Living as Sojourners

Joe Smysor

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Opening Prayer

Father,

I thank you a beautiful spring morning and for this time, this building, this church and this opportunity to come together to worship you and look at your word. During our time together this morning help us to cast aside any disappointment behind us in the last week and any stress coming up this week. May we look to you and may you open our ears and our hearts to hear the message you have for us. Thank you for Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

Introduction

Well good morning. I see a lot of familiar faces. I’ve had this date circled on my calendar for several months. I am so excited to be back here with you. If we haven’t met, my name is Joe Smysor and I had the privilege of being able to serve as the youth pastor here at Cornerstone a few years ago.

I’m joined today by my wife Gala and our kids Samuel and Natalie. Samuel is nine years old and Natalie is 7. Both Samuel and Natalie were born while I was on staff here and spent many Sunday mornings in the nursery here. I remember practically running to the front of the church one Wednesday night prayer meeting when I learned that we were expecting Samuel and I was so excited to share that news with you. And I remember Warren and Bobbi Moline bringing over dinner for us one night after we came home from the hospital with him. Gala and I love you and this church more than we can express. Thank you for giving me the chance to come back and share this message with you.

Anyways. Let’s dive in.

What do you imagine when I say the word, “Home?”

You might imagine the home you grew up in, or your first house as a married couple or maybe the dream house that you’d love to have some day.

For me, I instantly imagine Christmas Day of 2000. That morning I woke up in my childhood home and opened presents with my parents and my brother and then we drove a couple blocks to my grandma’s house where we did the same thing with her and my aunt and uncles and my cousins. After a couple of hours we came back to my house and my mom started preparing Christmas dinner where her side of the family would join us, my grandparents, six aunts or uncles, and six cousins. I don’t remember any present I received, but I remember the smell of the stuffing and the turkey and the cinnamon rolls. I remember playing with my cousins, all of us eating together, and laughing with my grandpa. My grandma passed away five months later and since then we’ve said goodbye to my grandparents, an aunt and an uncle, and my dad.

I have a longing to get back that. I miss my family, obviously. I think we try to get back home more often than we realize. To get back home. I think you do too and we chase these moments but they are fleeting. In an effort to get back to that morning 23 years ago I think I put too much hope in things that will ultimately let me down.

There is a scene in the movie Christmas Vacation that really resonates with me, that I see a lot of myself in and no it’s not one of the scenes with Cousin Eddie. Clark Griswold and his wife (the two main characters) are reading before they go to bed. Clark is excited to have Christmas in their home and everyone coming over.

Ellen: You set standards that no family activity can live up to.

Clark: When have I ever done that?

Ellen: Parties, weddings, anniversaries, funerals, holidays, vacations, graduations...

We put our hope in people, events and things. We put hope in work, though someday we’ll either retire or quit. We put our hope in our kids and live vicariously through them. We put our hope in sports, or politicians, or possessions. One more promotion, or one more dollar, or one more new thing ultimately won’t fix what’s broken.

C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity:

“The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. ... If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”

So, how do we live in a world that’s not our home?

The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home. - Augustine

Where going to spend our time together this morning in Peter’s First Epistle. In this letter, The Apostle Peter is reminding us to be who we are, who God created us to be and where our hope and our home really lie as Christians.

If you have your Bible go a head and open it with me to 1 Peter. We are going to spend most of our time together this morning in the second half of 1 Peter, but to fully appreciate the passage we’ll start by reading all of the first chapter.

1 Peter 1

1 Peter 1 (CSB)

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ:

To those chosen, living as sojourners (A sojourner is a temporary resident. Another word for could be exiles or aliens, but really it’s probably best understood as “visiting strangers in the world.” Translated literally these are people who live beside or outside the house. Or, someone who is not a part of the in-group. The world looked down on the Christians that Peter was writing to and we experience the same thing today. More and more we find that our worldview is at odds with the world around us.) dispersed abroad in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, (These are Jewish Christians scattered across modern day Turkey) chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you (Let’s contrast that with Matthew 6:19, “Don't collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.” In a world that will ultimately let us down, where everything will ultimately be lost or end up in the landfill, our hope and our inheritance is imperishable, undefiled, unfading and kept in heaven for us.) You are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. You rejoice in this, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials so that the proven character of your faith—more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (

I remember taking kids to Super Summer. That was always a highlight of the year for me and it was major event spiritually every year in the life of our students. Camp was a mountain top experience. One of those experiences where you wish you could just stay there because you knew you were going to be tested when you went home. You knew the world was waiting when you went home. Terry McIlvain used to run the camp and he would always say, “You come here so you can go home.” He meant that we went to camp so that we could be strengthened, encouraged, and discipled so that when we went home we could live for Christ.

Similar to the mountain top experience of camp. We live in the valley today. We live in the valley between the mountain top moments of being born again and our inheritance that waits for us when Christ calls us home. In the valley, every day life, we face trials. These trials refine and strengthen our faith, cause us to daily rely on God’s strength, and transform us into mature believers.

The trials we face will be tough, but we also need to remember that they are short and trivial in light of eternity and the hope and inheritance that’s waiting there. Also our suffering is not in vain—God receives all the glory from our hardships. We see this in 1 Peter 5:10, “10 The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little while.” We also see the same idea in Romans 8:18, “18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.”) Though you have not seen him, you love him; though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who prophesied about the grace that would come to you, searched and carefully investigated. They inquired into what time or what circumstances the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating when he testified in advance to the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you. These things have now been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—angels long to catch a glimpse of these things (Eugene Peterson paraphrased it this way, “Do you realize how fortunate you are? Angels would have given anything to be in on this!”).

Therefore, with your minds ready for action, be sober-minded and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy. If you appeal to the Father who judges impartially according to each one’s work, you are to conduct yourselves in reverence during your time living as strangers. For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was revealed in these last times for you. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

All flesh is like grass,

and all its glory like a flower of the grass.

The grass withers, and the flower falls,

but the word of the Lord endures forever.

And this word is the gospel that was proclaimed to you.

Live with Hope (1 Peter 1:13)

Again, how do we live in a world that’s not our home? Look again at verse 13. 1 Peter 1:13

1 Peter 1:13 CSB

Therefore, with your minds ready for action, be sober-minded and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The word “therefore” points back to everything we read already in verses 1-12. In the following verses the readers are encouraged to live a godly life. But everything is grounded in God’s saving work as explained in vv. 1–12. Believers are to obey because they are God’s chosen sojourners or pilgrims, because they have been begotten by the Father, because they have an untouchable inheritance, and because of the greatness of their salvation.

Peter first tells his readers who they are before telling them how to behave. We have to understand our identity before we can live it out. Unless you have been made new in Christ, you are unable to obey God’s commandments. Conversion precedes obedience. Verse 13 may strike you as a little strange: “Therefore, with your minds ready for action, be serious and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (HCSB). The KJV translates this phrase as “gird up the loins of your mind.” Peter employs a military metaphor here (Judg 18:16). In the ancient world, individuals dress in long garments, and in order to prepare for battle, they pull up their garments to free themselves for quick movement. To put it in a modern lens, Dick Vermeil when he was the head coach for the Kansas City Chiefs would tell his players before games and practices, “It’s time to put your big boy pants on and go to work.” The point is that we as Christians must be fully alert for battle. Although they cannot see it, indeed, a war rages on between believers and unbelievers. The churches in Asia Minor may not perceive that their persecutors, whoever they might be (government, family members, etc.) are warring against them in a cosmic conflict but that’s the reality. Also, quick sidebar here… We’re to be ready for battle, but that doesn’t mean that we’re to go looking for fights. We’re to be ready for trials, but the outside world should know us by our love and holiness and not by our temper and judgmental attitude.

So, we are to live ready for action. We are also to live with hope.

The hope of which Peter is writing about is not simply a wish for the future, as the word is most often used in modern English (e.g., “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow,” even though there can be no certainty about what the weather will do in Kansas). Rather, the Greek verb for hope used here NT involves the idea of assurance that what is hoped for will certainly come to pass. It is more of a well-grounded expectation than a wishful desire. This is because future hope in the NT is based on something that has already happened in the past, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We might best understand this as, “Set your hope fully on the grace … by preparing your minds for action and by being sober.”

One last sidebar here, don’t be surprised if the world acts differently or thinks differently than you do. Your hope is in something totally different than your’s.

Live with Holiness

1 Peter 1:14–16 CSB

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.

Holiness is not a characteristic that is often emphasized in our culture. We are bombarded with messages that encourage us to indulge in our desires and pursue pleasure at all costs. But as Christians, we are called to a higher standard. We are called to be holy, just as God is holy.

But what does it mean to be holy? At its core, holiness is about being set apart for God's purposes. It means living a life that is pleasing to God, and striving to be like him in every way. It means loving what he loves and hating what he hates. It means pursuing righteousness and rejecting sin.

The apostle Peter reminds us that holiness is not optional for Christians. It is a commandment that comes directly from God. And while none of us are perfect, we are called to continually strive for holiness in our lives. We are called to be obedient to God's commands, and to seek his guidance in all that we do. Our holiness ought to be a light in the world, highlighting our difference from the world around us and pointing others to Christ.

Remember Romans 12. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. And let us remember that we do not pursue holiness on our own strength, but through the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

Live in Reverent Fear of God (1 Peter 1:17-21)

1 Peter 1:17–21 (CSB)

If you appeal to the Father who judges impartially according to each one’s work, you are to conduct yourselves in reverence during your time living as strangers. For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was revealed in these last times for you. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

We’re to live with holiness and hope. We are also to live lives with reverent fear of God.

Peter's message is clear: we are called to live our lives with a deep sense of awe and respect for God. We are reminded that we have been redeemed not by our own efforts or achievements, but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

To live reverently means to live in a way that honors and glorifies God in all that we do. It means recognizing his sovereignty over our lives, and acknowledging that we are accountable to him for the way we live. It means living with integrity, honesty, and humility, and treating others with respect and love.

Living reverently also means recognizing the preciousness of our salvation. We have been bought with a price, the price of Christ's blood. This is a gift that we should never take for granted, but rather cherish and protect with our lives. We should live each day with a deep sense of gratitude for what Christ has done for us, and seek to live in a way that honors his sacrifice.

Live a Life of Genuine Love(1 Peter 1:22-2:3)

1 Peter 1:22–2:3 CSB

Since you have purified yourselves by your obedience to the truth, so that you show sincere brotherly love for each other, from a pure heart love one another constantly, because you have been born again—not of perishable seed but of imperishable—through the living and enduring word of God. For All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like a flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this word is the gospel that was proclaimed to you. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, desire the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow up into your salvation, if you have tasted that the Lord is good.

And, lastly we are to live a life of genuine love.

Living a life of genuine love means putting others before ourselves, and seeking to serve and bless those around us. It means showing kindness, compassion, and forgiveness, even when it is difficult. It means treating others with respect and dignity, recognizing that they are made in the image of God.

But living a life of genuine love also requires us to rid ourselves of all malice and deceit. We cannot truly love others if we harbor bitterness, envy, or anger in our hearts. We must seek to root out any sinful attitudes or behaviors that hinder our ability to love. Again, we can’t hold it against the world that they don’t act like us. They don’t act like us because they don’t know Christ and they don’t have the hope we have.

So how can we live a life of genuine love? Firstly, we need to cultivate a heart of humility. We need to recognize that we are not the center of the universe, but rather are called to serve and bless others. We need to acknowledge our own weaknesses and limitations, and seek to put the needs of others before our own.

Secondly, we need to be intentional about our relationships. We need to invest time and energy into building meaningful connections with others, and seek to understand their needs and concerns. We need to be quick to listen and slow to speak, and always seek to extend grace and forgiveness.

Closing Thoughts

Don’t get comfy. We’re not home yet.

Billy Graham once said, “My home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world."

Church, we’re not home yet. There are more trials in front of us, there are more things to do, and Christ isn’t done with us yet. I don’t care if you’re 8 or 88, Christ isn’t done with you yet.

Stay prepared for action.

Don’t be surprised by trials, but rather be prepared for them and be ready to share the hope that you have in Christ.

Love the world without loving the world.

This is a tough one. We have to love the world around us without loving what the world loves.

Live holy lives.

D.L. Moody once wrote, “A holy life will produce the deepest impression. Lighthouses blow no horns; they only shine.” May that be true of us.

Live lives of genuine love.

Like the hymn says, may the world know we are Christians by our love.

I want to close with a few lines of “The Competitor’s Creed.” A creed written by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes or FCA.

It says...

“I am a Christian first and last. I am created in the likeness of God Almighty to bring Him glory....

My attitude on and off is above reproach – my conduct beyond criticism. Whatever I am doing; I submit to God’s authority

I give my all – all of the time. I do not give up. I do not give in.”

I am going to pray in a minute and then you’ll have a chance to respond however God is leading you. If you’d like prayer or if Christ is calling you to take a step out and commit your life to him Pastor Gary will be up here at the front.

Believer: this world will test you and disappoint you. That’s ok, because this isn’t our home. Keep going.

Closing Prayer

Father,

Again we thank you. We thank you for calling us and allowing us to know you. Help us to remember that this world is not our home and any that any trial or suffering we face is an opportunity to give you glory. Forgive us for the times that we love the world and everything in it more than we ought. Help us to fall more and more in love with you. We remember 1 John Chapter 2 where it says, “

Lord’s Prayer

The New International Version Chapter 6

“ ‘Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

10 your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us today our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, s

but deliver us from the evil one.’

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