As a church we’ve just finished journeying through the New Testament book of 1 Peter in our Sunday sermons. And one of the things you can’t really miss in the book is how much Peter expects the Christian hope to transform our outlook in the present. Here’s how he kicks things off:

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. 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 1:3-5)

For Peter it’s evident that the matter of what happens when we die (or when Jesus’ returns, if that happens first) is not an abstract or periphery part of Christianity. As Peter writes to Christians who are facing the drip-drip reality of social alienation for their faith, he presents the Christian hope as front and centre in his pastoral encouragement to them.

And it’s got me wondering as to whether actually much of our Western Christianity today misses the mark in this regard.
It’s as if the Christian hope is something we occasionally look at in the rear-view mirror, but it’s not necessarily what we’re consciously seeking to head towards.

I’m aware of it, and I occasionally acknowledge it. Sure, it’s a ‘belief’ I tick off that I affirm:

“…I believe he will come to judge the living and the dead…

I believe in the resurrection of the body…”

And yet it’s often not what shapes me or gives me direction in the here and now.

So I’ve been trying to chew over why that’s the case. Of course, there’s a bunch of possible answers, and I’ll try and explore some of these in a few posts.

But for starters, I wonder if one reason is because we wonder if such a future-focused outlook is actually realistic for 24-7 discipleship in the twenty-first century. There’s that well-worn phrase, often wielded to cut down to size anyone who talks about eternity too much: “ah, yes, they’re too heavenly-minded to be any earthly use”. Ouch.

And so we might think that if someone begins a letter by praising God for the hope that awaits Christians beyond death, then the rest of the letter is hardly going to be practical or ‘earthed’. Isn’t it just gonna produce Christians who wander round with their head in the clouds?

And yet one of the surprises of the letter is that Peter goes on to urge Christians to be more committed citizens, more sacrificial spouses, more loyal workers – all because of the hope that awaits them.

It seems that when you don’t let the Christian hope out of your sight, then it changes your present. In fact, not only your present, but the present of those around you too. It changes families, offices, societies.

Everyone knows that life is hard – unless you’re the one person who’s managing to roll sixes every time.

And yet Peter expects the Christian’s life to bring with its own particular trials, on top of everything else. That’s because following Jesus brings with it new priorities, Jesus’ priorities, and these can be in stark contrast with our culture’s. And so swimming against the tide will naturally bring friction. It’s tiring. As the cliche goes, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

But here’s the thing: If I’m honest, I think it’s when I lose sight of the future inheritance that I’m much more likely to want to duck out of this race, to stop swimming against the flow. When there’s no finish line in sight, then I may as well just stop running now.

But when we hold onto the future reality of the inheritance that awaits Christians, it actually gives us strength to endure. We wait with a gritty patience. We groan but with hope. Swimming against the tide is no longer an endless task.

So rather than a future-focused outlook being too extreme for twenty-first century discipleship, surely the reality is that looking ahead to what awaits us is the only thing that will actually sustain true discipleship.

What do you think? Do you think we’ve relegated the Christian hope of life beyond death to the rear-view mirror? If so, why do you think that’s happened?

I’ll come back to this topic in future posts. So, if you want to join the conversation, why not stick your email address in the box to the right and you’ll get the next post delivered to your inbox on a silver platter, hopefully accompanied by a lovely salad garnish.

The evenings are drawing in, X-Factor’s on the telly, and you already feel ready for a holiday. Yup, September is well and truly here.

Of course with a new term comes new opportunities, but there’s also all the life-admin, calendar-coordinating, and general sense of busyness that comes with these. New rotas, new to-do lists, new courses.

And so as Christians called to be part of local churches, whether we’re in a ‘formal’ position of responsibility or not, we can soon start to feel the ‘burden’ of service:

“Man, why do I put myself through this…?”

“Ok, here we go again then…”

“You know, I really think it’s time I took a step back from all this…”

Just over a year ago I was feeling something of the ‘burden’ of all this when someone put into my hands a book that made me do a 180. In essence, it asked me a question that I was not expecting. Rather than asking me, ‘what are you doing to serve?, instead it wanted to know, ‘are you being served?’.

The book was John Hindley’s brilliant Serving without sinking: How to serve Christ and keep your joy, and it’s essentially a reflection on the stunning truth encapsulated in Jesus’ mission statement in Mark 10:45: [Jesus] “came not to be served, but to serve.” It is essential for our spiritual health that we are resting in the reality that we are served by Jesus. As Hindley puts it:

Jesus doesn’t call you to come and serve Him. He calls you to see that He came to serve you. It’s only if we see that, first and foremost, we are not servants, we are served, that we can know the joyful freedom of the Christian life. And as we do that, we’ll find that we serve like we never served before.

As such Serving without sinking is a brilliant book to get your hands on this September. Hindley understands the everyday tensions and struggles of the Christian life, particularly concerning the different motivations we have for serving others, and he pastorally applies truths about Jesus into them. Each chapter is also fairly brief, and you’ll be able to devour two or three in a short sitting, whether that be on a wet Thursday evening or whilst the kids are napping after lunch.

Here’s the icing on the cake. Not only is it a great book, but its publisher, The Good Book Company, are currently giving the eBook version away for free throughout this month. Just ‘like‘ their Facebook page here and you’ll see a discount code to enter at their online store. There’s no sane reason not to try it.

To whet your appetite, here’s another snippet:

Jesus is saying: “Follow me and I will serve you.”

Or, in His actual words:

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.”

He did not come so that you would serve Him. He came to serve you. Christianity is about Jesus, the God who serves His people.

Jesus comes into our lives to serve us. There is no catch, no small-print, no strings attached—there is just loving, humble, kind service by the Creator of the cosmos for His creatures, for us. Jesus’ greatness is not that He can command the service of millions; it is that He serves millions.

If you follow Jesus, then your relationship with Him, your status before God the Father, and your having His Spirit with you, will never depend on how you serve Him. It is all about His service of you.”

Go and download it for free while you can!

Over at The 127 Project I’ve shared some thoughts reflecting on the importance of a daily dependence upon God to change us and speak to us.

I’d love your input on how you find this battle…