It is a great time to be a fan of the Vancouver Canucks right now. In the last couple of weeks, there was a moment when the Canucks three players tied for the scoring lead in the NHL: J.T. Miller, Quinn Hughes, and Elias Patterson. They were the highest scoring team the NHL. Thatcher Demko, their goalie, is among the top five in terms of goals against average. Quinn Hughes is leading the entire league in terms of plus or minus and, at various points, the Canucks have been third or fourth overall in the entire NHL. And this is awesome because it’s been a long time since they’ve had this degree of success. So we can celebrate, and many of us are feeling kind of good about it. Psychologists tell us that there’s a reason for that. Something called Social Identity Theory tells us that our sense of well-being can go up based on our accomplishments, but also the accomplishments of the groups to which we belong. Conversely, it can go down when our group isn’t doing well, when our team struggles. The degree to which our sense of well-being goes up and down with the fortunes of our team depends on how closely we identify it.
Sports can be interesting, but it doesn’t really have a big impact on our lives. It doesn’t shape our character, doesn’t give us a framework for living, and doesn’t chart the trajectory of our future life. But there are teams in the world that do that. You could be on Team Atheism. You could be on Team Buddhism. You could be on Team Islam. So, we have all these various voices before us. The question, though, is which team is going to be the winning team? How do we know which is the right team to cheer for? And how do we connect with that team? And we’re even going to go further and ask ourselves how much of ourselves do we give to that team?
To help us reflect on these things, we’re going to be looking at 1 Peter chapter 2. We’ll start off in chapter 1 and then eventually land in chapter 2.
This is a letter that the apostle Peter wrote, probably with the help of a scribe or a secretary. He was writing to Christians in Asia Minor, which is present-day Turkey. And guess what? They were being persecuted. This is something that we have been encountering in several of the New Testament letters that we have been reflecting upon. It’s almost as if that is the norm, at least for the early church, and this long period of freedom of religion that we’ve had in the Western world is actually, in a sense, abnormal. So, it would be good for us to see how it is for our brothers and sisters in Christ in other parts of the world and in times past, so that we can learn how to live should that persecution come upon us.
Peter is writing to encourage these people who are suffering for their faith. And what he does is he assures them that they are on the right team. He tells them that Team Jesus is going to win in the end, and he does it with these words: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In 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 can never perish, spoil, or fade.” (1 Peter 1:3-4a)
Second, we will share in Jesus’ victory through our faith connection to him. Peter writes, “This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:4b-5)
And then third, suffering can strengthen our faith in Jesus. We read, “In all this, you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith, of greater worth than gold which perishes even though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Peter continues with words of assurance by telling his readers that stronger faith produces more love and joy in our hearts. “Though you have not seen him referring to Jesus, you love him. And though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your soul.” (1 Peter 1:8-9)
So Team Jesus is the team to be on.
But then Peter does something a little bit surprising. He uses something called the sandwich approach which is a way of giving feedback. When you need to give someone some negative feedback, you can make that bad news more palatable by sandwiching the negative feedback in between two layers of positive feedback.
Peter uses the sandwich approach, but in a very different way. He starts off the same way be giving his readers some good news that applies to them: “As you come to him, the Living Stone again referring to Jesus, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him. You, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture, it says, “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone; the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” And to you who believe this stone is precious.” (1 Peter 2:4-7a) That’s the good news that applies to Peter’s readers, and applies to you as well.
And then Peter does something surprising. He shares some bad news, but he tells his readers that it doesn’t apply to them. It is something that they need to know, but shouldn’t identify with. And here’s the bad news. “But to those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. They stumbled because they disobeyed the message, which is also what they were destined for.” (1 Peter 2:7b-8)
So why would Peter do this? I don’t know about you, but I that there’s already a bunch of bad news floating around in my head that I tell myself over and over and over again. And Peter’s saying that, because of Jesus, all of that bad news doesn’t apply to you at all.
And then Peter gives his readers more good news. He says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9-10)
So what does this mean? What Peter is saying to us is this: In every other team in the world, the path to success or salvation depends on what we do. But that is not the case with Jesus. The good news and the bad news are not dependent on what we do. The good news and the bad news are dependent on which team we are on. Because there are really only two teams. There’s Team Jesus, and there’s Team Not Jesus. And to choose Team Not Jesus is to turn away from all the life, joy, peace, healing, and hope that he wants to give us as a free gift. It’s not dependent on what we do because Jesus has done everything for us already.
And it’s not really a question of which team you choose because Jesus has already chosen you to be on his team. He crossed the chasm that exists between God and fallen humanity to become one of us. And then through his suffering, death, and resurrection, he built a bridge across that chasm. He paid the full cost of forgiveness for all your sins. And then what he did is he brought you into that community of love that has always existed between the Father and the Son and the Spirit. And now, as you cross that bridge, which is Jesus Christ, and as you live in this world even with all of its sorrows and hurts and pains and griefs, you are a beloved forgiving child of God. And you have the same degree of closeness in your relationship with our Heavenly Father that Jesus does. He has given it to you.
Usually in the morning, I do some stretches, and I’m often listening to Christian music while I do that. Yesterday, I was listening to the song “Jireh” by Maverick City Music. After I was done stretching, I went to my computer and played the song on YouTube. Tears started welling up in my eyes and running down my cheeks as I heard these words: “I’m already loved. I’m already chosen. I know who I am. I know what you’ve spoken. I’m already logged, more than I could even fathom. And that is enough. Yes, yes, it’s enough. It’s enough and that is enough. Jireh, (which is one of the many names for God, our provider), you are enough. I will be content in every circumstance. Jireh, you are enough.” That’s what God wants us to hear: that you are already loved, you are already chosen. My hope and prayer is that you will grow in knowing who you are based on what God is saying to you.
Now, if Jesus has already won the victory, and we don’t earn our place onto his team, then what significance does our life in this world have? Another way of putting this is, what does it matter how we play in the regular season if we already know that we’re going to win the Stanley Cup? The answer is this: Your life has incredible significance because your life in this world is your only opportunity to join your life to Jesus and participate in his life as you live your life. So what do I mean by that? As you live life with Jesus, following him, trusting in him, your life becomes like a mini-life of Jesus. For example, you will likely, if you haven’t already, at some point in your life experience rejection, shame, betrayal, and injustice. Jesus has experienced rejection, shame, betrayal, and injustice, and he is with you in those times when you experience those things. Jesus was chosen by God and precious to Him, and you are chosen by God and precious to him. Jesus is the capstone, or the head, of God’s spiritual house, God’s family, and you all are living stones, or to put it in a modern sense, living lumber, in the structure of God’s house. You’re part of the great and wonderful thing that he is doing. Jesus offered His life as a sacrifice to save the world. We offer our lives as a sacrifice to serve the world. Jesus represented God to us and us to God. We represent God to the world and the world to God in prayer.
Now, the life we are living in this world right now can not take our eternal destiny away from us because we are already living in Jesus’ end-of-time victory over sin, death, and all evil. But this life in this world might be everything to the people around us. This might be their only opportunity to experience good things from God. So, we do good as we live our lives, but we don’t do it for our own sake. We do it for the sake of the people around us. The first reason we do that is because they need us to help them. But secondly, as we do that, our hope and our prayer are that they will experience God’s love through us and then be drawn closer to him.
What does this mean for us? There is a lot of emphasis these days on self-care and wellness, and I believe strongly in those things. But when you combine wellness with our sinful human nature, it can be just another way that we glorify ourselves. So I think that it’s important for us to practice a very particular kind of wellness that I call Christian Wellness. Here is what that means: In appreciation for what Jesus has done, we use the tools of today and the spiritual practices of the past to help us maintain a high level of spiritual health. (Actually, it’s the Holy Spirit that’s doing the work of creating spiritual health in us, not even us that’s doing that.) So I want to encourage you to ask God to help you both choose and implement the practices that you need to be healthy in your life with Him. These are very personal things. What works for one person probably won’t work quite as well for someone else. We need God to direct us towards those practices that we need. But probably the Bible is going to be involved, and prayer is likely going to be involved.
Now, it’s not going to be easy for you and for me, and that is because for the very first time in human history, nearly all of us are carrying around in our pockets or purses devices that are designed to use our biological makeup against us and divert our attention to what other people want it to be on and then keep it there. Therefore, one of the first questions we need to ask ourselves is this: Are we in control of our phone, or is our phone in control of us? And I think that we need to remember whose we are and where we are going and then let our identity in Jesus draw our attention to where it needs to be, which is on him.
Jarome Iginla played 21 seasons in the NHL, most of them with the Calgary Flames. I knew he is a Christian, but before I started doing some research for this message, I did not know that his mother is a Buddhist and his father was a Muslim but became a Christian later on. When Jarome was a teenager, he was rooming with a friend at a hockey tournament. His friend asked him, “Do you believe in God,” and Jarome replied, “Yes, I believe in God.” The friend then asked, “So what if you die and you find out that’s all there is?” That question really shook Jarome up. In that moment, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and atheism are all in play in that moment.
Jarome went to his father and talked to him about it, and his father said, “Why don’t you ask Jesus that question? And if he gives you a sense of peace about it, then you have the answer. And if not, you haven’t lost anything.” Jarome prayed about it, and he did receive a sense of peace from Jesus. With that peace from Jesus, Jarome is confident in saying that he believes that Jesus came into the world and died for our sins, and that he’s with us so that we can lean on him. And that is what Jarome does: lean on Jesus. And when he was still playing hockey in the NHL, Jarome would give his best, play as hard as he could, and then leave the results up to God.
Dear friend, we serve a living God who is with us right now and wants to help us in all the challenges we face in life. The challenge that I want to leave with you is this. Put on your skates, lace them up, and live as the person that Jesus has created, redeemed, and chosen you to be. For you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful life. (cf. 1 Peter 2:9) Amen.
(This message was shared at Walnut Grove Lutheran Church in Langley BC on November 26, 2023. For more info, please go to wglc.org.)
Farewell to Shadowlands 