“In God We
Trust”
1 Peter
1:13-25
“In God we trust.”
Have you ever really thought about those words before? Have you ever really thought about what you
are declaring and confessing when you say these words? Sometimes I wonder if we fully grasp the
significance in these four words.
Sometimes I wonder if we really believe it when we say “in God we
trust.” After all, trust is such a
precious commodity. It takes years to
earn it, and seconds to lose it. We have
a tendency to hold on to our trust with clinched fists, only giving it out when
we are fully comfortable and secure with the person we are giving it to. Even then to trust someone requires us to
risk, to risk our way of doing things, to risk our control, to risk our own
comfort and security.
Maybe
our problem with trust is that we have too often seen the negative side effects
of when trust is broken. People not
living up to the standards we expect of them.
People not following through in the time frame we think they
should. People not doing things in the way we wanted them to do it. We are willing to trust some people without a
question, but for others we want background checks, three references, a resume,
and a “what have you done for me lately” list.
We do not just give out our trust on a whim. We measure the costs and count the
risks. We decide whether or not the
person deserves it, if they are trustworthy enough for us. To say, “In God we trust” is one thing, to really believe
it and live our lives of faith by it is quite another.
Our scripture reading today comes from a letter
written by Peter to Christians who he calls in the beginning of his letter,
“God’s elect, strangers in the world.”
In our text, Peter calls them exiles, and that is what they were. They were exiles in a foreign land, alien
residents whose citizenship is in heaven and not of this world. These Christians were part of the dispersion
of Jewish-Christians throughout Asia Minor, who had to live their lives of faith
in the social and politial fringes of the society in which they lived. They were routinely hounded for their
beliefs, criticised for their rituals, and in the end would be persecuted for
their faith. For them, “In God we trust”
was more than just an motto, it was their confession of faith, their confession
of faith that put them in direct confrontation with the world. This confrontation with the world in which
they lived, made some of these Christians of the first century wonder about the
trustworthiness of God, whether God was for them or against them, whether or
not God was truly the promise-keeper, whether or not God’s word could be
trusted.
Like them, we too live at odds in the world in
which we live, a world that is becoming more cynical, a post-modern world that
says there can be no universal truth, a world where every day we are confronted
with the dogma of secular humanism, which says humanity is the measure of all
things and human beings are supreme.
Living in this world today, we Christians find ourselves in a difficult
situation. On the one hand, we
desperately want to trust in God completely, but on the other hand, sometimes
we are not so sure God can be trusted.
How do we really know God is trustworthy? How do we really know God’s promises are true
when truth is thought of more and more as a subjective reality?
Here is a question for you. Can you say definitely that you are
saved? Would you be willing to raise
your hands as an affirmation of the fact that you are saved? Would you be willing to stand up as an
affirmation of that fact? Or are you not
quite sure? Are you able to trust God
that much for your very salvation? To
say, “in God we trust” is one thing, but to believe it is something else. To really believe it and live our lives of
faith by it, means that we will find ourselves at odds with the world and
culture in which we live. To really
believe it and live our lives of faith by it, means that we truly are exiles in
a foreign land, alien residents with a citizenship not of this world. To really believe it and live our lives of
faith by it, means that everyday we must continually strive to keep ourselves
mentally prepared and disciplined on the divine truth of God’s word in Jesus
Christ, it means that everyday we must find and hear those words of encouragement
that keep us rooted and grounded in the good news that has been announced to
us.
What we find in our text for this monring is just
that: words of encouragment to a people of God’s one chosing, a grand
proclamation of God’s saving act toward God’s elect, a great reminder of just
what God has done for us, a statement of faith that is proof positive assurance
of God’s intention and purpose in Jesus Christ on our behalf. Listen to some of the things Peter writes. He says the Father is one who judges all people
with equity. What a great proclamation
about God’s loving justice and just love.
The God who we call upon, the one in whom we live in revereance and awe
of is one who can be trusted to do justice to every human being, a justice that
is always tempered with love and grace and mercy. To live in reverance and awe of God is to
place our lives under the One who sits upon the throne of grace, who judges
with a justice that is for people and not against them. But how do we know God is for us and not
against us? How can we truly trust God’s
justice? Peter continues.
Peter says that we were ransomed by the precious
blood of Jesus Christ. God has already
acted to free people from their own futile lives of sin and death through the
cross of Jesus Christ. What we discover
is a remarkable truth about God’s plan of redemption, a plan that started not
when people turned away from God, but a plan that was before the beginning of
time itself. Jesus Christ did not become
the Redeemer and Savior, he has always been the Redeemer and Savior. Jesus Christ is the eternal purpose of God,
who was destined before the foundations of the world to reveal the mystery of
God’s saving plan of redemption for our sake.
William Barclay writes, “Here is a great thought. Sometimes we tend to think of God as first
Creator and then Redeemer, as having created the world and then, when things
went wrong, finding a way to rescue it through Jesus Christ. But here we have the vision of a God who was
Redeemer before he was Creator. His redeeming
purose was not an emergency measure to which he was compelled when things went
wrong. It goes back before
creation.”
If that is not enough, Peter reminds us that it is
through the same God who sent the Son to ranson us from sin and death on the
cross is the same God who raised Jesus from the dead and gave him glory. The cross and resurrection stand as the two
testaments of God’s redemptive and saving plan from the beginning of time. The cross and resurrection go hand in
hand. Without the resurrection, the
cross is the sad end to a great life.
Without the cross, the resurrection has no power and Jesus is still in
his grave. Through God’s great acts of
salvation, God has given human beings every reason to trust him for our very
lives, for the one who died is the one who is the living Lord of life. How can we not live in awe and reverance and
obedience as a doxology to God’s saving grace?
And yet there is
more. Peter says, “you have been born
anew not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed, through the living and
enduring word of God.” So many people
consider being born again as something we do ourselves, something we have a
part in and chose to do. But here we
find one of many biblical texts that says new birth is done by God. God alone is he creator of new life. This new life, this new birth, is a gift of
God’s living and enduring word, a living and enduring word not founded on those
things that are perishing, but on that which is imperishable and eternal. God’s word can be trusted because God is God
and God’s word endures forever.
To be born anew is to live in a radical new way of
being and doing, a radical new way of being and doing that unites all of us who
confess Jesus is Lord in a profound and unrelenting way. We are no longer separate people, who can
consider ourselves on the periphery, we belong to one another, just as surely
as we belong to the God who calls us his own.
In a world that is so disjointed and fractured. In a world that competes for our time and
loyalty. In a world where injustice and
hate and warfare and greed are the headlines of the day. In a world where trust is too dangerous and
truth is suspect. In a world where
relationships are broken and hope is fleeting and the dead stay dead. Thanks be to God that God has given us the
assurance of his enduring word of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ
as the proof that God alone can be trusted above all things, that God alone is
supreme, and the measure of all things, and the source of new life, and is
worthy of our trust and our devotion and our praise.
Let us trust in God because God is the one who can
be trusted, and let us be holy because God is holy, let us love one another
with a genuine mutual love deeply from our hearts, because God first loved us,
let us set our faith and hope in God because God has revealed the mystery of
his purpose and will through Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord, the Redeemer and
Savior of the world, through whom we have the assurance of our salvation and
the boldness to confess, “in God we trust.”
Amen.