I Thought Being a Christian Would Make My Life Better

Welcome to the New Life Ministries podcast. As we learn to follow Jesus, not everyone in our life is excited by our change. How should we think about this? Why does God seem to let our life have these difficult experiences? Today’s passage looks back to the past as well as the future to help us understand today. Let’s join our service and learn together. All right. Well, welcome here, guys. Uh today we’re going to look at 1 Peter chapter 2, which is page 18:27. A great photo. Thank you. So on my last canoe trip, we traveled through some areas that were burned by a forest fire. Uh we were told the forest fire was in 2021, so it was recent, but not this year’s fire. And it was incredible to see uh just I’ll use it fields and hills of charred black tree trunks. Um almost like huge black toothpicks because there’s no branches anymore. Um and very little ground cover. Everything is just maybe knee height but not more. Um it was just really an really kind of shocking, impressive, interesting uh thing to paddle through. I learned the first tree to grow back after a forest fire is most likely a jackpine. Um, and jack pines, uh, they’re the ones the pine cones open up in the heat. They grow quickly. They cover the site, uh, very fast, and they only live for about a hundred years. Um, and then they all die off to make space for trees that take longer to get going and that will live longer. And uh you know we think a hundred years is such a a long time compared to our life but in the life of a forest it’s a very short time. So my buddy was working in in this place that was all jack pines and they all started dying off and he’s like what’s going on? So we called in an arborist and like oh there must have been a fire here about 120 years ago and all of these jack pines have done their job and now there’s new trees that have to grow. Oh it’s kind of neat. So, in as we paddled through this uh these areas burned out by forest fire, there was one space that was incredibly desolate and it surrounded the entire lake we were on. And um there was no wind, it was calm, it was quiet, there’s no birds, there’s no rustling of leaves and it just still water and silence. And we’re paddling it. It was like this postapocalyptic kind of environment where you could tell a disaster had gone through here and life had just barely begun to recover. It was like, oh, it was fascinating. And then there was another area that we paddled through where the rocks were exposed from the fire because all the underbrush was burned off and all the trees were gone. And the rocks were white, a white uh certainly white in comparison to all the black and char that was around. And it was astonishing white. Like you know when sand on a beach sits in the sun for a long period of time and no one touches it, it goes almost white. It was like that. Um just just beautiful. And with all of the ground cover and the trees burned away, we could see what the rocks looked like. So some of the rocks were these tremendous cliff faces that were 50 75 ft high. But you would never have known it was a cliff face if there had not been a fire because the trees would blur what you were looking at. And there was another part where the rocks looked like they had been poured. You know when you are making a sand castle and you have a bucket full of wet sand and you pour it and it kind of gets that wobbly kind of look to it. Imagine that but 50 60 feet high like someone had poured these rocks. And there was other parts where there were these huge hills and the white rocks looked like uh bread rolls just popping all the way through it. Uh and we didn’t get the best picture. It was the best picture we could get. Um and I was kept saying, “Get a shot. Get a shot.” And Peter’s going, “Paddle, paddle. We have to get somewhere.” Just really interesting. So in today’s passage, we are called living stones. Stones that are being built into God’s spiritual temple on earth. And the idea is that when Jesus is when that when Jesus returns and all evil is ended and removed, the world will see who we are and who we’ve been connected to. When Jesus comes and it’s just char and rocks, we’ll stand out as these white rocks, these super clean rocks. And I remember the folks that Peter is talking to or that Peter’s writing to, they’ve found that they are uh being excluded from their own world, that more and more they just don’t fit in, that they feel like exiles. And he’s writing to let them know this is how you respond. This is what you do. This is how you think about it. And part of his message is when Jesus returns and salvation is made complete, it will reveal who you are. So, you are a white rock. Let me offer a prayer and we’re going to read 1 Peter chapter 2. Father, Father, would you um meet with us and show us your care and your love for us and help each one who’s here who’s here or online to hear something new that is helpful that uh that they can walk away with that reminds them of the glorious journey you have us all on. May we for the rest of this day offer you praise for the goodness that we encounter. So bring glory to yourself by revealing your word please. Amen. So the passage ended last week by saying that we’ve been born again by the living word of God. Right? So chapter two verse one. So get rid of all evil behavior. be done with all deceit and hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech. Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment now that you have a taste of the Lord’s kindness. You are coming to Christ who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor. And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests through the mediation of Jesus Christ. You offer spiritual sacrifices that please God. As the scriptures say, I am placing a cornerstone in Jerusalem chosen for great honor, and anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced. Yes, you who trust him recognize the honor God has given him. But for those who reject him, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. And he is the stone that makes people stumble and the rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they do not obey God’s word. So they meet the fate that was planned for them. But you are not like that. For you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God. For he called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you had no identity as a people. Now you are God’s people. Once you received no mercy. Now you have received God’s mercy. We’ll stop there. I want to start by talking about the stones. Jesus is the cornerstone and we are living stones. So it says in verse 7, “Yes, you who trust him recognize the honor God has given him, Jesus. But for those who reject him, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and the stone that makes people stumble, the rock that makes them fall. So what’s going on here? What’s he talking about? He’s reminding the crowd Jesus went through the same thing or the same types of things that you go through. Just as you feel rejected, he was rejected. He wants his pe the crowd he wants Christians to find their solidarity and their identity with Jesus. So I’ve mentioned uh a couple times that when we become a Christian sometimes the environment we live in isn’t so excited by that. You might find that your family is not particularly pleased or they might push back that you’ve become a Christian or they make m they might make fun of you and you might find that when they get together for their big drinking parties you you know you you’re not participating like you used to or you might feel excluded at work, right? The people who go drinking with the boss after work are the ones who become his friends and they end up getting their promotions. And culture seems to pursue activities and agendas that you just might not feel like you can give yourself over to anymore. So, it’s really normal to ask, why are things getting harder for me now that I’m a Christian? I thought if Jesus was Lord of the earth and he’s my savior, I thought my life would be getting better. Why does it seem that as a Christian life’s getting more difficult? And the scriptures is answering by saying as you understand who Jesus is, it’ll help you understand who you are and help you understand what’s happening. So Jesus is the foundation stone of the temple. So it’s a quote from Isaiah 28. And Isaiah 28 is written to people who are ignoring the Lord. Uh they think that God is rather unnecessary and they can navigate life just fine without him. And God says, “Nope, I’ve put down a foundation stone and my temple is built on this foundation.” And it says in Isaiah 28 that this foundation stone is firm. It’s been tested. It’s safe to build on. And whoever believes in this foundation will never be shaken. Like there’s no reason to be worried. There’s no reason to be afraid. So we don’t build our buildings with foundation stones anymore. we um pour concrete. So, the illustration’s a little bit blurry for us. So, instead, you ever tried to roll something up that’s very long and if that first couple turns go off and you keep rolling it, eventually the whole thing is going sideways and you don’t get a nice tight roll. You get this long oblong thing. What’s tight in one end, long the other end, like a little problem at the start just amplifies as it gets going. Well, this passage is saying the foundation has a square start. It’s perfectly square from the beginning. Or if you ever have it where one of your shoes is off somehow or your foot is off and that throws your knees, which then throws your hips and your spine goes out of whack and then you’ve got sore shoulders. Like when the base is off, everything all the way up goes off. The foundation of God’s temple is perfect. So the house that’s built on it is built square and proper. So that house will stand against those who oppose it. And those who oppose it will find that they stumble and fall. It is as solid. Jesus is as solid a foundation as can be. You can build your life on it. You can build a world view on him. That’s the cornerstone idea. Now, uh, in this passage, there’s these little references. Actually, in the whole book of 1 Peter, there’s these references to Psalm 34 and someday go and read Psalm 34. And you’d be amazed how it parallels first Peter. So, Psalm 34 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Like, give him a try. Which is very similar to our verse three that says, “Now that you have a taste of the Lord’s kindness.” So in Psalm 34, King David has just fled his kingdom. He’s running away from his son who is claiming the throne and he’s built a little army to take over. And so King David has become an exile in another land. And instead of complaining of all the things that have gone wrong, King David writes this song to give thanks for all of the blessings he’s received. So, just I’ll pick a few lines up from Psalm 34, but he says that he’s been freed from all of his fears. He’s running away from his son who’s developed an army to overthrow him, which should make you afraid. And he’s like, I’ve been set free from my fears. And it says, “Shame has been taken from my face.” If your son is trying to overthrow your throne, you’re shamed. If you’re the king and you’re running away, you’re shamed. And and David’s response is, God has taken away my shame. It says in Psalm 34, those who look to the Lord for help are radiant with joy. Like their face is not downcast and in despair and wideeyed and and you know concerned. No, their faces are full of joy. And it says because David says, “I was in despair. I prayed and the Lord saved me.” He’s not back in his kingdom yet. He just has such a deep trust for the Lord. And then he says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and he rescues rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” So David is just buil bubbling up with joy and praise even though his situation hasn’t really changed and it’s gone really wrong over the past couple uh past period of time. And so I think Peter when he writes this book is calling people back to that idea to say your difficulty and your hardship that you’re really experiencing as a Christian, it’s been experienced before by other people of faith. God is still in control. You can trust what he’s doing. And then Peter continues, not only uh are we is Christ our solid foundation, not only have other people experienced kind of difficult trials, he says in verse 5, you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you’re his holy priests through the mediation of Christ. You offer spiritual sacrifices that are pleasing to God. And a bit later he says, ‘You are chosen people. You’re wanted. You’re royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. And as a result, you can show others the goodness of God. For he called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you had no identity as a people, now you are God’s people. Once you had received no mercy, now you’ve received God’s mercy. So his language is a little bit foreign to us again because we don’t live in a land where there’s lots of priests and big temples. So perhaps think of ideas like this. Have you ever seen uh a workout program that is being advertised and there’s a before and after shot of the person who did the workout program and this is what I looked like before and this is what I looked like afterwards or promotions for cosmetic surgery and this is what they looked like before and this is what they looked like afterwards. The passage is saying you’re the after photo. You’re not the before photo. You’re the after photo. You’re the photo that says this is what the Lord does. this is the change he does in your life. And that change is part of your identity. Now I’m the new person. Or another way of thinking of it would be um your intimate connection with a big celebrity. So perhaps you are Taylor Swift gushing over Travis Kelce or perhaps you are Travis Kelce gushing over his life with Taylor Swift. You decide who you think is the bigger celebrity. Um, but you are in close relationship with someone who’s a superstar and that’s Jesus. And that relationship changes who you are now. If you were in a relationship with either Taylor Swift or Travis Kelce, pick your fame, who you are would change. Or another way of looking at this passage is you work in the Parliament buildings. You are in service of the government implementing its agenda. or you’re in service of King Charles and the royal family and your work, your life serves the king’s reign. Like Peter is using this rich language to say the church as a whole displays the goodness of God. It declares who he is and what he’s about and what he does. And your individual life is part of that declaration. your individual living of a day, living of a week, the decisions you make, the ways you try to be obedient to Jesus, that is part of the worldwide declaration of who God is. And God considers you his very special possession. Like this is huge, heightened language. This is like what’s the biggest gift I can give you? Well, the God of all creation considers you real special. That’s about as big as gift as you can get. Now, I think the temptation here that I see sometimes Christians get into is that they pretend and they put on a layer of look how good the Lord is. And it’s a little bit disconnected from the real struggle and pain that we experience in life. It’s like we try to mask the hurt and only show that God is good. And the danger is that at some point you’re going to get tired of that facade. And it’s very easy when you get tired of the facade to think, well, my real issues haven’t gone away. My real pain is still here. Maybe God’s not real after all. And the problem isn’t that God’s not real. It’s that you have not been real. Um, we need to lean into the struggle, work on the pain, and by doing it, we actually display what the Lord is like in a much more truthful way. You reveal his goodness with integrity. Sometimes there is great darkness in front of us and we are afraid to go through it. Sometimes there are questions that we are just afraid to ask or there is difficult self-reflection that we don’t want to do. Um perhaps there’s experiences we have to revisit. There’s apologies we have to make and it’s uncomfortable and you think, “How can this possibly be the the way that I have to go? This is going to really hurt. This can’t be the way.” It’s the way God calls us out of darkness into light. So he calls us out of darkness, out of confusion, out of ignorant behavior, of an unawareness of how we impact others, of a a purposeless life. And he leads us into light. And in that light, there’s freedom and healing and greater experiences of love and peace. But sometimes we don’t realize that that dark door is actually what we have to go through. When I was a kid, I went through one of those um uh House of Horrors, you know, these traveling circus kind of things, and I I was young enough to not understand what I was in. So, you walk through the first part and there’s monsters and things that are jumping at you. And then there was this dark corner you had to turn and we couldn’t feel anything and we just figured that was the end. So, we turned around and tried to go back out the front and the guy’s like, “What are you doing?” Like, “Well, we hit a dead end.” He’s like, “There’s no dead end.” And the idea that we had to feel our way through a dark spot was foreign. And sure enough, you get around two corners and the light shows up and you’re done. But that’s the idea. Sometimes we have these dark I cannot possibly God cannot be asking me to go this way. And it’s like no actually that’s the way. So we have to trust that what gs in front of us we have to engage with. And one day when Jesus returns and salvation is made complete, everyone will see who we truly are and who we’ve actually been serving like white rocks against a burned out landscape. And you will give thanks because the foundation you built your life on proved true.

So if that’s the goal, what does Peter want us to do? Go back to verse one. Get rid of all evil behavior. Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and unkind speech. Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment now that you’ve had a taste of the Lord’s kindness. So, you notice that all that behavior that he wants us to stop, it all destroys relationships with others. Deceit, not being truthful with people, trying to deceive people. Hypocrisy, saying one thing, doing another, or pretending to be something you’re not. Jealousy, wanting what the other person has and coveting. Um, or unkind speech, slander, speaking in a way that hurts another person. We’re meant, we are being built into God’s spiritual temple. This behavior breaks the house. It breaks the temple. So in earlier in chapter one it said that we must love each other deeply from the heart. That idea of deeply is not have deep low uh guttural feelings of affection for people. It actually means effort. Uh love with effort. This is going to take some work. Um so we know that when life gets difficult we become impatient with people. We become snippy. We become frustrated if they don’t care for us the way we want them to. And Peter is saying, “Yep, that happens. Put effort into caring for other people. Stop the nasty behavior.” And um for your part, don’t do things that hurt people. Let me interject. At this point in our service, we hit a computer glitch and our entire system went down and we lost the recording. And before it uh picked back up, this is what I was saying. So, I had mentioned to the church that I had been watching a counseling video about unresolved anger by Tim Fletcher. Tim Fletcher has a lot of very good material on YouTube. And he said anger is your body’s way of saying unity has been broken. That connectedness and relationship has been broken. The purpose of your anger is to get you to circle back to the person you’re angry at and work on reconciling. And I really liked how clear that was, that anger is our body’s way of saying there’s a broken relationship. Now, of course, the difficulty is when the other person doesn’t want to participate in reconciling, we’re kind of left with the broken relationship and left with the anger. But for our purposes today, it’s helpful to know that we were designed to connect and walk alongside each other. And when things go wrong, there are flags and indicators that say something’s got to be worked on. So, we are meant to love each other, to do what is best for them, to be gentle and patient, offer encouragement and advice, to come alongside each other. And then Peter says, “Oh, crave spiritual milk. Cry out for this nourishment.” So, there’s a play on words going on here. The word for spiritual is very close to the word for logos or the word and he’s talking about crave scripture. Crave what it says. Crave what it points to. Crave who it points to and what it talks about. Um and he’s saying you were born into your life with Jesus because of scripture. Either someone explained it to you or you read it. And that scripture is also what will lead you to maturity and full salvation. So crave it. It is your nutrition. It sustains your life. So I was at an event this week where uh for dessert they served a three layer pumpkin cake. So it was pumpkin cake, cream, and then pumpkin pie filling repeated three times over cut into a beautiful triangle. And they came out on the serving plate with this cake. And I was talking to someone and I saw it at the corner of my eye and I just thought, “Oo, I want to try that.” Um, and it was spectacular. Like, it was just fantastic. And I ate my piece. And one of the guys at the table said, “I I don’t really want this. Does anybody else want it?” I’m like, “Yes, I really do. I’m craving it, but I’m going to be respectable and say nothing.” And he and he said, “I’ll offer it to the table next to me.” I’m like, “Be gone, temptation.” It was so good. That’s craving. And it’s saying crave the nourishment that God has provided for you. So if you want to live healthy, you have to eat healthy food, right? You’re not going to be focused and alert and strong and functioning if you eat cake and sugar all day. You need meat and potatoes and vegetables and fruit, right? Uh God has given us nutrition to grow us up into maturity. Um, and we are to eat of it, engage with God’s word. And I thought it’s interesting because sometimes we think what will keep us going in our walk with God are mountaintop spiritual experiences. Moments where we feel full or moments where we connect deeply with Jesus. Those gifts are nice. Our real food is actually scripture. Um, so consider ways to crave scripture, to read or listen to scripture, right? like just what’s the story in this collection of books or to be reading scripture and consider what is God like in this book or what is God like in this story and sometimes God does really weird things so we step back and look at what the people are doing in the story and seeing how God’s reacting to it or what does scripture say to do what does it say about how to think about things and ultimately you’ll find scripture helps you understand who Jesus is and what God is all about because Jesus is the exact representation of the father. So I encourage you to make space in your day and in your week for God to give you nourishment.

So let’s wind this up and uh and we’ll move on. Uh I mentioned that some people ask I thought being a Christian would make my life better but difficult things happen where I feel excluded or I feel left out precisely because a because I’m a Christian. How do I think about that? And Peter starts by reminding us God made Jesus the firm foundation of his temple. And he said that this foundation is firm and tested. It is safe to build on. Whoever believes in this will in him will never be shaken. And the passage subtly refers us to Psalm 34 as if to say your difficulty uh that you the difficulty you are experiencing others have experienced it too. God is still in control. You can trust what he’s doing. And then more so we’re being built up into God’s spiritual temple as living stones precious to the Lord. his holy nation. The whole church together displays the goodness of God and your individual life contributes to that declaration. The temptation here is to pretend and to put on a layer of look how God is good. Look how good God is that’s a bit disconnected from the actual struggles we experience in life. God is calling you out of darkness into light. And so we have to engage with that journey. One day when Jesus returns and salvation is made complete, everyone will see who we truly are and whom we’ve been serving like white rocks against a burned out landscape. And you will give thanks. The foundation you built your life on proved true. And until then, we’re called to let go of behavior that hurts people, that hurts the church, and to crave spiritual food that is God’s word. Let it nourish you. So, what catches your attention in this passage? It’s only 10 verses, um, but wow, it’s thick. So, what what catches your attention or what sparks in your spirit uh in this? The thing that caught my attention this morning, I think was partially based in an interaction I had with Dean this week where I suddenly realized when he walks up the stairs, stairs are a full quarter of his height. It is incredibly difficult for me to get my leg up to like waist height. That’s ridiculous.

And you were reading a passage this morning and I’m like the younger you are the easier it is to stumble over a rock because the rock doesn’t change but as you grow you get better at circumnavigating these situations. An infant can’t physically stumble over a rock cuz they can’t move really. And so part of growing is you get to this stage where you’re not being spoonfed anymore, but you’ve got to navigate this change to becoming big enough to get past it on your own. And that’s where we need to come alongside each other. Dean doesn’t walk up the stairs by himself because he knows it’s not safe. And so I need to walk up with him so that he doesn’t fall. So Oh, I like that. Yeah, I like that. Before I was a Christian, I had a sister-in-law who was part of the Christian church where my wife came from. And there used to be times when we used to argue. The Bible said this and Bible said, “Oh, I thought the Bible said this.” We would argue on and on like that. And one time in Christmas, she says, “Fine, I’ll be the mature one in this argument. I’ll let you have the last word if you’re going to be like that all the time. Go ahead, say the last word. So I said, hm. Okay, I’ll say the last word. Last word. And then she got up and then she goes, hm. [laughter] And I said, hey, hey, come back here. What? I thought I’m supposed to get the last word. That’s great. And right away, that’s what this passage made me realize. Cuz what used to irritate me is how people that call themselves Christians have this attitude that they’re God’s representative. And you as a sinner, you have to listen to them and give your seat in a plane so they can sit down and relax while you sit on the floor because you’re not a Christian and they have to be respected as a community leaders. And when I became a Christian, I wasn’t like that. And I learned through my pains, not through other people’s gift or worship of who I am. That’s good. Thank you. I like what you said, letting somebody else have the last word. Boy, that’s a skill to learn. Mike, just I’m going to let you. This is the line that stuck with me. Um, God’s very own possession. Think about that. the God of the universe. You are his possession. That’s a wonderful, wonderful thing. And as his possession, interestingly enough, you’ll have difficulties. I was trying to think of anyone in the 2,000 pages of the Bible who was a God follower didn’t have great difficulty. Great difficulty comes along with that. That’s a bit of a mystery to me. Ideally, you’d think, well, if I’m God’s possession, I won’t have any problems. But we are his own possession. And so, as God followers, we are God’s possession. We need not worry. That’s great, George. Something that caught my attention that caused me a bit of confusion. It starts off saying that when Christ is revealed, we will be truly who we are. And then it talks about that God bringing out who we are now, which is it. If who we really are is going to be revealed at some later date, that means that we aren’t truly who we are now. And I found that a little disturbing. Yeah. Think of it as two things. One is progress. You are I mean, you know, you are who you are and yet there’s more. And and the other part of is is a vindication that others who have made your life difficult um which is what you know Christians experience, what these folks were experienced when it’s all revealed it’ll be re you’ll be vindicated as well. be like, “Oh, they were actually serving the God who is like that’s what was going on.” So, yeah. So, there’s more to us to we continue to grow, but then there’s also that sense of and you know, at the end God going and see um which is part of their accountability. It’s part of that I tried to call you your whole life. I surrounded you with Christians to display who I was. So, just that idea. I’m glad you talked about the cornerstone. It has to do with the same thing. What you’ve built your life on, the longer you go, the further out from those core decisions you go, the results of that show. And so I was called back to a verse again in Isaiah where it says, “He will be the sure foundation for our times, a rich store of salvation, of wisdom, of knowledge.” And the fear of the Lord is the key to that treasure. it goes on to say. And so, yeah, I just look around in my own life in the world as it is today. See things kind of just playing out from decisions we’ve made that impact planets and civilizations and thankful that Jesus came, that he is, that he is a foundation that I can rely on. Yeah, that’s good. Let me offer a prayer and then I guess we’ll close with a song. Do we have an ability to show a song? Okay. Father, um you really have been tremendously good to us. And um Lord, I would ask that you would just remind us how firm a foundation Jesus is, how perfect a cornerstone, that he is the center of the story and um the foundation for your temple on earth. Um yeah, Lord, you are so good to us. Help us to live out what we know, what we’ve learned. Help us to live out who we truly are. And by our lives that you would bring others to know you. By our lives, you would bring glory to yourself. We love you. Thank you. Amen. Thank you for listening to our podcast today. New Life Ministries is located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. You are invited to join our service in person or over Zoom. Please use the contact us link to send an email to the church office and request the address or zoom link. If you would like to use these podcasts as part of your home church or local church gathering, you are free to do so. We do request that you let us know. If there is any other way that we can help you in your ministry, please send us an email.