Sermon Tone Analysis

Laser focus

Back in 1985, I travelled with a basketball team to the Philippines.

We played basketball all over the country, telling the story about Jesus at halftimes and encouraging churches along the way.

Much of our travel throughout the islands was by boat.

Those boats were mostly seaworthy.

During my two summers there, we never had an issue with a boat.

But one of our team members, Roy, told us the story of one boat he was on during a previous trip.

The boat was nearing the island where they had a game scheduled the next day.

It was night.

And a few hundred yards from shore, the engine on the boat gave out.

The sandbar was shallow, so the team was told they could walk to shore.

The guide pointed to a light off in the distance on the beach where they were told friends would be waiting.

They begin to make their way toward shore, and that sandbar becomes a little less shallow.

A couple of team members becomes concerned as the water begins to creep up toward their necks.

This goes on for a few minutes… much of the team is now chatting about the depth of the water.

Finally, the sandbar is shallower again.

But as they get closer to shore, the team is concerned.

Hundreds of lights dot the shoreline.

The new fear is not the water.

The new fear is being lost in a city they do not know.

But one team member, in the confusion shouts, “I know which light is ours.

I’ve never taken my eyes off of that one...”, and he’s pointing to the light that leads them to their friends.

Later he told the team, “I never took my eyes off of that light.

Because I can’t swim.”

Roy was laser-focused on the light that would keep him safe.

A world of distractions

We live in a world of distractions.

Media and phones constantly demanding our attention.

Crises in our lives that seemingly crop up out of nowhere and threaten to swallow us.

We are overwhelmed with shrinking bank accounts and broken relationships that have spun out of control.

We fight all day to maintain focus on whatever we are supposed to be doing.

It feels as if the entire world is adhd.

So much noise, so much distraction.

How many times do we find ourselves wondering how we started off so well, and ended so poorly?

If you’re like me, you ask yourself, “How did I end up here?”

Lack of focus.

Distraction.

One pop culture philosopher in the 1980’s famously quipped: “Life moves pretty fast.”

Life moves fast and we’re constantly trying to focus.

And when we are focused, we’re focused on things that don’t help.

I missed a flight once because I was totally immersed in a book, and not paying attention to the line boarding the plane.

That almost happened to me again last week… immersed in a great book, only to notice things were a little too quiet and the sign said “Corpus Christi” instead of “Harlingen”.

My plan had changed gates while I was reading.

I was focused.

But I was focused on the wrong thing.

Christians in exile

The passage we read this morning is all about focus.

These verses from 1 Peter were written by one of Jesus’ best friends.

Peter.

You talk about someone who had a hard time staying focused, and when he was focused, he missed the point.

Peter is Mr. Impulsive.

Saying whatever comes to mind.

Easily distracted.

In fact, on the day that Jesus goes up a mountain and talks to Moses and Elijah, two great Old Testament prophets, Peter’s blurts out, let’s build tents up here and stay awhile.

He was focused… but he was focused on the wrong thing.

But this is years later and Peter is writing to Christians who are scattered throughout the Roman Empire, especially in what we now know as modern Turkey.

And because they are Christians, life has become chaos.

Focus is hard to come by.

Many of them are suffering unjustly, through no fault of their own, other than they belong to Jesus.

When everything is being thrown at you, when life is not only throwing you curveballs, but the curveballs hurt and cause a lot of pain and brokenness, what’s your focal point?

How do you stay focused when life gets crazy?

How do you stayed focused on the right thing and not miss the plane flight?

Drawing grace from Christ’s future

That answer is found in 1 Peter 1. Peter begins his letter reminding Christians who are gathered just like we are this morning that their identity isn’t in what they do, it isn’t in their ethnic heritage, it isn’t in their economic position in life.

Their identity has been given to them in Christ’s resurrection.

Through our new birth… in baptism no less.

1 Peter 1:3 “Because of God’s great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

God gives you a new birth.

It’s not anything you’ve done.

That resurrection life of Jesus has been given to you in the new birth.

That’s your identity.

After reminding them of whose they are and the hope that they have been given, Peter says this:

1 Peter 1:13 “Set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Peter brings up hope again.

And he says “set” or “fix” your hope completely.

Be laser-focused in your hope.

A laser is a light that has a single beam or single color.

To be laser-focused is to be focused on just one thing, to not be distracted by anything.

When Peter says “fix your hope”, he is saying your hope should be laser-focused, and that hope is laser-focused on grace, grace that will be ours completely when Jesus appears at the final resurrection.

Grace.

We talk a lot about grace here at The Table, but just what is grace?

Grace is getting something you don’t deserve AND don’t work for.

If it has strings, it’s not grace.

We have been given grace now in our new birth.

We continue to get grace through the means of grace, those places where Jesus meets us to give us more grace, such as the preaching of this Word and our feasting at this Table.

But if that’s all the grace we get, we don’t really have the grace we need for all of life.

There’s more grace coming, a grace that is something beyond anything we’ve ever known.

We will be given grace at Jesus’ final appearing.

In fact, we could read it this way… that appearing of Jesus that we long for and hope for is grace itself.

That will be our grace.

The unblemished lamb

And this grace is guaranteed.

It has been guaranteed by the death of a spotless lamb.

The wording here calls to mind that great night in Israel’s history when God rescued Israel from Egypt in the dead of night.

We also read this a few minutes ago.

God was going to pay a visit to Egypt where his people were being held in slavery.

And God would visit as a death angel.

A lamb was to be killed and the blood sprinkled on the doorpost of the house.

Where the blood was on the doorpost, the firstborns in the home lived.

That’s exactly what happened.