and dependent on you even for the air I breathe.

Questions

1. In spite of what impediment do Christians love God?
2. How does sight often help love?
3. Describe the love one might have for God.
4. When does the well of your love become shallow or dry?
5. How do you constantly work to fill your well of love?

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

Rejoicing

It is the identity of the rejoicing Christian that has seemed most illusive and elusive.  I picture joy as the constant state of glowing assurance.  I picture it as a sustained joy that bubbles over into happiness once in a while.  Maybe I have taken on too much sorrow in my identity.  Maybe I have expectations that are beyond my resources.  However, I am challenged because I too soon can find a reason not to be happy.  I have grading that sits in an ominous pile on the dining room table.  My son played badly at soccer and I am the coach.  I have not published a book or completed a doctorate.  In my list I see a strain of ingratitude and entitlement.  I do not see what I have and think that I should receive a ‘better’ life whilst I sit passively and wait for it to happen.  May God create in me the heart of Joy and gratitude that he has promised.  May I choose to rejoice by releasing whatever I have built up that leaves me flat.  I have had moments and even days of rejoicing.  I hope to find my way back.

Prayer

To define the Christian life as one of joy seems the aspect I am furthest from.  I am not clear on the path to joy, but I think it is connected to gratitude and contentment.  Guide me on the steps to rejoicing.

Questions

1. What causes us to rejoice according to the verse?
2. What stands against the rejoicing of the recipients?
3. How does one rejoice whilst grieving?
4. How have you experienced rejoicing?
5. How does a person cultivate a life of rejoicing?

who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

Shielded

It was imperative or the early church to feel that God was protecting them.  However, that is hard to establish in the rise of persecution.  So, how are people who are shielded able to die? They are shielded from things happening to them that God does not will.  Each thing that happens to a Christian is because it is allowed.  Isn’t that sadistic?  One only has to look at the wounds of Christ to see what an intentional lifting of God’s protection looks like.  Jesus’ wounds are deep and horrific to a degree that directly relates with the importance of what they achieved.  Although the Christian is protected from pointless persecution, some suffering points to truths that are directly related to the depth of the pain experienced.

In some ways I wish that I had been shielded more from harsh words and criticism.  However, I would not have developed my present strength if I had not had to deal with the weakness they helped create.  However, God has shielded me from being given more than I can bear.  His lovingkindness to his children means that he shields them from anything that will not be productive.  In the same way, my wife and I shield my children from some things.  We redirect them in ways that they are not aware of.  We remove potential obstacles.  However, we allow our children’s choices to have their natural consequences when we know they will learn from the pain.

God’s ability to shield is connected to his omnipotence.  God is infinite in power and therefore we need not be afraid.  Nothing can assail us that our father, who loves us, has not allowed.  We will not need shielding forever, though.  One day we will be plucked out of harm’s way and we will be placed upon a rock for eternity where sin and death no longer exist.  We will need no protection because the opposition to goodness and truth will be done.

Prayer

Thank you God that you shield me.  I sometimes feel vulnerable and react to whatever you let reach me that hurts me.  However, I do not give any thought to what you have filtered and resisted.  Your power holds your shield in place and nothing has any chance of taking my shield away.  I am safe.

Questions

1. How did early Christians need shielding?
2. How would you explain being shielded and enduring persecution at the same time?
3. When will our need to be shielded end?
4. From what do you need shielding?
5. How does God shield you?
6. Pray for shielding.

… to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, …

Heir

Many of my friends know the family story.  It’s very Downton Abbey.  My Great Grandfather was the youngest son of The Earl of Powis, whose castle is pictured above.  His maid was Elizabeth Worrall and they had an affair.  His older brother died in WWI and in WWII the only remaining heir, my Great Grandfather died serving in the RAF (http://www.aircrewremembered.com/raf1943/2/herbertmervyn.html) .  There are no records of any legitimate male children, and so the castle passed into the hands of the National Trust and the Title went to the Earl of Plymouth, ironically (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mervyn_Herbert,_Viscount_Clive) .  My Grandfather was raised in an orphanage and my father claimed to be his oldest son (there is another family story that leaves a slight question mark here).  I am the only son of my father.  So, if illegitimate children can make claims on inheritance, I am the heir of Powis Castle (http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/powis-castle/ ).

The whole thing is quite fanciful.  It might make a nice yarn at dinner parties.  If this earth was all I could ever expect, it might be worth finding out (I did try and find if there were records at the local British libraries of my Great Grandma’s employ), but I have enough.  I have a wife who cares for me, I have two beautiful children who laugh and play with me, I have a house that has more rooms than we can efficiently use, I love my job …  Yet all these things are nothing.

Castles become ruined, clothing gets soiled, curtains fade.  Cars rust, bodies wear out, and a winning season is forgotten after a year.  The world’s quest for gain is fruitless, pointless.  Some philosophers point at the absurdity of making meaning of life since they assume that death is the end.  However, Peter points us beyond the physical realm for our true hope.  Jesus has purchased our redemption.  We are heirs of a kingdom as yet unrealised.  We receive part of our inheritance as God lifts the veil and shows us the spiritual nature of being in time.  However, the glory of being in eternity is beyond our comprehension.  We have pictures of heaven in the book of Revelation.  It’s not a whitewashed cloud of boredom and harps.  No-one becomes an angel or looks down upon us from above.  Those who dwell with God forever dwell in a second creation that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.  Flowers don’t fade under the smog of industry, mountains aren’t decapitated for profit, and politicians and financiers don’t steal wealth to satiate their greed.  Maybe something like that might be permitted in hell, but not in heaven.

All the greed that occurs around the death bed of a rich man is irrelevant to me.  I have an inheritance that is mine upon death.  Contrary to most inheritance we think of, this inheritance goes to the one who dies.  Death is a right of passage which gives me the full measure of what I experience in part now.  This lightens the burden of life and allows us to weather the storms of life unafraid of death.  Death opens up possibilities, it does not close them down.  J.M. Barrie puts hopeful words into the mouth of Peter Pan, ” To die would be an awfully big adventure.”  For those who walk with Jesus, this kind of optimism is justified, as we discover immeasurable treasures the likes of which are beyond our dreams.

Prayer

Can an Earldom pass to an illegitimate male heir?  Can a castle be taken back after being bequeathed by the dying Earl?  Probably not.  However, these responsibilities are not the concerns you have given me.  We have been given as much as we need for the work we must do.  You are our inheritance and you are eternally enough.   Our experience now is limited.  As the limits are pushed back by our death, help our fears for the future and of death to be lessened?

Questions

1. What things are ours that are imperishable?
2. What do we have that can not be defiled?
3. What will we inherit that can not fade?
4. What things do you own that have perished, been defiled, or faded?
5. How does realising your identity as heir empower you to live?

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

Born Again

The term ‘Born Again’ was popularized in the 70’s.  To discern whether someone really was a Christian, people would ask whether a person was born again.  By that, they meant had they accepted Jesus into their lives and experienced a complete life change.  In other words, were they living a new life?  There were some problems with that view, for example, the emphasis on having people accept Christ rather than have Christ accept someone, but all in all the emphasis was a healthy one.  Chuck Colson’s 1976 book, Born Again told the story of how he was transformed from a Whitehouse crook to a devout follower of Jesus.  I think his life transformation communicates accurately what it means to be born again.

In recent times, though, I have asked people who use the term to explain what it means and some of them have had difficulty.  It is a term that has possibly been overused with the assumption that everyone knows its meaning.  We need to rediscover a life that transcends existence without Jesus. We need to adopt a perspective that is entirely fresh.  Peter emphasizes that being born again is focused on hope.  The hope of the Bible is that other-world perspective that is mindful of the fact that heaven exists and awaits those who are chosen by God.  Not everyone has reason for that hope.  Many people who believe in heaven are not destined to go there.  The heaven they believe in is a five-star resort in the sky that is essentially more hedonistic and self-serving than their life on earth has been.  Such a heaven does not exist and hope in it is misguided.  Heaven is living in the presence of God and continuously putting him above all other interests.  It is where we will truly serve our neighbour above ourselves because our selves will be free from the limitations of sin.  Someone whose hope is in their uninhibited future relationship with God seeks to make that relationship the focus of their lives in this evil and corrupt world.  They are born into a new reality which transcends the mundane daily routines that make the essence of life for so many.  The person who is born again sees foreshadowing beauty and eternal love from God permeating experience in ever-increasing ways.

As Jesus was raised into a new life, by his resurrection a new life is born in us which is realised as we see earth from heaven’s perspective.

Prayer

I believe that I am born again, but I do not realise the full implications of what that means.  Let me know what it is to be alive to heaven more and more and dead to that which is thoroughly worldly and corrupt.

Questions

1. How does Jesus use the term ‘Born Again’ in John 3?
2. How is Peter’s use similar but more developed?
3. How would people experience this new birth?
4. When were you born again?
5. How do you experience new birth?

In Moody’s Methods of Bible Teaching class we had a discussion about whether sanctification and Spiritual Formation are one in the same.  As we discussed the concept, some of us thought that sanctification might be the total work that God does in us and Spiritual Formation is the aspect of sanctification where the believer is actively changing in the light of God’s grace.  This is opposed to new birth and growth which is performed by God without the day to day awareness of the believer.

1 Peter 1 says that we are sanctified and Scot McKnight addresses some misconceptions in his commentary:

… the believers in Asia Minor are what they are “by the sanctifying work of the Spirit.”Both theological reasoning and spiritual experience confirm that God prompts us to believe through the convicting and regenerating work of his Spirit.  The process of sanctification, a word drawn from Old testament tabernacle and temple worship, involves God’s setting his people apart and the lifelong work of his Spirit to effect God’s will on earth.  Unfortunately, popular theology teaches that sanctification is something that happens after conversion and justification; first one is justified and then, throughout life and into glory, he or she is sanctified.  this is not a biblical understanding of sanctification.  The term refers to three features of christian existence:  the initial separation from sin (clearly in 1:2; cf.  Acts 20:32; 26:18; 1 Cor. 1:2, 30; 6:11; 2 Thess. 2:13), the hard work of growing in holiness throughout life (Rom. 8:13; 2 Cor. 3:18; 7:1; 1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 12:10, 14), and the final act of God when he makes holy people completely holy for eternity (Eph. 5:25-27).  Peter is referring here, then, almost exclusively to the first dimension of our sanctification:  God’s gracious act of turning sinners into his people.  Later, he emphasizes the lifelong process of sanctification (cf. 1:14-16, 22; 2:1-2, 9-10, 11-12; 4:3-4).

According to Peter’s letter, I am being separated from sin.  It is passive on my part, but the declaration of my allegiance to God has been made at conversion.  I am not who I was.  In a similar way, when I got married I nailed my colours to the mast and committed to Kelli.  However, marriage has been changing me and making me more of the man I was meant to be.  I realise daily my shortcomings because they are lived in the presence of another.  In the same way, as I walk in the Spirit, the Spirit transforms me just by his experiential presence in my life.  I can resist such changes and I can even regress, if I am determined to.  However, the proof that I am set apart for God, the proof that I have been chosen ifs that I am changing. I do not take joy in sexual innuendo as I used to.  It has been replaced by a desire for my words to be clean and uplifting.  I have left behind a lot of the negative influences I had growing up.  It seems somewhat British (but I may well be globalizing my experience), to be negative and cut people down, especially in the press.  My social groups used to excuse it as realism, but it was preventative of people reaching their potential.  Whether it is a British attempt to prevent people from being ‘too-big-for-their-boots’, or whether it was limited to my own circle, it is something that I have left behind now I am in America.  In fact, I am enlivened by the way that the students I teach often look for the positive to the point of erring on that side of reality.  I still have much that God is stirring in me and bringing to the fore as items for change.  However, I know that it is the Holy Spirit who accomplishes this work in me, and I am confident that the one who has laid hold of me in order to change me has the will and the resources to complete this work of sanctification.

The passive experience of sanctification encourages me.  Despite how I feel or where I am, I will be changed.  God knows I want to be other than I am.  God knows that I am grateful for how much he has already done.

Prayer

Holy Spirit, I seldom talk to you, but thank you!  I am grateful for how much junk you have ripped away from my life because of my new identity.  Continue to do that.  Make me holy and help me to find joy and contentment by confessing and leaving behind all that pulls me away from you.

Questions

1. According to 1 Peter, who does the work of sanctification?
2. How would ancient people have been changed by God?
3. How does McKnight describe sanctification?
4. What does it mean to you that you are being changed?
5. What changes does God seem to be working in you?