Category: Sermon

1 PETER #27: DEEP PASSIONS & DESIRES VS. SELF-CONTROL & LOVE

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Peter, Bible, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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It is easy to forget, but we Christians are really called to be strange compared to those who do not follow Jesus. We live with a completely different set of assumptions about life, a different way of looking at the world. Peter is calling us all to make a clean break with the ways of the world.

If God is in fact – well, God – then submitting to his will for us is the only path to true freedom. If we make life about our own deep passions and desires, it will wear us out, consume us, and leave us anxious and empty. In fact, today we have billions of people who feel exactly that way: weary, consumed, anxious and empty, always striving for something they can’t quite get ahold of.

Peter points us to a better way, a way based not upon feelings (no matter how deeply held), not based on the idea that we are free from all constraints, but on truth that exists outside of ourselves: instead of living for our passions, we live for God’s purposes. We let God set limits on us, because we trust that he is good, and has our best interests in his heart. We let God, who not only created us, but died to save us, define who we truly are.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button: For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Peter Part 27

1 PETER #27. 1 PETER 4:1-11

Last time we took a close look at what Peter says about suffering. As we look at the “big picture” of verses 1-11 today, we might summarize it like this: “Be done with the things of ungodly culture, with the values and passions of those who don’t know Jesus (verses 1-6). Instead, live in response to Jesus Christ, and according to the values that Jesus teaches us, and by which his Holy Spirit leads us (verses 7-11).”

Let’s start with the first part of that: We should be done with the values, passions and habits of people who don’t follow God. In verse 1, Peter says that we should equip ourselves with the mindset of Christ. In view of God’s promises to us, we should be willing to suffer temporary troubles. They are temporary even if they last for our whole life in the flesh. Our struggles and sufferings will end at the resurrection, but the goodness to come will never end. With this in mind, we should be done with the ungodly world, and ungodly ways of thinking. The New Living Translation does an excellent job capturing the meaning of the Greek in verses 2-3:

2 You won’t spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God. 3 You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy—their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols. (1 Peter 4:2-3, NLT)

Peter is drawing out a significant difference between human culture (without God) and those who follow Jesus. Human culture ends up following their own passions and desires. Followers of Jesus, on the other hand, look at the world in such a way that we live in self-control, and love.

People in ungodly culture, Peter says, live for human passions. The NLT puts it “chasing your desires,” above. Our movies, music, politics, and even education, are relentlessly selling the message that in fact, we should live for our desires, whatever those desires happen to be. If we desire it (so the message goes) it is automatically right. The message seems to be that if we feel deeply in any particular way, about anything, it must automatically be good and right.

Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine a forty year old single man named George who is deeply passionate about American Girl Dolls (this is a line of toy dolls intended generally for little girls, for anyone who doesn’t know). He collects them. He has all the books of stories about the dolls. He spends countless hours on the internet researching the dolls, the company, the stories, and finding and buying dolls. He even plays with the dolls. He frequently dresses up as one or another of the doll-characters. This passion consumes him. Most of his money ends up being used for this passion, one way or another. For George, life is about American girl dolls.

I think most of us would be tempted to say something like this: “Hey, it’s not for me, but, I’m not gonna judge. Everyone dances to a different beat, and if it makes him happy, and he’s not hurting anyone, good for him for not letting anyone talk him out of it.” I think we respond that way because we have been trained to believe that any deeply held passion must be automatically good. Certainly, we have been trained to believe that it is utterly wrong to criticize the passion of someone else. Even so, some of us might privately think that there is something that feels “unhealthy” about George’s passion.

Now, change the object of his passion. Instead of American girl dolls, suppose his passion is Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In that scenario, I believe we would be even less inclined to criticize. If some dude wants to give his life to motorcycles, and a particular motorcycle company, who are we to judge? Shift the passion to something in art, or music, or politics, and we don’t even notice that there is anything unusual.

But this is exactly what the Bible means by idolatry. Peter actually mentions the worship of idols in connection with ungodly passions. When we are so passionate about something that we live for those moments when we can indulge our passion, that thing, if it is not Jesus, is an idol.

I’ve spent some time with songwriters and musicians in Nashville. It is quite clear to me that for many people in Nashville, music is an idol. When we gather to sing, and listen, and share songs, that is their worship service. They live for music. This is hard. I think music can be an incredibly powerful force for good. I myself am passionate about music. But when we let any passion, even the passion for something good, like music, become the driving force in our lives, it can become an idol. When we live for it, it is an ungodly passion.

By the way, folks in our church here near Nashville sometimes hang out and sing and play, for the sheer joy of music. I’m not talking about that. We are doing so with a continuing recognition that music is so wonderful because it reflects the Spirit of God. We don’t worship music, but the God who made it, and we enjoy music as one of his gifts. Any gift of God might be properly enjoyed this way.

In contrast, what I’m talking about is letting your passions rule you. When your passion for something becomes more important than God, that’s when the problem begins. In fact, I would say the problem begins when any passion interferes with God’s design for your life. So, if George’s passion for American Girl Dolls takes so much time and energy that it keeps him from engaging in a community of Christians, if it interferes in his relationships with family, if it prevents him from holding a full time job, there is a problem. The same would be true if he had a similarly consuming passion for motorcycles, or a sports team.

Peter also specifically names sexual passions as problematic. Again, this strikes at the heart of our current culture. It is especially about sexuality that our culture says: “If you genuinely feel it, it must be good and right.” Our culture has come to believe that there is almost no such thing as an unhealthy sexual desire. If your desire is for someone other than your spouse, our culture says that it is the marriage that is the problem, not the desire. If your desire is for something that the Bible says is sinful, the culture tells us to get rid of the Bible, or to find a way to make it irrelevant to your desire.

Now, everyone does eventually draw the line somewhere. Almost no one agrees that it’s a good thing if adults feel deep sexual passion for children. Just about everyone draws the line there. But, without God, that line is arbitrary. Today, that particular moral line seems obvious to us. However, in the past, there were many, many other moral lines that seemed obvious to everyone, and those have now been erased in order to serve human desires. Unless we allow something or someone outside of ourselves to set the moral lines, those lines are always shifting. Unless we learn to stop living for human passions, eventually absolutely everything will be acceptable, as long as it proceeds from deep passion.

The problem with following human passion is that it is all about me. I become the final arbiter of what is good, and right and acceptable. I accept no authority over me, and it becomes my responsibility to discover my desires and their meanings. This is true of every individual in our modern society. The path of following my desires makes me into the god of my own life. Talk about lawless idolatry!

I want to emphasize that this is the real issue in our current culture. We follow our passions, and refuse to call any of them wrong, because we believe that each individual should be free to determine for themselves what is right, what is wrong, who they are, and what they want to do. God might be welcome as an advisor and assistant, someone to help people “become the people they want to be.” But people in our culture are not interested in a God who actually has the authority to say: “You must not do this,” or “You must do this.” We certainly don’t want God to impose any parameters on us about who we are supposed to be.

But if God is in fact – well, God – then submitting to his will for us is the only path to true freedom. If we make life about our own deep passions and desires, it will wear us out, consume us, and leave us anxious and empty. In fact, today we have billions of people who feel exactly that way: weary, consumed, anxious and empty, always striving for something they can’t quite get ahold of.

Peter points us to a better way, a way based not upon feelings (no matter how deeply held), not based on the idea that we are free from all constraints, but on truth that exists outside of ourselves: instead of living for our passions, we live for God’s purposes. We let God set limits on us, because we trust that he is good, and has our best interests in his heart. We let God, who not only created us, but died to save us, define who we truly are.

This begins, as Peter points out, with self-control: in other words, the opposite of simply following your passions and desires. Instead of letting them lead us, we – by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us – control our desires and passions. We are not our own gods. Instead, through Jesus Christ, we have been adopted into the family of God, and God (not our desires) is the one who directs and leads us.

This is completely against the culture of our times, just as it was in the days of Peter. Peter points out that when we control ourselves, ungodly people are surprised, and they malign us. The Greek word for “malign” is actually the root of our English: “blaspheme.” In other words, Peter is saying that people speak against us in ways that are filled with malice, with a desire to hurt us and tear us down; their verbal attack on us is wicked, wrong and unholy. But, says Peter, they will have to stand before God almighty and explain themselves. Even before then, by God’s mercy, it seems that God will give them one last chance to repent (verse 6).

Getting back to self-control, it is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The more we allow the Spirit of God into our lives, the easier it is for us to say “no” to passions and desires. No one controls their passions perfectly – certainly not me! But as we follow Jesus, and we let him, our passions have less and less control, and God has more.

Self control is not just a technique to stop eating too much, or start exercising, or stop sinning. Self-control represents a new paradigm, a whole different way of thinking, of looking at the world. Self control only makes sense if God exists, and sets limits on us for our own good. When we engage in self control, it is an act of faith. We are saying, “I would prefer to do one thing, but I believe God when he says (through the Bible) that it is not good for me to do it. I trust that God’s limits are good, in fact, I trust that they are best for me.” Therefore, by controlling myself, I put my trust in God into action, and I accept the limits he asks me to accept. We all fail to control ourselves at specific times and points, but the point is to accept that God does indeed have the right to ask us to limit ourselves, that he knows far better than we do what is best for us.

Next, Peter urges us to love one another. Love is the second piece of the new paradigm, the new way of looking at the world, one that sets us apart from the culture around us. The word used for “love” here is agape. Agape is a choice; a commitment to treat someone as valuable, to be committed to what is best for the person you agape. So if we are living in love, we are acting in the best interests of others. We are committed to valuing others. This is entirely different from following our own passions and desires.

If we live for our own passions, we will make choices in favor of those passions, even if those choices hurt our family and our community. The highest good that we live for is to satisfy our own deeply held feelings. We are trying to fulfill ourselves. When I was at university, the term they used was “self-actualization” – I live to become the best “Tom” that I can be. That would mean that if necessary, I would leave my marriage to pursue “my best self.” If necessary, I would abandon my friends and family and community in order to have the kind of career, relationship and life that fulfills me.

But love, like self-control, is the opposite of pursuing self-fulfillment. Love pursues the best good  of others. Love is not focused on me. If our paradigm (the way we look at the world) is love, even though we fail to love perfectly, we are not primarily pursuing our own desires and self-fulfillment. Again, like with self-control, love requires that we trust. In order to pursue the best good of others, we have to trust that God will take care of our own needs. We have to trust, in fact, that God loves us, and so we can relax about getting our own needs met in our terms and in our ways.

Peter mentions that love “covers a multitude of sins.” Let’s not misunderstand this. I do not believe that Peter means if we love others, we will cover up their sins. Instead, what he is saying is that love counteracts some sins in specific ways.

First, as with self-control, if we live in love (the way the bible defines love), we will not be living for our passions and desires. This reduces sinning.

Next, if you live in love, you will, as a consequence, avoid many different types of sin. For instance, if you love the community of believers, both as a whole, and also the individuals in it, you won’t engage in gossip, or slander. Jesus said that if we truly love God, and truly love our neighbors, we will fulfill the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:34-40). If we love God, we will have no other gods before him, and make no idols, and we won’t take his name in vain. If we love our neighbors, we don’t steal from them, or want what they have for our own, or sleep with their spouses, or lie to them, or hate them.

Finally, I think Peter also means this: love bears with the faults and failings of others, offering grace and forgiveness. If I don’t love, I will very quickly become impatient and angry when someone fails or sins in a way that impacts me personally. But if I love the person who sinned, I will have compassion. I will bear with their issues patiently, and offer them forgiveness. This takes away a lot of the power of sin to divide and destroy the community of faith.

We will discuss verses 9-11 next time, but I think we have enough to begin application for now. It is easy to forget, but we Christians are really called to be strange compared to those who do not follow Jesus. We live with a completely different set of assumptions about life, a different way of looking at the world. Peter is calling us all to make a clean break with the ways of the world.

I have to admit, I personally get tempted to see the world the way ungodly culture does. Sometimes it seems so attractive to live for my deep passions and desires. I mean, I do feel things deeply, and want certain things with a great longing. Even when I know it’s all based on a false way of looking at the world, I still sometimes “flirt” with the culture, and with the ungodly way of living for deep passions and desires. This text is telling me it’s time to make a clean break, to accept God’s paradigm for my life. It’s time to give up the way of the world and be all in with Jesus.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, at times we might be tempted to use God as the means to fulfill our passions and desires. It’s sort of a religiously acceptable way of still remaining focused on our deep desires. So, we need to make sure we aren’t just using God to try to accomplish the purposes of self-fulfillment. But the thing is, when we do accept God’s way, it is ultimately the best thing for us. It is, in fact the ultimate path to becoming who we were made to be. But we need to be careful not to follow God for mainly that reason. Instead, we trust God because we believe he really is God, and we accept his way (as revealed through the Bible) because we believe it is the truth. If we pursue it in order to fulfill ourselves, we’ll get off track. But we trust that he will, in his own time and way, bring us to contentment and fulfillment. And we also recognize that such a thing cannot truly happen until these bodies of flesh die, and are resurrected in immortality.

Some thoughts for application: In what way does this text challenge you to separate yourself from the passions and desires and paradigms of the world? What are specific things that you need to keep in mind when turning away from the way our culture views life?

What is your biggest challenge in accepting the paradigm of self-control? Why is it so hard to accept God’s limits on us? What can we do to encourage one another in self-control?

What is most important to you about living in love? How can we as believers better love one another? How does living in love help you (personally) to live differently from people who don’t follow Jesus?

1 PETER #26: SIN, SUFFERING & GLORY

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Peter, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Suffering loosens our focus on getting what we want in this present life, and instead, helps us to focus on our amazing eternal future in the New Creation with the unlimited joy of God filling us entirely. It also has a way of carrying us further down the road of discipleship, which means further from an interest in sin, more towards an interest in God, and his kingdom. Therefore, Peter tells us to equip ourselves with the mindset of suffering that Jesus shows us.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button: For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Peter Part 26

1 PETER #26. 1 PETER 4:1-2.

1 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.

(1 Peter 4:1-2, ESV)

Though we paused to look deeply at baptism, the main point Peter has been making in this section is that we should be inspired, and empowered, by the example of Jesus to follow in his footsteps – particularly with regard to suffering. He began this section in 3:13, saying we should not fear to suffer, and that it is a wonderful thing in God’s sight to endure suffering even when we have done no wrong. We can live this way (says Peter) because Christ has suffered for us, once for all, and saved us through his grace (using baptism along the way). Chapter 4:1, our first verse for today, is basically a summary of all that: since Christ suffered, we should equip ourselves with the same way of thinking.

The first puzzler comes in the next phrase: “for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.”

First, we need to take into account the teaching of the whole Bible, so there is at least one thing that this cannot mean: It cannot mean that by suffering, we somehow atone for our own sin. Only through Jesus are our sins forgiven. Only Jesus, and his work can address the inner problem of the Sin that lives in our hearts.

But within a Biblical framework, there are a few things it might mean. Most of the possibilities have various problems. I feel badly that I got so deeply into baptism, so I won’t bore you with all the ins and outs of this phrase. Many different Bible scholars have different views about it, but rather than get too detailed about those views, I’ll give you my own best guess.

I think there are actually a few different levels of meaning here. First, I think it means that we Christians, (through baptism, as Peter mentions above) have been identified with the sufferings of Christ. We have been brought into union with his suffering, death, resurrection, and new life. Because we are identified with the suffering of Christ, sin no longer has any claim on us. We’re done with it as a factor in our relationship with God. Our sin has been atoned for. There was suffering for our sin, and so now that sin has no more connection to us, in the eyes of God.

There’s a second aspect to this, which Peter mentions in verses 2-4. Because we have been brought into union with the suffering of Christ, sin is no longer our typical lifestyle. We certainly don’t live perfect, sinless lives. Outside of Christ, we lived not for him, but for our own desires, which were corrupted by sin. We lived to make the best life for ourselves, on our own terms, apart from God. In other words, the pattern of our lives was sinful, and the  inner problem of sin in our hearts was never addressed. Now, however, we belong to Jesus. Though we are not perfect, the pattern of our lives is not all about ourselves. We may commit sins at times (sometimes, discouragingly often!) but we aren’t living in sin. It is not a consistent pattern anymore, it’s not the direction we are going. As Peter says in verse 2, the point is: “to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.” By “the rest of the time in the flesh” he means “this present life, before our ultimate death and resurrection.”

All this is tremendously comforting. Through the suffering of Jesus, our connection with sin is fundamentally broken, and this is true, in spite of the fact that we still sometimes commit sins.

I think it is right to understand that Peter means all this. However, I don’t want us to overlook the fact that he is also clearly talking about our own personal suffering, not just the suffering of Christ. He has already been talking about specifically our own sufferings in 3:14 & 17. He will speak of our own suffering more, a few verses later in this chapter. So, I think it would be a mistake to make this only about our spiritual union with the suffering of Christ. Clearly, the topic at hand also involves our actual experience of suffering in this life.

My friend Wade Jones is fond of saying: “If you are really trying to live like Jesus, you should expect to have the kind of life he had.” And, of course, Jesus suffered. Not only that, but he calls us to suffer, with the expectation of joy and glory and grace following our earthly suffering.

For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share in his glory, we must also share his suffering.

Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.

(Romans 8:16-18, NLT)

I don’t want to overstep my own limitations here, but I want to make a comment about suffering and sin. Most of you know that I suffer tremendous pain, on an hourly basis. Right now I am in so much pain that I will probably quit for a while, and come back to this later.

I have found that when I am able to see my suffering as suffering for Christ, and when I joyfully receive it as his will (without, however understanding it, or even liking it), I have a special closeness with Jesus. As a result of this, I am just less interested in sin than I am during the times when I act as if my suffering has no connection to Jesus. I have not been able to maintain this perfectly. But there is no doubt in my mind that my suffering has, in general, led me to sin less often than I did before. Again, I’m not claiming to be without sin. Sometimes, I fall hard. But compared to my life before suffering, conscious sin is less of a daily struggle.

Something I think is more important is that suffering has loosened my focus on getting what I want in this present life, and instead, helped me to focus on our amazing eternal future in the New Creation with the unlimited joy of God filling us entirely. It also has a way of carrying me further down the road of discipleship, which means further from an interest in sin. Theologian Wayne Grudem puts it like this:

 Thus, following through with a decision to obey God even when it will mean physical suffering has a morally strengthening effect on our lives: it commits us more firmly than ever before to a pattern of action where obedience is even more important than our desire to avoid pain.

(Wayne A. Grudem The Epistle of First Peter, p 167. W.B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, 1988, 1996.)

At present, it seems clear that I will suffer whether I trust God, or not. But if, when I suffer, I choose to trust God, rather than reject him because I don’t like it, it has the same effect described by Grudem above. It takes me further down the road with God. My trust in God becomes more important, and more vital than my desire for healing. God’s love for me matters more to me than relief from pain in this life. All of this leads my interests and desires away from the direction of satisfying sinful passions.

Suffering and hardship can be used, in some ways, like a spiritual discipline:

My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly
or lose heart when you are reproved by him,
6 for the Lord disciplines the one he loves
and punishes every son he receives.
7 Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline ​— ​which all receive ​— ​then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them. Shouldn’t we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness. 11 No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

(Hebrews 12:5-11, CSB)

I don’t think this means that God is personally inflicting suffering on people. But when suffering comes, God makes use of it to shape us more and more into the people he designed us to be. He uses it for our benefit, as it says in verse 10 of the passage above.

Sometimes, Christ living in me is able to use my daily pain almost in the same way as he uses my hunger when I fast. The pain becomes a reminder of his presence. I submit to it. I use it to say: “You, Jesus, are more important to me than getting relief right now. Though of course I want relief, I am using this pain to cry out for you first, and relief only in your time and in your way.” The pain reminds me that this world is not my home. It makes it easy to see that my sinful flesh can never be satisfied, never be made whole. Therefore, I crave, not just momentary relief from pain, but ultimate deliverance from this corrupted body and world into the New Creation that is coming.

Now, this process is not automatic. There are plenty of times when I just want relief. But when I come to Jesus with my pain, even if I take a pill soon after, he can and does use it to move my focus from this life toward the glory that is coming. The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write about this also:

16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

(2 Corinthians 4:16-18, NLT)

Suffering helps us to keep fixing our gaze on the unseen, on the glory that will be revealed that will last forever. Because of this, we can learn to see suffering as a gift. If you know my story, you know I’m not speaking theoretically. I’m not sitting here comfortably imposing some idea about suffering onto the poor souls who actually suffer. I’m in it. I’m not teaching anything here that I haven’t personally had to grapple with.

Many people I know wish for a revival in American Christianity. They hope for a time when the people of God are truly repentant, and joyfully follow Jesus whole-heartedly in such a way that the whole culture is transformed by it. I hope for it too, however I cannot see how it could possibly come about except by suffering.

The broader point Peter is making is that, whether we personally suffer or not, it is time to be done with the values of the world around us. The things he describes are shockingly similar to twentieth century Western culture. Basically, he says, those who don’t follow God live for personal pleasure and excitement. In short they party – using substances, sex, and whatever else works, to feed their endless cravings and emptiness.

Peter also mentions idolatry. We don’t worship literal idols any more, but the essence of idolatry is to make something other than God the most important thing to you. If it is not God, whatever you “live for” is an idol. If you are seeking comfort from something other than God, it might be an idol.

Now, we should understand that God provides things through his creation, and through other human beings, and we can receive comfort through various things. So, for instance, we might be comforted by our families. As long as we remember that our families were given to us by God, and that the comfort we get from them really comes ultimately from him, I don’t think family is an idol. However, if we were to begin making family more important than God, if we made choices in favor of family that took us further from God, than, in that case, family might be an idol.

So the picture Peter gives us of the non-Christian world is that it a)Lives for pleasure and b)Lives for comfort (that is the point of idolatry). But we who follow Jesus live for Him. We live for his love, and for the amazing future that he has promised us. That leads us to be different from the world, to say no to pleasure and comfort as the ultimate goals, even if for a little while we suffer.

GOD’S GLORY FOR OUR GOOD

On By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, Single Sermons, Uncategorized1 Comment
Photo by Jaime Reimer on Pexels.com

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download God’s Glory, Our Good

3 Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens. 4 For He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love 5 He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to His favor and will, 6 to the praise of His glorious grace that He favored us with in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1:3-6, HCSB)

11 We have also received an inheritance in Him, predestined according to the purpose of the One who works out everything in agreement with the decision of His will, 12 so that we who had already put our hope in the Messiah might bring praise to His glory.
13 When you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed in Him, you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. 14 He is the down payment of our inheritance, for the redemption of the possession, to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:11-14, HCSB)

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, 5 made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! 6 Together with Christ Jesus He also raised us up and seated us in the heavens, 7 so that in the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace through His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.(Ephesians 2:4-7, HCSB)

I want to share some things this time that the Lord has been showing me. I don’t want to pretend that this is something new. Many, many people have written about what I am going to say here. Even so, it is a subject that is often neglected in churches these days. Also, I think I have a piece to share that makes the main lesson a bit more concrete and personal.

I have highlighted several phrases from the first two chapters of Ephesians. Here’s the first thing I want us to notice from the verses above: God wants to display his glory and his grace to the universe he created.

God is the best, most beautiful, most wonderful, amazing, superlative being in all of existence. There is nothing better than him. Nothing more beautiful. Nothing more wonderful. Nothing more worthy of praise or attention. He is the highest and best good. Therefore, the highest and supreme good, the most wonderful thing that can ever happen at any time, is that God’s wonderfulness and goodness and amazingness is displayed to, and known by, all of creation. For short, we can call this: “God is glorified.” When God is glorified, it means that his goodness, wonderfulness (and so on) is being displayed, and recognized.

Think of it like this. Just as we should seek to honor and glorify God because he is the Supreme Good, so he should seek to bring honor and glory to himself – for the same reason. That is God’s focus. That is His continual, ongoing activity. In a big-picture sense, this is always what God is up to: bringing glory to himself. This is always the end result that he has in mind, because it the best thing that can happen in the universe, and it is the best thing for the universe. The best thing that can ever happen, in any situation, at any time, is that God is glorified. This is always God’s end-goal, in every situation. Scripture tells that:

10 at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow —
of those who are in heaven and on earth
and under the earth —
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11, HCSB)

25 For Christ must reign until he humbles all his enemies beneath his feet. 26 And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For the Scriptures say, “God has put all things under his authority.” (Of course, when it says “all things are under his authority,” that does not include God himself, who gave Christ his authority.) 28 Then, when all things are under his authority, the Son will put himself under God’s authority, so that God, who gave his Son authority over all things, will be utterly supreme over everything everywhere. (1 Corinthians 15:25-28, NLT)

33 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!
34 For who can know the LORD’s thoughts?
Who knows enough to give him advice?
35 And who has given him so much
that he needs to pay it back?
36 For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36, NLT)

Stay with me here, because I think the end result will bless you. We have a bit of mind-work to do first, however. If God’s main purpose is to show his glory, then that is the thing that will most certainly happen. Nothing compares to God, and the scripture says he does not change or waver. So, we can count on the fact that God will be glorified. It is more certain, even, than death or taxes. Nothing will prevent God from ultimately being glorified in all things. His own nature and his own purpose guarantee it.

Now, if you are a self-centered creature like me, or maybe even if you are just hurting, you might say, “I can recognize that God’s goal is to be glorified, and, with my mind, I can even agree with that goal. But I don’t see how it helps me when God is glorified.” I know this is a shallow, selfish approach, but I can’t help feeling that way at times. I might think: “Good for God, that he gets the glory that he deserves. But in the meantime, I’m suffering.” If you know me, you know that I mean that part quite literally. I am physically suffering right now, as I write this. But even if you aren’t suffering, you might wonder: “What does God’s glory have to do with me?” It’s nice for God that his purpose will not be thwarted. It’s great for him that ultimately he will be glorified. But life is hard right now. Sometimes, I wonder if the idea of God working so that his wonderfulness is displayed to all creation really does much for me.

But it does.

You see, what the verses I quoted in the beginning (from Ephesians) tell us is not just that God is glorifying himself. They tell us the way he goes about bringing glory to himself. And, simply because he chose to do so, he has decided that he will make loving us a central part of his own glory. The foundation of God’s glory is his love. So, when he glorifies himself, he does it through love. Particularly, he does it by loving human beings. Even more specifically, he does it through loving you and me.

This means that God’s love is not based on something so shallow as our own lovableness, or even our own need. No, he has connected loving us to the eternal good purpose of showing his glory. He will never stop loving us, because he will never stop showing his glory. He has made his love for us central to his own nature, and integral to his own best purpose for the universe.

So now, we can say that because God will always be glorified, God will always love you. Not because you deserve it. Not even because you need it. But because God’s love for you is built into the very purpose for the universe.

This has several implications for us. First, and I mean this is a very positive way, life is not about you. This is in contrast to the message we generally get from our culture, which is all about people being the “best authentic selves” that they can be. However, for Christians, self-fulfillment can be a by-product of trusting God, but it should never be our goal. God does not exist to help you become a fulfilled person. He does not exist to fix the people around you, or to make your circumstances better. He exists to glorify himself. But because of his very nature, when he glorifies himself, you will be loved. We are safe to live not for ourselves, but for God, because God has us at the center of his own purpose. When we let God become the center of everything, our own lives in are in their proper place. It frees us from being focused on ourselves. God’s got us, because we are part of us his purpose and plan. We can relax, and let him do his work in us and through us.

Second, it means that we can trust that God is working for our good in all things. In fact, he has tied our own good to the highest good and purpose of the universe – his own glory. So Paul writes:

28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those He predestined, He also called; and those He called, He also justified; and those He justified, He also glorified.
(Romans 8:28-30, HCSB)

Not only does God love us for his own glory, but he invites us to partake in that glory! This is not theoretical for me, and I don’t want it to be theoretical for you, either. Simply put, it means that no matter what we might experience – even very difficult things – it will be used for God’s glory, and for our good.

Most of you know that I am in a very difficult season of life. Every day I experience hours of excruciating pain. Doctors cannot figure out exactly way – the best they come up with are guesses. Doctors can’t make it stop, either – they can only provide medicine that eases it a bit, a couple times a day.

If I did not have the confidence that God was using my suffering for his glory, and my good, I would be going crazy. I would feel like these hours and hours of pain (more than 61,000 hours at this point. Not that I’m keeping track) are pointless, meaningless. I would be angry, and bitter, and I’m sure that would filter into my relationships, and make my life even worse.

But as it is, because of God’s word I know this: God will use my pain for his own glory, and for my good. He will do so not because I am worthy, but rather, because it is according to his own nature, and his own unchanging purpose.

I certainly hope you aren’t experiencing physical pain like mine. But you might be experiencing other difficult things in your life. It might be grief and loss. It might be uncertainty, or fear. It might be broken relationships, or a struggle of some other sort. You can have confidence that in every situation, God will be glorifying himself. That means that every situation, he will be glorifying himself by loving you and blessing you. Glory for him means goodness and grace for us. So in every single situation, God will bring goodness and grace to you.

I cannot guarantee that you will always understand exactly how God is making that happen. I can’t guarantee that you will always feel like God is doing good things through our pain, sorrow and struggles. But God himself guarantees that he is, in fact, glorifying himself, and bringing grace to you. He guarantees it by his own nature.

16 Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. 17 God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. 18 So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. (Hebrews 6:16-18, NLT)

God has got this. He’s got it because his very nature means that he will glorify himself by being loving and good to us. Therefore, we can be patient in difficult times. We can be at peace and trust God.

16 That is why we are not discouraged. Though outwardly we are wearing out, inwardly we are renewed day by day. 17 Our suffering is light and temporary and is producing for us an eternal glory that is greater than anything we can imagine. 18 We don’t look for things that can be seen but for things that can’t be seen. Things that can be seen are only temporary. But things that can’t be seen last forever. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, GW)

1 PETER #25: BAPTISM, PART 2 – THE DEBATES

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Peter, Bible Teaching, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, Uncategorized3 Comments
Photo by Дмитрий Зайцев: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-a-child-being-baptized-12166404/

I have formed my opinions by studying the scripture and church history, and I think I am on the right track. But I don’t think I’m infallible, and smarter people than me have come to different conclusions about baptism. I know many men and women whom I deeply love as brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree with me about baptism. Therefore, let us not be divided by issues of baptism. However, let us also not let different opinions keep us from seeking to really understand what the Bible says about it. If we end up disagreeing, that’s OK. It won’t divide us. But we can still seek the best understanding possible about baptism. I think we can all agree that the goal is to search the scriptures with an open mind, and a desire to know what it really teaches.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Peter Part 25

1 PETER #25. 1 PETER 3:21-22. BAPTISM, PART 2

We are continuing to talk about baptism this time. Once again, I want to remind us that baptism is something that many good Christians have disagreed about for about four centuries now. I have formed my opinions by studying the scripture and church history, and I think they are largely correct. But I don’t think I’m infallible, and smarter people than me have come to different conclusions about baptism. I know many men and women whom I deeply love as brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree with me about baptism. Therefore, let us not be divided by issues of baptism.

However, let us also not let different opinions keep us from seeking to really understand what the Bible says about it. If we end up disagreeing, that’s OK. It won’t divide us. But we can still seek the best understanding possible about baptism. I think we can all agree that the goal is to search the scriptures with an open mind, and a desire to know what it really teaches.

There are three main things about baptism about which good Christians disagree. We can use the following questions to help us understand the debates:

  1. What method should we use for baptism: a) immersion, or, b)sprinkling, pouring, or any of the three?
  2. At what age should we baptize: a) Only adults, or people old enough to understand what they are doing. Or, b) Either adults or infants might legitimately receive baptism.
  3. What is the meaning of baptism? Is it a) purely symbolic, an expression of our faith in Christ, and our obedience to his command to be baptized? Or, b) is baptism a special sacrament that God uses to impart his grace to us?

Those who answer the three questions above by choosing “a)” are generally Baptists of all sorts, Pentecostals, Evangelical Free, Church of Christ, and many others. For shorthand, I will call this group “Baptists,” because they typically have the same view of baptism as Baptists, though of course, many of them have significant other differences. We should note, however, the Church of Christ, though it shares a lot of Baptist theology, also has some differences with the standard Baptist position about baptism. The short version is, unlike Baptists, Church of Christ would say that baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation. They would say that if you have faith in Jesus, but die without being baptized, you might not be saved. I disagree with this, but I appreciate how seriously they take baptism.

The “basic Baptist” position is that baptism is a kind of testimony to our faith in Jesus Christ. We do it because God commanded us to. It is an act of obedience, and it is our declaration to the world that we belong to Christ. Because of this, and because of what we read in the book of Acts, the only people who should be baptized are those who are mentally capable of making a confession of faith in Christ, and who have indeed expressed such faith. Mostly, they insist that baptism be done by immersion, but there are some Baptist types who are open to methods of baptism other than that.

Those who typically answer the three questions above with selection “b)” are Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and so on, and, of course, Roman Catholics. Let’s call them “Traditionalists,” for short, because they hold to the same understanding and practice of baptism that Christians historically held throughout all of church history. Some of you, at this point, might think I’m mistaken there, but I’m not. There is plentiful evidence of infant baptism from the early church and onwards. In fact, infant baptism was not seriously disputed until the mid-1500s, and modern “Baptist” theology did not exist until the early 1600s. More on that later.

One of the reasons I want to talk more about baptism is because I think both the “Baptists” and the “Traditionalists” often misunderstand baptism, and practice it in ways that are sometimes not helpful.

Before we go too far, let’s revisit what we learned last time. We simply looked at what the Bible teaches about the meaning and purpose of baptism. There were several key aspects to baptism:

  • It is an initiation into Jesus Christ. In baptism, we are identified with Christ. Baptism says “you belong to Jesus.” It’s almost like a passport, or birth certificate for God’s kingdom.
  • It is an initiation into the Church (the body of Christ). Baptism brings us into fellowship with other Christians.
  • Baptism brings us into union with Jesus Christ. Especially, it unites us to his death, and then to his resurrection. It appears to be, in some way, the means by which our old selves are crucified, and our new selves are given the life of Jesus Christ.
  • The forgiveness of sins is somehow connected, by the Bible, to baptism.
  • The presence of the Holy Spirit is connected to baptism.
  • Repentance and faith are necessary in order to take hold of the benefits of baptism.

Although some of that might have been unfamiliar to you, we didn’t do any fancy tricks of interpretation – we just looked at the relevant passages in a straightforward way.

With that in mind, let’s look for a moment at the traditionalists. Sometimes, they seem to treat baptism as almost a kind of magic, or even superstition. Some of them feel that babies absolutely must be baptized, in almost any situation. They often neglect the importance of faith for the child who is baptized, and do not really make sure that a baptized child is raised into a life of repentance and faith. In the worst of these situations, pastors and parents think their job is done if they simply baptize a baby.

However, according to scripture, if someone who is baptized has no faith, it does them no good. Baptism is baptism, because God’s promises are real, and he does not revoke them. But, as with salvation in general, if we do not take hold of the promises of God in faith, though they are real and true, they do us no good. Salvation in Jesus is offered to everyone. It is enough for everyone. Jesus died for the entire world (1 John 2:1-2). And yet, unless people take hold of it in faith, the death and resurrection of Jesus brings them no benefit.

So with baptism, God offers all the benefits of baptism to all who are baptized. But if the baptized one doesn’t really have faith, he or she does not take hold of those benefits. In my own opinion, unless there is a family (and ideally, a church) who are committed to raising a child in faith, it might be wiser to hold off on baptizing a baby.

On the other hand, when the child is born into a strong Christian family, with a church supporting them, I think baptism gives the child a head start on their relationship with God. My own faith began this way. I was baptized when I was one month old, and raised by a strong Christian family, with a strong Christian community around me. For all my life, God has been real and present to me. This is true of my mother and father, also, and my grandparents. There is evidence from our family history that this has been the pattern for the Hilperts for at least five hundred years. But in other families, it clearly doesn’t always work out that way. So, I would say, discernment is important before baptizing a baby.

Now let’s talk about the basic “Baptist” position. Again, this is that baptism is a symbolic act, a declaration of obedience and faith. Also, in this view, the only people who should be baptized are those who are mentally capable of making a confession of faith in Christ, and who have indeed expressed such faith. This concept that people cannot have faith until they reach a certain level of intellectual development is sometimes called “the age of accountability,” or, “the age of reason.”

Let me start with the first part: the idea that baptism is a symbolic act of obedience, a kind of public testimony that declares “I am a Christian.” The book of Acts describes several baptisms. In all of those accounts, either an individual, or a group of people, hears the gospel, and comes to faith in Jesus Christ, after which they are baptized. That appears to support the Baptist position. We should keep in mind, however, that these accounts from Acts do not tell us much about the nature of baptism itself. They tell us what happened and how it happened. Even then, they are often sketchy on the details. For instance, nowhere does it explicitly spell out the method that was used to baptize someone. Acts was not written to teach us about baptism, but rather, to show how the gospel spread in the first years after the resurrection of Jesus. We have to be very careful when making doctrines out of historical books without clear support elsewhere in the Bible.

As we saw last week, there are other scriptures, found in teaching sections of the Bible (rather than Acts, which is a historical section) that tell us more about the nature and meaning of baptism. None of those teaching passages describe baptism as something that we do for God. They don’t describe it as a testimony of faith. They don’t even describe it primarily as an act of obedience. Instead, they describe baptism as an initiation into Christ, and an initiation into the church. Those scriptures teach that baptism unites us with Christ’s death and with his resurrection. They contain promises that somehow, along with baptism, the promises of forgiveness and the Holy Spirit are imparted to us.

Because of this, I am skeptical of the idea that baptism is merely a special kind of testimony of faith. The Bible teaches many things about baptism, but it is not clear that this is one of them. I am open to the possibility that it might be one part of baptism, but I don’t think we have much biblical support to claim that is all it is, or even that it is mainly what baptism is about.

We also have nothing in church history that suggests that Christians felt this way about baptism, until the mid-1500s, and really, the early 1600s. Early Christians took baptism very seriously, considering it a sacrament in which God imparted something to the one who was baptized. The idea of baptism as merely a symbol and a testimony is not found in Christianity until the 17th century after Jesus (1600s). I want to save space, but if you are curious about church history, I can provide direct quotations from ancient Christian writers, starting in the early 200s, showing that infant baptism was a normal practice in early Christianity. Use the comments section to ask for them.

Also with regard to church history, the culture of the New Testament period would have been heavily in favor of baptism for children in Christian families. People did not have the strong sense of individualism that we have today. All of their decisions would have been made with the larger context of family in mind. When it comes to baptism, entire families would assume that they should do it together, as, indeed, the New Testament records. Often, the New Testament records the baptism of entire “households” which, in those days, typically included grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, children and grandchildren. In wealthy households, the multigenerational families of their servants would also be included. (Acts 10:24 says that Cornelius was gathered with many of his relatives and friends. Acts 11:14 also makes it clear that God is working on the entire household of Cornelius. Other baptisms involving entire families or households include: Acts 16:15; Acts 16:33 and 1 Corinthians 1:16).

So, when it comes to something like baptism, the default cultural position would be that the whole family does it together. Adults in the family might have had the ability to opt out of the family choice to become Christians. It would have been a big deal, and caused division, but I imagine it happened sometimes. However, younger members of the family would be expected to do what the family did. It would have been a very strange thing to most families to think of taking a major step like baptism, but excluding their infants and young children. They simply did not think in those types of individualistic terms. It would have felt to them like excluding their children from the kingdom of God.

Because of this tight family culture, most people would have needed some very clear teaching explaining that infants and young children were not supposed to be baptized, and why not. Otherwise, as I say, the default cultural position would be to include children of all ages. Therefore, it is very significant that there is no command anywhere in the Bible to withhold baptism from infants or young children in believing families, or to restrict baptism to only people who were deemed old enough to make a “valid” confession of faith. Let me say it again. There is no command, anywhere in the Bible, nor any teaching, that says infants and young children should not be baptized. Again, without such a command children would have been included by default.

All of this is, I think, a significant challenge to the adult-only idea of baptism. Now, let’s be fair. The infant baptism people also have some questions to answer. Doesn’t the scripture associate baptism with repentance and faith? If we are going to follow the Bible, shouldn’t those be a part of baptism?

Not all proponents of infant baptism know how to answer this well. However, there are, I think, reasonable answers. The best answer (I think) is this: “Yes! Repentance and faith must be part of baptism – even infant baptism.” The question then becomes: What is faith? Who can have faith? Can Babies have faith?

If we accept the “age of accountability” model, we must believe that faith is mainly intellectual agreement. In this way of thinking, in order to have faith, you have to consciously understand a certain set of principles, and then consciously agree to them. If faith is understanding with the mind, then babies can’t have it, because their minds are still developing.

But intellectual understanding and agreement is not faith. James says that even demons can have that! (James 2:19). And surely we don’t believe that we must truly understand everything about God and Jesus before we can be saved? Many Baptist types are OK with baptizing a child of eight or ten years, but certainly those children don’t understand Christianity as well as a twenty-year old. For myself, I think I continue to understand more and more as I get older. At what point should I consider that I understand enough to call it saving faith? Also, if we must somehow be consciously aware of our own faith, what happens to it when we sleep, or fall into a coma? And where in the Bible does it tell me exactly what I must understand? In fact, what the Bible tells us we must do is not understand, but rather, trust.

Saving faith means we rely on Jesus. I think it goes without saying that babies have the ability to trust, to rely on someone. Now, does the scripture support the idea that babies can trust God? Indeed it does! In fact, many of the scriptures describe faith as beginning before a person is even born! See Psalm 71:5-6; Psalm 139:13-18; Jeremiah 1:4-8; and Luke 1:39-44. Jesus said this about children and the kingdom of God:

13 And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” 16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.

( Mark 10:13-16, ESV)

Baptists say that this means children are automatically in the kingdom of God until they reach the age of accountability. But in context, that is not what Jesus is saying at all. He is talking about receiving the kingdom of God. He says in order to receive it, we adults must do so like a child – in other words, with simple trust. Certainly, then it should be possible for a child to receive the kingdom of God like… well, a child. In short, a child can receive Jesus in trust.

Ideally, in infant baptism, the child, through baptism, receives the kingdom of God like a child. As the child grows, his or her parents teach them more about Jesus, and the importance of continuing to trust, and of repenting for sin. Repentance, faith and baptism are all there together, but not necessarily in the same order that they appear in someone who is an adult convert. The book of Acts, because of when it was written, is mainly concerned with adult converts.

Some people, however insist that true repentance and faith must come prior to baptism, or baptism isn’t valid. That brings us to an important point. If you must be certain that you have repented and come to faith before you are baptized, how can you ever know for sure? Are you really sure you were saved before you were baptized? This idea has led some people to get baptized multiple times. It encourages us not to trust the word of God, but rather to trust our own subjective experience of whether or not we truly feel saved by God’s grace. To me, this idea also doesn’t really fit with the things we learned about baptism last time. Baptism is not earned, and it is not something we do for God. It is used by God to bestow grace and blessings upon us.

We all know people who got saved, and then baptized, at some point in life, and then strayed away, and then later came back to Jesus again. Should they be baptized again? How many times? How can they know they might not stray again?

It is true, faith is required to take hold of the promises that God connects with baptism. But the issue of when that faith really matures isn’t as important. If you have been baptized, and you trust Jesus, you have all the promises given in baptism, no matter when exactly you were baptized, or when, in relationship to your baptism, you put your trust in Jesus. To have it any other way is to live with constant uncertainty, trusting your own experience, trusting in your own faith, above God’s Word.

I wanted to present these ideas to you, because I rarely see them discussed the way we have here. But I want to reiterate that if you disagree with everything I said, I still welcome you as a brother or sister in the kingdom of God. Obviously, I think I’m correct. But I don’t think I’m infallible, and neither should you think that I’m infallible. Thank you for letting me present my understanding of the Bible about baptism. If you disagree, I respect that. No matter where we come down on the issue, I hope we can appreciate baptism as a wonderful gift from God that he uses to bless us.

1 PETER #25: THE MEANING OF BAPTISM.

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Peter, Christianity, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment
Photo by Su Casa Panamu00e1 on Pexels.com

Using this text as our starting point, we are going to take a deep dive into the meaning and practice of baptism. Before we do, I want to make sure some things are very clear. For several centuries now, good and true Christians have disagreed about baptism – what exactly it is and what it means. It is not necessary, therefore, at New Joy Fellowship, or the Life Together Churches network, that everyone hold the same view about baptism.  What is necessary with regard to this issue, is that we treat each other with respect, and allow the same differences of opinion that the Lord has allowed in his church for the past five centuries. Since so many great Christians of the past have disagreed about this issue, it would be a tragic mistake to let differences of opinion on baptism divide New Joy Fellowship.

However, let us also not let different opinions keep us from seeking what the Bible says about it. If we end up disagreeing, that’s OK. It won’t divide us. But we can still seek the best understanding possible about baptism. I think we can all agree that the goal is to search the scriptures with an open mind, and a desire to know what it really teaches.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button: For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Peter Part 24

1 PETER #24. 1 PETER 3:18-22

Our focus this time is on verses 21-22. In verse 20, Peter uses the people who disobeyed during the time of Noah as an example of the types of people to whom Jesus proclaimed the gospel in hell. I think Peter uses Noah’s time particularly, because he wants to introduce the next thought, which is about baptism. In Noah’s time, the flood killed almost everyone by drowning. But the water also washed the earth clean of wickedness and filth, and it lifted up the ark and carried it, causing the people within it to be saved. Peter says “this corresponds to baptism.” Or, in other words, “it gives us a picture of baptism.” The water brought a special kind of cleansing. Before, Noah and his family lived in a horribly depraved, sinful world. Then, through water, and a special vehicle (the ark), they were brought into a world that had been renewed by God. How does this paint a picture of baptism? We live in a horribly depraved, sinful world. Through water, combined with a special vehicle (the promise of God) baptism cleanses us, lifts us from the dying, sinful world, into the Kingdom of God.

Using this text as our starting point, we are going to take a deep dive into the meaning and practice of baptism. Before we do, I want to make sure some things are very clear. For several centuries now, good and true Christians have disagreed about baptism – what exactly it is and what it means. Since it has not been necessary for about 500 years that Christians agree about this, it is not necessary, at New Joy Fellowship, or the Life Together Churches network, that everyone hold the same view about baptism.  What is necessary with regard to this issue, is that we treat each other with respect, and allow the same differences of opinion that the Lord has allowed in his church for the past five centuries. Since so many great Christians of the past have disagreed about this issue, it would be a tragic mistake to let differences of opinion on baptism divide New Joy Fellowship.

Having said that, I will present my understanding of the Bible, and of history, with the same force and rigor that I try to use with every sermon. In my own mind, the most important things about baptism are quite clear from the scripture. Please understand, however, that if you disagree with me about baptism, it is not a problem. I have my opinions, but I recognize many of the great Christians of the past five hundred years have had different ones about this topic. Though I think I’m right, and I might come on strong, I’m telling you right now that I realize I could be wrong. So, let’s give each other grace here.

In the meantime, I want to teach clearly what I really think the Bible says about baptism, because it seems to me that these days, many things about baptism often get confused, and distorted. Sometimes, some of the most powerful scriptures about baptism are not even part of the conversation.

When it comes to baptism, I think there are three main issues: 1. What, exactly is baptism? What kind of meaning does the Bible attach to it? 2. Who should be baptized (for instance what about infants in believing families?) 3. How should we go about baptizing people?

The truth is, there is quite a bit of Biblical material about the first question. The biblical information about the second two questions is much more thin, and harder to process. Therefore, today, we’ll try to consider the first. What is baptism? What does the Bible say about it? I want to point out that today, what we cover should not be particularly controversial. We’ll simply be looking at the things the bible clearly teaches about the nature of baptism.

The English word baptism comes directly from the Greek word in the Bible. We don’t really have a good single English word for all the Biblical meanings. In general, it means “a ceremonial, or religious washing with water.” The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says this:

The Greek words from which our English “baptism” has been formed are used by Greek writers, in classical antiquity, in the LXX and in the NT, with a great latitude of meaning. It is not possible to exhaust their meaning by any single English term. The action which the Greek words express may be performed by plunging, drenching, staining, dipping, sprinkling.

(International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, article on Baptism)

“The LXX” means: “the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament.” So, even before the time of Jesus, Greek-speaking Jews used the words baptize/baptism to mean a wide variety of things, but the common idea was some kind of ceremonial, or ritual, washing with water. The Easton’s Bible Dictionary agrees, saying:

Baptists say that it means “to dip,” and nothing else. That is an incorrect view of the meaning of the word. It means both (1) to dip a thing into an element or liquid, and (2) to put an element or liquid over or on it. Nothing therefore as to the mode of baptism can be concluded from the mere word used. The word has a wide latitude of meaning, not only in the New Testament, but also in the LXX Version of the Old Testament, where it is used of the ablutions and baptisms required by the Mosaic law. These were effected by immersion, and by affusion and sprinkling; and the same word, “washings” (Heb. 9:10, 13, 19, 21) or “baptisms,” designates them all.

(Easton’s Bible Dictionary, article on Baptism)

So, we don’t get a ton of help from the word itself. As the two quotes above point out, in the Greek version of the Old Testament (which was probably used by most of the early Christians) the word generally used for rituals involving cleansing with water was “baptism.” Again, it can mean immersion, dipping, pouring or sprinkling.

John the Baptist used baptism in his ministry. For those who received it, it meant that they were repenting of their old way of life, receiving forgiveness of sins, and entering into a new mode of living. Baptism was a kind of “initiation” into that  new way of life.

4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

(Mark 1:4-8, ESV)

This concept of initiation into a new way of life seems to be a key factor with regard to baptism. Also, put a little mental note on the part where John says that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Mark records these words of Jesus:

28 I tell you, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John. Yet even the least person in the Kingdom of God is greater than he is!”
29 When they heard this, all the people—even the tax collectors—agreed that God’s way was right, for they had been baptized by John. 30 But the Pharisees and experts in religious law rejected God’s plan for them, for they had refused John’s baptism.

(Luke 7:28-30, NLT)

The people, by being baptized, had aligned themselves with John, they were, in a sense, one with him. By refusing baptism, the religious leaders made it clear that they were not aligned with him. They did not want to be part of him or his movement. So baptism initiates you into something, aligns you with it. Christian baptism means you have been joined with Jesus Christ, and with his people. Galatians makes the same sort of argument about Christian baptism. We weren’t just “baptized” in some vague, general way. We were baptized into Christ.

26 It is through faith that all of you are God’s children in union with Christ Jesus. 27 You were baptized into union with Christ, and now you are clothed, so to speak, with the life of Christ himself. 28 So there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are the descendants of Abraham and will receive what God has promised.

(Galatians 3:26-29, GNT)

So, being baptized into Christ means that you become “part of Christ,” in some way – you were baptized into union with Christ. You are initiated into him. Paul uses this same concept of being brought into union with someone or something in 1 Corinthians 10:1-5. He affirms this again in 1 Corinthians chapter 12:

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

(1 Corinthians 12:12-13, ESV)

We were all baptized into something. We are brought into union with Christ, and brought into the body of Christ (that is, true spiritual fellowship with everyone who trusts Jesus). In Romans, Paul says that part of the meaning of baptism is that we were united with Christ specifically in his death and resurrection.

3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

(Romans 6:3-4, ESV)

He says something similar in Colossians:

11 In him you were also circumcised. It was not a circumcision performed by human hands. But it was a removal of the corrupt nature in the circumcision performed by Christ. 12 This happened when you were placed in the tomb with Christ through baptism. In baptism you were also brought back to life with Christ through faith in the power of God, who brought him back to life.

(Colossians 2:11-12, God’s Word version, bold formatting added by me)

So baptism unites us with Christ in a general way. It also, in a special way, applies his crucifixion and resurrection to us, or unites us with them. God does something in us when we are baptized. This leads to another thought. No one baptizes themselves. Baptism is something that is done to us, and for us.

I want to pause and point out a few things. Some people view baptism as a kind of testimony – something we do for God to show that we do indeed have faith. That could be a part of it. But clearly, in the New Testament, baptism is also much more than our testimony of faith and obedience. In fact, it is portrayed mainly as something that God does for us.

Baptism brings you into union with Christ. It identifies you with the death and resurrection of Christ. It initiates you into the body of Christ. All that should be plain from a straightforward reading of the texts above.

But wait! There’s more! In the New Testament, baptism is often also connected to forgiveness of sins:

37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

(Acts 2:37-39, ESV)

16 And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’

(Acts 22:16, ESV)

The early church took this very seriously. Sometimes too seriously, in fact, or at least, too literally. The only arguments critical of infant baptism during the first 1,500 years of the church were about this. Some few people thought that since baptism washes away sins, it was a waste to baptize infants, since they were certainly going to sin again as they got older. Instead, these folks argued, baptism should be delayed as long as possible, so that the baptized person had a chance of dying before they sinned again.

Finally, there are many promises connecting the Holy Spirit to baptism. Acts 2:37-39, already quoted above, seems to say that the Holy Spirit is connected in some way to baptism. Mark 1:4-8 (return to the mental note I told you to make) supports this. Jesus himself had a special encounter with the Spirit at his baptism, and he involves the Holy Spirit in his command to baptize:

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

(Matthew 28:19-20, ESV)

Paul found some people who were baptized with John the Baptist’s baptism. He demonstrated that they needed to be baptized into Jesus, after which they received the Holy Spirit:

1 And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. 2 And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John’s baptism.” 4 And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.

(Acts 19:1-6, ESV)

The apostle Peter preached to some Gentiles. The people heard and believed, and it became clear to Peter that they had been given the Holy Spirit, so he ordered them to be baptized. Later, he explained this to the Jewish church:

15 As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. 16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”

(Acts 11:15-17, ESV)

To reiterate what we’ve learned so far. Baptism is an initiation into Jesus. It unites us with his death, his resurrection, and his life. It unites us to other Christians. It is connected in some way to the forgiveness of sins, and to the Holy Spirit.

I also want to make it clear that these verses, along with many others, show that baptism is a part of the salvation process. If you are a follower of Jesus, you should be baptized. It’s part of the deal. Jesus commanded us to baptize as part of the process of making disciples (Matthew 28:1-20, quoted above).

Also, much like with salvation in general, we cannot receive any of the gifts given to us by baptism unless we repent of our sins and put our trust in Jesus Christ. Jesus died for all people, whether or not they repent and trust him. If someone does not repent, and does not trust, she will not receive any benefit from the death of Jesus. The benefit is there. But without faith, it is not applied to a person. The person cannot “take hold of” salvation, except through faith. So, in a similar way, when we are baptized, all of the benefits of baptism are made available to us. But they do us no good unless we receive them in repentance and faith.

We’ll talk more about infant baptism next time, but there is an important point here. Those who support infant baptism do so with the understanding that the baby will be brought up to, and taught, a life of repentance and faith, so that the child can take hold of the wonderful promises given to him at his baptism. No real Christians believe that baptism works like magic. Those who baptize infants simply believe that faith can begin very early.

In brief then, we can see that baptism is a ritual that involves water connected to the promises of God. Water, combined with the Ark was, in a sense, a gateway from the old world to the new for Noah’s family. In the same way, water, combined with the promises of God (that is, baptism) is a kind of gateway from our old life, a life that was oriented on our sinful flesh into our new life – into the life of Jesus himself, who lives in and through us. Peter is saying that, combined with faith, this baptism is part of the process God uses to save us, through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

One useful way to think about baptism is to compare it to a passport given to a child that was born outside of his home country. As a citizen of his own country, but living elsewhere, that child needs a passport. He doesn’t earn it for himself – it is given to him as part of his citizenship. It allows him to go back to his country of citizenship when the time comes. The passport means he belongs to his home country. The passport enables him to live where he is, but it gives him all the rights and privileges of his home country.

In the same way, we are children born again as citizens of heaven. We don’t yet live in our real country, our true home. But baptism marks us as belonging to God through Jesus Christ. Baptism grants us the rights and privileges of the children of God, even while we live this mortal life.

A couple of possibilities for application: first, if you are a follower of Jesus and have not been baptized, I strongly encourage you to be baptized soon. Second, for those of us who have been baptized, let’s learn to appreciate and understand all that God has given us through baptism and faith. He has dealt with the problem of our sinful flesh, by crucifying it with Jesus in baptism. He lives his new life in us by the Holy Spirit, through baptism. We have been initiated into Christ – we belong in the kingdom of God. Baptism is our passport, our certificate of birth and citizenship. Take hold of these things by thanking God for them!

1 PETER #23: YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Peter, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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The life of Jesus is the most precious thing in all of existence. When it is offered, there is no limit to what it can “purchase.” If the entire universe was given in exchange for Jesus, it still wouldn’t be enough to “pay back” what he is worth. That precious life was given for you, to bring you back to God. There is no limit to how much forgiveness his life obtains for you. Nothing can stop this good news. Not even hell can block out the glory and grace of the gospel, though, of course, in hell, it makes everyone there more bitter and angry.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Peter Part 23

1 PETER #23. 1 PETER 3:18-20

Throughout this last section, Peter has been urging us to behave in certain ways. Prior to doing that, he laid out all of the wonderful things God has done for us through Jesus Christ. Now, after spending some time telling us how our trust in God’s promises should play out in our practical lives, Peter once more reminds us of what God has done. This time, he is focusing specifically on what Jesus Christ did for us. We are called to suffer patiently because of the joy that awaits us. Peter reminds us that Jesus suffered, and did so in far more significant ways.

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.

1 Peter 3:18-20, ESV

This is the core of the gospel: that Jesus Christ died for our sins. There are dozens of verses in the New Testament that declare this:

1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

(1 Corinthians 15:1-4, ESV)

Though we cannot claim to be without sin, Christ was without sin, and yet he suffered. The term “the righteous” is singular, in Greek, and “the unrighteous,” is plural. In other words, it says he was “the righteous one,” suffering for “the unrighteous ones.” It is his suffering that reconciles us to God. His blood was shed to redeem us. Peter says that Christ’s suffering for our sins happened “once.” The point of that is that the process is complete. His one-time suffering is sufficient to cover all of your sins – all the sins you have ever committed, in addition to those you might still commit in the future. This is true, in fact, of every human being. The writer of Hebrews also insists that Jesus’ sacrifice was once, for all sins, for all time:

11 Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. 12 But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 13 There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. 14 For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy.
15 And the Holy Spirit also testifies that this is so. For he says,
16 “This is the new covenant I will make
with my people on that day, says the LORD:
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”
17 Then he says,
“I will never again remember
their sins and lawless deeds.”
18 And when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices.

(Hebrews 10:11-18, NLT)

Some people might wonder how, exactly this could be. Jesus was just one person – how can the death of one person save all people? I want to say three things about this. First, it is not necessary that we understand it. What we are called to do is trust that it is true. Technically, a person might perfectly understand how this works in theory, but unless she trusts that Jesus’ sacrifice was made for her (and that she needs it), her understanding would not save her. Usually trust involves stretching beyond what you can understand or verify. It involves a kind of surrender.

Second, we can make a brief attempt at understanding – while knowing that full understanding may not be possible, and certainly isn’t necessary. Toward understanding the sacrifice of Jesus, we need to keep in mind that there has never been, nor will there ever be, anyone like Jesus Christ. He was entirely righteous, entirely perfect in soul and spirit. No human being has ever been that way. He is, at one and the same time, both human, and God. Because of righteousness, and because of his Divine nature, Jesus Christ is infinitely precious. Therefore, if the life of Jesus is offered in exchange, there is no limit to what can be asked in return.

As a thought experiment, imagine you walk into a convenience store with a million dollars in cash. You ask: “Is this enough for a candy bar?”

The convenience store owner (who happens to be honest) says, “Of course. It’s worth far more than a candy bar.”

“What about five candy bars?”

“Of course. You can have five candy bars for that amount of money!”

“What about a hundred?”

“Yes! Listen, there aren’t enough candy bars in my entire store to equal a million dollars. What you have is worth more than all the goods in this whole store put together.”

“How many candy bars can I get, from you, then?”

“Listen, Dude,” says the owner, “if you give me that million dollars, I will give you a candy bar any time you want, for the rest of your life. As far as I’m concerned, it buys you a lifetime supply.” (If you bought 10 candy bars every single day at $1.50 each, even after 100 years, you still would have used only about half a million dollars)

In our economy, a million dollars is worth far more than  a candy bar – almost infinitely more. The life of Jesus IS worth infinitely more than anything else that might be compared to it. Similar to the way a million dollars could purchase unlimited candy bars for life from a convenience store, there is no limit to what the life of Jesus can “purchase.” So, no matter how many sinners are born into this world, the sacrifice of Jesus will always be enough, because he is infinitely valuable. Therefore he only had to make the one sacrifice, because the value of the entire universe, past, present and future, is still nothing compared to the value of the life of Jesus Christ.

To make it personal: the death of Jesus has purchased you forgiveness for all time. You can keep going back for more forgiveness any time you want. There is no end to the amount of grace that Jesus obtained for us.

The infinitely precious life of Jesus was given, of his own free will, for you. And me. And everyone. The Bible makes it clear that the sacrifice of Jesus is sufficient for every human being who ever lived, or will live. Not all human beings take advantage of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, but there is enough for everyone. It is offered to everyone. Keep that in mind: it is offered to everyone – that will be important a bit later in this message.

The third thing I want to say is that the Bible leaves us with a certain amount of what I call “mystery.” Not everything is fully explained. It is possible to speculate about some things, but not always to know. What the Bible does give us is enough knowledge to call us to trust in God.

Speaking of mystery, next comes a phrase that we might never fully understand in this life:

…being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah

(1 Peter 3:18-20, ESV)

Bible scholars throughout the ages have been confounded by these verses. Martin Luther says this about them:

This is a strange and certainly more obscure passage than any other passage in the New Testament. I still do not know for sure what the apostle means. At first the words give the impression that Christ preached to the spirits, that is, to the souls who did not believe many years ago, when Noah was building the ark. I do not understand this. Nor can I explain it. Nor has anyone ever explained it. But if anyone chooses to maintain that after Christ had died on the cross, he descended to the souls and preached to them there, I will not stand in the way. These words could give such a meaning. But I do not know whether Saint Peter wants to say this.

(Martin Luther, “Luther’s Works, vol 30,” The Catholic Epistles, pg 113. Concordia Publishing, St. Louis, MO, 1967.)

Let’s start with what we can know. In the Biblical worldview, the only place that might imprison dead spirits is hell. Therefore, I am partial to the theory that, in some way, Christ appeared in hell. This is the way it is worded in the Apostles’ Creed. The Apostles’ Creed, however, is not scripture, though virtually all Christians have accepted it for more than a thousand years as a true summary of our faith. In any case, if our punishment for sin is not only death, but hell, it seems to me that when Jesus was punished for our sin, in order to receive our penalty, that had to include hell. On the other hand, maybe the fact that His life is infinitely precious made the simple fact of his death alone (without hell) enough to pay for our sins. On the other hand (I have lots of hands) 2 Corinthians 5:21 says that God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin, for us, and sin is punished by hell, which suggests that Jesus had to go to hell.

Getting back to the main point, concerning our text for today, most Bible scholars agree with me that at some point during the process of his death and resurrection, Jesus was present in hell in some way, either physically (if such a thing is possible) or spiritually.

 I don’t think it is useful to wonder what length of time Jesus spent in hell. God’s existence, and, presumably hell, are outside of our experience of time. In a very real sense, Jesus might have spent both a mere moment, but also an eternity, in hell. The great Bible scholar R. Lenski reminds us:

In the other world time and space as we know both here on earth do not exist. Our minds are chained to both in their thinking and in their language; hence we ask so many useless questions where acts that take place in eternity and in the other world are concerned. In the other world no act requires time for its execution. This is really inconceivable to our minds; we are compelled to speak as if time were involved and must thus ever tell ourselves that this is not in fact the case. In this way we are kept from deductions that are based on our concepts of time, knowing that such deductions would be false.

(Lenski’s New Testament Commentary; 1 Peter.)

The one thing we know for sure he did “while” he was there is that he proclaimed the gospel to the spirits of human beings, and perhaps other spiritual entities as well. Just a few verses later, Peter says something that shows he means what he wrote:

6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

(1 Peter 4:6, ESV)

Most commentators (including me) think that Peter mentions those who disobeyed during the time of Noah as an example of the sorts of spirits that Jesus proclaimed the gospel to. So, Peter might be saying: “He preached to spirits imprisoned in hell – like those who disobeyed during the time of Noah.” In other words, it wasn’t just those who disobeyed during the time of Noah, but all those imprisoned in hell who heard the proclamation of Jesus. [Peter uses Noah’s example also, because he wants to use it as a springboard to talk about baptism. But that will have to wait for another sermon. We still have plenty to deal with right now.]

These passages remind me of something Paul says in Romans:

23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. 24 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, 26 for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

(Romans 3:23-26, NLT, bold formatting added for emphasis)

Like Luther, I want to be very tentative about how we interpret what Peter is saying. It would be very easy to give the impression that actually, it doesn’t matter whether or not you trust Jesus in this life, because if you go to hell, you’ll get a chance to repent from there. I don’t agree with that at all. Instead, I think there are two things happening.

First, and I say this very tentatively, if we look at 1 Peter 3:19, and then 1 Peter 4:6, and then Romans 3:23-26, we may have an answer to the age-old question about those who never had a chance to hear about Jesus Christ. It seems you can’t even avoid hearing about Jesus, even in hell. So, if somehow, someone is cut off from God because they never heard about Jesus, they definitely will hear about him in hell. 1 Peter 4:6 seems to indicate that people may have a chance to repent there – but, based upon what it says elsewhere in the Bible, they would have that chance only if they had no chance to hear and respond in this present life. This brings back to mind what I said earlier, about saying that salvation is indeed offered to every human being.

Second, (and I think I’m on firmer theological ground here) it seems to me that this is about the power and majesty of the gospel. The good news about Jesus is so powerful, that not even hell can keep from hearing it, not though they try to stop up their ears. My own theory is that hearing the gospel proclaimed will cause torment to most of the residents of hell, because they hate Jesus, and hate to be reminded of what he has done for all who were willing to trust him, hate to be reminded, in their pride, that they are wrong. In hell, the gospel is a reminder that the enemy has triumphed, totally and finally. Proclaiming the gospel in hell is the same as raising your flag over the land of your conquered foe. Even where he is rejected, Jesus is still the one in power. So Paul writes:

13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

(Colossians 2:13-15)

In the Colossians text above, it says that Jesus triumphs over the rulers and authorities, and puts them to open shame. “Rulers and authorities” is one of the ways the Bible describes evil spiritual entities (the devil and various types of demons). I think that when Jesus proclaimed the gospel in hell it was a triumph over the devil and his minions; it put them to shame – they couldn’t even keep Jesus, or the gospel, out of their own domain in hell. Even hell is under Jesus’ authority.

Your forgiveness is absolutely secure. You can’t sin more than the sacrifice of Jesus is worth. God’s grace is unstoppable: not even hell can keep the message out, and no one will be able to say they never had a chance to receive God’s salvation through Jesus Christ.

1 PETER #22: SHOWING JESUS TO THE WORLD

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Peter, Faith, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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We are called to show Jesus to the world in three important ways: by enduring suffering with patience, by making a verbal defense, and by living a life that reflects the character of Jesus. We cannot do any of this unless we rely upon the life of Jesus within us.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button: For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Peter Part 22

1 PETER #22. 1 PETER 3:13-16

13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

(1 Peter 3:13-16, ESV)

After describing the way Christians need to act toward each other, Peter now says a few words about how we should act toward those outside of our community of faith. In a way, this text is neatly laid out for us. In the first place, in our relationships with non-believers, we should be prepared to suffer – even if it is unjust. Second, we should be prepared to “make a verbal defense” of the hope we have (that is, our Christian faith). Third, our lives should be so directed by the Holy Spirit that the way we live also provides a kind of defense, or testimony.

We might as well start with the first: patient suffering. As we have seen already in Peter’s letter, he is passing on the teaching of Jesus, more or less directly.

10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
11 “You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. 12 Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

(Matthew 5:10-12, CSB)

And:

38 “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. 39 But I tell you, don’t resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 As for the one who wants to sue you and take away your shirt, let him have your coat as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and don’t turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
43 “You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same?

(Matthew 5:38-47, CSB)

We talked about this a bit, last time: these verses should make us despair of our own efforts and resources. I find it impossible to rejoice when even the company Amazon treats me unjustly simply because they are huge, and can get away with it. How much more difficult is it to suffer because I’ve been doing the right thing? How much more difficult to be criticized, to be lied about, to be considered evil when I’ve done nothing wrong, and in fact, I’ve been trying to do good? I find these words of Jesus, and of Peter, his apostle, to be impossible to actually follow.

I am supposed to find them impossible.

Jesus gives us the answer to this dilemma. He and his followers often warned about the great dangers of worldly wealth. At one point, he described how difficult it was to be rich, and remain faithful to God:

23 And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

(Matthew 19:23-26, ESV)

With man – that is, with our own effort – suffering unjustly seems impossible. But with God, all things are possible. When we allow Jesus to live his life through us, we can indeed love those who hurt us. But only then is such a thing possible. We need to despair of doing it by our own efforts, and cry out to Jesus, and lean on him to do it through us. Then, with God, it is possible.

The second piece of our text today tells us to continually make sure that Jesus is first in our lives, and then to be ready to offer a verbal defense for our faith. Paul says something similar in Colossians 4:6. In case anyone wonders if “make a defense,” might include physically defending ourselves in that situation, I need to say two things. First, the Greek word here is very clear – the defense is one made with words. There’s no semantic wiggle room to expand it to mean anything physical. Second, when we read the context, it is all about entrusting ourselves to God, and allowing God to make things right in his own time. One cannot shoot, or strike, someone “with gentleness and respect.” I believe the Bible does allow Christians to be soldiers in a proper, legal army or militia. I believe the Bible allows, and even encourages, us to defend the weak and defenseless. I don’t see anything wrong with fighting back against someone who wants to hurt you in general.

But the Bible does not endorse Christians using physical force to either defend or propagate Christianity. If someone is trying to hurt you in general, I don’t see a problem with physical self defense (although the Bible does not insist that you respond with physical force). But if someone is attacking you specifically because you are a Christian, a different kind of defense is called for.

Yes, during the crusades, and in some of the Roman Catholic Church’s missionary endeavors, they did use force to defend and propagate Christianity. But they did so in contradiction to the scripture. Just go back and read our text for today, and the verses I’ve quoted so far. To the extent that anyone has tried to spread or defend Christianity by force, they have been bad Christians, disobeying the teaching of Jesus and his apostles. In case it is not clear, I condemn the Crusades, the Inquisitions, and the other “holy wars” of the Roman Catholic church, and I condemn them with, and based upon, the words of the Bible. Virtually all true Christians are with me on this.

We are definitely told, however, to offer a defense made up of words. The Greek word here for “offer a defense” is “apologia.” You might recognize a form of the word “logos” there at the end (logia). Logos is a term that means both “words,” and “logical thinking” (just by looking at it in English letters, you can see that the word “logic” comes from “logos.”) Apologia means, essentially, to speak out, to use logic, reason and words to explain and justify. From this word we get a Christian term you might have heard before: “apologetics.” Christian apologetics is basically the process of putting this command into action. In Christian apologetics, we use words and logic to explain, reason with others, and verbally defend the Christian faith.

The first Christian apologist was arguably Paul the apostle, who used the Roman legal system, and Greek philosophy, to argue for the truth of Christianity. Immediately after the time of the apostles we have the letters of Christians who were engaged in explaining the faith, and reasoning with others about the truth of Jesus Christ.

Over the centuries, Christians have developed a wealth of resources for explaining and defending the Christian faith, and reasoning with others. In recent years the internet has brought an explosion of websites dedicated to apologetics. I have to admit – for me, apologetics is like mind-candy. I could read these sorts of resources for hours, and in fact, I often do. Just to get you started, let me offer a couple books and websites.

Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis, is sort of the gold-standard for Christian apologetics. It was written about eighty years ago, now, however, and there are some modern concerns that C.S. Lewis simply never thought he would have to address. Even so, Mere Christianity is well worth reading. A more recent resource that is very good is What’s So Great about Christianity? By Dinesh D’souza. In addition to explaining many of the traditional pillars of apologetics, he addresses issues like the checkered history of Christian behavior, and other things that modern people find important, that are not found in Mere Christianity.

If you are specifically interested in the relationship between Christianity and modern science, Reasons to Believe (https://www.reasons.org) is an excellent place to start. It was founded by Dr. Hugh Ross, who was notable in the field of astrophysics, and later founded the ministry. In general, Reasons to Believe is made up of legitimate high-level scientists who are also Bible-believing Christians.

William Lane Craig is a philosopher who is also a Christian, and he has developed a ministry that touches on virtually all aspects of defending the faith with gentleness and respect. The organization he started can be found at: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/ . The video in the next link is produced by that ministry, and is a great example of Christian apologetics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRyq6RwzlEM&t=317s

There is a widely-held assumption that because Christianity is a religion, there is no evidence in favor of it, and it is not intellectually robust. Even a quick skimming of some of the resources I’ve listed here will reveal how utterly false those ideas are.

Now, apologetics are very interesting and fun to people like me. But you could spend countless hours and days on apologetics resources. These days, you can literally get a Ph.D. in it. However, traditional apologetics might not really be your cup of tea. It is a fairly scholarly, intellectually-oriented discipline. Your own approach should reflect who you are, and above all, it should reflect the things you really know and believe.

Perhaps the best advice I can give you when you start the process of defending your faith, is that you should be willing to say: “I don’t know the answer to that,” when you don’t. Honesty goes a long way in our present cultural moment. I still have to say that once in a while. For instance, several years ago, someone asked me this question: “Can a God who is all-powerful make a rock that is impossible for Him to move?” This is a conundrum. If the answer is “yes,” than how can he be all powerful if there is a rock he cannot move? If the answer is “no,” how can he be all powerful, if he can’t make a rock according to any specification at all? Some people believe that this makes God vanish in a cloud of cold logic. Personally, I think the question assumes facts that are unknown and unknowable to human beings, but I couldn’t absolutely prove that by logic. I could have turned the question around a little, and discussed the alternatives to an all-powerful God, and prove that everyone ultimately believes in something that is absolute (like an all-powerful God, or an infinite multiverse), and that every version of that belief has problems, but that isn’t a direct answer to the question. So, I said, “I don’t have a good a answer for that.”

Since then, I have found a better answer, but of course, no one else has asked the question again. The better answer is that God’s nature is the one inviolable thing in the universe, and if God were able to contradict his own nature, he couldn’t be God in the first place. In other words, “No, he can’t make a rock that he is unable to move, because if he could, he wouldn’t be truly God: something he himself created would be as great as himself.” In other words, the question is a “contradiction in terms,” which, in even more plain language, means: “it is nonsense.” Another example of the exact same kind of nonsense is this question: “Can God make a square circle?” That makes it more clear. If God made a square circle, it wouldn’t be a circle anymore. A circle cannot contain right-angles, or it ceases to be a circle. “A square circle” is nonsense. So, also, is the idea that God can contradict in Himself what it means to be God, while remaining God. So, actually, the question about creating the unliftable rock is nothing more than a cheap parlor trick.

 I think that answers the question, but even so, there’s a lot of subtlety built into that answer (such that I could probably write several thousand words about it), and I doubt it satisfies everyone.

Sorry, the last few paragraphs were a lot of fun for me, but, again, that might not be your style. The point is, when I encounter questions I can’t answer, I’m honest abut it. I also then tend to go look for a good answer. I encourage you to do both things as well.

You should also find a way to talk to others about your faith that reflects who you are, and what you do know about Jesus. This is one reason, I think why Peter begins this little instruction with: “Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life.” That’s the way the NLT puts it. It isn’t exactly “word for word,” but I do think it gets at the essence of what Peter is saying. If you want to make a good verbal defense of your faith, it begins with letting Jesus have first place in your life. Only when we orient our lives around him, when we make him our first priority, will we be able to offer a good verbal defense of our faith.

When we get that part straight, we can speak to people in a way that accurately reflects what we know, or don’t know, about following Jesus. But we can start with what we know. For instance, here’s a question everyone can answer, no matter how long (or briefly) they have been following Jesus: “Who is Jesus to you?” When he is Lord of your life, that question isn’t so hard to answer. Everyone has enough knowledge to answer that question, because it is a question about your own experience. Here’s another one: “Why do you trust Jesus?” Again, our answers might differ somewhat, but anyone who does, in fact, trust Jesus, can answer these questions.

Here are a few more: “What has Jesus done for you, and what does he do for you now? What is the best thing, for you, about trusting Jesus? What difference does Jesus make in your life?

The key is to think about what you believe, why you believe it, and who Jesus is to you, and focus on those things. No one will say to you: “No, you’re wrong, you don’t follow Jesus because you feel his love.” They may think your experience is mistaken, but there can be no doubt that it is your experience. People can’t, and don’t, typically argue with personal observations and experiences like that. In other words, you don’t need to be William Lane Craig, Hugh Ross, (or even Tom Hilpert!), to make a good verbal defense of your faith.

Peter closes this section (and begins the next) with another observation about our behavior: that we should maintain a clear conscience, and good behavior, and sooner or later that will bring shame to those who slander us.

Suffering patiently for the sake of Jesus is a way of showing him to the world. Telling people with words about your experience of faith is another. Finally, having a clear conscience and good behavior will show Jesus to the world.

All of these should scare us. All of these should lead us to say: “But I can’t do that!” Because we can’t. But Jesus can do all of these things through us, if we are willing to let him. We need to allow him to lead us to act, or not act, to speak, or not speak. We need to use our hands and voices as he directs. But if we are relying on him, he is the one who will make it all work out. It won’t come from our own strength, but from His. It won’t come from our flawed natures, but rather, from His perfect character. All he needs is our trust.         

1 PETER #21: LETTING JESUS OUT

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Peter, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
Photo by lalesh aldarwish on Pexels.com

Peter gives us some challenging instructions in this text: we are to love one another deeply, have compassion and sympathy, be like minded, be humble. We are not to return evil for evil, or respond to insults, but rather we are to bless. All this seems like a pretty tall order. But there are two keys to pursuing this: first, we focus on the wonderful, eternal promises of God. Second, we rely on Jesus to live his life through us.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Peter Part 21

1 PETER #21. 1 PETER 3:8-14

Peter is going to encourage us to live out our relationships in a way that can be pretty difficult and challenging. It might even seem impossible. We’ll look first at what he asks us to do, but don’t be discouraged. We’ll finish with how we can actually do such things.

After dealing with various relationships that involve authority in one way or another, Peter turns his attention to relationships within the church in general. Earlier, he established that we are God’s specially chosen people, an ethnicity of holiness, citizens of God’s kingdom. Now, he is beginning to explain what all that means for how we should treat fellow Christians. He starts with “unity of mind,” as the ESV translates it. I prefer the translation “like minded,” which several translations use. The idea is not that there are never differing opinions in the church. It’s not that no one ever thinks different thoughts, but even when the thoughts are different, the thinking is similar. Because we have the mind of Christ, we think alike. One way to put it is that because the Holy Spirit lives in our spirits, we will look at the world in a similar way. We understand things through the same spiritual lens, because it is the same Holy Spirit that informs our understanding. Paul describes this to the Corinthians:

14 But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. 15 Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. 16 For,
“Who can know the LORD’s thoughts?
Who knows enough to teach him?”
But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.

(1 Corinthians 2:14-16, NLT)

Because we have the mind of Christ, our intentions, our sentiments, our goals and purposes are the same. We might get there in different ways, but we should be able to recognize “the mind of Christ,” in other Christians, and that should motivate us to get along, even when we disagree with each other about particulars.

Peter adds that we should be full of sympathy. Sympathy means that we “feel with,” one another. As Paul also wrote to the Corinthians:

22 In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. 23 And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, 24 while the more honorable parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. 25 This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other. 26 If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.
27 All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.

(1 Corinthians 12:22-27, NLT)

This is exactly what Peter is getting at in our text for today. Your joy is my joy. Your sorrow is also mine. Not in a fake way, but in a real way that says: “Because of Jesus Christ, we belong together in the same family forever. So, I’m with you. I’ve got your back.”

Peter adds three more things that should characterize Christian community (that is to say, churches): brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. I think we understand brotherly love. I just want to make sure that we don’t start faking it. As Paul writes elsewhere: “Love must be genuine.” Brotherly love isn’t actually brotherly love unless it is real. This could be very challenging – how do you love some one genuinely if you actually sort of dislike them?

The next one is translated by the ESV as “a tender heart.” Several translations have “compassion,” here. This is actually a very rich word in Greek. A literal translation might be: “a good feeling in your very bowels.” In practice it means, a deeply felt emotion toward others that is positive. At your deepest being, you are committed to other followers of Jesus.

Finally, there is a humble mind, or humble thinking. Humility in your thinking doesn’t necessarily mean that you think you are wrong. You can be absolutely certain you are correct about something, and yet still approach others with humility. Our humility is to be directed at our own selves in a particular way. We are to be humble about getting our own way, humble about being heard; preferring to let others be honored. You can be absolutely sure you are correct, with no doubts, and yet still approach others with humility. You aren’t humble about what you believe, but rather, because of Jesus, you don’t need to insist on your own way. You don’t need to show off, or make people see that you are right, after all.

If Christians took these instructions of Peter to heart, churches – which, again, are supposed to be communities of Christians – would be wonderful places to be. We wouldn’t just be nice to each other in a surface way. In fact, sometimes, real love means confronting one another with a kind and humble attitude, but not compromising the truth. Such churches would be very attractive to non-Christians – beacons of grace and love in a world that cares about performances, wealth and status. But a lot of Christians don’t because we think it is up to us to make it all work.

Peter once again admonishes us to follow the example of Jesus in all of our relationships:

9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing

(1 Peter 3:9, ESV)

This, along with everything before, would be impossible, and even foolish, unless we could look to promises that were imperishable, undefiled and unfading. Which of course, is why Peter began his letter by reminding us that we do have such promises. If this life is all there is, how could it possibly be useful to bless those who revile us, or to not repay those who do wrong with a taste of their own medicine? We would live a life where people hurt us, we did nothing, and then we died. So what? What would be the point in being that sort of person? Peter says that by behaving this way, we “obtain a blessing.” He seems to think that Psalm 34 provides some help on this subject, so the next few lines he writes are a quotation from that Psalm. Here’s the section he quotes:

12 Who is someone who desires life,
loving a long life to enjoy what is good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from deceitful speech.
14 Turn away from evil and do what is good;
seek peace and pursue it.
15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous,
and his ears are open to their cry for help.
16 The face of the LORD is set
against those who do what is evil,
to remove all memory of them from the earth.

(Psalms 34:12-16, CSB. [If you compare it to 1 Peter 3:10-12, you will see that they are the same, except that Peter’s translation is slightly abbreviated])

When we think about this, I believe it is very important to understand how the promises of God work. Everything we have in this life, except for our own selves, and our relationships with others, will eventually pass away. Our  strength will fail, and our bodies will die. Our wealth will either be used up, or passed to others when our bodies die. Our cars will eventually fall apart, probably sooner rather than later. Our houses might stand for a long time, but they will no longer be ours, and eventually, they, too, will be either bulldozed, or fall apart on their own.

Therefore, any promise of God that is for this life, is only temporary. As such, it isn’t really much of a promise, if it is only for the here and now. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:9, “If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone (CSB).” To make it practical, imagine I had the promise of physical healing from my pain in this life, but NO promise for eternal life. Even a couple decades free from pain would not be comparable to eternal life in a perfect body, living in fellowship with Jesus and all those who trust him in a beautiful, pain-free world.

So any promise that is for this life is only a partial promise. The promises of God that are most precious are those that last forever. We can ask for, and receive in thankfulness, God’s blessings in our lives today. But those are just extras, thrown in to remind us that the real thing is coming soon. Those blessings and miracles and answered prayers are just a foretaste, and aperitif, of the main course that is coming.

Now, it isn’t wrong to ask for blessings here and now. It isn’t wrong to crave more of the delicious foretaste. What is wrong, however, is to declare that God is somehow unjust, or evil, or cruel, for not doing what we think is best here and now. In many cases, I assume, God’s promises can’t be truly fulfilled until we are in the new creation. Take the promise of eternal life, for instance. Imagine God gave eternal life to your sinful flesh. You would be stuck in your present body forever. Every little thing you don’t like about your body would be with you forever. Because your body is corrupted by sin, you would be stuck in patterns of sin and disappointment and self-centeredness that last forever. No, I don’t want that particular promise (eternal life) fulfilled before it is time, before God’s perfect plan has come to fruition. In fact, if God fulfilled it now, it would become a truly horrible thing. I believe that if we could know what God already knows, we’d be able to see clearly that so many of his eternal promises are like that. So many things that we want cannot really be had as long as we live in this sin-corrupted world, and in these sin-corrupted bodies.

So, when Psalm 34 talks about long life and good days, or evil people being removed from the world, I believe that is referring mainly to eternal life. I think that is also true when Peter says that when we don’t return evil for evil, we “obtain a blessing.” Now, perhaps what God does in eternity has echoes here and now. So maybe we do have some sense of blessing, and “good days” now. The foretaste is real, but it’s not the main course. Your best day in this life will be unbelievably worse than your worst day in the New Creation. Therefore, because of what we have coming to us in eternity, we can live a different sort of life, here and now.

Maybe it’s a bit like a multiplayer video game. You’re playing a game with several other real people, and maybe some computer generated players. In the game, one of the real people pulls a kind of dirty trick. That would make most normal people a bit angry. The emotion of anger is, I think, normal in such a situation, and not wrong. And yet, if you take a moment to get perspective, you can let it go fairly easily, because it doesn’t actually impact your real life. Though it matters at this moment, once you are done with the game it won’t matter at all.

If we can remember that we have a new creation and eternal life waiting for us, that allows us to treat others more kindly. If we remember that we have promises in the New Creation that will never spoil or fade, promises of a life full of joy and adventure and love and friendship, that makes it easier to put up with stupid stuff right now.

All of this is confirmed, I think, by Peter’s next words:

13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled.

(1 Peter 3:13-14, ESV)

Even if we suffer for doing good, even if we suffer unjustly, we will be blessed. How can he say that? Because of the eternal promises of God. How can we possibly live like this? Even though we have the promises of God, sometimes it is hard to love our fellow Christians as Peter exhorts us to. Sometimes it is hard to not return evil for evil. What can we do?

If you think about it, what Peter is really asking of us is that we should be like Jesus. But I think the concept of being like Jesus isn’t quite right, because frankly, I can’t be like Jesus – at least not for very long at a time (I speak only for myself, but I trust you to be honest about yourself). If that’s all that Peter is saying, we are back to living by the law.

I don’t think that’s what Peter is asking, however. Instead, I would put it like this: we are supposed to manifest the character of Jesus. Jesus lives in us, through the Holy Spirit. We need to “let him out.” Let Jesus, who is inside of you, live his life through you, as you. It isn’t about me making a huge effort to love my fellow Christians, and to not repay evil for evil. Instead, it is about me surrendering my life to Jesus, to let him do as he pleases with my life, and through my life.

The life of Jesus living through me will look slightly different from the life of Jesus living through you, but there will be a commonality, which is why Peter says we ought to be “like minded.” We recognize Jesus in each other, and that leads to the love and deep compassion, sympathy and humility that Peter talks about. Our main work is to trust that Jesus will do it, and then trust when the Holy Spirit gives us a nudge to do something, or not do something. When we rely on him, it is no longer about us.

This is one reason it is so important to know the Bible. The more time we spend with the Bible, the easier it is to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit, how he leads you. We also learn by engaging with our fellow-disciples, and through prayer and worship, and through self discipline.

Why not give it a try right now? Let Jesus live his life through you. Pay attention to the Bible as you read it. Pay attention to the little nudges you get from the Holy Spirit. Listen to how other Jesus-followers encourage you. Above all, ask, and then trust, the Holy Spirit to do this work in you and through you.

1 PETER #20: SELF SACRIFICING MEN

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Peter, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
Photo by Kevin Bidwell on Pexels.com

God calls wives to trust him so much that they allow their husbands to take the lead. He calls husbands to trust him so much that they approach their wives in self-sacrificing love. If both men and women listen to God’s call, the result is usually a marriage in which the wife feels secure and cherished, and the husband feels supported and admired.

Peter also tells his readers to maintain an awareness of the significant differences between women and men. Those differences are reflections of the glory of God, and when we honor them, it brings variety and joy to our lives.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer:
Download 1 Peter Part 20

1 PETER #20. 1 PETER 3;1-7 PART C

We’ve already had two messages on this passage. We talked about what it means for wives to submit to their husbands, and also what it means for women to submit to the male leaders of their churches. We talked about the very significant example of Sarah from the Old Testament. If you haven’t read those first two messages on these verses, please do so, because they are very important. One short definition of submission (in this context) is that women make room for their husbands (or church leaders) to take spiritual responsibility for their homes and churches. The women entrust themselves ultimately to God, which makes it easier to allow flawed men to lead. They are trusting God, not men. Women should, while allowing the men to lead, encourage them, support them and use their gifts and abilities to assist that leadership.

Now, it’s time to talk about the part of men in all of this. Peter devotes just one short paragraph specifically to men, which we’ll get to in a minute. In the meantime, we have not only this letter, but also the entire Bible, and most Bible teachers agree that the most complete teaching in one place on this subject of male leadership and female submission comes from Ephesians 5:22-35

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

(Ephesians 5:22-33, ESV)

Husbands are directed to love their wives as Christ loved the church. The word for love in this case means “self-sacrificing love.” Christ loved the church by literally dying for her. He gave his own life for her sake. This is the standard for how husbands should treat their wives.

Let’s get real about this for a moment. I know men who are pretty certain that they would physically give their lives to save their wives. They believe they would step in front of a bullet, or dive in front of a speeding car to knock her out of the way into safety. And they might, in fact, do such things, if it came down to it.

But self-sacrificing love is not just about the exceptionally rare cases that involve physically saving someone’s life. It means that you die to your own wishes in order to show your wife that she is loved. So, maybe you’ve had a rough day at work, and you’d really just like to put up your feet and watch TV and relax. But she’s had a rough day, too, and someone has to do the dishes. Maybe, in this case, dying for your wife means that you get out of your chair and do the dishes so that she doesn’t have to. Or, it might mean engaging her in meaningful conversation, even when you’re already worn out, or supporting her decision to go back to school even though you are worried about the money.

A lot of men I know are good at sacrificing themselves in mainly one specific way: working hard at their jobs. I’ve met many men who work long hours, and make sacrifices to climb the corporate ladder, all so that, as they might put it: “I can give her the life she deserves.” What they mean is, “buy her the things I think she wants.”

But a lot of women I know would be happy with a little less “stuff” and more meaningful time spent with their husbands. Many women are fully supported financially, but are barely on life support emotionally. Sometimes, for a man, dying for their wife might involve less success at work, and more time spent with their wives. It might mean less financial investment, and more emotional investment. Other men insist that their wives work, to do their part to support the family. Maybe for such men, self-sacrificing love means that you will give up some financial security in order to let her pursue a dream that doesn’t involve a career.

You see what I’m getting at? The way husbands are directed to love their wives means that we husbands should consider the needs of our wives at least as important as our own. When in doubt, maybe we should consider them more important. That’s not to say that a husband can never have a bad day, or that it is never appropriate for a wife to be self-sacrificial to her husband. But it means husbands must love their wives as they love their own bodies, and indeed, their very selves. In fact, the standard is the way Jesus loves the church.

It is true that the Lord is asking a lot from women when he says that they should submit to their husbands, and also allow men to lead their churches. It requires a lot of trust in God (which is, I think the main, and most important reason for it). It is also true that the Lord is asking a lot from men when he says that they should love their wives even when it involves sacrificing their own comfort and their preferences, even to the point of dying for them. I hope you can see that if both men and women follow these teachings, the result will often be a marriage in which both the wife and husband feel honored and blessed.

When a husband loves his wife in this way, even if maybe he doesn’t do things exactly the way she might prefer, she should be able to say: “I know he loves me. I know, even when it’s not perfect, that he truly has my best interests in his heart.”

When a wife loves her husband and trusts God by encouraging and supporting her husband’s leadership, he should be able to say: “I know she has my back. Even when it’s not perfect, I can’t doubt that she’s with me, that she’ll stand up for me, and stick with me no matter what.”

Peter gives some specific additional information that is not found explicitly in other passages:

7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

1 Peter 3:1-7

As it turns out, this passage has become more important in recent years than it was for quite some time. Because, you can see that Peter is telling his readers to remember that men and women are significantly different. He tells men to be understanding of women. This presupposes that there are differences which should be understood and taken into account when men and women relate.

Peter also writes that women are the “weaker vessel.” Though in our culture it has become almost impossible to say without being censured, there are significant biological differences between men and women, and also emotional and social differences. One of the biological facts is that men, on average, are physically stronger than women on average. Could we find some women who are stronger than some men? Of course. But the strongest human being in the world will always be a man, because men develop more muscle mass than women. It’s just a fact of life, confirmed many, many times by science. Most women will indeed be physically weaker than most men.

I think Peter has three main reasons for pointing this out. First, he wants men to avoid becoming physically rough or abusive with their wives. He wants men to use their strength to provide for and protect their wives, not scare, dominate or abuse them. In Peter’s day, this reminder that women are physically weaker would have shamed any man who used his strength to dominate women. It’s a bit like saying, “Only a coward would hurt a woman. Pick on someone your own size.”

Second, Peter is reminding men of the Christian principle of showing honor to one another. I think most people these days forget (if they ever knew), that physical strength was much more important before modern technology. Most women literally did not have the strength to plow a field, either on their own, or even with a team of horses or oxen. They didn’t have the strength to build a house made out of large stones, or logs, or to fight off wild animals or bandits. To whatever extent women could contribute to these activities, they wouldn’t be as effective as men.

In our culture today, we can lie to ourselves about sex differences. But without technology, in the time of the New Testament, such differences were on display every day. Almost anything a woman could do could also be done by men, but there were a lot of things men could do that women were simply not physically capable of doing. So there was a tendency to see women as less important than men. After all, what good were they? They couldn’t really farm, build, or fight with first century technology, certainly not as well as men. But Peter says, “Yes, they might be physically weaker, but you must honor them.”

Why? Why should men honor women when they can’t keep up with men physically? “Because,” says Peter, “they are coheirs with you in the grace and life of God.” This is one reason Peter earlier reminded everyone of Sarah. Sarah’s life proves that in God’s eyes, women are as important as men. So, Peter writes: “You men, honor women as equals in God’s eyes. God made Sarah equal to Abraham in his plan of salvation. He makes all women equal to men in the grace and life that we have in Jesus Christ.” This was hugely counter-cultural in the time of the New Testament. Christianity is almost single-handedly responsible for raising the status of women worldwide over the past several centuries.

Third, I believe that this text is here as a reminder for us today. Our culture has begun to tell lies about the nature of sex differences, claiming that they are minimal, and unimportant, or even nonexistent. But we can only say such things because technology has evened things out between men and women. Don’t get me wrong, I think the fact that technology and the modern economy have made it possible for either sex to do almost any job is generally a good thing. But this situation also allows us to forget, or even to distort, the truth about the differences between men and women.

In sports, however, we generally recognize the truth. Women don’t compete directly against men, because of the physical differences. The world’s best female tennis player was, for several years, Serena Williams. Talk show host David Letterman spoke to her in 2013, and suggested she might be better than some of the top-ranked men. Williams responded:

“For me, men’s tennis and women’s tennis are completely, almost, two separate sports,” Williams said. “If I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose 6-0, 6-0 in five to six minutes, maybe 10 minutes. No, it’s true. It’s a completely different sport. The men are a lot faster and they serve harder, they hit harder, it’s just a different game. I love to play women’s tennis. I only want to play girls, because I don’t want to be embarrassed.”

(https://www.good.is/sports/serena-williams-john-mcenroe accessed 6/29/22)

I’m not sure that Serena Williams could, or would, say such a thing in public today without being severely criticized by those who pretend that there is essentially no difference between men and women. However, neither the silence nor the censure can change the facts.

Peter tells men to be aware of sex differences, so that they can treat women well. In action movies for the past decade or more, it is common to see fight scenes between men and women, and normally, in such scenes, the women beat the men. I do agree that some exceptional women would be able to win a fight against unexceptional, or somewhat weaker men. But these movies implant the idea that fights between women and men are “fair fights.” They are not. A male-female fight is between a bigger, stronger, faster, more aggressive person and a smaller, slower, weaker, less aggressive person. That’s the truth, no matter what it looks like in a fictional movie. Peter tells us to get real: men need to be aware of the differences so that they can honor women, and not hurt them.

Both men and women should be aware of the differences, because God created both male and female, and he did so as a way to show the universe part of his glorious image. In other words, being female is part of the glory and image of God. Being male is part of the glory and image of God. When we disparage either male, or female, we disparage God. When we suggest they are unimportant, or interchangeable, we lose part of the beauty that God built into humanity.

At this point, I need to say something, obviously, about transgender folks. A trans person feels that the sex of their body does not reflect who they are on the inside. I believe that transgender people suffer real pain. As Christians, we need to recognize that the pain and struggle are real, and we ought to treat trans people as we ought to treat all people – with honor, love, compassion, and grace.

 We also ought to deal with trans people, and all people, in truth. While having compassion, and being welcoming and accepting, we also need to hold onto the truth, which is that there is such a thing as male and female, and those things are biologically hardwired, because God made us that way.

It is not only the Bible that teaches us this. Modern science has made profoundly definitive discoveries about sex differences. Here are only a few of them: male brain tissue is intrinsically different from female brain tissue. Scientists can now discover the sex of an individual simply by looking at a sample of brain tissue, knowing nothing else about the person. Not only that, but female and male brains are organized differently.

Even at a young age, girls and boys literally see the world differently. Girls and women see color distinctions that men are incapable of perceiving. This is not because of socialization – it is the result of different nerve and brain pathways that are hard-wired by the time babies are born. Every step in every neural pathway from the retina to the brain is different between males and females.

Females have more sensitive hearing. This is simply fact. Also, the mechanisms for sensory perception, particularly pain, are different between females and males. To put it another way, men and women experience pain differently, at a cellular level.

Doctor Leonard Sax, a clinical child psychiatrist, puts it like this:

Girls and boys play differently. They learn differently. They fight differently. They see the world differently. They hear differently. When I started graduate school in 1980, most psychologists were insisting that those differences came about because parents raised girls and boys in different ways. Today we know that the truth is the other way around: parents raise girls and boys differently because girls and boys are so different from birth. Girls and boys behave differently because their brains are wired differently

(Why Gender Matters, Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph.D. Broadway Books, NY, NY. 2006)

All these things affirm the view of the Bible. The differences between men and women are important. We can have compassion on those who struggle with their bodies, while at the same time, not compromising what we know to be true.

Let the Lord speak to you today!

1 PETER #19: A BEAUTIFUL LIFE

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Peter, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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Peter writes that true beauty comes from within, and is attainable for everyone, regardless of clothing, hairstyle, body-type, or anything external. There is a beauty of spirit that comes from trusting God, and letting your heart rest peacefully on Him. He gives the example of Sarah, who, though she failed sometimes, trusted God, and became beautiful in this way. God used Sarah to show the world not only inner beauty, but also that women are equally important as men, and that both men and women are necessary to show the world his glory.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button: For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Peter Part 19

1 PETER #19. 1 PETER 3:1-7

Last time we considered the essence of a woman’s submission to her husband, which is that she entrusts herself to God by using her gifts to support her husband’s leadership of their family, and encouraging that leadership. Ultimately, her trust is not in her husband, but in God, and because of her trust in God, she makes room for her husband to lead. We also talked about the limits of that sort of submission.

In case I wasn’t clear last time, I want to make sure and say it clearly: this doesn’t mean that husbands get to control their wives, and tell them what to do, or organize their schedules for them, and so on. These verses do not advocate those sorts of unhealthy relational patterns, and abuse of any kind is always wrong. The main thing is not that husbands get to control their wives, but rather, that wives make room for their husbands to step up and take responsibility in healthy, godly ways. Submitting means that wives trust God to be at work in and through their husbands, and they support and encourage their husbands’ godly leadership of the family.

By the way, there are several other verses in the New Testament that apply these same principles to church leadership. That’s useful for us today in two ways. First, if you are a single woman, and you wonder what this might have to do with you, you can apply it in your church. Entrust yourself to God, and then make room for the men in your church to lead in godly ways. Support and encourage them, contributing your own talents to their efforts. Single women might also consider how they can make room for, and encourage their own fathers to be spiritual leaders.

Second, if you think about submission in terms of the church, it is easy to see the proper limits of submission. Your church leaders shouldn’t be telling you how to spend every moment of your day, and therefore neither should your husband. Your church leaders shouldn’t be dictating who you can and can’t be friends with, or where you should shop, or what food to eat. Therefore, neither should your husband. If the men in the church have any wisdom, they will ask for the wisdom, talents and skills of the women to help them as they lead. So, a wise husband should want his wife involved in leading the family. There are a few differences, of course, between marriage-life and church-life, but understanding how it should work in the church helps us to navigate how it should work in the home.

Peter adds some new thoughts, while he is still addressing women:

3 Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— 4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

1 Peter 3:3-4

Let’s be sensible about these verses. It should be obvious that Peter is not prohibiting braided hair. What he is doing is quite clear: He is encouraging women to focus on inward beauty more than outward decorations like clothing, jewelry and hairstyles. As it turns out, this could be a tremendously freeing and wonderful thing for women.

Let’s start with the way Peter says it: “Do not let your adorning be external.” The Greek word translated “adorning” is an interesting one. It literally means “world.” Without giving a Greek lesson, I think the idea here is like this:

Don’t let your world be arranged around external things like hairstyles, jewelry and clothes.

(Tom’s literal-ish translation)

Peter is not saying that if you pay attention to your hair or clothes, you are sinning. He is saying that the focus of your world should be on internal qualities more than external things. He adds (my “expounded translation”)

Instead, arrange your world around the hidden beauty of your heart, your inner person. Do this through a composed and gentle spirit. This kind of beauty lasts forever, and is precious to God.

Tom’s literal-ish expounded translation

Before we get to the details, let me point out that this means that true beauty is possible for every woman, no matter their age, genetic make-up or workout regimen. In fact, the very reason we are familiar with the idea of “inner beauty” is because of this passage of the Bible. It reminds me of another passage, this time about a man. The prophet Samuel was looking for Israel’s next king, and he came upon a big, tall, strong young man who looked like a king. He thought his search was over until God spoke to him:

7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

(1 Samuel 16:7, NLT)

Our culture, by and large, does judge by outward appearances. Some of the most admired and envied individuals in our society are actually pretty lousy as human beings, but they are beautiful to look at. It’s been well established that there is such a thing as “tall privilege” (tall people get hired more, and are more likely to be promoted, etc). People who are considered physically attractive are also treated better than others. To our culture, outward appearances are very important.

Peter offers to free us from all of that. He says there is a beauty that touches the heart of God, and it is the beauty of the inner person. It has nothing to do with the size or brand of your clothes, or your hairstyle. It’s a beauty that will never fade, no matter how old you grow. You can’t lose it.

Writing specifically to women, Peter says that womanly beauty has something to do with a composed and gentle spirit. Where I write “composed,” some translations say: “quiet.” But just as “quiet” has shades of meaning in English, so does the word in Greek. It doesn’t necessarily mean “refraining from talking or making noise.” It means “remaining at peace,” or “not trying to control things.” It’s a piece of what we talked about last time when we considered submission. It means trusting God so much that you don’t have to try and control things. That trust leads to peace and composure in the inner person, which is a beautiful thing to God.

As an example of this, Peter names Sarah, the wife of Abraham. He says that Sarah used to make herself beautiful in this same way, as she too, entrusted herself to God’s work in and through her husband.

Let’s consider some of the details of Sarah’s beautiful life. (I’m going to call them Sarah and Abraham consistently, even though initially they were called Sarai and Abram). We probably need to start by acknowledging that much like her husband Abraham, Sarah was an imperfect person, who had ups and downs in her life of faith. Her worst moments came when she failed to trust God, or to make room for Abraham’s leadership, and instead, tried to control things herself. So, we’ll briefly consider the main negative example from Sarah’s life, because it has bearing on the rest of it.

God had promised a child to Sarah and Abraham. It didn’t look like it was going to happen. Finally, she decided that maybe God helps those who help themselves. I can picture it a little bit. She says to Abraham:

“It’s over. I’m done with my female cycle.”

“What do you mean?” Abraham might have been slightly clueless at this point.

“I mean that having babies is related to the fact that I bleed every month. Now, since I no longer bleed every month, my body has lost the capability of having babies.”

“OK,” says Abraham. He probably feels that he didn’t really want to know all these details.

“This just isn’t going to happen, Abraham, not by letting nature take its course. Nature has taken its course already, and has gone home to retire. Women my age don’t get pregnant. We have to do something.”

In this case, Sarah did not trust God. She tried to control things, and she made a hash of it. To make a long story short, Sarah decided that they should have a surrogate pregnancy. However, in those days, the only way to have a surrogate mother carry a baby for a couple was for the man to impregnate the surrogate in the “old fashioned way.” Sarah insisted, suggesting her maid Hagar as the surrogate. Abraham (and Hagar, apparently) agreed.

Hagar did indeed get pregnant, and this made her feel like she had replaced Sarah, whom she mocked. Sarah complained to Abraham, and blamed him for the strife, even though the whole thing was her idea. Later on, Sarah clashed with Hagar again. She certainly never bonded with Hagar’s baby, or considered him her own.

That was a dark spot on Sarah’s history. It occurred when she was not remaining at peace, or trusting God’s work. It happened when she tried to take control in order to get what she wanted.

However, for most of her life, Sarah displayed a remarkable level of trust in God, and that allowed her to support and encourage Abraham’s leadership. For instance, the story of Abraham begins in the land of Ur. I picture him coming to Sarah.

“Honey, I believe God has called us to move.”

“He didn’t say anything to me about it.”

“I know.”

“Where are we going?”

Abraham clears his throat. “Uh, I’m not really sure. God said he’d show me when we got there.”

“So, you have no idea where we’re going, or how long it will take?”

“Ah, that’s right, I guess.”

“How long will we stay there?”

“Um,” says Abraham. “The rest of our lives?”

“So I’m never going to see my friends or family again?”

“Well, uh, I guess not.”

“Why are we supposed to do this?”

“To have a land that will be populated with our descendants.”

“But we haven’t even been able to have children yet.”

“No. But God wants us to go. He says we’ll have lots of descendants.”

Sarah takes a deep breath. “OK. If you really believe this is what God wants.”

I can’t imagine the kind of trust in God she had to have to go along with Abraham at that point! What a beautiful picture of faith and peace!

After they got to the promised land, two different times, they had to stay in a city with a king in order to survive a time of famine. Both times, the kings noticed Sarah, and asked Abraham about her. Abraham was afraid they would kill him in order to take her into their harems, so, both times, he told a half-truth, saying she was his sister (she actually was either his step-sister or half-sister). He neglected to mention that she was also his wife. His lies actually put Sarah at great risk, since the kings did indeed want her for their harems. However, she trusted God, even when her husband was making mistakes, and God protected her in those situations, even though Abraham failed.

So, Sarah knew how to speak her mind. Submitting to her husband did not turn her into a doormat. She sometimes laughed at him, sometimes argued with him. But when push came to shove, she almost always chose to trust God’s work in and through her husband, and therefore to encourage and support Abraham’s leadership. Even her failures are an example to us, in that they show us she was human, and there is grace when we fall. We have no physical pictures of Sarah, but Peter calls her beautiful, because of her trust in God.

Part of this beauty, no doubt has to do with the image of God, and how God made male and female to relate to one another. All the way back in Genesis chapter 1, God declared this:

27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

(Genesis 1:27, ESV)

Being created in the image of God means that in some way, human beings reflect the glory of God to each other and to the universe. But the image of God requires both male and female.

There is something else very important about Sarah. We know from the incident with Hagar that Abraham was able to have children without too much trouble. In addition, many years later, after Sarah died, Abraham remarried, and his second wife bore several children to him. So, when it came to having the descendants that God promised, it was Sarah’s body that was keeping it from happening. But notice this very significant thing: After Abraham had a son with Hagar as a “surrogate,” God said, “This is not the child I promised you.” This is highly important.

In the days of Abraham, women were considered to be of secondary importance to men. When it came to having children, the important thing, to most people, was the father. If Abraham had not been a follower of God, it would not have mattered who the mother of his children was. However, God showed that his promise was not just for Abraham, but for Sarah, too. The child of God’s promise had to be not just Abraham’s son, but also Sarah’s. Hagar’s son didn’t count, even though Abraham was the father. In other words, in the eyes of God, Sarah was just as important as Abraham.

In a time when women were considered less important, God used Sarah’s life to say: “Women are just as important as men. My promise is for men and women both. My whole plan of salvation must involve not just Abraham, but also Sarah.”

Today, it might seem obvious that women and men are equally important to God. But it certainly was not so in the time of Sarah. In fact, it is because of the Bible that today we understand that men and women are equal. God used Sarah’s life to show that men and women are equally important, equally valuable, in His eyes.

Last time, I promised you “braids, beauty and biology.” It seems we don’t have space for the “biology” part until next time. So, let’s look for applications for our lives right now. I suspect that the applications will be slightly different for men and women.

Women, one practical thing might be to remember that true beauty comes from within, and you can cultivate it by your trust in the Lord. You can be secure in your beauty, because it is not based upon how you look, or what sorts of clothes or hairstyles you can afford. Your calm, peaceful trust in the Lord can shine out true beauty. It doesn’t matter how old you are, or what kind of genes you have.

Men, we will talk more about your part next time, but we might begin to apply this by recognizing and appreciating the inner beauty of the women in your life. When they entrust themselves to God by making room for your leadership, consider it a sacred responsibility to do your best to lead with sensitivity, love and consideration for them.

It might also be important to remember for both men and women that God designed his image to be reflected not in maleness alone, or femaleness alone, but in the two as they work together. Though we are different, neither one is more (or less) important than the other. We will talk more about this next time.