September 4, 2019

All of us have felt it. That moment right before walking in front of a large group of people. That brief pause before heading into an interview that will change the course of your life. That moment of second-guessing before picking up the phone and engaging in a lengthy, heart-to-heart kind of conversation.

Some people call it the feeling of “butterflies in your stomach.” A twinge of nervousness, self-doubt, or insecurity.

It’s the complex of “fight or flight.” We all can recall moments of this in our lives, and yet there is a sudden rush of confidence that seems to attend us when we choose to go through with a moment that can cause us uneasiness. “I’m doing this. I’m going in. I can do this,” you tell yourself.

This is the kind of the feeling the displaced, distressed church in the Dispersion of 1 Peter was faced with. As I mentioned in my sermon, they were plagued with doubt. They had experienced the bitterness of suffering, and yet as they met with the struggles of making sense of chaos, they had to choose in whom to trust.

Would their faith be in the God who is immutable, faithful in the midst of suffering, and is himself the Answer, or would they wallow in their doubt?

Would they lean upon the very Spirit of Christ who dwelt in them, the same Spirit who moved in the hearts of the prophets of old and foretold the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories?

Would they face their fear and walk forth boldly—living lives of faithfulness, holiness before God, and neglecting the sin that would rob them of joy in knowing Christ?

Our passage from this past Sunday on 1 Peter 1:10–12 was transitional. Peter sought to remind and reassure them that the same God who had promised the coming of Christ is the one who fulfilled his word in the course of human history and who would bring his people through their own present suffering into glory.

But as those who are presently exiles in our modern world, believers in Christ in this generation, will we choose to keep pressing on toward that goal? Will we dare to take a deep breath and face our present sufferings with the hope of the gospel? Will we cast aside our doubts and learn humbly from Christ as he is presented to us in God’s holy and unchanging Word? The mystery of the gospel—Christ’s suffering for us sinners and his glorious conquering of our sin and rising unto life, so giving us, who are in him, life—is indeed marvelous. Will you ponder it a little while? Will you long to look into it?