The Journey with Pastor Steve DeWitt

Steve DeWitt Godly Shepherds Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 5:1-5 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 5:1-5 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 5:1-5 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: Godly Shepherds Airdate: 11/4/2026 Programs: 2393 Godly Shepherds Part B 1 Peter 5, verse 1. “So I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, giving oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” So let’s talk about elders first of all, and then we’ll get into what Peter is saying about elders. But just to talk about elders in the New Testament church. If you read in Acts, begin reading in Acts, you’re going to discover that very quickly on, one of the high priorities in the local church was the establishing of leadership. And so Peter comes in now, and talking about leadership, he says, “I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ.” I find this interesting. Old Peter, remember old Peter, wanting to argue that he’s the greatest, that he’s better than all the rest. “All the others may fail You. I will never fail You.” Remember Peter, Mr., like, “Oh, I’m the greatest around here.” We see in this statement right here another example of the humility that God had worked in Peter’s heart. He doesn’t say, “I, Peter, the bishop of the church. I, Peter, you know, the head of the disciples, the head of the apostles.” What does he say? He says, “I’m just a fellow elder amongst with you.” He says, “I am on your level.” And he brings himself down and says, “We’re just all servants in this house, aren’t we?” Love that. Love that. And you see the signs of maturity in Peter’s life. Second thing that is important in this, as we talk about it, is Peter is going to describe what spiritual leaders look like. But in reality, what he is describing is what spiritual maturity looks like. The higher the quality of the eldering and the shepherding and the leading, the better it is for the sheep in the church. And the sheep ought to want that and pray for that and encourage that and understand what is a biblical shepherd. So that if the leadership, for example, of this church starts sort of veering off in some direction, the sheep understand that’s not what it’s supposed to look like right there. It burdens me. I don’t have time for this, but it’s just a side note. It burdens me to turn on the TV and to see unbiblical shepherding packing out stadiums and people professing to be Christians lauding the unbiblical... And for that to be wildly popular requires sheep who don’t know what a shepherd looks like. That was a side note. Was that a good one? I think maybe there was a good truth to that. And so when people come to me and say, “Have you read this book?” And it’s one of these guys. “This is an awesome book. You need to read this, Pastor Steve.” I think to myself, no. And... fact that you are drawn to that unbiblical shepherding tells me something about your understanding of what biblical shepherding should look like. And we want better for you in that. Now, I will admit, it’s hard to talk about this subject humbly or without, you know, like this is what we’re doing. And so hear my heart in that. I’m acknowledging that it’s hard to talk about this because I am an elder here and a shepherd here. So I feel that tension as I’m talking about this, and I want to approach this in a proper humility. But there’s truth that needs to be said. Finally, notice here that he says that it is the flock of God. It is the flock of God. Why is that important? Because it’s easy for shepherds to think that this is my flock. This is my church. It’s even easy for sheep to think that it’s their church. One commentator says it well, “A church that could be ours would only be a false church. So the sheep are not ours for us to use or misuse as we like. If we lose one, we lose another’s property, not our own. And He is not indifferent to what becomes of His flock.” The church is not the pastor’s church. The church is not the church’s church. I remember many years ago, we were contemplating a big change in the church. And I had somebody that said to me, that was not for the change, “We were here before you came, and we’ll be here when you’re gone. This is our church.” Really? Because last time I checked, this church was bought with the precious blood of Jesus. I’ve never seen you shed a drop of blood for this church. This is not your church. And this is not my church. We all better understand whose church this is. This is the Lord Jesus’ church, and this is God’s flock, and we have the privilege of being a part of it. So now Peter describes quality shepherds with a series of three, not this, but that. Notice, first of all, not duty, but delight. He says, “Not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you.” Willingly. We see here that God is not honored by half-hearted, “Okay, I’ll do it if nobody else wants to do it,” type eldering. That is not honoring to God. It’s not honoring in any of our levels of service here. When we just sort of do it because I gotta do it, there’s no joy in it. There’s no sort of enthusiasm about it. There’s no delighting in it. God is not honored by simply our duties. Now, I will tell you, there are times, honestly, when in the dead of winter, getting up and preaching the 8:15 service, I don’t spring out of bed like, “Oh, you know. Gotta preach the 8:15 service.” You know, you look outside and the snow’s blowing, and “Just stay home today.” And many of you do, sadly. And I, you know, there are meetings that I have to have that I’m not... I don’t walk into those meetings humming the Hallelujah Chorus, right? I’m not, like... “I’ll be glad when this is done.” But the psalmist says it clearly, “Serve the Lord with gladness.” Psalm 100, verse 2. Paul writes about elders, “He who desires the office of overseer desires a good thing.” Down on that heart level, there ought to be in the shepherd a gladness to be a shepherd, a gladness to serve in the church, an enthusiasm about loving the sheep that Jesus loves. I think this applies in a way to all of us, frankly. There ought to be in every Christian a willing desire to have expanding spheres of fruit bearing. It’s not just the non-elder who’s considering to be an elder that ought to have a sort of willingness about them, but all of us should, in our hearts, have a desire for opportunities to bear more fruit for the Lord Jesus, don’t you think? So that that assistant Sunday school teacher, when he or she is approached with an opportunity that might allow them to have a little more impact, minister to a few more people, it shouldn’t be like, “No, unless I decide yes.” There ought to be in our hearts a yes, unless there’s some reason I should say no. Or that assistant small group leader who’s approached, “Hey, you know what, we see gifting in you. What do you think about maybe leading your own group?” The default for us shouldn’t be no. It ought to be yes, unless there’s some compelling reason to be no. Why? Because I want to bear fruit in my life for the Lord and to have that kind of willingness, a general sort of like, “I’ll give it a go. I’ll give it a go and see what the Lord would do.” I think we should be happy for opportunities to serve the Lord Jesus, don’t you? Not a duty, not a gotta make the donuts, but I get to serve Jesus. I’m happy to do it. Count on me. “Here am I, Lord, send me,” right, Isaiah? Second, not for shameful gain, but eagerly. Not for shameful gain, but eagerly. It’s interesting, Peter brings up the leader’s perspective on money. And Paul does the same. Titus 1, 1 Timothy 3, we have qualifications for an elder. Here’s what Paul writes. “Not a lover of money,” 1 Timothy 3:3. “Not greedy for gain,” Titus 1:7. The Apostle Paul writes this regarding gain. “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.” Now I bring that up because the Bible does say that there is legitimate financial support that can flow to leaders in the church. This is part of God’s plan as well. That is not illegitimate, and that’s not... unseemly. It is good, high, holy, wonderful, and a blessing to the church that leaders are free then to devote all their time and energy to shepherding the sheep of the church. What Peter is warning about is illegitimate gain and a heart that loves money and is in it somehow for the money. That is a red flag regarding a candidate to be a leader in the church. When money is the motive, something is wrong down in the heart. Now, you might say to yourself, “Oh, you’re like talking about those prosperity teaching evangelist types that pass the offering plate like four times. And then they jump in their Gulfstream jet and they fly to the next engagement to take four more offerings. And then they go to the...” Is that what you’re talking about? Yes, I would say. I could say that. Yes, generally. But there wasn’t any of that going on when Peter writes this, okay? What Peter, I think, has in mind is not the jet-setting televangelist type, but that normal guy in the church who sees leading in the church... Down in his heart, deep down here, there is an impulse, a motive, where, “If I do that, I think I can work it. I think I can get something out of that if I say yes to being a part of this or if I sort of connect with the right person. I’m going to try to leverage this for my own personal profit and gain.” That’s what Peter has in mind. That guy is not an elder. He is a mercenary. So again, it’s one thing to make money. It’s another thing to serve for it or to serve the money itself. And here’s one reason that this is especially dangerous, is that who are the people in the church that are responsible for handling the finances of the church and making decisions about money and having some access to that? It’s the leaders of the church. If the leaders of the church are in it for the money and they have access to the money, that’s a formula for problems. And all of us have heard things that have happened in local churches where money somehow was the problem. You say, “Well, wait, money wasn’t the problem.” In a sense, it wasn’t. It was the heart of the leadership towards the money. That was the problem. And Peter wisely, talking in the first century, says, “Sheep, understand when you look at who you want to have leading you, don’t go for the guy that’s in it for the money.” So the elder and the pastor, and I say this to myself, has to constantly check his heart. Why am I doing what I am doing? Do I do it because of love for God or love for money? Am I doing it because I love God’s people, or am I doing it somehow for money. And I’ll tell you another danger with leaders, and I want you to be on the lookout for this, are leaders that fleece the flock. And there’s all kinds of ways that leaders can sort of work over the church for their own personal gain. I remember a situation here in the state of Indiana where there was a very popular pastor who quietly was asking members of the church for money, personal loans, all throughout the church. Nobody knew what was going on. Nobody knew the other people were doing it. And then it all came out, all of the money that he had taken from members of the church. I have another friend of mine, he swore that he was an associate pastor, he swore that every December his senior pastor would wear his most out-of-date clothing, and he thought it was for sure because he wanted to garner Christmas sympathy for him. And I think there might have been some truth to it, honestly. You say, “Oh, nobody would ever do that kind of thing.” “The heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it?” And there isn’t any spiritual leader ever since Jesus that there isn’t that kind of tension in the heart. Like Paul writes, he meets with the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, and he says, “While I was with you for three years, I never coveted anyone’s gold or silver.” And that’s where you want your leaders to strive to land. Well, it’s not about that. Their hearts are for the Lord and for His people. A sign of false teacher is that they love money. The Pharisees loved money. Judas betrayed Jesus for money. And I have found it to be an absolute truth. If you really want to know where people’s heart is at, look at what they do with their money. How they use it, how they spend it, how they give it or don’t give it. And faithfulness with personal money is a sign of spiritual maturity. And so when you look at somebody to be a spiritual leader, if their personal finances are in chaos and all you do is you look in and they’re in counseling because of... you’re reading the paper, they’ve been bankrupt three times and this is going on. That’s not the person you want leading the church. Because that shows other issues in the heart. It’s not just true for shepherds, by the way. Unless you sheep get all like, “Yeah, those shepherds, they need to, you know, they need to be honoring God with their money.” It is an absolute truth for all of us. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And we just, we have it as a rule. It’s in our constitution that nobody is established in leadership in this church unless there is demonstrable faithfulness in giving to the church. That... and the reason I like that is there is a lot of wonderful appearing people, but with that, it smokes out the pretenders. It smokes out the pretenders. So not for shameful gain, not in it for the money, not fleece ... fleecing the flock, not working it, but eagerly doing it with the right motive, enthusiastic. And then the third is this, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. I put down not Caesar, but Jesus. Who do you want as your spiritual leader? Not Caesar, not Nero. You want Jesus. And why do we say Jesus? Because Jesus sets the example of what servant leadership looks like. Can anybody question that Jesus was in it for the right reasons? Can anybody suspect His motives for leading the church? No. Why? He gave His life for the church. “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” That example of love, that setting an example, is so clearly seen in the Lord Jesus Christ. He did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. And may it be true for the leaders of our church, Bethel Church, that there’s no thrones around here. I’ve been to so many churches where the leadership would sit on the stage, not so much anymore, but back in the day, and you’d have the little chair, the little chair, the little chair. Those were the associate pastors. Then you had the throne chair, little chair, little chair, little chair, little chair. And you walk in the auditorium and you’re like, “Hmm, I wonder what the leadership style is like around here,” when you have the throne on the stage, right? I’m glad we don’t do that, because we want what Jesus says here, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave.” And that’s that model of servant leadership. And Peter says, look for guys that are like that, and exhorts the elders, “Be that, be an example, set an example.” You get a church where there’s thrones in it, and everybody is trying to one-up everybody else, right? But when the leadership is taking the lowest place, now everybody looks and says, “Oh, wait a second, apparently in this church, greatness is servanthood. Greatness is service.” And I call our leadership team to set an example. I call myself to that, to take up the basin and the towel and to wash the feet of this church. And for you to see men humbling themselves, serving you, giving time and energy for your spiritual good ought to cause you to say, “Wow, if those guys are doing that, who can I serve here?” This is not easy. And you need to give your elders some grace here. And you want to say, “Why isn’t it easy? It should be easy.” No, it’s not. The reason it’s not is that is because of the sheep. Sheep are smelly. Sheep are unruly. Sheep are hard to lead. They like to stand around a lot. They’re not eager to sort of head for those still waters like Psalm 23 talks about. Sheep bite their shepherds. Did you know that? There are sheep that will bite their shepherds. If you listen carefully in any church, you’ll hear, you know, “Why are we doing this? Why is this happening? Why is he leading?” And what’s the shepherd called to do? Love through all of it. And notice the finally, “And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” And someday the Head Shepherd is coming back. And on that day, to have served in the church will be a great day, a crown of glory, an eternal sort of distinction that those that served the Lord of the house, the Chief Shepherd, well, will be honored and will be held in high regard. Someday, it’ll be a great privilege to have served in the church. And I think Peter puts that out there for us to say, “You know what? For all of the bites and the whines and the complaints, in the end, it’ll be worth it all when we see Jesus.” So encourage your elders, church. Encourage your leaders. This is true on all the different levels. You got a small group leader, write them a note of encouragement. Let them know how much you appreciate what they’re doing. If you’re involved in some ministry where somebody is giving time and energy to lead that and all that, make sure that they know how much you appreciate what they’re doing. And as healthy shepherds lead healthy sheep, that’s a local church that rocks. And that’s what we want here. So may God raise up godly leadership and sheep who are happy to follow them. And we’ll have very, very good days ahead.

Steve DeWitt Satan: The Roaring Lion - Part A Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 5:8 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 5:8 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 5:8 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: Satan: The Roaring Lion Airdate: 11/6/2026 Program: 2395 Satan: The Roaring Lion Part A The Field Museum in Chicago. Big building, if you haven’t been there. Lots to see. One of the displays that you see when you go to the Field Museum, and if you don’t know to look for it, you might miss it, but there is a display there. It’s two stuffed trophy lions that they have on display. They don’t have big manes, and they’re not particularly big by lion standards, but they are... the most notorious killers, animal killers, human killers, in history. And if you go back to 1898, that’s where those lions are from. 1898, there was a construction, big construction project in Africa, so all these guys went out there, they’re all living in tents, and they’re building this big, massive bridge there. When these two lions began to terrorize the camp, and they developed an appetite... for human flesh. It is estimated that these two lions killed and devoured up to 135 people before being shot. They’re known as the man-eaters of Tsavo. And the story of these guys, there’s been several movies that have been made about this. In the 90s, there was a movie called “The Ghost and the Darkness” that maybe you’ve seen. And so you can check out these lions next time you go to the Field Museum. But I’d like you to imagine with me, if you would, what it was like to be in one of those camps, let’s say after about 25 people have been eaten. It’s nighttime. There you are in your tent. You’ve heard all the stories. Maybe you heard the screams of the people that were being eaten the night before. And it’s nighttime. What are you doing? I’m thinking you’re not sleeping, right? You’re laying there, eyes wide open, and you are on high alert. “What was that? Did you hear a twig snap? What was that? What was that shadow? Did you see a shadow there?” “No, I didn’t see a shadow. Did you see a shadow?” That’s what I think it was like. Everyone laying in bed, wide awake, on high alert. Why? Because there was a lion lurking. There was a lion, two of them actually, on the hunt. It’s kind of the same thing that happens when we maybe think there’s an intruder in our home at night. All of a sudden, you know that feeling, right? You have that rush, that adrenaline rush, and you lay in bed and you listen, don’t you? Do you hear anything? And if you hear something, maybe you let the German shepherd go, or you get in touch with your friend Smith and Wesson, and you get ready to take care of business. When an enemy is close, we go on high alert. And my dear church, what I want to say to you today from God’s word is that there is an enemy amongst us. There is an enemy that is lurking. He never sleeps. He is far more intelligent than we are. He has all of us under constant surveillance. He knows us better than we know ourselves, knows our tendencies, knows our weaknesses. He is very powerful. He has a huge army that is at his disposal, and he hates us. If we had eyes to see, I believe that we would see his presence or one of his associates right here in the room with us right now. And I am, of course, talking about our great enemy, Satan. Our great enemy, Satan. I wonder if I, as I said his name, did anybody sort of quietly sort of roll their eyes at the name or the thought of... because we certainly live in a culture that laughs at the suggestion that there is a spiritual evil being. And I think back to the 90s when the Church Lady on Saturday Night Live would have her sketches, and oftentimes she would sort of coil her face, and she would say, “Satan,” right? Like this. And everybody laughed and laughed. And if our secular world denies the existence of God, they certainly giggle at the existence of Satan. They see and fear no lion in the jungle. And friends, it’s not just the secular world. All those people out there, they don’t believe in Satan. There was a recent Barna poll of self-professed Christians, and half of them said that Satan is a symbol, not a real person. I would say the lion has camouflaged himself really, really well, wouldn’t you? And then you go to the Bible. And you begin reading through the Bible, especially the gospel accounts. And what do you run into over and over and over again? Demon, demon, Satan. Jesus is constantly being confronted or confronting these evil beings. So much so that to deny the existence of Satan and demons is... you almost have to deny the existence of Jesus. Because their stories are so intertwined. So today, this is what we’re talking about from 1 Peter, verse 8, chapter 5, verse 8. We’re going to be talking about our great enemy and spiritual warfare. And my conviction is that most of us, I say myself included, do not think nearly enough about this reality. And Scripture calls us to take this very, very seriously. How do we fight this enemy, and to do so biblically? So let me read what Peter writes here, 1 Peter 5, beginning in verse 8. Here’s what Peter says. “Be sober-minded. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” Now in these two verses, you’ll notice there are four things that Peter calls us to do in battling against Satan. They are, first of all, we are to be sober-minded. Secondly, we are to be watchful. Third, we are to resist him. And fourth, we are to know that others are suffering in this as well. All four of these... these admonitions are based upon the reality of a spiritual being, a dangerous enemy that is lurking amongst us. So what I want to do is I want to spend today talking about the enemy and sobering us to the reality of what we’re actually involved in. And then next week we’ll talk about how do we do this? What does Peter say in terms of how we resist him, and other passages of Scripture? So let’s begin with this lurking enemy and let that motivate us to all want to do something about it. First of all, who’s Satan? Satan is the personal name of an angelic being that is the Lord of the demons and the Lord and the leader of the demons. In fact, Satan literally means adversary, adversary. I think Peter is actually doing a play on words here in verse eight when he says, “your adversary, the devil.” He could have said, “your Satan, the devil.” Satan means adversary. Jesus calls this angelic being by the name Satan at least twice. He does so in His temptation by Satan in the wilderness. And then you might recall that Peter was talking to Him one time, and Jesus says to him, “Get behind me, Satan.” He identified who was really speaking through Peter and what Peter was saying. So Satan is his name, but Satan has not always been his name for reasons that we’ll get into. I want you to realize, first of all, that Satan is a person. Satan is a person. He is not a... an influence. He is not a force. The danger with something like Star Wars is that the categories that it sort of calls us to tend to be... sometimes then we apply those to things even in Scripture. So we sort of see the force and the good force and the bad force, and that is George Lucas’s Buddhism, essentially, that he’s built into that story. So don’t think in those categories. I would say to you that Peter’s better than George, okay? Peter is better than George, and Peter... and Scripture wants us to realize that Satan is a person, a created person. He has a mind, he has a moral will, and he has an intellect. He is spiritual, but he is a person. Next, Satan is a created angel, a created angel. He has not always existed. He is not eternal. He was created. When was Satan created? He was created in Genesis 1 along with everything else. Genesis 1, God creates this world, but He also creates the angelic world. So Satan had a birthday. And for a time then, that means that because God steps back and says it’s all very good. And that was true for the angelic world. It was true for the physical world. So for a time, there was harmony then between God and Satan, between, harmony amongst all of the angels. There was not any conflict. Everything was very, very good. We also find that the Bible talks about hierarchies in the angelic world. Ephesians talks about principalities and powers and rulers in dark places. There is a hierarchy of authority and of beauty within the angelic world. And in that category, Satan, or Lucifer, as he’s known in the Old Testament, was the most powerful, the most glorious, the most beautiful angel that God created. There was no angel like him. The only person more glorious, more beautiful, and more powerful than Satan was God Himself. And this leads then to what happened. Satan rebelled against God. Two passages in the Old Testament describe this, and this is somewhat debated, to be honest with you. I think that it certainly applies. The first one is Ezekiel chapter 28. I’m going to read now the prophet’s description of Satan’s rebellion against God. “You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you. You were on the holy mountain of God. In the midst of the stones of fire you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you. In the abundance of your trade, you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned. So I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.” Here’s the key. “Your heart was proud because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground.” Here’s Isaiah 14, just adds this. Satan thought to himself, “I will make myself like the Most High God.” What was going on? Satan looks in the mirror and sees the glory, the beauty that God had given to him. He looks around, he sees every other angel is less than him, but there is one that is greater than him. And that led to something in his heart. Donald Grey Barnhouse describes it this way, “Satan awoke in the first moment of his existence in the full-orbed beauty and power of his exalted position, surrounded by all the magnificence which God gave him. He saw himself as above all the hosts in power, wisdom, and beauty. Only at the throne of God itself did he see more than he himself possessed.” And now this sounds like a familiar plot and story, doesn’t it? What do they say is the hardest instrument in any orchestra to play? Second fiddle. So before there was Brutus to Julius Caesar, or Absalom to David, or Judas to Jesus, there was Satan to God. And in that moment, the pride of Satan’s heart in the beauty that God had given to him leads to a jealousy for the glory that God Himself had, and leads Satan then to rebel against God and to seek to dethrone Him, to join the Trinity, to make it a quodinity or something. I don’t know what he did. We’re not told how he did it. All we know is it was pride that motivated Satan. And God judged Satan’s rebellion by casting him out of heaven. And guess where He sent him? Right here. This world is Satan’s home. This is where God sent him. And if one passage in Revelation is to be taken literally, a third of all the angels followed him in this rebellion. The demons of a feather had flocked together, and they were all judged and condemned. So when you read in the Bible that Jesus cast out a demon, for example, that demon used to be an angel. That demon was an angel that followed Satan in his rebellion and then was corrupted, sent to this world, and is part of Satan’s army. Our world is their home. Their malice for God and His glory is raging. It is raging, and it is absolute. Jesus describes this moment in Luke 10 this way. “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” He was the great angel of light. When God cast him down, I’ll bet it did look like lightning. Down he came, and here he is now. So somewhere between Genesis 1, when God sees everything and says it is very good, and Genesis 3, when Satan now is the serpent who is tempting Adam and Eve, somewhere between those two chapters, this rebellion took place. The next thing to know about Satan is that he is the enemy of God, of His purposes and His people. Listen to what Ephesians 6 says about... who our real enemy is. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Your enemy is not your sister. Your enemy is not your husband or your wife. Your enemy is not that guy at work or your neighbor. Your enemy is not the brother or sister in the church that has a little different belief about something than you do. Our enemy is Satan and all the demons. And they live in a world. The Bible describes reality this way, that there is the physical world that we can see. And there is another world. It is the spiritual world. And that world is as real as this world is. We just can’t see it. It’s kind of like if you’ve ever gone snorkeling. You put on the snorkel, you get the little thing, you know, and then you sort of swim out into the little cove or wherever you are, and you put your head down, and all of a sudden there’s an entire world that you couldn’t see before. And there’s these pretty fish and all the things that are going on. You’re like, “I had no idea that was there.” There’s a day coming when all of us are going to be like, “I had no idea that was there.” This whole thing that is going on, if we had eyes to see, right here, right now, in this place, I believe there would be beings, spiritual beings, right here. Remember the story of Elisha when the armies surround the city, and the servant’s like, “We’re gonna die. What are we gonna do?” And Elisha prayed. He said, “God, help my servant see what is really there.” And all of a sudden, he sees the chariots of the armies of God. That world is just out of our view. That loved one that died in the faith, that’s the world that they’re living in right now. It’s as real as this world is. And it is in that world that these demons and Satan primarily are existing. But, so they live there, but they are seeking to influence this world. And they’re able to do so for their own twisted purposes. And my dear friends, we need to realize something. Satan is completely evil, absolutely, completely evil. There is no vestige of goodness in him. There is no Anakin Skywalker that needs to come out from the Darth Vader. “I knew there was goodness in him. Father, come.” There is none of that with Satan. He is absolutely, totally bent on demeaning and defaming the glory of God. That’s where our... you know, we’re in rebellion. We’re enemies of God. We’re born in sin. But we are different than Satan. The unbeliever can do good things, walk old ladies across the street, give money to good things like that. They can do that. It doesn’t favor with God. It doesn’t save them. But they retain a certain, although broken, goodness to them. Satan has none of that. So these people that, “I’m going to worship Satan. I’m going to see if maybe he’ll do good things to me.” It’s ludicrous. There is nothing good in him. There is no mercy in him. There is no kindness in him. They are filled with pride. They are filled with hate and bitterness and murder. Their every thought and intent, all the time, always, is towards evil. The destruction of God’s glory, the destruction of God’s people, the destruction of anything that’s good that reflects the beauty and the glory of God in this world, they hate it. And how do they do this? They tempt. They influence. They corrupt. They compromise, they divide, they discourage, they defame, and they destroy anything intended to bring God glory. They’re like parasites. They can’t make anything good, they can’t make anything beautiful, but they can live off the good and the beautiful and corrupt it and twist it. That’s how they operate. So guess what is the most glorious thing that God is doing in this world? It is redeeming sinners from the kingdom of darkness and bringing them over through the gospel into the kingdom of light, and it is the church. So guess where they primarily want to operate and to do their destructive work? It is within God’s people. It is the church of Jesus. Hebrews 2, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” Describing the work of Jesus. 2 Corinthians 4:4. “In their case, the god of this world,” Satan, “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers.” Satan? Get that? How can people laugh about the lion lurking in the jungle? Their eyes have been... blinded to keep them from seeing something. “The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” They are doing all that they can. Maybe right now in this room for an unbeliever who’s visiting right now, they do all that they can to make you think this is silly. This is nothing to worry about. There’s nothing to it. To blind people to real glory and light, which is found in the face of Jesus Christ. It is in the gospel of Jesus. What’s salvation, in fact? Salvation is “when I was blind, but now I see.” What do I see? I see truth. I see hope. I see forgiveness. I see a relationship with my Creator by believing in Jesus and His work on the cross. I see real beauty. When I see Jesus by faith, my eyes are wide open. Now I am able to see. And I’m in the kingdom of light. But they obfuscate. They darken. They blind. They don’t want anybody to see that. Christian, can I just say it this way? Satan hates you. He hates you. He hates every good thing God is doing in your life. He hates every good reflection, God’s goodness seen in your life. He is absolutely committed to doing everything that he can to destroy you. But it’s not about you. This is important to understand as well. It’s not really about us. This has everything to do with what happened between Genesis 1 and Genesis 3. Satan really hates God.

Steve DeWitt The Sheep and Their Shepherds Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 5:1-5 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 5:1-5 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 5:1-5 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: The Sheep and Their Shepherds Airdate: 11/5/2026 Programs: 2394 The Sheep and Their Shepherds Today we are continuing an exposition in 1 Peter 5, verses 1 through 5. I’d like to begin by reading the text first. So I’m going to do that. Beginning in verse 1. Here’s what the Apostle Peter wrote. “So I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” We’ve been studying this year this church in Asia Minor that Peter wrote to, and we discovered that they are displaced. They are in a community not their own, but it’s a spiritual picture of how exiled they are spiritually. Their faith that they have, what they believe about Christianity, is not at all embraced by the community and society around them. They’re suffering persecution as a result of that. Peter writes this letter to them to encourage them. And what we’ve seen so far is he rolls out several encouragements to them, included in this, would be the truth of the Gospel, the example of Jesus, his own example in his own life, future judgment, eternal rewards, and other things. All of them are wonderful. Every one of those applying to us as well ought to encourage us, help us persevere in the faith, help us stand up under trial and suffering. But to ask the question, are those all that a Christian needs? Or maybe to say, is all a Christian needs is his Bible and a cup of coffee? Like, is that it? Is that enough? And then you come to chapter 5. I mean, you could have ended in chapter 4, but you get to chapter 5. And the Holy Spirit inspires Peter to write about spiritual leadership. To write about elders. To write about pastors. And we discover that every Christian needs a soul shepherd over them. That’s why he talks about it here. Now this... doesn’t play well today because we live in an individualistic society where I want to think, “Hey man, I’m like my own man. I don’t need anybody else. It’s me and Jesus. I got my Bible. I’m good. I don’t need somebody else telling me what to do, leading, shepherding my soul. I don’t need that.” And yet, what do we know about what the Bible calls us? Sheep. Do you ever see sheep by themselves? Like if you’re driving down the road, you ever look over there in the meadow and it’s one sheep by himself? No, the only sheep you see by yourself along the road is the dead one, right? The roadkill. Sheep always flock together. And in the Middle East culture that this was written, you would always see sheep flocking together, and there would always be a shepherd with those sheep. And the Bible over and over again draws on this metaphor, this picture, and applies it to our own spiritual lives. In fact, we’re called sheep. All of us are sheep. It’s not a high compliment if you know much about sheep, but that’s what the Bible calls us to. God has made us to be spiritually sheep. Now, one of the things about this is we have to embrace that. There’s a lot of movies and stories where, you know, there’s somebody, they’re this, but they want to be that, right? Kid stories a lot. So what do they have to do? They have to discover who they really are. They let it go. And then in the end, they discover who they are, and they find out they’re happiest being who they are. Kids love stories like that. It’s true for sheep as well. We could sort of look in the mirror spiritually and see ourselves as the lion roaming the Serengeti all by ourselves, so strong, so self-determined. But in reality, we’re just all sheep, aren’t we? We’re all sheep. God has made us this way. We get to do life around other sheep, which is sometimes wonderful, sometimes annoying. But that’s what we’re called to do. And God has ordained that there are over the sheep what He describes, elders, overseers, pastor shepherds. They’re all describing the similar role within the church. And all of us, for our own spiritual good, we all need soul shepherding. None of us is sufficient on our own with our Bibles to become what God wants us to be as Christians. So for any flock then, any local church, it’s critical that the shepherds know what they’re supposed to be doing and the sheep know what they’re supposed to be doing. So I’m going to talk today with you about what good shepherding looks like and what good sheeping looks like. Important that the shepherd realizes what he’s doing and... that the sheep realize what he’s doing and what they’re supposed to be doing. And so this message is kind of an application message from last week’s exposition of these verses. I want to start with the shepherd. What is good shepherding look like? And that phrase there, I’m actually taking from Jesus’ own self-description, where He called Himself the Good Shepherd. Although Peter doesn’t call Him the Good Shepherd, what does Peter call Him? He’s the what? He’s the Chief Shepherd, right? We better get that firm in our mind. Who is the actual shepherd of the church? It is Christ Himself. He is Lord over the church. He is the shepherd of the souls of the church. He’s the shepherd of the sheep of the church. And in the church, Jesus has deputized, granted authority to under shepherds who express His intended leadership over the local church. This is who Peter is writing to. These are the elders of the church. Now, Jesus’ shepherding is, of course, perfect. Everything that our souls need, we find in Him. Every quality that would make for a good shepherd, He is perfect. He is the epitome of what soul shepherding needs to look like. So under shepherds, then, the deputy shepherds can look to Jesus in terms of an example, as far as like, what am I supposed to be doing? And sheep can look to Jesus and say, this is what the effect or the fruit of good shepherding ought to be in my life. And here is where I think Psalm 23 provides such a wonderful picture of good shepherding. We typically look at Psalm 23 in a moment of trial, troubles, you know, we’ve lost a loved one. It’s wonderful for that, for sure. Very devotional, very rich. But what about looking at it from the perspective of what good leadership in the church ought to do and produce within the flock? So let me read it now from that perspective. Listen. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Poetically beautiful, faithful language, don’t you think? There’s a reason we turn to it in times of trouble. But here we have a picture of the Lord shepherding us. The Lord is my shepherd. We all should be able, Christians, we all should say that in terms of, like, my actual shepherd. It’s not the elder in the church. It’s not the pastor in the church. The actual shepherd is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Chief Shepherd. And what does He do? We see Him here. He provides for my needs. The Lord provides rest for His sheep. The Lord provides sustenance. He directs me towards righteous living. He calms our fears. His rod disciplines and His staff guides. He is a friend when enemies surround us. And the effect of His shepherding in our life is the overflowing resourcing of our faith no matter what comes, right? Our cup overflows. So we look at that and we say, there’s really, really good shepherding. And shepherds in the church, we need to look at that and go, that’s what I ought to be striving for in the faith walk of the sheep that are in my flock. So to summarize, what does a shepherd do? Two things. First of all, the shepherd leads the sheep. The shepherd leads the sheep. We see that here in chapter 5, verse 2. “Shepherd the flock of God that is among you. Exercising oversight.” That’s what Peter says here. And it’s the grammar there. It’s an imperative. He’s shouting as he says that. “Elders, lead the church. Exercise authority. Care for the church. Don’t be irresponsible. Don’t be negligent. Don’t be lazy. Be about it. Be on it.” Here’s some other admonitions from Scripture regarding elders leading the church. Acts 20, verse 28, Paul meets with the Ephesian elders, and he says, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which He obtained with His own blood.” Titus 1:9, he, regarding the elder in the church, “must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.” Here’s 1 Timothy 5:17, “Let the elders who rule well.” And Titus 1:7, “He is God’s steward.” The elder is the steward over the flock. He is overseeing the flock. But what kind of oversight is he to have? Well, what does the Chief Shepherd do? How did the Chief Shepherd exercise authority in the church? Was He kingly? Was He a dictator? Was He autocratic? Was He dictatorial in the manner in which He shepherded the flock? And of course, we look at the life and the ministry of Jesus, and we see the opposite of that, don’t we? He did not come to be served, but to... serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. The example, the ultimate shepherd, is one who came and gives His life for the sheep. And we see in that the kind of leadership within the local church that leaders are called to. It is not a rising to power, it is a rising to service. It is a taking up the basin and the towel, washing the feet as Jesus did in the upper room, to care for the needs, to serve and to minister to the sheep in the flock. Or to say it this way, spiritual leadership is servant leadership. It is servant leadership. This is true wherever God gives authority, by the way. What is the government called to do? An easier example, what is the husband called to do in that marital relationship? Ephesians 5, he is to love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Husbands, we are called not to rule and to reign, but to lead by serving our wife for her good, for her benefit. Or to think of a father in a home. What is he called to do? Is he the king of the castle? Like, does he have his throne there and all the serfs sort of, you know, run around at his feet? Just during football. That’s the exception. “I need a drink.” No. In marriage and in the home, to lead is to serve. To lead is to serve. And that’s why Paul says for qualifications, make sure that he manages his own household well. Because if he can’t spiritually shepherd that little context of the home, how can he possibly do it in the church of God? So do it well in the home, be a servant leader in the home, and then perhaps God will expand your responsibilities. So it’s not about authority or power or position. It is not to be heavy-handed or dictatorial. It’s never to be selfishly ambitious. Elders are to serve for the good of the flock and to lead like Jesus led. And sheep need to sort of want that, to want that. And this is why the emphasis when it comes to leadership in the church is in the New Testament, the qualifications focus on the character of the leader. I’m always surprised by that. You read through the qualifications, and we typically, don’t we, we sort of look to the person who’s got the amazing oratorical skill or they’ve got this great organizational skill or they’re an amazing leader in business or something like that. And we think, “Ah, there we have a leader.” And then you read the New Testament. And the focus is on the integrity of the life of the leader, his character, his heart. In fact, let me read. This is 1 Timothy 3. The Apostle Paul giving the qualifications for an elder in the church. Listen to what his focus is. “If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard,” you’ve got a list of nots now, “not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.” And I don’t have time to take that apart. We’ve done so in the past. What I want you to see in this, again, is the focus of attention. It is on the character, the integrity, the life of the leader. Now, we all affirm that. We all think that’s great. But why is that the focus? Why not the best speaker? Why not the best looking? Why not the most educated or some other category? And I think the reason is because of what Peter says in verse 3. Elders are to be examples to the flock. Here’s something that the Holy Spirit knows about sheep. We may be drawn to the sort of charismatic individual or the oratorical or the educated or whatever. We may be drawn to that, but we can’t relate to the guy who’s read every commentary on the shelves, and we can’t quite get the guy who’s gifted, you know, sort of out there, amazing, gifted. But sheep can follow an example. God has wired us that way. We can follow an example of somebody who lives out Christianity in a way that we can aspire to. And that has way more to do with character than gifting. The character of the leader. God wants elders who are examples of the gospel and examples of grace and examples of holiness of life, at least pursuant to that. Sheep can look over many quirks of style. And I want to thank you right now for doing so. We can overlook many things when we look up to the moral and spiritual example of those that God has put over us. And so elders are called to lead by serving. They are called to lead by example. Second thing shepherds are called to do is to love the sheep. Love the sheep. Let me read to you that Good Shepherd passage I referred to earlier. Listen to Jesus’ description of Himself in shepherding terms, the way that He feels, looks at, relates to the sheep. He says in John chapter 10, “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. And the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Isn’t that beautiful? And obviously Jesus here is describing this relationship in terms of His mission. I came, I came to give my life for the sheep. And there might be occasion in church history where a pastor is called actually to do that. But in this way, Jesus’ role was unique, wasn’t it? He came to die for the sheep. But those that are shepherds in the church are called similarly to love the sheep. Now, the way that this works, by the way, is not because the sheep are so inherently wonderful and endearing. Sometimes, but not all the time, right? So the shepherd who is shepherding simply because he thinks the sheep are wonderful are not going to last very long, because sheep become unwonderful at times, kind of like loving your kids. They’re mostly wonderful most of the time, sometimes a challenge. Why does the shepherd, the under shepherd, love the sheep? Think back to what Jesus said. This is after the resurrection. He’s restoring Peter. He says to Peter, “Do you love me?” Peter says, “You know that I love You.” What does Jesus repeat three times? “Feed my sheep.” The basis of the shepherd loving the sheep is not the wonderfulness of the sheep, but the fact that Jesus loves the sheep. And when you love somebody, you love what they love. And so the under-shepherd, realizing that the sheep have their certain qualities and quirks and all of that that make things difficult, and there are trials that come to a congregation that make things difficult, the reason the shepherd hangs in there is because he knows that Christ loves the sheep, and we love for His sake. I would say that to seminarians who are studying for ministry. I would say. It is your relationship with Jesus that will allow you to persevere in ministry. It will not be your relationship with the sheep. Do you love Christ? Maintain that, and you’re going to have a place where you can love the sheep in their ups and downs and in the ups and downs of the story of the church. When I recognize that each and every one of you are an object of the eternal love of God, that eternity past, God, chose to love you, purposed the plan of redemption, that Jesus, obedient to that will, incarnated Himself, went through all of the weakness and the suffering of being a human being on this earth, all the things that He went through in His Passion Week, indeed His death on the cross, all of the seven sayings, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do,” and all that He endured in that moment, three days dead in the grave. To realize that Jesus did this for you causes the shepherd to view the sheep through that lens and to love them in spite of their weakness and in spite of their non-sanctification and in spite of their sin or whatever it might be, to enduringly love the sheep. What is greatness in the kingdom of God? To be the... servant of all. And for the higher the responsibility in the church, for the more the sense of taking up the basin and the towel and being willing to humble ourselves and to serve the sheep is what keeps it from becoming political. And all the sort of, like, positioning thing that sometimes can happen in local churches. That is not God’s plan. That is not the church. And it certainly isn’t the example of Jesus. He takes leadership and He puts it upside down. It is servant leadership.

Steve DeWitt Godly Shepherds - Part B Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 5:1-5 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 5:1-5 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 5:1-5 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: Godly Shepherds Airdate: 11/4/2026 Programs: 2393 Godly Shepherds Part B 1 Peter 5, verse 1. “So I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, giving oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” So let’s talk about elders first of all, and then we’ll get into what Peter is saying about elders. But just to talk about elders in the New Testament church. If you read in Acts, begin reading in Acts, you’re going to discover that very quickly on, one of the high priorities in the local church was the establishing of leadership. And so Peter comes in now, and talking about leadership, he says, “I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ.” I find this interesting. Old Peter, remember old Peter, wanting to argue that he’s the greatest, that he’s better than all the rest. “All the others may fail You. I will never fail You.” Remember Peter, Mr., like, “Oh, I’m the greatest around here.” We see in this statement right here another example of the humility that God had worked in Peter’s heart. He doesn’t say, “I, Peter, the bishop of the church. I, Peter, you know, the head of the disciples, the head of the apostles.” What does he say? He says, “I’m just a fellow elder amongst with you.” He says, “I am on your level.” And he brings himself down and says, “We’re just all servants in this house, aren’t we?” Love that. Love that. And you see the signs of maturity in Peter’s life. Second thing that is important in this, as we talk about it, is Peter is going to describe what spiritual leaders look like. But in reality, what he is describing is what spiritual maturity looks like. The higher the quality of the eldering and the shepherding and the leading, the better it is for the sheep in the church. And the sheep ought to want that and pray for that and encourage that and understand what is a biblical shepherd. So that if the leadership, for example, of this church starts sort of veering off in some direction, the sheep understand that’s not what it’s supposed to look like right there. It burdens me. I don’t have time for this, but it’s just a side note. It burdens me to turn on the TV and to see unbiblical shepherding packing out stadiums and people professing to be Christians lauding the unbiblical... And for that to be wildly popular requires sheep who don’t know what a shepherd looks like. That was a side note. Was that a good one? I think maybe there was a good truth to that. And so when people come to me and say, “Have you read this book?” And it’s one of these guys. “This is an awesome book. You need to read this, Pastor Steve.” I think to myself, no. And... fact that you are drawn to that unbiblical shepherding tells me something about your understanding of what biblical shepherding should look like. And we want better for you in that. Now, I will admit, it’s hard to talk about this subject humbly or without, you know, like this is what we’re doing. And so hear my heart in that. I’m acknowledging that it’s hard to talk about this because I am an elder here and a shepherd here. So I feel that tension as I’m talking about this, and I want to approach this in a proper humility. But there’s truth that needs to be said. Finally, notice here that he says that it is the flock of God. It is the flock of God. Why is that important? Because it’s easy for shepherds to think that this is my flock. This is my church. It’s even easy for sheep to think that it’s their church. One commentator says it well, “A church that could be ours would only be a false church. So the sheep are not ours for us to use or misuse as we like. If we lose one, we lose another’s property, not our own. And He is not indifferent to what becomes of His flock.” The church is not the pastor’s church. The church is not the church’s church. I remember many years ago, we were contemplating a big change in the church. And I had somebody that said to me, that was not for the change, “We were here before you came, and we’ll be here when you’re gone. This is our church.” Really? Because last time I checked, this church was bought with the precious blood of Jesus. I’ve never seen you shed a drop of blood for this church. This is not your church. And this is not my church. We all better understand whose church this is. This is the Lord Jesus’ church, and this is God’s flock, and we have the privilege of being a part of it. So now Peter describes quality shepherds with a series of three, not this, but that. Notice, first of all, not duty, but delight. He says, “Not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you.” Willingly. We see here that God is not honored by half-hearted, “Okay, I’ll do it if nobody else wants to do it,” type eldering. That is not honoring to God. It’s not honoring in any of our levels of service here. When we just sort of do it because I gotta do it, there’s no joy in it. There’s no sort of enthusiasm about it. There’s no delighting in it. God is not honored by simply our duties. Now, I will tell you, there are times, honestly, when in the dead of winter, getting up and preaching the 8:15 service, I don’t spring out of bed like, “Oh, you know. Gotta preach the 8:15 service.” You know, you look outside and the snow’s blowing, and “Just stay home today.” And many of you do, sadly. And I, you know, there are meetings that I have to have that I’m not... I don’t walk into those meetings humming the Hallelujah Chorus, right? I’m not, like... “I’ll be glad when this is done.” But the psalmist says it clearly, “Serve the Lord with gladness.” Psalm 100, verse 2. Paul writes about elders, “He who desires the office of overseer desires a good thing.” Down on that heart level, there ought to be in the shepherd a gladness to be a shepherd, a gladness to serve in the church, an enthusiasm about loving the sheep that Jesus loves. I think this applies in a way to all of us, frankly. There ought to be in every Christian a willing desire to have expanding spheres of fruit bearing. It’s not just the non-elder who’s considering to be an elder that ought to have a sort of willingness about them, but all of us should, in our hearts, have a desire for opportunities to bear more fruit for the Lord Jesus, don’t you think? So that that assistant Sunday school teacher, when he or she is approached with an opportunity that might allow them to have a little more impact, minister to a few more people, it shouldn’t be like, “No, unless I decide yes.” There ought to be in our hearts a yes, unless there’s some reason I should say no. Or that assistant small group leader who’s approached, “Hey, you know what, we see gifting in you. What do you think about maybe leading your own group?” The default for us shouldn’t be no. It ought to be yes, unless there’s some compelling reason to be no. Why? Because I want to bear fruit in my life for the Lord and to have that kind of willingness, a general sort of like, “I’ll give it a go. I’ll give it a go and see what the Lord would do.” I think we should be happy for opportunities to serve the Lord Jesus, don’t you? Not a duty, not a gotta make the donuts, but I get to serve Jesus. I’m happy to do it. Count on me. “Here am I, Lord, send me,” right, Isaiah? Second, not for shameful gain, but eagerly. Not for shameful gain, but eagerly. It’s interesting, Peter brings up the leader’s perspective on money. And Paul does the same. Titus 1, 1 Timothy 3, we have qualifications for an elder. Here’s what Paul writes. “Not a lover of money,” 1 Timothy 3:3. “Not greedy for gain,” Titus 1:7. The Apostle Paul writes this regarding gain. “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.” Now I bring that up because the Bible does say that there is legitimate financial support that can flow to leaders in the church. This is part of God’s plan as well. That is not illegitimate, and that’s not... unseemly. It is good, high, holy, wonderful, and a blessing to the church that leaders are free then to devote all their time and energy to shepherding the sheep of the church. What Peter is warning about is illegitimate gain and a heart that loves money and is in it somehow for the money. That is a red flag regarding a candidate to be a leader in the church. When money is the motive, something is wrong down in the heart. Now, you might say to yourself, “Oh, you’re like talking about those prosperity teaching evangelist types that pass the offering plate like four times. And then they jump in their Gulfstream jet and they fly to the next engagement to take four more offerings. And then they go to the...” Is that what you’re talking about? Yes, I would say. I could say that. Yes, generally. But there wasn’t any of that going on when Peter writes this, okay? What Peter, I think, has in mind is not the jet-setting televangelist type, but that normal guy in the church who sees leading in the church... Down in his heart, deep down here, there is an impulse, a motive, where, “If I do that, I think I can work it. I think I can get something out of that if I say yes to being a part of this or if I sort of connect with the right person. I’m going to try to leverage this for my own personal profit and gain.” That’s what Peter has in mind. That guy is not an elder. He is a mercenary. So again, it’s one thing to make money. It’s another thing to serve for it or to serve the money itself. And here’s one reason that this is especially dangerous, is that who are the people in the church that are responsible for handling the finances of the church and making decisions about money and having some access to that? It’s the leaders of the church. If the leaders of the church are in it for the money and they have access to the money, that’s a formula for problems. And all of us have heard things that have happened in local churches where money somehow was the problem. You say, “Well, wait, money wasn’t the problem.” In a sense, it wasn’t. It was the heart of the leadership towards the money. That was the problem. And Peter wisely, talking in the first century, says, “Sheep, understand when you look at who you want to have leading you, don’t go for the guy that’s in it for the money.” So the elder and the pastor, and I say this to myself, has to constantly check his heart. Why am I doing what I am doing? Do I do it because of love for God or love for money? Am I doing it because I love God’s people, or am I doing it somehow for money. And I’ll tell you another danger with leaders, and I want you to be on the lookout for this, are leaders that fleece the flock. And there’s all kinds of ways that leaders can sort of work over the church for their own personal gain. I remember a situation here in the state of Indiana where there was a very popular pastor who quietly was asking members of the church for money, personal loans, all throughout the church. Nobody knew what was going on. Nobody knew the other people were doing it. And then it all came out, all of the money that he had taken from members of the church. I have another friend of mine, he swore that he was an associate pastor, he swore that every December his senior pastor would wear his most out-of-date clothing, and he thought it was for sure because he wanted to garner Christmas sympathy for him. And I think there might have been some truth to it, honestly. You say, “Oh, nobody would ever do that kind of thing.” “The heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it?” And there isn’t any spiritual leader ever since Jesus that there isn’t that kind of tension in the heart. Like Paul writes, he meets with the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, and he says, “While I was with you for three years, I never coveted anyone’s gold or silver.” And that’s where you want your leaders to strive to land. Well, it’s not about that. Their hearts are for the Lord and for His people. A sign of false teacher is that they love money. The Pharisees loved money. Judas betrayed Jesus for money. And I have found it to be an absolute truth. If you really want to know where people’s heart is at, look at what they do with their money. How they use it, how they spend it, how they give it or don’t give it. And faithfulness with personal money is a sign of spiritual maturity. And so when you look at somebody to be a spiritual leader, if their personal finances are in chaos and all you do is you look in and they’re in counseling because of... you’re reading the paper, they’ve been bankrupt three times and this is going on. That’s not the person you want leading the church. Because that shows other issues in the heart. It’s not just true for shepherds, by the way. Unless you sheep get all like, “Yeah, those shepherds, they need to, you know, they need to be honoring God with their money.” It is an absolute truth for all of us. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And we just, we have it as a rule. It’s in our constitution that nobody is established in leadership in this church unless there is demonstrable faithfulness in giving to the church. That... and the reason I like that is there is a lot of wonderful appearing people, but with that, it smokes out the pretenders. It smokes out the pretenders. So not for shameful gain, not in it for the money, not fleece ... fleecing the flock, not working it, but eagerly doing it with the right motive, enthusiastic. And then the third is this, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. I put down not Caesar, but Jesus. Who do you want as your spiritual leader? Not Caesar, not Nero. You want Jesus. And why do we say Jesus? Because Jesus sets the example of what servant leadership looks like. Can anybody question that Jesus was in it for the right reasons? Can anybody suspect His motives for leading the church? No. Why? He gave His life for the church. “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” That example of love, that setting an example, is so clearly seen in the Lord Jesus Christ. He did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. And may it be true for the leaders of our church, Bethel Church, that there’s no thrones around here. I’ve been to so many churches where the leadership would sit on the stage, not so much anymore, but back in the day, and you’d have the little chair, the little chair, the little chair. Those were the associate pastors. Then you had the throne chair, little chair, little chair, little chair, little chair. And you walk in the auditorium and you’re like, “Hmm, I wonder what the leadership style is like around here,” when you have the throne on the stage, right? I’m glad we don’t do that, because we want what Jesus says here, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave.” And that’s that model of servant leadership. And Peter says, look for guys that are like that, and exhorts the elders, “Be that, be an example, set an example.” You get a church where there’s thrones in it, and everybody is trying to one-up everybody else, right? But when the leadership is taking the lowest place, now everybody looks and says, “Oh, wait a second, apparently in this church, greatness is servanthood. Greatness is service.” And I call our leadership team to set an example. I call myself to that, to take up the basin and the towel and to wash the feet of this church. And for you to see men humbling themselves, serving you, giving time and energy for your spiritual good ought to cause you to say, “Wow, if those guys are doing that, who can I serve here?” This is not easy. And you need to give your elders some grace here. And you want to say, “Why isn’t it easy? It should be easy.” No, it’s not. The reason it’s not is that is because of the sheep. Sheep are smelly. Sheep are unruly. Sheep are hard to lead. They like to stand around a lot. They’re not eager to sort of head for those still waters like Psalm 23 talks about. Sheep bite their shepherds. Did you know that? There are sheep that will bite their shepherds. If you listen carefully in any church, you’ll hear, you know, “Why are we doing this? Why is this happening? Why is he leading?” And what’s the shepherd called to do? Love through all of it. And notice the finally, “And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” And someday the Head Shepherd is coming back. And on that day, to have served in the church will be a great day, a crown of glory, an eternal sort of distinction that those that served the Lord of the house, the Chief Shepherd, well, will be honored and will be held in high regard. Someday, it’ll be a great privilege to have served in the church. And I think Peter puts that out there for us to say, “You know what? For all of the bites and the whines and the complaints, in the end, it’ll be worth it all when we see Jesus.” So encourage your elders, church. Encourage your leaders. This is true on all the different levels. You got a small group leader, write them a note of encouragement. Let them know how much you appreciate what they’re doing. If you’re involved in some ministry where somebody is giving time and energy to lead that and all that, make sure that they know how much you appreciate what they’re doing. And as healthy shepherds lead healthy sheep, that’s a local church that rocks. And that’s what we want here. So may God raise up godly leadership and sheep who are happy to follow them. And we’ll have very, very good days ahead.

Steve DeWitt Godly Shepherds - Part A Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 5:1-5 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 5:1-5 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 5:1-5 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: Godly Shepherds Airdate: 11/3/2026 Programs: 2392 Godly Shepherds Part A Let me just offer a quick prayer that God would bless the preaching of His word today. Would you join me? Father, we just ask that You please would indeed take Your word, move it into our hearts, and through our hearts, Lord, we pray that it would do its good and perfect work, that it would conform us to the likeness of Christ, that it would change our church, it would change us individually, that we might be aligned with Your will, which is found in Your word. We thank You for Your word today. Spirit, come and do Your work amongst us, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. All right, I’m going to begin by just reading our text today. We’re studying in 1 Peter. We have transition. We’ve been talking about suffering in chapter 4. We get to chapter 5, and Peter now turns his attention to leadership. Leadership in the church. Here’s what he says, 1 Peter 5, verse 1. “So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, giving oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown.” So, as I just said, Peter transitions now into the whole matter of leadership, and specifically leadership in the church of Jesus Christ. There is a character and a conduct of church leaders that he identifies as elders. You see that there? Elders. “So I exhort the elders among you.” Now, you could look at that and say, “Oh, he’s referring to the senior citizens in the church.” Those that have been around the block, around the sun a few times, the mature, the experienced, those that are a tad older. And actually, the word here is used at times to refer to chronological age, but that is not what he’s talking about here. He is talking about an office in the church, a role and an office in the church known as elder. So let’s talk about elders first of all, and then we’ll get into what Peter is saying about elders. But just to talk about elders in the New Testament church. If you read in Acts, begin reading in Acts, you’re going to discover that very quickly on, one of the high priorities in the local church was the establishing of leadership. Establishing of leadership. Luke writes Acts, and you get to Acts 6. So the first leaders in the church, of course, are the apostles. You get to Acts 6, and there’s widows who are not being ministered to and served in an equitable way. And so what do they do? They establish a group of godly men who handle the matter of serving the widows in the church. I believe the prototypes of the later office known as deacon in the church. You get a little bit longer later in the story, you read through 1 Timothy 3, and by the time Paul writes 1 Timothy 3, there is already an official office in the church known as deacon. Diakonos means literally servant. And deacons from the beginning are those that lead in the serving ministries of the church. And we are very blessed by the deacons of this church, and that office needs to be viewed highly, especially in a place where the leader of the church said, “Greatness in the kingdom of God is to be the servant of all.” To be a diakonos in the church is a high and holy calling. Amen. But he’s not talking about deacons here. He is talking about elders. So you read through Acts, and a little bit later in the story, all of a sudden in Acts 11, the church at Antioch has elders. Leaders in the church known as elders. By Acts 15, there is a doctrinal issue that the apostles gather with the elders of the church at Jerusalem to collaborate on a resolution. So you had elders at the church of Antioch, you have elders at the Jerusalem church. We find in Acts 14 that the Apostle Paul and Barnabas are retracing their steps from their missionary journey, and the text says this is what they were doing as they went to each city on their way back to Jerusalem. “And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.” Now, I’m sure they did a lot of other things. They fellowshiped, they taught. But one of the big priorities was establishing leadership. And they identified them by laying hands on them. You can read in Titus 1, Paul sends Titus to the island of Crete. And he says, “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained in order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.” Notice, elders, plural, in every town, singular. And we see there and in other places that God’s plan for the local church is a plurality of leaders. Not one leader, a plurality of leaders. Now you might say, “Well, why a plurality? I mean, why would you have more than one?” For the same reason, I think, that whenever you watch the Tour de France, there’s always groups of five or six guys that have the same jersey on. They’re like the U.S. Postal Team or the whatever team. They’re riding as a team. And they have found over time that if you’re an individual rider, you can’t win the race. Why? Because nobody by himself has all the skills needed to win the Tour de France. You need somebody that’s good at climbing hills that others can draft on. You need somebody that’s a sprinter. You need somebody that’s a strategist. All these different skills, and no one person has everything that’s needed for that team to win. And similarly, in the church, there is nobody but Jesus who has all of the gifts and all of the insights and all of the necessary skills in order to lead a local church. And in the wisdom of God, He has ordained, called us to establishing a plurality of leadership in every local church. Elders is the term that is used here. Working together in harmony. To bring the sheep to maturity. So just to say specifically, what is an elder? An elder is a recognized and authorized leader and shepherd in the church whose responsibility it is to lead, to feed, and to oversee the church. That is an elder. It’s an elevated role, not because the elder himself is elevated. It’s not an elevated role, even because of the inherent worth of the people of the church. It is an elevated role because of whose church it is. Whose church it is. It reminds me of a scene in Downton Abbey. Now, I remember we were watching through the Downton Abbey series, and there was this one scene, and I thought, someday I’m going to use that in a sermon. Today’s the day. If you’re not familiar with Downton Abbey, it’s PBS series that there’s an estate and a really beautiful kind of castle mansion that a guy named Lord Grantham is in charge of. He’s the head guy, the Earl of the estate. And there’s a scene where they’re walking, he and this guy named Matthew, who is the heir apparent, are walking, and they look through sort of the trees, and they see Downton Abbey, the building. And there’s this little interchange, and here’s how it goes. Lord Grantham says, “You do not love this place yet.” Matthew Crawley, “Well, obviously it’s...” And Lord Grantham interrupts him, “No, you don’t love it. You see a million bricks that may crumble, a thousand gutters and pipes that may block and leak, and stone that will crack in the frost.” Now you could look at that and say, “Oh, I get what you’re saying. I get what you’re saying. The elders are like Matthew Crawley.” The Lord of the church is who? Church. It is Jesus Christ. Let’s have that clearly in our minds, right? The Lord of the church is Jesus. The Lord of the estate is Jesus. The elders are the caretakers. The elders are the servants in the church, the stewards of the house. It is not the elder’s life work that makes being an elder or the church valuable and priceless. It is Christ’s life work and serving the church and giving His life and paying the price with His blood to redeem the church that makes every local church precious and the privilege to serve in the church of Jesus Christ as a leader precious. It’s not the elder, and it’s not you the people. It is whose church it is that infuses all of what we are doing here with eternal significance. Jesus said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” The local church in the plan of God as a part of the universal church is high and holy. Because our Savior is high and holy and loves the church and gave Himself up for it. And so Peter comes in now, and talking about leadership, he says, “I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ.” I find this interesting. Old Peter, remember old Peter? Wanting to argue that he’s the greatest, that he’s better than all the rest. “All the others may fail You, I will never fail You.” Remember Peter, Mr., like, “Oh, I’m the greatest around here.” We see in this statement right here another example of the humility that God had worked in Peter’s heart. He doesn’t say, “I, Peter, the bishop of the church, I, Peter, you know, the head of the disciples, the head of the apostles.” What does he say? He says, “I’m just a fellow elder amongst with you.” He says, “I’m on your level.” And he brings himself down and says, “We’re just all servants in this house, aren’t we?” Love that, love that. And you see the signs of maturity in Peter’s life, which is good because he’s gonna talk about the need to be humble as a leader in the church. And he gives them an example right there in that statement. So let’s get into now, what is an elder? And by the way, if you’re sitting here thinking to yourself, two things you might think. Number one, why should I care about this? Why should I care about this? Because the value of an elder, the higher, the better the elders in the church, the better it is for the sheep in the church. The better the shepherd, the better the sheep. And so sheep had better be able to identify quality spiritual leadership and what that is supposed to look like. And the failure of sheep to know what that is supposed to look like explains why so many professing Christians go to churches and are involved in ministries where clearly the leadership is fleecing the flock and taking advantage of the church. And it’s the sheep not knowing what they should be looking for that allows them to stay and remain in that. Second thing that is important in this, as we talk about it, is Peter is going to describe what spiritual leaders look like. But in reality, what he is describing is what spiritual maturity looks like. And when you read through Paul’s list of qualifications for an elder, you can’t look at that and go, “Oh, it doesn’t apply to me. I’m never going to be an elder. They’re never going to ask me. So who cares?” Those are all, these are all things that every godly Christian will aspire to. And when we hold them up and we say, what does spiritual maturity look like? It looks like what Peter and Paul are describing, those that ought to be in leadership, character and the conduct of their life. So for those two reasons, this is important for all of us. And maybe you can come up with some more. So what is Peter saying here? And you’ll notice that Peter basically gets into this. It’s not this, but this. Not this, but this. We do that in conversation a lot. Not that, but that. And we sort of draw a contrast. That’s what Peter is doing here. Not this, which is all too common, but that, which is really what good shepherding looks like. So notice the first thing that he says is just an exhortation. What are elders to do? They are to shepherd the flock. That’s what he says. “Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight.” As we develop this thought of what is a spiritual leader, what is an elder, we have a great glimpse at this. And by the way, the words that are used here are the three words that are used for spiritual leaders in the church. We have the word, and this will give you a little church history help as well. The first word for elder is presbyteros in the Greek. Does that sound like anything you’ve heard of? Presbyterian. So the Presbyterians, they take that word and they say that’s our denomination. And that means elder. Second word is episkopos. Does that sound like anything? Episcopalian. They take that, and that’s how they get their name. And the third word that we find here is the verb form of the noun word for pastor. Okay? Pastor. All in one verse. We got the three words here. All of them, I believe, synonymous. And you can look at them this way. Elder is the office. Overseer is the responsibility of the elder. The elder is to give oversight. And shepherd is the heart and the function of the elder, to shepherd the flock. This is in the imperative. This is a command. If you could hear Peter, like if he was to read this, say, “Peter, read your letter to us. Would you do it?” When he got to this point, he would raise his voice, and he would say, “Elders, shepherd the church,” and get elevated like that. That’s the sense of it here. He is commanding elders to do this. Why? Because nothing is more dishonoring to the glory of the Lord of the house than when those that are in charge of the under shepherds in the house are being passive or being derelict or being lazy. These and many other things do not honor the Lord of the house. And so Peter says, “Shepherd the flock.” Elders need to be about shepherding the flock. How? As I’ve said, elders shepherd the flock by leading, feeding, and overseeing the church. That is their responsibility. And for us as sheep, and in a sense, this is sort of where the metaphor breaks down because shepherds are sheep themselves. But for us as sheep, we ought to want the highest quality shepherding that we possibly can have. Because again, the better, the higher the quality of the leading and the shepherding by those that are leaders in the church, the better it is for the sheep that are in the church. The worse that it is, the negligent, the derelict leadership in the church, who suffers for that? The church does. The church does. And maybe you’ve been in situations in your sort of spiritual journey where a breakdown in leadership, you saw the effect that it has in that local church and the pain and the divisiveness and all these things. When shepherds aren’t shepherding, it’s the sheep that suffer. So we all want the best shepherds that we can get and to pray that God would equip our shepherds to be even better than they are. And, you know, this is like right out of my experience this week with our daughter Madeline. When we found out she had a problem, what do we do? Do we just go in the yellow pages and go, “Let’s just find some guy that’ll tell us what we need to know maybe here. Let’s look under here. Pick it at random, one, two, three. Let’s go to him.” Is that what we did? If you think that’s what we did, you don’t know me very well, because... we found out that we needed to get a specialist, and so we said to our pediatrician, “Who would you recommend?” And she gave us a list of five names, three in Chicago, two in Indianapolis, that she would recommend. So he gives us five names. Well, I call my … years ago, and all these years I’ve had a good friend named Jim Williams, who teaches the kidney at IU Med School, like PhD on the kidney. That’s all he does is the kidney. So I called my friend Jim Williams. I said, “Jim, this is like your area. You’re like an expert in this. Here’s the problem. Who would you recommend?” And he gave a name. And the name he gave as being the top guy in this field was one of the five names that our pediatrician had recommended. So we’re like, “Hmm.” And he said, “I’ll write a personal letter on your behalf to him.” I’m feeling better about this guy in particular at this point. And then we did some checking, and of all the five names, there were only two that were in our network for health insurance, and he was one of them. Sold! Sold! Right there, right? Right there. So guess who we went to see? We went to see this doctor, had a very good visit with him, and felt good that we were getting the highest quality care that we could for our daughter. Because the better the doctor, the more likely the, the better the health for our child. And spiritually, the same is true. The higher the quality of the eldering and the shepherding and the leading, the better it is for the sheep in the church. And the sheep ought to want that and pray for that and encourage that and understand what is a biblical shepherd. So that if the leadership, for example, of this church starts sort of veering off in some direction, the sheep understand that’s not what it’s supposed to look like right there. It burdens me. I don’t have time for this, but it’s just a side note. It burdens me to turn on the TV and to see unbiblical shepherding packing out stadiums and people professing to be Christians lauding the unbiblical eldering. And for that to be wildly popular requires sheep who don’t know what a shepherd looks like. That was a side note. Was that a good one? I think maybe there was a good truth to that. And so when people come to me and say, “Have you read this book?” And it’s one of these guys. “This is an awesome book. You need to read this, Pastor Steve.” I think to myself, no. And fact that you are drawn to that unbiblical shepherding tells me something about your understanding of what biblical shepherding should look like. And we want better for you in that. Now, I will admit, it’s hard to talk about this subject humbly or without, you know, like this is what we’re doing, and so hear my heart in that. I’m acknowledging that it’s hard to talk about this because I am an elder here and a shepherd here. So I feel that tension as I’m talking about this, and I want to approach this in a proper humility. But there’s truth that needs to be said. Finally, notice here that he says that it is the flock of God. It is the flock of God. Why is that important? Because it’s easy for shepherds to think that this is my flock. This is my church. It’s even easy for sheep to think that it’s their church. One commentator says, “Well, a church that could be ours would only be a false church. So the sheep are not ours for us to use or misuse as we like. If we lose one, we lose another’s property, not our own. And He is not indifferent to what becomes of His flock.” The church is not the pastor’s church. The church is not the church’s church. I remember many years ago, we were contemplating a big change in the church, and I had somebody that said to me that was not for the change, “We were here before you came, and we’ll be here when you’re gone. This is our church.” Really? Because last time I checked, this church was bought with the precious blood of Jesus. I’ve never seen you shed a drop of blood for this church. This is not your church. And this is not my church. We all better understand whose church this is. This is the Lord Jesus’ church, and this is God’s flock. And we have the privilege of being a part of it.

Steve DeWitt Suffering Is Hard, Judgement Is Worse Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:17-19 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 4:17-19 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:17-19 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Suffering is Hard, Judgment is Worse Airdate: 11/2/2026 Program: 2391 What Peter is going to say today is that while the sufferings that we experience through the brokenness of this world and the loving discipline of a Heavenly Father who is refining us through the hardships, while those things are painful, they are nothing compared to the alternative. They are nothing compared to the alternative. And the clearer we have in our mind that to be a Christian is to take up our cross and to follow after a suffering servant, the less surprised we’re going to be when that actually happens to us. And as we carry that cross and wonder if it is worth it, Peter’s going to bring up, think about what it means to not have Christ. And all of a sudden, the temporary fleeting trials of this life... are nothing compared to the enduring eternal sufferings for those who are outside of Jesus. So here is the text. Here’s where we’re studying. 1 Peter 4:17 through 19. Peter writes this, “For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? Therefore, let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.” May the Spirit of God impress the truth of this text upon our hearts today. Now, this can be a confusing passage, and to be honest with you, I’ve read this over the years, and I’ve never quite understood what it meant, so I’m happy to study that this week and get some clarity on what does it mean for judgment to begin at the household of God. And this is confusing because there are all kinds of verses in the New Testament that explain that as a Christian, we do not face condemnation, that we do not face punishment. We don’t face judgment. Like Romans 8:1, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” And if you’ve been in the church very long, that truth is taught very clearly. And it’s one of the things that we sort of love about coming to faith in Jesus, is that now I don’t need to fear the judging hand of God. And then you come to this passage, and Peter says, “It’s time for judgment to begin with the household of God.” What’s going on there? Well, one of the things to remember when you’re studying the Bible, and there seems to be sort of contradictory answers being given, is that most of the time the reason is that they’re answering different questions. So Paul, in Romans 8, is answering the question, how can a sinner have a right standing before God? And the answer to that is justification by faith, where I am declared righteous in the eyes of God by virtue of my faith in Jesus. Positionally now, I am right before God. I do not face the judgment of God. I do not face the condemnation of God. Praise God for justification. It’s a wonderful truth. Amen. Okay, amen to that. But again, different question being answered. What is Peter answering? Peter is not answering the question of eternal position before a holy God. He is answering the question, why do Christians suffer as they do? Why these hardships? Why these pains in life? And to that, he says, it is time for judgment to begin in the household of God. So this is a theology of trials and judgment. It is not a theology of positional righteousness before God. So what does it mean then? Well, first of all, notice that God is judging, in quotation, Christians, in order to purify us, in order to refine us, in order to make us into the likeness of Jesus, who, by the way, did He suffer? You might say, “Man, if God loved me, I wouldn’t suffer.” Who does He love the most? The Son. And what happened to Jesus? He suffered tremendously, more than any of us. The us here, “for it is time for judgment to begin in the household of God, and if it begins with us,” notice that that is described as the household of God. And to get a little bit technical here, because I need to, what he is talking about is the household of God in the sense of the place where God’s dwelling is. This is not a building that he has in mind here. He’s not talking about a physical structure, but a dwelling place. And this is important because he is drawing on Old Testament imagery here of the temple, where there was a building that was the dwelling place of God. God’s presence was there. And he is probably referring to Malachi 3. If you read Malachi 3, Malachi talks about the fiery judgment of God. And he says that that fiery judgment begins in the temple, refining the priests of the temple, i.e., those that are in the temple, but that this fire will break out with terrifying judgment on unbelievers. Okay, so did you hear that? Fire in the temple, breaking out to judge unbelievers. That’s what Peter is saying here about the judgment of God. That commitment to His holiness, that glory of His majesty within the temple, within the church, is doing something that is good. It is refining His people. It is purifying our passions. It is weaning us off of the world. It is drawing us towards holiness of life. It’s causing us to see sin and its rebellion against God and all the negative things that come from sin. It’s drawing me towards a life that is lived to the glory of God. That fire, that hardship that God sovereignly brings into our life, is doing a good thing within the household of God. But that same commitment to His holiness, that fiery judgment outside of the household of God, has an entirely different effect on those that are unbelievers. “What will be the outcome,” he says, “for those that do not obey the gospel of God?” So the judgment of God begins in the church. It is temporary. Paul says these light and momentary trials, they are fleeting. Nothing, Christian, that you are facing right now that is pain or a hardship in your life is forever. It is all temporary. All of it is shaping us into the likeness of His Son. So is it judgment? And here’s the key point that kind of helps answer that question. Is it judgment? Yes, but not in the sense of punishment, which it will be for those that are not believers, but in the sense of the fire of God’s holiness and holy purposes at work within the church. And that’s what God has always been doing. You think back to the early church and all of the terrible things that our brothers and sisters went through in those days, the terrible persecutions that they suffered. Think about the apostles. All but one died as martyrs. Think about the first 300 years of the church. Read Fox’s Book of Martyrs and see the terrible things that brothers and sisters who believe the same gospel as us endured at the hands of those that hated them. All of that sovereignly under the hand of God, all of it refining His people, all of it making them into the likeness of Christ. And that trial and hardship that you are going through right now, my dear friend, is the same. It is the same. And I wonder if we can stop and just sort of ask ourselves, wait, if God was working in Polycarp and what he went through, dying at the hands of the Romans as a martyr, can I believe that God is at work in the trial or suffering that I am going through right now? That it is not random. It’s not just chaos at work in this world, but a sovereign loving God is doing something in my heart and in my life. In fact, ask yourself that about that trial you’re going through. “God, what are You doing with this in me? God, I surrender to what You are wanting to accomplish from this pain that is in my life.” And to come under that, which is what God’s people have had to do forever. God is doing a good work in us. These fiery trials transform us. They shape us. They mold us. It’s part of the deal. We just have to be realistic about it. And to not be surprised. Peter is writing to the church and saying, there is hardship ahead. You’ve got to be realistic. To follow Jesus is not a path of comfort. It is not a means to prosperity and happiness all the time. It is to take up my cross and to follow after a suffering servant and to embrace the refining, purifying fire of God in my life, making me into likeness of the one that I’m following. You gotta be realistic. Do not be surprised when these things come in to your life. Peter says, being a good pastor here, do we face judgment? Yes, we face judgment. I don’t have time to get into this, but it’s known as the judgment seat of Christ. Everybody stands in judgment. The judgment that we face is not a judgment of salvation or not, eternal life or not. It is a judgment of commendation, of rewards gained or rewards lost. And Jesus Himself will sit on that bema seat judgment. And we’re all going to stand there. We’re all going to stand there. Now you might, again, look at that and say, “You know, I’m kind of checking out Christianity, but I don’t think that sounds so great. Like if you’re telling me if I become a Christian and I follow after Jesus, trouble is coming. I don’t know that I should do this. Maybe I’ll kind of find a different path.” Well, let’s consider the alternative to taking up a cross and following after Jesus. Peter writes this. “And if this judgment begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” If our experience is painful, how horrific will it be in the end to be an enemy of God? For those who do not obey the gospel of God, that just means to not obey the gospel of God is to not believe the gospel of God. He’s not talking about obeying the Mosaic covenant or stipulations or the law. He’s talking about obeying the gospel. And we oftentimes present the gospel like, “Hey, this is an alternative. You might want to choose it. If you do, you get your sins forgiven and eternal life.” It is truly that. But it is more than that. It is a requirement. It is a demand that God the Father makes to believe in the Son. To not believe in Jesus is itself a sin. Unbelief is a rebellion against God, a refusal to submit to the lordship of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, is itself cause for eternal condemnation. So Peter here is describing this huge percentage of humanity who today and in their life stand apart from the grace of God, stand apart from His love, are not under His forgiveness. What about them? And Peter is basically making an argument from the lesser to the greater. If to be a child of God is to experience painful hardships on the road to eternity, without them, what will it be like to in the end be found to be an enemy of God? Lesser to the greater. And he doesn’t answer the question, you’ll notice. He just lets it hang out there like, wow, that is going to be really terrible. The fire that purges us will consume and overwhelm the unbeliever. Jesus said this Himself, Matthew 10:28. “And do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Hebrews 10:31, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God.” If we for a moment could understand the fate that awaits the person who is not in obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ, these things that we are going through on the path to salvation will pale in comparison. We would say... the future us would say to the present us, “You don’t realize how much better you have it.” One glimpse into hell will help us realize how good we have it now. Yes, it’s painful, but it’s not that. Yes, it has hardship, but it’s not that. And that... that is forever. Our this is temporary. And we take comfort in that. We take comfort in that. As Psalm 73 says, consider the end of the ungodly. And it changes our perspective on these momentary trials that God brings into our life. Are they painful? Yes, they are painful. They are painful. How and why? Weaning us off of the world, driving us to our knees in cries and prayers. They are temporary. The suffering of the unrighteous is eternal. And I don’t think this means that we beat our chest and go, “Yeah, you’re going down.” It’s not a vitriolic thing for us, but it should sober us to realize that that unknown person standing in line with you at the grocery store is a soul that’s going to spend eternity somewhere. And apart from submission to the gospel of God, it is hell. And to allow that not only to change our perspective on our trials, but to cause us to care for their eternal souls and to care and love and hopefully share the gospel of Jesus with them. Verse 19 is a summary verse. Grudem calls it the theme verse of the whole book. Verse 19, “Therefore,” so concluding now, “let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.” And here we have it just in one verse. You want to know what 1 Peter is? Here you have it in one verse. Righteous suffering is not random. It is according to the will of God. That trial that you have in your life, somehow in the mystery purposes of God, is from the hand of God. He is in control. There is nothing that we will ever face. Nothing will ever come to us that God has not brought into our path and somehow has a good that He is accomplishing through it. He’s ordained all of it. So what should we do? Peter suggests three things for us. Notice, first of all, we are to entrust the trial to God. Entrust the trial to God. To entrust something, literally the Greek word there, it means to take something really, really valuable to us and to hand it over to somebody else. Something really valuable, hand it over to somebody else. What is a trial? A trial is when something valuable to us is being threatened. It is at risk. And that can be any number of things. It can be my health. It can be my reputation. It can be relationships. It can be my financial status or security. On and on and on you could go with things that are important to us. A trial. We don’t care about things that aren’t important to us. But when something matters to us, and now there is something in it that is calling it into question, undermining it somehow, now I am experiencing this tension. And that’s the sense of it here. Our health is valuable to us. Our reputation is valuable to us. Our relationships are valuable to us. A trial is when those things are at risk. And Peter is urging here to entrust it to God. And again, what does it mean? It’s to take that thing that is valuable and to hand it over to somebody else. Maybe visualize that in your mind a moment. That trial that you’re in, whenever I talk about trials, the same thing comes to mind, person, issue, whatever it is. In your heart of faith, can you take that trial and entrust it to God, to hand it over to Him? Like Abraham, to take Isaac and to lay him on that altar. Entrust it to God. And you say, “Well, why would I do that?” Notice what he says next. “Entrust their souls to a faithful Creator.” Peter highlights something about the character of God that we need to know when we’re doing this entrusting of valuable things to us. He is faithful. You say, “Well, faithful to what?” He is faithful to His promises. He is faithful to His love. He is faithful to His people. He is faithful to His Son’s work in our lives. He is faithful to the end as the unchanging God. He is faithful to His joy in our Christ-likeness and growth. He is faithful to His power’s ability to meet our needs, and many, many other things we could say about the faithfulness of God. But when we’re in a trial and something that we think is valuable to us is at risk, and we’re searching for somewhere to go for hope and comfort, to rest in the fact that God isn’t going anywhere and brought this to me in the first place. God gives our trials to us, and we’re called in our trials to give them back to Him and to believe that He will show Himself faithful. And He will. He will. Where do we go? Here’s where we go as best we can. And I’m trying to do this myself. I don’t know the future, but the Lord does. He is faithful to His promises. We’re going to try to lean into Him, trust His promises as best we can, and to trust His loving care. I think that’s what it means to live by faith. I think that’s what Peter is saying here. And the last thing he says is to continue to do good. Continue to do good. What happens during trials? Oftentimes we become very selfish. We self-obsess about our trial, and we think nobody’s ever had it as bad as me. I’m the only one that matters in the world right now. And Peter says, keep doing good. Keep serving others. You know, part of the misery of trials is that we become self-obsessed, right? Part of the blessing what Peter is sharing here is that by serving others, there is a kind of encouragement that God brings to us as we see other people in their pain. And now we can relate to them in a way that we never could before, which is its own kind of healing, I think, and encouragement. Last thing I want to ask is this, who does this sound like? Who does all of this trusting in God, committing the trial to God, who does this sound like in the end? Here is Luke 23. “It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.’ And having said this, He breathed His last.” See that word there for commit? Same word in the Greek as we have here, right here. What did Jesus do there on the cross? Did He suffer according to God’s will? He suffered in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. He suffered according to the will and the purpose of God and cried out, “Into Your hands I commit my spirit.” He held His life loosely. He held it with an open hand. And when the time came, He entrusted it to His Heavenly Father, even His own life. I don’t know if you ever thought about it. If you had... if you have sanity in the last moment of your life, what’s the last words that you want to say? I think I’m going to go with this one right here. “Into Your hands I commit my spirit.” If we are called in the end to take our most precious thing, my life, and to offer it to God and to commit it to Him, knowing that He is faithful, how can we not take all these lesser things in life, these pains and hardships, and to do the same and to look to God, to trust Him? “Father, into Your hands I commit my trial. I commit my cancer. I commit my child. I commit my broken relationship. I commit my unemployment. I commit my frozen marriage. I commit my pain.” Can you do that, dear friend? I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know what this week holds other than suffering and difficulty. To know that God is faithful and we can trust Him is a wonderful, wonderful comfort. And it’s true.

Steve DeWitt Stretchy Love Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:7-11 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 4:7-11 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:7-11 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: Stretchy Love Airdate:10/27 - 10/28/26 Programs: 2387 and 2388 Good morning, Bethel Church. Great to see you all here today, and, greetings to our other campuses, this morning and, especially, Cedar Lake. How great would it be to be the Cedar Lake campus with the, upcoming weeks that they have moving into a new church home and facility and celebrations along that line. It's gonna be, gonna be a fun couple weeks for you. I also need to mention, here at Crown Point, if you look around, we're, like, packed here this morning, and, which is great, but school hasn't started yet. So we always have this big influx once school begins. And I just put out to, this service that, we have an 08:15 and an 11:15 service that if you wanna get up a little earlier, would be great. You wanna sleep in a little bit, would be great. Might be, something for you to consider to help us, to consider one of those other services that would be a blessing to us, especially coming into the school year. I want to, begin by talking about a, Christian hero. I think he's a hero by any measure. His name is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and maybe you're familiar with that name. He, was a man from the last century. There's one biography about him that, has as the subtitle, martyr, pastor, prophet, and spy. He sounds intriguing already, doesn't he? And indeed, he is. Just to tell you a little bit about the guy, he was raised in a famously intellectual family in Germany. His dad was the best known psychiatrist in the whole country. He there was a large family .He had many siblings, and all the siblings were sort of like Renaissance people. They were academics. They were into culture and art and all of that. To give you an idea of the caliber of, brain that we're talking about, his brother helped Albert Einstein crack the atomic code K? So we're talking about top tier type intellects, and this family embodied that in, in Germany in the first part of the last century. So Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, takes that intellectual capacity and points it towards theology. And he goes to school, and by 21, he has his PhD. He begins to be a lecturer at the University of Berlin, which was arguably the most prestigious theological school, at the time. And as the Nazis rose to power, Bonhoeffer became increasingly a critic of Hitler and the socialist philosophy that he was promoting. And the Lutheran church then aligned with Hitler and the Nazis. And as that happened, Bonhoeffer had a conscientious decision to make. Do I leave the Lutheran church or not? And indeed, he did. He formed essentially his own denomination called the Confessing Church of Germany. And all of this was happening in the days leading up to and after the beginning of World War two. So, during World War two, he establishes three seminaries, three, covert seminaries, dare I call them exile seminaries, and he was the teacher, he was the headmaster, and the students there, they all kind of live together in kind of a commune sort of setting. And by all accounts, the Christian fellowship and community that those students with Bonhoeffer experienced was very, very special. And this led Bonhoeffer to write a book that is considered a Christian classic called Life Together, and I have a copy of it right here. It's an entire book about healthy Christian community. And it's not very big. You can see. It's kind of a thin little book, but so much wonderful truth in this book. And I'm going to be kind of featuring Bonhoeffer and quotes from this book in my message today. Just to finish the rest of the story with, Bonhoeffer, though, one of the great ethical dilemmas he wrote a book on ethics. Probably his, signature book was a book on ethics, and his own personal ethical dilemma was whether or not he as a Christian should participate in the assassination of Adolf Hitler, which he ended up believing that he needed to do. And so he was a part of a vast kind of, network of people that were, you know, disheartened about what had was going on in Germany. And if you saw the movie Valkyrie a few years ago starring Tom Cruise, that is a story of part of the network that Bonhoeffer was associated with. And if you saw the movie or know your history, assassination attempt did not work. And so there were many arrests, and Bonhoeffer was one of them. And he spent time in some of these camps. You know? And, Himmler and Hitler personally sentenced him to execution, and he was he was he died by hanging. This would have been 04/09/1945 at the age of 39. Dietrich Bonhoeffer died three weeks before Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin. So if you think about like, if Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have lived all of the wonderful things that he would have been able to write about in a kind of peaceful setting where he could just think and write and be a theologian, but he never had that. He his life was lived in tumultuous times, some of the most in all of human history, and he died as a martyr. So I think that gives a little extra power to the words of Bonhoeffer because they're the words of a martyr. And I'm going to be quoting from him because what he talks about in this book ties very closely to the passage that we have in front of us here as we are preaching through first Peter. So let's begin with Peter, and then we'll get to Dietrich. K? Begin with Peter, and we'll get to Dietrich. And so here we are in chapter four seven verses seven through 11. Last week, we zeroed in on verse 10. This week, I wanna pull back and look at the paragraph as a whole. Now before we get into it, though, notice in verses one through six of chapter four, Peter describes the lifestyles of the pagan world around them, and he does so eloquently. We'll study this passage in the coming week, but, because we're doing this a little bit out of order. But, in it, he just talks about how the pagan world, they're just they're just off in their immorality. They're off living lives loosely and wantonly. In fact, he calls the the generally, he says, a flood of debauchery. A flood of debauchery. Now we live in a flood of our own, don't we? You think about the world that is around us. It resembles closely the kinds of things that were going on in the pagan world of the first century. And he Peter says, the people that live around you are shocked that you don't, like, jump in and be a part of the same stuff that they're all about. They're shocked that you're, like, into something different. And indeed, Christian community ought to be very much different than the kind of activities and priorities and morality that is in the world that does not know Jesus Christ. And so that contrast now, he transitions in verse seven, with these words. He says, “The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins.” “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.” And now he describes two general categories of service. “Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies.” And here's his bottom line. “In order that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” Now you don't have to be a Bible scholar here to see what Peter is getting at. He lays out four qualities, four attributes of healthy Christian community. Christian community and Christian relationships when the gospel is shaping it and when the Holy Spirit is empowering it? Like, what does that look like? And what should be the things that we as Christians care about? And notice the the the these are easy. You can see them right here. First of all, a self controlled life of prayer. Secondly, love that overcomes interpersonal offenses. Third, open hearted hospitality. And finally, stewarding giftedness in the direction of serving one another. So that's gonna be our outline today. And let's just walk through these now. “The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers.” “The end of all things is at hand.” You might read that and say to yourself, well, Peter certainly got that wrong, didn't he? I mean, he wrote this in the first century. He says to the people he's writing, hey. The end is almost here. You better get ready. And now two thousand years have passed. He clearly got something wrong. And chronologically speaking, I would agree with that. But when the Bible talks about time, it does not do so the way that we do with, like, our calendars and our watches and our minutes and our seconds and our hours. When the Bible talks about history and time, it talks about it redemptively. In terms of the things that God is doing in history, these key redemptive moments. And when Peter says, the end of all things is at hand, what he means is this, redemptively speaking, there is nothing yet that needs to happen. Everything that needs to happen has already happened. God has created. Jesus has man sinned. Jesus has come, died on the cross, resurrected from the dead at the right hand of God. Now redemptively speaking, the next thing that happens is Jesus comes back, and final consummation of history and final fulfillment of all the things the Bible talks about in terms of what is yet to happen. We are living in the Bible calls it the last days, and it called it the last days two thousand years ago. Because redemptively, we're in the time when the next thing that happens is Jesus comes back. So the end of all things is at hand. The pagans live their lives completely ignorant of redemptively where we are in history and where we are in the story. So, therefore, they're like, hey, eat, drink, be merry. Let's go out. Let's partake. Let's have a great time. We live without any accountability. We can do whatever we want. Don't you tell me anything about judgment. Because I'm gonna go out, and I'm gonna make the most of every single moment. I'm living for me. I'm living for pleasure. That's the world that we live in to this day, don't we not? That's the that's the mindset around us. It's all about me, and I have no fear about what's going to come. But the Christian sees the Bible and the story of redemption, and we realize there is something that is coming that is the biggest thing of all. This whole history and life is going somewhere. Jesus is coming back, and every human being is going to stand before God. In fact, he notes that in verse five, “but they will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.” The world around us, no fear of that judgment. We look at this, and what does the reality of what is about to come do for us? We are not silly. We're not superficial. It makes us sober minded. It causes us to be self controlled about life and to view things through the grid of the priorities that knowing what's about to happen creates. It's like somebody who finds out they have cancer. You've probably had friends or family that they they get the diagnosis of cancer. What happens instantly? All of a sudden, life becomes more serious, doesn't it? All of a sudden, relationships become more important, and family becomes more important. And they there's a there's a mindset that comes to the cancer patient that they didn't have prior. And spiritually speaking, we realize that there is something big about to happen, and that makes all of this critically important. It makes relationships critically important. It means the church and what God is doing through the gospel critically important. And there ought to be amongst Christians, we don't take ourselves seriously, but we take the things of God seriously. Communion is not a snack. The church is not just a social club, and these relationships are not just disposable. Why? Because Jesus is coming back. And someday, we're gonna see that all of these things in the eyes of God critically critically important. Now Peter here focuses on one thing that that ought to do for us. Notice what he says. “Be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers.” Now I bet you weren't expecting that. For the sake of your prayers, what's the connection between sober minded and self control and a prayer life? Well, in my opinion, of all the things in the Christian life that requires self control, it would be prayer. What's the first thing that goes on a busy day? When you're like, man, I can't I don't know if I can get everything done today. Prayers go out the window, don't they? I'll get to that later. Off it goes. And over time, we get in the habit of not praying, and we get in the habit of not getting before God and and and offering ourselves to him on that day and praying over our day and asking for God will to be done on earth as it is in heaven and all of that. And so we then get, what, dry, and we get sort of superficial. And Peter says, listen, it's what's coming that causes us to realize that prayer is super important, and it makes me self controlled. In fact, if I could ask you Christian this last week, think about a second. Think about your prayer life this last week. And I'll bet last Sunday, you left church thinking, I wanna pray more today or something like that. I wanna pray more this week. And yet this comes in and that comes in and all that. Are you a little dry today? Because for me, there is nothing more like spiritual battery charging than when I spend a little time in God's word, and I get in prayer and open my heart to God, and I say, Holy Spirit, convict me of anything that is displeasing you. Pray over my day. Pray for my family. Pray for my church. It just puts energy, doesn't it? And Peter knew that. But it won't happen without controlling other aspects of life to create margin for prayer. Now in a few weeks, I'm gonna share a new prayer endeavor that we're doing here at our church. And, it'll take some self control to be a part of it. We've never done anything like it. I'm super excited about it. But why are we doing it? Because prayer is like oxygen in the church. And a community of people that are experiencing genuine Christianity will be a praying group of people and are gonna make priority for that. So self controlled life of prayer. Notice secondly, in this verse, it might be the most famous verse in all of Peter. I don't know. It's certainly one of them. Maybe it stood out to you as I read it before. Notice what he says. “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins.” Now I thought about just doing this this verse, that's it, and forgetting all the others because it's such an important truth here. And I hope that all of you dial in with me right now because what we're talking about here, I think, is one of the keys, not only to healthy church, but healthy marriage, healthy family relationships, healthy friendships. This verse has a truth that is absolutely critical. In fact, Peter says, above all, keep on loving. Paul said the same thing, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is agape, is love. So love. Love in the Christian community. Why is this so important? Of all the qualities that we ought to strive for, why love? Here's one reason. Because love is what God is like. Love is what God is like. First John four eight says it this way. “God is love.” It doesn't say God is mercy, although he's mercy, and it doesn't say God is kindness, although he certainly is kind and holy and beautiful and many other things. What it says is that “God is love.” And that doesn't mean that love is God, but it does mean that if you're going to pick one quality of God that is central to all that He is in His being, it is love. Now our definition of love around here is that love is self giving for the good and joy of another. You've heard that a thousand times. I say it because I love you again and again and again. Self giving for the good and joy of another. That is the kind of love that is being described here. That is the kind of love that God has within the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, eternally loving and giving and communicating and sharing for the good and joy of the other member of the Trinity. This is what God is like. So, Christian relationships then and this is really the focus of the text here is horizontal relationships. Christian relationships ought to and will reflect that quality of God because the Christian is being shaped into the likeness of God himself in terms of our attitudes and actions. I can say that better. How about Romans eight? What is God doing? He is conforming us to the likeness of his Son. And who embodies love more than Jesus? Who embodied love for us more than Jesus? Who loved us while we were yet sinners? Christ died for us. Love is what God is like. So, as children of God, having now by through salvation the very nature of God, we are called then to reflect that love in our relationships with one another. This is what God is like. This is what a godly Christian and a godly church will embody. Now one thing I love about this verse is it is it's so honest and real. And this is what if I had a whole message on it, I would focus on. I'm just gonna touch on it here. It's so honest and real to what relationships end up being like. Notice again what it says. Keep loving one another. Does not the word keep infer the fact that this is not easy to do, to keep on loving somebody? Now we all can do the splash and dash love, can't we? Like a one off. I'm gonna show love to them one time, and then I don't have to do it anymore. And I feel good about it. Oh, I love that person. Are you kidding me? Ten years ago, we showed up at his house or something like that. You know, one time, I did this one thing. I'm good. I'm love. I I I showed my love. Keep on loving. The only reason he has to command that is because naturally, we don't wanna keep on loving. We may start with love, but we end somewhere else. I love the book title by John Ortberg, Everyone is Normal Until You Get to Know Them Because to be in relationships with other Christians is to be forced into loving people that inevitably you discover are annoying, right? That disappoint you, that aren't what you hoped they would be. And I say that because I am one of them. Everyone's normal until you get to know them. And so what happens then in churches is that these differences and these annoyances over time wear on you. And you begin thinking to yourself, you know what? Maybe in a different small group, there would be people that aren't annoying. The problem with my group is all the other people in this group. And so you hop to another small group. Or over time in the church, these people I don't have enough people that are like me and think like me and believe all the things that I believe. And maybe there's a group of people, there's a church out there that is exactly like me, and I can be there, and there'll be everything's wonderful. And so we hop churches hoping that the next church will not have annoying people in them. And yet, what do you find at that other church? They're often more annoying than even the people at Bethel Church. I joke with that. Although, if you're visiting here today, I'm warning you. Take that as a warning. And this is where I think this little phrase here has such a wonderful help to us. Because no matter what long term relationship you're in, it's not just church. This is friendship. This is family. This is marriage. Over time, you discover in everybody aspects about their character, their preferences, their beliefs that easily rub you the wrong way or become over time increasingly difficult to sort of like swallow. The kind of love that God births in us through the gospel is elastic. In fact, the Greek word there for cover, it means this. It means at full stretch, At full stretch. That love stretches over a multitude of sins. Now by that, I don't think Peter is denying other passages where it talks about the church disciplining the rebellious sinner out of the church. It doesn't mean we don't speak the truth in love, as Paul says in Ephesians four. It doesn't mean that if we're somewhere and we know that there's an offense, we leave the gift at the altar, as Jesus said, and go and make that right. All of those things apply. I think what Peter is getting at here is not overlooking sin in other people's life. He's talking about the inevitable interpersonal slights and offenses and little things that in community with other people easily could divide us if we make that thing a big thing. In those cases, what does love do? Agape love stretches to cover them and to remain united within that what I'm calling stretchy love, okay? Love is elastic, stretchy. Now, to illustrate it, I got it. Here we go. And this is so simple. Okay? This is not profound, but sometimes these make the best illustrations. I have a rubber band here. And can I just walk us through what typically happens in any relationship? K? So here's the rubber band. We meet somebody. Right? We meet somebody, and and love doesn't have to stretch much because we think that person's wonderful. They think like I think. I enjoy their personality. We're aligned politically. We're aligned theologically. They're they're good folk. And so we're like, hey. We're in relationship. It's all comfy and all that. But what happens inevitably? Like, the third time you're at their house, all of a sudden you realize that they believe, what? And all of a sudden now, k? We still like them, but it's a little uncomfortable. Right? Because, the rubber band right now is going, ow. Love stretches a little bit. Well, then guess what happens? All of a sudden, you discover something really wacky. It's not this. It's like it's like out here somewhere. Right? And now you're asking yourself, is this relationship worth the effort? Because they got this, like, crazy thing out here going on. And now I'm describing most of our marriages. Right? When we are sort of like, oh, wow. Okay. And over time, because we're all broken and fallen and we all say the wrong thing, do stupid things, all of that, over time, you have all of these things that pop up. And so, like, you could describe our most of our relationships with people like this. Right? So what is Peter saying? Peter is saying this, that the Christian who understands that God loving me was the ultimate stretch. Understands the gospel. Now, in relationship with other Christians, when that stretchiness is required and that preference that that person has or that time they forgot to call me when I was in the hospital or that unkind word about whatever happens in Christian community. You've been in church, this is what it's like right here. It stretches. Gospel love stretches. Now, the person that doesn't get the gospel, maybe you've had rubber bands before or, like, you know, socks when the elasticity is gone. What happens? You just, like, pull it a little bit, and there's just, like, nothing. Right? Or it just snaps. But gospel love stretches because I realized the ultimate stretch was God loving me and Jesus. And if he did that much for me, well, then I can kinda stretch this far to love my fellow believer. Now I asked first service if that was good, I should use it, and they thought it was. But I don't have to use it third service. Was that helpful? Okay. Love covers some ultra stretches. Alright. Some of you stretched just to clap there. I thank you for that. He needs affirmation. He's one of those kinds. Yes. I do. Here's what Bonhoeffer says. And he he he's talking about Christians who have sort of this, like, ideal for what the church ought to be like. Like, it ought to be this way. And if I was in charge, it would be this way, and everybody would be awesome like this. He calls it the the the wish dream of Christian community. Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community, even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial. God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idealized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others, and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands, set up their own law, and judge one another and even God accordingly. Therefore, will not the very moment of great disillusionment with my brother or sister be incomparably wholesome for me because it is so thoroughly it so thoroughly teaches us that both of us can never live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one word indeed that really binds us together, the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. The bright day of Christian community dawns wherever the early morning mists of dreamy visions are lifting. Now he wrote that in German, but it sounded awesome in English, didn't it? That is eloquent writing. It is precisely when we get to that kind of stretchy point that we can actually be authentic with one another, and real God empowered Holy Spirit uniting community can happen. I just think of so many people at that very moment when the small group might actually be real with one another, they run or the church or the marriage or the whatever. That moment is the moment when all of a sudden the gospel is as real as it can be. Don't run. Stretch and apply gospel love. The next quality that Peter talks about here is hospitality. Notice what he says. “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.” “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.” Now whenever we talk about hospitality, I think many people think it it's like when your friends come over and you have nice silverware. K? That is not hospitality biblically. That is not silverware is fine, but it's that's like trifling. What he's talking about here is much bigger and much broader. The word is a compound word. Literally, it means it's this, stranger, love. Stranger, love. So this is not about you having, the right meal when your friends come over to watch the Bears game or something. This is loving somebody different than me, outside my circle. This is stranger love. This is good Samaritan type love. And, of course, in that, Jesus answering the question, who is my neighbor? He tells the story of the good Samaritan. I won't tell it again, but that good Samaritan loves somebody who is ethnically different than him, religiously different than him, inconvenient for him, yet he loves and meets his needs. That is Christian hospitality. One commentator translated it open heartedness. That's a pretty good word picture, isn't it? My heart is open to people, and I'm ready to show love, express love, open heartedly. And Peter adds that we are to do this without grumbling. Apparently, human nature hasn't changed a lot in two thousand years because what do we oftentimes think when God brings some person with some need or whatever in our path? We instantly think about, a, our schedule. This is inconvenient for me. I had plans today, and this was not what I was planning on doing. Or it is expensive. This guy's gonna eat us out of the house and home. Have you seen the way he puts it away? We don't want him over. Let's buy him a gift card and minimize the expense. Here's what Bonhoeffer says. We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will constantly, cross our will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions. If we pass them by, we pass by the visible sign of the cross raised in our path to show us that not our way, but God's way must be done. It is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is ours our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God. Who here is not convicted by that quote right there? That is so convicting, isn't it? How often we overlook little opportunities that we have to help people, to minister to people, to pray with people, to give them a kind word, to give them like, just to listen to them, to spend time listening to them. We're off on our thing. I know this well myself. And yet God is constantly bringing people across our path. And those are moments that call us to love them and to seek to be knee meeting their needs. So I wonder if you see how this all connects. K? The Christian is someone who looks at history and looks at the future, not like the pagan who says, hey. We can do what we want, but sees that there is something really big coming, and there is a judgment day, and I'm gonna stand before God myself at the judgment seat of Christ. And because of all of that and eternity in heaven and hell, there is a sort of serious and sober mindedness about today. Everything is precious, and people are valuable, and life is precious, which calls me then to apply gospel love to people and all of the sort of stretchy, uncomfortable things that people create. Even strangers, I'm willing to love them as best I can. And the Christian commits that our unity is not based on performance. It is not based on you being enough like me that I can love you. It is in fact, we don't we don't make Christian unity, do we? The Spirit has unified us. We seek to reflect that in the way that we care for one another and are of one mind and of one heart. And this allows us to be stretchy, stretchy love, stranger love because God's been stretchy love, stranger love towards us. And notice it goes one step further. Look at verse 10. This is what it calls us to. “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace” Whoever speaks is one who speaks oracles of God. Whoever serves is one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. Now we looked at verse 10 last week. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this other than for you to see the progression here. Let me do it again. I look ahead as a Christian, and I see what is coming, and that makes me serious about my life. I'm not silly. I'm not superficial. I'm like, everything's important now. This calls me then to apply the gospel love that I have received from God and to stretch it over all of the little things that otherwise could divide me with my other Christians. I open my heart to people that come across my path. I give them stranger love. And the final step is that I actually view my life as being an opportunity to serve other people. How do you know when somebody understands the gospel? Not when they've got their doctrine right, not when they can answer the questions right. It is when I am willing to take up the basin and the towel and actually wash the feet of other people and to serve them. What did Jesus say in that same passage? I believe in Mark. “Even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” So in Christian community then, where people are getting the gospel and Jesus is the hero and we want to be like him, we don't look at that service as being something that is beneath me. I look at it as being something that is Christ like. And you say, I'm gonna be a servant. Well, guess what? Who are we called to serve? One another, the text says. Other Christians. Indeed, the people that are sitting right around you right now with a servant heart in this. Using gifts, we talked about this last week. The Holy Spirit has given us enablements and empowerments. Everybody here that's a Christian, you have something special that you can do that is joy to you and joy to God and joy to others. But I I view myself as a servant. And we see then in this that what Peter is saying is that this horizontal thing and the unity and love covering and stranger love and stretchy love, these are not add ons to the gospel. This is not add ons to Christianity. This is part and parcel of what real Christianity is all about, and it shows who gets it. A lot of people, I think, view the gospel this way. They say, I believe in Jesus. When I die, I go to heaven. That's all that I need. And then you read passages like this, and we realize, wait a second. The gospel that saves us is a gospel that changes us. And that change changes the way that we view other people. And the way that I know that I am a disciple of Jesus is that I love one another. It's not an add on. It's not a if you want to or if you get to it. It is what Christianity is because this is who Christ was. Again, Bonhoeffer, when God had mercy on us, when God revealed Jesus Christ to us as our brother, when God won our hearts by God's own love, our instruction in Christian love began at the same time. When God was merciful to us, we learned to be merciful with one another. When we receive forgiveness instead of judgment, we too were made ready to forgive each other. What God did to us, we then owed to others. The more we received, the more we were able to give, and the more more meager our love for one another, the less we were willing we were living by God's mercy and love. Thus, God taught us to encounter one another as God encountered us in Christ. That's like church. That's what this should be like. And yet, it even in saying that, it is always imperfect. Don't get the wish dream thing going. That's right. And if this church got it, they'd be a lot more that way, and the other people would be that way towards me. That's the wish dream that Bonhoeffer also talked about. It is when we imperfectly love imperfect people but do so for Jesus' sake that we are showing that we understand that God loved us while we were sinners. Amen. We get the gospel. So how are you doing with that? Husband and wife. Let me just go to the to me, the pinnacle. Stretchy love requirement in that very intimate relationship. How many couples right here in this room, your marriage is calling you to stretch and to love a husband or wife who has preferences and idiosyncrasies that are driving you crazy. He's a believer. You're a believer. Is the gospel shaping the way that you relate, love, and forgive that spouse? And if not, might there be a little confessing that is needed, That your marriage might come under that agape love and the blessing that comes with it. Christian in the church, sitting here right now hoping that some other person maybe is hearing this because they're the one that offended you. Is there any relationship in the church that has been unglorifying to God, and you've allowed a preference or a moment where they disappointed you or whatever to create conflict that is unresolved. “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Think of all this applies to family relationships, so many of those strained, so many things. That's the beauty of this passage, I think, is that it applies in so many ways, and nobody gets away from this message without feeling conviction. None of us do. So I think this is one of these passages that particularly challenges people that simply attend the church. And can I just say in pastoral love, truly, to you that the sum of your Christian expression is the fact that you come here to church? Do you see in this and in the words of Bonhoeffer, there is so much more that God wants for you to experience and for you to be blessed and to be a blessing and might the Holy Spirit allow this message to spur you. Here's we step into kind of a new season of ministry around here. School's beginning. It's a great time for a fresh start. Might God be calling you to take that step, and maybe that step is into a small group. Maybe that step is into membership of the church. Maybe that step is into some area of ministry. To that end, let me just go back through our list, practically speaking. Number one, what did he say? Prayer. And I told you, I got some things to share about prayer in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. Stretchy love. Stretchy love assumes that you are in relationship with other Christians. As I just got done saying, maybe God would be calling you to take a step. Why not join a small group as a practical step to being in relationship with other Christians? Stranger love. Stranger love. This is the inconvenient service moment. And one of the things I've observed over the years is it seems like whenever God brings us to a particular passage in the body life of our church, all of a sudden, there are things that God sort of, like, brings into our path. And I'm just wondering, light of talking about this, in our church, how many of us are going to have a stranger love moment this coming week when maybe this passage will come to your mind and you will do something different than you otherwise would. I think it's gonna happen. I'm so confident that's gonna happen that I asked our, IT department to make an email address. So here it is, strangerlove@bethelweb.org I would love to hear your story of stranger love from this coming week, and, perhaps we'll have a chance to share that and encourage others. And finally, Servi love. K? Servi love. It's a little it's not a word, but you get the idea. Right? Servi love. We have opportunities that we're making available to you, and, I'm gonna talk about those in just a moment. And remember, why all of this? “So that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

Steve DeWitt Suffering as a Christian and for Being One - Part B Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:12-16 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 4:12-16 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:12-16 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: Suffering As a Christian and For Being One Airdate: 10/29 -10/30/26 Programs: 2389 and 2390 We're talking about suffering today. Suffering is not a topic that we like to think about. That is until life hurts, and then it's all we think about. And we search for answers, and we try to put all of it together and to understand why and how these things are happening in our life. You may not be there right now, and maybe this message, isn't connecting with you right now. Just wait. K? Just wait. I wonder how many people here right now are thinking this is not a relevant message, but next Sunday, you'll look back on it and say, that's exactly what I needed to hear. I had somebody come up to me after first service and essentially say that very thing to me. And, so this is, this is relevant to everybody either right now or soon. And I shared with you last weekend my own, Jennifer and I, our own experience with some, trial, some hardship that we went through with an emergency situation with our two month old daughter, Madeleine. And, you know, it caught us by surprise. We were on a day trip up to Grand Rapids. I saw my alma mater. We, saw some friends. We were having dinner in a very hospitable home when, all of a sudden, everything changed. And the medical doctor wife, in that home took a look at our daughter and said, you need to get her to urgent care right now. And in Grand Rapids, they have a a very famous children's hospital, and, we wondered if we should go there. She said, you don't have time to get her there. You gotta get her to urgent care. You ever have a moment like that in your life when all of a sudden that sort of normal nice day that you were experiencing is suddenly turned upside down, and God has on your doorstep a trial. Pain has entered into your experience. That was what it was for us. And, it seems like they always come during happy times, don't they? Like, for me, if it's raining, it might as well pour. Right? So I'd rather have that on a day when it's already kind of, you know, not so good. But it's that vacation day. It's the sunny day. It's the beautiful day when all of a sudden, wham, here it comes. And, honestly, I was a little leery even going into that week because I knew the next text in first Peter that we were gonna be talking about is on suffering. And I kinda had in my heart sort of I was a little uneasy because over the years, I've noticed it's uncanny how my life parallels whatever the text is that we're studying. So I was like, oh, no. What's gonna happen? And then it happens. So I've decided from now on, I'm only preaching on happy verses. K? It's all we're gonna study here because enough with the pain. And let's be honest. All too often, life does hurt, doesn't it? In fact, right now, if we could just allow this room to talk, if the hearts in this room could talk, what we would hear that's going on right here in this room right now. As Wiersbe said, if you treat one hundred percent of the people, as if they're going through a major trial in their life, you'll be right eighty percent of the time. And, how true that is. Life is filled with pain and hurting and trials. And the apostle Peter is writing to a group of Christians who are suffering. They're going through all the normal aches and pains of suffering in a normal sort of broken world experience. And then on top of that, they were going through suffering that came to them because they were Christians. They were suffering persecution. And so the title of this message and the text is really about suffering that comes to us as Christians and suffering that comes to us because we're Christians. And we're gonna look at both of those today. You know, Peter, this is one of the main reasons he writes this letter. He knows what's going on with these people. He wants to encourage them. In fact, we saw in chapter one, he just, like, begins the letter with these words. “In this, you rejoice, know now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Hear the theme there. Trials, fire, testing, praise, and glory. Peter picks that up again now in chapter four and he's he's a good pastor. You know, pastors realize that the way that the sheep get something is through repetition. You say it over and over and over again. And he begins now to say kind of the same thing over again, but in a different way. And he wants us to realize that suffering is a part of what it means to be a Christian in a broken world. And suffering is at times something that it means to be a Christian because we're Christians as the world around us persecutes us. So let's get into the text. We're studying verses 12 and following today. And, first of all, he talks about just plain old suffering as a Christian. Verse 12. “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” Okay, Peter. So how are we supposed to look at these trials and these pains in life? The first thing he says is don't be surprised. Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you. And Peter here talks about really our first reflex response when something happens in our life is what? Shock. What? I didn't see this coming. This wasn't part of my plan. I didn't look ahead in the week and think this is what the week was going to entail. We are surprised when suffering shows up on our doorstep. In fact, the Greek word here for surprise is in the Greek used for the response you have when an unexpected guest shows up. How do you respond when that sort of, like, friend from out of town suddenly is on your doorstep? You open the door, and what do we say in a moment like that? We say, what are you doing here? Right? What are you doing here? Surprised that this person is here. What do we say when the trial shows up in our life often? What are you doing here? You've made some mistake, pain. You want you meant to go to my neighbor's house next door. They don't go to church. They deserve it. Go over there. Right? Pain next door, trial next door. You certainly be couldn't be coming to my house. Why are you here? We're surprised when suffering shows up. We plan for success. We plan for pleasure. We plan for happiness. If you look at your calendars upcoming the next couple weeks, you've got you know, we're gonna go to the, County Line Orchard, and then we're going to Albany's, and then we're gonna know, we sort of plan for these sort of, like, fun excursions, and nobody plans for pain. Nobody puts that on the calendar. We don't want it on our calendars. Now we should ask the question, why are we so surprised when trials come into our life? And I would submit to you, the reason is is that we pretend to think that we're still living in the Garden of Eden, or we somehow imagine that we've already arrived in heaven. Or to show it graphically here, it's very simple, but this is, I think, the way that many of us live. The Garden of Eden, there was a time when there was no suffering and no pain. We're not there anymore, are we? There's coming a time when there will not be any pain and suffering. It's called heaven and the new Earth. We're not there yet, are we? Where do we live? We live in this sort of land of in between and in this world that we are in, the Bible says that there is always going to be pain and suffering because of sin. Why do we suffer? We suffer because of sin, not necessarily because of our sin directly, although sometimes that is the case. We suffer in this world because sin through Adam and Eve entered into this place, and it is broken. Romans eight, it is groaning. We live in a time in a in a in an era where this is what's normal. You know, you you if you if you live in the Midwest, it's gonna snow. You live in Chicago, it's gonna be windy. You live in a broken world with 7,000,000,000 other sinners, guess what's gonna happen? There is going to be suffering, And we need to expect it. We ought not to be surprised when it shows up on our doorstep. This is what it means to live in a world where the wages of sin is death. We live in a world where everything is broken, and we're part of that brokenness. And the result of living around other sinful, selfish people is that pain and brokenness and betrayal and all these other things are a part of what it means to live in this world. And we just ought to, in a certain dis respect, expect it. Do not be surprised when this happens, he says, first of all. Secondly, notice that there's a purpose in this pain. “Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, to test you.” Right there, we see that this pain is not random and chaotic. It's we don't live in a world where this is just all sort of happening. There is a God who is sovereign over the pain and the suffering and is using that. It says here, the fiery trial to test us. Fire is often used in Scripture as a metaphor for the kinds of testings that God brings into our life. In fact, the word there here in Peter, same Greek word is used in, Luke for for Jesus himself in his fiery trials in the wilderness. You remember he went out, didn't eat for forty days, forty nights. Satan came to him, and he entered into a time of testing. He was he was tempted to not trust God to meet his needs and to turn that stone into bread. He was tempted to dethrone God and bow to Satan, and he was tempted to test God by throwing himself down from the temple mound. And in each one of those testings, what happened? The real character of the Son of God came through, didn't it? We found we find in Jesus that in his times of testing, that purity of heart, that willingness to obey the will of the Father, that absolute commitment to walking that Calvary Road, that path that God had put before him, remained there, and he remained steadfast in it. In other words, the trial revealed the incredible character of the Son of God and our testings reveal what is in our hearts. Unlike Jesus, we're not all perfect, are we? In fact, none of us are perfect And those trials bubble to the surface impurities like metal metallurgy. Is that how you say that? The impurities of our hearts and our motives and the idols of our hearts, these all come to the surface. They test us. You know, if you could have seen into my heart, I think, when we were in the midst of some of our scary moments with Madeleine, you know what you would have found? I think you would have found faith, truly, but you would have found confusion and worry and anxiety. Where did those come from? Did the trial produce those things? No, they revealed those things being in my heart. In ways that when everything's awesome, it doesn't happen, does it? Like, it's not hard to live by faith when everything is awesome. Maybe you're in a moment right now where genuinely everything in your life is awesome. Congratulations. We're we're happy for you. Not really. K? I don't need faith when everything is awesome. I need faith when everything is not awesome. And in those moments when I am having to lean on my heavenly Father, I am learning a lot about where my faith actually is. Is it in my, you know, these identities of my life, my money, my family, my you know, success or whatever it might be or do I have a faith that genuinely can lean on the Lord in my trials? In fact, they help me learn to do that. I remember during a few of our scary moments, I, you know, I I would I would run out and get carryout for for meals because if you don't die in the hospital, the hospital food will kill you. Okay? So they delivered meals to us every day as part of, like, our insurance plan. And you look at it and you're like, that can't be good for me. Right? So I was running out and getting, meals. And I remember I I I went to a restaurant to get a carryout, and and I looked in the restaurant. And here's all these people, and they're carefree, and they're relaxed. And and I remember thinking to myself, don't you people realize what's going on with my daughter? That was not a joke. K? That wasn't a joke. I seriously looked at them and thought, how can you be this way when my daughter is suffering like she is? And I actually felt resentment in my heart at their sort of carefreeness when I'm going through what I'm going through. K. You ever have that kind of feeling, resenting the happiness of other people? Where did that come from? Did the trial put that in me? No. It came from me. It's like the old ketchup bottle analogy. What do you get when you squeeze ketchup? A ketchup bottle. You get you get ketchup. Right? You discover what's inside. And the testings that God brings into our life reveal sometimes to the encouragement, but often to the, like, wow. I didn't know that was in me. I remember one comment I made in our time and out of frustration, I made this comment. I really wish I wouldn't have made the comment. Where did that come from? My sick heart. And the trial showed it. “Beloved, do not be surprised when the fiery trial comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you.” Rather, he says, verse 13, “rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” Now, that could be a discouraging word if you're going through a trial. The Bible says rejoice in it and honestly, this is one of these things that as Christians, we scratch our heads. You read James one. Right? Count it all joy when you fall into various trials and temptations. How many of us that is just the way that we respond, right? Pain shows up on our doorstep. We're like, finally, you're here. Break out the band and let's rejoice. Pain has come to our house. We don't do that. We don't do that. It's especially hard, I think, when we're suffering evil or we're suffering at the hands of evil people that are doing us wrong. Like, how how can I be glad about that, Peter and James? And he here makes an extraordinary statement that I think helps, and I want you to see what he says. Why should we rejoice as you share Christ's sufferings? Now that doesn't mean that when we are suffering, somehow our sufferings are contributing to the redemptive sufferings of Jesus. It doesn't mean that we're like hanging on the cross with Jesus when we are suffering. But this is what it means. When we, by faith, endure trials, and we do so submitting to the will of our heavenly Father and do it by faith. That experience is the same experience that Jesus himself went through. As he submitted himself to the will of the Father, as he endured injustice, as he endured all the things that he went through and did so trusting in his heavenly Father. My experience of doing that is like his experience of doing that. Now his is far greater. K? Ours is this. His is this. But our this is the same as his this. And in that, then I am sharing in the very experience of the Son of God living in this broken world. And to that extent, I can rejoice in it. I can rejoice in it. When I am in my Gethsemane and I can pray honestly in my heart, not my will, but your will be done, I'm understanding in a new way what Jesus went through in his Gethsemane. And it helps us to realize that I can relate to Jesus a little bit in that. The better news is that he can relate to us. He can relate to us. I remember, I was running to the van. This is when we're in the house. I'm running to the van or going out again for to get food or whatever. And it was in one of those those heartache moments for us. K? And by I'm just sharing some stories out of my own experience in this, and there are people in this church who've gone through far worse things. So I'm not exaggerating. I'm just sharing my personal experience. We were at Saint Anthony's Hospital, Catholic Hospital here in Crown Point, And I'm cruising through the lobby, and there they have this big crucifix. K? So cross, Jesus hanging on it. I'm personally not a fan of Jesus hanging on cross crucifixes for reasons that I won't get into. But I was surprised as I was walking through there, and I looked at that crucifix. And I thought to myself, he knows what we're going through. And it was honestly an encouragement to me. He knows what he what we're going through. The cross is God stepping into it's not God avoiding our pain. It's God stepping into our pain and experiencing our pain and dying for the cause of the pain and giving hope for the removal of the pain. And when we are in our painful moments, we look to Jesus, and we realize our savior understands what we're going through. The one that we pray to and the one who's in whose name we pray sympathizes with our weakness and our pain and can relate to us in it. And somehow, weirdly, I was blessed by the truth that I thought of as I saw that crucifix. My suffering in a small way helps me relate to him, and his suffering in a big way helps me him relate to me. That's a comforting word for those of you that are going through a trial today. But we still haven't answered the whole rejoicing thing. K? It's one thing to go, okay. I'm kinda neutral. You've you've moved me to neutral on my trial. Peter's urging us to rejoice. In fact, he doubles down here. He says, not only rejoice, but also be glad. And the Greek word there is like mega glad. It's not like, okay. I'm okay with it. It's like, yes. How do we go yes over our trials? This is hard, isn't it? But what Peter is talking about here, Scripture also talks about in other places. Here's Hebrews twelve two describing Jesus and the cross, “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising its shame.” Here's Romans eight eighteen. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is yet to be revealed in us.” Peter is saying the same thing here. These hurts and these trials that we are going through, yes, they are painful. They are sometimes devastating to us. But what do they do in us? I may not rejoice in the pain. I may not rejoice in the evil, but I can rejoice in what that is doing in me. Namely, it causes me to look forward in a fresh way to the glory that will be revealed when Jesus returns. We are not in the Garden of Eden. We're not in the new Earth yet. We're in this land of in between. We're in this suffering time. Yet all of the pains that I experience in this time cause me to look forward to the time when this isn't gonna be a part of my experience anymore. I look forward now in a fresh way to the time when the pain that I'm going through is not going to hurt anymore. That time when there is no more pain and no more suffering and no more tears and Jesus has wiped them all from our face. To look forward to that and that the pain right now actually causes me to look forward to that in a way that if my life is awesome right now, I never will. Like, if God gave us awesome lives, totally everything we want all the time right now, and then says, hey. Isn't it gonna be great when Jesus comes? We'd be like, I don't think so. Like, if the church was awesome, everything awesome, and Jesus returns, we might be like, you know, could you come back in a little while? I'm not married yet. I haven't had my child yet. Haven't walked my daughter down the aisle yet, etcetera, etcetera. And we look to these things, and we're like, hey. I need this before that. But when life hurts, when life hurts, it causes me to look forward to what is to come and to look forward to my time with Jesus in a way that I can actually rejoice in. Or to say it this way, that today's pains remind me of tomorrow's gain. And from that perspective to say, Jesus, it makes me want you even more. Jesus, it wants me it makes me long for you even more. It makes me realize what you did and entering in my pain even more. It gives me cause in a fresh way in the midst of my pain to give you praise that you have not left me alone in my pain, but that you came and you died for it. And someday it won't be here anymore. K? And to celebrate from that perspective. That doesn't mean I celebrate the evil man that's doing it or the evil thing that caused it or the evil world that I live in. I'm not celebrating that. But I can celebrate the fact that there is hope in this pain, and someday it won't be here anymore. And I can rejoice. So that's suffering as a Christian. Plain old broken world, sinners all around me, and I'm one of them. Pain. But Peter has in mind with this group a particular kind of pain. They are living in a culture much like ours and ours increasingly where to be a Christian was not viewed as a positive thing, and they were suffering persecution. And so he has a special word for them and for us. Look at verse 14. “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” “But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler.” “Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.” So Peter is making a distinction here. I hope you see it between the suffering that comes to us as a natural part of living in a sinful world and the suffering I'm sorry. Let me say this back. The suffering that comes to us because we are Christians and the suffering that comes to us as the natural consequence of our sinful behavior. And he rolls out here four examples of immoral behavior that has its own natural consequence. And we shouldn't view the consequences being punished or a a trial. It's rather punishment. So if you murder somebody and you're sitting in your jail cell and you're saying to yourself, I'm suffering unjustly. No, you're not. You're getting what you deserve. If you're a thief and you suffer consequence, lose your job, lot, whatever it could be, don't say to yourself, I'm suffering unjustly. No. You're getting what your thievery deserves or evil doing is the third one. Now, the fourth one is an interesting one. I wanna sit on it just for a little bit. Here you have murder, stealing, evil doing, and he rolls out the fourth one. The ESV translates it meddling. Meddling. Now that's an that's an odd one to include. I mean, the other three were all like, oh, yeah. Those are really, really bad. But meddling doesn't seem maybe as why would we roll that into those other ones? The translation struggled to, to get this word because it's only used twice in any Greek manuscript of antiquity, not just the Bible, any Greek manuscript. So they struggle to translate because they it's hardly ever used, and it's a compound word. Here's what it means literally. One who looks carefully on others' affairs. One who looks carefully on others' affairs. The NIV translates it troublesome meddler. Oh, now this is getting interesting, isn't it? The troublesome meddler. I think another translation says mischief maker. A mischief maker. Why would Peter include that with these other three really, really bad things? And I think the reason is is that for whatever reason, wherever the gospel goes and in churches, somehow, for some reason, this kind of meddling and sticking our noses into other people's affairs seems to follow along with it. So, for example, let me give you an easy example of this. I think a good translation of this is Westboro Baptist Church. Are you familiar with Westboro Baptist Church? This is the church. They're in Kansas. When a soldier dies or a policeman dies or any other place where cameras are like that, they show up and they protest homosexuality or some other thing like that. They're probably, you know, as far as, like, notorious churches in America, they're probably the most notorious and maybe the most despised church in, in America and justifiably so, in my opinion. I mean, what they do to me is a disaster. There's no tact. There's no love. All they're about is their little cause that they're they feel justified in doing, sticking their nose into tender moments in people's lives. It really is a disgrace. So what are we talking about here? We're talking about Westboro type obnoxiousness. People who discredit Christian love and testimony by constantly button into things beyond any reasonable requirement of love. Should the Westboro at Westboro Baptist Church today, they're probably having a service, and they're probably talking about all this persecution that they're facing because of their faith. When in reality, they're being persecuted because they're obnoxious. Right? It has nothing to do with their faith. It is their attitude. It is their actions, their behavior, their hateful behavior. K. So I I put that out to you as a a good example of what Peter is talking about. Now let me ask a more tender question. Because every church, every local church deals with a few members who apparently were discipled at Westboro Baptist Church. They meddle here. They mischief make there. They feel like because we're, you know, brothers and sisters, they can stick their nose into things well beyond any reasonable call of accountability or love. They go to war for their little pet issue, and I wonder if you might not have a little Westboro in you. And I would say to you, the cold shoulder that you feel from other members of our church is not you suffering righteously. It is you being obnoxious. And we all would do better to try not to mischief make and to stick our nose where it doesn't deserve. And I would just say to you that Jesus was never petty, he was never obnoxious, and he was always right. So verse 14 and now verse 16, legitimate Christian persecution. These are parallel verses. Notice what they say. If you are insulted for the name of Christ k. You're not being obnoxious. You're not being a meddler. It is simply because of the name of Christ. He says, “you are blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” Again, verse 16, almost the same. “If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.” And both of these verses are emphasizing the same point, that insults that we experience or loss suffering that we experience because we identify with Jesus, these also are opportunities to rejoice. As he says here, to glorify God, to realize that you are blessed. How so? Notice in verse 14, he says, “because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” I read this initially, and I thought, okay. What two spirits is he talking about? It's really one spirit, the Holy Spirit. When I go through a trial of some kind, when I stand when I stand for my faith, and this can be in any big and small way. This is the the, you know, this is the kid at Crown Point High School in biology class somehow making it clear that he didn't think that we descended from, protoplasm and a lightning strike. Or it could be you in the workplace where there is an expectation of certain less than integrity business practice, or it could be your family where they look down on you because of your faith or being different than theirs or something. I mean, there's big and small ways. This is this is the the village in in, Syria as ISIS approaches. I mean, it's you got all kinds of persecution levels, don't you? But in all of them, what happens as God's people stand and identify themselves as being Christians in spite of what the consequences are? The Holy Spirit rests upon us and does a blessing in us through that experience. Namely, he assures us that we're actually saved. How can I know that what I say I believe, I actually believe? When what I believe is going to cost me and I stand for it anyway, I can be pretty sure that my faith is serious. Right? And I see in myself you know what? I see in myself, I see faith. I see genuineness, and the Spirit blesses us doing his work of reassurance. Christ is made more real to us in those trials, and our faith is more precious to us. He says, don't be ashamed. What's our natural reflux? Right? What's the natural response? We feel like, oh, yes. I'm a Christian. Please don't hurt me. Oh, yes. I'm a Christian, but, you know, I'm okay. We we cower. We we sort of shade it. We we we don't want to be looked down upon by people. And he says here, hey. Don't be ashamed. Don't be ashamed of identifying with that name. In fact, notice that. Glorify God in that name. Now verse 16, what name is he talking about here? If we're supposed to glorify God in some name, what name is it? Notice, yet if anyone suffers as a what? Christian, glorify God in that name, Christian. Christian is only mentioned three times in Scripture, which is ironic because it's like the most common sort of identity name for somebody that's a follower of Jesus. Three times. It's in Acts. In Antioch, the church in Antioch, first place that they were called Christians. Acts 26, king Agrippa says to Paul, “do you think you can convince me so easily to become a Christian?” The third place in the all the Bible last place is this verse right here in front of us. And he says here, glorify God in that name. What does it mean to be a Christian? It probably was a term of derision in the first century. Oh, you're one of those Christians, follower of Christ. Now they could have called them Jesusians, but that's harder to say. Right? That would that derision would never work because nobody could say it. Christian kind of rolls off the tongue easier, doesn't it? Oh, you're one of those Christians. You're a Christ follower. To be a Christian is to identify with Jesus, to identify with the claims of Christianity regarding who he is in his personhood, Son of God, son of man, fully God, fully man, came into this world, born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, died on the cross bearing our guilt and our shame, resurrected on the third day, ascended to heaven at the right hand of God, coming again someday to consummate history. Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Most High God. To be a Christian is to affirm that truth and reality about Jesus. Say, I am a follower of him. Is that you today, by the way? You could clap or something. Yes. We're Christians here. Right? You're like, I think we're supposed to clap, but it's a it's a message on suffering. I'm sure if we should do that. We're Christians here. Right? We glory we glory in that name. We're not afraid to identify ourselves. Of course, it's easy to say here, isn't it? Here we are in church, for goodness sakes. Yes. I'm a Christian. The test is not in church. The test is Tuesday at work or student, tomorrow at school. Do I cower? Am I ashamed, or do I freely identify myself as a Christian and allow whatever persecution comes from that to be an opportunity for me to rejoice and to praise God that I can glory in identifying myself as a follower of Jesus. This is not easy, is it? But this is what Peter is saying. Jesus says the same thing. Matthew five, “blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you”. How many of us look at that and go, yeah. It's easy to do that when you see it in the but when you're getting somebody saying something or treating you or whatever cost is costing you, now that's a harder thing, isn't it? “And utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven.” “For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Here's Acts five. Here's the apostles after they were beaten because they were Christians. “Then they left the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.” How do we do that? Again, we do not rejoice in evil. We do not rejoice in the evil that evil men do. Maybe not even in the pain itself, but we can rejoice in what the pain is leading us to. We can rejoice in the trial and what the trial is producing in us as a byproduct. And for the suffering Christian to realize this is the worst that it will ever be forever. This is as bad as it gets for us is life in this world that we're living in right now. For the unbeliever, this is as good as it is. Them watching the game this afternoon with friends, drinking whatever alcoholic beverages, adult beverages they're drinking, sitting back, chilling out is as good as they will ever experience in this life. Why? What's ahead for us? Glory. A life free of pain. No more trials. No more suffering. Joy beyond anything we've ever experienced in this life. What's ahead for the unbeliever? Everlasting pain and suffering. And so the Christian has a very different perspective on the temporary, these light and momentary trials that are achieving for us a glory that far outweighs them all, as Paul says. We see them as momentary. We see them as temporary. Ahead lies glory and physical presence with Jesus. And if I can look at these trials from that perspective, the sweeter the future day that is to come becomes to me. As an example of this in fact, right now, if you would just do this, help me out a second. Okay? I want you to think about that big thing in your life in terms of trial or suffering. Could be persecution. Could be just normal kind of human life suffering. Could you think about what is that big thing that you've experienced in your life? K. Just put it I'm not asking you to say what it is. Just you got it in your mind? K. I wanna tell you about a guy named George Matheson. George Matheson was a, Englishman, hundred and fifty years ago roughly. And he, was born with weak eyes, but he was brilliant. So he went to school, decided to go into ministry, which is where all brilliant people go. And, he so he decides to go into ministry. As he's completing his education, his eyes are getting weaker and weaker. And by the time he's in his, like, early twenties, he's completely blind. And so I mean, talk about a trial. Like, if you ever had the conversation, if if you know, what would be the last sense of the five senses that you would want to lose? For me, sight would be the one. That was his experience. And this produced trauma in his life. There's a story of he had a fiance that, before the wedding, decided she didn't wanna be married to a blind man, broke it off, and, you know, things like this where I imagine and and he was pastor for many years as a blind pastor. I imagine when he talked about suffering in his congregation, listen to him, don't you think? George Matheson wrote the hymn, oh, love that will not let me go. You mean, it's probably his most famous thing. But he also writes about that thing, that trial. And he says that that thing will be the thing in heaven that we most rejoice in. Here's how he says it. It's a long quote, but it's worth hearing. Listen. There is a time coming in which your glory shall consist in the very thing which now constitutes your pain. Ask the great ones of the past what what has been the spot of their prosperity, and they will say, it was the cold ground on which I was lying. Ask Abraham. He will point you to the sacrifice on Mount Moriah. Ask Joseph. He will direct you to his dungeon. Ask Moses. He will date his fortune from his danger in the Nile. Ask Ruth. He will bid you build, her monument in the field of her toil. Ask David. He will tell you that his songs came from the night. Ask Job. He will remind you that God answered him out of the whirlwind. Ask Peter. He will extol his submersion in the sea. Ask John. He will give you the path to Patmos. Ask Paul, he will attribute his inspiration to the light which struck him blind. Ask one more, the son of God. Ask him whence has come his rule over the world. He will answer, from the cold ground on which I was lying, the Gethsemane ground, I received my scepter there. Thou too my soul shall be garlanded by Gethsemane. The cup thou wish would pass from thee will be thy cornet in the sweet by and by. The hour of thy loneliness will crown thee. The day of thy depression will regale thee. It is thy desert that will break forth in the singing. It is the trees of thy silent forest that will clap their hands. The last things will be the first in the sweet by and by. The thorns will be the roses. The veils will be the hills. The crooks will be straight lines. The ruts level. The shadows will be the shining. The losses will be promotions. The tears will be tracks of gold. The voice of God to thine evening will be this. Thy treasure is hid in the ground where thou wert lying. Trust the Lord for your day today. My dear friend, that pain that you are in right now or that big one from the past will be forever the source of your greatest praise to God. Not the evil of it but what God did through it. Do Jennifer and I know a little bit more today than we did two weeks ago about God's grace being sufficient? Do we know a little bit more today than we did two weeks ago that God is a help in time of need? Do we have occasion now to give thanksgiving in a way that we did not two weeks ago? What do we have now that we did not have then? It was the trial that has given it to us. And this is where we are, friends. We live in a broken world. And I don't know who here is thinking to themselves, this isn't relevant to me. But next Sunday is gonna come up to me and say, wow. I had no idea what was coming. This is life. This is what it means to live in this world. And for us to anticipate a day when there won't be any things like this, there's no ambulances. There's no babies getting sick. There's no sudden death like I heard after first service, a family going through in our church. There's no crime. There's no injustice. There's no cancer. There's none of the things that are very much a part of this world and to give thanks to God for it. Won't we glorify God in that, even rejoice in it someday? I think that we will. He is a God that produces beauty from ashes. He turns our mourning into dancing. More on suffering next week. * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

Steve DeWitt Suffering as a Christian and for Being One - Part A Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:12-16 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 4:12-16 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:12-16 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: Suffering As a Christian and For Being One Airdate: 10/29 -10/30/26 Programs: 2389 and 2390 We're talking about suffering today. Suffering is not a topic that we like to think about. That is until life hurts, and then it's all we think about. And we search for answers, and we try to put all of it together and to understand why and how these things are happening in our life. You may not be there right now, and maybe this message, isn't connecting with you right now. Just wait. K? Just wait. I wonder how many people here right now are thinking this is not a relevant message, but next Sunday, you'll look back on it and say, that's exactly what I needed to hear. I had somebody come up to me after first service and essentially say that very thing to me. And, so this is, this is relevant to everybody either right now or soon. And I shared with you last weekend my own, Jennifer and I, our own experience with some, trial, some hardship that we went through with an emergency situation with our two month old daughter, Madeleine. And, you know, it caught us by surprise. We were on a day trip up to Grand Rapids. I saw my alma mater. We, saw some friends. We were having dinner in a very hospitable home when, all of a sudden, everything changed. And the medical doctor wife, in that home took a look at our daughter and said, you need to get her to urgent care right now. And in Grand Rapids, they have a a very famous children's hospital, and, we wondered if we should go there. She said, you don't have time to get her there. You gotta get her to urgent care. You ever have a moment like that in your life when all of a sudden that sort of normal nice day that you were experiencing is suddenly turned upside down, and God has on your doorstep a trial. Pain has entered into your experience. That was what it was for us. And, it seems like they always come during happy times, don't they? Like, for me, if it's raining, it might as well pour. Right? So I'd rather have that on a day when it's already kind of, you know, not so good. But it's that vacation day. It's the sunny day. It's the beautiful day when all of a sudden, wham, here it comes. And, honestly, I was a little leery even going into that week because I knew the next text in first Peter that we were gonna be talking about is on suffering. And I kinda had in my heart sort of I was a little uneasy because over the years, I've noticed it's uncanny how my life parallels whatever the text is that we're studying. So I was like, oh, no. What's gonna happen? And then it happens. So I've decided from now on, I'm only preaching on happy verses. K? It's all we're gonna study here because enough with the pain. And let's be honest. All too often, life does hurt, doesn't it? In fact, right now, if we could just allow this room to talk, if the hearts in this room could talk, what we would hear that's going on right here in this room right now. As Wiersbe said, if you treat one hundred percent of the people, as if they're going through a major trial in their life, you'll be right eighty percent of the time. And, how true that is. Life is filled with pain and hurting and trials. And the apostle Peter is writing to a group of Christians who are suffering. They're going through all the normal aches and pains of suffering in a normal sort of broken world experience. And then on top of that, they were going through suffering that came to them because they were Christians. They were suffering persecution. And so the title of this message and the text is really about suffering that comes to us as Christians and suffering that comes to us because we're Christians. And we're gonna look at both of those today. You know, Peter, this is one of the main reasons he writes this letter. He knows what's going on with these people. He wants to encourage them. In fact, we saw in chapter one, he just, like, begins the letter with these words. “In this, you rejoice, know now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Hear the theme there. Trials, fire, testing, praise, and glory. Peter picks that up again now in chapter four and he's he's a good pastor. You know, pastors realize that the way that the sheep get something is through repetition. You say it over and over and over again. And he begins now to say kind of the same thing over again, but in a different way. And he wants us to realize that suffering is a part of what it means to be a Christian in a broken world. And suffering is at times something that it means to be a Christian because we're Christians as the world around us persecutes us. So let's get into the text. We're studying verses 12 and following today. And, first of all, he talks about just plain old suffering as a Christian. Verse 12. “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” Okay, Peter. So how are we supposed to look at these trials and these pains in life? The first thing he says is don't be surprised. Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you. And Peter here talks about really our first reflex response when something happens in our life is what? Shock. What? I didn't see this coming. This wasn't part of my plan. I didn't look ahead in the week and think this is what the week was going to entail. We are surprised when suffering shows up on our doorstep. In fact, the Greek word here for surprise is in the Greek used for the response you have when an unexpected guest shows up. How do you respond when that sort of, like, friend from out of town suddenly is on your doorstep? You open the door, and what do we say in a moment like that? We say, what are you doing here? Right? What are you doing here? Surprised that this person is here. What do we say when the trial shows up in our life often? What are you doing here? You've made some mistake, pain. You want you meant to go to my neighbor's house next door. They don't go to church. They deserve it. Go over there. Right? Pain next door, trial next door. You certainly be couldn't be coming to my house. Why are you here? We're surprised when suffering shows up. We plan for success. We plan for pleasure. We plan for happiness. If you look at your calendars upcoming the next couple weeks, you've got you know, we're gonna go to the, County Line Orchard, and then we're going to Albany's, and then we're gonna know, we sort of plan for these sort of, like, fun excursions, and nobody plans for pain. Nobody puts that on the calendar. We don't want it on our calendars. Now we should ask the question, why are we so surprised when trials come into our life? And I would submit to you, the reason is is that we pretend to think that we're still living in the Garden of Eden, or we somehow imagine that we've already arrived in heaven. Or to show it graphically here, it's very simple, but this is, I think, the way that many of us live. The Garden of Eden, there was a time when there was no suffering and no pain. We're not there anymore, are we? There's coming a time when there will not be any pain and suffering. It's called heaven and the new Earth. We're not there yet, are we? Where do we live? We live in this sort of land of in between and in this world that we are in, the Bible says that there is always going to be pain and suffering because of sin. Why do we suffer? We suffer because of sin, not necessarily because of our sin directly, although sometimes that is the case. We suffer in this world because sin through Adam and Eve entered into this place, and it is broken. Romans eight, it is groaning. We live in a time in a in a in an era where this is what's normal. You know, you you if you if you live in the Midwest, it's gonna snow. You live in Chicago, it's gonna be windy. You live in a broken world with 7,000,000,000 other sinners, guess what's gonna happen? There is going to be suffering, And we need to expect it. We ought not to be surprised when it shows up on our doorstep. This is what it means to live in a world where the wages of sin is death. We live in a world where everything is broken, and we're part of that brokenness. And the result of living around other sinful, selfish people is that pain and brokenness and betrayal and all these other things are a part of what it means to live in this world. And we just ought to, in a certain dis respect, expect it. Do not be surprised when this happens, he says, first of all. Secondly, notice that there's a purpose in this pain. “Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, to test you.” Right there, we see that this pain is not random and chaotic. It's we don't live in a world where this is just all sort of happening. There is a God who is sovereign over the pain and the suffering and is using that. It says here, the fiery trial to test us. Fire is often used in Scripture as a metaphor for the kinds of testings that God brings into our life. In fact, the word there here in Peter, same Greek word is used in, Luke for for Jesus himself in his fiery trials in the wilderness. You remember he went out, didn't eat for forty days, forty nights. Satan came to him, and he entered into a time of testing. He was he was tempted to not trust God to meet his needs and to turn that stone into bread. He was tempted to dethrone God and bow to Satan, and he was tempted to test God by throwing himself down from the temple mound. And in each one of those testings, what happened? The real character of the Son of God came through, didn't it? We found we find in Jesus that in his times of testing, that purity of heart, that willingness to obey the will of the Father, that absolute commitment to walking that Calvary Road, that path that God had put before him, remained there, and he remained steadfast in it. In other words, the trial revealed the incredible character of the Son of God and our testings reveal what is in our hearts. Unlike Jesus, we're not all perfect, are we? In fact, none of us are perfect And those trials bubble to the surface impurities like metal metallurgy. Is that how you say that? The impurities of our hearts and our motives and the idols of our hearts, these all come to the surface. They test us. You know, if you could have seen into my heart, I think, when we were in the midst of some of our scary moments with Madeleine, you know what you would have found? I think you would have found faith, truly, but you would have found confusion and worry and anxiety. Where did those come from? Did the trial produce those things? No, they revealed those things being in my heart. In ways that when everything's awesome, it doesn't happen, does it? Like, it's not hard to live by faith when everything is awesome. Maybe you're in a moment right now where genuinely everything in your life is awesome. Congratulations. We're we're happy for you. Not really. K? I don't need faith when everything is awesome. I need faith when everything is not awesome. And in those moments when I am having to lean on my heavenly Father, I am learning a lot about where my faith actually is. Is it in my, you know, these identities of my life, my money, my family, my you know, success or whatever it might be or do I have a faith that genuinely can lean on the Lord in my trials? In fact, they help me learn to do that. I remember during a few of our scary moments, I, you know, I I would I would run out and get carryout for for meals because if you don't die in the hospital, the hospital food will kill you. Okay? So they delivered meals to us every day as part of, like, our insurance plan. And you look at it and you're like, that can't be good for me. Right? So I was running out and getting, meals. And I remember I I I went to a restaurant to get a carryout, and and I looked in the restaurant. And here's all these people, and they're carefree, and they're relaxed. And and I remember thinking to myself, don't you people realize what's going on with my daughter? That was not a joke. K? That wasn't a joke. I seriously looked at them and thought, how can you be this way when my daughter is suffering like she is? And I actually felt resentment in my heart at their sort of carefreeness when I'm going through what I'm going through. K. You ever have that kind of feeling, resenting the happiness of other people? Where did that come from? Did the trial put that in me? No. It came from me. It's like the old ketchup bottle analogy. What do you get when you squeeze ketchup? A ketchup bottle. You get you get ketchup. Right? You discover what's inside. And the testings that God brings into our life reveal sometimes to the encouragement, but often to the, like, wow. I didn't know that was in me. I remember one comment I made in our time and out of frustration, I made this comment. I really wish I wouldn't have made the comment. Where did that come from? My sick heart. And the trial showed it. “Beloved, do not be surprised when the fiery trial comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you.” Rather, he says, verse 13, “rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” Now, that could be a discouraging word if you're going through a trial. The Bible says rejoice in it and honestly, this is one of these things that as Christians, we scratch our heads. You read James one. Right? Count it all joy when you fall into various trials and temptations. How many of us that is just the way that we respond, right? Pain shows up on our doorstep. We're like, finally, you're here. Break out the band and let's rejoice. Pain has come to our house. We don't do that. We don't do that. It's especially hard, I think, when we're suffering evil or we're suffering at the hands of evil people that are doing us wrong. Like, how how can I be glad about that, Peter and James? And he here makes an extraordinary statement that I think helps, and I want you to see what he says. Why should we rejoice as you share Christ's sufferings? Now that doesn't mean that when we are suffering, somehow our sufferings are contributing to the redemptive sufferings of Jesus. It doesn't mean that we're like hanging on the cross with Jesus when we are suffering. But this is what it means. When we, by faith, endure trials, and we do so submitting to the will of our heavenly Father and do it by faith. That experience is the same experience that Jesus himself went through. As he submitted himself to the will of the Father, as he endured injustice, as he endured all the things that he went through and did so trusting in his heavenly Father. My experience of doing that is like his experience of doing that. Now his is far greater. K? Ours is this. His is this. But our this is the same as his this. And in that, then I am sharing in the very experience of the Son of God living in this broken world. And to that extent, I can rejoice in it. I can rejoice in it. When I am in my Gethsemane and I can pray honestly in my heart, not my will, but your will be done, I'm understanding in a new way what Jesus went through in his Gethsemane. And it helps us to realize that I can relate to Jesus a little bit in that. The better news is that he can relate to us. He can relate to us. I remember, I was running to the van. This is when we're in the house. I'm running to the van or going out again for to get food or whatever. And it was in one of those those heartache moments for us. K? And by I'm just sharing some stories out of my own experience in this, and there are people in this church who've gone through far worse things. So I'm not exaggerating. I'm just sharing my personal experience. We were at Saint Anthony's Hospital, Catholic Hospital here in Crown Point, And I'm cruising through the lobby, and there they have this big crucifix. K? So cross, Jesus hanging on it. I'm personally not a fan of Jesus hanging on cross crucifixes for reasons that I won't get into. But I was surprised as I was walking through there, and I looked at that crucifix. And I thought to myself, he knows what we're going through. And it was honestly an encouragement to me. He knows what he what we're going through. The cross is God stepping into it's not God avoiding our pain. It's God stepping into our pain and experiencing our pain and dying for the cause of the pain and giving hope for the removal of the pain. And when we are in our painful moments, we look to Jesus, and we realize our savior understands what we're going through. The one that we pray to and the one who's in whose name we pray sympathizes with our weakness and our pain and can relate to us in it. And somehow, weirdly, I was blessed by the truth that I thought of as I saw that crucifix. My suffering in a small way helps me relate to him, and his suffering in a big way helps me him relate to me. That's a comforting word for those of you that are going through a trial today. But we still haven't answered the whole rejoicing thing. K? It's one thing to go, okay. I'm kinda neutral. You've you've moved me to neutral on my trial. Peter's urging us to rejoice. In fact, he doubles down here. He says, not only rejoice, but also be glad. And the Greek word there is like mega glad. It's not like, okay. I'm okay with it. It's like, yes. How do we go yes over our trials? This is hard, isn't it? But what Peter is talking about here, Scripture also talks about in other places. Here's Hebrews twelve two describing Jesus and the cross, “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising its shame.” Here's Romans eight eighteen. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is yet to be revealed in us.” Peter is saying the same thing here. These hurts and these trials that we are going through, yes, they are painful. They are sometimes devastating to us. But what do they do in us? I may not rejoice in the pain. I may not rejoice in the evil, but I can rejoice in what that is doing in me. Namely, it causes me to look forward in a fresh way to the glory that will be revealed when Jesus returns. We are not in the Garden of Eden. We're not in the new Earth yet. We're in this land of in between. We're in this suffering time. Yet all of the pains that I experience in this time cause me to look forward to the time when this isn't gonna be a part of my experience anymore. I look forward now in a fresh way to the time when the pain that I'm going through is not going to hurt anymore. That time when there is no more pain and no more suffering and no more tears and Jesus has wiped them all from our face. To look forward to that and that the pain right now actually causes me to look forward to that in a way that if my life is awesome right now, I never will. Like, if God gave us awesome lives, totally everything we want all the time right now, and then says, hey. Isn't it gonna be great when Jesus comes? We'd be like, I don't think so. Like, if the church was awesome, everything awesome, and Jesus returns, we might be like, you know, could you come back in a little while? I'm not married yet. I haven't had my child yet. Haven't walked my daughter down the aisle yet, etcetera, etcetera. And we look to these things, and we're like, hey. I need this before that. But when life hurts, when life hurts, it causes me to look forward to what is to come and to look forward to my time with Jesus in a way that I can actually rejoice in. Or to say it this way, that today's pains remind me of tomorrow's gain. And from that perspective to say, Jesus, it makes me want you even more. Jesus, it wants me it makes me long for you even more. It makes me realize what you did and entering in my pain even more. It gives me cause in a fresh way in the midst of my pain to give you praise that you have not left me alone in my pain, but that you came and you died for it. And someday it won't be here anymore. K? And to celebrate from that perspective. That doesn't mean I celebrate the evil man that's doing it or the evil thing that caused it or the evil world that I live in. I'm not celebrating that. But I can celebrate the fact that there is hope in this pain, and someday it won't be here anymore. And I can rejoice. So that's suffering as a Christian. Plain old broken world, sinners all around me, and I'm one of them. Pain. But Peter has in mind with this group a particular kind of pain. They are living in a culture much like ours and ours increasingly where to be a Christian was not viewed as a positive thing, and they were suffering persecution. And so he has a special word for them and for us. Look at verse 14. “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” “But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler.” “Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.” So Peter is making a distinction here. I hope you see it between the suffering that comes to us as a natural part of living in a sinful world and the suffering I'm sorry. Let me say this back. The suffering that comes to us because we are Christians and the suffering that comes to us as the natural consequence of our sinful behavior. And he rolls out here four examples of immoral behavior that has its own natural consequence. And we shouldn't view the consequences being punished or a a trial. It's rather punishment. So if you murder somebody and you're sitting in your jail cell and you're saying to yourself, I'm suffering unjustly. No, you're not. You're getting what you deserve. If you're a thief and you suffer consequence, lose your job, lot, whatever it could be, don't say to yourself, I'm suffering unjustly. No. You're getting what your thievery deserves or evil doing is the third one. Now, the fourth one is an interesting one. I wanna sit on it just for a little bit. Here you have murder, stealing, evil doing, and he rolls out the fourth one. The ESV translates it meddling. Meddling. Now that's an that's an odd one to include. I mean, the other three were all like, oh, yeah. Those are really, really bad. But meddling doesn't seem maybe as why would we roll that into those other ones? The translation struggled to, to get this word because it's only used twice in any Greek manuscript of antiquity, not just the Bible, any Greek manuscript. So they struggle to translate because they it's hardly ever used, and it's a compound word. Here's what it means literally. One who looks carefully on others' affairs. One who looks carefully on others' affairs. The NIV translates it troublesome meddler. Oh, now this is getting interesting, isn't it? The troublesome meddler. I think another translation says mischief maker. A mischief maker. Why would Peter include that with these other three really, really bad things? And I think the reason is is that for whatever reason, wherever the gospel goes and in churches, somehow, for some reason, this kind of meddling and sticking our noses into other people's affairs seems to follow along with it. So, for example, let me give you an easy example of this. I think a good translation of this is Westboro Baptist Church. Are you familiar with Westboro Baptist Church? This is the church. They're in Kansas. When a soldier dies or a policeman dies or any other place where cameras are like that, they show up and they protest homosexuality or some other thing like that. They're probably, you know, as far as, like, notorious churches in America, they're probably the most notorious and maybe the most despised church in, in America and justifiably so, in my opinion. I mean, what they do to me is a disaster. There's no tact. There's no love. All they're about is their little cause that they're they feel justified in doing, sticking their nose into tender moments in people's lives. It really is a disgrace. So what are we talking about here? We're talking about Westboro type obnoxiousness. People who discredit Christian love and testimony by constantly button into things beyond any reasonable requirement of love. Should the Westboro at Westboro Baptist Church today, they're probably having a service, and they're probably talking about all this persecution that they're facing because of their faith. When in reality, they're being persecuted because they're obnoxious. Right? It has nothing to do with their faith. It is their attitude. It is their actions, their behavior, their hateful behavior. K. So I I put that out to you as a a good example of what Peter is talking about. Now let me ask a more tender question. Because every church, every local church deals with a few members who apparently were discipled at Westboro Baptist Church. They meddle here. They mischief make there. They feel like because we're, you know, brothers and sisters, they can stick their nose into things well beyond any reasonable call of accountability or love. They go to war for their little pet issue, and I wonder if you might not have a little Westboro in you. And I would say to you, the cold shoulder that you feel from other members of our church is not you suffering righteously. It is you being obnoxious. And we all would do better to try not to mischief make and to stick our nose where it doesn't deserve. And I would just say to you that Jesus was never petty, he was never obnoxious, and he was always right. So verse 14 and now verse 16, legitimate Christian persecution. These are parallel verses. Notice what they say. If you are insulted for the name of Christ k. You're not being obnoxious. You're not being a meddler. It is simply because of the name of Christ. He says, “you are blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” Again, verse 16, almost the same. “If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.” And both of these verses are emphasizing the same point, that insults that we experience or loss suffering that we experience because we identify with Jesus, these also are opportunities to rejoice. As he says here, to glorify God, to realize that you are blessed. How so? Notice in verse 14, he says, “because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” I read this initially, and I thought, okay. What two spirits is he talking about? It's really one spirit, the Holy Spirit. When I go through a trial of some kind, when I stand when I stand for my faith, and this can be in any big and small way. This is the the, you know, this is the kid at Crown Point High School in biology class somehow making it clear that he didn't think that we descended from, protoplasm and a lightning strike. Or it could be you in the workplace where there is an expectation of certain less than integrity business practice, or it could be your family where they look down on you because of your faith or being different than theirs or something. I mean, there's big and small ways. This is this is the the village in in, Syria as ISIS approaches. I mean, it's you got all kinds of persecution levels, don't you? But in all of them, what happens as God's people stand and identify themselves as being Christians in spite of what the consequences are? The Holy Spirit rests upon us and does a blessing in us through that experience. Namely, he assures us that we're actually saved. How can I know that what I say I believe, I actually believe? When what I believe is going to cost me and I stand for it anyway, I can be pretty sure that my faith is serious. Right? And I see in myself you know what? I see in myself, I see faith. I see genuineness, and the Spirit blesses us doing his work of reassurance. Christ is made more real to us in those trials, and our faith is more precious to us. He says, don't be ashamed. What's our natural reflux? Right? What's the natural response? We feel like, oh, yes. I'm a Christian. Please don't hurt me. Oh, yes. I'm a Christian, but, you know, I'm okay. We we cower. We we sort of shade it. We we we don't want to be looked down upon by people. And he says here, hey. Don't be ashamed. Don't be ashamed of identifying with that name. In fact, notice that. Glorify God in that name. Now verse 16, what name is he talking about here? If we're supposed to glorify God in some name, what name is it? Notice, yet if anyone suffers as a what? Christian, glorify God in that name, Christian. Christian is only mentioned three times in Scripture, which is ironic because it's like the most common sort of identity name for somebody that's a follower of Jesus. Three times. It's in Acts. In Antioch, the church in Antioch, first place that they were called Christians. Acts 26, king Agrippa says to Paul, “do you think you can convince me so easily to become a Christian?” The third place in the all the Bible last place is this verse right here in front of us. And he says here, glorify God in that name. What does it mean to be a Christian? It probably was a term of derision in the first century. Oh, you're one of those Christians, follower of Christ. Now they could have called them Jesusians, but that's harder to say. Right? That would that derision would never work because nobody could say it. Christian kind of rolls off the tongue easier, doesn't it? Oh, you're one of those Christians. You're a Christ follower. To be a Christian is to identify with Jesus, to identify with the claims of Christianity regarding who he is in his personhood, Son of God, son of man, fully God, fully man, came into this world, born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, died on the cross bearing our guilt and our shame, resurrected on the third day, ascended to heaven at the right hand of God, coming again someday to consummate history. Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Most High God. To be a Christian is to affirm that truth and reality about Jesus. Say, I am a follower of him. Is that you today, by the way? You could clap or something. Yes. We're Christians here. Right? You're like, I think we're supposed to clap, but it's a it's a message on suffering. I'm sure if we should do that. We're Christians here. Right? We glory we glory in that name. We're not afraid to identify ourselves. Of course, it's easy to say here, isn't it? Here we are in church, for goodness sakes. Yes. I'm a Christian. The test is not in church. The test is Tuesday at work or student, tomorrow at school. Do I cower? Am I ashamed, or do I freely identify myself as a Christian and allow whatever persecution comes from that to be an opportunity for me to rejoice and to praise God that I can glory in identifying myself as a follower of Jesus. This is not easy, is it? But this is what Peter is saying. Jesus says the same thing. Matthew five, “blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you”. How many of us look at that and go, yeah. It's easy to do that when you see it in the but when you're getting somebody saying something or treating you or whatever cost is costing you, now that's a harder thing, isn't it? “And utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven.” “For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Here's Acts five. Here's the apostles after they were beaten because they were Christians. “Then they left the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.” How do we do that? Again, we do not rejoice in evil. We do not rejoice in the evil that evil men do. Maybe not even in the pain itself, but we can rejoice in what the pain is leading us to. We can rejoice in the trial and what the trial is producing in us as a byproduct. And for the suffering Christian to realize this is the worst that it will ever be forever. This is as bad as it gets for us is life in this world that we're living in right now. For the unbeliever, this is as good as it is. Them watching the game this afternoon with friends, drinking whatever alcoholic beverages, adult beverages they're drinking, sitting back, chilling out is as good as they will ever experience in this life. Why? What's ahead for us? Glory. A life free of pain. No more trials. No more suffering. Joy beyond anything we've ever experienced in this life. What's ahead for the unbeliever? Everlasting pain and suffering. And so the Christian has a very different perspective on the temporary, these light and momentary trials that are achieving for us a glory that far outweighs them all, as Paul says. We see them as momentary. We see them as temporary. Ahead lies glory and physical presence with Jesus. And if I can look at these trials from that perspective, the sweeter the future day that is to come becomes to me. As an example of this in fact, right now, if you would just do this, help me out a second. Okay? I want you to think about that big thing in your life in terms of trial or suffering. Could be persecution. Could be just normal kind of human life suffering. Could you think about what is that big thing that you've experienced in your life? K. Just put it I'm not asking you to say what it is. Just you got it in your mind? K. I wanna tell you about a guy named George Matheson. George Matheson was a, Englishman, hundred and fifty years ago roughly. And he, was born with weak eyes, but he was brilliant. So he went to school, decided to go into ministry, which is where all brilliant people go. And, he so he decides to go into ministry. As he's completing his education, his eyes are getting weaker and weaker. And by the time he's in his, like, early twenties, he's completely blind. And so I mean, talk about a trial. Like, if you ever had the conversation, if if you know, what would be the last sense of the five senses that you would want to lose? For me, sight would be the one. That was his experience. And this produced trauma in his life. There's a story of he had a fiance that, before the wedding, decided she didn't wanna be married to a blind man, broke it off, and, you know, things like this where I imagine and and he was pastor for many years as a blind pastor. I imagine when he talked about suffering in his congregation, listen to him, don't you think? George Matheson wrote the hymn, oh, love that will not let me go. You mean, it's probably his most famous thing. But he also writes about that thing, that trial. And he says that that thing will be the thing in heaven that we most rejoice in. Here's how he says it. It's a long quote, but it's worth hearing. Listen. There is a time coming in which your glory shall consist in the very thing which now constitutes your pain. Ask the great ones of the past what what has been the spot of their prosperity, and they will say, it was the cold ground on which I was lying. Ask Abraham. He will point you to the sacrifice on Mount Moriah. Ask Joseph. He will direct you to his dungeon. Ask Moses. He will date his fortune from his danger in the Nile. Ask Ruth. He will bid you build, her monument in the field of her toil. Ask David. He will tell you that his songs came from the night. Ask Job. He will remind you that God answered him out of the whirlwind. Ask Peter. He will extol his submersion in the sea. Ask John. He will give you the path to Patmos. Ask Paul, he will attribute his inspiration to the light which struck him blind. Ask one more, the son of God. Ask him whence has come his rule over the world. He will answer, from the cold ground on which I was lying, the Gethsemane ground, I received my scepter there. Thou too my soul shall be garlanded by Gethsemane. The cup thou wish would pass from thee will be thy cornet in the sweet by and by. The hour of thy loneliness will crown thee. The day of thy depression will regale thee. It is thy desert that will break forth in the singing. It is the trees of thy silent forest that will clap their hands. The last things will be the first in the sweet by and by. The thorns will be the roses. The veils will be the hills. The crooks will be straight lines. The ruts level. The shadows will be the shining. The losses will be promotions. The tears will be tracks of gold. The voice of God to thine evening will be this. Thy treasure is hid in the ground where thou wert lying. Trust the Lord for your day today. My dear friend, that pain that you are in right now or that big one from the past will be forever the source of your greatest praise to God. Not the evil of it but what God did through it. Do Jennifer and I know a little bit more today than we did two weeks ago about God's grace being sufficient? Do we know a little bit more today than we did two weeks ago that God is a help in time of need? Do we have occasion now to give thanksgiving in a way that we did not two weeks ago? What do we have now that we did not have then? It was the trial that has given it to us. And this is where we are, friends. We live in a broken world. And I don't know who here is thinking to themselves, this isn't relevant to me. But next Sunday is gonna come up to me and say, wow. I had no idea what was coming. This is life. This is what it means to live in this world. And for us to anticipate a day when there won't be any things like this, there's no ambulances. There's no babies getting sick. There's no sudden death like I heard after first service, a family going through in our church. There's no crime. There's no injustice. There's no cancer. There's none of the things that are very much a part of this world and to give thanks to God for it. Won't we glorify God in that, even rejoice in it someday? I think that we will. He is a God that produces beauty from ashes. He turns our mourning into dancing. More on suffering next week. * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

Steve DeWitt Stretchy Love - Part B Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:7-11 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 4:7-11 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:7-11 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: Stretchy Love Airdate:10/27 - 10/28/26 Programs: 2387 and 2388 Good morning, Bethel Church. Great to see you all here today, and, greetings to our other campuses, this morning and, especially, Cedar Lake. How great would it be to be the Cedar Lake campus with the, upcoming weeks that they have moving into a new church home and facility and celebrations along that line. It's gonna be, gonna be a fun couple weeks for you. I also need to mention, here at Crown Point, if you look around, we're, like, packed here this morning, and, which is great, but school hasn't started yet. So we always have this big influx once school begins. And I just put out to, this service that, we have an 08:15 and an 11:15 service that if you wanna get up a little earlier, would be great. You wanna sleep in a little bit, would be great. Might be, something for you to consider to help us, to consider one of those other services that would be a blessing to us, especially coming into the school year. I want to, begin by talking about a, Christian hero. I think he's a hero by any measure. His name is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and maybe you're familiar with that name. He, was a man from the last century. There's one biography about him that, has as the subtitle, martyr, pastor, prophet, and spy. He sounds intriguing already, doesn't he? And indeed, he is. Just to tell you a little bit about the guy, he was raised in a famously intellectual family in Germany. His dad was the best known psychiatrist in the whole country. He there was a large family .He had many siblings, and all the siblings were sort of like Renaissance people. They were academics. They were into culture and art and all of that. To give you an idea of the caliber of, brain that we're talking about, his brother helped Albert Einstein crack the atomic code K? So we're talking about top tier type intellects, and this family embodied that in, in Germany in the first part of the last century. So Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, takes that intellectual capacity and points it towards theology. And he goes to school, and by 21, he has his PhD. He begins to be a lecturer at the University of Berlin, which was arguably the most prestigious theological school, at the time. And as the Nazis rose to power, Bonhoeffer became increasingly a critic of Hitler and the socialist philosophy that he was promoting. And the Lutheran church then aligned with Hitler and the Nazis. And as that happened, Bonhoeffer had a conscientious decision to make. Do I leave the Lutheran church or not? And indeed, he did. He formed essentially his own denomination called the Confessing Church of Germany. And all of this was happening in the days leading up to and after the beginning of World War two. So, during World War two, he establishes three seminaries, three, covert seminaries, dare I call them exile seminaries, and he was the teacher, he was the headmaster, and the students there, they all kind of live together in kind of a commune sort of setting. And by all accounts, the Christian fellowship and community that those students with Bonhoeffer experienced was very, very special. And this led Bonhoeffer to write a book that is considered a Christian classic called Life Together, and I have a copy of it right here. It's an entire book about healthy Christian community. And it's not very big. You can see. It's kind of a thin little book, but so much wonderful truth in this book. And I'm going to be kind of featuring Bonhoeffer and quotes from this book in my message today. Just to finish the rest of the story with, Bonhoeffer, though, one of the great ethical dilemmas he wrote a book on ethics. Probably his, signature book was a book on ethics, and his own personal ethical dilemma was whether or not he as a Christian should participate in the assassination of Adolf Hitler, which he ended up believing that he needed to do. And so he was a part of a vast kind of, network of people that were, you know, disheartened about what had was going on in Germany. And if you saw the movie Valkyrie a few years ago starring Tom Cruise, that is a story of part of the network that Bonhoeffer was associated with. And if you saw the movie or know your history, assassination attempt did not work. And so there were many arrests, and Bonhoeffer was one of them. And he spent time in some of these camps. You know? And, Himmler and Hitler personally sentenced him to execution, and he was he was he died by hanging. This would have been 04/09/1945 at the age of 39. Dietrich Bonhoeffer died three weeks before Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin. So if you think about like, if Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have lived all of the wonderful things that he would have been able to write about in a kind of peaceful setting where he could just think and write and be a theologian, but he never had that. He his life was lived in tumultuous times, some of the most in all of human history, and he died as a martyr. So I think that gives a little extra power to the words of Bonhoeffer because they're the words of a martyr. And I'm going to be quoting from him because what he talks about in this book ties very closely to the passage that we have in front of us here as we are preaching through first Peter. So let's begin with Peter, and then we'll get to Dietrich. K? Begin with Peter, and we'll get to Dietrich. And so here we are in chapter four seven verses seven through 11. Last week, we zeroed in on verse 10. This week, I wanna pull back and look at the paragraph as a whole. Now before we get into it, though, notice in verses one through six of chapter four, Peter describes the lifestyles of the pagan world around them, and he does so eloquently. We'll study this passage in the coming week, but, because we're doing this a little bit out of order. But, in it, he just talks about how the pagan world, they're just they're just off in their immorality. They're off living lives loosely and wantonly. In fact, he calls the the generally, he says, a flood of debauchery. A flood of debauchery. Now we live in a flood of our own, don't we? You think about the world that is around us. It resembles closely the kinds of things that were going on in the pagan world of the first century. And he Peter says, the people that live around you are shocked that you don't, like, jump in and be a part of the same stuff that they're all about. They're shocked that you're, like, into something different. And indeed, Christian community ought to be very much different than the kind of activities and priorities and morality that is in the world that does not know Jesus Christ. And so that contrast now, he transitions in verse seven, with these words. He says, “The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins.” “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.” And now he describes two general categories of service. “Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies.” And here's his bottom line. “In order that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” Now you don't have to be a Bible scholar here to see what Peter is getting at. He lays out four qualities, four attributes of healthy Christian community. Christian community and Christian relationships when the gospel is shaping it and when the Holy Spirit is empowering it? Like, what does that look like? And what should be the things that we as Christians care about? And notice the the the these are easy. You can see them right here. First of all, a self controlled life of prayer. Secondly, love that overcomes interpersonal offenses. Third, open hearted hospitality. And finally, stewarding giftedness in the direction of serving one another. So that's gonna be our outline today. And let's just walk through these now. “The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers.” “The end of all things is at hand.” You might read that and say to yourself, well, Peter certainly got that wrong, didn't he? I mean, he wrote this in the first century. He says to the people he's writing, hey. The end is almost here. You better get ready. And now two thousand years have passed. He clearly got something wrong. And chronologically speaking, I would agree with that. But when the Bible talks about time, it does not do so the way that we do with, like, our calendars and our watches and our minutes and our seconds and our hours. When the Bible talks about history and time, it talks about it redemptively. In terms of the things that God is doing in history, these key redemptive moments. And when Peter says, the end of all things is at hand, what he means is this, redemptively speaking, there is nothing yet that needs to happen. Everything that needs to happen has already happened. God has created. Jesus has man sinned. Jesus has come, died on the cross, resurrected from the dead at the right hand of God. Now redemptively speaking, the next thing that happens is Jesus comes back, and final consummation of history and final fulfillment of all the things the Bible talks about in terms of what is yet to happen. We are living in the Bible calls it the last days, and it called it the last days two thousand years ago. Because redemptively, we're in the time when the next thing that happens is Jesus comes back. So the end of all things is at hand. The pagans live their lives completely ignorant of redemptively where we are in history and where we are in the story. So, therefore, they're like, hey, eat, drink, be merry. Let's go out. Let's partake. Let's have a great time. We live without any accountability. We can do whatever we want. Don't you tell me anything about judgment. Because I'm gonna go out, and I'm gonna make the most of every single moment. I'm living for me. I'm living for pleasure. That's the world that we live in to this day, don't we not? That's the that's the mindset around us. It's all about me, and I have no fear about what's going to come. But the Christian sees the Bible and the story of redemption, and we realize there is something that is coming that is the biggest thing of all. This whole history and life is going somewhere. Jesus is coming back, and every human being is going to stand before God. In fact, he notes that in verse five, “but they will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.” The world around us, no fear of that judgment. We look at this, and what does the reality of what is about to come do for us? We are not silly. We're not superficial. It makes us sober minded. It causes us to be self controlled about life and to view things through the grid of the priorities that knowing what's about to happen creates. It's like somebody who finds out they have cancer. You've probably had friends or family that they they get the diagnosis of cancer. What happens instantly? All of a sudden, life becomes more serious, doesn't it? All of a sudden, relationships become more important, and family becomes more important. And they there's a there's a mindset that comes to the cancer patient that they didn't have prior. And spiritually speaking, we realize that there is something big about to happen, and that makes all of this critically important. It makes relationships critically important. It means the church and what God is doing through the gospel critically important. And there ought to be amongst Christians, we don't take ourselves seriously, but we take the things of God seriously. Communion is not a snack. The church is not just a social club, and these relationships are not just disposable. Why? Because Jesus is coming back. And someday, we're gonna see that all of these things in the eyes of God critically critically important. Now Peter here focuses on one thing that that ought to do for us. Notice what he says. “Be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers.” Now I bet you weren't expecting that. For the sake of your prayers, what's the connection between sober minded and self control and a prayer life? Well, in my opinion, of all the things in the Christian life that requires self control, it would be prayer. What's the first thing that goes on a busy day? When you're like, man, I can't I don't know if I can get everything done today. Prayers go out the window, don't they? I'll get to that later. Off it goes. And over time, we get in the habit of not praying, and we get in the habit of not getting before God and and and offering ourselves to him on that day and praying over our day and asking for God will to be done on earth as it is in heaven and all of that. And so we then get, what, dry, and we get sort of superficial. And Peter says, listen, it's what's coming that causes us to realize that prayer is super important, and it makes me self controlled. In fact, if I could ask you Christian this last week, think about a second. Think about your prayer life this last week. And I'll bet last Sunday, you left church thinking, I wanna pray more today or something like that. I wanna pray more this week. And yet this comes in and that comes in and all that. Are you a little dry today? Because for me, there is nothing more like spiritual battery charging than when I spend a little time in God's word, and I get in prayer and open my heart to God, and I say, Holy Spirit, convict me of anything that is displeasing you. Pray over my day. Pray for my family. Pray for my church. It just puts energy, doesn't it? And Peter knew that. But it won't happen without controlling other aspects of life to create margin for prayer. Now in a few weeks, I'm gonna share a new prayer endeavor that we're doing here at our church. And, it'll take some self control to be a part of it. We've never done anything like it. I'm super excited about it. But why are we doing it? Because prayer is like oxygen in the church. And a community of people that are experiencing genuine Christianity will be a praying group of people and are gonna make priority for that. So self controlled life of prayer. Notice secondly, in this verse, it might be the most famous verse in all of Peter. I don't know. It's certainly one of them. Maybe it stood out to you as I read it before. Notice what he says. “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins.” Now I thought about just doing this this verse, that's it, and forgetting all the others because it's such an important truth here. And I hope that all of you dial in with me right now because what we're talking about here, I think, is one of the keys, not only to healthy church, but healthy marriage, healthy family relationships, healthy friendships. This verse has a truth that is absolutely critical. In fact, Peter says, above all, keep on loving. Paul said the same thing, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is agape, is love. So love. Love in the Christian community. Why is this so important? Of all the qualities that we ought to strive for, why love? Here's one reason. Because love is what God is like. Love is what God is like. First John four eight says it this way. “God is love.” It doesn't say God is mercy, although he's mercy, and it doesn't say God is kindness, although he certainly is kind and holy and beautiful and many other things. What it says is that “God is love.” And that doesn't mean that love is God, but it does mean that if you're going to pick one quality of God that is central to all that He is in His being, it is love. Now our definition of love around here is that love is self giving for the good and joy of another. You've heard that a thousand times. I say it because I love you again and again and again. Self giving for the good and joy of another. That is the kind of love that is being described here. That is the kind of love that God has within the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, eternally loving and giving and communicating and sharing for the good and joy of the other member of the Trinity. This is what God is like. So, Christian relationships then and this is really the focus of the text here is horizontal relationships. Christian relationships ought to and will reflect that quality of God because the Christian is being shaped into the likeness of God himself in terms of our attitudes and actions. I can say that better. How about Romans eight? What is God doing? He is conforming us to the likeness of his Son. And who embodies love more than Jesus? Who embodied love for us more than Jesus? Who loved us while we were yet sinners? Christ died for us. Love is what God is like. So, as children of God, having now by through salvation the very nature of God, we are called then to reflect that love in our relationships with one another. This is what God is like. This is what a godly Christian and a godly church will embody. Now one thing I love about this verse is it is it's so honest and real. And this is what if I had a whole message on it, I would focus on. I'm just gonna touch on it here. It's so honest and real to what relationships end up being like. Notice again what it says. Keep loving one another. Does not the word keep infer the fact that this is not easy to do, to keep on loving somebody? Now we all can do the splash and dash love, can't we? Like a one off. I'm gonna show love to them one time, and then I don't have to do it anymore. And I feel good about it. Oh, I love that person. Are you kidding me? Ten years ago, we showed up at his house or something like that. You know, one time, I did this one thing. I'm good. I'm love. I I I showed my love. Keep on loving. The only reason he has to command that is because naturally, we don't wanna keep on loving. We may start with love, but we end somewhere else. I love the book title by John Ortberg, Everyone is Normal Until You Get to Know Them Because to be in relationships with other Christians is to be forced into loving people that inevitably you discover are annoying, right? That disappoint you, that aren't what you hoped they would be. And I say that because I am one of them. Everyone's normal until you get to know them. And so what happens then in churches is that these differences and these annoyances over time wear on you. And you begin thinking to yourself, you know what? Maybe in a different small group, there would be people that aren't annoying. The problem with my group is all the other people in this group. And so you hop to another small group. Or over time in the church, these people I don't have enough people that are like me and think like me and believe all the things that I believe. And maybe there's a group of people, there's a church out there that is exactly like me, and I can be there, and there'll be everything's wonderful. And so we hop churches hoping that the next church will not have annoying people in them. And yet, what do you find at that other church? They're often more annoying than even the people at Bethel Church. I joke with that. Although, if you're visiting here today, I'm warning you. Take that as a warning. And this is where I think this little phrase here has such a wonderful help to us. Because no matter what long term relationship you're in, it's not just church. This is friendship. This is family. This is marriage. Over time, you discover in everybody aspects about their character, their preferences, their beliefs that easily rub you the wrong way or become over time increasingly difficult to sort of like swallow. The kind of love that God births in us through the gospel is elastic. In fact, the Greek word there for cover, it means this. It means at full stretch, At full stretch. That love stretches over a multitude of sins. Now by that, I don't think Peter is denying other passages where it talks about the church disciplining the rebellious sinner out of the church. It doesn't mean we don't speak the truth in love, as Paul says in Ephesians four. It doesn't mean that if we're somewhere and we know that there's an offense, we leave the gift at the altar, as Jesus said, and go and make that right. All of those things apply. I think what Peter is getting at here is not overlooking sin in other people's life. He's talking about the inevitable interpersonal slights and offenses and little things that in community with other people easily could divide us if we make that thing a big thing. In those cases, what does love do? Agape love stretches to cover them and to remain united within that what I'm calling stretchy love, okay? Love is elastic, stretchy. Now, to illustrate it, I got it. Here we go. And this is so simple. Okay? This is not profound, but sometimes these make the best illustrations. I have a rubber band here. And can I just walk us through what typically happens in any relationship? K? So here's the rubber band. We meet somebody. Right? We meet somebody, and and love doesn't have to stretch much because we think that person's wonderful. They think like I think. I enjoy their personality. We're aligned politically. We're aligned theologically. They're they're good folk. And so we're like, hey. We're in relationship. It's all comfy and all that. But what happens inevitably? Like, the third time you're at their house, all of a sudden you realize that they believe, what? And all of a sudden now, k? We still like them, but it's a little uncomfortable. Right? Because, the rubber band right now is going, ow. Love stretches a little bit. Well, then guess what happens? All of a sudden, you discover something really wacky. It's not this. It's like it's like out here somewhere. Right? And now you're asking yourself, is this relationship worth the effort? Because they got this, like, crazy thing out here going on. And now I'm describing most of our marriages. Right? When we are sort of like, oh, wow. Okay. And over time, because we're all broken and fallen and we all say the wrong thing, do stupid things, all of that, over time, you have all of these things that pop up. And so, like, you could describe our most of our relationships with people like this. Right? So what is Peter saying? Peter is saying this, that the Christian who understands that God loving me was the ultimate stretch. Understands the gospel. Now, in relationship with other Christians, when that stretchiness is required and that preference that that person has or that time they forgot to call me when I was in the hospital or that unkind word about whatever happens in Christian community. You've been in church, this is what it's like right here. It stretches. Gospel love stretches. Now, the person that doesn't get the gospel, maybe you've had rubber bands before or, like, you know, socks when the elasticity is gone. What happens? You just, like, pull it a little bit, and there's just, like, nothing. Right? Or it just snaps. But gospel love stretches because I realized the ultimate stretch was God loving me and Jesus. And if he did that much for me, well, then I can kinda stretch this far to love my fellow believer. Now I asked first service if that was good, I should use it, and they thought it was. But I don't have to use it third service. Was that helpful? Okay. Love covers some ultra stretches. Alright. Some of you stretched just to clap there. I thank you for that. He needs affirmation. He's one of those kinds. Yes. I do. Here's what Bonhoeffer says. And he he he's talking about Christians who have sort of this, like, ideal for what the church ought to be like. Like, it ought to be this way. And if I was in charge, it would be this way, and everybody would be awesome like this. He calls it the the the wish dream of Christian community. Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community, even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial. God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idealized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others, and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands, set up their own law, and judge one another and even God accordingly. Therefore, will not the very moment of great disillusionment with my brother or sister be incomparably wholesome for me because it is so thoroughly it so thoroughly teaches us that both of us can never live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one word indeed that really binds us together, the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. The bright day of Christian community dawns wherever the early morning mists of dreamy visions are lifting. Now he wrote that in German, but it sounded awesome in English, didn't it? That is eloquent writing. It is precisely when we get to that kind of stretchy point that we can actually be authentic with one another, and real God empowered Holy Spirit uniting community can happen. I just think of so many people at that very moment when the small group might actually be real with one another, they run or the church or the marriage or the whatever. That moment is the moment when all of a sudden the gospel is as real as it can be. Don't run. Stretch and apply gospel love. The next quality that Peter talks about here is hospitality. Notice what he says. “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.” “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.” Now whenever we talk about hospitality, I think many people think it it's like when your friends come over and you have nice silverware. K? That is not hospitality biblically. That is not silverware is fine, but it's that's like trifling. What he's talking about here is much bigger and much broader. The word is a compound word. Literally, it means it's this, stranger, love. Stranger, love. So this is not about you having, the right meal when your friends come over to watch the Bears game or something. This is loving somebody different than me, outside my circle. This is stranger love. This is good Samaritan type love. And, of course, in that, Jesus answering the question, who is my neighbor? He tells the story of the good Samaritan. I won't tell it again, but that good Samaritan loves somebody who is ethnically different than him, religiously different than him, inconvenient for him, yet he loves and meets his needs. That is Christian hospitality. One commentator translated it open heartedness. That's a pretty good word picture, isn't it? My heart is open to people, and I'm ready to show love, express love, open heartedly. And Peter adds that we are to do this without grumbling. Apparently, human nature hasn't changed a lot in two thousand years because what do we oftentimes think when God brings some person with some need or whatever in our path? We instantly think about, a, our schedule. This is inconvenient for me. I had plans today, and this was not what I was planning on doing. Or it is expensive. This guy's gonna eat us out of the house and home. Have you seen the way he puts it away? We don't want him over. Let's buy him a gift card and minimize the expense. Here's what Bonhoeffer says. We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will constantly, cross our will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions. If we pass them by, we pass by the visible sign of the cross raised in our path to show us that not our way, but God's way must be done. It is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is ours our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God. Who here is not convicted by that quote right there? That is so convicting, isn't it? How often we overlook little opportunities that we have to help people, to minister to people, to pray with people, to give them a kind word, to give them like, just to listen to them, to spend time listening to them. We're off on our thing. I know this well myself. And yet God is constantly bringing people across our path. And those are moments that call us to love them and to seek to be knee meeting their needs. So I wonder if you see how this all connects. K? The Christian is someone who looks at history and looks at the future, not like the pagan who says, hey. We can do what we want, but sees that there is something really big coming, and there is a judgment day, and I'm gonna stand before God myself at the judgment seat of Christ. And because of all of that and eternity in heaven and hell, there is a sort of serious and sober mindedness about today. Everything is precious, and people are valuable, and life is precious, which calls me then to apply gospel love to people and all of the sort of stretchy, uncomfortable things that people create. Even strangers, I'm willing to love them as best I can. And the Christian commits that our unity is not based on performance. It is not based on you being enough like me that I can love you. It is in fact, we don't we don't make Christian unity, do we? The Spirit has unified us. We seek to reflect that in the way that we care for one another and are of one mind and of one heart. And this allows us to be stretchy, stretchy love, stranger love because God's been stretchy love, stranger love towards us. And notice it goes one step further. Look at verse 10. This is what it calls us to. “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace” Whoever speaks is one who speaks oracles of God. Whoever serves is one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. Now we looked at verse 10 last week. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this other than for you to see the progression here. Let me do it again. I look ahead as a Christian, and I see what is coming, and that makes me serious about my life. I'm not silly. I'm not superficial. I'm like, everything's important now. This calls me then to apply the gospel love that I have received from God and to stretch it over all of the little things that otherwise could divide me with my other Christians. I open my heart to people that come across my path. I give them stranger love. And the final step is that I actually view my life as being an opportunity to serve other people. How do you know when somebody understands the gospel? Not when they've got their doctrine right, not when they can answer the questions right. It is when I am willing to take up the basin and the towel and actually wash the feet of other people and to serve them. What did Jesus say in that same passage? I believe in Mark. “Even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” So in Christian community then, where people are getting the gospel and Jesus is the hero and we want to be like him, we don't look at that service as being something that is beneath me. I look at it as being something that is Christ like. And you say, I'm gonna be a servant. Well, guess what? Who are we called to serve? One another, the text says. Other Christians. Indeed, the people that are sitting right around you right now with a servant heart in this. Using gifts, we talked about this last week. The Holy Spirit has given us enablements and empowerments. Everybody here that's a Christian, you have something special that you can do that is joy to you and joy to God and joy to others. But I I view myself as a servant. And we see then in this that what Peter is saying is that this horizontal thing and the unity and love covering and stranger love and stretchy love, these are not add ons to the gospel. This is not add ons to Christianity. This is part and parcel of what real Christianity is all about, and it shows who gets it. A lot of people, I think, view the gospel this way. They say, I believe in Jesus. When I die, I go to heaven. That's all that I need. And then you read passages like this, and we realize, wait a second. The gospel that saves us is a gospel that changes us. And that change changes the way that we view other people. And the way that I know that I am a disciple of Jesus is that I love one another. It's not an add on. It's not a if you want to or if you get to it. It is what Christianity is because this is who Christ was. Again, Bonhoeffer, when God had mercy on us, when God revealed Jesus Christ to us as our brother, when God won our hearts by God's own love, our instruction in Christian love began at the same time. When God was merciful to us, we learned to be merciful with one another. When we receive forgiveness instead of judgment, we too were made ready to forgive each other. What God did to us, we then owed to others. The more we received, the more we were able to give, and the more more meager our love for one another, the less we were willing we were living by God's mercy and love. Thus, God taught us to encounter one another as God encountered us in Christ. That's like church. That's what this should be like. And yet, it even in saying that, it is always imperfect. Don't get the wish dream thing going. That's right. And if this church got it, they'd be a lot more that way, and the other people would be that way towards me. That's the wish dream that Bonhoeffer also talked about. It is when we imperfectly love imperfect people but do so for Jesus' sake that we are showing that we understand that God loved us while we were sinners. Amen. We get the gospel. So how are you doing with that? Husband and wife. Let me just go to the to me, the pinnacle. Stretchy love requirement in that very intimate relationship. How many couples right here in this room, your marriage is calling you to stretch and to love a husband or wife who has preferences and idiosyncrasies that are driving you crazy. He's a believer. You're a believer. Is the gospel shaping the way that you relate, love, and forgive that spouse? And if not, might there be a little confessing that is needed, That your marriage might come under that agape love and the blessing that comes with it. Christian in the church, sitting here right now hoping that some other person maybe is hearing this because they're the one that offended you. Is there any relationship in the church that has been unglorifying to God, and you've allowed a preference or a moment where they disappointed you or whatever to create conflict that is unresolved. “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Think of all this applies to family relationships, so many of those strained, so many things. That's the beauty of this passage, I think, is that it applies in so many ways, and nobody gets away from this message without feeling conviction. None of us do. So I think this is one of these passages that particularly challenges people that simply attend the church. And can I just say in pastoral love, truly, to you that the sum of your Christian expression is the fact that you come here to church? Do you see in this and in the words of Bonhoeffer, there is so much more that God wants for you to experience and for you to be blessed and to be a blessing and might the Holy Spirit allow this message to spur you. Here's we step into kind of a new season of ministry around here. School's beginning. It's a great time for a fresh start. Might God be calling you to take that step, and maybe that step is into a small group. Maybe that step is into membership of the church. Maybe that step is into some area of ministry. To that end, let me just go back through our list, practically speaking. Number one, what did he say? Prayer. And I told you, I got some things to share about prayer in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. Stretchy love. Stretchy love assumes that you are in relationship with other Christians. As I just got done saying, maybe God would be calling you to take a step. Why not join a small group as a practical step to being in relationship with other Christians? Stranger love. Stranger love. This is the inconvenient service moment. And one of the things I've observed over the years is it seems like whenever God brings us to a particular passage in the body life of our church, all of a sudden, there are things that God sort of, like, brings into our path. And I'm just wondering, light of talking about this, in our church, how many of us are going to have a stranger love moment this coming week when maybe this passage will come to your mind and you will do something different than you otherwise would. I think it's gonna happen. I'm so confident that's gonna happen that I asked our, IT department to make an email address. So here it is, strangerlove@bethelweb.org I would love to hear your story of stranger love from this coming week, and, perhaps we'll have a chance to share that and encourage others. And finally, Servi love. K? Servi love. It's a little it's not a word, but you get the idea. Right? Servi love. We have opportunities that we're making available to you, and, I'm gonna talk about those in just a moment. And remember, why all of this? “So that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

Steve DeWitt Stretchy Love - Part A Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:7-11 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 4:7-11 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:7-11 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: Stretchy Love Airdate:10/27 - 10/28/26 Programs: 2387 and 2388 Good morning, Bethel Church. Great to see you all here today, and, greetings to our other campuses, this morning and, especially, Cedar Lake. How great would it be to be the Cedar Lake campus with the, upcoming weeks that they have moving into a new church home and facility and celebrations along that line. It's gonna be, gonna be a fun couple weeks for you. I also need to mention, here at Crown Point, if you look around, we're, like, packed here this morning, and, which is great, but school hasn't started yet. So we always have this big influx once school begins. And I just put out to, this service that, we have an 08:15 and an 11:15 service that if you wanna get up a little earlier, would be great. You wanna sleep in a little bit, would be great. Might be, something for you to consider to help us, to consider one of those other services that would be a blessing to us, especially coming into the school year. I want to, begin by talking about a, Christian hero. I think he's a hero by any measure. His name is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and maybe you're familiar with that name. He, was a man from the last century. There's one biography about him that, has as the subtitle, martyr, pastor, prophet, and spy. He sounds intriguing already, doesn't he? And indeed, he is. Just to tell you a little bit about the guy, he was raised in a famously intellectual family in Germany. His dad was the best known psychiatrist in the whole country. He there was a large family .He had many siblings, and all the siblings were sort of like Renaissance people. They were academics. They were into culture and art and all of that. To give you an idea of the caliber of, brain that we're talking about, his brother helped Albert Einstein crack the atomic code K? So we're talking about top tier type intellects, and this family embodied that in, in Germany in the first part of the last century. So Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, takes that intellectual capacity and points it towards theology. And he goes to school, and by 21, he has his PhD. He begins to be a lecturer at the University of Berlin, which was arguably the most prestigious theological school, at the time. And as the Nazis rose to power, Bonhoeffer became increasingly a critic of Hitler and the socialist philosophy that he was promoting. And the Lutheran church then aligned with Hitler and the Nazis. And as that happened, Bonhoeffer had a conscientious decision to make. Do I leave the Lutheran church or not? And indeed, he did. He formed essentially his own denomination called the Confessing Church of Germany. And all of this was happening in the days leading up to and after the beginning of World War two. So, during World War two, he establishes three seminaries, three, covert seminaries, dare I call them exile seminaries, and he was the teacher, he was the headmaster, and the students there, they all kind of live together in kind of a commune sort of setting. And by all accounts, the Christian fellowship and community that those students with Bonhoeffer experienced was very, very special. And this led Bonhoeffer to write a book that is considered a Christian classic called Life Together, and I have a copy of it right here. It's an entire book about healthy Christian community. And it's not very big. You can see. It's kind of a thin little book, but so much wonderful truth in this book. And I'm going to be kind of featuring Bonhoeffer and quotes from this book in my message today. Just to finish the rest of the story with, Bonhoeffer, though, one of the great ethical dilemmas he wrote a book on ethics. Probably his, signature book was a book on ethics, and his own personal ethical dilemma was whether or not he as a Christian should participate in the assassination of Adolf Hitler, which he ended up believing that he needed to do. And so he was a part of a vast kind of, network of people that were, you know, disheartened about what had was going on in Germany. And if you saw the movie Valkyrie a few years ago starring Tom Cruise, that is a story of part of the network that Bonhoeffer was associated with. And if you saw the movie or know your history, assassination attempt did not work. And so there were many arrests, and Bonhoeffer was one of them. And he spent time in some of these camps. You know? And, Himmler and Hitler personally sentenced him to execution, and he was he was he died by hanging. This would have been 04/09/1945 at the age of 39. Dietrich Bonhoeffer died three weeks before Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin. So if you think about like, if Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have lived all of the wonderful things that he would have been able to write about in a kind of peaceful setting where he could just think and write and be a theologian, but he never had that. He his life was lived in tumultuous times, some of the most in all of human history, and he died as a martyr. So I think that gives a little extra power to the words of Bonhoeffer because they're the words of a martyr. And I'm going to be quoting from him because what he talks about in this book ties very closely to the passage that we have in front of us here as we are preaching through first Peter. So let's begin with Peter, and then we'll get to Dietrich. K? Begin with Peter, and we'll get to Dietrich. And so here we are in chapter four seven verses seven through 11. Last week, we zeroed in on verse 10. This week, I wanna pull back and look at the paragraph as a whole. Now before we get into it, though, notice in verses one through six of chapter four, Peter describes the lifestyles of the pagan world around them, and he does so eloquently. We'll study this passage in the coming week, but, because we're doing this a little bit out of order. But, in it, he just talks about how the pagan world, they're just they're just off in their immorality. They're off living lives loosely and wantonly. In fact, he calls the the generally, he says, a flood of debauchery. A flood of debauchery. Now we live in a flood of our own, don't we? You think about the world that is around us. It resembles closely the kinds of things that were going on in the pagan world of the first century. And he Peter says, the people that live around you are shocked that you don't, like, jump in and be a part of the same stuff that they're all about. They're shocked that you're, like, into something different. And indeed, Christian community ought to be very much different than the kind of activities and priorities and morality that is in the world that does not know Jesus Christ. And so that contrast now, he transitions in verse seven, with these words. He says, “The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins.” “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.” And now he describes two general categories of service. “Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies.” And here's his bottom line. “In order that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” Now you don't have to be a Bible scholar here to see what Peter is getting at. He lays out four qualities, four attributes of healthy Christian community. Christian community and Christian relationships when the gospel is shaping it and when the Holy Spirit is empowering it? Like, what does that look like? And what should be the things that we as Christians care about? And notice the the the these are easy. You can see them right here. First of all, a self controlled life of prayer. Secondly, love that overcomes interpersonal offenses. Third, open hearted hospitality. And finally, stewarding giftedness in the direction of serving one another. So that's gonna be our outline today. And let's just walk through these now. “The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers.” “The end of all things is at hand.” You might read that and say to yourself, well, Peter certainly got that wrong, didn't he? I mean, he wrote this in the first century. He says to the people he's writing, hey. The end is almost here. You better get ready. And now two thousand years have passed. He clearly got something wrong. And chronologically speaking, I would agree with that. But when the Bible talks about time, it does not do so the way that we do with, like, our calendars and our watches and our minutes and our seconds and our hours. When the Bible talks about history and time, it talks about it redemptively. In terms of the things that God is doing in history, these key redemptive moments. And when Peter says, the end of all things is at hand, what he means is this, redemptively speaking, there is nothing yet that needs to happen. Everything that needs to happen has already happened. God has created. Jesus has man sinned. Jesus has come, died on the cross, resurrected from the dead at the right hand of God. Now redemptively speaking, the next thing that happens is Jesus comes back, and final consummation of history and final fulfillment of all the things the Bible talks about in terms of what is yet to happen. We are living in the Bible calls it the last days, and it called it the last days two thousand years ago. Because redemptively, we're in the time when the next thing that happens is Jesus comes back. So the end of all things is at hand. The pagans live their lives completely ignorant of redemptively where we are in history and where we are in the story. So, therefore, they're like, hey, eat, drink, be merry. Let's go out. Let's partake. Let's have a great time. We live without any accountability. We can do whatever we want. Don't you tell me anything about judgment. Because I'm gonna go out, and I'm gonna make the most of every single moment. I'm living for me. I'm living for pleasure. That's the world that we live in to this day, don't we not? That's the that's the mindset around us. It's all about me, and I have no fear about what's going to come. But the Christian sees the Bible and the story of redemption, and we realize there is something that is coming that is the biggest thing of all. This whole history and life is going somewhere. Jesus is coming back, and every human being is going to stand before God. In fact, he notes that in verse five, “but they will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.” The world around us, no fear of that judgment. We look at this, and what does the reality of what is about to come do for us? We are not silly. We're not superficial. It makes us sober minded. It causes us to be self controlled about life and to view things through the grid of the priorities that knowing what's about to happen creates. It's like somebody who finds out they have cancer. You've probably had friends or family that they they get the diagnosis of cancer. What happens instantly? All of a sudden, life becomes more serious, doesn't it? All of a sudden, relationships become more important, and family becomes more important. And they there's a there's a mindset that comes to the cancer patient that they didn't have prior. And spiritually speaking, we realize that there is something big about to happen, and that makes all of this critically important. It makes relationships critically important. It means the church and what God is doing through the gospel critically important. And there ought to be amongst Christians, we don't take ourselves seriously, but we take the things of God seriously. Communion is not a snack. The church is not just a social club, and these relationships are not just disposable. Why? Because Jesus is coming back. And someday, we're gonna see that all of these things in the eyes of God critically critically important. Now Peter here focuses on one thing that that ought to do for us. Notice what he says. “Be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers.” Now I bet you weren't expecting that. For the sake of your prayers, what's the connection between sober minded and self control and a prayer life? Well, in my opinion, of all the things in the Christian life that requires self control, it would be prayer. What's the first thing that goes on a busy day? When you're like, man, I can't I don't know if I can get everything done today. Prayers go out the window, don't they? I'll get to that later. Off it goes. And over time, we get in the habit of not praying, and we get in the habit of not getting before God and and and offering ourselves to him on that day and praying over our day and asking for God will to be done on earth as it is in heaven and all of that. And so we then get, what, dry, and we get sort of superficial. And Peter says, listen, it's what's coming that causes us to realize that prayer is super important, and it makes me self controlled. In fact, if I could ask you Christian this last week, think about a second. Think about your prayer life this last week. And I'll bet last Sunday, you left church thinking, I wanna pray more today or something like that. I wanna pray more this week. And yet this comes in and that comes in and all that. Are you a little dry today? Because for me, there is nothing more like spiritual battery charging than when I spend a little time in God's word, and I get in prayer and open my heart to God, and I say, Holy Spirit, convict me of anything that is displeasing you. Pray over my day. Pray for my family. Pray for my church. It just puts energy, doesn't it? And Peter knew that. But it won't happen without controlling other aspects of life to create margin for prayer. Now in a few weeks, I'm gonna share a new prayer endeavor that we're doing here at our church. And, it'll take some self control to be a part of it. We've never done anything like it. I'm super excited about it. But why are we doing it? Because prayer is like oxygen in the church. And a community of people that are experiencing genuine Christianity will be a praying group of people and are gonna make priority for that. So self controlled life of prayer. Notice secondly, in this verse, it might be the most famous verse in all of Peter. I don't know. It's certainly one of them. Maybe it stood out to you as I read it before. Notice what he says. “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins.” Now I thought about just doing this this verse, that's it, and forgetting all the others because it's such an important truth here. And I hope that all of you dial in with me right now because what we're talking about here, I think, is one of the keys, not only to healthy church, but healthy marriage, healthy family relationships, healthy friendships. This verse has a truth that is absolutely critical. In fact, Peter says, above all, keep on loving. Paul said the same thing, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is agape, is love. So love. Love in the Christian community. Why is this so important? Of all the qualities that we ought to strive for, why love? Here's one reason. Because love is what God is like. Love is what God is like. First John four eight says it this way. “God is love.” It doesn't say God is mercy, although he's mercy, and it doesn't say God is kindness, although he certainly is kind and holy and beautiful and many other things. What it says is that “God is love.” And that doesn't mean that love is God, but it does mean that if you're going to pick one quality of God that is central to all that He is in His being, it is love. Now our definition of love around here is that love is self giving for the good and joy of another. You've heard that a thousand times. I say it because I love you again and again and again. Self giving for the good and joy of another. That is the kind of love that is being described here. That is the kind of love that God has within the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, eternally loving and giving and communicating and sharing for the good and joy of the other member of the Trinity. This is what God is like. So, Christian relationships then and this is really the focus of the text here is horizontal relationships. Christian relationships ought to and will reflect that quality of God because the Christian is being shaped into the likeness of God himself in terms of our attitudes and actions. I can say that better. How about Romans eight? What is God doing? He is conforming us to the likeness of his Son. And who embodies love more than Jesus? Who embodied love for us more than Jesus? Who loved us while we were yet sinners? Christ died for us. Love is what God is like. So, as children of God, having now by through salvation the very nature of God, we are called then to reflect that love in our relationships with one another. This is what God is like. This is what a godly Christian and a godly church will embody. Now one thing I love about this verse is it is it's so honest and real. And this is what if I had a whole message on it, I would focus on. I'm just gonna touch on it here. It's so honest and real to what relationships end up being like. Notice again what it says. Keep loving one another. Does not the word keep infer the fact that this is not easy to do, to keep on loving somebody? Now we all can do the splash and dash love, can't we? Like a one off. I'm gonna show love to them one time, and then I don't have to do it anymore. And I feel good about it. Oh, I love that person. Are you kidding me? Ten years ago, we showed up at his house or something like that. You know, one time, I did this one thing. I'm good. I'm love. I I I showed my love. Keep on loving. The only reason he has to command that is because naturally, we don't wanna keep on loving. We may start with love, but we end somewhere else. I love the book title by John Ortberg, Everyone is Normal Until You Get to Know Them Because to be in relationships with other Christians is to be forced into loving people that inevitably you discover are annoying, right? That disappoint you, that aren't what you hoped they would be. And I say that because I am one of them. Everyone's normal until you get to know them. And so what happens then in churches is that these differences and these annoyances over time wear on you. And you begin thinking to yourself, you know what? Maybe in a different small group, there would be people that aren't annoying. The problem with my group is all the other people in this group. And so you hop to another small group. Or over time in the church, these people I don't have enough people that are like me and think like me and believe all the things that I believe. And maybe there's a group of people, there's a church out there that is exactly like me, and I can be there, and there'll be everything's wonderful. And so we hop churches hoping that the next church will not have annoying people in them. And yet, what do you find at that other church? They're often more annoying than even the people at Bethel Church. I joke with that. Although, if you're visiting here today, I'm warning you. Take that as a warning. And this is where I think this little phrase here has such a wonderful help to us. Because no matter what long term relationship you're in, it's not just church. This is friendship. This is family. This is marriage. Over time, you discover in everybody aspects about their character, their preferences, their beliefs that easily rub you the wrong way or become over time increasingly difficult to sort of like swallow. The kind of love that God births in us through the gospel is elastic. In fact, the Greek word there for cover, it means this. It means at full stretch, At full stretch. That love stretches over a multitude of sins. Now by that, I don't think Peter is denying other passages where it talks about the church disciplining the rebellious sinner out of the church. It doesn't mean we don't speak the truth in love, as Paul says in Ephesians four. It doesn't mean that if we're somewhere and we know that there's an offense, we leave the gift at the altar, as Jesus said, and go and make that right. All of those things apply. I think what Peter is getting at here is not overlooking sin in other people's life. He's talking about the inevitable interpersonal slights and offenses and little things that in community with other people easily could divide us if we make that thing a big thing. In those cases, what does love do? Agape love stretches to cover them and to remain united within that what I'm calling stretchy love, okay? Love is elastic, stretchy. Now, to illustrate it, I got it. Here we go. And this is so simple. Okay? This is not profound, but sometimes these make the best illustrations. I have a rubber band here. And can I just walk us through what typically happens in any relationship? K? So here's the rubber band. We meet somebody. Right? We meet somebody, and and love doesn't have to stretch much because we think that person's wonderful. They think like I think. I enjoy their personality. We're aligned politically. We're aligned theologically. They're they're good folk. And so we're like, hey. We're in relationship. It's all comfy and all that. But what happens inevitably? Like, the third time you're at their house, all of a sudden you realize that they believe, what? And all of a sudden now, k? We still like them, but it's a little uncomfortable. Right? Because, the rubber band right now is going, ow. Love stretches a little bit. Well, then guess what happens? All of a sudden, you discover something really wacky. It's not this. It's like it's like out here somewhere. Right? And now you're asking yourself, is this relationship worth the effort? Because they got this, like, crazy thing out here going on. And now I'm describing most of our marriages. Right? When we are sort of like, oh, wow. Okay. And over time, because we're all broken and fallen and we all say the wrong thing, do stupid things, all of that, over time, you have all of these things that pop up. And so, like, you could describe our most of our relationships with people like this. Right? So what is Peter saying? Peter is saying this, that the Christian who understands that God loving me was the ultimate stretch. Understands the gospel. Now, in relationship with other Christians, when that stretchiness is required and that preference that that person has or that time they forgot to call me when I was in the hospital or that unkind word about whatever happens in Christian community. You've been in church, this is what it's like right here. It stretches. Gospel love stretches. Now, the person that doesn't get the gospel, maybe you've had rubber bands before or, like, you know, socks when the elasticity is gone. What happens? You just, like, pull it a little bit, and there's just, like, nothing. Right? Or it just snaps. But gospel love stretches because I realized the ultimate stretch was God loving me and Jesus. And if he did that much for me, well, then I can kinda stretch this far to love my fellow believer. Now I asked first service if that was good, I should use it, and they thought it was. But I don't have to use it third service. Was that helpful? Okay. Love covers some ultra stretches. Alright. Some of you stretched just to clap there. I thank you for that. He needs affirmation. He's one of those kinds. Yes. I do. Here's what Bonhoeffer says. And he he he's talking about Christians who have sort of this, like, ideal for what the church ought to be like. Like, it ought to be this way. And if I was in charge, it would be this way, and everybody would be awesome like this. He calls it the the the wish dream of Christian community. Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community, even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial. God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idealized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others, and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands, set up their own law, and judge one another and even God accordingly. Therefore, will not the very moment of great disillusionment with my brother or sister be incomparably wholesome for me because it is so thoroughly it so thoroughly teaches us that both of us can never live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one word indeed that really binds us together, the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. The bright day of Christian community dawns wherever the early morning mists of dreamy visions are lifting. Now he wrote that in German, but it sounded awesome in English, didn't it? That is eloquent writing. It is precisely when we get to that kind of stretchy point that we can actually be authentic with one another, and real God empowered Holy Spirit uniting community can happen. I just think of so many people at that very moment when the small group might actually be real with one another, they run or the church or the marriage or the whatever. That moment is the moment when all of a sudden the gospel is as real as it can be. Don't run. Stretch and apply gospel love. The next quality that Peter talks about here is hospitality. Notice what he says. “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.” “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.” Now whenever we talk about hospitality, I think many people think it it's like when your friends come over and you have nice silverware. K? That is not hospitality biblically. That is not silverware is fine, but it's that's like trifling. What he's talking about here is much bigger and much broader. The word is a compound word. Literally, it means it's this, stranger, love. Stranger, love. So this is not about you having, the right meal when your friends come over to watch the Bears game or something. This is loving somebody different than me, outside my circle. This is stranger love. This is good Samaritan type love. And, of course, in that, Jesus answering the question, who is my neighbor? He tells the story of the good Samaritan. I won't tell it again, but that good Samaritan loves somebody who is ethnically different than him, religiously different than him, inconvenient for him, yet he loves and meets his needs. That is Christian hospitality. One commentator translated it open heartedness. That's a pretty good word picture, isn't it? My heart is open to people, and I'm ready to show love, express love, open heartedly. And Peter adds that we are to do this without grumbling. Apparently, human nature hasn't changed a lot in two thousand years because what do we oftentimes think when God brings some person with some need or whatever in our path? We instantly think about, a, our schedule. This is inconvenient for me. I had plans today, and this was not what I was planning on doing. Or it is expensive. This guy's gonna eat us out of the house and home. Have you seen the way he puts it away? We don't want him over. Let's buy him a gift card and minimize the expense. Here's what Bonhoeffer says. We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will constantly, cross our will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions. If we pass them by, we pass by the visible sign of the cross raised in our path to show us that not our way, but God's way must be done. It is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is ours our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God. Who here is not convicted by that quote right there? That is so convicting, isn't it? How often we overlook little opportunities that we have to help people, to minister to people, to pray with people, to give them a kind word, to give them like, just to listen to them, to spend time listening to them. We're off on our thing. I know this well myself. And yet God is constantly bringing people across our path. And those are moments that call us to love them and to seek to be knee meeting their needs. So I wonder if you see how this all connects. K? The Christian is someone who looks at history and looks at the future, not like the pagan who says, hey. We can do what we want, but sees that there is something really big coming, and there is a judgment day, and I'm gonna stand before God myself at the judgment seat of Christ. And because of all of that and eternity in heaven and hell, there is a sort of serious and sober mindedness about today. Everything is precious, and people are valuable, and life is precious, which calls me then to apply gospel love to people and all of the sort of stretchy, uncomfortable things that people create. Even strangers, I'm willing to love them as best I can. And the Christian commits that our unity is not based on performance. It is not based on you being enough like me that I can love you. It is in fact, we don't we don't make Christian unity, do we? The Spirit has unified us. We seek to reflect that in the way that we care for one another and are of one mind and of one heart. And this allows us to be stretchy, stretchy love, stranger love because God's been stretchy love, stranger love towards us. And notice it goes one step further. Look at verse 10. This is what it calls us to. “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace” Whoever speaks is one who speaks oracles of God. Whoever serves is one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. Now we looked at verse 10 last week. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this other than for you to see the progression here. Let me do it again. I look ahead as a Christian, and I see what is coming, and that makes me serious about my life. I'm not silly. I'm not superficial. I'm like, everything's important now. This calls me then to apply the gospel love that I have received from God and to stretch it over all of the little things that otherwise could divide me with my other Christians. I open my heart to people that come across my path. I give them stranger love. And the final step is that I actually view my life as being an opportunity to serve other people. How do you know when somebody understands the gospel? Not when they've got their doctrine right, not when they can answer the questions right. It is when I am willing to take up the basin and the towel and actually wash the feet of other people and to serve them. What did Jesus say in that same passage? I believe in Mark. “Even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” So in Christian community then, where people are getting the gospel and Jesus is the hero and we want to be like him, we don't look at that service as being something that is beneath me. I look at it as being something that is Christ like. And you say, I'm gonna be a servant. Well, guess what? Who are we called to serve? One another, the text says. Other Christians. Indeed, the people that are sitting right around you right now with a servant heart in this. Using gifts, we talked about this last week. The Holy Spirit has given us enablements and empowerments. Everybody here that's a Christian, you have something special that you can do that is joy to you and joy to God and joy to others. But I I view myself as a servant. And we see then in this that what Peter is saying is that this horizontal thing and the unity and love covering and stranger love and stretchy love, these are not add ons to the gospel. This is not add ons to Christianity. This is part and parcel of what real Christianity is all about, and it shows who gets it. A lot of people, I think, view the gospel this way. They say, I believe in Jesus. When I die, I go to heaven. That's all that I need. And then you read passages like this, and we realize, wait a second. The gospel that saves us is a gospel that changes us. And that change changes the way that we view other people. And the way that I know that I am a disciple of Jesus is that I love one another. It's not an add on. It's not a if you want to or if you get to it. It is what Christianity is because this is who Christ was. Again, Bonhoeffer, when God had mercy on us, when God revealed Jesus Christ to us as our brother, when God won our hearts by God's own love, our instruction in Christian love began at the same time. When God was merciful to us, we learned to be merciful with one another. When we receive forgiveness instead of judgment, we too were made ready to forgive each other. What God did to us, we then owed to others. The more we received, the more we were able to give, and the more more meager our love for one another, the less we were willing we were living by God's mercy and love. Thus, God taught us to encounter one another as God encountered us in Christ. That's like church. That's what this should be like. And yet, it even in saying that, it is always imperfect. Don't get the wish dream thing going. That's right. And if this church got it, they'd be a lot more that way, and the other people would be that way towards me. That's the wish dream that Bonhoeffer also talked about. It is when we imperfectly love imperfect people but do so for Jesus' sake that we are showing that we understand that God loved us while we were sinners. Amen. We get the gospel. So how are you doing with that? Husband and wife. Let me just go to the to me, the pinnacle. Stretchy love requirement in that very intimate relationship. How many couples right here in this room, your marriage is calling you to stretch and to love a husband or wife who has preferences and idiosyncrasies that are driving you crazy. He's a believer. You're a believer. Is the gospel shaping the way that you relate, love, and forgive that spouse? And if not, might there be a little confessing that is needed, That your marriage might come under that agape love and the blessing that comes with it. Christian in the church, sitting here right now hoping that some other person maybe is hearing this because they're the one that offended you. Is there any relationship in the church that has been unglorifying to God, and you've allowed a preference or a moment where they disappointed you or whatever to create conflict that is unresolved. “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Think of all this applies to family relationships, so many of those strained, so many things. That's the beauty of this passage, I think, is that it applies in so many ways, and nobody gets away from this message without feeling conviction. None of us do. So I think this is one of these passages that particularly challenges people that simply attend the church. And can I just say in pastoral love, truly, to you that the sum of your Christian expression is the fact that you come here to church? Do you see in this and in the words of Bonhoeffer, there is so much more that God wants for you to experience and for you to be blessed and to be a blessing and might the Holy Spirit allow this message to spur you. Here's we step into kind of a new season of ministry around here. School's beginning. It's a great time for a fresh start. Might God be calling you to take that step, and maybe that step is into a small group. Maybe that step is into membership of the church. Maybe that step is into some area of ministry. To that end, let me just go back through our list, practically speaking. Number one, what did he say? Prayer. And I told you, I got some things to share about prayer in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. Stretchy love. Stretchy love assumes that you are in relationship with other Christians. As I just got done saying, maybe God would be calling you to take a step. Why not join a small group as a practical step to being in relationship with other Christians? Stranger love. Stranger love. This is the inconvenient service moment. And one of the things I've observed over the years is it seems like whenever God brings us to a particular passage in the body life of our church, all of a sudden, there are things that God sort of, like, brings into our path. And I'm just wondering, light of talking about this, in our church, how many of us are going to have a stranger love moment this coming week when maybe this passage will come to your mind and you will do something different than you otherwise would. I think it's gonna happen. I'm so confident that's gonna happen that I asked our, IT department to make an email address. So here it is, strangerlove@bethelweb.org I would love to hear your story of stranger love from this coming week, and, perhaps we'll have a chance to share that and encourage others. And finally, Servi love. K? Servi love. It's a little it's not a word, but you get the idea. Right? Servi love. We have opportunities that we're making available to you, and, I'm gonna talk about those in just a moment. And remember, why all of this? “So that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

Steve DeWitt Serving Jesus by Serving His Church Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:7-11 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 4:7-11 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 4:7-11 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: Serving Jesus by Serving His Church Airdate: 10/26/26 Program: 2386 That’s worth clapping about some stories from, folks right here in our own church and just how meaningful and, what a blessing it is for them to serve the Lord and to serve his church. I still can’t get over the story Rick shared earlier about the man who served in our security team and apparently had communicated to his family that he wanted to be buried in his security uniform for the church. I mean, never heard that before until today, but I think it’s a powerful testimony along with what, you heard in this video of how meaningful serving the Lord can be and what I’m gonna suggest to you, ought to be for us as Christians, and we’re gonna get into that in in just a moment. Again, we’re celebrating we’re celebrating God’s work amongst us. We’re celebrating Jesus and the Holy Spirit equipping the church. We’re celebrating the opportunity and the privilege. Like he said, at the end there, he says that the God of heaven would have some use for me is an amazing thought. And we want every single person here to have that thought today that you are somebody equipped by God to do something very meaningful in the church. That at the end of your life and for all eternity will be what you’ll look back on and say, I’m so glad that I invested in the church of Jesus Christ. You know, we’re celebrating it here today. God celebrates this as well. I wonder if if you’ve ever thought about the delight that God himself has in the service and the and the the sacrifices of his people. And the Bible tells us that, you know, to serve the Lord, like we say, hey, I wanna serve Jesus. That sounds great, but he’s not around here, is he? I haven’t seen him here this morning, have you? No. But what do we have? We have the body of Christ. Metaphorically, it’s called that. We have the church and ministry that is done within the church and ministering in the name of Jesus to people in the economy of God is ministry that is done to him. This is what Jesus said in principle when he said, if you’ve done it to the least of these, my brothers, you’ve done it unto me and that just is such an inspiring truth, isn’t it? To realize that that child and that teenager or that difficult person in CR or as the testimony shared, that sort of hard-hearted guy in the balcony sitting there, you know, just like, why am I here? That these are all opportunities that we must minister to Jesus by ministering to his people. And to see that connection is what allows people to serve in ministry for decades as we heard earlier and to remain faithful to it. Now, today, we’re gonna move ahead just a little bit in First Peter. We’re a little out of order, but you’ll forgive me, I hope, to chapter four verses, 11, I’m sorry, eight through 11, and a section where Peter talks about the privilege that we have to serve the Lord. So let me read this now, and this ends a section. It begins at chapter two verse 11 through chapter four verse 11, where he’s talking about living out faith in exile and doing so in community with one another. And he describes here what healthy church community looks like and feels like. Look at verse seven. “The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self-controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling” as each and this will be the verse we’re keying in on. Verse 10. “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies. In order that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” Now, we’re gonna spend two weeks in this, in this passage here, but I want you to see that Peter is describing life within the faith community in four categories of spiritual vitality. He says, first of all, prayer. Secondly, hospitality. Third, love, and finally, service. K? So, prayer, hospitality, love, and service. In a church where things are healthy, these are going to be categories of, like, life and ministry that people are about and are zealous and earnest for. And all of these things, he says at the end, notice in verse 11, in order that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. So, I take from that that as the church body is actively pursuing these four categories of spiritual vitality, that God is honored and is glorified by that particular local church. At the same time, I believe the opposite is true. A church that is not giving itself to prayer, is not hospitable, is not loving, is not serving, is not a church that brings honor and glory to God. Now you might ask the question, well, how why is God glorified in a local church that’s doing those four things really well? And this is a principle we talk about quite a bit around here because the Bible talks a lot about this. God is glorified when pictures of God represent what he is like. We’ve talked about this in terms of salvation that each of us, Romans eight, are being conformed to the likeness of his Son. And so, God is God is honored in us as our attitudes and actions reflect those of Jesus, and so he is making us into Jesus’ juniors and delights then in seeing that character in us. But corporately, as a local church, God is also honored and glorified when we look like what he is like. And if you think about those four categories, all of them are what God is like. God is self-controlled. God is hospitable to strangers. He loved us in our sin. God is loving and covers a multitude of sins, and God is a serving God. He is a God that sent his Son Jesus, and Jesus epitomizes that divine servanthood as he came into this world. He served us, and he served the church by dying on the cross for our sins. If you wanna think about who the who’s the ultimate volunteer in the church, like, wins volunteer of the year every year? It’s Jesus. You know, so we have the competition again next year. Jesus wins again that year. Why? Not only did he serve the church in his death, but he ongoingly serves the church. Right now, he is at the right hand of God. He is interceding for the church. His eye is upon the church. Read the early part of Revelation as he walks among the lampstands of his church. He knows the heart of this church. He knows the values, and he knows the spiritual fervor of this church and he ongoingly ministers, sending his Spirit, praying for us, loving us, and coming back even as we just got done singing. One day, oh glorious day, coming back for his church. Jesus is the ultimate volunteer of the local church, But God is glorified in the pictures that look like him. And since he is a loving, serving, hospitable God, a godly church will reflect those qualities within their community, in the ethos, and the vibe, and the passions, and priorities of the church, which by the way, is the people of the church. We talk about the church like it’s some kind of institution. A church is people, and so it’s the hearts of the people of the church and the lives of the people of the church reflecting what God is like. We picture what he is like, and God is is honored the more we look like what he is like. It’s like any picture. If I go to your home, probably, if we just jumped to the car, ran to your house, I’d probably find pictures in that home of loved ones that you have, friends, family, whatever. And they’re framed, and there, you know, mounted very beautifully in the in your house, and maybe there’s little candles burning in front of them if you really love them. And you delight in those pictures because they look like they look like the one that you love. The ones that don’t look like them, you probably heard, oh, it’s a terrible picture of her. She’s much better looking than that. What do you mean by that? That picture doesn’t it doesn’t resemble her. It’s a bad picture of her. And there are churches that are bad pictures of what God is like. They don’t look like him at all. But Peter is exhorting us to look like him. K? Do you see the connection then? We honor God as we reflect his character. We’re a mirror to God. He delights in us. And the part that we’re focusing on today is this wonderful privilege that we have to serve the Lord Jesus by serving his church. And this, of course, is what Jesus himself said. “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Why did Jesus come into the church? He or to the world? He came into the world as a volunteer for the church. He came to ransom the church. He came to redeem the church by the precious blood of his own life. He died for the church. And for us to realize that in this world, the one thing, the one called an organization, but the one thing that passes on to eternity is the church. Jesus is coming back for the church. Jesus said, I’m building my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. So of all the things there are in this world to be excited about and to be sort of like investing yourself in, what has more enduring value than the church of Jesus Christ? And to think about how we get distracted in these other lesser things that are passing away and all the excitement about the sports team and all the excitement about some school or some other organization or, you know, your clubby thing you’re doing or whatever it is, fine. Do it. But it perishes, and the investment in those things does as well. But what we do for Jesus, and his church lasts forever because the church lasts forever. So where should our priority be? What should we be fired up about? I would say it would be the church bought with the precious blood of Jesus, the ultimate volunteer. The center of this passage is verse 10, and this is what I wanna focus on with you. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace. Here is the exhortation. The apostle Peter and the Holy Spirit exhorting us. Use your gift as a steward. Now, this might be a new concept for you. If you’ve have never heard about spiritual gifts, let’s talk about this a little bit. Peter wants to talk about it. And the first thing that we see here is that every Christian has a spiritual gift. What does he say there? As each has received a gift. We can go to the apostle Paul. He says the same thing. Here’s chapter 12. He writes this, “There are variety of gifts but the same Spirit and there are varieties of service but the same Lord and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Each has a gift. If you’re a Christian here, you have a gift. God has given you some ability that he intends for you to use to his glory within the context of the church. Now here’s the definition I like. One of the guys I like, Wayne Grunem, defines spiritual gifts this way. He says a spiritual gift is any ability that is empowered by the Holy Spirit and used in any ministry of the church. Now, there is a debate as to whether or not spiritual gifts are things that you’re naturally good at, that God uses in some you know, significant spiritual way or if it’s something that prior to salvation, you had no ability, then all of a sudden, you have this ability given to you by the Holy Spirit. I think it can be both and in reality, I’m not sure it matters because everything that we can that we have and that we’re good at, we ought to use in any way that we can for the Lord but the point is this, is that that gifting is something that you have that God gave to you and he intended for you to use it to bless the common good, it says there, for the for the common good of the church, for the building up of the church family. And this gift is something that we call it a spiritual gift. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a miraculous gift. You might say, oh, it’s something that I can do and it’s like, you know, I’m calming the seas by my prayer or something like that. No. Cups of cold water given in Jesus name don’t themselves feel miraculous but what God does in using them in the lives of people is something that is truly supernatural and that’s the thing that is encouraging because you might be here going, oh, I I don’t know that I’m good at anything or I don’t feel like you’re talking about this so like gloriously but I don’t see in myself anything supernatural. The gifts are spiritual. The effects of the gift are supernatural because they are empowered by the Holy Spirit. So that cup that is given in Jesus’ name, that cold water that is given in Jesus’ name is not it’s not miraculous to be able to do that, but the effect in the heart of the person receiving that grace gift is something that the Spirit empowers and does. So, you are not miraculous in that way, but God will use that gift in supernatural ways, which is a very exciting thing. Let me give you another example how true this is. What am I doing right now? Here I am up here. I’m teaching, preaching. I think God has given me a a gift for this, and I I want to use this gift. But in reality, what am I doing? I am flapping my gums up here. That’s all that I’m doing. Blah blah blah blah blah. You’re very kindly listening right now, acting like you’re interested. But my my words, my voice, the amplification of it in the microphone, these things don’t themselves have any power whatsoever. Nothing. No matter how oratorically beautiful it is, they have no power. But the word of God through the gift of God does something in the hearts of the people of God. Not because it’s my words, but it is the word of God and the Spirit of God using it. And that’s the beauty of what we’re talking about here. You have a gift that if you use it, God will use that in the life of the person you’re ministering to in a way that you yourself can’t do, which ought to inspire us to say, wow. I can have this opportunity to bless and to build and to equip and to encourage the church. Yes. You can. Yes. You can. You have a gift. We’re exhorted to use it, and we all love using gifts, don’t we? I mean, if you get a new set of golf clubs for Father’s Day, right? You’re on like on the phone right away. Can I get a tee time tomorrow? I wanna try these things out or if you get a gift card to one of your favorite restaurants, how long do you wait to use it? Or do you do you use it? Of course, you use it. We love using gifts and spiritual gifts for us ought to be the same if we realize the opportunity that they provide for us and the blessing that it is to use them. This also tells us that we shouldn’t glory in our gifts. That’s what the Corinthians were doing. Right? They picked a few gifts, they said, oh, man, if only I had that gift. And they wanted the public gifts, and they thought that was the key one, and the other ones didn’t matter. And Paul’s Paul says this, “If the eye says, I wish I was an ear, where’s the sense of seeing? And if the ear says, I wish I was the eye, where’s the sense of hearing?” All of a sudden, you realize everything in the body is important. Like this week, I’ve had terrible back problems this week. My lower back, and I don’t think about my back except when it’s not working right. Right? Or when some little thing goes wrong in your body, all of a sudden, you’re like, man, this thing’s important. I need to get it fixed. And how easy it is for us to think these other gifts don’t matter when everything matters in the body of Christ, and the Spirit gives us these gifts so that the this this local body is not as effective as God intends it to be when you sit on your gift, and you leave it in the closet and you don’t use it. There is something missing. We’re not hitting on all cylinders here. God has given you a gift. He wants you to use it. May I ask you? What would you say is your spiritual gift or gifts? I think there can be more than one. And how effectively are you using it? One great way to know what your gift might be is to ask yourself, what is life giving and joy giving to me when I when I do it? I think that our gifts are generally meaningful to us, And that there’s gonna be a variety of these things. What I like doing and what’s joy giving to me is gonna be different than you because God has gifted you differently than he’s gifted me. And so that’s the beauty. We had all these different gifts here. These variety of gift, one Spirit, variety of gifts, one to Lord, but all of them are critically important. What brings you joy? What is the thing that you kinda get involved in and you leave there, and you go, like, that was awesome. You look back and like, that was that was a highlight in my life. What shirt do you wanna be buried in? Might be an indication of where your gifts lie. Notice secondly that Peter says, it is to be used to serve one another. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another And here is the privilege that we have. First of all, as stewards in the using of it, but also secondly, in the direction of the using of it. These are not self-serving gifts. These are not gifts that we take and we say, I’m gonna go bless IBM with this. These are gifts that we use. He’s writing to the church. So, I believe primarily the context for where we sort of invest our giftings and our servings is within the church and the blessing in the building up of the local congregations. Jesus said it this way, “it is more blessed to give than to receive” I believe there is more joy in a life lived to the service of Jesus. Then whatever else you might put in there instead. Think of Laura Frank. Thirty-six years serving children in this church. Now you compare I’m sure we probably have somebody in our church who’s gone here maybe around that long, and they’ve sat on their gift the entire time. Now who has the better story? Who has more meaning? And in the end, in eternity, who’s glad they live their life the way that they did? My money’s on Laura Frank. More than the guy who sat on his gift but had a a two handicap on the golf course or whatever thing you wanna put in there. You see where my thoughts go. I’m wearing an Olympia Fields shirt today, for goodness sakes. All things in their proper place. Oh, that’s funny. Now you might be here saying, man, all this talk about serving the Lord, it almost feels like these people are trying to earn their salvation by doing these things. I mean, is this one of these sort of creepy cultic churches that we’re in where they’re all trying to earn their salvation? No. We believe that salvation is by faith in Jesus. It is God’s grace to us. It is a gift to us. But we have to realize that the same Bible that teaches that that says that we’re not saved by serving, it says that we are saved for serving. There is something that God wants to do in us as a result of this work that he has done or through us as a result of this work that he’s done in us. That’s better said. Listen to the beautiful balance of this in Ephesians two. Grace and service. Paul writes, “For by grace you’ve been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing.” Okay? We are not saved by our efforts. We are not saved by our service. We are not saved by our sweat. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus. “It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one can boast.” But verse 10 is sometimes missed. “For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” We delight in electing sovereign God that purposed our salvation in eternity past, but a part of what he also prepared beforehand was the life of ministry and service that we would also offer to him, not to be saved, but because we are saved. It is the fruit of, you know, it’s it, if, if, if, if it’s, in fact, this is interesting. It is God’s grace to us in order to be saved. You know what the word is for gifting? Charismata is the word. It literally is grace gift. Salvation is a kind of charismata to us, but our service is also a charismata. It is me taking the grace of God that I have received and through my gifting, extending that grace to other people. I have been saved by grace, and now I wanna give it. And I want to serve in the church. I want to bless other people. I want to build up. Build the church, the gates of hell not prevailing against it. And so, friends, this is you. We’re not talking about some ethereal person. If you’re a Christian, you have a gift from God. You have been empowered in this by the Holy Spirit to serve, and you’re called to be a steward of it, which is how he ends here. Serving Jesus is stewardship and it is worship as good stewards of God’s varied grace. Now, what’s interesting about Peter bringing up stewardship is if we go back in Luke, Jesus tells a parable about a servant whose master put him in charge of the house and then the master went away and was going to be gone for a long time. Well, this servant, knowing the master was going be gone for a long time, thought to himself, hey, I got the run of the place. I’m going to do what I want, and he was lazy, and he mistreated the other servants. He was a terrible, terrible servant. Well, guess what happens? The master comes back before he had said and discovers this servant not doing what the master had told him to do, being lazy, and all the rest. And Jesus makes this point in that parable. “Everyone to whom much was given of him; much will be required.” You know what disciple asked Jesus? What does that mean? You look it up. It was Peter. And I wonder if maybe as he’s writing this letter, some of that kinda echoes in his mind regarding the need to be a steward of the opportunities and the giftings that God gives to us? How many in the church are like the lazy servant who think, oh, someday I’ll get serious about it, or someday Jesus is coming back, and their life is invested poorly and unwisely. We will all give an account. Realize that. We are all going to give an account of our life. The Bible calls it the judgment seat of Christ and that judgment for Christian Christians is not a judgment of whether we are saved or not. It is a qualitative judgment on the quality of service that we offer the Lord in this life that we are living. And, again, too much is given, much shall be required. What do we wanna hear on that day? “Well done, good, and faithful servant.” I mean, if when I’m standing there in my heart, I’m gonna be going, well done. Well done. Well done. That’s what I wanna hear from Jesus about my life as he makes a qualitative judgment of the quality of the service and sacrifice and investment that I made in my life. What’s he gonna say about you? Are you actively involved in kingdom work? Is it the highest priority of your life? I would say that it ought to be for all of us. And further, you know what the Psalm says? Psalm 100 verse two, “serve the Lord with gladness.” What better master is there out there than the Lord Jesus Christ? Who could we find that we could serve that loves us more than the Lord Jesus Christ? We ought to serve him not out of duty but out of delight and with gladness and joy. Look what he has done for us. I think about my life. I’ve been a pastor for twenty-three years, almost exactly right now, would be about my anniversary of ministry. And one of the things that I love about vocational ministry, and I know most here are not in a vocational sort of way, but one of the things I love about vocational ministry is the opportunity that I have day after day to sort of give myself to these things. And it’s a joy to me. Now is every day a joy? No. Not every day is a joy. Every day with Jesus is not sweeter than the day before. That’s a lie. K? We’re never singing that song again at this church. But that’s not because Jesus isn’t sweeter. It’s because I’m a fallen, wretched sinner who is selfish and too often in it for myself. But I’m here to tell you that it is a joy to me to serve the Lord. There’s nothing more that I would want to do. And I believe that all of everybody here can serve the Lord in vocation. We believe a high view of vocation, and we serve the Lord in our families, and we serve the Lord in many different ways. But we are primarily called to serve the Lord by joining Jesus himself in the building of his church and in the ministry to people. The church is people. I was struck as I was sitting here during the interview how they talked about relationships. What is it about? It’s about relationships and love and care and meeting the needs of others to be a servant to the world. Again, as Jesus said, whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me. And I just think, you know, people, we don’t connect. I don’t think we connect very well that child with what I do to him or her in God’s economy, he views it as being done to him or that in CR, that difficult person who is still in their addiction or is still in their struggle and they’re acting that out to see ministry to that person in God’s eyes is actually being ministry, you know, to him. Wouldn’t that change the way that we view service? Because all too often, what do we do? We view it like this. I’ll see if I can work it in. Or I’ll do that when it’s like convenient for me. I don’t wanna be inconvenienced. I don’t want it to be awkward. I don’t want it to be uncomfortable because I just, I don’t know. I just don’t want to. Right? And yet we look at the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. Aren’t you glad Jesus didn’t view his volunteer that way? His volunteering that way? Aren’t we glad that Jesus didn’t go die on the cross, Father? I don’t think so. It’s uncomfortable. Incarnation into a body, it’s just not really what I was thinking. Can we do it on a different schedule like never? Aren’t you glad Jesus didn’t volunteer the way so many of us view volunteering, but that he was faithful to the call and that he obeyed the will of the Father, and he voluntarily died on the cross for our sins. We look at volunteering and serving in the church. We can always know that Jesus bears the heavier load, doesn’t he? It’s like the song. I love that line in the song that we sang. Such a tiny offering compared to Calvary. Nevertheless, we lay it at your feet. Everything that we could do, a whole life lived in service compared to what Jesus did is a tiny offering. Yet, that is what we have to offer to him. This one life that we have, to offer it to the Lord and to intentionally think about my time, talents, and treasures, and to say, what can I do to to bless you, God, by blessing your people and ministering to those whom you love? Can you imagine if Jesus came walking into church here this morning? Like, you know, in the commons, all of a sudden, there’s Jesus and people are like, it’s Jesus. Oh, what’s he look like? And where is he? And you know what? I think we all would do first. Fall on our faces and worship, right? So, there we all are on our faces before the Lord. But eventually, somebody’s gonna go, hey, Jesus. Is there anything I can do for you? Can I park your car for you? Hey, Jesus. Can I shine your sandals for you? Can I do that right now? Hey, Jesus. Can I walk you down to a seat in the auditorium? We’re so glad you’re here. Hey, Jesus. Is there anything? Anything. You name it. I’ll do it for you right now. If it was Jesus standing right, there. And yet, the church is the body of Christ. Jesus isn’t showing up here on a Sunday or any day of the week, But here we are, and that person sitting next to you and that child and that, teenager and that, you know, senior citizen who needs the leaves raked or whatever it is, ministry done in Jesus’ name to them is ministry done to him. And for those of us that love him and want to serve him with our life and do anything we can to bless him, it motivates us in a faithful enduring way. How do you how do you teach kids for thirty-six years? Part of it is seeing that as ministry to Jesus himself. And that’s what allows us to stay faithful in ministry. And, again, thank you. I mean, we could pull so many people up here to share stories and testimonies about how you have faithfully served here. That’s the big thing that we’re doing here. I’m exhorting, but we’re also celebrating God’s great servants here in this church. We could not do this ministry without you. You are the church. You are the church. I’m the guy flapping my gums up here. But in terms of what really makes this church go, it is the people of this church. It is you and your gifts and God using you in the profound and wonderful ways that he is. And why do we do all of this? “In order that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory forever and ever.” And may that be the story and the legacy of this local church as we strive to bring honor and glory to him. Okay. Here’s what we’re gonna do now. We’re enduring we’re ending totally different than normal. K? Again, this is the volunteer appreciation day, and we want to just pour the love on to all of our volunteers here. So, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna stand. In fact, why don’t we do that right now? Can we all stand? I’m going to pray, and we have a reception right outside these doors. Actually, these doors on this side, just go down the hallway. We have a tent and tables. There’s, mocha coffee and snacks and leaders there to say thank you to you and we want any regular volunteer in any ministry of this church, and we’ll let you define that in the way that you want. You are invited to come to that reception. I’m gonna hustle my buns out there so that I can show appreciation as well, and we just want you to know how much we appreciate everything that you do. And so that’s how we’re gonna end this this service. So, I’m gonna pray, and then we’re kinda dismiss out that direction. * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

Steve DeWitt A Guide to Gospel Conversations Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:16-17 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 3:16-17 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:16-17 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: A Guide to Gospel Conversations Airdate: 10/20 –10/21/26 Programs: 2382 and 2383 Well, I didn't know if I was going to be here today, and I am. So that means that we do not have a baby on the way. I checked my phone between services just to make sure that nothing had happened. But this is the week. So hopefully, we'll have a fun little announcement we'll share with you. I said to Jennifer, I hope she's not born on Father's Day because I want Father's Day to be about me, right? So if she could avoid Father's Day, that would be great. I said jokingly. But, yes. So we're, we're excited about a new addition to the family. We appreciate your prayers about that. We really do. I also wanted to give a little shout out to our Executive Director of Operations, Dave Harvey, who I think is in this service. It's his birthday today. And we have this is the guy that we assume so many things around here are operating right and working right in the facilities and all the different things. This is the guy that's managing all of that. I'm so thankful for Dave Harvey. And today is his birthday, and I think he's somewhere in here. So can we give him a one clap, happy birthday? I'm confusing some of you with that, but happy birthday, David Harvey. Okay. Today, we're we're this is a message it's kind of an application message, sort of a practical message coming out of last week's study in first Peter chapter three verse 15, this fairly well known passage about being ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us. And we're talking about the church as witness. We're talking about the church on mission. And so today, I wanna talk more practically about how do we engage people in gospel conversations. The assumption is that Christians will do this, but how do we do that? And so I've got some very practical tips today. We're gonna get into that. I'd like to read the text though again. And so let me begin reading first Peter chapter three verse 13, and please listen as I read God's word. “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them nor be troubled, but in your hearts, regard 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, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God’s will than for doing evil.” I came across this week a an ancient Chinese proverb that I'd like to share with you. It goes like this. Man stand for long time with mouth open before roast duck fly in. It just struck my funny my funny bone. Some of you are still pondering it, like, does that mean? A man will stand for a long time before a fully prepared and cooked duck will fly into his mouth. There's a truth in there. Right? What is it saying there? That you can sit back and just open your mouth and hope and think that what you're craving and what you're desiring is going to fly in, but you stayed a long time for roast duck to fly in. It doesn't happen. And our evangelism in the church often is like the Chinese man standing with his mouth open hoping the right thing flies in. And we miss the fact that while God is sovereign over salvation, he works through means to accomplish it. And the means by which he does this is the church, and specifically is the people in the church engaging in gospel conversations with unbelievers. That's the way that it happens. In fact, if you're a Christian here today, there was somebody in your life that engaged in some short or long term conversation with you that shared the gospel of Jesus with you, and you are a Christian as a result of it. And what happens often is somebody has that conversation with us, and then we turn into the Chinese man waiting for the roast duck to fly in. We sit back, we isolate, we're by ourselves, and we think, oh, some how this happens, I guess. When that's not how it happened for us. Somebody engaged us, and now we're called as Christians to engage other people in gospel conversations so that they can come to know the same Lord Jesus, the same hope that we have. And so that's where we're going today. It doesn't just happen. Roast ducks don't just fly in. How does it happen? And Peter is writing to Christians who, as we've said many times now in our series, they are in persecution. They are in crisis. They're in a place hostile to their faith. You might be in a tough time right now yourself. Maybe you're in some kind of season of trial in your life. And you're thinking to yourself, you know, this is a time really I might have to put ministry on the back burner. When in reality, this is prime time opportunity for you to give the reason for the hope that is in you. And that's where we're going here is how do we do that and when are what are the context within which and how do we cultivate those contexts so that we can have these kinds of conversations? Now Peter says first in verse 13 that lives of kindness and compassion lived out in the world earn the right for us to be heard. It causes the the world to sort of stop and pay attention. Oh, wait. You're being kind. You're you're caring for people. You're doing this or that. What's what's the deal with you? And we saw last week that the theology behind what Peter is talking about here in terms of kindness, good works done for people that have nothing to offer us, that we're doing purely out of a desire to minister to them, causes people to stop and listen. And it did in the early church. We saw that in the first three centuries of the early church, the the the way that Christianity rocked the Roman Empire was not because they were great preachers or that they had all these amazing books to read. Most of them couldn't read. How did the early church rock the Roman Empire? Because they cared for widows and they cared for orphans and they cared for strangers. They cared for the people that the folks that go to the Aphrodite Temple and the Zeus Temple could care less about. That's who they cared about. And it caused the world to go, what is the deal with these Christians? And, again, the theology behind this, we saw last week, is that everybody is made in the image of God. And even a non Christian is an image bearer of God and wired by God for God and for seeing glimpses of God in the world around them. And we had a diagram, if you put that up a moment, that illustrates how this works and what Peter is getting at here. What is the common ground that the Christian and the non Christian have? It is this image bearing, the fact that we have a conscience within us. And in the world, even even in the world, these things are admired. Moral beauty, love, self sacrifice, compassion. These are all things that cause people in the world to go, you know what? That's good. Right? That's that's a good thing. And so in the world, if you're about, you know, stopping human trafficking or if you're into caring for children in crisis or something like that, even nonbelievers look at that and go, wow. That's really awesome that you're doing that. K? It's common ground that we have in the world. So with that said, let's build now on this a guide to gospel conversations. How do we do this? And the first thing that we see Peter saying here is that unbelievers observe something in us that they don't have. And you might say, is it our haircuts? Is it our clothes? Is it you know? No. That's silly. It's not those things. That's not what makes Christianity distinctive. It is hope. That's what Peter says. They come to us, and they ask us about the hope that we have. Now when is hope observable? When everything's great? No. I don't need hope when my life is fantastic and and everything's wonderful. We talked about this last week that part of our struggle is that we're all the time projecting to everybody else that we're fantastic, and everything's fantastic. And so, you know, we come to each other. We say, how are you doing? I'm doing awesome. How are you doing? I'm awesomer. Right? Everything's fantastic. I'm good. The kids are wonderful. It's like I'm living a panacea of wonderfulness all the time. And we project these kinds of everything's going great, and people can't relate to that. Because the reality in the world is that everything is not great. And there might be times where things seem to be, you know, okay and we're doing okay. But generally speaking, we are either entering a crisis or we just got out of one. And that's true in the unbelieving world. So that, yes, they can common ground is moral beauty. Common ground is is love and self sacrifice. But a huge common ground that we have with the people around us is pain and suffering. Christians have pain and suffering. Non Christians have pain and suffering. The difference is we have hope in the midst of it, which they don't have. So imagine with me, for example, first century, Asia Minor Christian Frank applies for membership in a, business society, business guild that was gonna help his business and build relationships and stuff like that. He applies for membership in it. The board of directors gets together and they say, I understand Frank's one of those Christians. Have you heard about these Christians? Yeah. They don't go to the Temple Of Aphrodite. They're not at the Temple Of Zeus. We don't want this guy in our guild. I say we deny him just because of that. They go, that's probably a good idea. We don't wanna associate with people like that. The board member goes to Frank and says, hey, you know what? You've got a fine business and things look good, but you're a Christian, so you're out. You can't or you're not in. We're not we're not accepting you. After sharing the news, Frank is surprisingly upbeat. The board member leaves thinking to himself, well, he took that quite well. What's up with Frank? First century Asia Minor Christian student Sally is at school. Everybody knows that her family does not worship the emperor and does not worship at Aphrodite's temple. Word gets out that maybe she's one of those Christians that people have heard about. The parents warn their kids, don't associate with Sally. The cool girls in the school, they are so ostracizing Sally, but they sense from Sally that Sally's kind of okay with it. Like, doesn't she know she should be upset that she's not sitting at our table? It's almost like her identity isn't found in what the cool girls think about her. And they don't know what to deal. How what's up with Sally? One more. You're like, well, he was really creative in his preparation this week. Yes, I was. First century Asia Minor Christian John is at the hospital. He's seeing the doctors. He's seeing the nurses. They're seeing him. He's one of a, you know, 100 patients that week. He's going through some health crisis, just like everybody else is. He doesn't wanna be in pain. He doesn't wanna be sick, just like everybody else doesn't wanna be sick. But they sense him, John, that he has something going on in the midst of that. Like he's talking about how he's praying for the doctor. He's praying for the nurse. And that, you know, he's very confident that that God is with him. And they the nurses sense in John something in the midst of his pain that they're all dealing with pain and stuff in their life that they're like, he's got something I don't got. And I wonder about John. Rich, poor, atheist, agnostic, religious person, educated, powerful, not, everybody suffers, don't we? Everybody goes through tragedy, don't we? We all have things that we deal with. And the difference that Peter is highlighting in verse 15 is that Christians go through these things with hope that the world doesn't have. But the world observes us having it and wants it as well, even though they don't know where it comes from. And they come to the hope demonstrating Christian and ask, where did you get that from? Where did you get that from? And that doesn't mean that we don't cry and we don't grieve and we don't do things Jesus himself did. It just means that in the midst of that, we have a kind of vertical hope and assurance in terms of God and His presence with us and His promises for us that the unbelieving world imagine, you know, if you've a Christian a long time, you sort of get used to that promises of God and assurance from God. The world goes through these things. They got nothing. I do funerals sometimes. You know, the funeral home will call and say, hey. Will you come over and do this funeral? And I'll I'll do the funeral of of family. I mean, there's no faith, and they're like, hey. Can we get this done soon? And you just get this sense that there's just it's just emptiness. Right? Or maybe they don't want it to get done. They stand at the casket and they're weaving. They don't want to close the door. Why? Because there's no hope of anything. Once that door once that casket goes closed, we never see that person ever again. And you just sense that. Right? Totally different than a Christian funeral that's filled with hope, the hope of the gospel, the hope of eternal life. And so Peter is bringing this up, and what I am urging us here is that we must live our faith out in the midst of our pain and be honest about it, or the world is never going to observe it in us. In other words, authenticity. Okay? Authenticity. A great place for that to start, of course, is in the church. And even in the church, we still sort of project this like, hey, I'm like it's like me and Billy Graham. We're just like amazing, godly, spiritual people. And we all know that's not true. It's not true for me. Is it true for you? So maybe authenticity let's start in the church and just being real with each other. But it must transfer into the world around us, which we're not good at, are we? But to be honest with our struggles or people are never going to realize the hope that is in us. Because the only time it's like hope's like the stars. When do you see the stars? It's never when the sun's up. It's when the sun goes down that you see the stars. Hope is never seen when life is fantastic all the time. It's when life stinks that suddenly hope becomes evident. So unbelievers must see the hope that we have, and the only way they see it is when we are real about the struggles that we have. Now all of this is assuming relationship with unbelievers, isn't it? We're gonna get into that in a little bit. But everybody knows what it's like when work is frustrating. Everybody can relate to a home and family and relationships that has conflict and strife. Everybody knows what it's like to have financial struggles. Everybody knows what it's like to suffer loss and hurt. Everybody knows what it's like to have such a crazy busy schedule. You feel like you're, you know, the the the not the rat. What's the the hamster on the wheel. Thank you. We all know what it's like to be discouraged. We all know what it's like to have doubts about life. And one of the most powerful witnesses that God's people have is when we go through those things, all of those same struggles, and yet we say and believe that there is good news found in Jesus Christ. And I have found Jesus to be a powerful help in the midst of my trial. Now we say, why is this so important? Here's why. And this is kind of part of what I'm saying here is I'm arguing against an approach to evangelism that just uses canned presentations. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about there. And there's a place for them. But when we just automatically go into robo evangelist with people that are going through you know, the person goes, you know, I'm my my I just found out my mom has cancer. And you're like, I'm gonna take you down the Romans Road. They're like, what? Are you talking to me? My mom's got cancer. And when we just do these canned gospel presentations, it doesn't connect the gospel with real life struggles. K? Let's go to Charleston right now. Why? Why is the world paying attention to Charleston? Absolute tragedy that happened, and that is evil and wrong in every way. K? But within a few days, we have we see some amazing good that has come from that as that church steps forward and says, we forgive the murderer. We forgive the murderer. Now the world sits up and goes, what? What'd you say? Because you're supposed to be, like, all about vengeance right now. You're supposed to, like, get a mob and go and and get the guy and just, you know, beat him to a pulp. You're supposed to be all, like, hateful and angry about this, but you're offering grace and forgiveness. I bet the church is overflowing today, don't you think? And some of them are going to be visitors who are thinking to themselves, if this church can forgive that guy, they've got something I don't have because I'm still dealing with what my dad did to me when I was growing up. I'm going show up here. Want see what this is about. And you see, it connects the gospel with real life. And that's what Peter is calling us to. K? To give an answer for the hope that is in us. Where have we got this hope? We have this hope by faith in Jesus and the promises of God becoming real to us by the Holy Spirit and trusting in a God who sent his Son. Romans eight thirty two, “if God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things?” If God gave me Jesus, he can give me what I need in this trial, and my hope is in him. That's the Christian response. And all of a sudden, the gospel hits home in pain and in trials and in suffering when they see how the hope is working in us and they ask us about it. K? So second thing Peter highlights here is the tone with which we speak. Again, look at verse fifteen and sixteen. Always ready to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you. Some people read that and they're like, that's right. We're arming for bear. Well, I'm going go into that. I'm going to out argue. I can out argue anybody about the gospel. I'm ready. Oh, just ask me about it. But then Peter adds this, yet do it with gentleness and respect. Gentleness and respect. Some of you can relate to this. I was raised in in the church and we were raised in a more confrontational style of evangelism, you know, where you sort of get the person by the throat metaphorically speaking and you just pound them with the gospel, and you hope the Holy Spirit saves them. And you have, you know, these answers for these questions. And there's a place for that. Don't get me wrong. But the vast majority of people, that's not our gig. Right? I don't even got no PhD in Christian apologetics. We're just normal people. Right? And so when we get all confrontational and high how do you respond when somebody, like, confronts you? It's like, oh, that's what you believe? Well, let me tell you a better way. And that person's like, wait. My mama believed this. My grandma believed this. And now you're gonna tell me this. And they get all what? Defensive. And how well do we listen when we're on the defense? Right? So Peter's like, hey, the tone with which you approach people is critical. Be gentle. Be meek. This is the sense that the other person gets as we're talking to them. Stay calm. Be kind. Listen. It endears the truth that we want to share with them. And you might be like, oh, no. That's not the way that Jesus did. Wait a second. What did he do with the woman at the well as an example of what I'm talking about? This woman was in sexual sin. Jesus knew it. And who's the only one who actually has the right to be sort of judgmental towards people? It would be Jesus. And yet does Jesus say, you're a sinner. Let's talk about sin, you know, and your sexual sin living with a man, divorce all these other guys, you're terrible. You need me. Is that what he said? No. What did he say? He talked to her in a way that drew her in. Right? He drew her in. He built rapport with her. She sensed that he cared about her. And when the whole conversation was done, what does she do? She runs into the village and says, come talk to this guy. This is amazing. That's a sign of a really good gospel conversation when they go into their town and say, everybody, come talk to this guy. I've never had that happen, but it would be wonderful if it did. Jesus had a tone of gentleness. And he says, secondly, and respect and respect. Greek word there is phobos. We get the word phobia from it. The scholars debate whether this is phobia respect for the other person or respect for God, probably for God, but I think it applies. When I have respect for God, I am respectful, you know, with other people. But the whole the point is, I think, similar to gentleness where there is a sense as I am doing this that I am I am respectful of the other person. I'm not an authority. Like, I'm not coming at this like I got all the answers and down with you. I'm not speaking down the mountain at people. I'm respecting their story. I'm respecting their life. I'm listening to them. They're listening to me. That's the kind of conversation that wins people's hearts, isn't it? Not victory all, not demeaning, not what's wrong with you because you don't believe this, not let me show you how smart I am with my answers, but a respectful conversation, a winsome one. So towards the goal of doing this, I have some tips. Those are just kind of a practical message. Right? I've got some tips for how to engage in gospel conversations or what I'm calling a lifestyle of evangelism. And here's the first one, is that we must be intentional. We must be intentional about this. There's a writer named Jonathan Dodson. I've learned most of these tips are from him, actually. I give him credit for it. But one of the things that he talks about in terms of intentionality is the fact that many, many Christians have no time for unbelievers. By the time I get done doing all my church activities and I get done all my work activities and my, you know, school activities, there's no margin for relationships with an unbeliever. Maybe if I could ask you, is that true for you? Do you have any intentional margin that you create to have and to build a relationship with somebody that doesn't know Jesus? Because right now, even as I'm talking to somebody, you're probably like, I got no time for this. I got no time for this. And yet, what has Jesus left us here to do? Why did why wasn't it instant rapture? You know, when you become a Christian, boop, up you go. Why are we still here? Is it so that we can, you know, work and do well? No. We're here to be a witness to Jesus Christ. Right? And to share the good news of Jesus with as many people as we possibly can. That's why we're here. And so this is partly a matter of prioritizing this and creating margin in our schedules so that we can have relationships with unbelievers. And frankly, I say that to myself as much as I say it to you. I just said to Jennifer recently, by the time I get done pastoring the church and all this stuff, I feel like I have little time for relationships with people that aren't a part of the church. I feel convicted about that. Maybe you can too. So some practical tips on how to create context for relationship where these things can happen. This is from Jonathan Dodson. Number one, eat with non Christians. What do we all have in common with unbelievers? We all like to eat, and we all eat three times a day. Some of us, more than that. So but I digress. Most people are willing to have lunch with a coworker or a neighbor or to grill out, you know, to barbecue with with a neighbor. You want come over for burgers? Most people are like, that sounds nice. And what does it also sound like? It sounds like friendship, doesn't it? See? Eat with non Christians. It's not like when you sit down and you go, okay. I'm gonna order, and now I take you down the Romans Road. You know? Be normal. Talk about stuff. You know? Maybe you have, you know, 10 of those before spiritual stuff comes up. Jesus did this. He Jesus used meals to build relationship with people. We see him doing it often in the gospels. Secondly, he says, walk, don't drive. Walk, don't drive. Is your neighborhood like mine where often it's like this? People, we live in houses. In the morning, the bridge of the moat goes up called a garage door. And we're in our cars, and we pull out. We're in our bubble. We drive through the neighborhood. We might wave, little wave there, little wave there, and off we go. And at night, we come home, still in our bubble, right? Maybe a wave, maybe a wave. The drawbridge goes up of the moat, the garage door. And we pull in, the bridge goes down of the moat, garage door goes down. And I can live in my neighborhood without any conversation, if I wanted to, without one conversation with anybody. And many people do that. Right? Many people do that. Christians shouldn't do that. Agreed? Who's the best neighbors in every neighborhood? It's the evangelical Christians, I hope. Right? So part of this we have to fight against is to he suggests walking. Okay? Walk around the neighborhood. Just walk. I would tell you, from based on my experience, get a stroller. It doesn't matter if there's a kid in there or not. Just have a stroller because a stroller is like it's like instant friendship. You know? Just like, oh, oh, oh, it's so cute. And, I mean, strangers at the mall suddenly are like your best friends if you have a stroller. But the walking point here is that it allows an opportunity to just meet people, to say hi, engage them in some way. Walk around your neighborhood. Somebody else I read suggested, you know, sit in front of your house, not behind your house. We typically want to sit in the backyard, you know, sort of isolate in our little cocoon. Sit on the driveway and have your little fire pit there and marshmallows and people that are walking by be like, hey, and, you know, front yard conversations. Third, be a regular. Be a regular. What this means is that if there's a coffee house you like, a cafe that you like, go to that one over and over again because then you get to know the waitstaff, and you get to know maybe the owner, and you get to know some of the other patrons there. And over time, you're able to build relationship. If you're always going to this one, that one, they don't know you, you don't know them, and nothing happens. So be a regular. Hobby with non Christians. Hobby with non Christians. Everybody's got hobbies, mutual points of interest. So if you like to fish, you know, and there's a dude who lives next to you and you're like, hey, most men can say this, want to go fishing? That's like male love language, isn't it? That's like that's like women saying, do you want to get a pedicure together? I mean, it's like, wow, I didn't know that we were that good of friends. We're going to fish together and then go fishing or, you know, watch the Bears game or whatever it is. You know, we all have these hobbies. And for men, a lot of those are kind of points of shared interest, hobby with them. Friendships can form over mutual interest. Here's another, volunteer with nonprofits. This is, again, it's a non kind of confrontational sort of way to engage people. If Habitat for Humanity is building a house in Gary and your neighbor's a kind of handyman, why don't you say, hey, you wanna spend three hours on Saturday and we'll go do this Habitat for Humanity thing? And you get to drive up and you get to do something together. And serving others might sort of tap a little meaning place in his heart. You never know what might come of that. Participate in city events. No matter what city you live in, all of them around here have cleaning days, and they've got sort of the corn fest or they got this, that, or the other. Be a part of that. Get your kids off the Xbox and go clean the city for three hours. And you're going to meet other people that care about the city, and they're a part of that, and they see you caring, and you can build relationships with people that you don't know. Here's a big one. Serve your neighbors. Serve your neighbors. Now the first part is assuming that you know their name. We live in a day where people live next to people that they don't know their name. And I'll be honest, it's not a very big circle around my house that I know people's names. So we say that to some measure of shame. But serve your neighbors. And this can be big and small ways. It can be, you know, blowing out the snow on the driveway, or it can be helping with raking the leaves, or it can be maybe a more meaningful thing if they're going through a crisis or a trial of some kind where you help them out in some way. All of those things communicate something that ought to be true in our hearts. Right? If we're called the second great command is to love our neighbor as ourself, it communicates what? Love. And love is a universal language of relationship. Help them out, especially in their times of crisis. It tears down defenses. My wife, Jennifer, is particularly good at this. She's got a little bit of an eye for it. And we recently we have a neighbor that's going through a terrible kind of long term kind of crisis. And so Jennifer fixed this feast for them. And we showed up on their doorstep unannounced, bags of food. And they opened the door and we're like, hey, we just know it's been a tough time. We brought this stuff for you. How do you think they responded to that? Slam the door. I told you look out for those neighbors. No. They were like, really? You know, in the church, that's more been more sort of normal, but in the world, people don't do that kind of thing. They're like, really? Come come on in. And so we stepped in and we got, you know, all the here's this and this gotta heat at 03:50 and here's the dessert and all that. And by the way, how's it going? And now in that kind of context of care, now the eyes fill with tears, and you we had a really special moment with them. Does it feel any different now when we are, like, waving in the morning? They're like Why? Because they're like, well, that's a house of people that care about us right there. How? Just serving them. Serve them. A little bit goes a really long way. Do you have a neighbor that you could serve in some practical way that might build rapport with them, might communicate that you care about them? So take a moment right now and just think through that list. Let me say them again. And maybe you can identify two things here, and we're going give you this list as you leave today, that maybe you could sort of renew involvement in mission work this way. Eat with non Christians. Walk, don't drive. Be a regular hobby with non Christians. Volunteer with nonprofits. Participate in city events. Serve your neighbors. The next tip I have, and I'm not going spend a lot of time on this, but, is this, is be a story listener. Be a story listener. Everybody has a story, and everybody's story is sacred to them. So too often, Christians, we we're like, oh, I've gotta be evangelistic. So now I'm again, I'm having lunch with you, and I'm gonna God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And I've got a little booklet here right here I'd like to take you through. Would you smile as I do it? Point number one, point number two, point number three. And they're sitting there eating their chips going, Am I buying a vacuum when this is done? What's going on? A great starting point with people is to simply ask their story. Ask their story. Everybody loves talking about themselves. Find out where they're from. Find out what kind of house they or home they grew up in, what their dad did, mom did, whatever. Find out their story. And as part of that, if you've built if you've, you know, vacuumed their house or blew out the snow or done whatever, they'll share the failures as well. And in those failures then, sort of that conversation moves to that kind of deeper level where now you're sort of communing together. Listen to it. Don't interrupt it and go, well, if Jesus was in your life right there, then this would have been the feeling you would have had. Don't do that. Why? Because we're not we're in here with gentleness and respect. We're not in here as know it alls. We're we're we're sinners too. Listen to their story. It tells them that you care about them, which, of course, is the key. And then after hearing their story, tell your story. Tell your story. And by that, I don't mean the how all your kids are wonderful and you were amazing in in high school and what a great athlete you were and, you know, how you're the best employee. Know, take out all the hubris, take out all the pride, and just be a real person and tell your story. And as part of telling that story, talk about the difference that Jesus has made in your life. Simply that. And don't get all sort of weird as you do it. Sometimes it feels that way, doesn't it, where you can talk about the college you went to, the school that you grew up in, but when you sort of if you say anything spiritual, it's like beads of sweat come down your face, and you know, it's it just weirds people out. Don't be awkward. Can I say it that way? Just be normal. Be normal. Tell your story. Now you might be like me and think, my story is boring, especially my faith story. Grew up in a Christian home, became a Christian when I was six, blah blah blah. I wanna encourage you that I doubt, for example, in Charleston right now, they care about when hope came to that church. They just care about how. Right? How? And this again is where I think the formula approach is unhelpful because the gospel is not a formula. It is a person. The gospel is Jesus. And if we are Christians here today, that means Jesus has transformed our lives. And yes, we go through trials, and yes, we go through troubles, and none of us is super Christian. But there is a reality to it that we feel in the midst of our sufferings, and we can share with other people who don't have that hope. Just talk about the difference your faith made with when you lost your job or the church or something like that that just kind of connects the gospel with real life, and people will listen to it. People will listen. And, of course, this assumes that hope is a reality in our own hearts. The Bible or the Bible, Spurgeon said, evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread. Maybe you've heard that before. But that assumes that the one beggar actually has found it. Tell them about that. Tell them about how, you know, your dad or that college friend or whatever it was introduced you to Jesus. Talk about him like he's as real as the wind. Talk about him as a real person. And the world will think, man, this is like real to you, isn't it? Yeah. It is real. It's made a real difference in my life. I kinda like that. I wish I had some of that hope in my heart. That's what they need to hear. So have it here first. Share it second. And finally, I would just simply say this, pray for people. Pray for your neighbors. Is there or your coworker. Is there is there anybody currently that you are actively praying for that God would allow you to be a part of them coming to know the Lord Jesus? Are you praying for anybody by name? Or how about in your neighborhood? As maybe you're having a time of prayer just to pray up for the two houses around you. You know? Pray for opportunities. Pray that God would help you be faithful to opportunities that he would provide. Pray for wisdom when they come. K? So be intentional. Be ready. Be winsome and gentle. Be real and authentic. Listen, and then speak and tell your story of hope in Jesus. And the world will listen, and we hope we'll come to believe in Christ as well. Right? And wouldn't that be a great day? Seeing them people being baptized, starting to disciple them, see them to sort of grow and experience the blessing that we have had in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we want. So I'm gonna ask you to stand with me right now, and let's just pray. Let's just pray this very truth. In fact, I'm gonna give you just a moment to pray for that person in your life. And maybe you gotta come up with a name real quick right now, but that'll be good. Why don't you pray for one person by name that is in your sphere of relationship and ask God to help you be a faithful witness to them. * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

Steve DeWitt Baptism - Part B Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:21-22 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 3:21-22 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:21-22 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: A Guide to Gospel Conversations Airdate: 10/20 –10/21/26 Programs: 2382 and 2383 Well, I didn't know if I was going to be here today, and I am. So that means that we do not have a baby on the way. I checked my phone between services just to make sure that nothing had happened. But this is the week. So hopefully, we'll have a fun little announcement we'll share with you. I said to Jennifer, I hope she's not born on Father's Day because I want Father's Day to be about me, right? So if she could avoid Father's Day, that would be great. I said jokingly. But, yes. So we're, we're excited about a new addition to the family. We appreciate your prayers about that. We really do. I also wanted to give a little shout out to our Executive Director of Operations, Dave Harvey, who I think is in this service. It's his birthday today. And we have this is the guy that we assume so many things around here are operating right and working right in the facilities and all the different things. This is the guy that's managing all of that. I'm so thankful for Dave Harvey. And today is his birthday, and I think he's somewhere in here. So can we give him a one clap, happy birthday? I'm confusing some of you with that, but happy birthday, David Harvey. Okay. Today, we're we're this is a message it's kind of an application message, sort of a practical message coming out of last week's study in first Peter chapter three verse 15, this fairly well known passage about being ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us. And we're talking about the church as witness. We're talking about the church on mission. And so today, I wanna talk more practically about how do we engage people in gospel conversations. The assumption is that Christians will do this, but how do we do that? And so I've got some very practical tips today. We're gonna get into that. I'd like to read the text though again. And so let me begin reading first Peter chapter three verse 13, and please listen as I read God's word. “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them nor be troubled, but in your hearts, regard 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, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God’s will than for doing evil.” I came across this week a an ancient Chinese proverb that I'd like to share with you. It goes like this. Man stand for long time with mouth open before roast duck fly in. It just struck my funny my funny bone. Some of you are still pondering it, like, does that mean? A man will stand for a long time before a fully prepared and cooked duck will fly into his mouth. There's a truth in there. Right? What is it saying there? That you can sit back and just open your mouth and hope and think that what you're craving and what you're desiring is going to fly in, but you stayed a long time for roast duck to fly in. It doesn't happen. And our evangelism in the church often is like the Chinese man standing with his mouth open hoping the right thing flies in. And we miss the fact that while God is sovereign over salvation, he works through means to accomplish it. And the means by which he does this is the church, and specifically is the people in the church engaging in gospel conversations with unbelievers. That's the way that it happens. In fact, if you're a Christian here today, there was somebody in your life that engaged in some short or long term conversation with you that shared the gospel of Jesus with you, and you are a Christian as a result of it. And what happens often is somebody has that conversation with us, and then we turn into the Chinese man waiting for the roast duck to fly in. We sit back, we isolate, we're by ourselves, and we think, oh, some how this happens, I guess. When that's not how it happened for us. Somebody engaged us, and now we're called as Christians to engage other people in gospel conversations so that they can come to know the same Lord Jesus, the same hope that we have. And so that's where we're going today. It doesn't just happen. Roast ducks don't just fly in. How does it happen? And Peter is writing to Christians who, as we've said many times now in our series, they are in persecution. They are in crisis. They're in a place hostile to their faith. You might be in a tough time right now yourself. Maybe you're in some kind of season of trial in your life. And you're thinking to yourself, you know, this is a time really I might have to put ministry on the back burner. When in reality, this is prime time opportunity for you to give the reason for the hope that is in you. And that's where we're going here is how do we do that and when are what are the context within which and how do we cultivate those contexts so that we can have these kinds of conversations? Now Peter says first in verse 13 that lives of kindness and compassion lived out in the world earn the right for us to be heard. It causes the the world to sort of stop and pay attention. Oh, wait. You're being kind. You're you're caring for people. You're doing this or that. What's what's the deal with you? And we saw last week that the theology behind what Peter is talking about here in terms of kindness, good works done for people that have nothing to offer us, that we're doing purely out of a desire to minister to them, causes people to stop and listen. And it did in the early church. We saw that in the first three centuries of the early church, the the the way that Christianity rocked the Roman Empire was not because they were great preachers or that they had all these amazing books to read. Most of them couldn't read. How did the early church rock the Roman Empire? Because they cared for widows and they cared for orphans and they cared for strangers. They cared for the people that the folks that go to the Aphrodite Temple and the Zeus Temple could care less about. That's who they cared about. And it caused the world to go, what is the deal with these Christians? And, again, the theology behind this, we saw last week, is that everybody is made in the image of God. And even a non Christian is an image bearer of God and wired by God for God and for seeing glimpses of God in the world around them. And we had a diagram, if you put that up a moment, that illustrates how this works and what Peter is getting at here. What is the common ground that the Christian and the non Christian have? It is this image bearing, the fact that we have a conscience within us. And in the world, even even in the world, these things are admired. Moral beauty, love, self sacrifice, compassion. These are all things that cause people in the world to go, you know what? That's good. Right? That's that's a good thing. And so in the world, if you're about, you know, stopping human trafficking or if you're into caring for children in crisis or something like that, even nonbelievers look at that and go, wow. That's really awesome that you're doing that. K? It's common ground that we have in the world. So with that said, let's build now on this a guide to gospel conversations. How do we do this? And the first thing that we see Peter saying here is that unbelievers observe something in us that they don't have. And you might say, is it our haircuts? Is it our clothes? Is it you know? No. That's silly. It's not those things. That's not what makes Christianity distinctive. It is hope. That's what Peter says. They come to us, and they ask us about the hope that we have. Now when is hope observable? When everything's great? No. I don't need hope when my life is fantastic and and everything's wonderful. We talked about this last week that part of our struggle is that we're all the time projecting to everybody else that we're fantastic, and everything's fantastic. And so, you know, we come to each other. We say, how are you doing? I'm doing awesome. How are you doing? I'm awesomer. Right? Everything's fantastic. I'm good. The kids are wonderful. It's like I'm living a panacea of wonderfulness all the time. And we project these kinds of everything's going great, and people can't relate to that. Because the reality in the world is that everything is not great. And there might be times where things seem to be, you know, okay and we're doing okay. But generally speaking, we are either entering a crisis or we just got out of one. And that's true in the unbelieving world. So that, yes, they can common ground is moral beauty. Common ground is is love and self sacrifice. But a huge common ground that we have with the people around us is pain and suffering. Christians have pain and suffering. Non Christians have pain and suffering. The difference is we have hope in the midst of it, which they don't have. So imagine with me, for example, first century, Asia Minor Christian Frank applies for membership in a, business society, business guild that was gonna help his business and build relationships and stuff like that. He applies for membership in it. The board of directors gets together and they say, I understand Frank's one of those Christians. Have you heard about these Christians? Yeah. They don't go to the Temple Of Aphrodite. They're not at the Temple Of Zeus. We don't want this guy in our guild. I say we deny him just because of that. They go, that's probably a good idea. We don't wanna associate with people like that. The board member goes to Frank and says, hey, you know what? You've got a fine business and things look good, but you're a Christian, so you're out. You can't or you're not in. We're not we're not accepting you. After sharing the news, Frank is surprisingly upbeat. The board member leaves thinking to himself, well, he took that quite well. What's up with Frank? First century Asia Minor Christian student Sally is at school. Everybody knows that her family does not worship the emperor and does not worship at Aphrodite's temple. Word gets out that maybe she's one of those Christians that people have heard about. The parents warn their kids, don't associate with Sally. The cool girls in the school, they are so ostracizing Sally, but they sense from Sally that Sally's kind of okay with it. Like, doesn't she know she should be upset that she's not sitting at our table? It's almost like her identity isn't found in what the cool girls think about her. And they don't know what to deal. How what's up with Sally? One more. You're like, well, he was really creative in his preparation this week. Yes, I was. First century Asia Minor Christian John is at the hospital. He's seeing the doctors. He's seeing the nurses. They're seeing him. He's one of a, you know, 100 patients that week. He's going through some health crisis, just like everybody else is. He doesn't wanna be in pain. He doesn't wanna be sick, just like everybody else doesn't wanna be sick. But they sense him, John, that he has something going on in the midst of that. Like he's talking about how he's praying for the doctor. He's praying for the nurse. And that, you know, he's very confident that that God is with him. And they the nurses sense in John something in the midst of his pain that they're all dealing with pain and stuff in their life that they're like, he's got something I don't got. And I wonder about John. Rich, poor, atheist, agnostic, religious person, educated, powerful, not, everybody suffers, don't we? Everybody goes through tragedy, don't we? We all have things that we deal with. And the difference that Peter is highlighting in verse 15 is that Christians go through these things with hope that the world doesn't have. But the world observes us having it and wants it as well, even though they don't know where it comes from. And they come to the hope demonstrating Christian and ask, where did you get that from? Where did you get that from? And that doesn't mean that we don't cry and we don't grieve and we don't do things Jesus himself did. It just means that in the midst of that, we have a kind of vertical hope and assurance in terms of God and His presence with us and His promises for us that the unbelieving world imagine, you know, if you've a Christian a long time, you sort of get used to that promises of God and assurance from God. The world goes through these things. They got nothing. I do funerals sometimes. You know, the funeral home will call and say, hey. Will you come over and do this funeral? And I'll I'll do the funeral of of family. I mean, there's no faith, and they're like, hey. Can we get this done soon? And you just get this sense that there's just it's just emptiness. Right? Or maybe they don't want it to get done. They stand at the casket and they're weaving. They don't want to close the door. Why? Because there's no hope of anything. Once that door once that casket goes closed, we never see that person ever again. And you just sense that. Right? Totally different than a Christian funeral that's filled with hope, the hope of the gospel, the hope of eternal life. And so Peter is bringing this up, and what I am urging us here is that we must live our faith out in the midst of our pain and be honest about it, or the world is never going to observe it in us. In other words, authenticity. Okay? Authenticity. A great place for that to start, of course, is in the church. And even in the church, we still sort of project this like, hey, I'm like it's like me and Billy Graham. We're just like amazing, godly, spiritual people. And we all know that's not true. It's not true for me. Is it true for you? So maybe authenticity let's start in the church and just being real with each other. But it must transfer into the world around us, which we're not good at, are we? But to be honest with our struggles or people are never going to realize the hope that is in us. Because the only time it's like hope's like the stars. When do you see the stars? It's never when the sun's up. It's when the sun goes down that you see the stars. Hope is never seen when life is fantastic all the time. It's when life stinks that suddenly hope becomes evident. So unbelievers must see the hope that we have, and the only way they see it is when we are real about the struggles that we have. Now all of this is assuming relationship with unbelievers, isn't it? We're gonna get into that in a little bit. But everybody knows what it's like when work is frustrating. Everybody can relate to a home and family and relationships that has conflict and strife. Everybody knows what it's like to have financial struggles. Everybody knows what it's like to suffer loss and hurt. Everybody knows what it's like to have such a crazy busy schedule. You feel like you're, you know, the the the not the rat. What's the the hamster on the wheel. Thank you. We all know what it's like to be discouraged. We all know what it's like to have doubts about life. And one of the most powerful witnesses that God's people have is when we go through those things, all of those same struggles, and yet we say and believe that there is good news found in Jesus Christ. And I have found Jesus to be a powerful help in the midst of my trial. Now we say, why is this so important? Here's why. And this is kind of part of what I'm saying here is I'm arguing against an approach to evangelism that just uses canned presentations. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about there. And there's a place for them. But when we just automatically go into robo evangelist with people that are going through you know, the person goes, you know, I'm my my I just found out my mom has cancer. And you're like, I'm gonna take you down the Romans Road. They're like, what? Are you talking to me? My mom's got cancer. And when we just do these canned gospel presentations, it doesn't connect the gospel with real life struggles. K? Let's go to Charleston right now. Why? Why is the world paying attention to Charleston? Absolute tragedy that happened, and that is evil and wrong in every way. K? But within a few days, we have we see some amazing good that has come from that as that church steps forward and says, we forgive the murderer. We forgive the murderer. Now the world sits up and goes, what? What'd you say? Because you're supposed to be, like, all about vengeance right now. You're supposed to, like, get a mob and go and and get the guy and just, you know, beat him to a pulp. You're supposed to be all, like, hateful and angry about this, but you're offering grace and forgiveness. I bet the church is overflowing today, don't you think? And some of them are going to be visitors who are thinking to themselves, if this church can forgive that guy, they've got something I don't have because I'm still dealing with what my dad did to me when I was growing up. I'm going show up here. Want see what this is about. And you see, it connects the gospel with real life. And that's what Peter is calling us to. K? To give an answer for the hope that is in us. Where have we got this hope? We have this hope by faith in Jesus and the promises of God becoming real to us by the Holy Spirit and trusting in a God who sent his Son. Romans eight thirty two, “if God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things?” If God gave me Jesus, he can give me what I need in this trial, and my hope is in him. That's the Christian response. And all of a sudden, the gospel hits home in pain and in trials and in suffering when they see how the hope is working in us and they ask us about it. K? So second thing Peter highlights here is the tone with which we speak. Again, look at verse fifteen and sixteen. Always ready to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you. Some people read that and they're like, that's right. We're arming for bear. Well, I'm going go into that. I'm going to out argue. I can out argue anybody about the gospel. I'm ready. Oh, just ask me about it. But then Peter adds this, yet do it with gentleness and respect. Gentleness and respect. Some of you can relate to this. I was raised in in the church and we were raised in a more confrontational style of evangelism, you know, where you sort of get the person by the throat metaphorically speaking and you just pound them with the gospel, and you hope the Holy Spirit saves them. And you have, you know, these answers for these questions. And there's a place for that. Don't get me wrong. But the vast majority of people, that's not our gig. Right? I don't even got no PhD in Christian apologetics. We're just normal people. Right? And so when we get all confrontational and high how do you respond when somebody, like, confronts you? It's like, oh, that's what you believe? Well, let me tell you a better way. And that person's like, wait. My mama believed this. My grandma believed this. And now you're gonna tell me this. And they get all what? Defensive. And how well do we listen when we're on the defense? Right? So Peter's like, hey, the tone with which you approach people is critical. Be gentle. Be meek. This is the sense that the other person gets as we're talking to them. Stay calm. Be kind. Listen. It endears the truth that we want to share with them. And you might be like, oh, no. That's not the way that Jesus did. Wait a second. What did he do with the woman at the well as an example of what I'm talking about? This woman was in sexual sin. Jesus knew it. And who's the only one who actually has the right to be sort of judgmental towards people? It would be Jesus. And yet does Jesus say, you're a sinner. Let's talk about sin, you know, and your sexual sin living with a man, divorce all these other guys, you're terrible. You need me. Is that what he said? No. What did he say? He talked to her in a way that drew her in. Right? He drew her in. He built rapport with her. She sensed that he cared about her. And when the whole conversation was done, what does she do? She runs into the village and says, come talk to this guy. This is amazing. That's a sign of a really good gospel conversation when they go into their town and say, everybody, come talk to this guy. I've never had that happen, but it would be wonderful if it did. Jesus had a tone of gentleness. And he says, secondly, and respect and respect. Greek word there is phobos. We get the word phobia from it. The scholars debate whether this is phobia respect for the other person or respect for God, probably for God, but I think it applies. When I have respect for God, I am respectful, you know, with other people. But the whole the point is, I think, similar to gentleness where there is a sense as I am doing this that I am I am respectful of the other person. I'm not an authority. Like, I'm not coming at this like I got all the answers and down with you. I'm not speaking down the mountain at people. I'm respecting their story. I'm respecting their life. I'm listening to them. They're listening to me. That's the kind of conversation that wins people's hearts, isn't it? Not victory all, not demeaning, not what's wrong with you because you don't believe this, not let me show you how smart I am with my answers, but a respectful conversation, a winsome one. So towards the goal of doing this, I have some tips. Those are just kind of a practical message. Right? I've got some tips for how to engage in gospel conversations or what I'm calling a lifestyle of evangelism. And here's the first one, is that we must be intentional. We must be intentional about this. There's a writer named Jonathan Dodson. I've learned most of these tips are from him, actually. I give him credit for it. But one of the things that he talks about in terms of intentionality is the fact that many, many Christians have no time for unbelievers. By the time I get done doing all my church activities and I get done all my work activities and my, you know, school activities, there's no margin for relationships with an unbeliever. Maybe if I could ask you, is that true for you? Do you have any intentional margin that you create to have and to build a relationship with somebody that doesn't know Jesus? Because right now, even as I'm talking to somebody, you're probably like, I got no time for this. I got no time for this. And yet, what has Jesus left us here to do? Why did why wasn't it instant rapture? You know, when you become a Christian, boop, up you go. Why are we still here? Is it so that we can, you know, work and do well? No. We're here to be a witness to Jesus Christ. Right? And to share the good news of Jesus with as many people as we possibly can. That's why we're here. And so this is partly a matter of prioritizing this and creating margin in our schedules so that we can have relationships with unbelievers. And frankly, I say that to myself as much as I say it to you. I just said to Jennifer recently, by the time I get done pastoring the church and all this stuff, I feel like I have little time for relationships with people that aren't a part of the church. I feel convicted about that. Maybe you can too. So some practical tips on how to create context for relationship where these things can happen. This is from Jonathan Dodson. Number one, eat with non Christians. What do we all have in common with unbelievers? We all like to eat, and we all eat three times a day. Some of us, more than that. So but I digress. Most people are willing to have lunch with a coworker or a neighbor or to grill out, you know, to barbecue with with a neighbor. You want come over for burgers? Most people are like, that sounds nice. And what does it also sound like? It sounds like friendship, doesn't it? See? Eat with non Christians. It's not like when you sit down and you go, okay. I'm gonna order, and now I take you down the Romans Road. You know? Be normal. Talk about stuff. You know? Maybe you have, you know, 10 of those before spiritual stuff comes up. Jesus did this. He Jesus used meals to build relationship with people. We see him doing it often in the gospels. Secondly, he says, walk, don't drive. Walk, don't drive. Is your neighborhood like mine where often it's like this? People, we live in houses. In the morning, the bridge of the moat goes up called a garage door. And we're in our cars, and we pull out. We're in our bubble. We drive through the neighborhood. We might wave, little wave there, little wave there, and off we go. And at night, we come home, still in our bubble, right? Maybe a wave, maybe a wave. The drawbridge goes up of the moat, the garage door. And we pull in, the bridge goes down of the moat, garage door goes down. And I can live in my neighborhood without any conversation, if I wanted to, without one conversation with anybody. And many people do that. Right? Many people do that. Christians shouldn't do that. Agreed? Who's the best neighbors in every neighborhood? It's the evangelical Christians, I hope. Right? So part of this we have to fight against is to he suggests walking. Okay? Walk around the neighborhood. Just walk. I would tell you, from based on my experience, get a stroller. It doesn't matter if there's a kid in there or not. Just have a stroller because a stroller is like it's like instant friendship. You know? Just like, oh, oh, oh, it's so cute. And, I mean, strangers at the mall suddenly are like your best friends if you have a stroller. But the walking point here is that it allows an opportunity to just meet people, to say hi, engage them in some way. Walk around your neighborhood. Somebody else I read suggested, you know, sit in front of your house, not behind your house. We typically want to sit in the backyard, you know, sort of isolate in our little cocoon. Sit on the driveway and have your little fire pit there and marshmallows and people that are walking by be like, hey, and, you know, front yard conversations. Third, be a regular. Be a regular. What this means is that if there's a coffee house you like, a cafe that you like, go to that one over and over again because then you get to know the waitstaff, and you get to know maybe the owner, and you get to know some of the other patrons there. And over time, you're able to build relationship. If you're always going to this one, that one, they don't know you, you don't know them, and nothing happens. So be a regular. Hobby with non Christians. Hobby with non Christians. Everybody's got hobbies, mutual points of interest. So if you like to fish, you know, and there's a dude who lives next to you and you're like, hey, most men can say this, want to go fishing? That's like male love language, isn't it? That's like that's like women saying, do you want to get a pedicure together? I mean, it's like, wow, I didn't know that we were that good of friends. We're going to fish together and then go fishing or, you know, watch the Bears game or whatever it is. You know, we all have these hobbies. And for men, a lot of those are kind of points of shared interest, hobby with them. Friendships can form over mutual interest. Here's another, volunteer with nonprofits. This is, again, it's a non kind of confrontational sort of way to engage people. If Habitat for Humanity is building a house in Gary and your neighbor's a kind of handyman, why don't you say, hey, you wanna spend three hours on Saturday and we'll go do this Habitat for Humanity thing? And you get to drive up and you get to do something together. And serving others might sort of tap a little meaning place in his heart. You never know what might come of that. Participate in city events. No matter what city you live in, all of them around here have cleaning days, and they've got sort of the corn fest or they got this, that, or the other. Be a part of that. Get your kids off the Xbox and go clean the city for three hours. And you're going to meet other people that care about the city, and they're a part of that, and they see you caring, and you can build relationships with people that you don't know. Here's a big one. Serve your neighbors. Serve your neighbors. Now the first part is assuming that you know their name. We live in a day where people live next to people that they don't know their name. And I'll be honest, it's not a very big circle around my house that I know people's names. So we say that to some measure of shame. But serve your neighbors. And this can be big and small ways. It can be, you know, blowing out the snow on the driveway, or it can be helping with raking the leaves, or it can be maybe a more meaningful thing if they're going through a crisis or a trial of some kind where you help them out in some way. All of those things communicate something that ought to be true in our hearts. Right? If we're called the second great command is to love our neighbor as ourself, it communicates what? Love. And love is a universal language of relationship. Help them out, especially in their times of crisis. It tears down defenses. My wife, Jennifer, is particularly good at this. She's got a little bit of an eye for it. And we recently we have a neighbor that's going through a terrible kind of long term kind of crisis. And so Jennifer fixed this feast for them. And we showed up on their doorstep unannounced, bags of food. And they opened the door and we're like, hey, we just know it's been a tough time. We brought this stuff for you. How do you think they responded to that? Slam the door. I told you look out for those neighbors. No. They were like, really? You know, in the church, that's more been more sort of normal, but in the world, people don't do that kind of thing. They're like, really? Come come on in. And so we stepped in and we got, you know, all the here's this and this gotta heat at 03:50 and here's the dessert and all that. And by the way, how's it going? And now in that kind of context of care, now the eyes fill with tears, and you we had a really special moment with them. Does it feel any different now when we are, like, waving in the morning? They're like Why? Because they're like, well, that's a house of people that care about us right there. How? Just serving them. Serve them. A little bit goes a really long way. Do you have a neighbor that you could serve in some practical way that might build rapport with them, might communicate that you care about them? So take a moment right now and just think through that list. Let me say them again. And maybe you can identify two things here, and we're going give you this list as you leave today, that maybe you could sort of renew involvement in mission work this way. Eat with non Christians. Walk, don't drive. Be a regular hobby with non Christians. Volunteer with nonprofits. Participate in city events. Serve your neighbors. The next tip I have, and I'm not going spend a lot of time on this, but, is this, is be a story listener. Be a story listener. Everybody has a story, and everybody's story is sacred to them. So too often, Christians, we we're like, oh, I've gotta be evangelistic. So now I'm again, I'm having lunch with you, and I'm gonna God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And I've got a little booklet here right here I'd like to take you through. Would you smile as I do it? Point number one, point number two, point number three. And they're sitting there eating their chips going, Am I buying a vacuum when this is done? What's going on? A great starting point with people is to simply ask their story. Ask their story. Everybody loves talking about themselves. Find out where they're from. Find out what kind of house they or home they grew up in, what their dad did, mom did, whatever. Find out their story. And as part of that, if you've built if you've, you know, vacuumed their house or blew out the snow or done whatever, they'll share the failures as well. And in those failures then, sort of that conversation moves to that kind of deeper level where now you're sort of communing together. Listen to it. Don't interrupt it and go, well, if Jesus was in your life right there, then this would have been the feeling you would have had. Don't do that. Why? Because we're not we're in here with gentleness and respect. We're not in here as know it alls. We're we're we're sinners too. Listen to their story. It tells them that you care about them, which, of course, is the key. And then after hearing their story, tell your story. Tell your story. And by that, I don't mean the how all your kids are wonderful and you were amazing in in high school and what a great athlete you were and, you know, how you're the best employee. Know, take out all the hubris, take out all the pride, and just be a real person and tell your story. And as part of telling that story, talk about the difference that Jesus has made in your life. Simply that. And don't get all sort of weird as you do it. Sometimes it feels that way, doesn't it, where you can talk about the college you went to, the school that you grew up in, but when you sort of if you say anything spiritual, it's like beads of sweat come down your face, and you know, it's it just weirds people out. Don't be awkward. Can I say it that way? Just be normal. Be normal. Tell your story. Now you might be like me and think, my story is boring, especially my faith story. Grew up in a Christian home, became a Christian when I was six, blah blah blah. I wanna encourage you that I doubt, for example, in Charleston right now, they care about when hope came to that church. They just care about how. Right? How? And this again is where I think the formula approach is unhelpful because the gospel is not a formula. It is a person. The gospel is Jesus. And if we are Christians here today, that means Jesus has transformed our lives. And yes, we go through trials, and yes, we go through troubles, and none of us is super Christian. But there is a reality to it that we feel in the midst of our sufferings, and we can share with other people who don't have that hope. Just talk about the difference your faith made with when you lost your job or the church or something like that that just kind of connects the gospel with real life, and people will listen to it. People will listen. And, of course, this assumes that hope is a reality in our own hearts. The Bible or the Bible, Spurgeon said, evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread. Maybe you've heard that before. But that assumes that the one beggar actually has found it. Tell them about that. Tell them about how, you know, your dad or that college friend or whatever it was introduced you to Jesus. Talk about him like he's as real as the wind. Talk about him as a real person. And the world will think, man, this is like real to you, isn't it? Yeah. It is real. It's made a real difference in my life. I kinda like that. I wish I had some of that hope in my heart. That's what they need to hear. So have it here first. Share it second. And finally, I would just simply say this, pray for people. Pray for your neighbors. Is there or your coworker. Is there is there anybody currently that you are actively praying for that God would allow you to be a part of them coming to know the Lord Jesus? Are you praying for anybody by name? Or how about in your neighborhood? As maybe you're having a time of prayer just to pray up for the two houses around you. You know? Pray for opportunities. Pray that God would help you be faithful to opportunities that he would provide. Pray for wisdom when they come. K? So be intentional. Be ready. Be winsome and gentle. Be real and authentic. Listen, and then speak and tell your story of hope in Jesus. And the world will listen, and we hope we'll come to believe in Christ as well. Right? And wouldn't that be a great day? Seeing them people being baptized, starting to disciple them, see them to sort of grow and experience the blessing that we have had in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we want. So I'm gonna ask you to stand with me right now, and let's just pray. Let's just pray this very truth. In fact, I'm gonna give you just a moment to pray for that person in your life. And maybe you gotta come up with a name real quick right now, but that'll be good. Why don't you pray for one person by name that is in your sphere of relationship and ask God to help you be a faithful witness to them. * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

Steve DeWitt Baptism - Part A Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:21-22 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 3:21-22 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:21-22 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: A Guide to Gospel Conversations Airdate: 10/20 –10/21/26 Programs: 2382 and 2383 Well, I didn't know if I was going to be here today, and I am. So that means that we do not have a baby on the way. I checked my phone between services just to make sure that nothing had happened. But this is the week. So hopefully, we'll have a fun little announcement we'll share with you. I said to Jennifer, I hope she's not born on Father's Day because I want Father's Day to be about me, right? So if she could avoid Father's Day, that would be great. I said jokingly. But, yes. So we're, we're excited about a new addition to the family. We appreciate your prayers about that. We really do. I also wanted to give a little shout out to our Executive Director of Operations, Dave Harvey, who I think is in this service. It's his birthday today. And we have this is the guy that we assume so many things around here are operating right and working right in the facilities and all the different things. This is the guy that's managing all of that. I'm so thankful for Dave Harvey. And today is his birthday, and I think he's somewhere in here. So can we give him a one clap, happy birthday? I'm confusing some of you with that, but happy birthday, David Harvey. Okay. Today, we're we're this is a message it's kind of an application message, sort of a practical message coming out of last week's study in first Peter chapter three verse 15, this fairly well known passage about being ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us. And we're talking about the church as witness. We're talking about the church on mission. And so today, I wanna talk more practically about how do we engage people in gospel conversations. The assumption is that Christians will do this, but how do we do that? And so I've got some very practical tips today. We're gonna get into that. I'd like to read the text though again. And so let me begin reading first Peter chapter three verse 13, and please listen as I read God's word. “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them nor be troubled, but in your hearts, regard 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, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God’s will than for doing evil.” I came across this week a an ancient Chinese proverb that I'd like to share with you. It goes like this. Man stand for long time with mouth open before roast duck fly in. It just struck my funny my funny bone. Some of you are still pondering it, like, does that mean? A man will stand for a long time before a fully prepared and cooked duck will fly into his mouth. There's a truth in there. Right? What is it saying there? That you can sit back and just open your mouth and hope and think that what you're craving and what you're desiring is going to fly in, but you stayed a long time for roast duck to fly in. It doesn't happen. And our evangelism in the church often is like the Chinese man standing with his mouth open hoping the right thing flies in. And we miss the fact that while God is sovereign over salvation, he works through means to accomplish it. And the means by which he does this is the church, and specifically is the people in the church engaging in gospel conversations with unbelievers. That's the way that it happens. In fact, if you're a Christian here today, there was somebody in your life that engaged in some short or long term conversation with you that shared the gospel of Jesus with you, and you are a Christian as a result of it. And what happens often is somebody has that conversation with us, and then we turn into the Chinese man waiting for the roast duck to fly in. We sit back, we isolate, we're by ourselves, and we think, oh, some how this happens, I guess. When that's not how it happened for us. Somebody engaged us, and now we're called as Christians to engage other people in gospel conversations so that they can come to know the same Lord Jesus, the same hope that we have. And so that's where we're going today. It doesn't just happen. Roast ducks don't just fly in. How does it happen? And Peter is writing to Christians who, as we've said many times now in our series, they are in persecution. They are in crisis. They're in a place hostile to their faith. You might be in a tough time right now yourself. Maybe you're in some kind of season of trial in your life. And you're thinking to yourself, you know, this is a time really I might have to put ministry on the back burner. When in reality, this is prime time opportunity for you to give the reason for the hope that is in you. And that's where we're going here is how do we do that and when are what are the context within which and how do we cultivate those contexts so that we can have these kinds of conversations? Now Peter says first in verse 13 that lives of kindness and compassion lived out in the world earn the right for us to be heard. It causes the the world to sort of stop and pay attention. Oh, wait. You're being kind. You're you're caring for people. You're doing this or that. What's what's the deal with you? And we saw last week that the theology behind what Peter is talking about here in terms of kindness, good works done for people that have nothing to offer us, that we're doing purely out of a desire to minister to them, causes people to stop and listen. And it did in the early church. We saw that in the first three centuries of the early church, the the the way that Christianity rocked the Roman Empire was not because they were great preachers or that they had all these amazing books to read. Most of them couldn't read. How did the early church rock the Roman Empire? Because they cared for widows and they cared for orphans and they cared for strangers. They cared for the people that the folks that go to the Aphrodite Temple and the Zeus Temple could care less about. That's who they cared about. And it caused the world to go, what is the deal with these Christians? And, again, the theology behind this, we saw last week, is that everybody is made in the image of God. And even a non Christian is an image bearer of God and wired by God for God and for seeing glimpses of God in the world around them. And we had a diagram, if you put that up a moment, that illustrates how this works and what Peter is getting at here. What is the common ground that the Christian and the non Christian have? It is this image bearing, the fact that we have a conscience within us. And in the world, even even in the world, these things are admired. Moral beauty, love, self sacrifice, compassion. These are all things that cause people in the world to go, you know what? That's good. Right? That's that's a good thing. And so in the world, if you're about, you know, stopping human trafficking or if you're into caring for children in crisis or something like that, even nonbelievers look at that and go, wow. That's really awesome that you're doing that. K? It's common ground that we have in the world. So with that said, let's build now on this a guide to gospel conversations. How do we do this? And the first thing that we see Peter saying here is that unbelievers observe something in us that they don't have. And you might say, is it our haircuts? Is it our clothes? Is it you know? No. That's silly. It's not those things. That's not what makes Christianity distinctive. It is hope. That's what Peter says. They come to us, and they ask us about the hope that we have. Now when is hope observable? When everything's great? No. I don't need hope when my life is fantastic and and everything's wonderful. We talked about this last week that part of our struggle is that we're all the time projecting to everybody else that we're fantastic, and everything's fantastic. And so, you know, we come to each other. We say, how are you doing? I'm doing awesome. How are you doing? I'm awesomer. Right? Everything's fantastic. I'm good. The kids are wonderful. It's like I'm living a panacea of wonderfulness all the time. And we project these kinds of everything's going great, and people can't relate to that. Because the reality in the world is that everything is not great. And there might be times where things seem to be, you know, okay and we're doing okay. But generally speaking, we are either entering a crisis or we just got out of one. And that's true in the unbelieving world. So that, yes, they can common ground is moral beauty. Common ground is is love and self sacrifice. But a huge common ground that we have with the people around us is pain and suffering. Christians have pain and suffering. Non Christians have pain and suffering. The difference is we have hope in the midst of it, which they don't have. So imagine with me, for example, first century, Asia Minor Christian Frank applies for membership in a, business society, business guild that was gonna help his business and build relationships and stuff like that. He applies for membership in it. The board of directors gets together and they say, I understand Frank's one of those Christians. Have you heard about these Christians? Yeah. They don't go to the Temple Of Aphrodite. They're not at the Temple Of Zeus. We don't want this guy in our guild. I say we deny him just because of that. They go, that's probably a good idea. We don't wanna associate with people like that. The board member goes to Frank and says, hey, you know what? You've got a fine business and things look good, but you're a Christian, so you're out. You can't or you're not in. We're not we're not accepting you. After sharing the news, Frank is surprisingly upbeat. The board member leaves thinking to himself, well, he took that quite well. What's up with Frank? First century Asia Minor Christian student Sally is at school. Everybody knows that her family does not worship the emperor and does not worship at Aphrodite's temple. Word gets out that maybe she's one of those Christians that people have heard about. The parents warn their kids, don't associate with Sally. The cool girls in the school, they are so ostracizing Sally, but they sense from Sally that Sally's kind of okay with it. Like, doesn't she know she should be upset that she's not sitting at our table? It's almost like her identity isn't found in what the cool girls think about her. And they don't know what to deal. How what's up with Sally? One more. You're like, well, he was really creative in his preparation this week. Yes, I was. First century Asia Minor Christian John is at the hospital. He's seeing the doctors. He's seeing the nurses. They're seeing him. He's one of a, you know, 100 patients that week. He's going through some health crisis, just like everybody else is. He doesn't wanna be in pain. He doesn't wanna be sick, just like everybody else doesn't wanna be sick. But they sense him, John, that he has something going on in the midst of that. Like he's talking about how he's praying for the doctor. He's praying for the nurse. And that, you know, he's very confident that that God is with him. And they the nurses sense in John something in the midst of his pain that they're all dealing with pain and stuff in their life that they're like, he's got something I don't got. And I wonder about John. Rich, poor, atheist, agnostic, religious person, educated, powerful, not, everybody suffers, don't we? Everybody goes through tragedy, don't we? We all have things that we deal with. And the difference that Peter is highlighting in verse 15 is that Christians go through these things with hope that the world doesn't have. But the world observes us having it and wants it as well, even though they don't know where it comes from. And they come to the hope demonstrating Christian and ask, where did you get that from? Where did you get that from? And that doesn't mean that we don't cry and we don't grieve and we don't do things Jesus himself did. It just means that in the midst of that, we have a kind of vertical hope and assurance in terms of God and His presence with us and His promises for us that the unbelieving world imagine, you know, if you've a Christian a long time, you sort of get used to that promises of God and assurance from God. The world goes through these things. They got nothing. I do funerals sometimes. You know, the funeral home will call and say, hey. Will you come over and do this funeral? And I'll I'll do the funeral of of family. I mean, there's no faith, and they're like, hey. Can we get this done soon? And you just get this sense that there's just it's just emptiness. Right? Or maybe they don't want it to get done. They stand at the casket and they're weaving. They don't want to close the door. Why? Because there's no hope of anything. Once that door once that casket goes closed, we never see that person ever again. And you just sense that. Right? Totally different than a Christian funeral that's filled with hope, the hope of the gospel, the hope of eternal life. And so Peter is bringing this up, and what I am urging us here is that we must live our faith out in the midst of our pain and be honest about it, or the world is never going to observe it in us. In other words, authenticity. Okay? Authenticity. A great place for that to start, of course, is in the church. And even in the church, we still sort of project this like, hey, I'm like it's like me and Billy Graham. We're just like amazing, godly, spiritual people. And we all know that's not true. It's not true for me. Is it true for you? So maybe authenticity let's start in the church and just being real with each other. But it must transfer into the world around us, which we're not good at, are we? But to be honest with our struggles or people are never going to realize the hope that is in us. Because the only time it's like hope's like the stars. When do you see the stars? It's never when the sun's up. It's when the sun goes down that you see the stars. Hope is never seen when life is fantastic all the time. It's when life stinks that suddenly hope becomes evident. So unbelievers must see the hope that we have, and the only way they see it is when we are real about the struggles that we have. Now all of this is assuming relationship with unbelievers, isn't it? We're gonna get into that in a little bit. But everybody knows what it's like when work is frustrating. Everybody can relate to a home and family and relationships that has conflict and strife. Everybody knows what it's like to have financial struggles. Everybody knows what it's like to suffer loss and hurt. Everybody knows what it's like to have such a crazy busy schedule. You feel like you're, you know, the the the not the rat. What's the the hamster on the wheel. Thank you. We all know what it's like to be discouraged. We all know what it's like to have doubts about life. And one of the most powerful witnesses that God's people have is when we go through those things, all of those same struggles, and yet we say and believe that there is good news found in Jesus Christ. And I have found Jesus to be a powerful help in the midst of my trial. Now we say, why is this so important? Here's why. And this is kind of part of what I'm saying here is I'm arguing against an approach to evangelism that just uses canned presentations. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about there. And there's a place for them. But when we just automatically go into robo evangelist with people that are going through you know, the person goes, you know, I'm my my I just found out my mom has cancer. And you're like, I'm gonna take you down the Romans Road. They're like, what? Are you talking to me? My mom's got cancer. And when we just do these canned gospel presentations, it doesn't connect the gospel with real life struggles. K? Let's go to Charleston right now. Why? Why is the world paying attention to Charleston? Absolute tragedy that happened, and that is evil and wrong in every way. K? But within a few days, we have we see some amazing good that has come from that as that church steps forward and says, we forgive the murderer. We forgive the murderer. Now the world sits up and goes, what? What'd you say? Because you're supposed to be, like, all about vengeance right now. You're supposed to, like, get a mob and go and and get the guy and just, you know, beat him to a pulp. You're supposed to be all, like, hateful and angry about this, but you're offering grace and forgiveness. I bet the church is overflowing today, don't you think? And some of them are going to be visitors who are thinking to themselves, if this church can forgive that guy, they've got something I don't have because I'm still dealing with what my dad did to me when I was growing up. I'm going show up here. Want see what this is about. And you see, it connects the gospel with real life. And that's what Peter is calling us to. K? To give an answer for the hope that is in us. Where have we got this hope? We have this hope by faith in Jesus and the promises of God becoming real to us by the Holy Spirit and trusting in a God who sent his Son. Romans eight thirty two, “if God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things?” If God gave me Jesus, he can give me what I need in this trial, and my hope is in him. That's the Christian response. And all of a sudden, the gospel hits home in pain and in trials and in suffering when they see how the hope is working in us and they ask us about it. K? So second thing Peter highlights here is the tone with which we speak. Again, look at verse fifteen and sixteen. Always ready to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you. Some people read that and they're like, that's right. We're arming for bear. Well, I'm going go into that. I'm going to out argue. I can out argue anybody about the gospel. I'm ready. Oh, just ask me about it. But then Peter adds this, yet do it with gentleness and respect. Gentleness and respect. Some of you can relate to this. I was raised in in the church and we were raised in a more confrontational style of evangelism, you know, where you sort of get the person by the throat metaphorically speaking and you just pound them with the gospel, and you hope the Holy Spirit saves them. And you have, you know, these answers for these questions. And there's a place for that. Don't get me wrong. But the vast majority of people, that's not our gig. Right? I don't even got no PhD in Christian apologetics. We're just normal people. Right? And so when we get all confrontational and high how do you respond when somebody, like, confronts you? It's like, oh, that's what you believe? Well, let me tell you a better way. And that person's like, wait. My mama believed this. My grandma believed this. And now you're gonna tell me this. And they get all what? Defensive. And how well do we listen when we're on the defense? Right? So Peter's like, hey, the tone with which you approach people is critical. Be gentle. Be meek. This is the sense that the other person gets as we're talking to them. Stay calm. Be kind. Listen. It endears the truth that we want to share with them. And you might be like, oh, no. That's not the way that Jesus did. Wait a second. What did he do with the woman at the well as an example of what I'm talking about? This woman was in sexual sin. Jesus knew it. And who's the only one who actually has the right to be sort of judgmental towards people? It would be Jesus. And yet does Jesus say, you're a sinner. Let's talk about sin, you know, and your sexual sin living with a man, divorce all these other guys, you're terrible. You need me. Is that what he said? No. What did he say? He talked to her in a way that drew her in. Right? He drew her in. He built rapport with her. She sensed that he cared about her. And when the whole conversation was done, what does she do? She runs into the village and says, come talk to this guy. This is amazing. That's a sign of a really good gospel conversation when they go into their town and say, everybody, come talk to this guy. I've never had that happen, but it would be wonderful if it did. Jesus had a tone of gentleness. And he says, secondly, and respect and respect. Greek word there is phobos. We get the word phobia from it. The scholars debate whether this is phobia respect for the other person or respect for God, probably for God, but I think it applies. When I have respect for God, I am respectful, you know, with other people. But the whole the point is, I think, similar to gentleness where there is a sense as I am doing this that I am I am respectful of the other person. I'm not an authority. Like, I'm not coming at this like I got all the answers and down with you. I'm not speaking down the mountain at people. I'm respecting their story. I'm respecting their life. I'm listening to them. They're listening to me. That's the kind of conversation that wins people's hearts, isn't it? Not victory all, not demeaning, not what's wrong with you because you don't believe this, not let me show you how smart I am with my answers, but a respectful conversation, a winsome one. So towards the goal of doing this, I have some tips. Those are just kind of a practical message. Right? I've got some tips for how to engage in gospel conversations or what I'm calling a lifestyle of evangelism. And here's the first one, is that we must be intentional. We must be intentional about this. There's a writer named Jonathan Dodson. I've learned most of these tips are from him, actually. I give him credit for it. But one of the things that he talks about in terms of intentionality is the fact that many, many Christians have no time for unbelievers. By the time I get done doing all my church activities and I get done all my work activities and my, you know, school activities, there's no margin for relationships with an unbeliever. Maybe if I could ask you, is that true for you? Do you have any intentional margin that you create to have and to build a relationship with somebody that doesn't know Jesus? Because right now, even as I'm talking to somebody, you're probably like, I got no time for this. I got no time for this. And yet, what has Jesus left us here to do? Why did why wasn't it instant rapture? You know, when you become a Christian, boop, up you go. Why are we still here? Is it so that we can, you know, work and do well? No. We're here to be a witness to Jesus Christ. Right? And to share the good news of Jesus with as many people as we possibly can. That's why we're here. And so this is partly a matter of prioritizing this and creating margin in our schedules so that we can have relationships with unbelievers. And frankly, I say that to myself as much as I say it to you. I just said to Jennifer recently, by the time I get done pastoring the church and all this stuff, I feel like I have little time for relationships with people that aren't a part of the church. I feel convicted about that. Maybe you can too. So some practical tips on how to create context for relationship where these things can happen. This is from Jonathan Dodson. Number one, eat with non Christians. What do we all have in common with unbelievers? We all like to eat, and we all eat three times a day. Some of us, more than that. So but I digress. Most people are willing to have lunch with a coworker or a neighbor or to grill out, you know, to barbecue with with a neighbor. You want come over for burgers? Most people are like, that sounds nice. And what does it also sound like? It sounds like friendship, doesn't it? See? Eat with non Christians. It's not like when you sit down and you go, okay. I'm gonna order, and now I take you down the Romans Road. You know? Be normal. Talk about stuff. You know? Maybe you have, you know, 10 of those before spiritual stuff comes up. Jesus did this. He Jesus used meals to build relationship with people. We see him doing it often in the gospels. Secondly, he says, walk, don't drive. Walk, don't drive. Is your neighborhood like mine where often it's like this? People, we live in houses. In the morning, the bridge of the moat goes up called a garage door. And we're in our cars, and we pull out. We're in our bubble. We drive through the neighborhood. We might wave, little wave there, little wave there, and off we go. And at night, we come home, still in our bubble, right? Maybe a wave, maybe a wave. The drawbridge goes up of the moat, the garage door. And we pull in, the bridge goes down of the moat, garage door goes down. And I can live in my neighborhood without any conversation, if I wanted to, without one conversation with anybody. And many people do that. Right? Many people do that. Christians shouldn't do that. Agreed? Who's the best neighbors in every neighborhood? It's the evangelical Christians, I hope. Right? So part of this we have to fight against is to he suggests walking. Okay? Walk around the neighborhood. Just walk. I would tell you, from based on my experience, get a stroller. It doesn't matter if there's a kid in there or not. Just have a stroller because a stroller is like it's like instant friendship. You know? Just like, oh, oh, oh, it's so cute. And, I mean, strangers at the mall suddenly are like your best friends if you have a stroller. But the walking point here is that it allows an opportunity to just meet people, to say hi, engage them in some way. Walk around your neighborhood. Somebody else I read suggested, you know, sit in front of your house, not behind your house. We typically want to sit in the backyard, you know, sort of isolate in our little cocoon. Sit on the driveway and have your little fire pit there and marshmallows and people that are walking by be like, hey, and, you know, front yard conversations. Third, be a regular. Be a regular. What this means is that if there's a coffee house you like, a cafe that you like, go to that one over and over again because then you get to know the waitstaff, and you get to know maybe the owner, and you get to know some of the other patrons there. And over time, you're able to build relationship. If you're always going to this one, that one, they don't know you, you don't know them, and nothing happens. So be a regular. Hobby with non Christians. Hobby with non Christians. Everybody's got hobbies, mutual points of interest. So if you like to fish, you know, and there's a dude who lives next to you and you're like, hey, most men can say this, want to go fishing? That's like male love language, isn't it? That's like that's like women saying, do you want to get a pedicure together? I mean, it's like, wow, I didn't know that we were that good of friends. We're going to fish together and then go fishing or, you know, watch the Bears game or whatever it is. You know, we all have these hobbies. And for men, a lot of those are kind of points of shared interest, hobby with them. Friendships can form over mutual interest. Here's another, volunteer with nonprofits. This is, again, it's a non kind of confrontational sort of way to engage people. If Habitat for Humanity is building a house in Gary and your neighbor's a kind of handyman, why don't you say, hey, you wanna spend three hours on Saturday and we'll go do this Habitat for Humanity thing? And you get to drive up and you get to do something together. And serving others might sort of tap a little meaning place in his heart. You never know what might come of that. Participate in city events. No matter what city you live in, all of them around here have cleaning days, and they've got sort of the corn fest or they got this, that, or the other. Be a part of that. Get your kids off the Xbox and go clean the city for three hours. And you're going to meet other people that care about the city, and they're a part of that, and they see you caring, and you can build relationships with people that you don't know. Here's a big one. Serve your neighbors. Serve your neighbors. Now the first part is assuming that you know their name. We live in a day where people live next to people that they don't know their name. And I'll be honest, it's not a very big circle around my house that I know people's names. So we say that to some measure of shame. But serve your neighbors. And this can be big and small ways. It can be, you know, blowing out the snow on the driveway, or it can be helping with raking the leaves, or it can be maybe a more meaningful thing if they're going through a crisis or a trial of some kind where you help them out in some way. All of those things communicate something that ought to be true in our hearts. Right? If we're called the second great command is to love our neighbor as ourself, it communicates what? Love. And love is a universal language of relationship. Help them out, especially in their times of crisis. It tears down defenses. My wife, Jennifer, is particularly good at this. She's got a little bit of an eye for it. And we recently we have a neighbor that's going through a terrible kind of long term kind of crisis. And so Jennifer fixed this feast for them. And we showed up on their doorstep unannounced, bags of food. And they opened the door and we're like, hey, we just know it's been a tough time. We brought this stuff for you. How do you think they responded to that? Slam the door. I told you look out for those neighbors. No. They were like, really? You know, in the church, that's more been more sort of normal, but in the world, people don't do that kind of thing. They're like, really? Come come on in. And so we stepped in and we got, you know, all the here's this and this gotta heat at 03:50 and here's the dessert and all that. And by the way, how's it going? And now in that kind of context of care, now the eyes fill with tears, and you we had a really special moment with them. Does it feel any different now when we are, like, waving in the morning? They're like Why? Because they're like, well, that's a house of people that care about us right there. How? Just serving them. Serve them. A little bit goes a really long way. Do you have a neighbor that you could serve in some practical way that might build rapport with them, might communicate that you care about them? So take a moment right now and just think through that list. Let me say them again. And maybe you can identify two things here, and we're going give you this list as you leave today, that maybe you could sort of renew involvement in mission work this way. Eat with non Christians. Walk, don't drive. Be a regular hobby with non Christians. Volunteer with nonprofits. Participate in city events. Serve your neighbors. The next tip I have, and I'm not going spend a lot of time on this, but, is this, is be a story listener. Be a story listener. Everybody has a story, and everybody's story is sacred to them. So too often, Christians, we we're like, oh, I've gotta be evangelistic. So now I'm again, I'm having lunch with you, and I'm gonna God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And I've got a little booklet here right here I'd like to take you through. Would you smile as I do it? Point number one, point number two, point number three. And they're sitting there eating their chips going, Am I buying a vacuum when this is done? What's going on? A great starting point with people is to simply ask their story. Ask their story. Everybody loves talking about themselves. Find out where they're from. Find out what kind of house they or home they grew up in, what their dad did, mom did, whatever. Find out their story. And as part of that, if you've built if you've, you know, vacuumed their house or blew out the snow or done whatever, they'll share the failures as well. And in those failures then, sort of that conversation moves to that kind of deeper level where now you're sort of communing together. Listen to it. Don't interrupt it and go, well, if Jesus was in your life right there, then this would have been the feeling you would have had. Don't do that. Why? Because we're not we're in here with gentleness and respect. We're not in here as know it alls. We're we're we're sinners too. Listen to their story. It tells them that you care about them, which, of course, is the key. And then after hearing their story, tell your story. Tell your story. And by that, I don't mean the how all your kids are wonderful and you were amazing in in high school and what a great athlete you were and, you know, how you're the best employee. Know, take out all the hubris, take out all the pride, and just be a real person and tell your story. And as part of telling that story, talk about the difference that Jesus has made in your life. Simply that. And don't get all sort of weird as you do it. Sometimes it feels that way, doesn't it, where you can talk about the college you went to, the school that you grew up in, but when you sort of if you say anything spiritual, it's like beads of sweat come down your face, and you know, it's it just weirds people out. Don't be awkward. Can I say it that way? Just be normal. Be normal. Tell your story. Now you might be like me and think, my story is boring, especially my faith story. Grew up in a Christian home, became a Christian when I was six, blah blah blah. I wanna encourage you that I doubt, for example, in Charleston right now, they care about when hope came to that church. They just care about how. Right? How? And this again is where I think the formula approach is unhelpful because the gospel is not a formula. It is a person. The gospel is Jesus. And if we are Christians here today, that means Jesus has transformed our lives. And yes, we go through trials, and yes, we go through troubles, and none of us is super Christian. But there is a reality to it that we feel in the midst of our sufferings, and we can share with other people who don't have that hope. Just talk about the difference your faith made with when you lost your job or the church or something like that that just kind of connects the gospel with real life, and people will listen to it. People will listen. And, of course, this assumes that hope is a reality in our own hearts. The Bible or the Bible, Spurgeon said, evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread. Maybe you've heard that before. But that assumes that the one beggar actually has found it. Tell them about that. Tell them about how, you know, your dad or that college friend or whatever it was introduced you to Jesus. Talk about him like he's as real as the wind. Talk about him as a real person. And the world will think, man, this is like real to you, isn't it? Yeah. It is real. It's made a real difference in my life. I kinda like that. I wish I had some of that hope in my heart. That's what they need to hear. So have it here first. Share it second. And finally, I would just simply say this, pray for people. Pray for your neighbors. Is there or your coworker. Is there is there anybody currently that you are actively praying for that God would allow you to be a part of them coming to know the Lord Jesus? Are you praying for anybody by name? Or how about in your neighborhood? As maybe you're having a time of prayer just to pray up for the two houses around you. You know? Pray for opportunities. Pray that God would help you be faithful to opportunities that he would provide. Pray for wisdom when they come. K? So be intentional. Be ready. Be winsome and gentle. Be real and authentic. Listen, and then speak and tell your story of hope in Jesus. And the world will listen, and we hope we'll come to believe in Christ as well. Right? And wouldn't that be a great day? Seeing them people being baptized, starting to disciple them, see them to sort of grow and experience the blessing that we have had in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we want. So I'm gonna ask you to stand with me right now, and let's just pray. Let's just pray this very truth. In fact, I'm gonna give you just a moment to pray for that person in your life. And maybe you gotta come up with a name real quick right now, but that'll be good. Why don't you pray for one person by name that is in your sphere of relationship and ask God to help you be a faithful witness to them. * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

Steve DeWitt A Guide to Gospel Conversations - Part B Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:16-17 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 3:16-17 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:16-17 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: A Guide to Gospel Conversations Airdate: 10/20 –10/21/26 Programs: 2382 and 2383 Well, I didn't know if I was going to be here today, and I am. So that means that we do not have a baby on the way. I checked my phone between services just to make sure that nothing had happened. But this is the week. So hopefully, we'll have a fun little announcement we'll share with you. I said to Jennifer, I hope she's not born on Father's Day because I want Father's Day to be about me, right? So if she could avoid Father's Day, that would be great. I said jokingly. But, yes. So we're, we're excited about a new addition to the family. We appreciate your prayers about that. We really do. I also wanted to give a little shout out to our Executive Director of Operations, Dave Harvey, who I think is in this service. It's his birthday today. And we have this is the guy that we assume so many things around here are operating right and working right in the facilities and all the different things. This is the guy that's managing all of that. I'm so thankful for Dave Harvey. And today is his birthday, and I think he's somewhere in here. So can we give him a one clap, happy birthday? I'm confusing some of you with that, but happy birthday, David Harvey. Okay. Today, we're we're this is a message it's kind of an application message, sort of a practical message coming out of last week's study in first Peter chapter three verse 15, this fairly well known passage about being ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us. And we're talking about the church as witness. We're talking about the church on mission. And so today, I wanna talk more practically about how do we engage people in gospel conversations. The assumption is that Christians will do this, but how do we do that? And so I've got some very practical tips today. We're gonna get into that. I'd like to read the text though again. And so let me begin reading first Peter chapter three verse 13, and please listen as I read God's word. “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them nor be troubled, but in your hearts, regard 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, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God’s will than for doing evil.” I came across this week a an ancient Chinese proverb that I'd like to share with you. It goes like this. Man stand for long time with mouth open before roast duck fly in. It just struck my funny my funny bone. Some of you are still pondering it, like, does that mean? A man will stand for a long time before a fully prepared and cooked duck will fly into his mouth. There's a truth in there. Right? What is it saying there? That you can sit back and just open your mouth and hope and think that what you're craving and what you're desiring is going to fly in, but you stayed a long time for roast duck to fly in. It doesn't happen. And our evangelism in the church often is like the Chinese man standing with his mouth open hoping the right thing flies in. And we miss the fact that while God is sovereign over salvation, he works through means to accomplish it. And the means by which he does this is the church, and specifically is the people in the church engaging in gospel conversations with unbelievers. That's the way that it happens. In fact, if you're a Christian here today, there was somebody in your life that engaged in some short or long term conversation with you that shared the gospel of Jesus with you, and you are a Christian as a result of it. And what happens often is somebody has that conversation with us, and then we turn into the Chinese man waiting for the roast duck to fly in. We sit back, we isolate, we're by ourselves, and we think, oh, some how this happens, I guess. When that's not how it happened for us. Somebody engaged us, and now we're called as Christians to engage other people in gospel conversations so that they can come to know the same Lord Jesus, the same hope that we have. And so that's where we're going today. It doesn't just happen. Roast ducks don't just fly in. How does it happen? And Peter is writing to Christians who, as we've said many times now in our series, they are in persecution. They are in crisis. They're in a place hostile to their faith. You might be in a tough time right now yourself. Maybe you're in some kind of season of trial in your life. And you're thinking to yourself, you know, this is a time really I might have to put ministry on the back burner. When in reality, this is prime time opportunity for you to give the reason for the hope that is in you. And that's where we're going here is how do we do that and when are what are the context within which and how do we cultivate those contexts so that we can have these kinds of conversations? Now Peter says first in verse 13 that lives of kindness and compassion lived out in the world earn the right for us to be heard. It causes the the world to sort of stop and pay attention. Oh, wait. You're being kind. You're you're caring for people. You're doing this or that. What's what's the deal with you? And we saw last week that the theology behind what Peter is talking about here in terms of kindness, good works done for people that have nothing to offer us, that we're doing purely out of a desire to minister to them, causes people to stop and listen. And it did in the early church. We saw that in the first three centuries of the early church, the the the way that Christianity rocked the Roman Empire was not because they were great preachers or that they had all these amazing books to read. Most of them couldn't read. How did the early church rock the Roman Empire? Because they cared for widows and they cared for orphans and they cared for strangers. They cared for the people that the folks that go to the Aphrodite Temple and the Zeus Temple could care less about. That's who they cared about. And it caused the world to go, what is the deal with these Christians? And, again, the theology behind this, we saw last week, is that everybody is made in the image of God. And even a non Christian is an image bearer of God and wired by God for God and for seeing glimpses of God in the world around them. And we had a diagram, if you put that up a moment, that illustrates how this works and what Peter is getting at here. What is the common ground that the Christian and the non Christian have? It is this image bearing, the fact that we have a conscience within us. And in the world, even even in the world, these things are admired. Moral beauty, love, self sacrifice, compassion. These are all things that cause people in the world to go, you know what? That's good. Right? That's that's a good thing. And so in the world, if you're about, you know, stopping human trafficking or if you're into caring for children in crisis or something like that, even nonbelievers look at that and go, wow. That's really awesome that you're doing that. K? It's common ground that we have in the world. So with that said, let's build now on this a guide to gospel conversations. How do we do this? And the first thing that we see Peter saying here is that unbelievers observe something in us that they don't have. And you might say, is it our haircuts? Is it our clothes? Is it you know? No. That's silly. It's not those things. That's not what makes Christianity distinctive. It is hope. That's what Peter says. They come to us, and they ask us about the hope that we have. Now when is hope observable? When everything's great? No. I don't need hope when my life is fantastic and and everything's wonderful. We talked about this last week that part of our struggle is that we're all the time projecting to everybody else that we're fantastic, and everything's fantastic. And so, you know, we come to each other. We say, how are you doing? I'm doing awesome. How are you doing? I'm awesomer. Right? Everything's fantastic. I'm good. The kids are wonderful. It's like I'm living a panacea of wonderfulness all the time. And we project these kinds of everything's going great, and people can't relate to that. Because the reality in the world is that everything is not great. And there might be times where things seem to be, you know, okay and we're doing okay. But generally speaking, we are either entering a crisis or we just got out of one. And that's true in the unbelieving world. So that, yes, they can common ground is moral beauty. Common ground is is love and self sacrifice. But a huge common ground that we have with the people around us is pain and suffering. Christians have pain and suffering. Non Christians have pain and suffering. The difference is we have hope in the midst of it, which they don't have. So imagine with me, for example, first century, Asia Minor Christian Frank applies for membership in a, business society, business guild that was gonna help his business and build relationships and stuff like that. He applies for membership in it. The board of directors gets together and they say, I understand Frank's one of those Christians. Have you heard about these Christians? Yeah. They don't go to the Temple Of Aphrodite. They're not at the Temple Of Zeus. We don't want this guy in our guild. I say we deny him just because of that. They go, that's probably a good idea. We don't wanna associate with people like that. The board member goes to Frank and says, hey, you know what? You've got a fine business and things look good, but you're a Christian, so you're out. You can't or you're not in. We're not we're not accepting you. After sharing the news, Frank is surprisingly upbeat. The board member leaves thinking to himself, well, he took that quite well. What's up with Frank? First century Asia Minor Christian student Sally is at school. Everybody knows that her family does not worship the emperor and does not worship at Aphrodite's temple. Word gets out that maybe she's one of those Christians that people have heard about. The parents warn their kids, don't associate with Sally. The cool girls in the school, they are so ostracizing Sally, but they sense from Sally that Sally's kind of okay with it. Like, doesn't she know she should be upset that she's not sitting at our table? It's almost like her identity isn't found in what the cool girls think about her. And they don't know what to deal. How what's up with Sally? One more. You're like, well, he was really creative in his preparation this week. Yes, I was. First century Asia Minor Christian John is at the hospital. He's seeing the doctors. He's seeing the nurses. They're seeing him. He's one of a, you know, 100 patients that week. He's going through some health crisis, just like everybody else is. He doesn't wanna be in pain. He doesn't wanna be sick, just like everybody else doesn't wanna be sick. But they sense him, John, that he has something going on in the midst of that. Like he's talking about how he's praying for the doctor. He's praying for the nurse. And that, you know, he's very confident that that God is with him. And they the nurses sense in John something in the midst of his pain that they're all dealing with pain and stuff in their life that they're like, he's got something I don't got. And I wonder about John. Rich, poor, atheist, agnostic, religious person, educated, powerful, not, everybody suffers, don't we? Everybody goes through tragedy, don't we? We all have things that we deal with. And the difference that Peter is highlighting in verse 15 is that Christians go through these things with hope that the world doesn't have. But the world observes us having it and wants it as well, even though they don't know where it comes from. And they come to the hope demonstrating Christian and ask, where did you get that from? Where did you get that from? And that doesn't mean that we don't cry and we don't grieve and we don't do things Jesus himself did. It just means that in the midst of that, we have a kind of vertical hope and assurance in terms of God and His presence with us and His promises for us that the unbelieving world imagine, you know, if you've a Christian a long time, you sort of get used to that promises of God and assurance from God. The world goes through these things. They got nothing. I do funerals sometimes. You know, the funeral home will call and say, hey. Will you come over and do this funeral? And I'll I'll do the funeral of of family. I mean, there's no faith, and they're like, hey. Can we get this done soon? And you just get this sense that there's just it's just emptiness. Right? Or maybe they don't want it to get done. They stand at the casket and they're weaving. They don't want to close the door. Why? Because there's no hope of anything. Once that door once that casket goes closed, we never see that person ever again. And you just sense that. Right? Totally different than a Christian funeral that's filled with hope, the hope of the gospel, the hope of eternal life. And so Peter is bringing this up, and what I am urging us here is that we must live our faith out in the midst of our pain and be honest about it, or the world is never going to observe it in us. In other words, authenticity. Okay? Authenticity. A great place for that to start, of course, is in the church. And even in the church, we still sort of project this like, hey, I'm like it's like me and Billy Graham. We're just like amazing, godly, spiritual people. And we all know that's not true. It's not true for me. Is it true for you? So maybe authenticity let's start in the church and just being real with each other. But it must transfer into the world around us, which we're not good at, are we? But to be honest with our struggles or people are never going to realize the hope that is in us. Because the only time it's like hope's like the stars. When do you see the stars? It's never when the sun's up. It's when the sun goes down that you see the stars. Hope is never seen when life is fantastic all the time. It's when life stinks that suddenly hope becomes evident. So unbelievers must see the hope that we have, and the only way they see it is when we are real about the struggles that we have. Now all of this is assuming relationship with unbelievers, isn't it? We're gonna get into that in a little bit. But everybody knows what it's like when work is frustrating. Everybody can relate to a home and family and relationships that has conflict and strife. Everybody knows what it's like to have financial struggles. Everybody knows what it's like to suffer loss and hurt. Everybody knows what it's like to have such a crazy busy schedule. You feel like you're, you know, the the the not the rat. What's the the hamster on the wheel. Thank you. We all know what it's like to be discouraged. We all know what it's like to have doubts about life. And one of the most powerful witnesses that God's people have is when we go through those things, all of those same struggles, and yet we say and believe that there is good news found in Jesus Christ. And I have found Jesus to be a powerful help in the midst of my trial. Now we say, why is this so important? Here's why. And this is kind of part of what I'm saying here is I'm arguing against an approach to evangelism that just uses canned presentations. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about there. And there's a place for them. But when we just automatically go into robo evangelist with people that are going through you know, the person goes, you know, I'm my my I just found out my mom has cancer. And you're like, I'm gonna take you down the Romans Road. They're like, what? Are you talking to me? My mom's got cancer. And when we just do these canned gospel presentations, it doesn't connect the gospel with real life struggles. K? Let's go to Charleston right now. Why? Why is the world paying attention to Charleston? Absolute tragedy that happened, and that is evil and wrong in every way. K? But within a few days, we have we see some amazing good that has come from that as that church steps forward and says, we forgive the murderer. We forgive the murderer. Now the world sits up and goes, what? What'd you say? Because you're supposed to be, like, all about vengeance right now. You're supposed to, like, get a mob and go and and get the guy and just, you know, beat him to a pulp. You're supposed to be all, like, hateful and angry about this, but you're offering grace and forgiveness. I bet the church is overflowing today, don't you think? And some of them are going to be visitors who are thinking to themselves, if this church can forgive that guy, they've got something I don't have because I'm still dealing with what my dad did to me when I was growing up. I'm going show up here. Want see what this is about. And you see, it connects the gospel with real life. And that's what Peter is calling us to. K? To give an answer for the hope that is in us. Where have we got this hope? We have this hope by faith in Jesus and the promises of God becoming real to us by the Holy Spirit and trusting in a God who sent his Son. Romans eight thirty two, “if God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things?” If God gave me Jesus, he can give me what I need in this trial, and my hope is in him. That's the Christian response. And all of a sudden, the gospel hits home in pain and in trials and in suffering when they see how the hope is working in us and they ask us about it. K? So second thing Peter highlights here is the tone with which we speak. Again, look at verse fifteen and sixteen. Always ready to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you. Some people read that and they're like, that's right. We're arming for bear. Well, I'm going go into that. I'm going to out argue. I can out argue anybody about the gospel. I'm ready. Oh, just ask me about it. But then Peter adds this, yet do it with gentleness and respect. Gentleness and respect. Some of you can relate to this. I was raised in in the church and we were raised in a more confrontational style of evangelism, you know, where you sort of get the person by the throat metaphorically speaking and you just pound them with the gospel, and you hope the Holy Spirit saves them. And you have, you know, these answers for these questions. And there's a place for that. Don't get me wrong. But the vast majority of people, that's not our gig. Right? I don't even got no PhD in Christian apologetics. We're just normal people. Right? And so when we get all confrontational and high how do you respond when somebody, like, confronts you? It's like, oh, that's what you believe? Well, let me tell you a better way. And that person's like, wait. My mama believed this. My grandma believed this. And now you're gonna tell me this. And they get all what? Defensive. And how well do we listen when we're on the defense? Right? So Peter's like, hey, the tone with which you approach people is critical. Be gentle. Be meek. This is the sense that the other person gets as we're talking to them. Stay calm. Be kind. Listen. It endears the truth that we want to share with them. And you might be like, oh, no. That's not the way that Jesus did. Wait a second. What did he do with the woman at the well as an example of what I'm talking about? This woman was in sexual sin. Jesus knew it. And who's the only one who actually has the right to be sort of judgmental towards people? It would be Jesus. And yet does Jesus say, you're a sinner. Let's talk about sin, you know, and your sexual sin living with a man, divorce all these other guys, you're terrible. You need me. Is that what he said? No. What did he say? He talked to her in a way that drew her in. Right? He drew her in. He built rapport with her. She sensed that he cared about her. And when the whole conversation was done, what does she do? She runs into the village and says, come talk to this guy. This is amazing. That's a sign of a really good gospel conversation when they go into their town and say, everybody, come talk to this guy. I've never had that happen, but it would be wonderful if it did. Jesus had a tone of gentleness. And he says, secondly, and respect and respect. Greek word there is phobos. We get the word phobia from it. The scholars debate whether this is phobia respect for the other person or respect for God, probably for God, but I think it applies. When I have respect for God, I am respectful, you know, with other people. But the whole the point is, I think, similar to gentleness where there is a sense as I am doing this that I am I am respectful of the other person. I'm not an authority. Like, I'm not coming at this like I got all the answers and down with you. I'm not speaking down the mountain at people. I'm respecting their story. I'm respecting their life. I'm listening to them. They're listening to me. That's the kind of conversation that wins people's hearts, isn't it? Not victory all, not demeaning, not what's wrong with you because you don't believe this, not let me show you how smart I am with my answers, but a respectful conversation, a winsome one. So towards the goal of doing this, I have some tips. Those are just kind of a practical message. Right? I've got some tips for how to engage in gospel conversations or what I'm calling a lifestyle of evangelism. And here's the first one, is that we must be intentional. We must be intentional about this. There's a writer named Jonathan Dodson. I've learned most of these tips are from him, actually. I give him credit for it. But one of the things that he talks about in terms of intentionality is the fact that many, many Christians have no time for unbelievers. By the time I get done doing all my church activities and I get done all my work activities and my, you know, school activities, there's no margin for relationships with an unbeliever. Maybe if I could ask you, is that true for you? Do you have any intentional margin that you create to have and to build a relationship with somebody that doesn't know Jesus? Because right now, even as I'm talking to somebody, you're probably like, I got no time for this. I got no time for this. And yet, what has Jesus left us here to do? Why did why wasn't it instant rapture? You know, when you become a Christian, boop, up you go. Why are we still here? Is it so that we can, you know, work and do well? No. We're here to be a witness to Jesus Christ. Right? And to share the good news of Jesus with as many people as we possibly can. That's why we're here. And so this is partly a matter of prioritizing this and creating margin in our schedules so that we can have relationships with unbelievers. And frankly, I say that to myself as much as I say it to you. I just said to Jennifer recently, by the time I get done pastoring the church and all this stuff, I feel like I have little time for relationships with people that aren't a part of the church. I feel convicted about that. Maybe you can too. So some practical tips on how to create context for relationship where these things can happen. This is from Jonathan Dodson. Number one, eat with non Christians. What do we all have in common with unbelievers? We all like to eat, and we all eat three times a day. Some of us, more than that. So but I digress. Most people are willing to have lunch with a coworker or a neighbor or to grill out, you know, to barbecue with with a neighbor. You want come over for burgers? Most people are like, that sounds nice. And what does it also sound like? It sounds like friendship, doesn't it? See? Eat with non Christians. It's not like when you sit down and you go, okay. I'm gonna order, and now I take you down the Romans Road. You know? Be normal. Talk about stuff. You know? Maybe you have, you know, 10 of those before spiritual stuff comes up. Jesus did this. He Jesus used meals to build relationship with people. We see him doing it often in the gospels. Secondly, he says, walk, don't drive. Walk, don't drive. Is your neighborhood like mine where often it's like this? People, we live in houses. In the morning, the bridge of the moat goes up called a garage door. And we're in our cars, and we pull out. We're in our bubble. We drive through the neighborhood. We might wave, little wave there, little wave there, and off we go. And at night, we come home, still in our bubble, right? Maybe a wave, maybe a wave. The drawbridge goes up of the moat, the garage door. And we pull in, the bridge goes down of the moat, garage door goes down. And I can live in my neighborhood without any conversation, if I wanted to, without one conversation with anybody. And many people do that. Right? Many people do that. Christians shouldn't do that. Agreed? Who's the best neighbors in every neighborhood? It's the evangelical Christians, I hope. Right? So part of this we have to fight against is to he suggests walking. Okay? Walk around the neighborhood. Just walk. I would tell you, from based on my experience, get a stroller. It doesn't matter if there's a kid in there or not. Just have a stroller because a stroller is like it's like instant friendship. You know? Just like, oh, oh, oh, it's so cute. And, I mean, strangers at the mall suddenly are like your best friends if you have a stroller. But the walking point here is that it allows an opportunity to just meet people, to say hi, engage them in some way. Walk around your neighborhood. Somebody else I read suggested, you know, sit in front of your house, not behind your house. We typically want to sit in the backyard, you know, sort of isolate in our little cocoon. Sit on the driveway and have your little fire pit there and marshmallows and people that are walking by be like, hey, and, you know, front yard conversations. Third, be a regular. Be a regular. What this means is that if there's a coffee house you like, a cafe that you like, go to that one over and over again because then you get to know the waitstaff, and you get to know maybe the owner, and you get to know some of the other patrons there. And over time, you're able to build relationship. If you're always going to this one, that one, they don't know you, you don't know them, and nothing happens. So be a regular. Hobby with non Christians. Hobby with non Christians. Everybody's got hobbies, mutual points of interest. So if you like to fish, you know, and there's a dude who lives next to you and you're like, hey, most men can say this, want to go fishing? That's like male love language, isn't it? That's like that's like women saying, do you want to get a pedicure together? I mean, it's like, wow, I didn't know that we were that good of friends. We're going to fish together and then go fishing or, you know, watch the Bears game or whatever it is. You know, we all have these hobbies. And for men, a lot of those are kind of points of shared interest, hobby with them. Friendships can form over mutual interest. Here's another, volunteer with nonprofits. This is, again, it's a non kind of confrontational sort of way to engage people. If Habitat for Humanity is building a house in Gary and your neighbor's a kind of handyman, why don't you say, hey, you wanna spend three hours on Saturday and we'll go do this Habitat for Humanity thing? And you get to drive up and you get to do something together. And serving others might sort of tap a little meaning place in his heart. You never know what might come of that. Participate in city events. No matter what city you live in, all of them around here have cleaning days, and they've got sort of the corn fest or they got this, that, or the other. Be a part of that. Get your kids off the Xbox and go clean the city for three hours. And you're going to meet other people that care about the city, and they're a part of that, and they see you caring, and you can build relationships with people that you don't know. Here's a big one. Serve your neighbors. Serve your neighbors. Now the first part is assuming that you know their name. We live in a day where people live next to people that they don't know their name. And I'll be honest, it's not a very big circle around my house that I know people's names. So we say that to some measure of shame. But serve your neighbors. And this can be big and small ways. It can be, you know, blowing out the snow on the driveway, or it can be helping with raking the leaves, or it can be maybe a more meaningful thing if they're going through a crisis or a trial of some kind where you help them out in some way. All of those things communicate something that ought to be true in our hearts. Right? If we're called the second great command is to love our neighbor as ourself, it communicates what? Love. And love is a universal language of relationship. Help them out, especially in their times of crisis. It tears down defenses. My wife, Jennifer, is particularly good at this. She's got a little bit of an eye for it. And we recently we have a neighbor that's going through a terrible kind of long term kind of crisis. And so Jennifer fixed this feast for them. And we showed up on their doorstep unannounced, bags of food. And they opened the door and we're like, hey, we just know it's been a tough time. We brought this stuff for you. How do you think they responded to that? Slam the door. I told you look out for those neighbors. No. They were like, really? You know, in the church, that's more been more sort of normal, but in the world, people don't do that kind of thing. They're like, really? Come come on in. And so we stepped in and we got, you know, all the here's this and this gotta heat at 03:50 and here's the dessert and all that. And by the way, how's it going? And now in that kind of context of care, now the eyes fill with tears, and you we had a really special moment with them. Does it feel any different now when we are, like, waving in the morning? They're like Why? Because they're like, well, that's a house of people that care about us right there. How? Just serving them. Serve them. A little bit goes a really long way. Do you have a neighbor that you could serve in some practical way that might build rapport with them, might communicate that you care about them? So take a moment right now and just think through that list. Let me say them again. And maybe you can identify two things here, and we're going give you this list as you leave today, that maybe you could sort of renew involvement in mission work this way. Eat with non Christians. Walk, don't drive. Be a regular hobby with non Christians. Volunteer with nonprofits. Participate in city events. Serve your neighbors. The next tip I have, and I'm not going spend a lot of time on this, but, is this, is be a story listener. Be a story listener. Everybody has a story, and everybody's story is sacred to them. So too often, Christians, we we're like, oh, I've gotta be evangelistic. So now I'm again, I'm having lunch with you, and I'm gonna God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And I've got a little booklet here right here I'd like to take you through. Would you smile as I do it? Point number one, point number two, point number three. And they're sitting there eating their chips going, Am I buying a vacuum when this is done? What's going on? A great starting point with people is to simply ask their story. Ask their story. Everybody loves talking about themselves. Find out where they're from. Find out what kind of house they or home they grew up in, what their dad did, mom did, whatever. Find out their story. And as part of that, if you've built if you've, you know, vacuumed their house or blew out the snow or done whatever, they'll share the failures as well. And in those failures then, sort of that conversation moves to that kind of deeper level where now you're sort of communing together. Listen to it. Don't interrupt it and go, well, if Jesus was in your life right there, then this would have been the feeling you would have had. Don't do that. Why? Because we're not we're in here with gentleness and respect. We're not in here as know it alls. We're we're we're sinners too. Listen to their story. It tells them that you care about them, which, of course, is the key. And then after hearing their story, tell your story. Tell your story. And by that, I don't mean the how all your kids are wonderful and you were amazing in in high school and what a great athlete you were and, you know, how you're the best employee. Know, take out all the hubris, take out all the pride, and just be a real person and tell your story. And as part of telling that story, talk about the difference that Jesus has made in your life. Simply that. And don't get all sort of weird as you do it. Sometimes it feels that way, doesn't it, where you can talk about the college you went to, the school that you grew up in, but when you sort of if you say anything spiritual, it's like beads of sweat come down your face, and you know, it's it just weirds people out. Don't be awkward. Can I say it that way? Just be normal. Be normal. Tell your story. Now you might be like me and think, my story is boring, especially my faith story. Grew up in a Christian home, became a Christian when I was six, blah blah blah. I wanna encourage you that I doubt, for example, in Charleston right now, they care about when hope came to that church. They just care about how. Right? How? And this again is where I think the formula approach is unhelpful because the gospel is not a formula. It is a person. The gospel is Jesus. And if we are Christians here today, that means Jesus has transformed our lives. And yes, we go through trials, and yes, we go through troubles, and none of us is super Christian. But there is a reality to it that we feel in the midst of our sufferings, and we can share with other people who don't have that hope. Just talk about the difference your faith made with when you lost your job or the church or something like that that just kind of connects the gospel with real life, and people will listen to it. People will listen. And, of course, this assumes that hope is a reality in our own hearts. The Bible or the Bible, Spurgeon said, evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread. Maybe you've heard that before. But that assumes that the one beggar actually has found it. Tell them about that. Tell them about how, you know, your dad or that college friend or whatever it was introduced you to Jesus. Talk about him like he's as real as the wind. Talk about him as a real person. And the world will think, man, this is like real to you, isn't it? Yeah. It is real. It's made a real difference in my life. I kinda like that. I wish I had some of that hope in my heart. That's what they need to hear. So have it here first. Share it second. And finally, I would just simply say this, pray for people. Pray for your neighbors. Is there or your coworker. Is there is there anybody currently that you are actively praying for that God would allow you to be a part of them coming to know the Lord Jesus? Are you praying for anybody by name? Or how about in your neighborhood? As maybe you're having a time of prayer just to pray up for the two houses around you. You know? Pray for opportunities. Pray that God would help you be faithful to opportunities that he would provide. Pray for wisdom when they come. K? So be intentional. Be ready. Be winsome and gentle. Be real and authentic. Listen, and then speak and tell your story of hope in Jesus. And the world will listen, and we hope we'll come to believe in Christ as well. Right? And wouldn't that be a great day? Seeing them people being baptized, starting to disciple them, see them to sort of grow and experience the blessing that we have had in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we want. So I'm gonna ask you to stand with me right now, and let's just pray. Let's just pray this very truth. In fact, I'm gonna give you just a moment to pray for that person in your life. And maybe you gotta come up with a name real quick right now, but that'll be good. Why don't you pray for one person by name that is in your sphere of relationship and ask God to help you be a faithful witness to them. * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

Steve DeWitt A Guide to Gospel Conversations - Part A Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:16-17 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 3:16-17 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:16-17 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: A Guide to Gospel Conversations Airdate: 10/20 –10/21/26 Programs: 2382 and 2383 Well, I didn't know if I was going to be here today, and I am. So that means that we do not have a baby on the way. I checked my phone between services just to make sure that nothing had happened. But this is the week. So hopefully, we'll have a fun little announcement we'll share with you. I said to Jennifer, I hope she's not born on Father's Day because I want Father's Day to be about me, right? So if she could avoid Father's Day, that would be great. I said jokingly. But, yes. So we're, we're excited about a new addition to the family. We appreciate your prayers about that. We really do. I also wanted to give a little shout out to our Executive Director of Operations, Dave Harvey, who I think is in this service. It's his birthday today. And we have this is the guy that we assume so many things around here are operating right and working right in the facilities and all the different things. This is the guy that's managing all of that. I'm so thankful for Dave Harvey. And today is his birthday, and I think he's somewhere in here. So can we give him a one clap, happy birthday? I'm confusing some of you with that, but happy birthday, David Harvey. Okay. Today, we're we're this is a message it's kind of an application message, sort of a practical message coming out of last week's study in first Peter chapter three verse 15, this fairly well known passage about being ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us. And we're talking about the church as witness. We're talking about the church on mission. And so today, I wanna talk more practically about how do we engage people in gospel conversations. The assumption is that Christians will do this, but how do we do that? And so I've got some very practical tips today. We're gonna get into that. I'd like to read the text though again. And so let me begin reading first Peter chapter three verse 13, and please listen as I read God's word. “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them nor be troubled, but in your hearts, regard 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, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God’s will than for doing evil.” I came across this week a an ancient Chinese proverb that I'd like to share with you. It goes like this. Man stand for long time with mouth open before roast duck fly in. It just struck my funny my funny bone. Some of you are still pondering it, like, does that mean? A man will stand for a long time before a fully prepared and cooked duck will fly into his mouth. There's a truth in there. Right? What is it saying there? That you can sit back and just open your mouth and hope and think that what you're craving and what you're desiring is going to fly in, but you stayed a long time for roast duck to fly in. It doesn't happen. And our evangelism in the church often is like the Chinese man standing with his mouth open hoping the right thing flies in. And we miss the fact that while God is sovereign over salvation, he works through means to accomplish it. And the means by which he does this is the church, and specifically is the people in the church engaging in gospel conversations with unbelievers. That's the way that it happens. In fact, if you're a Christian here today, there was somebody in your life that engaged in some short or long term conversation with you that shared the gospel of Jesus with you, and you are a Christian as a result of it. And what happens often is somebody has that conversation with us, and then we turn into the Chinese man waiting for the roast duck to fly in. We sit back, we isolate, we're by ourselves, and we think, oh, some how this happens, I guess. When that's not how it happened for us. Somebody engaged us, and now we're called as Christians to engage other people in gospel conversations so that they can come to know the same Lord Jesus, the same hope that we have. And so that's where we're going today. It doesn't just happen. Roast ducks don't just fly in. How does it happen? And Peter is writing to Christians who, as we've said many times now in our series, they are in persecution. They are in crisis. They're in a place hostile to their faith. You might be in a tough time right now yourself. Maybe you're in some kind of season of trial in your life. And you're thinking to yourself, you know, this is a time really I might have to put ministry on the back burner. When in reality, this is prime time opportunity for you to give the reason for the hope that is in you. And that's where we're going here is how do we do that and when are what are the context within which and how do we cultivate those contexts so that we can have these kinds of conversations? Now Peter says first in verse 13 that lives of kindness and compassion lived out in the world earn the right for us to be heard. It causes the the world to sort of stop and pay attention. Oh, wait. You're being kind. You're you're caring for people. You're doing this or that. What's what's the deal with you? And we saw last week that the theology behind what Peter is talking about here in terms of kindness, good works done for people that have nothing to offer us, that we're doing purely out of a desire to minister to them, causes people to stop and listen. And it did in the early church. We saw that in the first three centuries of the early church, the the the way that Christianity rocked the Roman Empire was not because they were great preachers or that they had all these amazing books to read. Most of them couldn't read. How did the early church rock the Roman Empire? Because they cared for widows and they cared for orphans and they cared for strangers. They cared for the people that the folks that go to the Aphrodite Temple and the Zeus Temple could care less about. That's who they cared about. And it caused the world to go, what is the deal with these Christians? And, again, the theology behind this, we saw last week, is that everybody is made in the image of God. And even a non Christian is an image bearer of God and wired by God for God and for seeing glimpses of God in the world around them. And we had a diagram, if you put that up a moment, that illustrates how this works and what Peter is getting at here. What is the common ground that the Christian and the non Christian have? It is this image bearing, the fact that we have a conscience within us. And in the world, even even in the world, these things are admired. Moral beauty, love, self sacrifice, compassion. These are all things that cause people in the world to go, you know what? That's good. Right? That's that's a good thing. And so in the world, if you're about, you know, stopping human trafficking or if you're into caring for children in crisis or something like that, even nonbelievers look at that and go, wow. That's really awesome that you're doing that. K? It's common ground that we have in the world. So with that said, let's build now on this a guide to gospel conversations. How do we do this? And the first thing that we see Peter saying here is that unbelievers observe something in us that they don't have. And you might say, is it our haircuts? Is it our clothes? Is it you know? No. That's silly. It's not those things. That's not what makes Christianity distinctive. It is hope. That's what Peter says. They come to us, and they ask us about the hope that we have. Now when is hope observable? When everything's great? No. I don't need hope when my life is fantastic and and everything's wonderful. We talked about this last week that part of our struggle is that we're all the time projecting to everybody else that we're fantastic, and everything's fantastic. And so, you know, we come to each other. We say, how are you doing? I'm doing awesome. How are you doing? I'm awesomer. Right? Everything's fantastic. I'm good. The kids are wonderful. It's like I'm living a panacea of wonderfulness all the time. And we project these kinds of everything's going great, and people can't relate to that. Because the reality in the world is that everything is not great. And there might be times where things seem to be, you know, okay and we're doing okay. But generally speaking, we are either entering a crisis or we just got out of one. And that's true in the unbelieving world. So that, yes, they can common ground is moral beauty. Common ground is is love and self sacrifice. But a huge common ground that we have with the people around us is pain and suffering. Christians have pain and suffering. Non Christians have pain and suffering. The difference is we have hope in the midst of it, which they don't have. So imagine with me, for example, first century, Asia Minor Christian Frank applies for membership in a, business society, business guild that was gonna help his business and build relationships and stuff like that. He applies for membership in it. The board of directors gets together and they say, I understand Frank's one of those Christians. Have you heard about these Christians? Yeah. They don't go to the Temple Of Aphrodite. They're not at the Temple Of Zeus. We don't want this guy in our guild. I say we deny him just because of that. They go, that's probably a good idea. We don't wanna associate with people like that. The board member goes to Frank and says, hey, you know what? You've got a fine business and things look good, but you're a Christian, so you're out. You can't or you're not in. We're not we're not accepting you. After sharing the news, Frank is surprisingly upbeat. The board member leaves thinking to himself, well, he took that quite well. What's up with Frank? First century Asia Minor Christian student Sally is at school. Everybody knows that her family does not worship the emperor and does not worship at Aphrodite's temple. Word gets out that maybe she's one of those Christians that people have heard about. The parents warn their kids, don't associate with Sally. The cool girls in the school, they are so ostracizing Sally, but they sense from Sally that Sally's kind of okay with it. Like, doesn't she know she should be upset that she's not sitting at our table? It's almost like her identity isn't found in what the cool girls think about her. And they don't know what to deal. How what's up with Sally? One more. You're like, well, he was really creative in his preparation this week. Yes, I was. First century Asia Minor Christian John is at the hospital. He's seeing the doctors. He's seeing the nurses. They're seeing him. He's one of a, you know, 100 patients that week. He's going through some health crisis, just like everybody else is. He doesn't wanna be in pain. He doesn't wanna be sick, just like everybody else doesn't wanna be sick. But they sense him, John, that he has something going on in the midst of that. Like he's talking about how he's praying for the doctor. He's praying for the nurse. And that, you know, he's very confident that that God is with him. And they the nurses sense in John something in the midst of his pain that they're all dealing with pain and stuff in their life that they're like, he's got something I don't got. And I wonder about John. Rich, poor, atheist, agnostic, religious person, educated, powerful, not, everybody suffers, don't we? Everybody goes through tragedy, don't we? We all have things that we deal with. And the difference that Peter is highlighting in verse 15 is that Christians go through these things with hope that the world doesn't have. But the world observes us having it and wants it as well, even though they don't know where it comes from. And they come to the hope demonstrating Christian and ask, where did you get that from? Where did you get that from? And that doesn't mean that we don't cry and we don't grieve and we don't do things Jesus himself did. It just means that in the midst of that, we have a kind of vertical hope and assurance in terms of God and His presence with us and His promises for us that the unbelieving world imagine, you know, if you've a Christian a long time, you sort of get used to that promises of God and assurance from God. The world goes through these things. They got nothing. I do funerals sometimes. You know, the funeral home will call and say, hey. Will you come over and do this funeral? And I'll I'll do the funeral of of family. I mean, there's no faith, and they're like, hey. Can we get this done soon? And you just get this sense that there's just it's just emptiness. Right? Or maybe they don't want it to get done. They stand at the casket and they're weaving. They don't want to close the door. Why? Because there's no hope of anything. Once that door once that casket goes closed, we never see that person ever again. And you just sense that. Right? Totally different than a Christian funeral that's filled with hope, the hope of the gospel, the hope of eternal life. And so Peter is bringing this up, and what I am urging us here is that we must live our faith out in the midst of our pain and be honest about it, or the world is never going to observe it in us. In other words, authenticity. Okay? Authenticity. A great place for that to start, of course, is in the church. And even in the church, we still sort of project this like, hey, I'm like it's like me and Billy Graham. We're just like amazing, godly, spiritual people. And we all know that's not true. It's not true for me. Is it true for you? So maybe authenticity let's start in the church and just being real with each other. But it must transfer into the world around us, which we're not good at, are we? But to be honest with our struggles or people are never going to realize the hope that is in us. Because the only time it's like hope's like the stars. When do you see the stars? It's never when the sun's up. It's when the sun goes down that you see the stars. Hope is never seen when life is fantastic all the time. It's when life stinks that suddenly hope becomes evident. So unbelievers must see the hope that we have, and the only way they see it is when we are real about the struggles that we have. Now all of this is assuming relationship with unbelievers, isn't it? We're gonna get into that in a little bit. But everybody knows what it's like when work is frustrating. Everybody can relate to a home and family and relationships that has conflict and strife. Everybody knows what it's like to have financial struggles. Everybody knows what it's like to suffer loss and hurt. Everybody knows what it's like to have such a crazy busy schedule. You feel like you're, you know, the the the not the rat. What's the the hamster on the wheel. Thank you. We all know what it's like to be discouraged. We all know what it's like to have doubts about life. And one of the most powerful witnesses that God's people have is when we go through those things, all of those same struggles, and yet we say and believe that there is good news found in Jesus Christ. And I have found Jesus to be a powerful help in the midst of my trial. Now we say, why is this so important? Here's why. And this is kind of part of what I'm saying here is I'm arguing against an approach to evangelism that just uses canned presentations. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about there. And there's a place for them. But when we just automatically go into robo evangelist with people that are going through you know, the person goes, you know, I'm my my I just found out my mom has cancer. And you're like, I'm gonna take you down the Romans Road. They're like, what? Are you talking to me? My mom's got cancer. And when we just do these canned gospel presentations, it doesn't connect the gospel with real life struggles. K? Let's go to Charleston right now. Why? Why is the world paying attention to Charleston? Absolute tragedy that happened, and that is evil and wrong in every way. K? But within a few days, we have we see some amazing good that has come from that as that church steps forward and says, we forgive the murderer. We forgive the murderer. Now the world sits up and goes, what? What'd you say? Because you're supposed to be, like, all about vengeance right now. You're supposed to, like, get a mob and go and and get the guy and just, you know, beat him to a pulp. You're supposed to be all, like, hateful and angry about this, but you're offering grace and forgiveness. I bet the church is overflowing today, don't you think? And some of them are going to be visitors who are thinking to themselves, if this church can forgive that guy, they've got something I don't have because I'm still dealing with what my dad did to me when I was growing up. I'm going show up here. Want see what this is about. And you see, it connects the gospel with real life. And that's what Peter is calling us to. K? To give an answer for the hope that is in us. Where have we got this hope? We have this hope by faith in Jesus and the promises of God becoming real to us by the Holy Spirit and trusting in a God who sent his Son. Romans eight thirty two, “if God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things?” If God gave me Jesus, he can give me what I need in this trial, and my hope is in him. That's the Christian response. And all of a sudden, the gospel hits home in pain and in trials and in suffering when they see how the hope is working in us and they ask us about it. K? So second thing Peter highlights here is the tone with which we speak. Again, look at verse fifteen and sixteen. Always ready to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you. Some people read that and they're like, that's right. We're arming for bear. Well, I'm going go into that. I'm going to out argue. I can out argue anybody about the gospel. I'm ready. Oh, just ask me about it. But then Peter adds this, yet do it with gentleness and respect. Gentleness and respect. Some of you can relate to this. I was raised in in the church and we were raised in a more confrontational style of evangelism, you know, where you sort of get the person by the throat metaphorically speaking and you just pound them with the gospel, and you hope the Holy Spirit saves them. And you have, you know, these answers for these questions. And there's a place for that. Don't get me wrong. But the vast majority of people, that's not our gig. Right? I don't even got no PhD in Christian apologetics. We're just normal people. Right? And so when we get all confrontational and high how do you respond when somebody, like, confronts you? It's like, oh, that's what you believe? Well, let me tell you a better way. And that person's like, wait. My mama believed this. My grandma believed this. And now you're gonna tell me this. And they get all what? Defensive. And how well do we listen when we're on the defense? Right? So Peter's like, hey, the tone with which you approach people is critical. Be gentle. Be meek. This is the sense that the other person gets as we're talking to them. Stay calm. Be kind. Listen. It endears the truth that we want to share with them. And you might be like, oh, no. That's not the way that Jesus did. Wait a second. What did he do with the woman at the well as an example of what I'm talking about? This woman was in sexual sin. Jesus knew it. And who's the only one who actually has the right to be sort of judgmental towards people? It would be Jesus. And yet does Jesus say, you're a sinner. Let's talk about sin, you know, and your sexual sin living with a man, divorce all these other guys, you're terrible. You need me. Is that what he said? No. What did he say? He talked to her in a way that drew her in. Right? He drew her in. He built rapport with her. She sensed that he cared about her. And when the whole conversation was done, what does she do? She runs into the village and says, come talk to this guy. This is amazing. That's a sign of a really good gospel conversation when they go into their town and say, everybody, come talk to this guy. I've never had that happen, but it would be wonderful if it did. Jesus had a tone of gentleness. And he says, secondly, and respect and respect. Greek word there is phobos. We get the word phobia from it. The scholars debate whether this is phobia respect for the other person or respect for God, probably for God, but I think it applies. When I have respect for God, I am respectful, you know, with other people. But the whole the point is, I think, similar to gentleness where there is a sense as I am doing this that I am I am respectful of the other person. I'm not an authority. Like, I'm not coming at this like I got all the answers and down with you. I'm not speaking down the mountain at people. I'm respecting their story. I'm respecting their life. I'm listening to them. They're listening to me. That's the kind of conversation that wins people's hearts, isn't it? Not victory all, not demeaning, not what's wrong with you because you don't believe this, not let me show you how smart I am with my answers, but a respectful conversation, a winsome one. So towards the goal of doing this, I have some tips. Those are just kind of a practical message. Right? I've got some tips for how to engage in gospel conversations or what I'm calling a lifestyle of evangelism. And here's the first one, is that we must be intentional. We must be intentional about this. There's a writer named Jonathan Dodson. I've learned most of these tips are from him, actually. I give him credit for it. But one of the things that he talks about in terms of intentionality is the fact that many, many Christians have no time for unbelievers. By the time I get done doing all my church activities and I get done all my work activities and my, you know, school activities, there's no margin for relationships with an unbeliever. Maybe if I could ask you, is that true for you? Do you have any intentional margin that you create to have and to build a relationship with somebody that doesn't know Jesus? Because right now, even as I'm talking to somebody, you're probably like, I got no time for this. I got no time for this. And yet, what has Jesus left us here to do? Why did why wasn't it instant rapture? You know, when you become a Christian, boop, up you go. Why are we still here? Is it so that we can, you know, work and do well? No. We're here to be a witness to Jesus Christ. Right? And to share the good news of Jesus with as many people as we possibly can. That's why we're here. And so this is partly a matter of prioritizing this and creating margin in our schedules so that we can have relationships with unbelievers. And frankly, I say that to myself as much as I say it to you. I just said to Jennifer recently, by the time I get done pastoring the church and all this stuff, I feel like I have little time for relationships with people that aren't a part of the church. I feel convicted about that. Maybe you can too. So some practical tips on how to create context for relationship where these things can happen. This is from Jonathan Dodson. Number one, eat with non Christians. What do we all have in common with unbelievers? We all like to eat, and we all eat three times a day. Some of us, more than that. So but I digress. Most people are willing to have lunch with a coworker or a neighbor or to grill out, you know, to barbecue with with a neighbor. You want come over for burgers? Most people are like, that sounds nice. And what does it also sound like? It sounds like friendship, doesn't it? See? Eat with non Christians. It's not like when you sit down and you go, okay. I'm gonna order, and now I take you down the Romans Road. You know? Be normal. Talk about stuff. You know? Maybe you have, you know, 10 of those before spiritual stuff comes up. Jesus did this. He Jesus used meals to build relationship with people. We see him doing it often in the gospels. Secondly, he says, walk, don't drive. Walk, don't drive. Is your neighborhood like mine where often it's like this? People, we live in houses. In the morning, the bridge of the moat goes up called a garage door. And we're in our cars, and we pull out. We're in our bubble. We drive through the neighborhood. We might wave, little wave there, little wave there, and off we go. And at night, we come home, still in our bubble, right? Maybe a wave, maybe a wave. The drawbridge goes up of the moat, the garage door. And we pull in, the bridge goes down of the moat, garage door goes down. And I can live in my neighborhood without any conversation, if I wanted to, without one conversation with anybody. And many people do that. Right? Many people do that. Christians shouldn't do that. Agreed? Who's the best neighbors in every neighborhood? It's the evangelical Christians, I hope. Right? So part of this we have to fight against is to he suggests walking. Okay? Walk around the neighborhood. Just walk. I would tell you, from based on my experience, get a stroller. It doesn't matter if there's a kid in there or not. Just have a stroller because a stroller is like it's like instant friendship. You know? Just like, oh, oh, oh, it's so cute. And, I mean, strangers at the mall suddenly are like your best friends if you have a stroller. But the walking point here is that it allows an opportunity to just meet people, to say hi, engage them in some way. Walk around your neighborhood. Somebody else I read suggested, you know, sit in front of your house, not behind your house. We typically want to sit in the backyard, you know, sort of isolate in our little cocoon. Sit on the driveway and have your little fire pit there and marshmallows and people that are walking by be like, hey, and, you know, front yard conversations. Third, be a regular. Be a regular. What this means is that if there's a coffee house you like, a cafe that you like, go to that one over and over again because then you get to know the waitstaff, and you get to know maybe the owner, and you get to know some of the other patrons there. And over time, you're able to build relationship. If you're always going to this one, that one, they don't know you, you don't know them, and nothing happens. So be a regular. Hobby with non Christians. Hobby with non Christians. Everybody's got hobbies, mutual points of interest. So if you like to fish, you know, and there's a dude who lives next to you and you're like, hey, most men can say this, want to go fishing? That's like male love language, isn't it? That's like that's like women saying, do you want to get a pedicure together? I mean, it's like, wow, I didn't know that we were that good of friends. We're going to fish together and then go fishing or, you know, watch the Bears game or whatever it is. You know, we all have these hobbies. And for men, a lot of those are kind of points of shared interest, hobby with them. Friendships can form over mutual interest. Here's another, volunteer with nonprofits. This is, again, it's a non kind of confrontational sort of way to engage people. If Habitat for Humanity is building a house in Gary and your neighbor's a kind of handyman, why don't you say, hey, you wanna spend three hours on Saturday and we'll go do this Habitat for Humanity thing? And you get to drive up and you get to do something together. And serving others might sort of tap a little meaning place in his heart. You never know what might come of that. Participate in city events. No matter what city you live in, all of them around here have cleaning days, and they've got sort of the corn fest or they got this, that, or the other. Be a part of that. Get your kids off the Xbox and go clean the city for three hours. And you're going to meet other people that care about the city, and they're a part of that, and they see you caring, and you can build relationships with people that you don't know. Here's a big one. Serve your neighbors. Serve your neighbors. Now the first part is assuming that you know their name. We live in a day where people live next to people that they don't know their name. And I'll be honest, it's not a very big circle around my house that I know people's names. So we say that to some measure of shame. But serve your neighbors. And this can be big and small ways. It can be, you know, blowing out the snow on the driveway, or it can be helping with raking the leaves, or it can be maybe a more meaningful thing if they're going through a crisis or a trial of some kind where you help them out in some way. All of those things communicate something that ought to be true in our hearts. Right? If we're called the second great command is to love our neighbor as ourself, it communicates what? Love. And love is a universal language of relationship. Help them out, especially in their times of crisis. It tears down defenses. My wife, Jennifer, is particularly good at this. She's got a little bit of an eye for it. And we recently we have a neighbor that's going through a terrible kind of long term kind of crisis. And so Jennifer fixed this feast for them. And we showed up on their doorstep unannounced, bags of food. And they opened the door and we're like, hey, we just know it's been a tough time. We brought this stuff for you. How do you think they responded to that? Slam the door. I told you look out for those neighbors. No. They were like, really? You know, in the church, that's more been more sort of normal, but in the world, people don't do that kind of thing. They're like, really? Come come on in. And so we stepped in and we got, you know, all the here's this and this gotta heat at 03:50 and here's the dessert and all that. And by the way, how's it going? And now in that kind of context of care, now the eyes fill with tears, and you we had a really special moment with them. Does it feel any different now when we are, like, waving in the morning? They're like Why? Because they're like, well, that's a house of people that care about us right there. How? Just serving them. Serve them. A little bit goes a really long way. Do you have a neighbor that you could serve in some practical way that might build rapport with them, might communicate that you care about them? So take a moment right now and just think through that list. Let me say them again. And maybe you can identify two things here, and we're going give you this list as you leave today, that maybe you could sort of renew involvement in mission work this way. Eat with non Christians. Walk, don't drive. Be a regular hobby with non Christians. Volunteer with nonprofits. Participate in city events. Serve your neighbors. The next tip I have, and I'm not going spend a lot of time on this, but, is this, is be a story listener. Be a story listener. Everybody has a story, and everybody's story is sacred to them. So too often, Christians, we we're like, oh, I've gotta be evangelistic. So now I'm again, I'm having lunch with you, and I'm gonna God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And I've got a little booklet here right here I'd like to take you through. Would you smile as I do it? Point number one, point number two, point number three. And they're sitting there eating their chips going, Am I buying a vacuum when this is done? What's going on? A great starting point with people is to simply ask their story. Ask their story. Everybody loves talking about themselves. Find out where they're from. Find out what kind of house they or home they grew up in, what their dad did, mom did, whatever. Find out their story. And as part of that, if you've built if you've, you know, vacuumed their house or blew out the snow or done whatever, they'll share the failures as well. And in those failures then, sort of that conversation moves to that kind of deeper level where now you're sort of communing together. Listen to it. Don't interrupt it and go, well, if Jesus was in your life right there, then this would have been the feeling you would have had. Don't do that. Why? Because we're not we're in here with gentleness and respect. We're not in here as know it alls. We're we're we're sinners too. Listen to their story. It tells them that you care about them, which, of course, is the key. And then after hearing their story, tell your story. Tell your story. And by that, I don't mean the how all your kids are wonderful and you were amazing in in high school and what a great athlete you were and, you know, how you're the best employee. Know, take out all the hubris, take out all the pride, and just be a real person and tell your story. And as part of telling that story, talk about the difference that Jesus has made in your life. Simply that. And don't get all sort of weird as you do it. Sometimes it feels that way, doesn't it, where you can talk about the college you went to, the school that you grew up in, but when you sort of if you say anything spiritual, it's like beads of sweat come down your face, and you know, it's it just weirds people out. Don't be awkward. Can I say it that way? Just be normal. Be normal. Tell your story. Now you might be like me and think, my story is boring, especially my faith story. Grew up in a Christian home, became a Christian when I was six, blah blah blah. I wanna encourage you that I doubt, for example, in Charleston right now, they care about when hope came to that church. They just care about how. Right? How? And this again is where I think the formula approach is unhelpful because the gospel is not a formula. It is a person. The gospel is Jesus. And if we are Christians here today, that means Jesus has transformed our lives. And yes, we go through trials, and yes, we go through troubles, and none of us is super Christian. But there is a reality to it that we feel in the midst of our sufferings, and we can share with other people who don't have that hope. Just talk about the difference your faith made with when you lost your job or the church or something like that that just kind of connects the gospel with real life, and people will listen to it. People will listen. And, of course, this assumes that hope is a reality in our own hearts. The Bible or the Bible, Spurgeon said, evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread. Maybe you've heard that before. But that assumes that the one beggar actually has found it. Tell them about that. Tell them about how, you know, your dad or that college friend or whatever it was introduced you to Jesus. Talk about him like he's as real as the wind. Talk about him as a real person. And the world will think, man, this is like real to you, isn't it? Yeah. It is real. It's made a real difference in my life. I kinda like that. I wish I had some of that hope in my heart. That's what they need to hear. So have it here first. Share it second. And finally, I would just simply say this, pray for people. Pray for your neighbors. Is there or your coworker. Is there is there anybody currently that you are actively praying for that God would allow you to be a part of them coming to know the Lord Jesus? Are you praying for anybody by name? Or how about in your neighborhood? As maybe you're having a time of prayer just to pray up for the two houses around you. You know? Pray for opportunities. Pray that God would help you be faithful to opportunities that he would provide. Pray for wisdom when they come. K? So be intentional. Be ready. Be winsome and gentle. Be real and authentic. Listen, and then speak and tell your story of hope in Jesus. And the world will listen, and we hope we'll come to believe in Christ as well. Right? And wouldn't that be a great day? Seeing them people being baptized, starting to disciple them, see them to sort of grow and experience the blessing that we have had in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we want. So I'm gonna ask you to stand with me right now, and let's just pray. Let's just pray this very truth. In fact, I'm gonna give you just a moment to pray for that person in your life. And maybe you gotta come up with a name real quick right now, but that'll be good. Why don't you pray for one person by name that is in your sphere of relationship and ask God to help you be a faithful witness to them. * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

Steve DeWitt Living "Questionably" and Answering Hopefully - Part B Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:13-17 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 3:13-17 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:13-17 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: Living Questionably and Answering Hopefully Airdate: 10/16 and 10/19/26 Programs: 2380 and 2381 Well, good morning again, and hello, Cedar Lake campus, Hope Portage campus this morning. I, last weekend, had the joy of speaking, ministering at one of our former associate pastor's churches. He is Jeremy Carr, who is the senior pastor now in North Des Moines at Johnston E. Free Church. And so I was able to go and to see his ministry there. He's been there about a year now, and God's blessing, and they seem to be doing super great. So it was great to to be with them. I also understand while I was gone that we had a special offering last weekend to help meet needs in Nepal with the earthquake victims as well as some of the needs that we have with our facilities here. When I say here, mean at our Gary campus and at HP and at Cedar Lake with some of our facilities we use for primarily youth ministry and student ministry, our gymnasiums that we have. And I just was encouraged. We had an offering last weekend, second offering, kind of like lunch money, people throwing it in, of $13,500 that came in for that, which is really great. And if you're an old sports guy, you love sports, and maybe you have a heart for young people and all that, I'm sure you could still throw money in the offering towards that. And we'd find a way to apply that to some of the things that we need and probably still will need in those facilities. But thank you, everybody, for being a part of that. And that's pretty exciting for me because I'm one of those old sports guys. And I'd love to see our facilities be able to minister through athletics to primarily young people. Well, my title today kind of gives away the whole sermon, frankly. Here's my title: Living Questionably and Answering Hopefully. Now I could just stop and say, amen, amen, let's go home, because that's basically all that I'm going to say today. And some of you are excited right now. Like, wow, we're going to get out of here early today. The problem is most of us would leave having no idea what that means. And that's really what lies before us here is, like, what does that mean? What does it mean to live lives that are questionable and give answers that are filled with hope? And what does that have to do with really God's entire plan for the fulfilling of the great commission? It is a summary of first Peter three verse 15. If you went to Moody Bible Institute and say, I'm gonna take a class on evangelism, this might be the very first verse that you would memorize. If you have ever read a book on Christian apologetics, this verse always talked about. So this is one of these verses that that that stands out in a unique category and is often referred to when it comes to the whole matter of how we represent our faith, how we even share our faith. What does it mean to live Christianly and to speak Christianly in a hostile environment around us? And so we have this verse about bold, fearless witness. And who's the writer of it? Ironically, Peter, the most famous coward in all of the Bible. But I'll get into that in a moment. So let me read the text. And so follow along, please, if you have your Bibles. I think we have it on the screens as well. Here's what Peter writes beginning in verse now 13. “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them nor be troubled. 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, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.” Now if that language sounds familiar, it means that you've been dialed in in this entire series in first Peter because he is repeating what he has said here over and over again, of in different contexts. But basically, this same point. Christian, how do we live in a hostile environment? How do you how do you represent Jesus when the world around you looks down on that? You live lives of moral and spiritually observable beauty that causes the people around you to think maybe there's something to this Christianity. That's the whole point really of first Peter. And you do that primarily in your persecution and in your suffering. Now he has already said that as it relates, for example, the beginning of this chapter to Christian wives who are married to unbelieving husbands. What are they supposed to do? They are to by their moral behavior and their the beauty of their life, he says, to win their husbands over without a word. K? We talked about that. He talked about it with slaves, with their owners with their owners, and he's talked about it with Christian citizens as it relates to the government. And it's the same kind of point that he is trying to pound home. And I think we need to hear that it is our lives that speak about the truth of the claims that we make regarding Jesus being the Savior of the world and the person that will transform your life into one of hope and one of of of moral beauty and one that will live forever with eternal life. So what I wanna do today, since some of this is repeat, I wanna focus in on what is is unique that we have not seen so far, and that primarily is in verse 15. Again, I'll just read it. “In your hearts, Christ the Lord is holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” So we find these threads being weaved here regarding the implications and the applications of living a life of love and of goodness to others that even an unbelieving world can't deny. But he is saying something unique here because he gets at what I think is really our big obstacle in doing this. What's the biggest thing that all of us struggle with when it comes to somehow identifying ourselves with other people as Christians? I would submit to you, the biggest thing we struggle with is fear. Right? Fear. We are afraid of something. Maybe you know how this works. Let me just walk you through it, see if you can relate to this. You're at work. You're in some context, and you're having a conversation with your neighbor, your coworker, your family member, doesn't matter what it is. They'll say it's at work, it's coworker. And you're having a conversation, you're talking about the Blackhawks game last night. And you're like, yeah, in the second in the second period, did you see the and then did did you notice that? And yeah. He's like, yeah, man. That was awesome. And, yeah, it's just smooth. It's natural. You're having a great conversation. And then somehow, you say, well, how did the weekend go? Oh, my daughter. You know, she's dealing with that chronic illness. And my wife and I, we just oh, we're so devastated. We're just wondering what, like, what's this all about? And in that moment, there is a frog that resides down here. And in that moment, it goes ribbit right to the throat. Right? And now in your throat, there is something that with the Blackhawks or with whatever else it was, your garden, natural conversation, all of a sudden now, in the moment where the door swings wide open, Right? Because that person is sharing something very personal to them, something down on the heart level, down on the soul level. They're hurting. They're in pain. They're looking for what? Hope. They're looking for hope. But in their worldview, atheist, secular, agnostic, whatever it is, there is no hope. There is no confidence about anything in the future. Everything's random. Everything you just don't know what's gonna happen. They want hope. And the door swings wide open in that moment. And in your throat, there's ribbit, ribbit. And you're like, buddy. And something in you is going, tell them your story about when your daughter was sick. Tell them your story. When your mom had cancer, tell them your story of how you went through that terrible thing in your marriage. But your throat's going ribbit ribbit ribbit. And all we can sometimes get out in that moment is like, I pray for you. Oh, look at the time. I gotta go. And off we scamper. And that person who in that gospel moment of heart level kind of interaction is left hopeless. Can you relate to that? What is it about those moments that we get all clunky? Right? We are eloquent with the gardening and clunky with Jesus. What is it? And I believe Peter is putting his finger down on the heart of the issue that we have, so many of us have, when it comes to this. We are stupid, if I can use that word. Children, don't use it. But we're we're spiritually stupid. Why are we being stupid? Because there is something inside of us that is assessing whether or not this person's opinion of me is going to rise or fall dependent on what I dare share with them about the hope that I have in Jesus. And you might say, no, it's not that. I haven't completed my PhD in apologetics yet. And so until I get that done, I don't think God wants me to say nothing, and I'm just gonna stay silent until I have the diploma on the wall. Or you might say, well, yes, but I'm that's not my gift. I'm more called to a serving ministry. So I'm gonna mow his yard for him. But I'm not gonna tell him about the hope that I have found in the Lord Jesus Christ. This fear, Peter addresses in verse 13 by saying, now who is there that is going to harm you if you are zealous for doing what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. In other words, when we do what God has called us to do, when and that can be in word or in deed, but as we are kind of living out loud this Gospel that we believe, sing, treasure, he says those kinds of activities generally are not going to have people saying to you, you're an evil person. There there are generally good things that we are doing, helping other people, showing care and concern that in the world is not so evident. But he says, but even if let's just say that the opinion of that person goes down on you because you say something spiritual in that moment. He says, you'll be blessed by it. Blessed by who? Class. God himself. God himself. There's a promise there. I've never heard anybody say, those Christians are so evil with all their feeding of the poor and the caring of the orphans. May the world be rid of them. People don't say that. In fact, if you look at the first three centuries of the church. K? So this is prior to basically, in in church history, deciding moment is in the the early fourth century when Constantine, the emperor of Rome, himself becomes a Christian and then legalizes Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. Big moment. Because up to that point, Christianity was largely hated and Christians were viewed extremely suspiciously and terrible persecution. Read Fox's Book of Martyrs as an example of the terrible things that were done to the early Christians. So prior to Constantine's conversion, if you look at that those three centuries, it's a interesting time to see how the church was the church when everybody hated them. And here is what one Christian apologist writing actually in the first century in the city of Athens writes about he writes to emperor Hadrian, emperor of Rome, about Christians. Here's how he describes them. They love one another. They never fail to help widows. They save orphans from those who would hurt them. If they had something, they if they have had something, they give freely to the man who has nothing. If they see a stranger, they take him home and are happy as though he were a real brother. First century people like you and me believing in Jesus. What did that look like for them? It looked like that. Not perfectly. They were sinners like we are. But generally, that's kind of the ethos of the first century church. Now let me ask you a question. When Hadrian gets this letter from this guy named Aristides, what does he think about these Christians that he's heard about when he hears about their care for the orphans and that they're always taking people home that are strangers and they love, care, and meet the needs of of the widows? What does he think in his mind? Does he think to himself, these people are really bad people. We've gotta get them out of the empire. Or in spite of what he had heard about Christians, when he hears about the way they conducted themselves, what did it do in Hadrian's heart? I'm saying to you, it created curiosity. It created curiosity. What are these people all about? I know they claim there's only one God. They deny Zeus. But what's their deal? Because they're like about things that don't know anybody else is doing that kind of stuff. And that is the power and was the power in the first century, in the first three centuries, of people like you and me taking the love that God has showed into our hearts, shined into our hearts, and expressing it in ways that were observable in the world around them. It said something powerful to people. It made them wonder what is the deal with these people. And the if you're saying, well, what's the theology behind it? Here's the theology behind that curiosity. It is known as the Imago Dei, the image of God. And the Bible tells us that when God made man Adam and Eve back in the garden, Genesis one, Genesis two, that when he made Adam and Eve, he made us, all of humanity, different than anything else in the entire galaxy. He placed within us this spiritual, soulish capacity. Right? We are spiritual beings. And in that spiritual place, he placed his image, likeness, his morality or sense of it, a sense of right and wrong, good and evil kind of a thing. Everybody has that. There is something innate within a human being that knows when something is good generally and when something is wrong. It's the Imago Dei. The fall happens. Right? Mankind falls into sin, but we retain, the Bible calls this, Paul calls it in Romans, the conscience. We all have a conscience, and that is the theology behind what he is getting at here. And it is a powerful help for us when we are trying to evangelize is that there are we know that that other person is made in the image of this God and has a sensibility about them, broken, dulled, fallen, but it's still there. As John Stott said, in all evangelism, I find it a constant encouragement to say to myself, the other person's conscience is on my side. I like that. And so this is the mantra of Peter throughout the entire letter is do you realize that you we, Christians, have an ace in the hole when it comes to buttressing the claims that we have about Jesus, and it is our lives and the kinds of things that we care about. And the world sees that, and they wonder. I drew up a diagram just to illustrate this. Maybe this will help. If you think about what is the common ground between an unbeliever, a non Christian, and and a and a Christian. Because there I mean, we're a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come, Paul writes. But we still have shared common ground. This is this is the place that we can speak the language that even a non Christian can understand. And you notice that non Christian and Christians made in the image of God. We all have a conscience. Right? And it is in this category that moral beauty and love and self sacrifice and compassion, these things speak to the non Christian in a way that bypasses their mental defenses against Christianity, and it gets right down to the heart, right down to where the gospel speaks first. And Peter says, leverage that. Don't be afraid of them. If they look down on you, you're blessed anyway. Rather, leverage the normal Christian expression of love and good works in this world, which Paul writes that we were ordained before time began to do. Leverage those things. Do them in observable ways so that the world around you wonders inside what's up with them. What is up with them? What is their deal? It's true for the unbelieving husband toward his Christian wife, the unbelieving employer towards his Christian employee, the whatever unbeliever toward whatever Christian whose lifestyle shows Christian love and moral beauty. And that's why Peter writes in verse 14, “have no fear of them nor be troubled. But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason of the hope that is in you.” K? Now I just wanna point out to you, there's tremendous irony here in this passage about bold witness and not being afraid. Again, who's writing this? Peter. Right? What do we know about Peter in the story, in his own story? We go all the way back to the Garden of Gethsemane. Here come the Roman soldiers way back. Actually, we go to the upper room, don't we? They're in the upper room. Peter says to Jesus, though every other disciple here leaves you, I will never leave you. Hubris pride. Right? I will never leave you. And what does Jesus say? Before the cock crowed, you're gonna deny me three times. Peter's like, no. I would never do that. Well, within a few hours, he's running away from the Roman mob that came to arrest Jesus. And shortly after that, he is right there in the courtyard. And who does Peter who is Peter afraid of? And you might say, it was the Roman legion or he they had a point of a spear in front of him, and so maybe we can give him grace. No. It was a little girl. Excuse me? Aren't you one of Jesus' disciples? And Peter's like, woah. No. No. I never knew the man. Right? He's the most famous coward in the whole New Testament. He's the guy that's writing this. Now if we go ahead in the story a little bit, what do we find? After Peter's conversion, after the Spirit comes at Pentecost, right away now, there is this dramatic change with these disciples. The same guys that ran away in the Garden of Gethsemane now are standing up to not only the Romans, but also the Jewish authorities that had put Jesus to death just days before. And they haul Peter in front of the whole Sanhedrin, and they command him not to preach this message anymore. And what does Peter say? “We must obey God rather than men.” Wait. Aren't you the aren't you the same guy that like, the little girl? Isn't that you? And, of course, it is. And so we have in front of us somebody who knows something about going from being afraid and living by fear to living boldly as a testimony to Jesus Christ. This is a man that knows how to go from A to B, which ought to be encouraging, I think, for us because I would suspect that there's a lot of people still living in A. And we look at B, which is the boldness bold witness, and we think, I could never do that. I can never be that way. And yet Peter, by the Spirit of God and the work of God in his life, becomes a bold witness and exhorts the church not to be like him in the garden, but to be like him in front of the Sanhedrin. But how do we get there? Like, what's the key to go from living as a Christian according to fear to living as a Christian boldly and by faith? And I think Peter gives us the absolute key in verse 15. Look again. Don't be afraid of them. Rather, in your hearts, Christ the Lord as holy. Notice he doesn't say get out your apologetics books and get an answer to every question they might throw at you. He doesn't say get your educational degree. He doesn't say go into hiding. Rather, it does so it it doesn't start here. So many people think, for me to be a faithful witness, I've got to have it right here. No. That is not the key. It's not here. It's right here is the issue. Who is Lord of your heart? Or to say it in this context, whose opinion do you care the most about? Really? Now we sing songs about the majesty of Jesus, and we talk about it's all about him, and we sing about the glory of God and all of that. But when I'm talking Blackhawks with a guy who shares with me that his child has is suffering a terrible disease, and they're wondering what to think about all of it, and the frog rivets in my throat, what does that say about who I'm really caring about? And Peter says, settle the matter, Christian. Who is Lord of your heart? And you place Jesus Christ and his opinion right on that throne. And allow the boldness that comes from carrying only what he thinks to shape the way that you live your life. So when you're talking to the little girl in the courtyard, you're not ribbit, ribbit, ribbit. I wrote this sentence. Thought it was so good. Want to read it. The frog rivets in our throats because fear of man resides in our hearts. That's the bottom line. Right? Proverbs says “the fear of man is a snare.” It's a snare. How do we overcome it? I believe it's by consciously committing, like like deciding in my heart, in my life, I want Jesus and his opinion to rule the day. And when Christ is squarely exalted and treasured in that place, really frankly, it's just the application of what we believe, isn't it? Like, if right now we had the eyes to see, isn't it true that right now there is a throne? It's the highest throne in heaven. And Jesus is alive. Holes in his hands and in his feet, glorified body, glory radiating from him, the infinite glory of the Son of God. He is sitting right there at the right hand of God. Do you believe that? And that right now if we had ears to hear, we would hear the echoing, rejoicing song of innumerable air angels and seraphim and cherubim singing glory to Jesus. Do you believe that? And if we truly could see into that place, we would see the high and holy and exalted place that Jesus is. And if we could truly understand that and see that, which we believe it to be true, but if we could see and hear and grapple with that, and there he is. He's my Lord Jesus. I worship you more than anything else. You're at the you're on the throne of my heart. Now I'm talking Blackhawks with the guy who's like three cubicles over in the office. How afraid of his opinion am I when it comes to sharing hope, the only hope there is in this world? See? Do you see that? The higher he is, the lower the opinion of man. Bonhoeffer said it this way, those who are afraid of men have no fear of God, and those who fear God have no fear of men. So can I ask you, Bethel Church, and you individually, who really is Lord in your heart? Really? Whose opinion do you really care about? Now I'll confess to you, I get this. Right? I get this. I talk spiritual things. This is like what I do for a living. Right? So you might say, well, if we walked around with pastor Steve all the time, it'd be like, you know, amazing. Right? Because you just talk Jesus everywhere you go. It's just natural for you. It's not natural for me. When I sit on an airport and and frankly, I have some advantage over most of you. Because when I'm on the airplane or meeting somebody at the golf course or whatever, you know, what's your name? First question. Second question, what do you do? Right? So on the airplane, when the person said, so what do you do for a living? And I say, I pastor a church. They're like, oh, okay. And right away, either that's a major turn off or it becomes a counseling session right away in that moment. So you like, okay. I went through a divorce three years ago, and then on it goes. Right? And in my heart, it's not like, you know, frankly, honestly, this is the sinful heart. Sometimes I just wanna read my book that I brought with me, and now I have a two hour counseling session with this with and and even in that time, it's my mind is grappling. What do I share? What do I say? So it's I'm just being honest with you. I'm not up here condemning anybody here. I say this to myself. I got the frog ribbiting in my throat plenty. So what do we do? How do we handle this? And I think Peter is just laying out a simple approach to lifestyle evangelism here. Notice again, number one, we live a lifestyle of normal Christian love and others' orientation. In your neighborhood, are you one of the neighbors that all the other neighbors know when they're gone on vacation, you'll pull their trash bin back? Right? Or if they have some little need or something, you're the are you a conduit in your neighborhood, in your school, in your workplace? Are you are are you somebody that people sense they sort of care about me? That's normal Christianity, isn't it? What are we called to do? Love one another. Right? Love one another. So I'm not spending a lot of time on this, but we we live the normal expected Christian life. We just live that kind of change that Jesus makes in our hearts that turns us from being self centered and self obsessed to a approach where we're caring for people, engaging people. We hold high, secondly, Jesus. He is on the throne of our hearts above the opinion of anybody else. I want His approval more than I care about the guy three cubicles down from me. So I'm free now. Right? I'm free because I'm living hopefully in a way that pleases the Lord. Third, keep your gospel bags packed. Here's what it says. Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Keep your gospel bags packed. You're thinking, does that mean? Well, it's just what came to my mind as an illustration of this because we're like eight days from delivery roughly. My wife is expecting our second child. And these kids, they don't tell you when they're coming, right? So about three weeks ago, realizing that we were entering the danger zone, we got ready. Now my wife's been getting ready for, like, months. Our house right now, we should sell it. It's like a showpiece. Right? She has cleaned everything. The nest is ready. Right? There's something to that whole female nesting thing. There really is. So she's been getting ready for but the last couple of weeks, we've been, like, really dialing it in. And if you were to go into our bedroom right now, you would see that we have you know, the the luggage is there. The bags are packed. In the in the bag is the clothes that we might need, little snacks, any little, you know, toiletries, any doodads, whatever. It's all there. It's all ready to go. And the reason for that is that we don't know when this baby is showing up. So we gotta be ready just in case. Because when she goes, ah, I'm getting the bag, we're getting in the van, and off we go to the hospital. I have found in my life the opportunities that I have to share in the world rarely come at unexpected times. They come at unexpected times. Okay? Now if your neighbors are like, okay, in three weeks, I'm going to ask you a very soulish question about pain in my life, you could be like, okay, I'm going to get ready for it, right? And you show up, you got your notes and okay, point number one, point number two, point number three. They never do that, right? It's that meeting them on the way to the mailbox moment or happen to sit next to you in the lunchroom at work kind of moment where all of a sudden now this door swings wide open. Are you ready? Are you ready in that moment to say something that might lead them from the curiosity about your life towards an interest in who Jesus is and the difference he's made in your life. Like if right now, I took a microphone and I went into the crowd and I said, okay, what would you say? Could you would you be ready to say something? I'm not gonna do that, but could you do that? And now here I'm freaking you out because you're like, oh, I've got to have all these answers and all of that. And the and and I want this is the the main thing that I've learned in this passage is this point right here is what is Peter suggesting that we say? Like, what are we supposed to be ready to say? Notice it says, anyone who asks you for a reason. K? Asked you for a reason. Many of us look at this and say, I'm gonna go to the street corner and I'm gonna shout to that jazz festival in Chicago this weekend, Jesus is Lord, and I'll take on anybody. No. That's not what he's saying here, isn't it? Where does this conversation start? It starts with them asking you a question. But where does that come from? They have observed hope. There is something in your demeanor, in your approach to the problems in your own life that makes them curious, and they come to you. Now that doesn't mean that we don't broach things and all that. There's a place for Marcel preaching. But that's not what Peter is saying. They come to us and they ask us, what is your deal? Like, I've known you a while here, and there's something going on here that I don't have going on in my own life. And here's the sobering reality, I think, that too often we give our answers when they aren't asking questions. And they aren't asking questions because our lives aren't creating them. One man writes this for Pascal, talking about a French cool theologian guy, who if I had had a son, I might name him after Pascal. I love Pascal. I digress. For Pascal, presenting someone with a list of proofs for Christianity or evidence for faith is probably a waste of time. If someone basically doesn't want to believe, no amount of proof or proof text can ever convince her. And even if she were convinced, then it wouldn't be the Christian God that she had come to believe in, but only what Pascal called the God of the philosophers. The crucial factor in persuading someone to believe then is not to present evidence, but first to awaken a desire for God in them. In other words, when commending Christianity to people, make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Such arguments as there are for Christianity can convince those who hope it is true, but will never convince those who don't. And Peter says here, there is one aspect primarily that the unbeliever is going to wonder about. And did you see it there? Always being ready to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason for the what? Hope. The hope that is in you. What is hope? Confidence about the future that brings assurance into today. Now as Christians, we have every reason to be confident, don't we? Future in heaven, future on the new earth, life with Jesus, glorified body, inheritance, being with Christ, and other loved ones in Christ. All of that sounds great and fantastic. It's not just that future hope, but also in our present trials where the promises of God come to assure us, “I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. Cast all your anxieties on me for I care for you,” etcetera, etcetera, provides the Christian who is in the hospital bed, in the hospital facing a major surgery with something that the guy in the gurney next to him doesn't have. Right? He doesn't have that. And the neighbor whose daughter is dealing with the sickness doesn't have that. And the friend who just lost his job doesn't have the promise that I will never leave you nor forsake you. But the Christian does. So guess when we have the best opportunity to be a faithful witness to Jesus in this world around us? Is it when everything's great, my health is great, when my life is great. And, of course, this is the way we present ourselves to one another. And even in the world, how are you doing? Everything's great. And they walk away going, I can't relate to that guy. Because in reality, everything isn't great for any of us. I don't care what you said to me on the way in today. We all have trials and we all have troubles, but we live inauthentically in this sort of sheen like everything's fantastic and wonderful because that's what I'm supposed to say. But it's not. And when Christians live authentic Christian lives of hope in trouble and in trial, or in this case, when they're being persecuted by the world around them, the world looks into that and wonders, what is the deal with these people? We they're hurting. They're dealing with troubles just like we are, but they got something I don't have. And so they come to us and they say, what is your gig? What is your deal? And we respond, because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because I know, know, know who holds the future. And life is worth a living just because he lives. And they don't know what to do with that, but it intrigues them, and they come to want it. I ask people often, how did you come to faith? New people in the church, I regularly hear this story. I was in college in my dorm in the dorm next to me, there was this dude. He was just like totally different. Or I was it was at work, and I worked with this woman, and I could just tell she had something that I didn't. I wanted it. I mean, we hear that all the time. What is that? That is first Peter three fifteen. The life lived creating curiosity, and then in that door swinging open moment, not rivets, but simply sharing your story of the difference that Jesus has made in your life. Not five theories about the existence of God, not seven proofs of the resurrection, but your story of how you have found hope in the midst of trouble. That's what Peter is getting at here. He isn't asking if we have the answers, but whether our lives are creating any questions. One great quote. I got to get to this, and I got to I got to be done. The world today, as we all are well aware, is not ready to listen to us or to preaching. It tells us it has no interest in theology and dogma, and there may be some truth in that. The world has become psychological, not to say cynical, and it is not prepared to listen to what people say. But when it sees a life which is triumphant, a personality that is clearly victorious, then it begins to pay attention. The first Christians conquered the ancient world just by being Christians. It was their love for one another and their type of life that made such an impact upon the pagan world. And there is no question but that this is the greatest need of the hour, the Christian quality of life being demonstrated among men and women. That is something to which we are called and something which we can do. And I just think that's the encouragement here. Like, if I got up here and said, alright, we gotta be ready to make an answer. So you go out, memorize your Bible, memorize three books on apologetics, and we're gonna have a quiz next week. Everybody leaves here discouraged, and so do I because I don't have all the answers. But who here doesn't have a story? Who here, if you're a Christian, you have met Jesus, and that meeting has changed your life? Tell the story. Tell that story. Weave into that a little bit the claims of Christianity and what it means to become a Christian. And we're next week's message is gonna be all about how to have these kind of gospel conversations. Okay? So that's next week. This week is what Peter is the essence of what Peter is getting at. It's not philosophy. It's not arguments, but generous lives of Christian love lived in a way that creates curiosity and then sharing your own story of hope in Jesus. It's a powerful, powerful witness, and we'll talk more about it next week. And so right now, I'm gonna ask campus pastors if you would come to the stage and lead in a final prayer. And here at Crown Point, I'm gonna ask you to stand with me, if you would, please. Heavenly Father God, the potential just right here in this room of us leaving here, taking the hope, living out that hope, being ready in that moment to share about the hope that we have in Jesus. Thank you for the hope, first of all. Thank you, God, that there is every reason for joy in the midst of our trials and our sufferings. But, God, I pray that you would help us to not just be self focused with that, but to leverage that in powerful and effective ways in a world that is hopeless. May they come to know hope through us and through Jesus, to whom be all glory, seated on the throne at the right hand of God, angels shouting, singing. We join with them here at Bethel Church. All praise be to you. We love you. We thank you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. God's grace to you all. We'll see you next week. * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

Steve DeWitt A Husband by Design Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:7 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 3:7 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:7 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: A Husband By Design Airdate: 10/12 –10/13/26 Programs: 2376 and 2377 Well, again, good morning. Good morning to our Cedar Lake campus. And I stand before you today excited about what I get to talk about. And part of the excitement that I have is that over the years I have spoken many times on the role of a husband. And all of those I did as a single man. This is the very first time I am speaking on this subject as a husband myself. And to move from the more sort of biblical theoretical to being in the battle myself to make this truth practical in my own marriage and in my own life. So, I want to say that on the front end as we get into this that I am, I am in the struggle of all these things just as much as anybody here. And, it is very convicting to me and very helpful to spend this time, getting ready and looking at God's design for a a biblical husband. I have found marriage to be people ask me, how's it going? What do you think about marriage? You were single for so many years. I what I say often is that marriage has for me been the the single greatest mechanism for spiritual growth in my entire life. And what I mean by that is that the things that marriage requires are and primarily dying to myself is big thing. But those qualities that marriage requires align very closely with what Christ's likeness looks like. So as I find myself trying to be a good husband, the changes that single Steve is having to make to be married Steve is making me a better Steve overall and making me, I think, hopefully, more mature Christian man, which I want very much. So as we come to this today and we look at God's blueprint for marriage and specifically for for a husband, I just again want to say, I'm in it with you. What does it mean to lead, love, and serve our wives? What does it mean to be a husband? These are all things that I'm struggling with living out every single day. So I hope God blesses this. I think this message has tremendous potential to make a profound difference in the homes and in the marriages of our of our church. Let me also add this. All of Scripture is profitable, and so it doesn't matter if you're married or single. This is God's truth, and we all need to listen to it. And I know that well, having preached it many years as a single man myself. So with that said, let's take a look. We're just studying one verse today. It's all that Peter has to say about the Christian husband. Let's take a look at this one verse and then just milk it for everything that we can. Here is first Peter chapter three verse seven. Here's what it says. “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.” K? There it is. K? Let's take this apart. And you'll notice the first word in that verse is the word likewise. We saw the same first word in chapter three verse one. He says, “likewise, wives.” And we find that this is just part of a a sequence, a chain of teaching that goes all the way back to chapter two verse 11 where Peter basically says, hey, what does it look like to be a Christian living in a hostile world, living as an exile? It means that you are working so that your life is earning the respect of unbelievers who may not like what you say about Jesus, but they can't but help but respect the life that you're living. Or to say it another way, that our our our walk needs to sound and look like our talk. And when those two align together, there is a very powerful apologetic for the claims of Christianity. And so we've seen him describe relationships that Christians find themselves in and what what does that look like then. So he began with a Christian citizen in relationship to government, that we are to be subject, submissive to government authorities. And then we looked at the employer employee relationship and that a Christian employee is to be a the best employee in that entire company and to have respect for the leadership that is over him. And then we saw in chapter three last week, what does it look like for a Christian woman to be married to an unbelieving spouse? And we talked about how as the gospel went across Asia Minor, you had these marital relationships where a woman believes in Jesus and the husband then does not. How does that Christian woman relate to the husband? It was last week's message. I won't preach it all over again. So this week, how does a Christian husband conduct himself in a marriage? And the assumption here is that he is married to a Christian wife. And the assumption is based on the culture of the day where if a man, as the kind of leader of the household, if he converted to whatever, was expected everybody else in the house would as well. K? So a Christian man who is following Jesus, the the assumption was that his wife would become a Christian, that his that his children and everybody would be a Christian household. Now there are exceptions to that, and maybe you know exceptions to that, where you have a Christian man who's married to an unbelieving wife. We maybe we all know at least maybe somebody like that, but those are rare. K? Those are rare. Much more common to have a woman who's a Christian married to an unbelieving husband, which I think is why Peter addresses it as he did at the beginning of chapter three. Now we find here that Peter highlights two qualities of the Christian husband and two reasons that that ought to be important to him. Okay? Two qualities of the Christian husband and two reasons that that ought to be important to him. Notice quality number one. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way. Live with your wives. Let's start right there. Now this might seem self evident, but the Bible says that husbands need to live with their wives. Okay? So this is a command of address. This is geography. This is proximity. This is what it means. The King James says dwell together, that husbands and wives are to dwell together. I the other day, just drove right around the corner from our Crown Point campus here. There's a little there's a little store that sells decor decor for a home, and it says that on the sign. And the name of the store is Dwellings. Okay? Dwellings. That's where you go for stuff in your home and and knickknacks and all of that. And so what this is saying is that in the home, the husband's the knick and the wife is the knack. Right? They are knickknacks in the same home. In fact, that word for live is a word in antiquity that had sexual overtones to it. It means to be a husband and wife in such proximity and in such closeness where intimacy is not only possible but probable. You are not living at separate addresses. It is not simply a contract where, yeah, I've got a wife and she lives in Oregon somewhere. I, as a husband, am dwelling together. I am living together with my wife. Not just even under the same roof. They live together and they sleep together. Now this is more important than you may realize. And one of the reasons for that is that over the years, I have come across situations where there are married couples where the one spouse has left and has said, you know what? I don't I don't want to divorce you. I just don't want to live with you anymore. And off they go. And the divorce doesn't happen for, like, years. Doesn't happen. And I want you to see in this passage, that is not Christian marriage. That is not marriage, to just simply be illegally married and not dwelling together. How should the church handle a situation like that? The church ought to discipline the spouse that has left, and it frees then the remaining spouse to divorce biblically the the one who left for abandonment as first Corinthians seven teaches. And when that doesn't happen, it leaves normally the woman, the wife in the house, wondering for years what is going to come of this. And that is a very real thing in churches and is a sad thing, and it ought not to happen. Further, I would say this. If you are thinking about getting married to somebody, realize that that person is going to be in your space and in your face for the rest of your life. Choose wisely. To be married is to dwell together for the rest of your life. Notice also with this that to be a husband to a Christian wife, it's not that you're just simply roommates. You're not just kind of you happen to live at the same place where, okay, these are your sort of duties around here and these are my sort of duties around here. It's not an episode of friends where we're just sort of you know, we happen to be at the same place. Rather, he says here that the husband is to live with the wife in a quote understanding way. Literally, the word means according to knowledge. Husbands, did you get that? We live with our wives in a way that we are seeking to understand them. We are seeking to know them, to understand what it is that God has wired them to be, what their likes and dislikes, what their preferences and non preferences, what gets them excited and what is discouraging to them, what their dreams are, etcetera, etcetera. A husband is called to live with his wife not as a roommate, but as a student, as a PhD student of his wife to seek to understand her. Now I got a book here somebody gave me years ago. And I don't if here you can see the title of that. Everything Men Know About Women. And if you look at the top, Fully Reveals the Shocking Truth, Daily News. K? And then you open it up, and there's nothing in it. Everything men know about women. Now that's a joke. Right? But if this is true for a Christian husband, that is a very, very sad marriage. That is a very, very sad wife that he is married to. Why? Because to be a husband is to be a student of your wife. Listen to a well known theologian and and a very experienced husband, Wayne Grudem, on this passage says this, the knowledge Peter intends here may include any knowledge that would be beneficial to the husband wife relationship, knowledge of God's purposes and principles for marriage, Knowledge of the wife's desires, goals, and frustrations. Knowledge of her strengths and weaknesses in the physical, emotional, and spiritual realms. A husband who lives according to knowledge will greatly enrich his marriage relationship. Yet such knowledge can only be gained through regular study of God's word and regular unhurried times of private fellowship together as husband and wife. Husbands, I want to ask you a question right now. What do you feel in your heart when you see or hear a paragraph like this that is calling you to not only care but to seek to understand the way that your wife is wired. Because I'm going to guess many of us see that, and there is inside this negative response to that. There is inside this resistance to wanting to invest the kind of time and energy that it would take to come to know and understand your wife? Where does that like oh, what is that actually? And I'll tell you what it is because I know it in my own heart. It is the worship of me. It is me ism. And a man, we're wired to be independent. We think. We're wired to kind of we want to do our own thing. We want to do it in our own way. And then you get married, And now you have somebody who is in your space and is in your face. And you look in the Bible and you realize, I can't just live independent. We're just not roommates. I'm called biblically. This is the Christian husband that's gonna care what God has to say about something. I'm called to care for my wife and to actually try to understand her. And that resistance flows from pride. And that is what the Holy Spirit is working in the life of the Christian man to destroy. And that is why I say Christian marriage, husbands, and single men thinking about getting married, it is the death of self. What does it mean to be a Christian husband? It is the death of self. And we men, we don't want to die. We're made to fight for life. We're made to survive. We don't want to see who I am die. And yet, as C. S. Lewis said, it is only through death that something can be resurrected. It is not the death of ourselves and then that's it. It is the death of me and the resurrection of a new me. A new me that is not independent, is not only thinking about myself, is not only thinking about my needs, but rather a new me that is interdependent with this feminine beauty that God has placed in my life where now I am intertwined with somebody else. And their needs and their concerns are now my needs and my concerns. And through that resurrection, there is a better me, a more Christ like me, a more loving me. Because what is the essence of love? To live independently, to live for my own needs, or rather to live for the joy of somebody else and to give of myself sacrificially for their joy, which is what Jesus did for us, isn't it? Or it's what Todd Coster did for Brenda to give his own kidney so that she could live. Jesus gives us life so that we can live. And we see that through marriage. And as hard as this is for us and trust me, there are days for me where I I'm not like, yay, die to self. I gotta remind myself what my big priority is, Christ likeness. Romans eight, conform to the likeness of Christ. This is what I want. Even though inside, I don't want to die to myself. But as I do, I know that God is doing a good work inside of me, and, therefore, this is a good thing. And husbands, we have to embrace what God is doing in us, creating us in the likeness of Jesus who died for us. So what does it mean to be a a Christian husband? Number one, I live with my wife. Number two, I live in a manner where I'm seeking to understand her truly. But notice he goes on now, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel. Showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel. Now ladies, please do not bristle at that weaker vessel thing. Because what he is pointing out here is what is, I would say, fairly universally seen and understand is that generally speaking, men are physically stronger than women. Now that said, there's a few sisters here in the church I wouldn't want to make mad. Okay? And we'd have a few contenders for the arm wrestling champion, probably even amongst the ladies in our church. But generally speaking, women are men are physically stronger than women. Now what does that create in the carnal man's heart? The carnal man sees the weakness in women and sees it as an opportunity to exploit them. And if you look down through history at the exploitation of women, it is generally men who are abusing their strength and the woman's weakness for their own selfish needs and their own selfish gains. And we can include things like rape, wife abuse, human trafficking, online predators, and any number of exploitive male activities and actions against women, and all of them are wrong. All of them are not God's will. So physically, we see how men can see that weakness and seek to exploit it. But I think this goes beyond just the physical that women are the weaker vessel to also the emotional. And again, broad stroke here and there are exceptions to this, but generally speaking, women are emotionally more fragile than men are. Again, men look at that and see weakness as maybe something to be exploited. We look in the Bible and see that as being feminine beauty created by the by the wisdom of God. More emotionally fragile. You say, I don't know about that. Ask a parent of daughters. Or if you have daughters and sons, who's more fragile and who's not? Or ask an eighth grade girl's basketball coach. Are those girls a little fragile there in the eighth grade? Or think about, you know, at the college that I went to, we had our our our dorms. This is you know, sounds crazy now in our our contemporary world. But back in the stone age, when I went to college, the Christian college that I attended, the boys had a dorm and the girls had dorms. They were not together. I know it sounds crazy, but yes, they were not together. And there were always resident directors that were there, kind of these mature adults to keep the inmates under control. And you had men, the resident directors in the men's dorms, resident directors in the women's dorms. I would hate to be a resident director in a woman's dorm. I mean, for all the male craziness, the drama in the female dorm. Talk to somebody like that, and they'll they'll ask you for a job probably. They want out as quick as possible. What is all of that? Well, all of that, I think, speaks to what Peter is getting at here. And that is that emotionally, that sort of intuitive, nonphysical side of women, there is what I what I would call there is a delicate beauty there, like a flower. Right? That part of its beauty or fine China, part of its beauty is that it is so delicate. That's part of what makes it so beautiful and so valuable. And, again, men, carnally thinking men, will seek to exploit that weakness and that delicate feminine beauty. But you see Peter here calling Christian husbands to do the opposite of what the carnal man wants to do with that weakness. Rather than exploiting it, the husband is called in this passage to honor it. That's right, men. We honor the feminine, delicate beauty that God made in Christian wives. We don't exploit it. We don't resent it. And that's hard to say at times, but I'll say it. We don't resent it, but rather we seek to honor it. Now you might be here, maybe you're a guy and you're like, I'm a dude. Like, I don't even like flowers. Right? I don't like fine China. That illustration means nothing to me. I'm a dude. Like, I'm into dude things. Dudes aren't into honoring delicate things. Really. I have a friend who is into cars. And when he was in high school, he had a Dodge Challenger. And so when Dodge came out, this is like 'eight, 'nine, came out with a new version of the Dodge Challenger. Maybe you've probably seen them on the road, muscle car type thing. He just had to have one. So he buys this Dodge Challenger. And it's really cool. It's really powerful and all of that. But this guy is like you talk to him, he could tell you every detail about this car. Right? He knows all the wires. He knows all the knobs. He knows all the specs on this thing. And he takes such immaculate care of this car. I mean, you know, when it pulls up, it's just shimmering. You could do brain surgery in the reflection on the wax. Right? It's just like a mirror. It's just so beautiful. And and why does he take such care of it? Well, he takes care of it because he loves it. Right? He loves that car. And so every knob is polished and and every the, you know, the grille is beautiful and the and the rims are all just perfect. And the finish on that thing, I mean, it's so easy to scratch a car like this. So that's why we never drive it. It's like that nice china at the house. But we don't eat off of this china. It's too valuable. We honor it so much, we never eat off of it. We love this car so much, we never drive it. Because if you drive it, there's the possibility that a molecule of dust could land on the car somehow. And so you drive it around the block and then you wash and wax it all over again. That's kind of the way that this goes. That guy who is honoring that car and all of its little things in that car walks into the house from the garage and finds emotionally delicate wife struggling somehow. Maybe comes to his mind this passage and he thinks to himself, I just don't want to deal with that. I don't have patience for that. I'm a guy. You're a woman and all your drama. I'm going back to my car. And he thinks to himself, I can't I can't show honor to something that is delicate. And yet shows all this honor to his car. And you see, we show we take care of things that we value. And the issue is not the woman's delicate beauty. The issue is the man's heart not honoring it. And that's why Peter says, don't look at the weakness that you see in your wife, how she's different than you physically, emotionally, and seek it and ignore it or resent it or exploit it. Rather, you are to honor it and as a husband to protect it. Wives are like flowers in this world, and that flower looks great on a sunny day, on a beautiful day. That flower can just bloom in all of its beauty. But what happens when the hailstorm comes? That hail comes and now that flower is just is just it's destroyed. Right? What did it need? It needs protection for it to bloom in all of its beauty. And women and wives are like that. God has wired them with a kind of delicate beauty, and they live in a world where their that beauty is exploited. And every time they walk to the car, they gotta look behind them. Is anybody following me? And they wonder at the office, and they wonder at the workplace, and they wonder at the school if maybe that person is trying to take advantage of them because they're not a man and they don't have the male voice and all the rest. They live their lives in a kind of wondering, is it safe for me to bloom? And in Christian marriage, God says, husband, make it safe for her to bloom. Don't destroy that feminine beauty. Don't demean it. Protect it and honor it, and let it just blossom. And by the way, who's that good for? It's good for her. It's also good for the husband. When his wife is a beautiful rose and feels safe to be all that God has made her to be. Honor means masculine deference to a woman's needs. Masculine deference to a woman's needs. And if you can't if you feel like you can't treat her as good as Peter says here, at least treat her as good as the car in your garage, and we'll call that a step in the right direction. Right, ladies? Vroom, vroom. Okay? Vroom, vroom. Now I'm gonna let me just go probe into the husband mind right now. You might be here right now and you can't say it. She's sitting next to you maybe. And you're you're leaning forward, acting interested because you think it earns points with her or something. But in your heart, I suspect that we have husbands here who are thinking to themselves, she's not worth the effort. I know this woman. I've been around this block before. Okay. Let's talk about your needs again. Why would I why would I open that Pandora's box? Why would I even go there in the first place? She is not worth it. Peter blunts this carnal thinking by pointing out something that maybe you've missed about that woman that is your wife. Again, look at the verse. “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 and so that your prayers are not hindered.” Peter gives two reasons that every husband here ought to care about what we're talking about right now. And I want take them in reverse order. First of all, so that God hears your prayers. Now what Peter is saying here is this, that you may not honor your wife, you may not cherish your wife, you may not value your wife, but God Almighty does. And when a husband mistreats his wife, does not honor his wife, doesn't care about her needs, God's in heaven seeing that. That same Christian husband then goes in prayer about his business, goes in prayer about his career, goes in prayer about the health problem that he has, goes in prayer about some relationship with family or whatever it might be. And God's in heaven, and he's saying to himself, why should I listen to your prayer about some area that I have not revealed my will when you are ignoring where I have revealed my will, you are mistreating your wife. Just keep your prayers to yourself. You're wasting your breath right now. Go take care of your wife like you ought to. That is the number one priority in relationship. Take care of your wife, and then come to me and talk to me about your business concern and your health problem and your whatever. And we find husbands, and this is what the text says, that our relationship with God is affected and our prayers are unheeded when we don't honor our wife. That's what it says. You say, well, it's not that important. It's not that big a deal. She's not that big a deal. She is to God. And if she is to God, don't you think she should be to us too? One commentator, closest human relationship, the relationship to one's spouse must be carefully cherished if one wishes a close relationship with God. And a Christian husband is a Christian man, and that ought to be a priority for him, his relationship with God. And we find that that horizontal relationship with the wife has a lot to do with this vertical relationship with God. So why should I honor her so God hears my prayers? But notice what he says right before that, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life. Why should I honor this woman that I see in the good, the bad, and the ugly that I see every single morning and every single night that I see in her ups and I see in her downs and her downs and her downs? Why honor her? Because God saved her. God treasures her. God loves her. And God always will. That's what that phrase means, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life. Basically, Peter is saying, Christian husband, you need to wake up to something. Don't let familiarity breed contempt. Don't let seeing her every single day. Don't let that allow you to miss who you are actually married to. That woman that you are married to is a woman that Jesus died for, that Jesus gave his life for, that Jesus loves and always will love, that God the Father elected an eternity past, that God promises will grant to her glorified body, glorified status, will be forever a co heir with Jesus himself. Christian husband realized that woman that you see every day in the bad breath and the crazy hair in the morning and all of that is actually an object of the eternal love of God Almighty. You may not love her, but God does. And when I come to realize that this woman is not just a woman, she's not a piece of furniture in the house, when I see her as God sees her, I come to realize that I ought to treat her accordingly. And you might be saying, husband, not my wife. That says more about you than it does her. And what that says is that you are not looking at your world and even your home through the grid of God's truth because God sees her as an object of saving grace. You know, I'm a long ways from my daughter going on a date with any young man, but I've already been thinking about it a little bit. Mostly in terms of surveillance and what ammo to buy is kind of how I've been thinking about it. That boy is going to fear for his life. And if he doesn't, he's not going out with her. Now the reason I say that is that I want him to feel fear about going out with her. And I want that fear to flow from an understanding of how precious she is to me. And if he messes with her, he is in big trouble. Why? Because that I love that. I love that little girl. Right? He is not going to treat her according to his hormones. He is not going to treat her according to his lust. He is not going to treat her like arm candy for his status in the school or whatever. He is not going to do that. If he does that, he is not going to go out with her. That's it. It's done. Pull up and honk. I'm calling the cops. You are not going out with my wife or my daughter. Because that disrespect tells me something about the kind of person you are. Get off of my property. You are not going out with my my daughter. She is so I love her so much. She is so precious to me. She will only go out with a boy that I sense is going to treat her according to the way that I feel about her, not himself. I define that relationship until they get married, which is never happening. Don't exploit her. Don't ignore her. Don't resent her. Don't fail to meet her needs. She is my daughter. And Christian husband, you are married to the daughter of God. And if you treat her like she is just furniture, don't expect daddy to hear your prayers. Don't expect daddy to be happy with you. Don't expect daddy to bless your life. Why? Because you are mistreating his daughter. She is a co heir with Jesus. She has exalted status because of what God says about her and how he feels about her. And a Christian husband will treat her accordingly. And what that means is that you live with her. You seek to understand her. You love her in the ups and downs. Pursue her. Seek to meet her needs. And guess what happens as you do? That feminine beauty, because God is working in her life as well, is allowed to blossom in your life and to be the blessing that God intended it to be. I wanna read to you a letter that I received years ago. It could have been ten years ago. I don't even know how long I've had this letter. I found it in a file this week. And it was an anonymous letter. So I don't even know who this is from. K? They may or may not even be in our church anymore. I have no idea. So I feel safe sharing it because they sent it anonymously. It's written from a wife describing her marriage, and she wrote it after I had preached on marital intimacy years ago. Listen to what she says. Pastor Steve, I found myself thinking about your words from Sunday's sermon. Usually, things are more complex than we think. I know before I married, I never imagined the complexities of marriage and family that would occur. I am not faulting you for being single, but I do think the understanding is lacking. I have discovered that intimacy hinges on the emotional bond I feel for my husband. Over the years, he has changed and fallen into a pattern of work, sports, TV. Spiritually, he does not lead the family. He does not pray, ask about my needs, direct our children into spiritual avenues. He does not attend Christian men's programs, opportunities, or ministries offered at the church. I feel alone in my spiritual life, not sharing discussion, goals, concerns because of his lack of communication or interest. God has met those needs through friends and a Bible study, which I am grateful. We do not have interests we share. I'm not much of a TV watcher or sports nut. We have fallen into separate lives in the same home. I feel alone in the family life much of the time. He refuses to lead in finances. I handle the pressure of bills, savings, cutbacks, and our children's future needs for college. He does not plan outings, vacations, or dates. Yes. I was the planner in the past, but I stopped hoping he would miss them, desire time, become more actively involved. Consequently, we have not done much together in years. Yes. I have gone to counseling. Yes. I have prayed regularly. Yes. I feel guilty for not responding to his needs and intimacy. I find it impossible at times to love him, give to him, enjoy him. So much is missing. The respect that women need to feel is so key to intimacy. Leadership in the home is an attractive thing. When you challenge men on Sunday to not be demanding but to give under their wives understanding, I thought you missed the point. Yes. It is important to be gentle, understanding, caring during intimacy. The bigger picture is to be a leader in the home. Without it, the weight of leading is on the wife and is an overload of what God intended. A strong leader is appealing and attractive to women. This lack of relationship in marriage produces guilt, and hearing your words on Sunday produced more. This type of relationship isn't what I signed up for. It isn't what I ever expected. The lack of intimacy has resulted from years of neglect, care, and unattended leadership. I'm not looking for you to address this. I just want to give you some insights into our relationship and why the things have soured. I know that biblically, God gives us principles to live by, but I find it so hard to know how to change direction of my marriage. There are Scriptures for the unbelieving spouse, the adultery, and the abandoned spouse. But what do I do? I'm married to a man who is a Christian, but I haven't seen growth, change, or the leadership of a godly husband. Thank you for reading this. I hope in some way this helped you see marriage and intimacy from my eyes. I wish it was as easy as you painted it this past week. And brothers, I just wanna ask you, if your wife wrote a letter, what would it say? How would she describe her experience living in the same home with you and being the recipient of your love? What has that experience been like? You know, my wife, Jennifer, has written me both letters of encouragement and of admonishing me in areas of weakness that she sees in me. And these are hard to read, but they are a path forward, I think. And the path forward is always coming back to God's basic design. What does it mean to be a husband? To lead, love, and to serve your wife as a servant leader, to love as Christ loved the church, to look at this passage and to say, wow, I've gotta seek to understand you and to care for you, to know you. If your marriage is broken, it's worth saving. If it's broken, it's worth saving. Husbands, you may everything in you doesn't want to go down that path again, and yet you're married to the daughter of almighty God. She is worth the effort. She is worth honoring. She is worth cherishing. I would encourage you to start by just seeking understanding. Listen to her. Ask her questions. Admit where you have failed. Repent. Ask her for grace for future failures that no doubt will come. But treat her with gentleness and with patience and with the kind of honoring that feminine beauty calls for. She's a daughter of the most high God. Treat her accordingly. Now if I may, I could end right there. I have one other little final, final thought, if I could say this. And for many, many years, I have had a burden for single Christian sisters in the church, many of whom want to get married, and that may be you. And I wanna ask you a question. What are you really looking for in a husband? And are you being attracted to the right kind of man? And by that, it has nothing to do with his money. It has nothing to do with his looks, figure, career. These kind of eharmony categories have nothing to do with what a Christian marriage is actually all about. And I wanna ask you, are you attracted to that kind of a guy? And is that kind of a man the priority? Yes, Christian. Oh, he goes to church with me, and I've heard that a thousand times. And to see wonderful Christian girls that grow up and they marry deadbeat husbands spiritually is a burden to me. And I just wanna say this weekend, make sure you're attracted to the right kind of qualities, and make sure they're the biblical ones. And you will save yourself a lifetime of heartache. Maybe that letter. Let that letter speak to you of what it means to marry a rich, good looking, nice car driving, nice clothes wearing, right cologne wearing guy. But if he doesn't lead you spiritually and if he doesn't dwell with you in an understanding way, you're gonna write a letter like that, and I wanna keep you from it. I wanna keep you from it. Find a guy that'll love you as Christ loves the church. If he doesn't pray with you now, he's probably not gonna pray with you then. If he doesn't lead you spiritually now, he's probably not gonna lead you spiritually then. And don't let the wedding or anything else get in the way of you marrying the right kind of man. End of excursions. Amen, congregation? Amen. Amen. * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

Steve DeWitt Living "Questionably" and Answering Hopefully - Part A Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:13-17 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 3:13-17 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 3:13-17 Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles Message: Living Questionably and Answering Hopefully Airdate: 10/16 and 10/19/26 Programs: 2380 and 2381 Well, good morning again, and hello, Cedar Lake campus, Hope Portage campus this morning. I, last weekend, had the joy of speaking, ministering at one of our former associate pastor's churches. He is Jeremy Carr, who is the senior pastor now in North Des Moines at Johnston E. Free Church. And so I was able to go and to see his ministry there. He's been there about a year now, and God's blessing, and they seem to be doing super great. So it was great to to be with them. I also understand while I was gone that we had a special offering last weekend to help meet needs in Nepal with the earthquake victims as well as some of the needs that we have with our facilities here. When I say here, mean at our Gary campus and at HP and at Cedar Lake with some of our facilities we use for primarily youth ministry and student ministry, our gymnasiums that we have. And I just was encouraged. We had an offering last weekend, second offering, kind of like lunch money, people throwing it in, of $13,500 that came in for that, which is really great. And if you're an old sports guy, you love sports, and maybe you have a heart for young people and all that, I'm sure you could still throw money in the offering towards that. And we'd find a way to apply that to some of the things that we need and probably still will need in those facilities. But thank you, everybody, for being a part of that. And that's pretty exciting for me because I'm one of those old sports guys. And I'd love to see our facilities be able to minister through athletics to primarily young people. Well, my title today kind of gives away the whole sermon, frankly. Here's my title: Living Questionably and Answering Hopefully. Now I could just stop and say, amen, amen, let's go home, because that's basically all that I'm going to say today. And some of you are excited right now. Like, wow, we're going to get out of here early today. The problem is most of us would leave having no idea what that means. And that's really what lies before us here is, like, what does that mean? What does it mean to live lives that are questionable and give answers that are filled with hope? And what does that have to do with really God's entire plan for the fulfilling of the great commission? It is a summary of first Peter three verse 15. If you went to Moody Bible Institute and say, I'm gonna take a class on evangelism, this might be the very first verse that you would memorize. If you have ever read a book on Christian apologetics, this verse always talked about. So this is one of these verses that that that stands out in a unique category and is often referred to when it comes to the whole matter of how we represent our faith, how we even share our faith. What does it mean to live Christianly and to speak Christianly in a hostile environment around us? And so we have this verse about bold, fearless witness. And who's the writer of it? Ironically, Peter, the most famous coward in all of the Bible. But I'll get into that in a moment. So let me read the text. And so follow along, please, if you have your Bibles. I think we have it on the screens as well. Here's what Peter writes beginning in verse now 13. “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them nor be troubled. 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, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.” Now if that language sounds familiar, it means that you've been dialed in in this entire series in first Peter because he is repeating what he has said here over and over again, of in different contexts. But basically, this same point. Christian, how do we live in a hostile environment? How do you how do you represent Jesus when the world around you looks down on that? You live lives of moral and spiritually observable beauty that causes the people around you to think maybe there's something to this Christianity. That's the whole point really of first Peter. And you do that primarily in your persecution and in your suffering. Now he has already said that as it relates, for example, the beginning of this chapter to Christian wives who are married to unbelieving husbands. What are they supposed to do? They are to by their moral behavior and their the beauty of their life, he says, to win their husbands over without a word. K? We talked about that. He talked about it with slaves, with their owners with their owners, and he's talked about it with Christian citizens as it relates to the government. And it's the same kind of point that he is trying to pound home. And I think we need to hear that it is our lives that speak about the truth of the claims that we make regarding Jesus being the Savior of the world and the person that will transform your life into one of hope and one of of of moral beauty and one that will live forever with eternal life. So what I wanna do today, since some of this is repeat, I wanna focus in on what is is unique that we have not seen so far, and that primarily is in verse 15. Again, I'll just read it. “In your hearts, Christ the Lord is holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” So we find these threads being weaved here regarding the implications and the applications of living a life of love and of goodness to others that even an unbelieving world can't deny. But he is saying something unique here because he gets at what I think is really our big obstacle in doing this. What's the biggest thing that all of us struggle with when it comes to somehow identifying ourselves with other people as Christians? I would submit to you, the biggest thing we struggle with is fear. Right? Fear. We are afraid of something. Maybe you know how this works. Let me just walk you through it, see if you can relate to this. You're at work. You're in some context, and you're having a conversation with your neighbor, your coworker, your family member, doesn't matter what it is. They'll say it's at work, it's coworker. And you're having a conversation, you're talking about the Blackhawks game last night. And you're like, yeah, in the second in the second period, did you see the and then did did you notice that? And yeah. He's like, yeah, man. That was awesome. And, yeah, it's just smooth. It's natural. You're having a great conversation. And then somehow, you say, well, how did the weekend go? Oh, my daughter. You know, she's dealing with that chronic illness. And my wife and I, we just oh, we're so devastated. We're just wondering what, like, what's this all about? And in that moment, there is a frog that resides down here. And in that moment, it goes ribbit right to the throat. Right? And now in your throat, there is something that with the Blackhawks or with whatever else it was, your garden, natural conversation, all of a sudden now, in the moment where the door swings wide open, Right? Because that person is sharing something very personal to them, something down on the heart level, down on the soul level. They're hurting. They're in pain. They're looking for what? Hope. They're looking for hope. But in their worldview, atheist, secular, agnostic, whatever it is, there is no hope. There is no confidence about anything in the future. Everything's random. Everything you just don't know what's gonna happen. They want hope. And the door swings wide open in that moment. And in your throat, there's ribbit, ribbit. And you're like, buddy. And something in you is going, tell them your story about when your daughter was sick. Tell them your story. When your mom had cancer, tell them your story of how you went through that terrible thing in your marriage. But your throat's going ribbit ribbit ribbit. And all we can sometimes get out in that moment is like, I pray for you. Oh, look at the time. I gotta go. And off we scamper. And that person who in that gospel moment of heart level kind of interaction is left hopeless. Can you relate to that? What is it about those moments that we get all clunky? Right? We are eloquent with the gardening and clunky with Jesus. What is it? And I believe Peter is putting his finger down on the heart of the issue that we have, so many of us have, when it comes to this. We are stupid, if I can use that word. Children, don't use it. But we're we're spiritually stupid. Why are we being stupid? Because there is something inside of us that is assessing whether or not this person's opinion of me is going to rise or fall dependent on what I dare share with them about the hope that I have in Jesus. And you might say, no, it's not that. I haven't completed my PhD in apologetics yet. And so until I get that done, I don't think God wants me to say nothing, and I'm just gonna stay silent until I have the diploma on the wall. Or you might say, well, yes, but I'm that's not my gift. I'm more called to a serving ministry. So I'm gonna mow his yard for him. But I'm not gonna tell him about the hope that I have found in the Lord Jesus Christ. This fear, Peter addresses in verse 13 by saying, now who is there that is going to harm you if you are zealous for doing what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. In other words, when we do what God has called us to do, when and that can be in word or in deed, but as we are kind of living out loud this Gospel that we believe, sing, treasure, he says those kinds of activities generally are not going to have people saying to you, you're an evil person. There there are generally good things that we are doing, helping other people, showing care and concern that in the world is not so evident. But he says, but even if let's just say that the opinion of that person goes down on you because you say something spiritual in that moment. He says, you'll be blessed by it. Blessed by who? Class. God himself. God himself. There's a promise there. I've never heard anybody say, those Christians are so evil with all their feeding of the poor and the caring of the orphans. May the world be rid of them. People don't say that. In fact, if you look at the first three centuries of the church. K? So this is prior to basically, in in church history, deciding moment is in the the early fourth century when Constantine, the emperor of Rome, himself becomes a Christian and then legalizes Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. Big moment. Because up to that point, Christianity was largely hated and Christians were viewed extremely suspiciously and terrible persecution. Read Fox's Book of Martyrs as an example of the terrible things that were done to the early Christians. So prior to Constantine's conversion, if you look at that those three centuries, it's a interesting time to see how the church was the church when everybody hated them. And here is what one Christian apologist writing actually in the first century in the city of Athens writes about he writes to emperor Hadrian, emperor of Rome, about Christians. Here's how he describes them. They love one another. They never fail to help widows. They save orphans from those who would hurt them. If they had something, they if they have had something, they give freely to the man who has nothing. If they see a stranger, they take him home and are happy as though he were a real brother. First century people like you and me believing in Jesus. What did that look like for them? It looked like that. Not perfectly. They were sinners like we are. But generally, that's kind of the ethos of the first century church. Now let me ask you a question. When Hadrian gets this letter from this guy named Aristides, what does he think about these Christians that he's heard about when he hears about their care for the orphans and that they're always taking people home that are strangers and they love, care, and meet the needs of of the widows? What does he think in his mind? Does he think to himself, these people are really bad people. We've gotta get them out of the empire. Or in spite of what he had heard about Christians, when he hears about the way they conducted themselves, what did it do in Hadrian's heart? I'm saying to you, it created curiosity. It created curiosity. What are these people all about? I know they claim there's only one God. They deny Zeus. But what's their deal? Because they're like about things that don't know anybody else is doing that kind of stuff. And that is the power and was the power in the first century, in the first three centuries, of people like you and me taking the love that God has showed into our hearts, shined into our hearts, and expressing it in ways that were observable in the world around them. It said something powerful to people. It made them wonder what is the deal with these people. And the if you're saying, well, what's the theology behind it? Here's the theology behind that curiosity. It is known as the Imago Dei, the image of God. And the Bible tells us that when God made man Adam and Eve back in the garden, Genesis one, Genesis two, that when he made Adam and Eve, he made us, all of humanity, different than anything else in the entire galaxy. He placed within us this spiritual, soulish capacity. Right? We are spiritual beings. And in that spiritual place, he placed his image, likeness, his morality or sense of it, a sense of right and wrong, good and evil kind of a thing. Everybody has that. There is something innate within a human being that knows when something is good generally and when something is wrong. It's the Imago Dei. The fall happens. Right? Mankind falls into sin, but we retain, the Bible calls this, Paul calls it in Romans, the conscience. We all have a conscience, and that is the theology behind what he is getting at here. And it is a powerful help for us when we are trying to evangelize is that there are we know that that other person is made in the image of this God and has a sensibility about them, broken, dulled, fallen, but it's still there. As John Stott said, in all evangelism, I find it a constant encouragement to say to myself, the other person's conscience is on my side. I like that. And so this is the mantra of Peter throughout the entire letter is do you realize that you we, Christians, have an ace in the hole when it comes to buttressing the claims that we have about Jesus, and it is our lives and the kinds of things that we care about. And the world sees that, and they wonder. I drew up a diagram just to illustrate this. Maybe this will help. If you think about what is the common ground between an unbeliever, a non Christian, and and a and a Christian. Because there I mean, we're a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come, Paul writes. But we still have shared common ground. This is this is the place that we can speak the language that even a non Christian can understand. And you notice that non Christian and Christians made in the image of God. We all have a conscience. Right? And it is in this category that moral beauty and love and self sacrifice and compassion, these things speak to the non Christian in a way that bypasses their mental defenses against Christianity, and it gets right down to the heart, right down to where the gospel speaks first. And Peter says, leverage that. Don't be afraid of them. If they look down on you, you're blessed anyway. Rather, leverage the normal Christian expression of love and good works in this world, which Paul writes that we were ordained before time began to do. Leverage those things. Do them in observable ways so that the world around you wonders inside what's up with them. What is up with them? What is their deal? It's true for the unbelieving husband toward his Christian wife, the unbelieving employer towards his Christian employee, the whatever unbeliever toward whatever Christian whose lifestyle shows Christian love and moral beauty. And that's why Peter writes in verse 14, “have no fear of them nor be troubled. But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason of the hope that is in you.” K? Now I just wanna point out to you, there's tremendous irony here in this passage about bold witness and not being afraid. Again, who's writing this? Peter. Right? What do we know about Peter in the story, in his own story? We go all the way back to the Garden of Gethsemane. Here come the Roman soldiers way back. Actually, we go to the upper room, don't we? They're in the upper room. Peter says to Jesus, though every other disciple here leaves you, I will never leave you. Hubris pride. Right? I will never leave you. And what does Jesus say? Before the cock crowed, you're gonna deny me three times. Peter's like, no. I would never do that. Well, within a few hours, he's running away from the Roman mob that came to arrest Jesus. And shortly after that, he is right there in the courtyard. And who does Peter who is Peter afraid of? And you might say, it was the Roman legion or he they had a point of a spear in front of him, and so maybe we can give him grace. No. It was a little girl. Excuse me? Aren't you one of Jesus' disciples? And Peter's like, woah. No. No. I never knew the man. Right? He's the most famous coward in the whole New Testament. He's the guy that's writing this. Now if we go ahead in the story a little bit, what do we find? After Peter's conversion, after the Spirit comes at Pentecost, right away now, there is this dramatic change with these disciples. The same guys that ran away in the Garden of Gethsemane now are standing up to not only the Romans, but also the Jewish authorities that had put Jesus to death just days before. And they haul Peter in front of the whole Sanhedrin, and they command him not to preach this message anymore. And what does Peter say? “We must obey God rather than men.” Wait. Aren't you the aren't you the same guy that like, the little girl? Isn't that you? And, of course, it is. And so we have in front of us somebody who knows something about going from being afraid and living by fear to living boldly as a testimony to Jesus Christ. This is a man that knows how to go from A to B, which ought to be encouraging, I think, for us because I would suspect that there's a lot of people still living in A. And we look at B, which is the boldness bold witness, and we think, I could never do that. I can never be that way. And yet Peter, by the Spirit of God and the work of God in his life, becomes a bold witness and exhorts the church not to be like him in the garden, but to be like him in front of the Sanhedrin. But how do we get there? Like, what's the key to go from living as a Christian according to fear to living as a Christian boldly and by faith? And I think Peter gives us the absolute key in verse 15. Look again. Don't be afraid of them. Rather, in your hearts, Christ the Lord as holy. Notice he doesn't say get out your apologetics books and get an answer to every question they might throw at you. He doesn't say get your educational degree. He doesn't say go into hiding. Rather, it does so it it doesn't start here. So many people think, for me to be a faithful witness, I've got to have it right here. No. That is not the key. It's not here. It's right here is the issue. Who is Lord of your heart? Or to say it in this context, whose opinion do you care the most about? Really? Now we sing songs about the majesty of Jesus, and we talk about it's all about him, and we sing about the glory of God and all of that. But when I'm talking Blackhawks with a guy who shares with me that his child has is suffering a terrible disease, and they're wondering what to think about all of it, and the frog rivets in my throat, what does that say about who I'm really caring about? And Peter says, settle the matter, Christian. Who is Lord of your heart? And you place Jesus Christ and his opinion right on that throne. And allow the boldness that comes from carrying only what he thinks to shape the way that you live your life. So when you're talking to the little girl in the courtyard, you're not ribbit, ribbit, ribbit. I wrote this sentence. Thought it was so good. Want to read it. The frog rivets in our throats because fear of man resides in our hearts. That's the bottom line. Right? Proverbs says “the fear of man is a snare.” It's a snare. How do we overcome it? I believe it's by consciously committing, like like deciding in my heart, in my life, I want Jesus and his opinion to rule the day. And when Christ is squarely exalted and treasured in that place, really frankly, it's just the application of what we believe, isn't it? Like, if right now we had the eyes to see, isn't it true that right now there is a throne? It's the highest throne in heaven. And Jesus is alive. Holes in his hands and in his feet, glorified body, glory radiating from him, the infinite glory of the Son of God. He is sitting right there at the right hand of God. Do you believe that? And that right now if we had ears to hear, we would hear the echoing, rejoicing song of innumerable air angels and seraphim and cherubim singing glory to Jesus. Do you believe that? And if we truly could see into that place, we would see the high and holy and exalted place that Jesus is. And if we could truly understand that and see that, which we believe it to be true, but if we could see and hear and grapple with that, and there he is. He's my Lord Jesus. I worship you more than anything else. You're at the you're on the throne of my heart. Now I'm talking Blackhawks with the guy who's like three cubicles over in the office. How afraid of his opinion am I when it comes to sharing hope, the only hope there is in this world? See? Do you see that? The higher he is, the lower the opinion of man. Bonhoeffer said it this way, those who are afraid of men have no fear of God, and those who fear God have no fear of men. So can I ask you, Bethel Church, and you individually, who really is Lord in your heart? Really? Whose opinion do you really care about? Now I'll confess to you, I get this. Right? I get this. I talk spiritual things. This is like what I do for a living. Right? So you might say, well, if we walked around with pastor Steve all the time, it'd be like, you know, amazing. Right? Because you just talk Jesus everywhere you go. It's just natural for you. It's not natural for me. When I sit on an airport and and frankly, I have some advantage over most of you. Because when I'm on the airplane or meeting somebody at the golf course or whatever, you know, what's your name? First question. Second question, what do you do? Right? So on the airplane, when the person said, so what do you do for a living? And I say, I pastor a church. They're like, oh, okay. And right away, either that's a major turn off or it becomes a counseling session right away in that moment. So you like, okay. I went through a divorce three years ago, and then on it goes. Right? And in my heart, it's not like, you know, frankly, honestly, this is the sinful heart. Sometimes I just wanna read my book that I brought with me, and now I have a two hour counseling session with this with and and even in that time, it's my mind is grappling. What do I share? What do I say? So it's I'm just being honest with you. I'm not up here condemning anybody here. I say this to myself. I got the frog ribbiting in my throat plenty. So what do we do? How do we handle this? And I think Peter is just laying out a simple approach to lifestyle evangelism here. Notice again, number one, we live a lifestyle of normal Christian love and others' orientation. In your neighborhood, are you one of the neighbors that all the other neighbors know when they're gone on vacation, you'll pull their trash bin back? Right? Or if they have some little need or something, you're the are you a conduit in your neighborhood, in your school, in your workplace? Are you are are you somebody that people sense they sort of care about me? That's normal Christianity, isn't it? What are we called to do? Love one another. Right? Love one another. So I'm not spending a lot of time on this, but we we live the normal expected Christian life. We just live that kind of change that Jesus makes in our hearts that turns us from being self centered and self obsessed to a approach where we're caring for people, engaging people. We hold high, secondly, Jesus. He is on the throne of our hearts above the opinion of anybody else. I want His approval more than I care about the guy three cubicles down from me. So I'm free now. Right? I'm free because I'm living hopefully in a way that pleases the Lord. Third, keep your gospel bags packed. Here's what it says. Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Keep your gospel bags packed. You're thinking, does that mean? Well, it's just what came to my mind as an illustration of this because we're like eight days from delivery roughly. My wife is expecting our second child. And these kids, they don't tell you when they're coming, right? So about three weeks ago, realizing that we were entering the danger zone, we got ready. Now my wife's been getting ready for, like, months. Our house right now, we should sell it. It's like a showpiece. Right? She has cleaned everything. The nest is ready. Right? There's something to that whole female nesting thing. There really is. So she's been getting ready for but the last couple of weeks, we've been, like, really dialing it in. And if you were to go into our bedroom right now, you would see that we have you know, the the luggage is there. The bags are packed. In the in the bag is the clothes that we might need, little snacks, any little, you know, toiletries, any doodads, whatever. It's all there. It's all ready to go. And the reason for that is that we don't know when this baby is showing up. So we gotta be ready just in case. Because when she goes, ah, I'm getting the bag, we're getting in the van, and off we go to the hospital. I have found in my life the opportunities that I have to share in the world rarely come at unexpected times. They come at unexpected times. Okay? Now if your neighbors are like, okay, in three weeks, I'm going to ask you a very soulish question about pain in my life, you could be like, okay, I'm going to get ready for it, right? And you show up, you got your notes and okay, point number one, point number two, point number three. They never do that, right? It's that meeting them on the way to the mailbox moment or happen to sit next to you in the lunchroom at work kind of moment where all of a sudden now this door swings wide open. Are you ready? Are you ready in that moment to say something that might lead them from the curiosity about your life towards an interest in who Jesus is and the difference he's made in your life. Like if right now, I took a microphone and I went into the crowd and I said, okay, what would you say? Could you would you be ready to say something? I'm not gonna do that, but could you do that? And now here I'm freaking you out because you're like, oh, I've got to have all these answers and all of that. And the and and I want this is the the main thing that I've learned in this passage is this point right here is what is Peter suggesting that we say? Like, what are we supposed to be ready to say? Notice it says, anyone who asks you for a reason. K? Asked you for a reason. Many of us look at this and say, I'm gonna go to the street corner and I'm gonna shout to that jazz festival in Chicago this weekend, Jesus is Lord, and I'll take on anybody. No. That's not what he's saying here, isn't it? Where does this conversation start? It starts with them asking you a question. But where does that come from? They have observed hope. There is something in your demeanor, in your approach to the problems in your own life that makes them curious, and they come to you. Now that doesn't mean that we don't broach things and all that. There's a place for Marcel preaching. But that's not what Peter is saying. They come to us and they ask us, what is your deal? Like, I've known you a while here, and there's something going on here that I don't have going on in my own life. And here's the sobering reality, I think, that too often we give our answers when they aren't asking questions. And they aren't asking questions because our lives aren't creating them. One man writes this for Pascal, talking about a French cool theologian guy, who if I had had a son, I might name him after Pascal. I love Pascal. I digress. For Pascal, presenting someone with a list of proofs for Christianity or evidence for faith is probably a waste of time. If someone basically doesn't want to believe, no amount of proof or proof text can ever convince her. And even if she were convinced, then it wouldn't be the Christian God that she had come to believe in, but only what Pascal called the God of the philosophers. The crucial factor in persuading someone to believe then is not to present evidence, but first to awaken a desire for God in them. In other words, when commending Christianity to people, make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Such arguments as there are for Christianity can convince those who hope it is true, but will never convince those who don't. And Peter says here, there is one aspect primarily that the unbeliever is going to wonder about. And did you see it there? Always being ready to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason for the what? Hope. The hope that is in you. What is hope? Confidence about the future that brings assurance into today. Now as Christians, we have every reason to be confident, don't we? Future in heaven, future on the new earth, life with Jesus, glorified body, inheritance, being with Christ, and other loved ones in Christ. All of that sounds great and fantastic. It's not just that future hope, but also in our present trials where the promises of God come to assure us, “I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. Cast all your anxieties on me for I care for you,” etcetera, etcetera, provides the Christian who is in the hospital bed, in the hospital facing a major surgery with something that the guy in the gurney next to him doesn't have. Right? He doesn't have that. And the neighbor whose daughter is dealing with the sickness doesn't have that. And the friend who just lost his job doesn't have the promise that I will never leave you nor forsake you. But the Christian does. So guess when we have the best opportunity to be a faithful witness to Jesus in this world around us? Is it when everything's great, my health is great, when my life is great. And, of course, this is the way we present ourselves to one another. And even in the world, how are you doing? Everything's great. And they walk away going, I can't relate to that guy. Because in reality, everything isn't great for any of us. I don't care what you said to me on the way in today. We all have trials and we all have troubles, but we live inauthentically in this sort of sheen like everything's fantastic and wonderful because that's what I'm supposed to say. But it's not. And when Christians live authentic Christian lives of hope in trouble and in trial, or in this case, when they're being persecuted by the world around them, the world looks into that and wonders, what is the deal with these people? We they're hurting. They're dealing with troubles just like we are, but they got something I don't have. And so they come to us and they say, what is your gig? What is your deal? And we respond, because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because I know, know, know who holds the future. And life is worth a living just because he lives. And they don't know what to do with that, but it intrigues them, and they come to want it. I ask people often, how did you come to faith? New people in the church, I regularly hear this story. I was in college in my dorm in the dorm next to me, there was this dude. He was just like totally different. Or I was it was at work, and I worked with this woman, and I could just tell she had something that I didn't. I wanted it. I mean, we hear that all the time. What is that? That is first Peter three fifteen. The life lived creating curiosity, and then in that door swinging open moment, not rivets, but simply sharing your story of the difference that Jesus has made in your life. Not five theories about the existence of God, not seven proofs of the resurrection, but your story of how you have found hope in the midst of trouble. That's what Peter is getting at here. He isn't asking if we have the answers, but whether our lives are creating any questions. One great quote. I got to get to this, and I got to I got to be done. The world today, as we all are well aware, is not ready to listen to us or to preaching. It tells us it has no interest in theology and dogma, and there may be some truth in that. The world has become psychological, not to say cynical, and it is not prepared to listen to what people say. But when it sees a life which is triumphant, a personality that is clearly victorious, then it begins to pay attention. The first Christians conquered the ancient world just by being Christians. It was their love for one another and their type of life that made such an impact upon the pagan world. And there is no question but that this is the greatest need of the hour, the Christian quality of life being demonstrated among men and women. That is something to which we are called and something which we can do. And I just think that's the encouragement here. Like, if I got up here and said, alright, we gotta be ready to make an answer. So you go out, memorize your Bible, memorize three books on apologetics, and we're gonna have a quiz next week. Everybody leaves here discouraged, and so do I because I don't have all the answers. But who here doesn't have a story? Who here, if you're a Christian, you have met Jesus, and that meeting has changed your life? Tell the story. Tell that story. Weave into that a little bit the claims of Christianity and what it means to become a Christian. And we're next week's message is gonna be all about how to have these kind of gospel conversations. Okay? So that's next week. This week is what Peter is the essence of what Peter is getting at. It's not philosophy. It's not arguments, but generous lives of Christian love lived in a way that creates curiosity and then sharing your own story of hope in Jesus. It's a powerful, powerful witness, and we'll talk more about it next week. And so right now, I'm gonna ask campus pastors if you would come to the stage and lead in a final prayer. And here at Crown Point, I'm gonna ask you to stand with me, if you would, please. Heavenly Father God, the potential just right here in this room of us leaving here, taking the hope, living out that hope, being ready in that moment to share about the hope that we have in Jesus. Thank you for the hope, first of all. Thank you, God, that there is every reason for joy in the midst of our trials and our sufferings. But, God, I pray that you would help us to not just be self focused with that, but to leverage that in powerful and effective ways in a world that is hopeless. May they come to know hope through us and through Jesus, to whom be all glory, seated on the throne at the right hand of God, angels shouting, singing. We join with them here at Bethel Church. All praise be to you. We love you. We thank you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. God's grace to you all. We'll see you next week. * This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.