Redeemer Modesto Sermon Audio

The elders share the vision for Redeemer and what had transpired in the past year.

Discussion Question 1: What does continuous seasons of suffering lead to?
Discussion question 2: Which of Peter’s strategies for dealing with self-pity during suffering could you try this week: Pray earnestly, love deeply, show hospitality, discover/use your gift?
Discussion Question 3: Where do find the strength to live out this strategy in continuous seasons of suffering?

2/6/2021
1 Peter 4:7-11
Living without Self Pity

As we travel through 1 Peter, we have seen that he is talking about suffering, more suffering, and suffering again. It’s like he cannot stop talking to the church about suffering.

The context of the book is a letter to a church that is enduring much suffering. The Emperor Nero is in power over the Roman Empire, and he has used the Christians as scapegoats for his campaign – a sort of common enemy for the people to unite over. As the Christians are being killed, driven from the homes, as their businesses and way of life is being destroyed, Peter says to them “God is at work - respond in kindness”.

God was setting the people up so that he would receive glory. When you are unkind to people you expect them to be unkind back, but when they respond with kindness it makes you stop and think “this person is different…what is different about them” and in that, they get to tell the story of God’s love. But Peter says that nots always the case. Sometimes instead of someone stopping the unkindness, they actually persecute you worse. Peter says don’t despair, God is actually letting this happen so that he will be glorified all the more.

The truth is so hard… getting treated poorly when you have done something wrong is expected, but not when you have done something right.

As we enter this passage, Peter doesn’t relent on this message of suffering… it keeps coming. Peter says “The world is coming to an end” – imagine him with a sandwich board walking around the churches – the situation seems dire, and really hopeless. When you are facing a season of intense suffering, isn’t this how you feel?

Do you remember the story of Job? He lost his sons and daughters, all his wealth, and his health. His statement in response was “Why is life given to those with no future, those God has surrounded with difficulties?” There is a hopelessness that comes in suffering. Have you experienced that? Are you experiencing it in this season?

As we look at our text this morning, we want to tackle it by asking three questions. First, what can continuous seasons of suffering lead to? Second, what is a great strategy in continuous seasons of suffering. Third, where do find the strength to live out this strategy in continuous seasons of suffering?

Take a minute to read our text and ask God to help us understand it.

Our first question: What can continuous seasons of suffering lead to? Peter tells us “the world is coming to an end”. This is not exactly a hopeful statement but what does he really mean? Is he saying that the world is literally coming to an end – like asteroids are going to hit it or the death star is going to shoot at it? Or is he saying it in the context of “I’m not sure how much more of this I can handle…the world is coming to an end”.

Like a parent who has been at home all day with her kids, trying to get them to do school online, all the while trying to work themselves, and then having to clean and cook. At some point, if that parent is married and the other parent walks through the door, they will say “the world is coming to an end – you take over before I do something I’ll get put in jail for”.

When we are in prolonged seasons of suffering, what begins to happen? Psychologists tell us that people who suffer over a long period of time typical turn their suffering inward. Psychologist Steven Stosny, says in Psychology Today that when “pain generalizes, it seems to be about the self – a kind of self-ache. As the alarm of pain intensifies, fixing our focus on distress, we become self-obsessed. Eventually we identity with the pain in a subtle or overt victim-identity”. For those of us without a Ph.D let me tell you what he is saying. People who suffer over a long period of time typically (not all) suffer with pessimistic self-pity.

The heart begins to say “woe is me, this will never change” or “I will never get out of this”. The heart begins to sabotage itself thinking everything is hopeless. It says what’s the point of trying, it’s only going to break again, or what’s the point of dreaming only to be disappointed again. Peter says it like this…“The end of the world is near”.

Both secular and Christian counselors agree that self-pity is one of the most dangerous traps that a person can get themselves in. It’s like lowering yourself into bottomless pit without any way of getting out. It is incredible to see how vehemently both secular and Christian counselors distained self-pity stating that no good can come of it – like poison is to food, self-pity is to life.

But if you have undergone suffering for long periods of time, pessimistic self-pity seems like a justifiable response. The hurt is real. The pain is hard. The physical, emotional, social, spiritual, intellectual toll takes its effects, and it gets harder to bounce back from.

It is easy to see how the people that Peter are writing to, those who are continuously suffering unjust persecution would be able to turn to self pity – the world is coming to an end.

Discussion Question 1: What does continuous seasons of suffering lead to?

If continuous seasons of suffering can lead to the disastrous one-way road of self-pity, let’s ask our second question: What is a great strategy in continuous seasons of suffering? The beauty here is that Peter gives us tremendous hope – if you are in the throws of self-pity right now, or if you are teetering on the edge because of this long season of suffering that we are in, there is a remedy.

It’s important to note the Peter’s remedy doesn’t include the circumstances changing. There are times that you can work hard to change your circumstances, but there are other times (like the one that the scattered church that Peter is talking to is in) that you cannot change the circumstances. Peter’s strategy does not include changing the circumstance.

Peter gives us four strategies for continuous seasons of suffering: Be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. Show deep love for each other. Share your home with people in need. Learn to recognize the gift God gave you and use it.

(Verse 7) Be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. Prayer in our society is often simplified to asking God for something. Yet what we see in the Psalms is a much broader perspective on prayers. Tim Keller says that the Psalms is actually praying our emotions. Religious stoics often tell us not to trust our emotions while secular people say you are your emotions, but the Psalms give us a different take: validate your emotions and pray them out. There are Psalms on grief, joy, sadness, worry, loneliness, confusion, excitement, anger, hope, boredom, frustration, embarrassment, guilt, shame – you name an emotion and there is a Psalm on it. And those Psalms teach us not to live in those emotions, but rather to validate and then pray through them acknowledging who we are and who God is. So incredibly helpful! Peter tells us to be earnest and disciplined in your prayers, sure pray for those around you, but in a time of suffering, be diligent to pray through your emotions.

Second, show deep love for each other (verse 8). Peter says this is ‘most important of all’ and that it ‘covers a multitude of sins’. In times of suffering it is very easy to interpret life in a extreme or blurring way. When we are emotionally, physically, socially and spiritually exhausted, we jump to conclusions, are unable to offer grace and mercy, unable to give the benefit of the doubt. But Peter tells us to go above and beyond – show deep love for each other. Give the benefit of the doubt, be emphatic or at least sympathic in a situation…this will cover a multitude of brokenness.

Third, share your home or give a meal to people in need (verse 9). It’s helpful to understand culture when looking at this verse – there were no hotels, fast food restaurants, or even gospel missions and government backed social programs in this culture. If a person was traveling, between homes, or down on their luck, the only way to be taken care of was through the hospitality of others. Come stay with us, come eat with us. Peter is telling them, look out for those in need and give what you can. Have you ever considered that Jesus didn’t own anything – he had no home, nowhere to lay his head – yet he was the most generous person of all times? Sometimes our hospitality is a bed and a meal, but often times it is a kind word spoken in tenderness – it takes no money to do this.

Finally, Peter tells them to learn to recognize the gift God gave you and use it (verse 10-11). When a person becomes a Christian God gives them a special gift that they can use to encourage others with. That gift might be administration, leadership, preaching, counseling, encouragement, showing mercy, prayer, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues. There are a lot of gifts, and we need them. So Peter says figure out what that gift is and start using it.

So there are four strategies – pray earnestly, love deeply, show hospitality, use your gifts. Do you notice any common theme in these four strategies? They are all focused outward. Each one helps us get our eyes off ourselves in a time of suffering, and puts them on others.

One of my gifts is preaching, so it is very helpful in times of suffering for me to preach – I cannot tell you how helpful it has been in this season of suffering – that continues to get harder and harder for me – for me to be preaching through this book of Peter. And I hope it has been encouraging to you. But another one of my gifts is encouragement or exhortation (encouragement on purpose). Because of my personality (I score pretty high as a enneagram 4), I’m prone to pessimistic self-pity anytime but especially in times of suffering. As I’ve grown older I realize that one of the best things I can do when I start to feel down is pick up my phone and look at porn – just kidding – that would be devastating, but really easy to do. No, the best thing to do is to pick up my phone and start texting people words of encouragement – hey, I’m praying for you today, I’m proud of you, I’m for you. I cannot tell you how this outward focus shifts my perspective and changes my doom and gloom ‘the end of the world is near’ attitude and helps me see clearly.

Maybe this week, if you are feeling like this is a season of suffering for you and you have been prone to self-pity, instead of going to the fridge, binging on Netflix, drinking a little too much whiskey, or any other destructive habit, why not try one of these four strategies that Peter is giving us: Pray earnestly, love deeply, show hospitality, or use your gifts.

Discussion question 2: Which of Peter’s strategies for dealing with self-pity during suffering could you try this week: Pray earnestly, love deeply, show hospitality, discover/use your gift?

We have looked at what a continuous season of suffering leads to (self pity) and seen Peter’s strategies for dealing with continuous seasons of suffering, but I can hear your pushback and the pushback of my own heart in this teaching: Where do find the strength to live out this strategy in continuous seasons of suffering? It is one thing to tell someone who is healthy to do these things, but isn’t it kind of mean to say “I know you are dealing with stage four cancer and you are now in your second year and its unrelenting, and I know you are suffering, but if you don’t want to give way to the dangerous trap of self-pity, you should focus outward.” Wow, that seems to be really unkind Peter!

But look at what Peter says in verse 11 – Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. While Christian and secular psychologists agree that self-pity is one of the most dangerous traps to fall into, the secular psychologists will tell you to work hard out of your own power to pull yourself out of it. But the Christian has the power of the Holy Spirit, the very presence of God within them for strength and energy.

It is important to note here that God gives us all different amounts of strength and energy – it is not the same – but none-the-less, he gives it to us. My encouragement for you this morning if you are struggling in this season of extended suffering and you are either dealing with self-pity or on the edge of it, that you start with Peter’s encouragement to pray earnestly – process your pain in the Psalms and see what strength and energy God gives you.

If you are not a believer in Jesus today, God knows that we all suffer. Suffering can be a great grace because it helps you realize that you can’t do this life on your own, and that you need God. While many religions and secular institutions would tell you to ignore your pain, medicate it, or try and escape it, the merciful God of the Bible validates our suffering and enables a way through it.

Discussion Question 3: Where do find the strength to live out this strategy in continuous seasons of suffering?

Communion: Jesus is no stranger to suffering. He could have gone to self-pity, but instead he chose to obey, and in this we benefit. Let’s confess, repent, and ask God to do a redeeming work in us.

1/31/2021
Human Passions
1 Peter 4:1-6

Key Thought: If you are willing to suffer like Jesus, you will find great freedom to do the will of God.

In the 1950’s there was a preacher named David Wilkerson who went to preach the gospel in a gang controlled neighborhood in New York. It’s a famous story in which one of the gang leaders, Nicky Cruz, tells Wilkerson “You come near me and I’ll kill you”. Wilkerson’s response was “yeah, you could do that. You could cut me into a thousand pieces and lay them in the street, and every piece will still love you.”

What Wilkerson is revealing here is that because he is willing to suffer, he has taken away any and all power that Nicky Cruz has over him. Wilkerson looks at this gang leader pointing a switch-blade in his direction and is able to speak love into his life because he has already thought through the possible scenarios of being stabbed or killed.

Fortunately the story has an amazing ending. When Nicky Cruz realizes that his threats had no power over Wilkerson, he realizes “he is different – no one responds this way”. The end of the story is one of the most famous Christian books of all times, ‘The Cross and the Switchblade’, in which we learn that this violent gang leader, Nicky Cruz, became a believer in Jesus and went on to be a preacher.

There is a really simple lesson here in this story – because Wilkerson was willing to suffer, he removed all of the power that Cruz had over him. Because he had already thought about the possible consequences and considered the cost, he was able to be a free agent with Cruz instead of running away.

As we look at 1 Peter 4 this morning, we are going to hear Peter say ‘If you are willing to suffer like Jesus, you will find great freedom to do the will of God’. Peter was talking to a group of people who had suffered greatly – they were dealing with the greatest persecution the church had ever faced – they had been removed from homes, families, churches, many of them had been killed – they had been the recipients of slanderous accusations from the Roman Emperor and had the entire Roman nation.

Peter has been telling them that even though they are under tremendous persecution, they would submit to the government – even honoring them, and submit to all authorities, and submit to one-another. As they submit, those who are persecuting will say ‘wait a second…these people are different…they are not what Nero has been saying about them…when we are unkind to them they respond with kindness…when we are unjust to them, they respond with justice…when we hurt them they respond by bringing restoration…these people are different. And as they respond, the Christians will ‘silence the ignorant talk of foolish men’ – the slanderous accusations that they had been facing would be silenced.

Last week we saw that while this strategy is what God calls us to, sometimes the strategy doesn’t go so well – as Christians we respond in kindness, and things get worse. We say that in the moments when it gets worse, that God is not abandoning us, but he is setting up a greater situation for people to see him and bring him glory.

But Peter is realistic here – he knows that he is calling the church to something that is really hard. Continue to submit when things get worse? Continue to have a humble and kind response when people are walking all over you? This makes no logical sense, in fact it seems foolish, and if we are going to be capable of doing this, we will have to decide ahead of time that we are willing to suffer. This is where we get our key thought: If you are willing to suffer like Jesus, you will find great freedom to do the will of God.

As we look at our text this morning, we are going to ask three questions:

1. What does it mean to be willing to suffer?
2. What is gained by a willingness to suffer? (2-3 – A life of sin/A life for God)
3. What enables us to be willing to suffer? (God’s over it all - 4-6)

Read the text.

First, what does it mean to be willing to suffer. Peter tells us ‘since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had and be ready to suffer, too”. What sort of physical suffering did just undergo? We are told in the gospels the numerous suffering that Jesus underwent from the accusations and allegations of the religious leaders, to the rejection of people who were afraid of him, to the torture that he faced on his journey to being crucified (the beatings, the whipping, the crown of thorns), and then his actual crucifixion.

We are told in the Luke 22 that Jesus sweat blood in the garden before he was taken into captivity, a rare condition called hematohidrosis. Jesus knew the pain that was about to be inflicted on him and asked the Father if there was any other way to accomplish his plan to let that happen. In that moment Jesus knew the pain that was coming – both physically and mentally, and he made a decision to face it head on.

While we may not be facing the same type of suffering that Jesus faced, we know that everyone in the world faces suffering – mental, physical, spiritual, social. Everyone suffers. What Peter is saying here is that you can actually try and avoid suffering, or you can face it head on. He is encouraging the believers who are facing all types of suffering acknowledge suffering and willingly go through it.

In the case of the believers Peter is writing to, their suffering is extensive – a sort of genocide by Nero, and those who didn’t get killed have been scattered all over Asia – leaving businesses, friends, families, churches, entire ways of life. And he is telling them that they have a choice to willingly embrace the suffering or to try and run away from it.

Today, while we are not suffering like the persecuted church in Peter, or even like the persecuted church in China, Iran, or other parts of the world, we still have our versions of hardship that we can either choose to embrace or can try and run away from. Choosing to suffer means we are willing to embrace these hardships and choose to respond

Discussion Question: What does it mean to be willing to suffer?

Second question, what is gained by a willingness to suffer? Think about it like this: If there is a bully in your school and every morning when you arrive at school you live in fear of that bully can do to you – he can take away your lunch money, humiliate you in front of others, he can even bring you physical harm. As you think about that bully you do everything you can to avoid him – you take a different route to school – you arrive at a different time – you hide in classrooms and behind other people – you change everything about your life because of that bully.

But one day, you decide enough is enough – what’s the worst that this bully can do to you? All he can do is take away your lunch money, all he can do is make others laugh at your expense, and at the very worst he can bring you physical harm – that’s the worst of it. And as you count the cost, as you are willing to endure, to suffer, these potential consequences, you live in freedom, unwilling to hide, unwilling to avoid him. In so doing, you have taken away that bully’s power – you are now free. You might still get your lunch money taken away, you might get ridiculed or even hurt, but you were up for that, and now you live in freedom.

What we learn from Peter is that ‘if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin’. He tells us ‘you won’t spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God’. What Peter is saying is that if God has purposed that you should suffer for his name, you either have the choice of being willing to suffer or trying to run away from it. Running away from God’s will leaves you with a giant hole in your heart that you are going to have to fill with something – you’ll end up in all sorts of immorality, lust, drunkenness, debauchery and greed (verse 3). All of these things will leave you with pain.

If you’re bent on escaping suffering, you have to go somewhere to avoid that suffering – just like hiding from the bully. You will have to live life in the way that it wasn’t intended to be lived. You see immorality, lust, drunkeneess, debauchery and greed are all explanations of normal good desires gone wrong. Sex you feel guilty about because it destroys lives; beauty that you put your hope in and end up using people; drink that felt good for a season but now you can’t control.

But when you look at suffering and say “I’m willing to endure that”, all of a sudden you face life in a different way – you don’t need to escape or hide, you don’t need to run from the bully. You get to do the will of God – live the way he created you to live. And that is what God calls abundant life – freedom.

Discussion Question: what is gained by a willingness to suffer?

So we have seen what it means to be willing to suffer, and we have talked about what is gained when we are willing to suffer, and now we want to finish by asking what enables us to be willing to suffer? Paul tells us in verse 5 ‘but remember that they will have to face God, who stands ready to judge everyone, both the living and the dead’. We are enabled to have a willingness to suffer by remembering that God is over it all – he is the judge who gets the final say about everything.

The hardest suffering we will ever go through is unjust suffering. Think about the suffering Jesus endured – he was perfect yet crucified. He was crucified yet sent to preach in prison (the place where God’s love doesn’t exist). It went from bad to worse. Think about the suffering that the scattered church was enduring – they were slandered by Nero and the whole Roman Empire joined in the persecution. If we suffer when we do something wrong, that is to be expected, but how hard is it when we suffer when we do something good.

But, if we remember that God is letting us suffer for a greater purpose – he is or will be glorified in a greater way, and we remember that God ultimately holds justice in his hand – then we will be willing to suffer. It all comes back to the question of trusting God. If we see God as trustworthy, if we trust that he is up to a greater purpose, if we trust that God is Holy and justice will be served, what are we do be afraid of?

If you are willing to suffer like Jesus, you will find great freedom to do the will of God, and what enables us to be willing to suffer is trusting the God who loves us.

Conclusion: As I was thinking about this sermon this week, I was telling a friend what God was laying on my heart out of this passage, and he said the Apostle Paul must have been the most frustrating man to his enemies. When Paul was threatened with prison he just said “great, I’ll get to preach the gospel there also”, and when he was threatened by the Jews for including the gentiles he just said “no problem…I’ll go to Rome”, and when he was told that he would die if he went to Jerusalem, he responded “to live is Christ to die is gain”. Because Paul was willing to suffer, he was the freest man on earth to do the will of God. How liberated Paul must have been.

What about us? Are we willing to suffer? Do we realize the freedom that a willingness to suffer brings? Do we trust God to be over all things – ultimately bringing justice in every area and glorifying himself in the process? The invitation today is to live in freedom by choosing to trust God even if that means suffering. How does this play out in a season of covid? In social unrest?

Discussion Question: What would enable you to face suffering instead of running away from it?

Communion: Trust the God who suffered for us.

1 Peter 3:13-22
Good Fear
1/24/2021

Having wrong expectations is a recipe for disaster. If you go into a relationship thinking that this person is perfect and they will never disappoint you in any way…prepare for disaster. If you think money will fix all your problems…prepare for disaster. In the same way, having wrong expectations of your relationship with God is a recipe for disaster.

Many people expect that with greater obedience that life will get easier, more restful. They think that if I just obey more, seek God more, and follow Jesus better, then my life will have less difficulty and struggle. If this is what you expect out of Christianity, then this is a recipe for disaster, because God has something very different in mind.

Sometimes God ‘t’s up the ball’ for us in a different way so that we can bring him glory. Sometimes he lets us endure heartache after heartache all for the purpose of setting us up so that an epic story can told about his work of redemption.

Discussion Questions: Have your expectations of God led to disappointments with God?

Peter has been telling a group of believers to live in submission to an unjust government, unjust authority, and even to difficult personal relationships. These people had been the subject of unjust persecution under the Roman emperor, Nero, and now found themselves all over Asia, some having lost their entire livelihoods and many their friends and family.

Nero was slandering and persecuting Christians and telling the government and citizens of Rome join in – go and kill those Christians, go destroy their lives and churches. Nero lied about what the Christians believed and how they acted, in hopes that people would have a common enemy and be united in what he wanted. But as people persecuted the Christians, Peter told them to respond with kindness. As they responded in kindness, people realized that Nero was lying, and that the Christians were way different than they had expected, thus realizing the greatness of God. As public opinion changed, people turned against Nero, and eventually Nero committed suicide. The encouragement of Peter actually worked – God had set up the situation so that the Christians could be seen as different, and God could have an epic story of redemption. But there was a problem…responding in kindness didn’t always get the response they wanted – sometimes things got worse.

You’d think that Peter would say to them, “as you live in submission, your life is going to get easier”. But what he says is different – he tells that sometimes it gets better (v 13), and sometimes it doesn’t (vs 14). Sometimes you do what is right and people are glad, and other times you do what is right, and people curse you.

But in this, Peter is telling them not to be discouraged because in actuality, God is still on the throne, and in letting them endure greater levels of persecution, he is just setting them up so that his story of redemption gets even better.

He tells the people ‘don’t be afraid, don’t be troubled’ knowing that God is up to something – and in having correct expectations, they can joyfully endure, even living in great anticipation of what God is up to.

In telling them this, Peter realizes he is telling them something really hard, so he tells them to think about the example of Jesus (v 18-22). Jesus was perfect, treated people perfectly, never said an evil word, never retaliated, but his life got worse and worse until he was eventually crucified, and even then, after he suffered more by preaching to the spirits in prison. Jesus did good – and it got worse.

What was happening? God was setting up Jesus to do the greatest story of redemption that could ever be told. While we look at it and say ‘that just looks like it is getting worse’, Jesus is looking at it, trusting the will of his Father who loves him, and thinking ‘how is God going to do an epic work of redemption through this?’ And sure enough, we live in the beauty of what Jesus endured, and we are worshipping our savior throughout all eternity…a work of redemption that is incredible.

If Jesus expected the result of obedience to be a life that was easy, comfortable, and happy all the time, he would have been really disappointed. But God set him up, things went from bad to worse, but in it all, the greatest story of redemption was unfolding. We look at Jesus and glorify God forever…his love, mercy and grace are mind-blowing.

Sometimes God lets us go through crazy difficult experiences – even letting circumstances go from bad to worse, so that people will have a chance to look at the way we respond and say “there is something different about those people” and in so doing, they will rejoice.

Throughout scripture we can see examples of this. In Genesis 33-50 we hear about the story of Joseph – the youngest song of Jacob who was sold into slavery by his brothers. Joseph worked hard as a slave, but was then accused of sexually assaulting his masters wife so he got put in jail. In jail he basically reformed the whole prison, then interpreted correctly two crazy dreams that his fellow prisoners had, and even though those dreams came true, he was forgotten about in prison for two years. When his story finally does change, he becomes the second in charge of all of Egypt, and his brothers live in fear that he will kill them for the injustice they did. Joseph’s response: what you meant for evil, God used for good. And their story has been told to glorify God throughout the centuries and will be told throughout eternity.

The example of Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego from Daniel 3 is another great story – these men were to be put to death because they were praying to God instead of praying to a false God. You might think…but God, these men were praying for you, they were doing what was right, they were doing good…shouldn’t it have gotten better for them? Yet what happened was they were thrown into a fiery blaze that was meant to consume them. God…why didn’t you stop that from happening? What was he up to? If you know the end of the story, God was just setting these guys up for something greater by making it worse.

When we understand what Peter is saying, understand the story of Jesus, and look at other stories in God’s word, we can then enter into difficult situations with joy, all because our expectations are correct, and we see the opportunities for God to be rejoiced in.

Discussion Question: How does changing your expectations lead to joyful anticipation as we consider what God is doing through our current story?

As God calls us to live in submission to government (honor), to employers, to spouses, sometimes things get worse; we have to expect this as an outcome but not with disappointment or despair, but with expectation that God is going to do something even greater in our midst.

When things go from bad to worse, God has not abandoned us – he is setting us up so that people will see him through us, and glorify him.

How are we doing in this current climate? Some of us think that in this current situation that we have been living in obedience – we have been living in integrity – we have been submitting to authority – we have been submitting to government, we have been submitting to employers, we have been submitting in personal relationships. We’ve been doing all the right things so why is life getting harder or worse? Has God abandoned me?

As a church I think ‘God, you led us to honor the government in this current season…other churches have opened their doors…many people that love and call Redeemer home are leaving to go to those other churches…God, I thought if we honored and responded to you in this season with obedience (even when it has been really hard) that you would make it easy…and it hasn’t been easy…have you abandoned us?’

If our expectation is that obedience makes for an easier life, then in this current moment, we are going to be devasted. But, if we expect that God calls us to be obedient but then is actually setting up circumstances to go from bad to worse so that he can have greater glory, then we can live in joyful expectation of what God has for us.

I think for many of us, we’ve been living in this tension. This has been a hard season and we’ve been doing our best to respond in obedience to God but things have gone from bad to worse and we are wondering if God has abandoned us. Is God just setting us up to bring more glory to him than we could ever imagine?

If your expectations are right, then you can joyfully wait out the hardship, knowing that God is going to do something better. You can look at the example of Joseph, of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and even the story of Jesus, and know that God is up to something greater.

If you are not a believer in Jesus, can I encourage you to look at the way at which Christians are responding. Even when things go from bad to worse, they are not complaining - watch them respond joyfully, differently, anticipating God to do something awesome. And as you watch Christians respond in that way, would you consider putting your faith in Jesus, knowing that he could make this kind of difference in your life as well?

Having the wrong expectations in any situation can be a recipe for disaster. This is certainly true about our faith. Having the right expectations not only enables us to joyfully endure, but it also allows us to anticipate a greater work that God is doing in our midst. And, it allows us to see people put their hope in Jesus as they see us respond differently than anyone else.

Discussion Question: What is the greater story that God might be doing through your current suffering?

Communion:

As we come to communion today, we get to remember what Jesus did for us. He was perfect, but he suffered beyond what anyone could ever conceive, going from bad to worse, yet through his suffering, we are healed – reunited to God. And now God is glorified forever as we worship him for what he has done through the work of Jesus. A bad situation that only got worse, but in the end became the greatest redemption story of all time.

1/17/2021
1 Peter 3:8-12
The Good Life

Have you ever baked something and left out a certain ingredient? When I was in high school I worked for Taco Bell. Those were the days of brown pants and orange shirts – I wish I had kept that uniform. On one occasion I was in charge of making the beans – at that point it wasn’t a reheat situation, but rather one of putting beans, water, salt and other things into a huge pressure cooker. This particular time I put in all the ingredients except for the water. After about an hour, I had a huge pot of smoking beans…it was a sad day at Taco Bell.

When you are baking, are all the ingredients important? Are some ingredients more important that others? What can you leave out and still enjoy the taste of what you are making?

We are in one of those sections today in which Peter is going to give us a list of ingredients to wrap up this section on submission…but it is not a list in we get to pick and choose a few things that we like, but rather if the recipe is going to work, you need all the ingredients.

Here’s our outline: 1. What is Peter ‘baking’? 2. What are the ingredients? 3. Why do we need all the ingredients?

1. What is Peter ‘baking’? Peter is actually baking what we might call a recipe for “the good life”. Quoting from Psalm 34, he says “Whoever desires to love life and see good days”.

Peter has been teaching the church that in order to have a good life, you have to live in submission to one-another; you have to eat submission pie. In other words, you can’t just do what is right in your own eyes and have a good life – you have to be submissive – that is the way that God created life to be.

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve seen the devastating consequences of people who don’t want to live in submission, even in the highest levels of government. The unwillingness to live in obedience to the way our society is structured resulted in the loss of life, and even more confusion for our black brothers and sisters – it is heartbreaking.

If you look at the way that God created in Genesis, there is an order, there is a surrender, and people who ignore or avoid that order and that surrender end up with very broken and lonely lives. Even if you are not a believer in God, you know that when you submit, when you work within the rules of society, when you respect the people around you, when you respect your employer and those that are you in relationship with, it makes for a much better life.

Consider examples like submission to traffic laws, or business laws – we all know society functions well when each person lives in submission to one-another. This is what Peter is saying.

And just to be clear, Peter isn’t saying this because he lives at an easy time in history where it is easy to bake submission pie. Peter is preaching to a church that has seen some of the greatest levels of persecution and hardship in history – unjust subjection from the narcissistic Roman Emperor Nero which as a result they are now scattered all over Asia, having lost everything. But what he is calling them to do hasn’t changed.

In fact, he has gone from saying submit to the emperor, to submit to your earthly masters (employers), to submit to each other as husband and wives, and now he is using a catch all phrase – “All of you”. If you had thought you had been excluded from submission, he just included you.

What is Peter baking – what are the ingredients for? The “good life” – an enjoyable life with many happy days by baking ‘submission pie’.

Discussion Question: How does living in submission to one-another make for a good life?

2. What are the ingredients of ‘submission pie’? Peter lists out seven ingredients here in verses 8-9, and all of them are necessary. Let’s look at these ingredients.

Sympathy. The first ingredient to submission pie is sympathy. Sympathy is the ability to have compassion for someone else. It’s the ability to have your emotions stirred as you see someone’s needs. Sympathy is what you feel when Sarah McLachlan SPCA commercials as they are showing all the faces of sad cats and dogs.

Sympathy is a very powerful tool that brings about hope and healing to almost any relationship. Recently Heather and I went to a conference in which they introduced me to the idea of sympathy by using the phrase ‘compassionate curiosity’. They did this exercise with us that helped us to sympathize. They asked us to share out loud about the silent voices that we each hear in our heads. As Heather was sharing the voices in her head, some that she learned in childhood and some that she has picked up in our marriage, I was so full of sympathy and it made me want to work so much harder to create a safe environment in our marriage where those silent voices can be drowned out.

Sympathy is a really strange first ingredient and I’m assuming that Peter puts it first because it is one of the most important and largest ingredients. Wouldn’t you have thought he would have put “correct thinking” or “wisdom” or even “truth” first as the primary ingredient? But while truth is crucial, the reality is that truth doesn’t give you compassion or enable you to come alongside someone and love them well – to live submissively to each other.

It is important to realize that if we are going to bake submission pie so that we can have the good life, sympathy is the first and main ingredient.

Brotherly/sisterly love: Brotherly/sisterly love is that the kind of love that you can be yourself and people still love you. It is the kind of love where you know that you can pick your friends so they will come and go, but you will always have your brothers and sisters. It is that kind of love that doesn’t set up any kind of pretense – it is authentic, raw and real.

Brotherly/sisterly love doesn’t have anything to prove, it is real and genuine…you don’t have to worry about motivations, getting caught off guard, but you know you are going to be accepted and accepting.

Tenderhearted: Tenderhearted has a lot to do with our expectations of each other. I imagine a tenderhearted person being a like a mom who looks at their kids and knows how far she can push them, how much they can endure, and knows when to call it quits for the day. Think of when a child is young and you are out on a walk and the kid is doing their best to keep up but they have such little legs, and finally they say “hold me”, and the tenderhearted person swoops in a picks them up – realizing the need of that moment and coming alongside.

Humble attitude: The next ingredient of submission pie is a humble attitude. Humility isn’t the idea that you don’t know anything, but rather it is the attitude that you don’t know everything. Someone said that humility is the delicate balance of knowing who you are and knowing who you are not.

If you are going to live in submission, you must realize what you bring to the relationship but also what others bring to the relationship. Paul constantly uses the illustration in the church of the members being like body parts – not one being more important than the other, not one saying to the other ‘I don’t need you’, but rather when one part is hurt or wounded, the rest of the body comes alongside that part of the body and does everything it can to bring comfort and healing. The humble attitude is the ability to value the other parts of the body – honoring them, and know that this is their turn for the kind of honoring.

The last three: Not repaying evil for evil, Not retaliating with insults when people insult you, Paying back with a blessing: Peter gives us the last three ingredients of submission pie and they have to do with our interactions with each other. It’s about taking the way you want to respond, and consciously responding differently.

We are instructed not to be unkind when we are treated unkindly, but rather to pay back with blessing. If someone does something bad to you, bless them.

But there is a bigger picture here than just responding well – it is doing what is right in every situation…not just when people treat you well, but when you are treated unjustly. Are you able to be the bigger person? Are you able to respond with integrity?

So Peter has laid out for us seven ingredients of submission pie, which he tells us is the pathway to ‘enjoying life and seeing many happy days’, but we also need to see that all these ingredients are important – if you leave one of these out, you will not have submission pie.

Discussion Question: Which ingredient of submission pie is most surprising to you?

3. Why are all the ingredients important? The ingredients for submission pie typically fall into two categories: grace and truth. Sympathy, brotherly/sisterly love, tenderheartedness and a humble attitude are more on the grace end of the spectrum, while repaying evil for evil or giving insult for insult, but repaying with a blessing is more under the heading of truth. The first group is about mercy and kindness of heart, but the second is about being a person who does what is right no matter the circumstances.

As you think about submission, can you think of people who are all grace and no truth that are really hard to submit to? Can you also think of people that are all truth and no grace that are really hard to submit to?

I think about preachers who would speak truth, telling me what is right to do and giving me the moral imperatives for why I should behave a certain way, but if they don’t have sympathy or tenderheartedness towards me, sharing with me the struggle it is to live out that moral imperative, then I’m more than likely going to dismiss that preacher.

On the other hand, if you have a person who just lives with grace but has no ability to do what is right in a particular situation – always giving excuses and never being held accountable for anything, that person is also hard to submit to.

For us to enjoy life the way God created, we must live in submission to one-another and the ingredients for submission must include grace and truth. We must have sympathy for each other, we must have brotherly/sisterly love, be tenderhearted and keep a humble attitude. But we must also do what is right, no matter how we have been treated. You need all the ingredients!

The examples of broken relationships because people have baked submission pie with all the elements of grace and all the elements of truth are everywhere. I think of parents who raised their children to do what was right but did not give them empathy or where not tenderhearted watching their kids leave and never come back. I think of wives whose husbands demand submission and never for a moment stop to consider to be tenderhearted, have a humble attitude, or have sympathy – and the marriages are over. I think of employers who knew how to have sympathy and tenderheartedness but didn’t know how to keep boundaries or hold people accountable, and they are now no longer in business.

When Peter is telling this to the church, he knows that he is not giving them an easy recipe – submission pie is a high standard – it’s a tricky recipe! But I can imagine him as he writes these words thinking “this is exactly what Jesus has done for us”. Jesus showed us sympathy – his heart broke for us even when we were trying to stay awake in the Garden of Gethsemane. He loved us as brothers – he even served Judas all the way to the end. When there was 5000 people far from home, he was tenderhearted towards them and fed them all. When evil was done to him, he only responded righteously. When he was insulted, he never retaliated, but did what was right. No matter how he was treated, he always blessed. Jesus was completely full of grace and truth, and therefore, he is easy to live in submission to.

And if Jesus embraces all these ingredients of submission pie when it comes to relationship with us, does this not enable us to embrace the same ingredients to others? Have you stopped to consider the kind of empathy and tenderheartedness that Jesus has for you? Have you know his grace towards you? Have you stopped to think how he responds perfectly even when you are unfaithful or unkind? Jesus is the ultimate in embracing all the ingredients of submission pie, and we are healed, and we can live in submission to others.

Discussion Question: Are you missing any of the ingredients for submission pie?

1/3/2021
1 Peter 2:18-25

As Christians, we believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. It was written by men, but those men were directed by God. The Bible was written over thousands of years by authors that did not have anything in common except the voice of God.

Even though we believe it is the word of God, often times we have a hard time submitting to what it says. Often this is because someone has taught it wrong or used portions of it out of context for their own gain. Sometimes it is because we have interpreted it through the lenses of our common day vantage point and misunderstood what it is truly saying. But sometimes we have a hard time submitting to what it says because it says hard things – things that seem foolish to us.

As we start, take time to read the text and pray.

What we celebrate at the Christmas season is Jesus – Peter tells us that Jesus is a ‘living stone, rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious. As we come to Jesus, it is hard to understand who is He, and what it means to be relationship with him. One of the ways in which we realize that God invites us to know him is that he sets up metaphors that help us understand who he is, and who he wants to be in our lives. One of these metaphors is found in this section of 1 Peter, namely a ‘cornerstone’. A cornerstone is a rock that became the foundation for the building – it not only was strong enough to anchor the building, but it also was the stone that aligned the rest of the building. In our time together today we want to look as three questions.

12/13/2020
Text: I Peter 1:22-2:3
Holiness Over Circumstances

Key Thought: If you are needy, you act one way, but if your needs are met, you act another.
One of the great debates in religion is “what do I need to do to purify my soul?” Some think it is
confession and hail Mary’s. Some think it is purgatory. Some think we are already pure, perfect
just the way we are. Some wonder why we need our soul’s to be purified?

In this section, Peter talks about this issue, but his take on it might be different than you
think. It might be easiest to understand by answering three questions: Why do we need to
purify our souls? What purifies our souls? What is the outcome of purifying our souls?