Created to be Loved

There is a tension at the heart of the Christian life that most of us feel but rarely name out loud. We want to grow. We want to thrive. We want to experience the fullness of what it means to follow God. And yet, almost every time we pursue those things, we find ourselves circling back to the same obstacle: ourselves.

It is not a comfortable admission. But it is an honest one.

The first chapter of 1 Peter is one of the most foundational passages in all of Scripture for understanding who we are as believers and how we are meant to live. Peter does not waste time with pleasantries. He moves with purpose, and the direction he points us is unmistakable. If we want to thrive, we must stop being the center of our own story.

In 1 Peter 1:20, Peter makes a statement that is easy to read past but impossible to fully absorb. He tells us that Jesus was foreknown before the foundation of the world. On the surface, that sounds like a theological fact about God's omniscience, and it is. But there is something far deeper here than an intellectual exercise.

Think about what it actually means. Before God spoke the world into existence, before he formed man from the dust and breathed life into him, he already knew. He knew we would fall. He knew we would sin. He knew the pain and betrayal that creation would bring. He knew that the Son would have to suffer and die.

And he created the world anyway.

That is not a small thing. That is the most staggering act of love in the history of existence. God did not create us in ignorance of what it would cost him. He created us with full knowledge of the cross, and he chose us anyway.

Paul echoes this in 1 Corinthians 2:7, describing a secret and hidden wisdom of God that was decreed before the ages for our glory. The mystery he is pointing to is this: that God would choose to love us, knowing us fully. No other belief system in the world even attempts to make that claim. This is the God of the Bible, and this love is the foundation upon which everything else is built.

Because of what Christ accomplished, Galatians 4:4-5 tells us that we have been redeemed and received as adopted children of God. Adoption is a powerful picture. An adopted child enters a family they were not born into and begins learning how that family lives, how they grieve, how they celebrate, how they respond when things go wrong. Everything about their identity is reshaped by belonging to something new.

That is exactly what has happened to us. We have been brought into the family of God, not because of anything we earned, but because of what Christ did. And that adoption is meant to change how we live, how we love, and how we see the people around us.

Here is where things get uncomfortable. Peter, in verse 22, calls us to love one another earnestly from a pure heart. And most of us, if we are honest, would rather skip that part.
We tell ourselves we are loving people. And then someone cuts us off in traffic, or a friend says something that stings, or a fellow believer disappoints us, and suddenly we discover what is actually living inside us. John makes the stakes of this even clearer in 1 John 4:20, where he states plainly that anyone who claims to love God while hating their brother is a liar. That is not a gentle nudge. That is a direct confrontation.

The reason this matters so much is that our willingness to love others is directly connected to whether we actually believe what we say we believe about God. If God loved us knowing the full cost, and we refuse to extend even a fraction of that grace to someone who has hurt us, we are functionally placing ourselves above God. We are deciding that our judgment of what that person deserves outweighs his.

Unforgiveness is one of the clearest signs that we have made ourselves the main character again. And it never leads to thriving. It leads to the same wound being reopened, the same bitterness being rehearsed, the same person living rent free in our minds while we suffer the consequences of their presence there.

So how do we actually get there? How do we love people who have hurt us, forgive wrongs that feel unforgivable, and stop circling the drain of our own pain?

Peter gives us the answer in verse 23. We have been born again through the living and abiding word of God. And then he quotes Isaiah, reminding us that all flesh is like grass. It blooms, it has its moment of glory, and then it withers. Everything we place our hope in that is not God will eventually fade.

But the word of the Lord remains forever.

Hebrews 4:12 describes that word as living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, able to pierce to the very division of soul and spirit and discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart. We often want to use Scripture as a weapon pointed outward, a tool for correcting others. But this passage makes clear that the sword is meant to work on us first. It reveals our own hearts. It exposes what is actually driving us.

And Proverbs 30:5 reminds us that every word of God proves true, that he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

When the world feels unstable, when relationships fracture, when pain arrives uninvited, the word of God does not change. The love that chose us before the foundation of the world does not waver. The adoption that brought us into God's family is not revoked when we struggle.

This is the good news. Not that life will be easy, but that we are held by something that does not wither, loved by someone who knew the cost and paid it anyway, and transformed by a word that is still alive and still working in us.

That is where thriving begins.

This week, choose one or more of the following to put into practice:

• Spend time in the Word daily, even briefly. The sermon reminded us that the Word of God is living and abiding. Commit to reading a passage from 1 Peter each day this week and ask God to use it to reveal your own heart, not someone else's.
• Identify one relationship where love has grown cold. This does not have to be a dramatic falling out. It could be a family member you have grown distant from, a fellow church member you have been avoiding, or someone you have quietly written off. Pray for them by name each day this week.
• Take one step toward forgiveness. Forgiveness is a process, but it begins with a decision. If there is someone you have not forgiven, bring that person and that hurt before God in prayer. Ask him to do in you what you cannot do on your own.
• Share the good news with someone. The sermon closed with Peter's reminder that the Word is the good news that is preached. Consider who in your life needs to hear that God loves them, chose them, and is for them -- and find a natural moment to share that this week.