Longing for Fellowship :: 1 Peter 4:12-19
Almighty God, your son willingly endured suffering, agony, and shame of the cross for our redemption. Grant us courage to take up our cross daily and stay in fellowship with him wherever He leads, through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, I don’t know if you have checked the calendar lately, but today is January 2, in the year of our Lord 2022. You know what that means? It means today is the Ninth Day of Christmas in a Happy New Year. That’s right! It’s still Christmas. The season isn’t over. It’s still supposed to be ... the most wonderful time of the year, with the kids jingle-belling and everyone telling you: Be of good cheer. It’s still supposed to be ... the hap-happiest season of all, with those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings when friends come to call.
At least that’s what the world has been trying to convince us of everyday now for more than a month. We’ve been hearing this every year while the world was busy reshaping Christmas into its own image. The world has turned Christmas into a season of spending more money and more time with family, giving more gifts under the guise that that will produce more happiness. The world has declared Christmas as nothing more than a season of lights on the lawn, cards in the mail, shouts of Merry Christmas to those we meet in the streets ... and let’s not forget they have even reduced the reason for the season to something as innocent as the little Lord Jesus laying down his sweet head ... no crying he makes.
It’s absolutely surreal. And IT IS NOT the Christmas of scripture.
Did you hear our readings today?
1. Christmas is a longing for fellowship amid suffering.
That’s right, a longing for fellowship amid suffering! It has always been this way.
God had created us to be in fellowship with him. But the man and woman broke fellowship with God and each other in the garden and they began suffering. What have you done, the Lord cried. And we’ve been longing for fellowship and for an end to suffering ever since.
This is one of the reasons Peter is writing our epistle today. He is writing to Christians everywhere who are lost in a world of suffering. They are suffering not just because they are in a broken world corrupted by original sin, broken by their own sin, broken and suffering because they are Christians.
Beloved, don’t be bewildered by the fiery trial happening to you as if a strange thing is going on with you, Peter writes (v 12). This is a world that crucifies Christians. You will suffer as a Christians. Granted, here in America, we don’t have it so bad yet. It’s not like in Peter’s day, when they crucified him upside down. But this world is doing everything it can to make you suffer for the way, the truth, and the life that Christ has called you into. The devil is trying to prevent you from having fellowship with each other. He’s trying to keep you away from the body of Christ. He will whisper sweet nothings in your ear about holly jolly Christmas’ and specialness and feelings and making the world a better place ... as if any of this is up to you. All the while, the world will be trying to convince you it’s okay to slaughter your children, too, while persecuting you for being Lutheran and standing up for a confession. The world will prompt you to stay silent about what you believe ... never speaking of Christ. The world will discourage you from attending Bible study. It will encourage worldly worship at the altars of our personal gods.
2. But God is longing to have fellowship with you.
That is the underlying Word of the day in our readings from Genesis, Peter, and Matthew. You might have missed it amid the world’s cacophony of dreaming of white Christmases. So allow me to remind you what the prophets and apostles have to say today.
In Genesis 46, God told Jacob he will never leave him or forsake him. He will keep fellowship with him. He will stay with him. And he will go down to Egypt with him ... which is to say he will go into bondage with him ... and come up into freedom with him, that is back into the Promised Land. In the midst of suffering, God promises to keep fellowship with Israel.
The Gospel reading from Matthew continues this theme through Joseph’s dream. Go, abandon your home, the Lord tells Joseph ... abandon all you own ... do it in the middle of the night, no less ... Don’t be afraid of the suffering to come: I am with you always to the end, fulfilling the scripture just as I promised.
Finally, and most notably from our epistle today ... because this text from 1 Peter 4 is the foundation of our meditation today ... Peter reminds us all that the Lord will not abandon you. Even in the midst of your suffering, He will keep fellowship with you. For you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests on you (v. 14).
This good news was fully realized at Christmas.
3. God has restored his fellowship with us through the suffering of Christ.
Our Lord Jesus Christ humbled himself, first as a child born to die, and then as a man beaten, bloodied, humiliated, and crucified for your sins. Jesus didn’t have any sin of his own. He didn’t deserve suffering at all. But our Lord Jesus Christ who took on flesh knows your suffering. He knows your sin. He took it upon himself. He took our sorrows. He took your shame. He came from heaven to earth so that he could have fellowship with us in ways we can never understand. He did this so that he might take upon Himself our miseries and to give meaning and direction to every moment of our lives. By living for you and suffering for you and dying for you, our Lord Jesus was able to relieve you of all your suffering. More than that, he gave you the living hope that there will be no more suffering.
To use Peter’s words in his letter to all Christians everywhere ... Praiseworthy is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, caused us to be begotten from above to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ out of the dead, into an inheritance uncorruptible and unstained and unfading, reserved in heaven for you, who, by means of the power of God, are being shielded through faith into a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Pt 1:3-5).
Brothers and sisters in Christ ...
THROUGH CHRIST’S SUFFERINGS, HE HAS BROUGHT US BACK INTO FELLOWSHIP WITH HIM AND EACH OTHER.
4. Knowing that, don’t bring suffering and broken fellowship upon yourselves through immoral, illicit, irrational lifestyles (v 15).
There’s no glory in murder or pornography that destroy men and women alike. There’s no glory in robbing men of their livelihood. There’s no glory in being a good-for-nothing doer who is always looking out for himself. There’s no glory in division. There’s no glory in withholding forgiveness from each other.
Therefore, in the name of Jesus, repent every one of you. Turn away from self idolatry and recognize what your savior has done for you, restoring God’s fellowship with you through the cross and his means of grace that deliver the forgiveness of sins, and lead you into eternal life.
You can do this. So don’t hesitate.
In baptism Christ has fulfilled all righteousness for us, bringing himself into perfect fellowship with us in his waters of life. His baptism delivers to us saving faith that guarantees fellowship with God. His baptism cleanses us of broken fellowship. And it leads us into absolution, where he is faithful and just and he restores our fellowship with him declaring your sins forgiven, now and forever. He enables us, then, to forgive each other, strengthening our fellowship with each other as we come together to receive his true body and blood in the marriage feast of the lamb in his kingdom, a feast of forgiveness that has no end. Our Lord’s supper gives us not only fellowship with each other ... but most importantly, with him.
This is the source of our inner rejoicing. So rejoice always.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, there is little doubt that we are entering an age in which the option of whether we suffer as a Christian or not is rapidly closing out. The forces of indifference, changing morality, relativism, and downright hatred for the name of Christ are growing. But as Peter exhorts, let those suffering according to the will of God entrust our souls to a faithful creator (v 19). By placing ourselves in God’s hands, we have nothing to fear. He has called each of you. He has chosen each of you. He is enlightening each of you. And he has promised each of you that he will continue to keep you in fellowship with him. Our heavenly Father has poured into our hearts the true Light of his incarnate Word (Collect).
So ... Let us ever walk with Jesus, suffer here with Jesus, and gladly die with Jesus.