Living in an Imported Culture

Posted on March 15, 2025 by salooper57

I was sitting in the dorm’s only TV lounge during my freshman or sophomore year. There was a cluster of couches, all facing the television, with over a dozen guys scattered around the room. The couch I was on was full. My new friend George Ashok Kumar Das, recently arrived from Bangladesh, was sitting next to me.

Bengali men. Wikimedia Commons

At some point during the movie we were watching, Taupu (that was his nickname) took my left hand in his right. I stiffened. I had no idea that in his culture, as in some African and the Middle Eastern cultures, heterosexual men held hands as a sign of friendship and trust.

Every culture has its own customs. In Thailand, if a coin slips from your hand and you stop it from rolling under your car with your foot, you might cause great offense. The image of the king’s head is on that coin, and to step on his face is a gross insult.

In Vietnam, if you signal to a restaurant server to come to your table, she may pour the soup in your lap because you’ve treated her as if she were a dog. If you are caught selling chewing gum in Singapore, you could be incarcerated for up to two years and be fined $100,000.[1] Kingdoms and countries have their own codes regarding what it means to be a good citizen.

Those codes are sometimes exported. For example, if you were in the Bangladeshi embassy in Washington D.C. and saw two men holding hands, it might signify close friendship. If you stepped outside the embassy onto International Drive and saw the same thing, it might signify something quite different. The culture inside the embassy has been imported from another place with different social codes and values.

Imported cultures are hardly new. The biblical letter to the Philippians was sent to people who lived, worked, and played in a culture that had been imported from Rome. Though Philippi was about 800 miles away by the commonest land-sea route, it had been a Roman colony since the time of Octavius and Marc Antony. Philippi was subject to Roman law, followed Roman customs, and was home to Roman citizens.

Imported cultures have been a reality in America for a very long time. If you had come to Manhattan in 1640, you would have found people living by Dutch laws, following Dutch customs, and eating Dutch foods, even though Amsterdam was almost 4,000 miles away. Had you traveled northeast, you would have found people speaking French, following French customs, and flying the French flag. After the English defeated the Dutch 24-years later, New Amsterdam was renamed New York, and the Union Jack floated over the city. Dutch culture faded and was gradually replaced by English culture.

Imported cultures have something to teach the church, which we can think of as a colony, a culturally distinct pocket within mainstream society. As a colony of the kingdom of God, the church is subject to its rules (the commands of Jesus), speaks its language (the language of love), and trades in its currency (faith, hope, and love).

To enter the church from the majority culture is like walking into the Bangladeshi Embassy from International Drive in D.C. Here people speak differently, have different customs, hold different values, and engage in different practices. The church may feel strange to people coming in from the outside, but it is (or should be) an exciting and inviting strangeness.

It is strange because people show respect to each other. People in a Kingdom of God culture are interested in others and not just in what others can do for them. They go out of their way to help each other and expect nothing in return. Here, the usual status markers – clothing, cars, education, income – are insignificant compared to faith, hope, and love.

It is also (and chiefly) strange because people love their leader and are fiercely loyal to him. They talk about him, talk to him, and regularly praise him. Their leader is Jesus. He is at the center of everything that people in this culture do and care about.

All this is bound to feel strange to outsiders but, when they see the quality of life and the richness of relationships in the church, they might conclude that preoccupation with Jesus is a good thing. They might realize that Kingdom of God culture is not just an alternative to the culture they have known but an extraordinary improvement upon it.

[1] Illustrations from https://www.adventureinyou.com/travel-tips/cultural-differences/

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Is Jesus Our Savior or Our Example?

Posted on March 14, 2025 by salooper57

It wasn’t long after I came over to Jesus’s side that I discovered that not all Christians think alike. The larger church is divided into smaller camps. At college, I began to learn more about these camps. There were of course the Catholics. From the snatches I heard said about Catholics, I assumed that few (if any) were Christians in any meaningful sense. There were also the liberals, who were really only humanists (that was the derision de jour at the time) in Christian’s clothing. And then there was “us,” the real Christians.

But even among us, there were camps. There were the Calvinists (who weren’t any fun), the fundamentalists (who didn’t want anyone to have any fun), and the Pentecostals (who were having all the fun, speaking in tongues and getting slain in the Spirit).

Somehow, I learned these things without ever talking to a Catholic, a liberal, or a Pentecostal. In the years since, I’ve spoken to all these folks and many at length. I’ve learned that talking about people reinforces stereotypes while talking to people tears them down.

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Example, Savior, Shepherd

Posted on March 13, 2025 by salooper57

It wasn’t long after I came over to Jesus’s side that I discovered that not all Christians think alike. The larger church is divided into smaller camps. At college, I began to learn more about these camps. There were of course the Catholics. From the snatches I heard said about Catholics, I assumed that few (if any) were Christians in any meaningful sense. There were also the liberals, who were really only humanists (that was the derision de jour at the time) in Christian’s clothing. And then there was “us,” the real Christians.

But even among us, there were camps. There were the Calvinists (who weren’t any fun), the fundamentalists (who didn’t want anyone to have any fun), and the Pentecostals (who were having all the fun, speaking in tongues and getting slain in the Spirit).

Somehow, I learned these things without ever talking to a Catholic, a liberal, or a Pentecostal. In the years since, I’ve spoken to all these folks and many at length. I’ve learned that talking about people reinforces stereotypes while talking to people tears them down.

Even after the stereotypes are gone, differences remain. My answer, the Catholic’s answer, and the mainline church member’s answer are not all the same. That’s alright. Neither I, the Catholic, or the mainline church member are saved by having the right answers. If we’re saved at all, it’s because the Answerer has us – Jesus who died for us and rose again.

One continuing difference between conservative Christians and liberal ones is more a difference of emphasis than anything else. When liberals speak of Jesus, they are more likely to speak of his example than are conservatives. Conservatives are more likely to speak of Jesus’s saving death than are liberals. Most liberals believe that Jesus is our savior and most conservatives believe that Jesus is our example, but there are people within these movements who completely ignore one or the other.

Because that is true, when conservatives hear a liberal talking about Jesus’s example, they can jump to the conclusion that she thinks that Jesus wasn’t the son of God, that eternity doesn’t matter, and that the world will be saved by just laws and not by Jesus’s death and resurrection.

And because there are conservatives who belittle Jesus’s example (I’m thinking now of a well-known evangelical leader of about 30 years ago who said, “If Christ is an example, nobody needs him; but if he’s a sacrifice, everyone does”[1]), liberal Christians think that conservatives only care about getting to heaven when they die. If the earth falls apart in the meantime, so what?

So, is Jesus our example or is Jesus our savior? According to St. Peter – who ought to know – he is both, and more! Let’s read our text, 1 Peter 2:21-25, and see for ourselves.

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

I learned to play guitar about 30 years ago. I started on a borrowed children’s guitar, then a borrowed nylon-string guitar, and finally bought an $85 beast of a guitar I picked up at a garage sale. I taught myself chord shapes from a book (this was in the days before YouTube), picked up a finger-picking technique from by brother-in-law, and a friend taught me to play one three-chord chorus. Other than that, I taught myself.

I wrote a song within six months of learning to play. And then another, and another. But I never really played with people. 99% of my playing time has been spent alone. And the result, after 30 years of playing guitar, is that I’m not very good at it. I really needed an example.

I don’t understand the man who said, “If Christ is an example, nobody needs him.” What does he mean by “needs him”? If he means that people don’t need his example to live rich, fruitful, loving, purposeful, God-honoring lives, I am sure he is wrong.

There are of course people – even some who identify as Christians – who think we don’t need Jesus as a savior. If by that they mean that just laws and economic policies will transform the world into a utopia where people never die but live forever, free of sin and saved from every evil, I am sure they are wrong.

We need a savior, and we need an example. Let’s expand on my guitar illustration. Imagine some poor teenager, living in the Kara-Kum desert. He doesn’t even know what a guitar is; and even if he did, he could never afford one; and, even if he could, there are no guitars to buy. The only way he will ever play is if someone gives him a guitar – some musical savior.

And let’s say that happens. Someone from far away comes to Kara-Kum and gives our teenager a guitar. But what is he going to do with it? He has never seen anyone play a guitar. He has no idea of notes and triads and suspended fourth chords. He needs an example.

It’s a little like that for us. We could not live the eternal kind of life because we didn’t have it and had no way of getting it. But someone came from far away to give us this life, and had to sacrifice his own to do it. That someone is Jesus. He is our savior. Without him, the eternal kind of life would be eternally out of reach, but we are not without him.

We who have believed in Jesus have received the eternal kind of life. Now we need an example; otherwise, we won’t know what to do with it. Jesus shows us how to live this life, by his example in Scripture and by his Spirit in us. Without the life he died to give us, his example would have little meaning—like showing chord charts to a teenager who has never seen a guitar. But without his example, that life would have little consequence, like a guitar in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what to do with it.

Peter clearly sees that Jesus is our example (verse 21): “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” When Peter wrote, “Christ suffered,” he knew what he was talking about. He had seen Christ suffer, not just on the cross, but during the years that led up to it. Peter had seen him “endure opposition from sinners” (Hebrews 12:3) – from people who hated him, told lies about him, tried to manipulate him, and on and on.

The word translated “example” (ὑπογραμμὸν in Greek) comes from the schoolrooms of the ancient world. When a child was learning to read and write, he would follow the lines of the large letters (the ὑπογραμμὸi) at the top of the “page” until he had learned how make his own letters. Peter wants us to follow Jesus, follow his lines, “follow in his steps.”

That raises the question: Do you know enough about Jesus to do that? For example, do you know what he did when people tried to manipulate him so that you will know what to do when they try to manipulate you? Do you know what steps he took when life was so busy that he didn’t have time to sit down and eat a meal? What about when his brothers mocked him? What steps did he take when he began to succeed, and his popularity grew? You need to know what path he took if we are going to follow in his steps. If you call yourself a Christian and do not know the life of Jesus, you’ve got some catching up to do. His path is marked out for us in the Bible. Learn it.

He is our example, according to Peter, of how to suffer. Everyone suffers, but most of us don’t know how to do it the Jesus way. We haven’t learned to follow his example.

How did Jesus suffer? First, Peter tells us that he suffered for others – “for you” – not for himself. He did not suffer for the sake of suffering – that would be pathetic – but for the sake of helping. There is nothing meritorious about suffering. Avoid it when you can. But endure it when you must, especially when it is for someone else.

Secondly, Peter tells us that Jesus didn’t suffer (this is verse 22) because he had done wrong or because he got caught in an untruth. “He committed no sin and deceit was not found in his mouth.” He suffered unjustly. Better to suffer unjustly than justly.

Thirdly, Jesus suffered quietly. “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats” (v. 23).  Jesus didn’t complain. He didn’t lash out. Is that how we suffer?

Today we have very different examples. Politicians and celebrities have made an art form of attacking anyone who speaks against them. They mock, insult, and threaten—and ordinary people (even Christians!) are following their example. We need to decide whose example are we going to follow.

Fourthly, when Jesus suffered (v. 23), he “entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” The word the NIV translates “entrusted” usually has a different meaning. It is the word repeatedly used of Judas “handing” Jesus over to the people who killed him. Judas handed him over to evil men, but Jesus handed himself over to God.

Are you able to do that when people mistreat you? Do you have any idea how Jesus did it? He has given us an example. His story is like one of those letters at the top of the page. Are you learning to follow it?

Jesus knows how to navigate life. How important it is for us to follow his example! But Jesus is not only our example; he is also our savior! Look at verse 24: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” Thinking about Jesus our Example has taken Peter’s mind to Jesus our Substitute and Savior.

Many Christians seem to think that Jesus’s death is a kind of magic sin eraser. (I’m borrowing language from my son Kevin here.) It’s not that they think about it very deeply. They don’t know how Jesus’s death fits into God’s one great plan to bless humanity. They are unfamiliar with its biblical antecedents. And because they haven’t thought about it, it seems magical.

Peter, however, had thought deeply about it. He had listened to Jesus himself explain it—an explanation that came wrapped in Old Testament language. So, when Peter thought about Jesus’s death, his mind naturally went to the Old Testament, and especially to Isaiah 53, that great chapter where (to borrow again from Kevin) Law and Gospel converge.

Isaiah 53 does not treat the atoning death of God’s servant as a magic sin eraser but as a covenant sacrifice that makes possible a relationship with God. The magic eraser view removes salvation from the context of relationship and slips it into the context of religion (or even superstition), which is disastrous to faith.

When we talk about the context of a relationship with God, we are talking about covenant. God chose to make covenant the entry point to a close and enduring relationship between himself and humans. The idea should be familiar to us, for we also make covenant the entry point to our most enduring and productive human relationship. We call it “the covenant of marriage.”

You will recognize some of the elements of covenant in the marriage ceremony: it contains covenant promises (we call them wedding vows). There are covenant witnesses: usually, but not always, the best man and maid of honor, who sign the marriage license. There is a covenant symbol: we call it a wedding ring – “I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow…” There is a covenant meal: we call it the wedding reception. All these things have their origin in the ancient practice of covenant.

There are notable covenants in the Bible. God entered covenant with Noah and his descendants. He famously struck a covenant with Abraham. At Sinai, the Lord and the people of Israel entered covenant together. Through Jeremiah, God promised to institute a new covenant with people.

Covenant is about relationship and relationship requires sacrifice. In Bible times, every covenant was instituted with a sacrifice. The blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled on the covenant parties to symbolize their purification from past sins. Later they sat at table together and ate the sacrificed animal; to eat together was in ancient societies a sign of acceptance and fellowship.

Sacrifice is always a part of biblical covenants. In Isaiah 53, from which Peter repeatedly quotes, we read, “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him” (Isaiah 53:5). That is covenant language. Verse 10 says, “the Lord made his life an offering for sin.” More covenant language. Peter likewise speaks of Jesus bearing our sins in his body. More covenant talk.

In earlier covenants, people brought the sacrifice. But in the new covenant, God does. It was the Lord who laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isa. 53:6). Jesus understood that he was the covenant sacrifice, the entry point for a relationship between humans and God. So, on the night he was betrayed, he took the cup and – what did he say? “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20).

Jesus’s death was not a magic eraser. It brought us into relationship with God, with whom we had been separated. Apart from that relationship – what St. Paul calls “peace with God” – there is no salvation. Jesus died, Peter says in chapter 3, “to bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). The Bible never says Jesus died to get us into heaven – as if that were salvation. It says that Jesus died to bring us to God. If we don’t enter a relationship with God, we are not saved, whatever we say we believe.

Once we have been reconciled to God by a savior, we need an example to show us how to live as God’s people. We also need a shepherd who leads guides, protects, and cares for us. We have one (verse 25): “…you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”

Even after we have been saved, even after we have been given an example, we need a shepherd and overseer. We still wander. There are threats to our souls. We need real-time help, correction, direction, and sometimes rebuke. We need a shepherd. In Jesus, we have one—a good one.

Now a word about order. Experiencing Jesus as savior comes first, then comes our experience of Jesus as example and shepherd. Go back to my illustration of the Turkman teen in the Kara-Kum desert. Elon Musk’s Starlink brings internet to the desert and this boy becomes addicted to watching guitar instruction videos. He learns the shape of every chord, memorizes the notes up and down the neck. He watches his favorite guitarist, Billy Strings, on YouTube and tries to imitate his every move. He looks great. The only problem is: he plays on an air guitar. He doesn’t have a real one. It is imaginary.

If we take Jesus for our example but not our savior, our spiritual life will be imaginary. We need the life that a relationship with God brings. When we have it, Jesus’s example becomes priceless.

We can also get things out of order when we want Jesus to be our shepherd but not our example. The testimony of Christians throughout the ages is that they experience the reality of the good shepherd’s guidance, protection, and provision when they are trying to follow his example. If they ignore his example – live like people who are not in relationship with God – they probably won’t experience, or realize they have experienced, his guidance, provision, correction, and protection.

Next Sunday, we will remember and affirm our covenant at the Lord’s Table, the Communion meal. Before you do that, would you ask yourself three questions? Ask yourself: Have I entered into a relationship with God through Jesus so that he is my savior? Am I actively trying to follow his example? Am I experiencing his correction, guidance, provision, and protection?

If the answer to any of these is no or is “I don’t know,” and you would like to change that, please talk with me. Then follow up by finding someone who is living this kind of life and ask them how they do it. Decide right now that you are going to do that. And if I can be of help, please talk to me.

Blessing/Sending (1 Peter 2; Matthew 16 & 28)

Christ has left an example for us, that we should follow in His steps. So, let us take up our crosses and follow Jesus. He is worthy of our trust and obedience, and He is with us always

[1] Fred Smith, Leadership, Vol. 4, no.3.

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Are Some Sins Worse Than Others?

Posted on March 8, 2025 by salooper57
Photo by Sora Shimazaki on Pexels.com

The Bible uses a variety of terms for wrongdoing, wrongful not doing, and wrong thinking. There is the umbrella word “sin,” which includes intentional sins (Hebrew, with a high hand) and unintentional ones (not with a high hand), along with terms like “transgression,” “trespass,” and “iniquity.” In Psalm 51, we find the words “transgressions,” “iniquity,” and “sin” in consecutive verses.

Are all sins (transgressions, trespasses, and iniquity) equally serious? It has often been suggested that this is true, based on James 2:10 (“For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it”) and on Jesus’s statement “that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). However, Jesus himself distinguishes one sin from another, and refers to one as “greater” than the other (John 19:11), and confirms that there are degrees of punishment (Mark 12:40; Luke 12:47-48).

What started me thinking about this (again – I’ve wondered about it before) was my time in prayer and scripture this morning. I read Psalm 19 and spent a few minutes thinking and praying about it. In verses 12-13, the psalmist writes, “But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me.”

David mentions errors, faults, and willful sins. He acknowledges the difficulty humans have in perceiving their own errors. Perhaps I can see your errors, but I can no more see mine than I can see my own eye. Without a mirror – but you could be my mirror – I will not discern my own errors.

I have hidden faults. I did not hide them – or if I did, it was so long ago that I have forgotten about them – and I do not know what they are. But my ignorance is not the same thing as my innocence. These faults are hidden from me, yet they can still cause harm—sometimes serious harm. It is possible that these faults were hidden in me by my parents, or my upbringing, or by Adam’s rebellion. How they were hidden is not the important thing. That they be forgiven, exposed, and eliminated is.

The Psalmist asks God to keep him from “willful” sins. Other versions translate that as “presumptuous,” “flagrant,” and “insolent.” Unlike the faults mentioned in the previous verse, these sins are not hidden from me; they are hidden by me. Nevertheless, though these sins are known by me, and I choose to do them, that does not mean that I approve of them. Sins that result from addiction are a good example. A person may choose to purchase an illegal narcotic, look at a pornographic picture in order to lust, or use filthy language (verbal habits are among the toughest to break) and yet hate himself for doing so. What David feared has come to pass in that person’s life: the willful sin has come to “rule over” them.

Regardless of whether we are dealing with faults that are hidden from us or sins that are hidden by us, our hope of getting free from them hinges on our willingness to humble ourselves. A humble person can discover a hidden fault through the help of a loving friend (or the malice of a hateful enemy), do something about it, and be released from its control. But a proud person will turn to denial and excuses. When it comes to willful sins, humility is of the utmost importance. God alone can break the power of willful sin over us, but without our humble cooperation that work will only be performed by death or disaster.

So, are all sins equally bad? No. The biblical evidence, from the types of Levitical sacrifices to the teaching of Jesus, suggest that some sins are worse than others since some sins cause greater harm and call forth greater punishment. To acknowledge that all sins are not equally bad, does not mean that some sins are good, or even tolerable. Every sin, whether great or small, creates a barrier between us and God, and separation from God is the essence of spiritual death. St. Paul put it this way: “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

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What Christians Need to Know in Times of Trial

Posted on March 1, 2025 by salooper57

Advice I had to give myself.

I frequently say to people going through some kind of trouble, “You’re being tested. But it is not a test of your worth. You are priceless; that has already been determined. It is not a test of how smart you are, or how strong, or how well you respond under pressure. It is a test of your faith.”

This idea is found throughout Scripture, but never is it more clearly stated than in James 1:3: “…the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” The difficulties we experience are a test of our faith, not our intelligence or our proficiency. Will we trust the Lord in this new difficulty, or will we trust ourselves, or will we put our trust in the cultural gods de jour?

I have said something like this to many people. This week, I needed to say it to myself.

It’s not that I endured some earth-shaking, soul-disturbing trial. I’ve not been diagnosed with some terrible disease, my wife hasn’t left me (or threatened to), and I don’t need to worry about where my next meal is coming from. The tests that came my way are smaller, everyday kinds of trials—the kinds all of us face.

Trials do not need to be big ones to be a test of faith. Any trial can reveal faith, as a calculus test reveals math proficiency. In the test, do I look to God and entrust myself and my situation to him, or do I look to myself or to some other source of help?

Over the weekend, my laptop began shutting off without warning, as if the battery was depleted, though it was still half-charged. This had happened before, and I had replaced the battery. Now it was happening again.

Windows offered an error message and I followed the QR code to suggested fixes. Atop the list was, “Reset the BIOS.” I did this almost without thinking, though I took care to save my personal files. But because I was using an old, local version of Microsoft Office rather than the 365 subscription the church offers, I (temporarily) lost 1,000 email addresses and many thousand emails. I also lost (temporarily) a very expensive Bible scholar’s software package and my wireless connection to our very obstinate printer. It took me days to get this worked out.

Photo by MART PRODUCTION on Pexels.com

Before my computer was fully functional, my car suddenly began running roughly. Gas mileage dropped drastically. I took it to the dealer, who informed me that the car needed a ring job. The car they would offer $7,000 for as a trade-in (if it were in excellent condition) would cost $5,100 to repair. What was I supposed to do? What would be the wise move? The money didn’t worry me. Making a foolish decision did.

When the computer lost (permanently, for all I knew) important programs and data, I started wracking my brain for how I could fix the problem. Did I need a specialist to look at it? When the car repair estimate came back – once I got over the shock – my mind began racing around, looking for a solution. What I did not do in either case, at least right away, was look to God and entrust myself and my situation to him.

I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t practice what I preach—at least, not immediately. Instead, my mind raced, I went searching for solutions, and I got stressed out. But the next morning, it dawned on me that these run-of-the-mill, everyday kinds of hardships were a test of faith. I almost laughed. Would I trust God and give him thanks? I would.

You don’t need to be tried like Abraham – told to sacrifice your own son – to have your faith tested. All you need to do is lose 1,000 email addresses or face a difficult decision without enough information to make a wise choice.

Whether we find ourselves in ordinary situations like those, or extraordinary situations like Abraham’s, it is important to remember that it is our faith that is being tested, not our worth or strength, or any such thing. Will we trust God? That is the question.

If we pass the test, whether in small or great things, we will reap immediate benefit. Our faith will be strengthened, and we will find it easier to trust God in the next trial. Each time we pass such a test, our faith (which is worth more than gold, according to St. Peter) is attested, and we become more confident and joyful—even in challenging times. The payoff for passing the test of faith truly is worth more than gold.

The songwriter Michael Card captured something of this in his song, In the Wilderness. He wrote of God, “He calls His sons and daughters to the wilderness. But He gives grace sufficient to survive any test. And that’s the painful purpose of the wilderness. And that’s the painful promise
of the wilderness.”

When Christians are in the wilderness, whether the wilds of illness, financial challenge, or relational struggle, it is faith that is being tested. If we will look to God and entrust ourselves and our situations to him, we will pass the test. That will bring God glory, but it will make us stronger and will open the door to joy.

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Guys, Where Are We?

Posted on February 22, 2025 by salooper57

In the summer of 2016, Karen and I were on a 70,000-acre lake in Quebec we’d never been to before. On our third or fourth day there, I went out one morning by myself. The sun had not yet broken the horizon, but the east was turning colors and steam was rising everywhere off the lake.

It was so beautiful that I fumbled around for my camera and started taking pictures. Because I wanted to reach a particular spot before the sun got up, I didn’t want to stop the boat. So, with the outboard at full throttle, I’d take a picture, look at it in the view screen, then take another one, look at it, then take another.

After about five minutes of this, I looked up from my camera and saw through the mist that I was traversing a straight that opened into a much larger arm of the lake. I suddenly realized I didn’t know where I was. The landscape was completely unfamiliar. I was lost.

William Starky on Wikimedia Commons

When you don’t know where you are, you will not know how to get where you’re going. I immediately stopped the boat and sat still on the glassy water. I got out the rudimentary map the camp owner gave us – it was more like a restaurant placemat than a real map – and tried to figure out where I was. I needed one of those maps you see at highway rest areas, the ones with an arrow that states, “You are here.”

If there were a map with an arrow helping 21st century Christians know where they are at, where would it point? One biblical answer is that it would point to a location behind enemy lines. “The whole world,” according to St. John, “is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). We are in this challenging place to carry out a planning and preparation operation – one could call it a propaganda campaign, in the positive sense of the term – in advance of the king’s arrival. We do this by declaring the king’s praises against the backdrop of changed lives that are full of good deeds (see 1 Peter 2:9-12).

(For a biblical illustration of how this works, read the wonderful story in Mark 5:1-20. Jesus finds a man in Gentile-controlled territory who is under the domination of dark powers and sets him free. The man pleads with Jesus to take him out of this dark place. But Jesus tells him to stay and gives him an assignment: to announce to his own people how much the Lord had done for him. He carries out this mission – this propaganda campaign – which forces people to think. The result is that when Jesus returns to the area (Mark 7:31-37), the people who previously wanted nothing to do with him now say about him, “He has done everything well.” This is 1 Peter 2:9-12 played out before our eyes.)

To say that we are behind enemy lines is not the only way to answer the question of where we are. For the Christian, the “You are here” arrow points to a fortress named, “In Christ.” That phrase is theologically rich and nuanced, but in one basic sense it is like saying we are in Company C, Third Battalion, Reconciliation Brigade. We’re not here to get rich. We’re not here get comfortable. We’re not here to get respect. We’re here to serve the king.

People who know where they are can get to where they are going. But there is more to it than knowing where we are. It also helps to know when we are. In the arc of God’s great story, when are we?

We are between D-Day and VJ Day. Gettysburg is past, but Appomattox is still in the future. In case these historical references are unclear, we live between the turning point and the victory, between the decisive battle and the usurper’s final defeat. We live between the triumph of the cross (see Colossians 2:15) and the return of the King.

This way of describing the where and when of our situation may be a little unnerving. Who wants to live in a war zone? And what if we fail at our mission? The stakes are frighteningly high. Wouldn’t it be better to forget these alarming realities and retreat into the comforting illusion in which most people live?

It would not be better. Our situation is more secure than we may think. It is true that we are in enemy territory, but we are also in God’s hands. Jesus said, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:28).

Yes, we are in a war zone, working behind enemy lines. But even here we are secure in the hand of God. And though we will someday leave the war zone, we will never leave the security of his hand.

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Your Mission, Should You Decide to Accept It

Posted on February 20, 2025 by salooper57

What are we doing here? What does God want us to accomplish? 1 Peter 2:9-20 can help us understand our role in God’s world.

A couple of months ago, I learned that our personal information had been hacked from a company that handles medical information for hospitals and doctors—a company I’d never heard of. The very next day, my credit card company asked me if I had just purchased clothes in South America. I also learned that my social security number had been hacked. With that, a person could apply for a driver’s license, credit cards, and loans. He could open bank accounts and request benefits.

What would you call a person whose life and benefits depends on an identity they weren’t born with, an identity that belongs to someone else? You might call them an illegal alien, or a con-man, or … a Christian.

That is what we saw last week, when we looked at 1 Peter 2:4-9. Our identity comes from Christ. We are who we are not because of our birth but because of our rebirth, not because of our name but because of the name of Jesus, not because of our accomplishments but because of his. We’ve taken our identity from him.

That identity determines our mission. Who we are determines what we do. Imagine that you are hired by a large transportation firm. Who you are – your classification as a driver, a diesel mechanic, a logistics engineer, or a comptroller – will determine what you do. If you are a comptroller, you won’t be maintaining and repairing engines. If you are a mechanic, you won’t be scheduling loading times and laying out routes. Who you are shapes what you do; your identity molds your mission.

Our mission, as people who share Jesus’s identity, is (verse 9) to proclaim the praises of the one who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. In other words, our mission at school, in our workplaces, at our homes, and in our neighborhoods – wherever we have been stationed – is an information operation. We spread the news about God.

How do we do that? Do we just walk up to someone on the street and say, “Hey, the Creator God is restoring his creation, fixing everything that’s broken, getting rid of evil forever. He’s already started by coming into our world in the person of Jesus Christ. The proof of that is that Jesus was raised from the dead.”

If you get the chance to say those things, take it! But proclaiming God’s praises doesn’t start on the street. It starts when God’s people gather to worship. With his Jewish background, Peter certainly would have thought about worship gatherings in this way. When the people of God got together for their appointed festivals, they proclaimed God’s praises. After the exile, when synagogues began appearing all over the world, they gathered there and declared his praises. And that carried over into the church’s gatherings (as we see, for example, in 1 Corinthians 14.)  

When we gather, we rehearse the praises of the Lord. We do this in our Scripture readings, like those today from Philippians 1 and Matthew 5. We do it in our songs and in our prayers. Regularly gathering to declare his praises is mission critical.

Does that mean we don’t need to do personal evangelism? Who said anything about needing to do it? We get to do it. Not everyone is gifted to be an evangelist, but everyone who belongs to Jesus gets the opportunity to declare his praises.

If you are one of Jesus’s people, that’s your mission – whether you decide to accept it or not. You are on the advance team, bringing the news about God to people who don’t know about him. And it is good news.

But our mission is more complicated than just bringing news about God to people who have never heard it. We are bringing news about God to people who have misheard it. They think they already know about “God and those Christians.” And what they think they know is that Christians are self-righteous, condemning, unhappy people—and that their God must be just like them.  

I received an email a couple of years ago from one of these people. She was sure that I would be angry because someone dared to disagree with me. When I wrote back: “I don’t mind when people disagree with me. We all need to think for ourselves,” it caught her off-guard.

She countered with something like, “Well, your God sends people to hell when they disagree with him.” She was really mixed up. She didn’t see that she was the one who was angry because someone disagreed with her. I suppose I’d be angry too if I believed what she believes.

The point is this: the people to whom we declare God’s praises are not blank slates. They already have an opinion, and it is often a negative one. The territory in which we carry out our mission is growing more hostile all the time. A case in point is the guy who said to me (and this is a direct quote), “America is not being torn apart by politics OR by the idolatry of politics, but by the idolatry of evangelists” – I’m pretty sure he was including me – “trying to wrest all control for their privilege and benefit.” Wow!

Because of my newspaper column, I’ve heard from many people who know without a doubt that Christians are selfish and hateful and that their God is spiteful and unworthy of devotion. When responding to these people, I have chosen my words carefully, but words will never be enough. They need to see what the people of Jesus look like in action.

That’s what Peter thought. He considered it our mission to speak and to act in ways that will move people to give God a hearing. This is verse 11: “I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:11-12).

Peter does not say, “Speak such eloquent words that people will glorify God,” but rather, “Live such good lives…” Their lives are different because they abstain – the idea is that they keep away from – “sinful desires.” That translation might give the wrong idea. The word “sinful” produces in our minds a list of bad actions. Peter, however, does not use the word “sinful” but the word “fleshly. And he is not talking about “actions”; he’s talking about “desires.” That’s important. He doesn’t want Christians to be driven by the same desires that drive everyone else.

We’re supposed to be different, and not just in what we do but in what we want. One of the clearest marks of spiritual formation in Christ is that we no longer want what we used to want. Our desires are being changed through union with Christ, just as our identity has been changed.

We don’t do what everyone else does and we don’t want whatever everyone else wants. That’s the negative side of the equation (what we don’t do). The positive side (what we do) is live beautiful lives. The word the NIV translates as “good” carries that idea. These are lives that are not just morally upright but are beautiful and full of good deeds. The deeds we do in verse 12 confirm the praises we declare in verse 10, so people not only hear; they see.

Timothy Dalrymple is the President and CEO at Christianity Today. In college, he was a top NCAA gymnast until he broke his neck. He then changed direction, went off to Harvard (where he found people who thought they knew all about Christians and their God), and faced tough questions about his faith.

The person who helped him most was not some brilliant and eloquent Christian apologist; it was his dad, whom he described as “a genuinely loving, faithful, righteous person.” He said, “I saw in his life something undeniably true that I couldn’t explain away.” A sermon you see stays with you longer than one you just hear.

Let’s recap: Our mission is to declare God’s praises from lives that are (1) different and (2) beautiful. They are different – again, this is important – because our desires are different from most people’s. And they are beautiful because they are full of good, surprising, generous deeds – things that other people wouldn’t do.

I’ll give you an example. Christians Ricky and Toni Sexton were at their home on April 6, 2000, when Dennis Lewis and Angela Tanner, who were fleeing the police, came roaring into their driveway. Toni, who was outside with the dog, was forced back into her home at gunpoint, and a 36-hour standoff with police ensued.

The Sextons, who were being held hostage in their own home, didn’t act like you’d expect hostages to act. They were different. Their deeds were beautiful. They listened to their captors’ troubles, fed them, showed them gospel videos, read to them from the Bible, and prayed and cried with them. When police negotiated the release of Ricky, who had Lou Gerig’s disease, he refused to go because his captors were thinking they had no alternative but to commit suicide.

The fugitives eventually surrendered to police but, before they did, the woman left $135 and a note for the Sextons that read: “Thank you for your hospitality. We really appreciate it. I hope he gets better. Wish all luck & love. Please accept this. It really is all we have to offer. Love, Angela and Dennis.” As a condition of their surrender, they asked to speak to a state police chaplain.

That was what it looked like for Christians to live a different and beautiful life in an extraordinary circumstance. But what does that look like in ordinary circumstances? Peter describes what it looks like, starting in verse 13 and running through 3:7. If you wonder how to go about living differently and attractively, Peter is going to tell you. There are two things to note before we look at it.

First, it really is a different kind of life we’re talking about. It’s not the kind of life the average American (or Canadian, Zimbabwean, or German) is living. If we just live average lives, no one will pay attention when we declare the praises of God. It is essential to the plan that our lives look different.

A few years ago, there was a guy at Columbia University named John Reider who was different. While his friends were playing video games and partying, he was cooking. Cooking is his hobby, so he started making five to eight course meals and inviting people to his rooms to share them. They’d sit around the table and enjoy stimulating conversations and a great meal.

The student newspaper heard about what John was doing and published a story, which the New York Post picked up. John soon found himself with a wait list that was months long and included bankers, lawyers, restaurant owners, and magazine editors. They were coming to his dorm to enjoy a meal and conversation. When he was asked about it, John said the idea was never to make it big, but to make it different. He was on to something. That’s God’s idea too.

If we will only do what Jesus and his apostles told us to do, we will be different. Speaking well of people who speak badly of us – that’s different. Praying for people who are out to get us is different. So is helping people who hurt us. Those are just a few of the things Jesus told us to do.

Second, while there are many things that make us different, there is one that Peter emphasizes repeatedly. He sees it as a primary characteristic of Jesus’s people and identifies four specific relationships in which it manifests itself: our relationship (this is 2:13ff.) to the government (that is a hot-button issue right now, but it was a hot-button issue when Peter wrote this letter); to our bosses (2:18ff.); to our spouses (3:1-7); and to the church (5:1-5).

When I have spoken on this subject in the past, it has made people uncomfortable. Once, a woman came up to me the moment the service was over and said, “When you started speaking, it took everything I had not to get up and walk out.” Even talking about this can upset people.

What makes it worse is that I must use the “s-word.” (Not that “s-word” – I don’t say that.) But using the other one upsets people too. The word is “submit.”

Peter says (this in verses 13-14) that Jesus’s people should submit to every human authority through the Lord, whether that authority is the emperor or the people who govern at more local levels. After mask mandates, vaccine requirements, and heated elections, we don’t want to hear about submitting to those in authority. It’s not that we’re unwilling to obey God’s word … but God couldn’t really mean that we should submit when the future of our nation is at stake!

What do you think those early Christians thought when they read Peter’s letter? Their country, their towns, had been overrun by a foreign power. The taxes they were forced to pay supported the foreign troops that patrolled their streets! And Peter told them to submit! Why? Because submission is essential to the mission.

We must remember that we are not private agents. We serve the Kingdom of God. Our objective is not to maintain a way of life – not even the American way of life – but to prepare for the arrival of the King. That preparation includes, among other things, silencing the ignorant talk of foolish people (v. 15) – and there has been a lot of ignorant talk about Christians in our day. We will never silence it by demanding our rights; we will silence it by doing good.

(As an aside, in a democracy we have opportunities to do good that were not available to Peter’s first readers. We can vote, organize, protest, run for office, and more. We should take advantage of those opportunities when doing so is one of those good and beautiful deeds. But if we allow current cultural concerns to drive the mission from our minds, our agency for the Kingdom of God will have been neutralized.)

We’ve already seen that we are supposed to be different. Being submissive is radically different. It is one of the marks of God’s kingdom agents on earth. They submit to a government for the sake of the mission. They also submit in the workplace (this is verse 18) for the same reason. In Peter’s day, the largest employment category was “slave.” So, Peter told slaves to submit. If the largest category had been, as it is in America, what the Bureau of Labor statistics calls Healthcare Support Occupations (which share some of the duties of a first century slave), Peter would have told health care workers to submit.

But why? Why should they submit? Because (vs. 19) they are mindful of God. They know who they are serving. They remember the mission. They are working for the King.

Submission is the mark of the Jesus-agent in every area of life: social life (with government, vv. 13-17); work life (with bosses, vv. 18-20), domestic life (in families, chapter 3:1-7); and spiritual life (in church, chapter 5:1-5). Why must submission be the mark? Why couldn’t it be something else—anything else: wisdom, or courage, or, for that matter, stubbornness? Because we have taken the identity of Jesus, whose submission to the Father has vanquished the powers of darkness and won for us eternal life.

If we identify with Jesus in our submission, we can be wise and courageous like him. And we can even be stubborn when some authority (in society, at work, at home, or in the church) requires us to disobey God. Being submissive does not mean being a doormat.

Our success depends on keeping the mission in mind: to declare the praises of our king while leading lives that are full of good and lovely deeds. If we live that way, we’re going to be different, not because we are trying to be different but because we are serious about being like Jesus.

Being different is not the goal; it’s the result. When people make it the goal – and I’ve seen it happen – it gets in the way of the mission. And when I’ve seen it, the thing I’ve noticed most is pride. Pride makes submission impossible. Pride gets in the way of people coming to God.

The New Testament scholar Scot McKnight says that the first task “for Christians in society is to live before God in love and holiness in such a way that culture sees the radical difference between the two worlds.”[1] That’s just what Peter has been saying.

I earlier told you about Ricky and Toni Sexton who behaved differently – beautifully – when they were taken hostage. They would not have been different in that extraordinary situation had they not been different in ordinary situations. That surely was not the first time they did good and beautiful things for the sake of the king. They lived the mission. So must we.

What good and beautiful thing – what different thing – is God putting into your mind to do? Will you submit to the Lord, trust him, and do it?

[1] McKnight, S. (1996). 1 Peter (p. 141). Zondervan Publishing House.

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Will God Really Give Us the Desires of Our Hearts?

Posted on February 15, 2025 by salooper57

We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations. (1 Samuel 8:19c-20a)

God’s plan to bless all peoples on earth (Genesis 12:2-3) required his chosen nation, his servant Israel, to be different from every other nation in the world. Success hinged on that difference. If Israel would follow God’s ways instead of imitating the people around them, their blessedness would be apparent to everyone.

At times, the difference between the Jews and their neighbors was subtle and difficult to see. At other times, the difference was impossible to ignore. For example, Israelites had every Saturday off work. That was noticeable and, I suspect, enviable. Further, every employer in Israel was required to give workers extended time off for each of the three great yearly feasts – we’re talking about weeks and weeks. Who doesn’t like time off?

Another conspicuous difference between Israel and their neighbors: in Israel, newlyweds were exempt from military service for an entire year. If there had been Facebook then, one can imagine a twenty-year-old Israelite man posting pictures of himself relaxing by a fire, holding hands with his bride as they walked along Galilee’s lakeshore, and putting their feet up on a Sunday afternoon. It was enough to make an Amalekite army grunt green with envy.

Other differences may not have seemed so appealing. Jews ate differently – no bacon double cheeseburgers ever! They were required to fast for special days. They not only didn’t have to work on Saturdays; they couldn’t work, even if they were farmers, and the nasty weather of the previous weeks meant they needed to get their crops out before they rotted on the vine.

Being different has its perks. It also has its challenges. In Samuel’s day, Jewish people faced a particular challenge. Their nation was not only different in its diet and work schedules. It was also different in its governance. All the other nations had kings, but Israel was ruled by God through judges.

That had worked well for them for many decades. The chronicler records that the Philistine Confederation, which had challenged and oppressed Israel for a generation, had been subdued, and Israel was at peace with its neighbors (1 Samuel 7:13-14). Nevertheless, the Israelite people believed they were missing out. Other nations had kings, and kings were cool – impressive, striking, celebrated.

The fear that one is missing out is as old as Adam and Eve. The desire to have what others have, and the belief that having it will secure and satisfy us, has been part of human experience throughout history. It is also the reason for much unhappiness.

People not only want what other people have; they want what other people want, a fact that has been consummately exploited by Madison Avenue and by social media influencers. Such people know that having the new car or the latest look won’t secure or satisfy anyone and, in fact, they are counting on it. The last thing they want is for people to be secure and satisfied.

But that is what God wants for people, which explains the significant emphasis and instruction on desire in the biblical writings. For example, the last of the Ten Commandments (or Ten Words) instructs us not to covet. This prohibition is not intended to deprive God’s people of any good thing, only of dissatisfaction and unfulfillment.

St. Peter warns Jesus’s people to keep their distance from “fleshly desires,” which he says “war against the soul.” When that war has been waged, the soul is likely to find that her security and satisfaction have been plundered, and the Trojan Horse that allowed the thieves to gain admittance was fleshly desire.

We warn our children to keep their distance from the wrong crowd, from drugs, from the promiscuous girl or the popular (but morally-deficient) boy. That may be necessary counsel, but Peter went radically further, warning people to keep away from the very desire for such things. He understood that good desires must be cultivated and harmful desires (those that usurp and starve our good desires) curbed.

It is not that desire itself is wrong, as some have claimed, for God is the desire-giver: “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4). But this does not mean that God, like a genie from a bottle, will give us the object of our inadequate, second-hand, and often illusory desires – a shapelier body or a vacation in Rio, for example. Instead of giving us the object of our desire, he will give us the desire for an object, a desire that will shape our life in extraordinary and beautiful ways.

For our children and for ourselves, we must learn both to cultivate and to curb desire. We will never succeed in curbing desire if we are not cultivating other, stronger desires. However, the place to start is not with our desires but with God, the giver of desire. We must learn to delight in him, a delight even many Christians have never experienced.

Just as wrong actions are much less an issue when wrong desires are not present, wrong desires are much less an issue when right desires are present. And right desires will be present when we delight ourselves in the Lord. This is the first step toward joy, the crying need of the church, and the promise of genuine fulfillment.

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The In-Betweeners

Posted on February 8, 2025 by salooper57

It is tough to be in between, but we’ve all been there: in between jobs, in between paychecks, in between visits. If we are adults, we passed through those awkward years that lie between being a kid and being an adult. Some of us have found ourselves in between hostile parties, peacemakers in the midst of a battle.

Living in the in-between is not easy, but that is where Christians find themselves. We live in between how it is and how it should be, between the already and the not yet, in between God and people, and that is where God intends us to be. We are the In-Betweeners.

Priests, by the nature of their calling, are In-Betweeners. They represent God to people and people to God. In Exodus 19:6, God told Israel that they would be a kingdom of priests if they would fully obey him. He wanted them to be In-Betweeners, representing God to the nations, and the nations to God.

In the New Testament, Peter quotes this verse and applies it to the people of Jesus. They are the non-ethnic royal priesthood, standing in between God and the people of the world. This passage from 1 Peter 2 provides the basis for Protestantism’s emphasis on the “priesthood of all believers.” Some protestants, however, have used Peter’s words to support their defiant claim that they don’t need a priest to go to God on their behalf. This ignores Peter’s intent, which was to remind believers of the crucial role they play as priests who stand between God and people.

Being a priest is a weighty responsibility. It was also, as any ancient Jew could have told you, a messy business. It still is. Living in between God and people is sometimes uncomfortable, but it is the calling of all Jesus’s people.

Peacemakers are also In-Betweeners, and Jesus clearly intended his people to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9; see also Romans 12:18; 14:19; Hebrews 12:14; and Philippians 4:2). The need has never been greater. The world is looking for international peacemakers to end deadly conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and to prevent new ones that threaten to engulf the globe.

Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com

It is not just international peacemakers that are needed. Families need peacemakers. Workplaces need peacemakers. Government leaders and politicians need peacemakers. Individuals with souls in turmoil need peacemakers. Where will they find them? The biblical answer is among the people of Jesus. They are the In-Betweeners.

Even when they are not making peace or acting in their capacity as priests, Jesus’s people feel the pressure of living in between. They live in that strange land between the already and the not yet, between what is and what should be. The pressure here is like that of gravity. Often it goes unnoticed, but sometimes it slams you to the ground.

Christians live in between what they are now (children of God) and what they shall be, which has not been made known in detail, though it will mean being like Jesus (1 John 3:2). The tension between the two is brought out in different ways in Scripture. For example, Christians have already been made perfect forever by the sacrifice of Christ. The author of Hebrews speaks of this as if it were a done deal (Hebrews 10:14). Yet, he writes that this perfect forever status is true (and, I think, only true) of “those who are being made holy.” Why do people need to be made holy who have been made perfect forever? Because they are In-Betweeners, living in the tension of the already and the not yet. They know what Schrödinger’s cat must have felt like.

When Jesus began his public ministry, he announced that the kingdom of God was at hand, but later he said that the kingdom was still to come, and that individuals must “receive” it (see Mark 1:15; Luke 11:2; Mark 10:15). In Romans 8:30, St. Paul speaks as if Christians are already “glorified,” yet elsewhere he speaks of the glory that is awaiting Christians. It is as if the future is sucking the present into it, and we are caught in the power of that vacuum.

We might get the idea that the in-between is an unwelcome, uncomfortable, and unavoidable place, but it is also a necessary place. It is where the ultimate In-Betweener, Jesus, the mediator between God and man, came. And it is the forge where holy-forever, glorified, peace-loving, God-trusting saints are conformed to his beautiful image.

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Time for a Change

Posted on February 4, 2025 by salooper57

In this sermon, Shayne gives five reasons to change your life, based on 1 Peter 1. He then offers suggestions of what that change might look like in real life.

(If you prefer to read the text of this sermon (there will be variations from the spoken message), you can find it below.)

Once, when we were visiting at my parents (it must have been 1993), my dad and I were alone in the kitchen and, out of the blue, he said to me: “I’d like you to do something for me.”

Instead of saying, “Sure,” I said, “What?” With my dad, I didn’t know what was coming next.

He said, “When I die, I’d like you to officiate my funeral.”

I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t that. He was younger than I am now, in good health, and was the toughest guy as I knew.

So, I said, “Okay, but I want you to do something for me.”

This time it was his turn to say, “What?”

I said, “Stop smoking! I’ve done too many funerals for people who have died from lung cancer.”

He replied, “Oh, don’t worry about me.”

So, I said yes to his request, and he said no to mine. About a year later, he was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer. Less than two years after that, I was officiating his funeral.

(By the way, my dad did quit smoking. I called him a week or two after he quit just to ask how he was doing. He answered in his inimitable way: “I never thought it would be this easy. You know, I only want one cigarette. I want it to be 8-feet long, but I only want one.”)

Change is hard, whether the change involves addictive substances or patterns of thinking. And yet change is required of every Christian. Other people may say, “I’m never going to change,” but Jesus’s people say, “I have changed and, by the grace of God, I’ll keep on changing until I am like Jesus.”

If God has been nudging you to change, consider this sermon a push. If he has been speaking to you, consider it a shout.

Today, I want to give you five reasons to change. These five reasons come from 1 Peter 1:10-19. Listen as I read to you verses 10-12. Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

Reason number 1: You need to change because you are caught up in the most important thing happening in the world today. The matter of supreme importance on the globe right now has nothing to with the rise of AI, international tariffs, or China’s intention to displace the U.S. as the world’s leader. The most important thing in the world is what God is doing—and is going to do next. Peter calls “this salvation,” in verse 10. You should change your lifestyle because God is bringing his salvation plans to fulfillment.

This salvation, this healing of the world, dwarfs everything else that is going on. Thousands of years ago, prophets were making careful searches and inquiries into it, trying to discover the timing and circumstances surrounding it. And now, in St. Paul’s memorable phrase (1 Cor. 10:11), “the fulfillment of the ages has come.” Did you realize that we are living in the time about which the prophets spoke? It is happening now! That is a good reason to change your life.

This thing is so important (verse 12) that angels long to look into it. Beings that existed before humanity appeared on earth, beings of unimaginable power and superhuman intellect, long to look into these things. The word translated “long” is usually translated “lust.” It connotes strong desire. This salvation is so fantastically important that these otherworldly being have an intense longing to know about it. And you and I are a part of it.

A second reason you should change your life is because of who you are. You are (verse 14) obedient children or, literally, “children of obedience.” Before you trusted Christ and came over to his side, you were one of “the children of disobedience.” (That’s Paul’s phrase from Ephesians 2:2.) But things changed for you when, as Peter said back in verse 3, God gave you new birth into his family.

Imagine a nine-year-old who is adopted into a loving family. The people he had been with were crude and lewd and by age 9 he has picked up many of their habits. He uses shocking language, shouts out sexually explicit phrases he doesn’t understand and, when he doesn’t get his way, he hurts himself and others. One day I visit this family and, when I see what’s happening, I take that young boy aside and tell him: “You are now a Smith (or a Jones). It’s time to stop acting like your name is Swine or Brute.”

That is essentially what Peter is doing. He is saying, “You are part of a new family – God’s family. So, stop acting like you are still part of that abusive family you grew up in. In Peter’s words, “Do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.” You didn’t know any other way then, but now you do.

There is background to this that we need to understand. Humans were designed to conform – God’s entire plan depends on it. He took dust of the earth, added water, and we became a kind of modelling clay, a human Play-Doh. We take the shape of what is around us and we harden into that shape. When we lived in ignorance, we “conformed to the evil desires” we had. Our lives took the shape of lust, or greed, or anger, or pride. But now we have been born into God’s family through faith in Jesus Christ and are being reshaped. We are still being conformed, but this time it is to the image of God’s Son.

The third reason you should change goes beyond who you are to whose you are: change because of who your Father is. Lots of pastors tell their kids they can’t do this thing or that thing – or yell at them after they’ve done it – because of what church people might think. That is a mistake. If our kids wanted to do something with their friends that seemed questionable or was likely to land them on morally shaky ground, we would tell them no. When they asked why, as teenagers do, I would say. “Because you are a Looper. But, more importantly, because you bear the name of Christ.” I wanted them to remember whose family they belonged to.

Because God is your Father (verse 17) and because he is holy (verse 16), you should “be holy in all you do” (verse 15). We assume that means, “Be religious in all you do.” It does not. Being holy has nothing to do with spouting catchphrases like, “Praise the Lord,” “God is good,” or “I’ll be praying for you.” Being holy does not mean you don’t laugh or enjoy sports or like nice things or take vacations. But it does mean that you are different.

That difference is not cosmetic. It is comprehensive. People have sometimes talked as if holiness is about how you dress or what kind of music you listen to. It is not. You can be holy whether you speak Farsi or English or Wolof, but you cannot be holy if you use your words to condemn or to gossip. You can be holy whether you wear a blouse or a Nike T-shirt or go topless (if you’re Wolof), but you are not being holy if you dress to intimidate or to titillate, to compel submission or evoke lust.

The heart of holiness is being different and that difference results from the fact that God’s Son has brought us into his family. We are different because we are his—his sons and daughters. A Christian who wants to please our Father and look like our savior is going to be different.

One difference between us and many other people is that we acknowledge God’s authority to say what is right and wrong. He gets to tell us what to do. That is radically different from how most of our neighbors live.

People do what is right in their own eyes. We choose to do what is right in God’s eyes. Our interests don’t come first; his do—and then our neighbor’s. We can live like this because we trust our Father to take care of us.

To live like this is to be different. To live like that is to be holy. And why live like this? Because God is our Father, and we are part of his family.

Here is a fourth reason to change: there is going to be a judgment and God is the judge. That is the teaching of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and that is what Peter has in mind in verse 17: “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.” There are some things to notice. First, note the word “each”: each person’s workis going to be judged. No one gets a pass.

Second, take note of the word “work.” The judgment Peter has in mind is not about your admission into God’s eternal kingdom. If you have the eternal kind of life that comes through faith in Jesus, that has already been taken care of. Peter is talking about a judgment of your work He doesn’t mean your job or career. He’s talking about what your life has produced during your time on earth.

Next, note the one judging your work is your Father. Do you realize what that means? Your judge is not some stranger, or enemy, or rival. He is not some infamously nitpicking critic. He is your Father who loves you. Whatever he may say about your work, what he says about you is this: “This is my child” – if you are indeed his child through faith in Jesus Christ. If you are not, believe on Jesus Christ today!

He is your Father, but he is also a perfectly just judge. He will not ignore the faults in your work because you are his child, like some parents do. But neither will he, like other parents, be harder on you than he is on everyone else because you are his child. Your life work is going to be judged and it will be judged accurately. As 1 Corinthians 3:13 put it, “Their work will be shown for what it is.”  

If your work survives that examination, you will have a reward, which will, I think, include the enjoyment in the next age of what your life produced in this age. That will be a sweeter fruit and more enjoyable than you can now imagine. But if your work does not survive the examination, neither will your reward.

Peter wants us to keep this in mind. He tells us, “…live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.” Understand what is at stake. Our work – not the employment that makes us money but the product of our life – is going to be judged. That means that what you and I do now has lasting consequences.

Peter calls our time on earth (literal translation), “the time of your alien residency here.” Before we moved to Elkhart, there was an influx of immigrants into the small town where we lived. Whenever we went to Walmart, we would see lots of people who were born in another country: Africans, Middle Easterners, people from the Caribbean. Most had a different mother tongue. Many wore different clothing. It was easy to recognize them as foreigners.

And Jesus’s people should be recognizable for the same reason. “Our citizenship,” St. Paul says, “is in heaven and we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). Would to God that people at Walmart recognized us as foreigners, as people who are different – who are holy – because our citizenship is in heaven and our customs come from there.

A fifth reason to change is because of the inconceivably high price God paid to make a new way of life possible for you. Peter contrasts that new way to “the empty way of life from which we were redeemed” (v. 18). When we hear the word “redeemed,” our brains immediately categorize it as religious. Peter’s first readers would not have done that. For them, this was a word that came right out of the community’s social life. They knew people who were redeemed. They themselves may have been redeemed. They didn’t think of it solely (or even especially) as a religious thing.

When Peter was writing, slavery was a major economic driver, comparable, say, to retail trade in our day. At one point, half the people living in Rome were slaves. The economy of the ancient world would have utterly collapsed if the institution of slavery had ended abruptly. But an individual’s slavery could end abruptly if he were (Peter’s word) “redeemed.”

The way that usually happened was this: a slave would save all the money he could, get friends and family to contribute and, when he had enough to make an offer, he would take it to the priest of Artemis or the priest of Apollo, who, after taking a cut, would make a deal with the slaveowner to redeem the slave. The slaveowner would then sign a paper acknowledging the slave had been released to Apollo or Artemis. Such a person was called a “freedman.”

Peter thinks of our life before Christ as a kind of slavery. It was “empty” as the NIV puts it. It led nowhere. We couldn’t help living that way because we were born as slaves. And we didn’t think much about it because everyone we knew was living the same way. We weren’t trying to get out of slavery, just make our slavery a little more comfortable.

But it was not some priest of Artemis or Apollo who bought us out of that old way of life. It was the high priest Jesus who released us into the service of the Lord of heaven and earth. And he didn’t use our own resources to redeem us out of slavery. He paid for us with his own blood. How can we go on living like everyone else, slaves to the empty desires that once controlled us, after we have been bought at such a price?

I’ve repeatedly said that we should change and related five reasons from 1 Peter 1 for doing so, but what does that look like? How should we change?

First, change the object of your hope (this is verse 13). In the empty, slave-way of life, people’s hope is about having a little more: a little more money, a little more time, a little nicer house. They hope for a more comfortable slavery. Stop hoping like a slave and start hoping like a son or daughter. Set your hope fully on the grace to be give you when Jesus Christ is revealed. He is going to make you more than comfortable. He is going to make you glorious.

Next, change your routine. Do you know what it means if you do what everyone else does and desire the same things they desire? It means you have been assimilated. Look at your life: if you are pursuing the same goals, valuing the same stuff, and spending time the same way as everyone else, you’re not living here as a foreigner. You’ve settled down. It’s time to settle up. If God has been speaking to you about changing something in your life, that is the place to start.

(This is just an aside. One easy way to be different is to go to church every week. That will differentiate you from 80 percent of all Americans.)

Finally, change what you tolerate in your life. I’m not talking about what you tolerate from others but what you tolerate in yourself. Ruthlessly eliminate (this is 2:1): “all malice” (that’s the desire for other people to get their comeuppance and to fail) “and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander” (whether online or in-person). Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander—that’s life in this world. It is not life in Christ.

You will need help to change, and God will give you that help. Ask him. Trust him. But understand that change requires (verse 13) “minds that are alert and fully sober.” In other words, you’ll need to think about this.

By “fully sober,” many scholars think Peter means only “clear-headed,” but since he mentions drinking later in the letter, we can’t rule out a literal reading. It’s impossible to do the kind of thinking needed to change your life when you’re drinking a lot – or even more than a little.

But alcohol is hardly the only thing that leaves us muddled. We can get buzzed on social media, non-stop news, hobbies, and shopping. I suppose such things have stopped more people from advancing spiritually than alcohol ever has. Whatever keeps your mind distracted, prevents you from going to God, and leaves you incapable of trusting him, needs to go.

It’s time for a change. That I should change pricks my conscience. That I can change gives me hope. That that change is into the likeness of Jesus causes me to pray, “Lord, I want to be like you!”

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