Closer to those Outside the Church

Posted on November 30, 2025 by salooper57

Last week we had various technical problems and the sermon did not properly record. (This week, the winter storm hitting the Midwest caused our county and the counties around us to issue orange alert travel advisories, so we cancelled services. And we could not stream the service and the Advent readings because the server was down.)

Because we couldn’t record the sermon from last week, I am posting the manuscript below. It will be like, but not exactly like, last Sunday’s sermon. In it, we look at how to move closer to people outside the church. The text is from 1 Peter 2 and 3. Hope you find it helpful. (Please use the comment option to discuss things you see in the text that are helpful to you!

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Imagine that you could suddenly and miraculously hear everything that is said about you the moment it is said. If your sister said something about you to her husband at their breakfast table, you would hear it. If the driver in the car behind you said something about you, you’d hear that too.

Because human nature is what it is, I suspect most of what we would hear would be negative. Not necessarily mean or ugly, just negative. People say things about others that make them feel better about themselves. That is a characteristic of the deteriorating self we looked at a few weeks ago.

So, people (family, co-workers, friends, and enemies) may be saying things about us that we would dislike hearing. They might even put us down because we are Christians. Is there anything that would make them ashamed of their negative talk?

This is our last week in the series, Closer. So far, we’ve thought about how to get closer to Christ, closer to our genuine, God-designed selves, and closer to other Christ-followers. Today, we’ll think about how to get closer to people who are not following Christ. That may be difficult because people, even in our families, don’t know what to make of our commitment to Jesus. They may avoid us. Or they may think, “Religion is their thing, not mine.” They may [SL1] even think that we think we’re better than they are. So, how can we get closer to them in a way that helps them change their minds about us—and more importantly, about Christ?

We’ll learn something about that from our text in 1 Peter 2 and 3. I’ll read 3:13-16 in just a moment, but before I do, I want us to remember that these verses have a context. If we ignore that context, we’ll make the mistake of thinking that we can talk people into faith in God, which rarely – maybe never – happens. Talking to people is necessary, but it’s not all that’s necessary. Words don’t come first. In fact, they are the last ingredient added to the recipe.

Sometimes my wife makes pizza. Does she pour the sauce onto the pan first, and then add the dough? Or does she start with the mozzarella? No, there’s an order to making pizza. And it is the same way with this. We don’t start with words. Unless our words rest on a foundation of a authentic Christian living, like the pizza sauce rests on the crust and not the other way around, our words are going to be hard to swallow.

Our text begins with the end of 1 Peter 2 and continues through the first 16 verses of chapter 3. To get started, we’re going to read 3:13-16. “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.”

How do we get to a place point where our non-Christian friends and family – and even enemies – give God a second thought? That’s a problem. They have not thought about God for a long time, and some have never thought seriously about Him. They have assumed that people who go to church are weird or weak or hypocritical. Or they think that “religion” (as they call it) is fine for other people but not for them. So, how do we get them to question their assumptions? How can we help them think?

According to Peter, it will not be our brilliant answers but our good behavior (verse 16) that causes people to rethink their assumptions. How will that happen? Well, first, it is important that they realize that we are the way we are because we belong to Christ, not because we are more spiritual or kinder or better than other people. The word order in Greek is interesting. “Those who speak maliciously against your good-in-Christ behavior…” If we want people to believe in Jesus, they need to see that he is the reason for our behavior. They need to link us (and the way we act) to him.

Are you linked with Jesus in people’s minds? When friends or co-workers mention you to someone else, what do they say? “You know, the English teacher (or whatever fills the blank for you: the mechanic, welder, banker, CNC operator, engineer),” or “You know, the one who plays golf all the time” (or “who bakes those great chocolate chip cookies,” or “who is always talking about her grandchildren”). If that’s what they link you to, you’ve still got work to do. That is not enough to cause them to give God a second thought, but this “good-in-Christ behavior” is.

So, what is that? To find out we need to look at the larger context, where we’ll discover four things that cause people to ask: “Why are you the way you are? Why do you have the hope you have?” Here are four behaviors that will change people’s way of thinking about us and cause them to give God a second look.

The first of these behaviors, which we find near the end of chapter 2, is the refusal to retaliate (1 Peter 2:23). When people insult us, we do what Jesus did: we bless them. This behavior is so foreign to people’s experience, so countercultural, that it will prompt them to give God a second look and ask the question from verse 15.

A second century document written by a man named Athenagoras says of Christians, “They show love to all men—and all men persecute them … [yet] they repay [curses] with blessings, and abuse with courtesy.”[1] That got people’s attention in the second century and, if we’ll practice it, it will get people’s attention today.

A second way to get people to ask about our hope is to make sure our relationships are healthy. And, if you’re married, that starts with your spouse. Great marriages are counter-cultural. They’re the exception, not the rule. When people see one, they notice it.

Peter draws out three things that constitute “good-in-Christ behavior” within marriage. First, wives are submissive to their husbands (1 Peter 3:1). Be careful not to read into this a 21st century American concept of submission, which puts it on a par with slavery. In contemporary thinking, the submissive person is: weak and scared; gets pushed around by everybody; has no backbone. That is not what Peter is talking about. In fact, the idea would offend him. The Bible calls all Christ-followers, both men and women, to submission; it’s not just wives. The submissive person is not weak. He or she is strong enough to stand under other people and hold them up. The submissive person is like a boulder on which someone can take their stand, not like a pebble trapped in their shoe. The kind of submission Peter is talking about should characterize every Christ-follower, but it should be especially evident in the Christian wife.

A wife’s submission does not mean that she has no say. It does not mean she is a dimwit who depends on her husband to do all the thinking. It doesn’t mean she is the slave of her husband’s whims. (Remember, Scripture commands all of us to submit to each other, and it certainly does not mean us to be slaves to each other’s whims.) For a wife, submission means that she supports her husband; she is for him, on his side.

Peter mentions two traits that should characterize a Christian husband. First, he knows his wife – or at least, he is getting to know her: what she thinks and likes and desires. The Greek behind the NIV translation, “be considerate as you live with your wives” is literally, “live together according to knowledge.” The husband who is getting to know Christ is also getting to know his wife. He wants to know her. Secondly, he respects his wife (verse 7). The Greek word implies placing a high value on her. The Christian husband treats his wife as a person of importance and high standing. What she thinks matters to him. He listens to her.

Watch a TV sitcom and see if that is how married couples are portrayed. My guess is that you will find just the opposite: the women treat their husbands like fools and the men don’t know their wives at all, and don’t want to. But that’s not just TV; it’s real life – your neighbors’ and coworkers’ lives. If they see something different in your relationships – if they see respect and friendship and love – they’ll take note. They may even ask (verse 15) for the reason you are the way you are.

The third “good-in-Christ behavior” is found in verse 8. If you want to stimulate interest in God among your non-Christian friends and family, make sure that you have good relationships with your Christian friends and family – the church. “Finally, all of you, be likeminded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.” People want relationships like that, even when they say otherwise; even when they say they don’t need anybody. They say that kind of thing because they’ve been hurt, but it is human nature to want friends. If you invite someone to church and they see that your church friends are also your dear friends and not just Sunday acquaintances, it will make them re-think what they thought they knew about God and the church.

Last week we talked about getting things in the right order. We see that again here. If you want to get closer to people outside the church, make sure that you are getting closer to people inside the church. Your relationships with church people will make a difference in how non-church people think about you and about the church.

Our relationships are the soundtrack to our message, like the music playing behind the dialogue in a movie scene. In the second of the original Star Trek movies, there is a moving scene where Mr. Spock sacrifices his live to save the crew from certain death. A grief-stricken Captain Kirk is helpless to save him. They speak their touching goodbyes, and Spock passes from this life.

And all the while the scene is playing, there is music in the background. We’re not paying attention to it, but to the words; yet it is having an impact. It rises to a crescendo, falls, rises again into a painful dissonance, and finally resolves itself into a few bars of the Star Trek theme. Then it dissolves again into a sad horn playing under high strings.

If you removed that music from that scene, it would suck the power right out of it. You’d see dated special effects, nominal acting, and an extra, hiding his face and then clumsily making his way off camera. The music makes up for the defects.

Now, here is what we need to understand: our relationships with fellow-church members provide the soundtrack to the message we share about Christ. If those relationships are rich, our words will have more impact. Take away that soundtrack, and people will see all our defects – they’re not hard to find – but they won’t notice Christ.

Now the fourth of the “good-in-Christ behaviors.” This one is so powerful it will make people reconsider everything they thought they knew about Christianity. It is found in verse 14. “Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.” A literal translation runs like this: “Do not fear their fear nor allow yourself to get stirred up.” The fundamental human emotion since the Fall of Adam has been fear. Remember Adam’s first words after the rebellion? “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid…” (Genesis 3:10). Fear has been humanity’s constant companion ever since.

The “deteriorating self” that we looked at a few weeks ago, is a patchwork of fears. That old self is afraid of dying and afraid of living; afraid of making a mistake and afraid of doing nothing. We Americans are afraid of immigrants, indigence, disease, and shame. Afraid of loud noises and afraid of silence. We panic when we can’t find our phones!

The whole world is afraid, but the Christ-follower is not to fear what they fear. What? Not fear losing my job? No. Not fear being an outsider? No. Not fear running out of money during retirement? Not fear being lonely? Not fear looking old? Not fear conflict? Not fear death? No. “Do not fear what they fear.”

The next word, the one the NIV ’84 translates “frightened” is literally, “stirred up.” Don’t let all these things stir you up or, as we might say, “get you worked up.” The picture is of a kettle that is on the boil. This is inward turmoil, the kind that comes when we forget that God is good and that he is in control. This is the word Jesus used when he said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1).

We see again how important it is that we remember the order of operations. If we are not moving toward Christ and, therefore, not moving in the direction of our truer, fuller self, we will never obey this instruction. We will fear what everyone else fears, because the deteriorating self attracts fears like a wool suit attracts lint. But as we become our truer, fuller selves, fear loses its grip on us.

When people encounter fearlessness, they notice it. Do you have to be tough to overcome fear, or unemotional, or brimming with self-confidence? No, but you do have to be moving toward Jesus. It is possible to face poverty, rejection, conflict, and old age without being controlled by fear; but that doesn’t happen without Jesus.

When we don’t fear what everyone else fears, some people will have questions. Why are you like that? What is the reason for your hope? That’s when we use words. We tell people what we know about God. We tell them about Jesus, about his death and resurrection. But we do this with gentleness; we’re not insensitive. And we do it with respect. We are not trying to make a sale or push people into something they don’t want. We respect the fact that they have their own beliefs and feelings. We know that their response is up to them, not to us. And we know that God was present and at work in their lives before we arrived and will be there after we’ve gone. It’s not all up to us.

If we treat people this way, they might not respond in faith but they might change the way they think about us and about the Lord. They might be ashamed (Peter’s word) to speak against us because they’ve seen our good-in-Christ behavior for themselves.

So, let’s wrap this up. If we’re going to move closer to non-Christians in a way that will give Christ a fair hearing, Peter outlines four things you can do. First, we absolutely refuse to retaliate against people who mistreat us and speak against us. When we’re mistreated, we do what Jesus did: we entrust ourselves to him who judges justly (1 Peter 2:23).

Secondly, we improve our relationships and, if we’re married, especially our relationship with our spouse. Don’t have a marriage like your co-workers’ marriages or your friends’ marriages. Have a better one. Take one step today to make it better. If you don’t know what that step could be, ask your spouse. But even before you do that, ask your Lord.

Next, pursue better relationships with other church members. If there is discord between you and someone else, talk to the Lord and then try to fix it. Think about how you to be a blessing to other people in the fellowship (that’s verse 9). Make it your goal to bless someone at church each Sunday and to bless someone from church during the week.

Finally, when fear comes, seek the Lord’s face and then face your fears. Choose to trust God, despite what’s going on in your life. Ask him to take the very things you’re afraid of and turn them into areas where the reality of his life and strength shines through. God wants to use your fears to build a platform from which he can demonstrate his power. Don’t just distract yourself from your fears: face them, give them (and yourself) to God, and overcome them with his help!

If you do these things, you will get the opportunity to speak to others about your hope. St. Francis is reputed to have said, “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” It will be necessary, if you do these things. But speak with gentleness and respect. Remember, Jesus is not a product you’re selling, but a leader you’re following. If you get the chance, tell your story: How you’re moving closer to Christ, to your true self, to Christian friends, and to others. When that really is your story, God will use it to help other people.

[1] Quoted in James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Community (IVP, 2010), pp. 28-29

 [SL1]

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Is Something Missing from Your Thanksgiving Celebration?

Posted on November 29, 2025 by salooper57
Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

Our children and grandchildren arrived at our house five days before Thanksgiving. On Saturday, I made two trips to the airport. Since then, I’ve made meals, made faces (at our littlest grandkids), made believe, made music, but I haven’t made much space for giving thanks.

But being a thankful person requires more than space. Thankfulness – “gratefulness” is, perhaps, the correct term – requires knowledge. We must know two fundamental truths about God to be grateful. We need not only take hold of these truths; these truths need to begin taking hold of us.

The first is that God is great: An ungrateful spirit testifies against us that our God is too small. He is not the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac. He is not the great and terrible God of Israel, who “is in heaven, and does whatever he pleases” (Psalm 115:3, CSB).

The other of these truths is that God is loving: he pursues the good of his people at all times. Ingratitude testifies that our God is not the one who so loved the world that he gave; he is not the loving God of Calvary. These two fundamental truths about God – that he is strong and loving, great and good – must become part of the fabric of our thinking if we are to be grateful people.

These are truths the Israelites rehearsed year after year. The Psalmist knew them: “One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard: that you, O Lord, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving” (Ps. 62:11-12). The theme of the 136th Psalm is “That you, O Lord, are strong,” and the Psalmist plays that theme again and again. He is: the God of gods and the Lord of lords; he does great wonders; he created the earth, the stars and the sun; he has entered into history and redeemed a people; he has swept away Pharaoh’s army and struck down kings; he gives food to every creature.

He is strong, but he is also loving. If the theme of that psalm is that God is strong, its refrain, which continually alternates with the theme, is: “You are loving.” You, O Lord, are strong; you, O Lord, are loving. Twenty-six times we hear – as if to drill the fact into our heads – that “his love endures forever.”

You may think: “I already know that. I’ve known that as long as I can remember.” But worry and ingratitude testify that we don’t believe it, at least not in the robust and comprehensive way needed. It has not gone from doctrine to practice, from head knowledge to heart knowledge.

We must believe in, rest in, and be saturated in God’s love if we are to become grateful people. To believe in God’s love means to believe that he always seeks our good, in every situation, no matter what. Without this belief to anchor our souls, our gratitude will rise and fall like the wind. God is always working for our good.

But be careful how you define good. By good we usually mean our comfort, our success, or our pleasure. Our good, we think, consists in avoiding unpleasantness and accumulating more money. If we insist on defining good in that way, it will certainly seem that God is not always seeking our good. If God really loved me, I would not be enduring this loss, facing this illness, struggling through this family crisis. I don’t call those things good.

But God is good. Terribly good. His love is demanding: it demands our best when we would be satisfied with our comfort. What is our best? Something beyond imagination: St. John says, “When he appears, we will be like him” (1 John 3:2). Paul writes, “Our light and momentary affliction is working for us an exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). God is not satisfied with a few years of comfort for us, but an eternity of glory. He is doing something in us that is so big that all creation will be altered by it: “The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.” “Creation itself will be liberated…and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Knowing God’s goodness, Paul does not say, (as we might expect), “We have no present sufferings.” Rather, he says, “I reckon our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us!” (Romans 8:18).

Perhaps what we call “good” is not good enough; but what does God call good? Listen to St. Paul: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:28).

To be conformed to the likeness of his Son is what God calls good. And, somewhere in his heart, it is what every follower of Jesus calls good, too. Nothing, not the worries of life nor the pains of death can rob a man of this good. Everything – life’s joys and sorrows, fears and hurts, misunderstandings and unfair treatment, even death itself – will bring good to the person whose has chosen this for his goal.

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Closer to Each Other (Ephesians 4:25-32)

Posted on November 26, 2025 by salooper57

In this message, we learn four ways to get close – and stay close – to other Christians. Each way includes something to do and something to avoid. Paul gets practical here on how to have a great church!

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Stopping too Soon: A Comedic Trope, an Exegetical Fallacy

Posted on November 22, 2025 by salooper57

In a recurring gag from The Jack Benny Program, Jack hears someone say, “You’ll lose everything if you don’t act now.” Jack, who is famously obsessed with money, assumes that there has been a stock market crash or a run on the bank, and panics. But it is a commercial he overhears—an advertisement for hair tonic. Jack doesn’t listen long enough to discover it’s his hair, not his money, that he stands to lose.

That trope – hearing part of a conversation, then jumping to conclusions – has found its way into more scripts and sketches than any of us can remember. If Jack Benny is a complete stranger to you, perhaps you will recognize it from Shrek. Shrek overhears Fiona talking to the donkey about the curse that has turned her into “a hideous, ugly beast” and jumps to the conclusion that she is talking about him.

We laugh at the trouble that Jack Benny brings on himself, and we worry that a humiliated and angry Shrek will hand over Fiona to the evil Lord Farquaad, but we are oblivious to the fact that we make similar errors.

“Trope” was the word I used to describe the comedic device that consists of hearing part of a message and jumping to the wrong conclusion. If that is the right word, then it would not be wrong to speak of an exegetical trope: stopping too soon in a biblical text, understanding only half its message, but acting as if it comprises the whole.  

I once laid out a sermon series titled, “Stopping too Soon,” which was built on this exegetical trope. Included in the sermon texts were John 3:16 (the Bible’s most recognized verse), 1 Peter 5:7, Philippians 4:13, and Revelation 3:20. All of these verses are widely known and deeply treasured, but each needs to be taken in its context.

For example, if I read John 3:16 and stop there, I can cheer myself with the thought that God “loves me” and go about my life without further ado. But if I read on, I will see that God’s love is not mere sentimentality. Because he “so loved the world,” he sent his Son on a rescue mission to save it from its condemnation. If I continue reading, I will see that there is something for me to do in response to this love: “believe in the Son” and “come into the light.”

1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you,” is similar. We memorize that verse and quote it to others who are anxious. But if we stop there, we’ll get the idea that we can cast our anxieties on God and be done—he’ll do all the rest. Yet casting our anxieties on God is not all we need to do. Read on: we also must be self-controlled and alert for there is danger abroad. We must resist our “adversary the devil.” So, it’s not off-loading our anxiety and spending a day at the spa after all!

One passage I did not include when I was laying out my Stopping Too Soon series, but should have, is 1 Peter 3:1: “Wives, in the same way, be submissive to your own husbands…” We read that and either have a conniption at the sexist unfairness of it or we weaponize it and use it to force believing wives to toe the proverbial line.

In one case, we have both missed the beginning of the conversation; in the other, we have missed its ending. The beginning of the conversation starts in 1 Peter 2:13, where we learn that submission is appropriate for all the people of Jesus, not just wives. Submission is a core Christian behavior. As in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, the submission of wives to husbands is set within the context of Christians’ submission to each other.

After the instruction to wives is wrapped up, Peter turns to husbands with instructions for them. If we stop too soon, we miss this important part of the conversation. The husband to which the Christian wife submits is considerate towards her. A more literal translation of Peter’s instruction goes like this: “Husbands, likewise, live together according to knowledge.” Peter wants Christian husbands to know their wives: know what they like and what they fear, know their hopes, their weaknesses, and their motivations. Of course, it takes investment to know anyone like this. Peter wants Christian husbands to be fully invested in their wives.

But he doesn’t stop there. He also wants husbands to honor their wives. The word translated as “honor” (or “respect”) has the idea of placing high value on something or someone. Peter wants husbands to value their wives highly, to treat them as people of high standing and great importance. Such behavior was unexpected and highly countercultural in first century Mediterranean society—and 21st century America. If we stop too soon in this passage, we miss the beautiful reciprocity of the Christian marriage relationship.

When Shrek misses the end of the conversation, it leads to lots of laughs. When we miss the end of a biblical conversation, it leads elsewhere: to confusion, misdirection, and even blasphemy.

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Become Your True Self (Pt. 3: Put on a New Self)

Posted on November 19, 2025 by salooper57
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Weeping When You Should Rejoice

Posted on November 15, 2025 by salooper57

I have a book by Larry Helyer and Richard Wagner titled Revelation for Dummies. I need it. I often feel like a dummy when I read Revelation.

Of course, I understand the primary message of Revelation: God wins. Jesus is victorious. Evil will be defeated, death undone, and earth will be restored to its God-intended glory. God will live with people, which was always the plan, and people will be glad that it is so.

Nevertheless, there is much in Revelation that I find confusing. For example, in Revelation 18, a great and resplendent angel shouts, “‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!’” This is, of course, a reference to Isaiah 21. (Side note: No one can understand Revelation while overlooking its many biblical quotations and allusions—more, I believe, than in any other New Testament book.)

In the verses that follow, we learn that the kings, merchants, and logistics experts of the world will bemoan the fall of Babylon. The angel cries, “Fallen,” but the “great city” seems still to have been standing. This, of course, fits well with the historical setting, as the people of God were suffering greatly at the hands of a Rome that had not yet fallen. (That “Babylon” is in some sense a code word for Rome is clear, for the woman/prostitute “Babylon” is designated as “the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.”)

Could Babylon be something different in 6th century BC than it was in 1st Century AD? Might Babylon still exist and be something different today than in either of those times? Does Babylon belong to the ages, a spirit that deceives and exploits through the long years of Adam’s fall?

Where is Helyer’s commentary when I need it?

While there is much in Revelation 17 and 18 that I do not understand, I have for years been struck by its intentional juxtaposition of reactions to Babylon’s fall. The rich and powerful react to Babylon’s destruction with mourning while God’s people react with rejoicing. Babylon’s fall portends the fall of world leaders, but declares the victory of Jesus’s followers.

When Babylon falls, world leaders mourn, but God’s people are told to “Rejoice.” Babylon is under God’s judgment for the harm she caused the saints. The curse of Babylon that ends chapter 18 flows into, and is the reason for, heaven’s jubilant celebration that we find at the beginning of chapter 19.

Why do I find this so striking? Because I cannot help but see it as a cautionary tale for contemporary Christians. Are we in a place (spiritually, intellectually, emotionally) where we can rejoice at Babylon’s fall? Or will we mourn her loss like everyone else? Could it be that the very elect have become intoxicated with Babylon’s delights?

We find this same type of juxtaposition in John’s Gospel. It was the eve of Jesus’s crucifixion, and his betrayer had already gone to fetch the authorities. Jesus said to his friends: “I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.”

As I would not want to rejoice with the world over Jesus’s arrest and execution, I would not want to grieve with the world over Babylon’s fall. But how can I get it right – grieve when worldly people rejoice and rejoice when they grieve? Or, said another way, how can I grieve at what grieves God and rejoice at what brings him joy?

I suspect that trying to figure out the Book of Revelation (what every image stands for, every biblical citation connotes—what the number 666 is all about!) is not the way to go about it. I needn’t figure out Revelation, but I do need to be all-in for Jesus. When I am, everything else will come out right—even me.

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Become Your True Self (Part 2 of 3)

Posted on November 13, 2025 by salooper57

In this second of three sermons on Colossians 3:1-14, we learn that some aspects of who we are (or who we think we are!) need to go before our true self – the one God designed, and we will enjoy forever – can appear. How do we go about getting rid of the false self so that we can become who we are meant to be? That’s what we explore in this 26-minute message.

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The 3-D Marriage

Posted on November 8, 2025 by salooper57

About two million couples get married in the U.S. each year. Of that number, something like 225,000 of them began their relationship online. Imagine a couple that is about to get married. They didn’t meet in a bar, which is where many people go to find a match, nor in church, which is a better choice for meeting someone with whom to spend your life. No, they met online, using an AI-powered dating service that requires members to answer a sophisticated 200-question survey.

This thirty-something couple paid $100-a-month to join the site, filled out the comprehensive questionnaire, and registered their profile. Instead of using an internet cheat sheet to impress potential dating-partners, the two of them answered the questions honestly and to the best of their ability. They really wanted to find the right person.

They begin corresponding and, after a few weeks, decided to meet. But even before their first face-to-face, the CEO of the dating service texted them to set up a Zoom meeting. The couple wondered why he wanted to talk with them. What could motivate the CEO of the world’s fastest-growing dating site to set up a meeting with them?

At that Zoom meeting, the CEO told them, “Of the six million questionnaires submitted worldwide over the past three years, yours are the first to score a 100% compatibility rating across all 29 personality dimensions. Nothing like this has ever happened before! It is virtually impossible. If ever there was a match made in AI heaven, it’s yours. Invite me to the wedding! Oh, and I’d like to hire you as our spokespeople for 2026.”

These people we are imagining are the most compatible couple since Adam and Eve. They are perfectly suited for each other. He jokes that he should change his last name to “Right” so that he can be Mr. Right and she can be Mrs. Right on the marriage license.

So, if something like that really happened, would it guarantee a happy and successful marriage? The answer – even an AI will tell you – is no. Finding Mr. or Ms. Right does not guarantee a successful marriage, but when each member of the couple becomes the person God intends them to be, it does.

“I wish someone had told me that earlier.”

Ann Tyler wrote a novel titled, A Patchwork Planet, in which the main character is a thirty-two-year-old divorced man. Because of his job, he spends a great deal of time with elderly people, some of whom have been married for fifty years or more. As he watches them, he comes to a profound conclusion. “I was beginning to suspect that it made no difference whether they’d married the right person. Finally, you’re just with who you’re with. You’ve signed on with her, put in a half a century with her, grown to know her as well as you know yourself or even better, and she’s become the right person. Or the only person, might be more to the point.”

Then he says poignantly, “I wish someone had told me that earlier.”

That is what I am telling readers in this article. Marrying “the right person” does not guarantee a good marriage, but becoming the right person (in this case, the right people) does. And no one knows how to help people to become the right person better than Jesus. When both members of a married couple become his apprentices, rely on his help, and seek his blessing, they will have a marriage that not even the best dating service can provide.

When a couple marries, they give themselves to each other with vows, the joining of right hands, and the giving and receiving of rings. But the foundation for a great marriage does not rest on the couple’s act of giving themselves to each other for life, but on the giving of themselves to God for eternity. That is what makes the difference.

All great marriages are three-dimensional. The first and most visible dimension is the one that exists between the couple. It is rich in itself, layered, complex, and beautiful; but there is more. The second dimension, which is just as real but not quite as prominent as the first, exists in the relationship between their marriage and others: children, family members, friends, and the church.

But it is the third dimension that stretches a marriage up to heaven: a shared relationship with God. Without this, marriage remains two-dimensional, which is to say, it remains flat. But with it, a marriage can become a work of art, sculpted in cooperation with the Divine Artist himself: a stunning, three-dimensional representation in which the beauty of Christ’s love for his church shines.

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Become Your True Self

Posted on November 5, 2025 by salooper57

This sermon on Colossians 3:1-4 introduces the idea of a true self, the self God intends you to be (and that you will love being. View time is 27:20.

If you would rather read the sermon that watch it, click here.

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Become Your True Self

Posted on November 4, 2025 by salooper57

Last week, we talked about moving closer to Christ. That takes faith. It can be scary moving closer to him, because it means we’re moving further away from something else – maybe something we enjoy, something our identity is wrapped up in, or something that makes us feel secure. If moving closer to Christ means moving further from the people or things we have relied on, we will only be able to do it if we trust God. Moving closer to Christ can, at least initially, make us feel less secure, and we hate that because security is one of our highest priorities. That’s why moving closer to Christ takes faith.

Moving closer to yourself – the person God made you to be – takes hope. When I talk about moving closer to yourself, I am assuming certain things you may not have thought about. I am assuming that you are not now the self you were in the past, nor are you the self you will be in the future. You have been in transition ever since you were formed in the womb. You did not stop becoming when you were born, or when you turned 18, or got married, or entered a career. Life moves from en utero to en cosmos to en Christo: from womb to world to Christ, and at each stage, we become more ourselves.

Moving closer to Christ takes faith; moving closer to yourself takes hope. St. John says, “What we shall be has not yet appeared, but when he appears we shall be like him” (the ultimate stage in our development), “for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3). A Christian is not driven into the future by the mindless forces of the past. A Christian is drawn into the future by the loving plan of an all-knowing God. Your true self exists in that future: a self at peace within, with others, and with God. A self that: enjoys life and is constantly grateful for it; that sees the enormous value of others; that loves God with heart, and soul, and mind.

Last week, we saw that you can’t move closer to Christ without moving away from something else. This week, we’ll see that you can’t move closer to your true self without moving away from the misshapen – greedy, fearful, victimized – person you have taken yourself to be. Remember what St. John said? “Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself” – that is, moves away from the things that have no place in the person God is making him to be.

To move closer to Christ takes faith. To move closer to your true self takes hope. To move closer to others (both in and out of the church) takes love. So, we have faith, hope and love, and each one affects the other two. As we move closer to Christ, we find that we’ve moved closer to our true selves. When we move closer to our true selves, we become closer to other people, in and out of the church. Once this process gets started, each movement amplifies and reinforces the next. As I move closer to Christ, I am closer to the person God intends me to become, and that moves me closer to others, which moves me closer to Christ, which moves me closer to my true self, and so on. It is a spiritual chain reaction.

Today’s text helps us understand how we can cooperate with God in that process. I say “cooperate with God” because the new creation project is his project. We get to be, by his grace and to our joy, his co-workers; but it will always be his project. If we try to hijack it, we won’t end up with a new self but with a false self – probably just a false front – and we’ll miss out on the wonderful person he is making us to be.

Our text is Colossians 3:1-17, but because what Paul says in these verses grows out of what he’s written in chapter 2, and because it leads directly to what he will say at the end of this chapter and the beginning of chapter 4, we will need to look at what precedes and follows it. One week will not be enough to do all that, so we will continue in this text for two more weeks.

I’ve just said that God is the architect and builder of our true selves. Though he partners with us, he is the boss. When we forget that, we fall into the error of thinking that it is up to us to design and build the true self. But our design is usually only a mashup of other people’s ideas.

That’s what happened in the church at Colossae. First century influencers were speaking authoritatively on how to become your truer, fuller self. They shared fantastic – and probably fictitious – success stories, and led the Colossians to believe that they could succeed too, if they would only follow their plan. That plan included lots of rules and depended on a mind-over-body approach to life. (That’s chapter 2, verses 16-23.) In short, they were telling people how to take control of the new creation project.

That’s a temptation (taking control) that is hard to resist. But it is God – not us – who is the Architect-Builder of the new self. Conforming us to Christ’s image was his project long before we got involved. When we hijack control of that project, we actually delay the changes God is bringing about because obedience – not control – is the key to success. It is not that we are passive, any more than a construction worker on the job site is passive. We are on the job site. We are the job site. There is work to do, and the Architect-Builder expects us do it, but by following his plan, not ours—or worse, some ambitious teacher’s.  

Those first century teachers were so smart. Even Paul admits that their ideas appear wise; the only problem, he says, is that they don’t work (Colossians 2:23). Their shortcut to the true self would undermine the entire project. After warning the Colossians against them, Paul lays out a better way to move closer to the new self.

Now, listen as I read Colossians 3:1-11: Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

What could Paul mean by “Since, then,” (or, as it could be translated, “If, as is the case”), “you have been raised with Christ…” How have we been raised with Christ? When did that happen? I don’t remember being raised with Christ, so what could this mean?

A common answer is that this is a metaphor, a poetic way of saying that we experienced a change of status when we trusted in Christ. Our status certainly changes when we turn to God and trust Jesus, but our status changes because there is a change in us. When we respond to the message about Jesus with faith, a connection is established between us and him, and through that connection, God begins reorganizing our lives around Jesus’s life. What happened to him 2,000 years ago – his death, his resurrection, his ascension – is being “downloaded” into us.

But if I have been raised with Christ, why do have I no awareness of it? Well, that is hardly the only thing you are not aware of that is true about you. There is more to you than you realize. Freud told us that, of course, but even he barely scratched the surface. You are more than your body, more than your conscious thoughts, and more than your subconscious thoughts. The you you think you know so well is really a stupendous mystery, even to you! You are more than the sum of your past experiences, more than the product of what has happened to you on earth. You are the promise of what has and will happen to you in connection to Christ. You – the real you, not a metaphorical you – has been raised with Christ and seated with him. And that is because you have been linked with Jesus through faith.

The fulfilled you, the forever you, beckons you on. People mistake that beckoning for hunger, boredom, sexual desire, ambition, but it is more enduring than any of these. To use the theological term, your soul’s deep longing is to be glorified. You can try to satisfy that longing with food, sex, success, sports, but it always comes back—and thank God it does. The core of our being is constantly crying out for something more: for completion—to be “a completed man, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13, LIT). That longing lies behind, and outlasts, every other desire.

It is important that you grasp this. There is more to you – and to your neighbor – than you realize. “There are no ordinary people,” C. S. Lewis once said. “You have never talked to a mere mortal…it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.”[1] God is calling us to become those splendours: rich in joy, fortified with strength, and guarded by peace. That is our destiny.

Look at verse 3. The you that lacked a connection to Christ has “died” (that reality is expressed in baptism), “and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Every Christian has a hidden life, and it is not just hidden from others; it’s even hidden from us! Bonhoeffer says, “Though [Christians] are a visible society, they are always unknown even to themselves.”[2] Our lives are hidden with Christ in God, and we are in a cosmic game of hide and seek. The day will come when God calls to all us seekers, “Ally, Ally in free” (at least, that is how we said it as kids—every region has its own form) and we will find, to our astonishment and joy, our true selves waiting for us there. And that true self will be like Christ.

This is far more than a game, but I refer to it as “hide and seek” because Paul uses that terminology. He says that our lives are hidden with Christ, and we must set our hearts on – literally, seek – things above. Your true self, hidden with Christ in God, is one of those “things above.” But you must follow the rules. You’ll never find true yourself by looking for yourself. (That’s a spiritual snipe hunt.) But look for Christ, fix your eyes on Jesus, and one day you will discover – better, you will be rewarded with – your true self.

Now look at verse 4: “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Notice that Christ is your life. Not football, not work, not spouse, nor house—not even church. If football is your life, the game of life will end in sudden death, but if Christ is your life, you will go on forever. That’s why we can say to the dying Christian: “Take heart, brother. You have your whole life ahead of you.” Christ’s life is your life; you have been connected to him. He is closer to you than you realize. When you ask, “Then where was hewhen this terrible thing happened?” the answer is, “He was there – in you; he is your life.”

We’re thinking about moving closer to Christ, to our true selves, to people in the church, and to people outside the church. We’ve already seen that to move closer to one thing is to move further away from something else. What is it that we must move away from to move closer to our true selves? It is our false self, which we have thought of as our real self.

What a relief – a joy – it is to realize that that self-centered, self-promoting, posturing, fearful, irritated person is not my true self! Do you remember what Jesus repeatedly said? It is the person who loses his life – literally, his soul, himself – for Christ’s sake, who finds it.

We see that movement away from the false self in our text. In verse 5, Paul writes, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly” – the self that is not your true self – “nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” Notice the word “therefore.” “Therefore” – not in order to become something you are not, but to complete something you already are in Christ – “put to death these things.”

You see this same motion away from certain things in verse 8: “But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” You must rid yourself, put off, put away these things because they are fetters that bind you to an unreal self. This is not a self-improvement plan. God did not send Christ to die a sacrificial death for the world so that you could be a little better than you are now, but so that you could be your new, Jesus-like self. We are not improving the old, false self—we’re giving it up, trading it in on the wonderful self Christ died to save.

Why does Paul say we must put to death or put away things like anger and gossip and bad language, sexual immorality and greed? Are they really that bad? When that question is asked today, more and more people are answering, “No. Porn is okay. Sleeping around is okay. Filthy language is okay. That stuff is just natural.” I know people who grew up in the church who are saying that kind of thing.

And they’re right: those things are natural … for the false and incomplete self. But if you want to move closer to your fuller, stronger, peaceful, real self, you must move away from these things. You must lay them down or put them down, put them to death.

But you can’t do that by moving toward some idealized self. You do it by moving toward Jesus. Your only hope of ever becoming your true self is becoming Jesus’s true person. You aren’t you without him: he is your life! Seek him, and you will find yourself: strong, real, full. But seek yourself and you will find only a ghost, a shade, a phantom.

C. S. Lewis put it this way on the last page of Mere Christianity: “The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him.”

“Look for yourself,” he continues, “and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

But how do I look for Christ? Well, coming here week after week, or to some other gathering of Jesus’s people is a good start. Thoughtfully reading his words and reading about him in the Scriptures and contemplating what you’ve read is a tried-and-true method. Practicing prayer, learning how to do it better, and setting aside time every day for it has helped millions of people.

But the best guidance I can give you about how to look for Christ is to ask him. He’s the Architect-Builder. He knows what needs to happen next. Ask him, and continue to ask, “Lord, how shall I go about seeking you?” then pay attention to the ideas that come to your mind. When he gives you an answer, act on it, and you will start to see things happen.

[1] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses

[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, Touchstone Books, Simon and Shuster, 1995. p. 270

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