None of us really like authorities over us all that much. Whether it’s our kindergarten teacher, a police officer, Congress, or God Himself, we have this delusion that we always know exactly what’s best for us paired with the reality that, other than God, the authorities over us are unjust sinners. This makes passages like these remarkable. Not only are we called to serve others, but to serve them when they treat us unjustly. Not only are we called to submit to authorities, but to submit to authorities as to God, who put them there. And not only do we suffer, but we suffer because we have been called to suffer, just like Christ.

Just like last week, 1 Peter is calling us to live holy lives. “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.” We’re given another long list of things to do/not do. And again we’re called to be holy because it is already our identity in Christ. But here we see that this identity isn’t personal. Our identity is as a body, the church. We are called to live as a community, as the one people of God, not the several persons of God. So why live in community? Because it’s who we are. We are not merely Christians, we are the church.

These two verses are two of the most dense verses that we have grappled with as a church . . . and they’re just the introduction to the letter. To a people suffering persecution and Dispersion, Peter comforts them with their identity in the Gospel and, similar to the Jews of the Babylonian exile (Jeremiah 29), the knowledge that God has called them to be there. We are also Elect Exiles, called by God to a new way of living in a world that is not our home. Our call to simply obey, is really a grand calling to participate in the greater work that God is doing for His Kingdom in our day.

Children are such a cramp on our lifestyles. They are so disobedient and inconsiderate and unappreciative of what has been done for them. Our kids are sinners in need of the Gospel. But does our parenting reflect it? Does our discipleship of the younger believers around us—our spiritual children—reflect it? Do we parent with a gospel of “do better so we’ll be nicer to you” or with a Gospel that says “you’re broken, just like me, and you need Jesus. . .here He is”?

As we celebrate the birth of Christ during Advent, we also celebrate the advent of the Kingdom of God on earth. With His Kingdom, Jesus ministry brings light to the darkness of our lives and the grace of repentance—the possibility of change—where once our lives were ruled by our corruption, depravity and death and the futility of our own efforts improve our lot.

Looking at the ends of chapters 15 and 16 we see Jesus both convict us and comfort us in that when our identity is in Him that we will be rejected, but it is Christ that they are rejecting first, as Israel had rejected God’s lordship throughout history. Further, while rejection and hatred hurt deeply, Jesus reassures us that we have the hope of a greater joy to come and to not be afraid because though the world hates us, He has overcome the world.

Through the death and resurrection of Lazarus, John 11 illustrates God’s agenda of His own glory and how that contrasts against our own agendas for our lives. Jesus then causes us to question which agenda we really find ourselves believing in in our daily lives.

John 10 shows us that through Jesus, the Good Shepherd, we can have relationship, fulfillment, security and life. To fully see how the Good Shepherd provides these things we must see him as our everything and allow his gospel to transform our entire lives.

The second chapter of John shows us that Jesus comes into our lives in two ways. He can come either to fill our tables or to flip them. When he chooses to flip our tables we are encouraged not to seek an explanation, but rather to be obedient and trust in Him.

We took a break from ASK to install Joel as a pastor and celebrate baptisms! Hear Joel’s story, as well as the call God has made for us to be folded into his story.