Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:07] Welcome back to the Nomad Pastor Podcast.
[00:00:10] First, I want to apologize. I'm a couple weeks behind and I know that it's just, you know how it is, life gets crazy. But I wanted to jump back in today.
[00:00:18] And today we're going to kick off a new series. We just finished up judges and then I did kind of a one off episode.
[00:00:24] But Friday mornings I do a men's group. And in our men's group, we've recently been going through first Peter, and we've been going through a chapter by chapter. We spent five weeks on it.
[00:00:35] And so I kind of want to do the same thing on the podcast, but I want to try to get a little bit more detail. We're going to do one chapter per podcast, so it'll be a total of five podcasts, which should be 10 weeks.
[00:00:46] And so this episode, we're going to start with chapter one.
[00:00:50] And I'm going to. I want to start with telling you why this letter matters so much.
[00:00:55] You see, Peter is writing this letter to people who are scattered.
[00:01:00] The word he uses is exiles. People who don't feel like they belong where they're currently at, people that are under pressure, people that are getting squeezed by culture that they don't understand and a culture that doesn't understand them.
[00:01:18] And in some cases, that culture is actively coming after them.
[00:01:25] And I wanted to do this because I think about our culture today, right, that it is constantly coming after us. It's a culture that, as Christians, it doesn't want us to exist. And we see that every day when we turn on the TV or when we, you know, if you read Facebook or whatever it may be.
[00:01:44] And so if you're listening to this day today and it sounds familiar to you, you know, whether you're driving down the road or you got six months sobriety, or you're sitting in a shelter or you're on your motorcycle, whatever that may be. This letter, it's written for you, it's written for me.
[00:02:03] And so I want you to get comfortable and we're going to jump right in.
[00:02:07] And so Paul opens this letter and right away he tells us who he's writing it to.
[00:02:15] He calls them those who reside as aliens scattered.
[00:02:20] Now, other translations say exiles or strangers in the world.
[00:02:25] But these are the believers who got pushed out.
[00:02:29] They were pushed out geographically and they were pushed out socially, and sometimes it was both.
[00:02:36] But they didn't choose to be on the move.
[00:02:40] You see, life moved them.
[00:02:44] And I just, I want you to sit with that for just a second.
[00:02:48] Because some people listening, you didn't choose the situation you're in either.
[00:02:55] Maybe you're in active addiction and that addiction took something from you. Maybe your relationship ended. Maybe your job disappeared.
[00:03:05] Maybe it's the streets or a bad decision that you made, or just life falling apart around you.
[00:03:14] So here you are, scattered, displaced, maybe sleeping somewhere you never thought you would sleep before, or eating somewhere you never thought you would eat, wondering, how in the heck did I get here?
[00:03:31] And the first thing Peter does, before he gives any instruction, before he tells anybody to do anything, is he reminds these people, the scattered, the pressured, the displaced, who they actually are in the eyes of God.
[00:03:48] He calls them chosen.
[00:03:51] He says they were chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, set apart by the Spirit and brought into obedience through the blood of Jesus Christ.
[00:04:03] I mean, think about that for a minute. Chosen. That's a powerful word.
[00:04:10] You were chosen. Not left over, not forgotten, not an afterthought before anything happened, before whatever you're going through happened to you, before your relapse. Before what, maybe divorce papers, before the power got turned off.
[00:04:33] God chose you.
[00:04:37] And that choosing of you wasn't a reaction.
[00:04:43] It came first.
[00:04:45] That choosing of you wasn't a reaction based on whatever circumstance you're in right now.
[00:04:52] It happened before that.
[00:04:57] And that's a different starting point that first than most of us are used to.
[00:05:04] You know, I talk to a lot of people, a lot of guys at the mission, a lot of people in recovery, people riding with me on Saturdays and Sundays. And.
[00:05:13] And the unfortunate thing is they think their value is something that they have to earn back. I thought my value was something I had to earn back.
[00:05:24] I thought I had done so much wrong that I had to do all of these things to earn a right at the seat of the table.
[00:05:34] But that's not true. God's not sitting up there with his arms crossed waiting to see if you're going to prove yourself worthy before he deals with you.
[00:05:45] That's not what Scripture says.
[00:05:47] Peter starts with identity, not performance.
[00:05:51] He tells these people who they are before he ever tells them what to do.
[00:05:58] And I really want you to hold on to that because everything else in chapter one builds on that.
[00:06:07] Your identity, not performance.
[00:06:12] And in verse three, Peter just breaks right into it.
[00:06:15] He can't help himself. He said, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
[00:06:32] He says right there A living hope.
[00:06:36] And if you just think about that phrase, because I think a lot of us have only experienced the other kind of hope, dead hope.
[00:06:47] Dead hope is when you hope something's going to change and it doesn't, and it doesn't. And eventually you just stop hoping because hope kept letting you down.
[00:07:01] Some of you have hoped for your relationship to get better, hoped that your parent would show up, hoped this time would be different.
[00:07:13] This time I can stay clean.
[00:07:15] And it wasn't.
[00:07:17] And that hope died right along with the situation.
[00:07:22] So I think it's important to recognize that Peter is not talking about that kind of hope.
[00:07:28] He's talking about a hope that's alive because it's tied to something that actually happened in history.
[00:07:37] Jesus walked out of the tomb.
[00:07:41] Death could not hold him. And because death couldn't hold him, this hope that Peter's talking about can never die either. It's not wishful thinking. It's not maybe things are going to get better.
[00:07:55] It's hope that it's already been proven because the foundation of it all already beat death.
[00:08:04] You're not hoping in maybe you're hoping in something that's a done deal.
[00:08:11] And then verse four, this living hope leads into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.
[00:08:26] If we look at those three words, imperishable, it can't be destroyed.
[00:08:33] If we look at undefiled, undefiled means it can't be corrupted or stained and won't fade away, doesn't run out, it doesn't burn out. It doesn't lose its shine over time. It doesn't fade.
[00:08:51] Think about everything in our lives that's perishable, everything that's been defiled, everything that has faded.
[00:09:02] Relationships, reputations, bank accounts, the years you can't get back, things that got used up or torn up or wasted by our own hands or by somebody else's.
[00:09:23] You see, Peter is telling us there's something reserved for us right now that none of that touches. Nothing can corrupt it, nothing can use it up.
[00:09:39] And it's being kept reserved like a seat with our name on it.
[00:09:47] And if you're listening, that seat has your name on it specifically.
[00:09:54] And then there's verse five. This is important.
[00:09:58] Peter says we are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
[00:10:12] He says protected by the power of God.
[00:10:17] He doesn't say if you can clean yourself up long enough.
[00:10:21] He doesn't say if you never slip up, he says, protected by God's power, that to keep that protection is not on me and it's not on you.
[00:10:35] It's so important for us to know exactly how unreliable we can be when it's left up to our own strength.
[00:10:48] But it's not left to our strength. It's protected by God's power.
[00:10:54] And then in verse 6, Peter starts to get real.
[00:10:58] He says, in this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials.
[00:11:09] He doesn't say pretend the trials went away or the trials didn't exist.
[00:11:14] He doesn't say if you really trust God, you won't struggle.
[00:11:19] He says, you've got this living hope, this imperishable inheritance, and you're going through it right now.
[00:11:28] Both things are true at the same time.
[00:11:31] It's not a contradiction.
[00:11:34] That's just life with God in it.
[00:11:37] That's real life.
[00:11:39] That's recovery.
[00:11:41] You can know God has you and still wake up at 3am with some craving.
[00:11:50] You can know your inheritance is secure and still be sitting in a courtroom not knowing what the judge is going to say.
[00:12:00] Peter doesn't make those two things cancel each other out. And they shouldn't.
[00:12:06] And because they shouldn't, you shouldn't make them cancel it out either.
[00:12:11] You know, in verse seven, these trials are so that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold, which is perishable even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor of the revelation of Jesus Christ.
[00:12:30] You see, he's saying the trials aren't pointless. They're this like a proving ground, right? Gold gets put in fire to burn off what's not gold, to burn off the impurities, to burn off the dross, the junk that's mixed in with it.
[00:12:50] Your trials or the trials that we all have, do something similar in us.
[00:12:58] They're not there to destroy us.
[00:13:00] They're there to prove what's real and to burn off what's not.
[00:13:07] You know, I think over the years, you know, I don't know how many years of doing this podcast now, I think this is season six, But I think over the years since I came to Christ and been doing, you know, real heavy ministry work, I think about guys I've walked, you know, through recovery over the years, the ones I've ministered to, the ones who have been through real fire, right, hit rock bottom, relapse, loss, the whole thing, and came out the other side, still walking with God.
[00:13:47] Their faith hits different than A guy who's never been tested.
[00:13:52] It's not theory, it's not something they read about.
[00:13:59] It's been through the fire and still standing.
[00:14:03] That's what Peter's talking about.
[00:14:06] I was recently. You know, my church Thursday nights does celebrate recovery. And one of my good friends from church and somebody who's in my Wednesday night Bible study, well, it's not mine, it's the one I go to, but he's in it, too. Gave his testimony and how he walked through all this and how many times he relapsed and how many times he went back and how God was still faithful and it was just such a moving thing.
[00:14:35] And that's what this is here.
[00:14:39] They've been through the fire and still standing. That's what Peter's talking about.
[00:14:44] And then we move to verses 8 and 9.
[00:14:48] Though you have not seen him, you love him.
[00:14:51] Though you don't see him now, but you believe in him, you greatly would rejoice with a joy that's inexpressible and full of glory, getting as the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. You don't need to have it all figured out. You don't need to have seen Jesus.
[00:15:15] You don't need to see him with your own eyes to love and trust Him.
[00:15:20] Faith and love can be completely real even when you can't see what you're trusting in.
[00:15:30] And that's the hardest part.
[00:15:33] I've seen a lot of people, including myself.
[00:15:36] I'm a data guy, right? Like, show me the number, show me the data.
[00:15:40] And I think a lot of people think they need certainty before they can have faith.
[00:15:46] But Peter here is telling us faith, you know, it works the other way.
[00:15:52] You don't need to see it with your own eyes to love and trust.
[00:15:57] And then Peter spends verses 10, 11, 12 talking about how even the Old Testament prophets were searching and digging into this salvation.
[00:16:06] They wrote about a grace that was coming, but it was for a time after them, even angels are leaning in to look at this. And Peter is saying, what you have access to right now, brother.
[00:16:25] Prophets longed to see and never got it.
[00:16:33] What Peter is saying is, don't take it for granted.
[00:16:36] You're standing in something they were just desperately straining to look at from a distance.
[00:16:46] And then in verse 13, Peter shifts gears. You see, up to this point, it's been here's who you are and now it becomes here's how you live because of who you are.
[00:17:02] And Peter says, prepare your minds for action.
[00:17:05] Keep sober in spirit, Fix your hope completely on the grace that is brought on the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
[00:17:19] Prepare your minds for action. Keep sober. Now, that word sober for those of you in recovery, that word, it's a little different.
[00:17:27] It feels different, doesn't it?
[00:17:30] But Peter is not just talking about staying away from the bottle or the needle or the pills.
[00:17:37] He's talking about clear thinking, not being intoxicated by chaos around you, staying alert, staying watchful.
[00:17:49] Sober in this verse isn't just the absence of a substance, it is a posture of our mind. He's saying, be clear headed, ready, not drifting through your day half checked out.
[00:18:05] And I think for a lot of us that's hard to do.
[00:18:11] And then in verse 13 through 16, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you. But be holy yourselves also in all your behavior, because it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy.
[00:18:30] It starts with, do not be conformed to your former lust, your former lust, your former patterns, your old way of living, right? The cravings, the habits, the way you used to cope with things, the way you used to treat people, the way you used to treat yourself.
[00:18:49] Peter calls that ignorance.
[00:18:51] And when I read it, I don't think he means stupid. I think he means they didn't know better.
[00:19:02] They didn't know who they were yet, right? The people that he's writing this letter to, they didn't know who they were yet.
[00:19:11] But you do know.
[00:19:15] So this call here isn't try harder.
[00:19:19] What Peter's calling us to do is don't go back to operating like we don't know what we know now.
[00:19:25] You know who you are.
[00:19:27] Live like it. That's what Peter's saying, and he's saying it to me. Rick, you know who you are. Live like it. Don't go back to the old habits. Don't go back to the way you used to treat people.
[00:19:38] Because I wasn't a nice person and I definitely didn't treat myself nice. He's saying, the way you used to treat yourself, don't do it.
[00:19:50] And then in verse 17 through 19, Peter reminds them of what it cost, right? He reminds us we are not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold, things that wear out, things that lose value.
[00:20:04] Whatever we've done, whatever sitting in our past right now, weighing on us, it was already covered by something way more valuable than anything we could ever pay back ourselves.
[00:20:17] You see, we are not sitting here working off a debt.
[00:20:22] We are not some kind of spiritual payment plan. The debt's already paid in full.
[00:20:27] That debt was paid in full by Jesus Christ.
[00:20:32] And then when we close this chapter, verses 22, 25, it closes with a call to fervently love one another from the heart.
[00:20:45] Because we've been born again through the living and abiding word of God.
[00:20:50] All flesh is like grass. Peter says it withers, the flowers fall off.
[00:20:56] But the Word of the Lord endures forever.
[00:21:01] Everything temporary around us is going to fade. Our circumstances, our situation, and even our body. And trust me, I know today as I get older that our bodies fade.
[00:21:15] But the other thing I know is the Word of God gave me new life and isn't going anywhere. And it outlasts everything.
[00:21:27] And the Word of God can give you new life, too.
[00:21:32] So as I try to close this, like, kind of land that plane this week, here's what I want to say.
[00:21:42] Before you do anything else today, I want you to take five minutes and just sit with this truth you will were chosen.
[00:21:55] Not after you get it together, before you have living hope. Not dead because it's anchored to the resurrection that already happened. Not maybe it's a done deal and your inheritance can't be touched by anything that's happened to you or anything that's coming.
[00:22:20] Here's your challenge for the week.
[00:22:23] Every morning, before your feet hit the floor, I want you to say something out loud. I don't want you to think it, I want you to say it out loud. It's going to feel weird, but say it out loud. Even if nobody's in the room. Especially if nobody's in the room.
[00:22:41] I want you to say, I'm chosen.
[00:22:44] My hope is alive. My inheritance is secure.
[00:22:49] Every day, I want you to remind yourself of what's true before the day gets a chance to convince you of what's false.
[00:23:00] That's first. Peter, Chapter one.
[00:23:04] Next episode, we're going to go through chapter two.
[00:23:07] Peter is going to talk about being built into something.
[00:23:11] Living stones fitted together for a purpose.
[00:23:14] I think you're going to want to hear it, especially if you felt like you just don't fit anywhere.
[00:23:22] I want to thank you for listening. I want you to remember that sometimes, sometimes we just don't feel okay. And that's okay.
[00:23:34] But you have a living hope and God loves you.
[00:23:39] If this episode touched you, or if you know somebody that needs to hear it, please share with them. Subscribe. Like it it's all on all the podcast platforms there are out there again.
[00:23:53] I think we're going into, you know, this is season six. We're getting ready to go up on season seven. And I just want you to remember to love God and love people.
