What Faith Really Looks Like in the Real World

One of the challenges we have is that we assume this world is real.

It’s a bit like two young fish swimming along. They pass an older fish who says, “Morning boys, how’s the water?” They keep swimming, and a little while later one turns to the other and says, “What’s water?”

We are so shaped by the world around us that we don’t even realise it’s shaping us. We don’t know where the world starts and we finish. We just absorb its assumptions, its values, and its stories without even noticing.

That’s the challenge of living faith in the real world.  

Everyone Worships Something

There’s a line from David Foster Wallace that captures this perfectly. He wasn’t a Christian, but he saw something deeply true about how we live.

He said that “in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships.

The only choice we get is what to worship.

And the problem is, if you worship the wrong things, they will eat you alive.

If you worship money, you will never feel like you have enough. If you worship your body, you will always feel like you’re not enough. If you worship power, you will live in fear of losing it. If you worship your intellect, you will constantly feel like a fraud.

The most dangerous part is that this kind of worship is not obvious. It becomes your default setting. You slip into it gradually, without even realising it.”

And the world we live in will not interrupt that. It will reinforce it.

The World Is Shaping You

The so-called “real world” is not neutral.

It is constantly shaping what you value, what you notice, and what you believe is important. It quietly pushes you toward a life centred on yourself—your comfort, your success, your identity.

That is the water we are swimming in.

And if you don’t stop and examine it, it will set the direction of your life without you even realising.

You Are God’s Elect—and Exiles

This is why Peter begins where he does.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,

1 Peter 1:1

He writes to people he calls “God’s elect exiles.”

That tension explains everything.

You are God’s. You are loved. You are chosen. Your life is not random or accidental.

But at the same time, you are an exile.

This world is not your home.

That means if you feel completely comfortable here—if you fit seamlessly into the values and priorities of the world—something is off.

We are meant to feel that tension.

Start With Who You Are

Before Peter talks about how to live, he reminds them who they are.

who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood:
Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

1 Peter 1:2

You are known by God the Father.

You are being shaped by the Holy Spirit into who you were created to be.

You are saved through Jesus, not because of anything you’ve done, but because of what He has done.

This is where faith begins—not with what you do, but with what is true about you.

And if you don’t start here, everything else gets distorted.

A Living Hope

The world offers all kinds of places to put your hope.

Put your hope in success. Put your hope in relationships. Put your hope in status or security.

But those things cannot hold the weight of your life.

Peter says you have been given something different. You have been given a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus.

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,

1 Peter 1:3

This is not a fragile hope. It is not dependent on circumstances. It is grounded in something that has already happened.

You are part of a new family. You have new life. And you have a future that will not fade or disappear.

This World Is Not the End of the Story

One of the mistakes we often make is thinking the goal is simply to get to heaven when we die.

But the bigger picture is that God is bringing about a new creation—a new heaven and a new earth. A restored reality where everything broken is made whole.

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 1:4-5

What Peter is saying is that your future is secure. There is an inheritance waiting for you.

And that future shapes how you live now.

Faith in the Middle of Suffering

This is where it gets uncomfortable.

Peter says that, for a little while, you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

1 Peter 1:6

We don’t like that part.

Our culture tells us that suffering is something to avoid at all costs. If you are suffering, something must be wrong.

But Scripture tells a different story.

Suffering is not meaningless. It is not something to escape from at all costs. It is something that, when faced honestly, forms you.

There is a kind of suffering that comes from living in a broken world and choosing to love anyway.

There is a kind of suffering that comes from facing the truth about yourself instead of avoiding it.

And that kind of suffering produces something in you.

It produces depth. It produces character. It produces hope.

Don’t Avoid the Hard Things

We spend a lot of our lives trying to avoid discomfort.

We avoid difficult conversations. We avoid facing our own brokenness. We avoid situations that stretch us or expose us.

But Peter is clear—if you avoid the hard things, you don’t grow.

Faith is not about avoiding suffering. It is about facing it with the confidence that you are loved by God, held by Him, and moving toward something greater.

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed

1 Peter 1:7

The people who grow are not the people who avoid difficulty. They are the people who face it.

Faith Is Loving and Trusting Jesus

At the centre of all of this is one simple question.

Do you love Jesus?

Because whatever you love most is what you worship.

And whatever you worship will shape your life.

Peter says that even though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him.

Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

1 Peter 1:8

That is faith.

Not just believing ideas about Jesus, but actually trusting Him. Loving Him. Letting Him shape the direction of your life.

You Are Being Changed

Faith is not just about what happens when you die.

It is about what is happening in you right now.

for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

1 Peter 1:9

As you trust Jesus, as you live from that relationship, you are being changed. You are becoming more like the person you were created to be.

You are being healed. Restored. Made whole.

This is the salvation of your soul—not just a future reality, but a present one.

This Changes Everything

The world will keep telling you who you are.

It will define you by your success, your failure, your status, your identity, your past.

But Peter calls you back to something deeper.

You are a child of God.

You are loved.

You belong to Him.

And when that becomes the foundation of your life, everything changes.

Because faith is not about escaping the real world.

It is about learning to see what is actually real—and living from that.