A Blazing Life

I watched the film The Matrix again last week as they were doing the whole trilogy three nights running. The original one is still one of my favourite films - the less said about the other two the better, but anyway…

For those of you that haven't seen it - Humankind are all in bondage to powerful machines but without knowing it. Essentially living in a computer generated world called the Matrix. Our heroes are a group of freedom fighters who have managed to get out of the Matrix and live in the real world, and they set others free as and when they can. They offer a choice. Red pill to see and experience the truth, blue pill to carry on living in ignorance.

Once free however, life is not easy. They have very little to eat, a lot of comforts of life in the matrix are gone and they are constantly on the run from the enemy.

There's a character called Cypher who is disillusioned with his freedom and says to the newly freed Neo 'I know what you're thinking - I wish I'd taken the blue pill.' Later he murmers wistfully, 'Ignorance is bliss.'

Sometimes I have to say I agree with him a little. Knowing the truth can be tough!

Being a Christian is not a one way ticket to happiness. Sometimes though we make it out to be.

Jeff Lucas writes: 'Faith seems more about comfort than crisis. Not so much an invitation to enlist for a cosmic fight, more a call to join the flower rota…true Christianity creates upheaval, life change and danger. IT could even cost you your life.'

We talk of the Kingdom, of Jesus' reign and rule over our world, as being 'now and not yet'. There are glimpses, when prayers are answered, when people are healed, when lives are transformed, but that's not always the way. As Michael Stipe famously sang, the truth is that 'Everybody hurts….sometimes.'

Everyone in this room has experienced in some way the 'not yet' of the Kingdom.

But some of the grief in our lives seems to be a direct result of our being Christians. I was beginning to chat to a girl at a party the other week and she asked me what I did and when I told her I worked for my church, her eyes took on this sort of glazed look and she said 'oh…shall we go and dance?'…conversation closed. Strained family relationships if people don't share our faith. One close family member actually said to me last week 'If you're this intense about what you believe - why don't you just go ahead and become a nun?' ouch! Nevermind the ever so slightly patronising comment from a friend 'well this Christianity thing has been so good for you - you really needed something in your life to make you more confident-  you're a much better person now.' So why did you bother to be friends with me before then? I feel like saying!

Of course, all that is so mild compared to what some Christians have been through and are going through in parts of the world today - but nevertheless it's never fun being treated like that.

But even though I feel like Cypher sometimes - why did I take the red pill? I know deep in my being there's no going back.

Peter, who wrote the letter we're looking at today, felt the same. In John's gospel at the end of chapter 6, we see that many disciples desert Jesus after he tells them that he is the bread of life. Basically saying that to have eternal life, they have to follow him. They say v60 'this is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?'  And it is hard! To them, he's just the son of their friends. It's like one of our Oak Tree kids growing up and making claims that we should follow him because he's sent from God.

 So some of his disciples leave and Jesus turns to his closest friends and says v67 'You do not want to leave too do you?' and Peter answers 'Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.'

Peter knew in his heart there was no going back. That no matter how tough things got - there was no real alternative - no one else to go to that offered words of truth and life.

Though as we know, even he struggled. When things did get tough the night Jesus was arrested, Peter denied even knowing Jesus. But here he is, some thirty odd years later, writing a letter to a bunch of believers, some of whom are going through a tough time. v6 'now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.'

I really like Peter. He reminds me of me in some ways. He tried so hard to get it right a lot of the time and often gets it wrong and even more like me - he blurts out what's in his head at times without thinking it through. But on the positive side, something I like to think God is making me good at, Peter is this amazing encourager. He knows it's tough for them. He acknowledges they are 'strangers in the world'. Now they have embraced the truth, they're like the freedom fighters in the Matrix - they aren't llike those who live in the bondage of the enemy anymore. They don't live in the same world. But right from his opening remarks, Peter is telling these people that it's worth it. That they're worth it.

They're 'God's elect', they're 'chosen' and he wishes them 'grace and peace in abundance.'

It's over thirty years since Peter hung out with Jesus in the flesh, but the memory of his suffering and resurrection permeates the whole of this letter as if it were only yesterday. Of course it does. Peter saw his best friend alive - more real than reality - ate breakfast with him, talked to him ,touched him and all of this AFTER Jesus had been killed in the most brutal way ever invented in the history of mankind.

How could that NOT change your life? It meant that everything Jesus had said was true and now there really was no going back! Peter would never deny Jesus again.

And he's so proud of these believers v8 'Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him'

He sees in them the kind of faith and trust in God, that Jesus was so impressed by 'Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.' Jesus tells Thomas in the gospel of John. They haven't seen, but theirs is not what we would call a blind faith or a leap in the dark. The Greek word is pistis and comes from the word peitho which means to convince by argument, to be persuaded. They have confidence in something that is convincing. Peter so wants them to know that they are on the right track, not to lose hope. He KNOWS the truth. If I was him, I'd be wanting somehow to transplant my memories in to their heads, so they too could know without a doubt, but of course, he can't do that. So he does what he can. He reassures them that their faith is a faith that is of 'greater worth than gold.' v7

He explains to them that the difficult things they are going through 'have come so that your faith, of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.' v7

 Refiner's fire. The famous picture of how, like a goldsmith heating gold in a crucible to extract the impurities, God uses our hard times to get rid of some of the dross in our lives and purify us.

Talking to some of you lately, I've realised that many of us have felt like we have been in the crucible. Lately I've been going through a bit of a tough time. I'm trusting God in a way that the world would think is crazy. In fact I know they do - because some of them have told me.This is the part where I so wish I could stand here and say 'and God honoured me and everything turned out great and I got even better than what I wanted.' but the truth is right now, I can't. Yes, I catch glimpses of how this could be good for me, of how it's moulding me, growing me, of how it'll be better for me in the long run, but a lot of the time right now, it just plain sucks! I'm still in the crucible and the thing about refining fire is - well it's painful!

Maybe some of you are in this place too. You just can't see what God is doing through the trials in your life. We're in good company. A quick flick through the psalms, a look at the story of Job, or Joseph and we see that believers through the ages have experienced the crucible. And like them and those who received Peter's letter, we can be encouraged.

Peter says that faith that endures through the trials is 'proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.'

That means some of us may not see for a very long time what God has done in and through us in the hard times. But the certainty is that one day, even if it's not until Jesus returns, but then on that day, we will be commended.

Wayne Grudem writes in his commentary, 'It  is in times when the reason for hardship cannot be seen that trust in God alone seems to become most pure and precious in his sight. Such faith he will not forget, but will store up as a jewel of great value and beauty to be displayed and delighted in on the day of judgement.'

A jewel, something that needs to be cleaned and chipped before it gets to a real state of beauty and value. It reminds me of this quote by CS Lewis:

'We are, not metaphorically but in very truth, a divine work of art, something that God is making, and therefore something with which he will not be satisfied until it has a certain character. Here again we come up against what I have called the 'intolerable compliment' Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble: he may be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life, the work which he loves, though in a different fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother a child, he will take endless trouble and would, doubtless thereby give endless trouble to the picture if it were sentient. One can imagine a snetient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and re-commenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumbnail sketch whose making was over in a minute. In the same way it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing for not more love but for less.'

As we are being shaped and refined by the hard stuff of life and of the decisions we make for Jesus, we need to keep reminding ourselves that believing in Jesus is

• not just an intellectual exercise to be argued and discussed over a pint
• it's not just a social club where we're all encouraging to one another
• or even simply a political movement to make the world a better place

Peter points out v18, and here I love the Message paraphrase, 'It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end empty headed life you grew up in. He paid with Christ's sacred blood.' 

He loves us to death. We owe him our allegience.

With that in mind, Peter encourages the believers in v13 (again from the Message) 'roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be ready to receive the gift that's coming when Jesus arrives. Don't lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn't know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of lie shaped by God's life; a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, 'I am holy, you be holy.'

The refining fire ultimately makes us blaze with holiness. Now let's just mention at this point that it's one of the enemy's favourite lies to make us think that 'being holy' equates with 'being a goody goody'. I heard a guy on a programme the other day say 'They told me I was too nice - that's a criticism no man wants to hear - deep down every guy wants to know that he's fierce.'

I'm sure that's why so many blokes don't find following Jesus an attractive proposition. They're terrified he's going to turn them into 'nice guys'.

Being bad has such a glamorous reputation. It's edgy, it's sexy, it's wicked…But the reality is that the stuff of the enemy is - excuse my language, but it's crap. As we see in the beginning of chapter 2 it's 'malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of every kind.'

No one in their right minds would think that stuff worth holding on to. Those things are destructive, damaging and hurtful to any and every relationship we possess. In contrast

 Peter says in ch2 v 3 'you have tasted that the Lord is good.'

Holiness and goodness are all the things left over when the crap is eliminated. It's the stuff of being truly alive. Peter likens it to the milk that new born babies drink from their mothers. It is something to be eagerly desired for our very survival. And it's the stuff that lasts. Peter says in v24/25 'all men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field, the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.' 

Our western society, having jettisoned God, is desperate to stop things perishing. From preservatives in our food, to plastic surgery to keep us looking young. From renovating old masters to freezing our heads in case we can be brought back to life by some future scientific breakthrough, we cannot stand the thought that things are temporary. Perhaps this is because we're not meant to. The bible says that God has 'set eternity in the hearts of men'.

Something deep in us rebels against the idea of death and decay. And Peter teaches us that we're right to rebel for death and decay are of the enemy and 'a life energetic and blazing with holiness' is what Jesus offers.

An inheritance 'that can never spoil or fade.' (ch1 v14)

So be encouraged and encourage one another. Especially me becasue I'll need reminding when I've had a horrible day.

Faith and hope in God when you're in the midst of all kinds of trials is the antidote to worry and fear. This book (the bible!) is FULL of stories and people's experience of a God who is for us and not against us; whose faithfulness is proclaimed time and time again. The time in the crucible is the time where God can make us more like him, so that we can have a life blazing with holiness.

We took the red pill and we have tasted that ultimately the Lord, now and for eternity, is good…and there's no going back.

Father - we tell you that you're amazing. We tell you that even when we go through tough times and can't see where you're working or how you're making us more like you, we trust you Lord. Thank you for your word today and that through it we know that you are good and we know that no-one else has the words of life we long for. Holy Spirit, would you come now and fan into flame what you are doing in us. May our lives blaze for you.

As the one who is our comforter, would you reassure those of use who are afraid of what the future holds, that we have an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. That one day you will commend us for the times we have trusted in you simply because you are our God and we knew you to be worthy of trust.

In Jesus' name,

Amen