Pondering First Peter (4)

 

“To those who reside as aliens…according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.” (1 Peter 1:1 – 2; NASB).

 

What do you see about God in this passage? What do you see about God’s work in your life?

 

As we touched on previously, those who belong to Jesus Christ are aliens, we belong to the City of God, not the City of Man. It is because the world-system is opposed to the Kingdom of God that John warns us “not to love the world nor the things of the world” (1 John 2:15 – 17). Now we don’t much care to read this warning because most of us have been raised to be consumers, to desire things, pursue things, accumulate things. We have also been raised to value position and influence, to esteem what others think about us, to value the praise of mankind more than the praise of God. We are also taught to value the experiences that this world can give us more than the experience of knowing God, of loving and serving others, and of learning the depths of His love and grace.

 

As a practical matter we often go “undercover,” blending into our social environments so that we look and act and speak like everyone else, rather than aliens whose citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20). How many times have I seen an unashamed follower of Jesus Christ come into a workplace, sharing his or her faith as a natural part of life, and before long other people who have been in that workplace for years begin saying, “O, I’m a Christian too.” Well now, while better late than never, I want to ask, “Where have you been all this time?” I don’t ask this question harshly, I ask it to get us to think about why most of us live incognito, why we don’t live as citizens of heaven? There is something fundamentally amiss when so many of us do not live lives of witness at work, at school, and in our communities. It is not so much that there is something amiss with us as individuals, it is that there is something amiss with us as a people, as congregations.

 

Here are some observations:

 

Perhaps if we shared our faith with one another within our congregations, and with other followers of Christ outside our congregations, as our way of life, then it would be more likely that we would share our faith, in words and deeds, with those who don’t know Jesus yet; it is more likely that we would be who we are in Christ at work, in our communities, in school, at recreation…indeed in all facets of life. But the reality is that we have little opportunity to share with one another within our congregations. We meet for an hour or two for a “service” once a week, we may or may not attend a “class” on Sunday (which seldom has opportunity for personal contribution and is often driven by dumbed-down curricula, and which typically has no expectation that its participants actually engage the Bible as a way of life). We may even participate in a small group, or home group, during the week, but again, that is often driven artificially by poor curricula and offers little opportunity for organic relationship with one another.

 

How often do you share Biblical insights with other professing Christians? I am not asking you how often you talk about “church” with other Christians, though that may be a good question too, I am asking you how often you share with other believers insights you are gaining as you ponder the Scriptures and as Jesus Christ reveals Himself to you through His Word? How often do you talk about the Person of Jesus Christ with your brothers and sisters in Christ? How often do you pray with your brothers and sisters in Christ?

 

If this is not our Way of life, why isn’t it?

 

If we are not sharing Jesus Christ within the People of God, is it little wonder that we seldom share Jesus Christ outside the People of God? We don’t need yet another DVD series or a book about sharing Jesus, we need healthy congregations who are truly functioning as relational local bodies, bodies in which all of the members are participating and growing and loving and giving.

 

Another question I have for us is, “If a brother or sister within our congregation were to lose his or her job because of witnessing for Christ, whether by word or deed, would our congregation support and help that person, including economically?”

 

If the answer is “no,” then why are we wasting our time living in such hypocrisy? Why are we calling ourselves Christians if we are not prepared to lay down our lives, including our money, for one another? Certainly we can find something more profitable to do on Sundays, perhaps work in a food pantry, feed the hungry, assist in an animal shelter, or help with the environment.

 

I wonder how many times a Christian fails to witness at work, whether by word or deed or both, because he knows that if he loses his job, neither he nor his family will find support within his church “family”? Also, when I speak of “witness” I am including those times when we are confronted with the choice of telling the truth or not, of engaging in deceptive practices or not, of treating others fairly or not; I am not referring exclusively to verbally sharing the Gospel – let me assure you, the world and its workplace and its political and educational systems are corrupt to the point where we have ample opportunity to witness by our words and actions as those who are citizens of heaven – we don’t need to hand out literature, we are to be the literature that others read.

 

We can have confidence is sharing Jesus Christ with others because we are in a secure relationship with Him, a relationship that God initiated, that God is preserving, and that God is perfecting. We have been chosen by God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, our sins have been forgiven us through the blood of Jesus Christ, and by God’s grace we are being taught to obey our Lord Jesus.

 

Jesus Christ gave His all for us, ought not we to give our all for Him?