1 Peter 2:11 says “…abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.” The word “war”, in the Greek language, implies an ongoing engagement, not a single battle. The fleshly lusts will maintain an ongoing war inside of your mind, emotions and will that no one can see. It is invisible, but significant.

We come to church and smile at one another. Someone asks, "How's it going?" We say, “Great!” or “Fine!” or “Better than I deserve!” - but no one really knows the invisible war that's going on in our lives where we are battling the flesh that is in us and the world that is around us. This battle is described in 1 John 2:15-17.

1 John 2:15–17 (NKJV)
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

Christians experience this invisible war because we know there are certain lifestyles and behaviors we are to avoid, but we also have appetites which God gave us to satisfy.  Peter is specifically saying to abstain from sexual immorality, but God gave us the appetite for sexual intimacy. This appetite is designed by God to be satisfied in the confines of a marriage between a husband and a wife (see Genesis 2:24 and Hebrews 13:4).

Sadly, people today often choose to satisfy that appetite in ways that God did not intend - fornication (sex before marriage), adultery (sex with anyone other than your marriage partner), homosexuality, addiction to pornography, etc. The inner war moves beyond that person to include guilt from past addictions, difficulty with forgiving oneself over past relationships, divorce, and broken homes. Peter speaks of the inner war as the result of indulging the flesh, but we know the end result impacts others as well.

This can be applied to other areas as well. God gave us the appetite to eat and drink, but we should abstain from overindulgence or an unhealthy diet. God gave us the appetite to achieve, but we should abstain from becoming a workaholic. God gave us the appetite for rest, but we should abstain from laziness. Peter says, “For your own good, abstain. If you don’t, you will experience an ongoing war in your very soul.”

Wayne Grudem writes, “Such a command implies that inward desires are not uncontrollable but can be consciously nurtured or restrained—a needed rebuke to our modern society which takes feelings as a morally neutral ‘given’ and disparages any who would say that some feelings and desires are wrong.”[1]

God's Word says some feelings and desires are wrong and don’t need to be acted upon. Our world argues, "No way, if I feel it, it must be right. If I want to do it, then I should be allowed to do it." God's Word says abstain from “fleshly lusts”, and God never tells us to do something that He does not also give us the power to accomplish. God says abstain so He has given you the power to say “no” to that temptation.

Galatians 5:16-25 contrasts the Spirit-filled life and the flesh-filled life.

Galatians 5:16–25 (NKJV)
16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,
20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,
21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
 
The Christian who wants to live in victory over the sins of the flesh should remember Galatians 5:16, which reads, “Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” The “not” is emphatic in the Greek, meaning, “You will not ever fulfill the lust of the flesh.” It is a powerful promise from God’s Word. Do the things you ought to do, and you will not do the things you ought not to do. Spend your time focusing on the Spirit-filled life. Fill your life with what would please God. We sing a wonderful song entitled, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” which includes these lines:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace

Those fleshly temptations will begin to lose their appeal when you are in love with Jesus, filling your life with that which God has provided for you to enjoy. Jesus wants to meet our needs. He wants to satisfy those appetites, but in a way that is healthy and life-giving. Jesus said in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” It doesn’t mean that you won’t be tempted to sin. You will still have to say “no” to temptations. However, instead of always saying “no” to the wrong things, we should focus primarily on saying “yes” to the right things! Our minds should be consumed with the positive rather than the negative.

The battle of the flesh and the spirit can be imagined as a fight between two dogs. The dog that will win is the one that is fed, because they are stronger. As a Christian, if you feed the flesh, the lower nature, the base instincts that dominate this world, you will do battle in your soul. You feed your spirit as you read the Bible, pray, live in community with the people of God in a local church, serve God and others with your gifts, share your faith with others, and enjoy those things that God commends in His Word. If God says “yes” to it, enjoy it! If God says “no” to it, abstain from it.

Another way to gain victory over the “fleshly lusts” is to see the end result of giving in. Lust leads to sin, and sin leads to death.
 
James 1:13–15 (NKJV)
13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.
14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.
15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
 
When I was a Youth Pastor, I encouraged the teenagers to “look for the hook” – that is, look past the bait. Every enticement of the world has a “hook”. Jesus said the devil comes to “steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10), and he will try to accomplish this by enticing you to sin. You may think, “Pastor, that’s a lesson for the teenagers,” but it still applies to all of us.

David was not a teenager when he fell into sin with Bathsheba. Noah was not a teenager when he got drunk and naked after being delivered from the world-wide flood. Abraham was married when he went into Egypt and lied about his wife Sarah to the Pharaoh. The truth is, enticements to sin come to adults just as they do to teenagers.

When advertisements come to sinful behaviors and lifestyles, they never show you the end result of that addiction. Look at alcohol advertisements. They show you young, thin, happy adults having a good time. They never show you the addiction, the wasted money, the broken homes, or the regret from decisions made under the influence of alcohol. Advertisers show you the worm, which is the bait to lure you. They never show you the hook. Look for the hook.

I'm not a fisherman, I've only fished a couple of times, but I remember one in particular where we had a competition to see who could catch the most fish in an hour. We'd also give an award to the person who caught the biggest fish and another award to the person who caught the smallest fish.

Well, I didn't know how to fish very well. So someone graciously helped me by providing me with a reel, attaching the hook, and putting a little worm on the line.  I put it in the water and sat there for 45 minutes. While others were catching fish left and right, I saw no bites whatsoever. A few times I thought I might have caught something, but when I pulled it up, it was just seaweed. I threw it back in the water and waited again.

Finally, with only 10 minutes left in the competition and still no catch, someone tactfully came up to me and asked to see my hook. When I pulled it up, it was covered in seaweed. He wiped off the old stuff, put two large worms on the hook in such a way that made it look like four worms, and said, "Now throw that in." Two minutes later, I caught something! I even took home one of the awards - the smallest fish award. I was very proud of that award. The truth is, I was trying to entice these fish with a hook and no bait. No fish is enticed with a hook.

Satan is smarter than that. He will not entice you with poverty, addiction, divorce, estrangement from family, or anything else he wants you to experience. He will entice you with fornication, adultery, alcohol, recreational drugs, pornography, and a whole host of other “baits”. You have to be smart enough to “look for the hook” and avoid it. Realize this warning is for our good! God is protecting us from heartache and disappointment. He loves us and wants to give us abundant life! Say “yes” to God’s best. Abstain from fleshly lusts!

Another way to gain victory over the fleshly lusts is to take drastic action against sin. Jesus says in Matthew 5:30, “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.” Jesus is not saying to physically dismember yourself. He’s metaphorically saying take drastic steps to avoid sin. Establish guardrails that will keep you from giving into fleshly lusts.

The world may never understand the guardrails that we establish that protect us and keep our integrity intact. Even if they don’t understand, we are remaining faithful to God and serve as good examples before others. “The Billy Graham Rule” refers to a decision that Billy Graham made early in his ministry to never meet, travel or dine alone with another woman other than his wife. Graham knew that he was away from his family a lot, and he wanted to maintain his faithfulness to Ruth and his integrity before others.

This rule came to the forefront of American politics when it was revealed that Mike Pence, a conservative Christian politician, kept the same rule. Many did not understand the rationale. One writer explained the reaction of many who did not understand Pence’s practice, “How sexist! screamed half of the internet…. Conservative Christians who attempted to stand up for Pence were quickly shouted down.”[2] Leah Marie Ann Klett interviewed Pence and wrote about this for The Christian Post. She wrote,
 
Reflecting on the polarizing reactions to his adherence to the rule, Pence stressed that maintaining professional boundaries has not hindered opportunities for women in his team, instead fostering a respectful work environment.

“It was remarkable that we were being criticized for putting a premium on respecting our marriage and avoiding the appearance of impropriety and also creating conditions in the workplace that were respectful of the men and women that worked with us,” Pence said.[3]

Pence and Graham, along with many, many others who live by this rule are simply prioritizing their marriages and staying faithful to their spouses. This may sound drastic, but the goal is to set up guardrails and avoid the conditions that would make it easy to sin. These are a few principles, though there are others, that can help us to live out the command in 1 Peter 2:11 to “abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.”

“Dear Lord, thank You for warning me away from temptations that will draw me away from Your best for my life. I want to abstain from the fleshly lusts. I want to experience Your victory. Help me walk in the Spirit. Help me look for the hook. Help me establish guardrails. I pray that I will be the man (or, woman) of integrity and purity You have called me to be. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

[1] Wayne Grudem, 1 Peter, Tyndale NT Commentaries, vol. 17 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 122.
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/mike-pence-and-the-sexism-of-the-billy-graham-rule/521328/.
[3] https://www.christianpost.com/books/mike-pence-on-the-billy-graham-rule-and-whats-next.html.

1 Peter 2:11 says, “Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.” “Sojourners” and “pilgrims” enforces the idea that Christians are to be different from the people of this world. This world is not a Christian’s permanent home. It is temporary, and our true citizenship is in heaven. “Fleshly lusts” points to the fact that this world, empowered by the devil, tempts Christians through fleshly lusts. These are unwholesome desires that would have been natural to indulge before trusting Jesus as Savior and Lord. But, as long as we live in this world, we will continue to contend with the flesh. The temptation is to satisfy a normal, healthy appetite in an unholy way.

For example, God has given us a sexual drive, and yet he gives us a way to meet the appetite. He commends marriage between a husband and a wife where they can fulfill that sexual drive. Yet, here, Peter says to abstain from fleshly lusts, which seeks to indulge the flesh in unholy ways. He warns them if they do not abstain it will “war against the soul.” He is commending this abstinence for their own good.
 
Adrian Rogers once said it this way, “Every time God says ‘Thou shalt not’ in Scripture, He is saying, ‘Don’t hurt yourself.’ Whenever God says in Scripture ‘Thou shalt,’ He is saying, ‘Help yourself to happiness.’”[1] It has been expressed this way: God condemns sin because it is bad for us. It’s not bad for us because God condemns it. Oftentimes we say to ourselves, “Well, God condemns it so I should avoid it,” but we ought to think deeper and say, “God condemns it because it's bad for me.” These statements simply convey the fact that God loves us enough to warn us away from hurting ourselves by our own poor choices.

  Christians often tolerate habits in their lives which are weights to all that God wants to do through them. Hebrews 12:1 says, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” If you have ever noticed track and field athletes, they are not wearing anything that would weigh them down or slow down their pace. This verse means there can be weights that hold us back. These are not necessarily sins. He refers to both “weights” and “sins” that “so easily ensnare us.” The New Living Translates it this way, “…let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”

  Some things in this world may look attractive and may appear that they can meet that appetite. However, it’s an unholy thing. It’s not as God designed. It’s not as God commands. It’s for our own good. God’s word of warning is to “abstain” from those things for our own good.

  God is not opposed to your having fun. The Christian life should be exciting. However, when you live according to God’s standards, you will have fun and not feel guilty the next day. Peter is trying to say there are God-honoring ways to meet your needs, and there are unhealthy, fleshly ways which ultimately will not satisfy. Christians should avoid satisfying the flesh. There will be an inner battle. Your “soul” is your mind, will and emotions. For the sake of your own inner peace, don’t give in to those fleshly desires. A mature Christian understands the need to avoid certain behaviors and habits.

  In 1 Corinthians 9:27, Paul says, "I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified." If it is not good for him, Paul will avoid it. He will discipline his life. God wants to build His church with mature believers who can live disciplined lives for His glory.

  God wants His followers to influence this world for Him. 1 Peter 2:12 adds, “having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.” If Christians are connecting with the people of God, ministering according to who they are in Christ and disciplining their lives to reflect holiness, the fourth mark will be an ever-growing influence on society as a whole.
 
  1 Peter 2:9 states, “that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” The word "proclaim" literally means “to evangelize out” or “to advertise.” Our mission is to advertise God's beauty to the world around us. God wants us to proclaim in such a way that we may evangelize the glories of God to a watching world.

  Peter is encouraging God’s people to live our lives in such a way that even when others may misunderstand or speak negatively about us, they will ultimately recognize our good deeds and praise God. Our actions speak louder than our words, and the way we live before others can either attract or repel people from Christ. We can preach the gospel with our words, but we also need to preach the gospel with our lives as well. You may have someone twist your biblical convictions or twist what you say in a negative way, but your life lived before them will shine through.

  The end of verse 12 says they will “glorify God in the day of visitation”. This means when God visits a person in judgment, they will either say one of two statements. They may say, “This person’s words and conduct led me to Christ. I glorify God through the good works I saw in this person’s life.” Or, they may glorify God in the day of visitation though they shunned Christ in this life.

  Philippians 2:9–11 (NKJV)
 9Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 
 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 
 11and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
 
  The day of visitation, or of judgment, will be a time of reminder to them that they not only heard the gospel, they also saw the gospel lived out before them. If they rejected Christ in this life, they will be condemned.

  Ruth Graham once said, "A saint is someone who makes it easier for someone to believe in Jesus.” We should ask ourselves if we, through our words and actions, are drawing people to Christ or keeping them from Christ. Our mission is to point people to Jesus, drawing people to Jesus and sharing the hope they can find in Jesus. God wants to use each of His people to build His Church and accomplish His mission in the world.
  
“Dead God, I pray my life reflects You to others. I pray that I would make it easy for someone to believe in You and love You. I love You, Lord. Help me be a witness for You. May I never be ashamed to follow You. Give me Your strength to live for You and point people to You. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
 
   [1] https://x.com/lwfministries/status/1214361148306415617, accessed 8/8/2024.

In God’s church, one’s ministry is discovered through one’s identity. 1 Peter 2:9 explains that identity in four ways: “a chosen generation,” “a royal priesthood,” “a holy nation,” and “His own special people.” This is how Jesus describes His followers.

1 Peter 2:9 says, “you are a chosen generation.” The word “generation” literally means “the elect offspring.” It is describing when life begins creating life. This simply means that you are in the family of God. He identifies you now not as an offspring of God. John 3:3 says, “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”

He continues, “you are a royal priesthood.” The word “royal” means “kingly.” You are a kingly priest. Did you know that you are royalty? Did you know that you are a king, a queen?

There was a television show called “Suddenly Royal” which showed a mechanic named David Howe from Maryland who discovered he was royalty. How does he interact with royal society? How is he supposed to act? Morgan Wright wrote about his story,

“It’s just a bizarre story and unbelievable story. A lot of people ask me what I get, and not much, something I can claim,” said Drew Howe, manager at Mr. Tire and king of the Isle of Man.
Howe actually got much more when he discovered he was a king. He appeared on TLC’s “Suddenly Royal” which aired last year and documented his trip to the Isle of Man.
This all stemmed as a result of Howe researching his ancestry online and posting to social media about his findings.
“Started posting stuff online, and then eventually I got an email one day – a guy saying he was a genealogist in London and said he thought I might be the king of Isle of Man,” Howe said.
Howe’s claim to fame is well documented and even well supported. An official royal press release states that David Howe is the legal heir to the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles.
The stamp of approval, however, came from the queen herself. Queen Elizabeth II published a legal notice to Howe and his claim as hereditary de jure King of Man.
“Back in 2007, my claim was Gazetted in the London Gazette – that’s the Queen’s paper of record. So, if the White House put out a publication, that’s essentially what the London Gazette is,” Howe said.
He’s an everyday guy and family man, but he has an extraordinary background.
“Early on, it was kind of surreal, but now it’s part of everyday life balancing being a manager for Mr. Tire and being a king, where I really don’t have to do anything,” Howe said.
His duties as king are limited as the head of state, and the Lord of Mann is Queen Elizabeth II. [1]

 While this is certainly noteworthy, something far more significant is realizing that every Christian is suddenly royal in God’s eyes!
 
 We are not simply royal, we are priests. In the Old Testament, the Levitical priesthood, from the tribe of Levi, would serve as the priests for the nation of Israel. They were the only ones who would be offering sacrifices in the temple. Only one of them would be annually selected to offer incense in the Holy of Holies. Before John the Baptist was born, Zachariah was serving in the temple, along with the other priests, when he was chosen to offer incense that year. It was during that event, Gabriel spoke to him that John the Baptist would be born from Elizabeth, Zachariah’s wife, in her old age. That year, he alone was given access to the Holy of Holies.
 
 Well, Matthew 27:51 records how the temple curtain, keeping people from the Holy of Holies, was torn from top to bottom after Jesus died on the cross for the sins of mankind. This symbolized that God’s presence could be accessed by anyone, not simply by one chosen priest. Now, through what Jesus did on the cross, anyone could enter the Holy of Holies, or have access to God. Today, the Old Testament Levitical priesthood is no longer needed. Today, believers are priests and can come into the presence of God. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” So, as priests, believers have access to God.

  A priest is also someone who represents the people before God and represents God before the people. In Roman Catholicism, priests are referred to as “pontifex”, and the Pope is referred to as “pontifex maximus” or “greatest pontif.” The term "pontifex" originally referred to a member of the principal college of priests in ancient Rome. The word itself derives from Latin roots meaning "bridge builder.” Priests are bridge builders between God and man.
 
 God’s people today are to be bridges bringing people to Jesus Christ. Jesus Alone can take care of their sin problem. For those who repent of their sins and confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, He will forgive them, cleanse them and bring them into the family of God. However, Christians can be bridge builders, bringing sinful man to holy God.

   A priest is also someone who offers sacrifices. Psalm 51:17 says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart.” Hebrews 13:15 says our praise and worship are sacrifices to God. Romans 12:1 says we can offer ourselves as “living sacrifices” to God. Philippians 4:18 says ones’ financial offerings can be a sweet-smelling incense before God.

  We are also called “a holy nation.” Isaiah 6:1-8 and Revelation 4:8 describe scenes in heaven where angels are surrounding the throne, saying “holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.” The characteristic of God highlighted by the angels is His holiness. Likewise, children of God should be known for their holiness.
 
 To be holy means to be clean in a polluted world. We get the words “sacred” and “set apart” from the word “holy”. It means being set apart, both from something and to something. A wedding band symbolizes two spouses being set apart in two different ways. Both spouses are set apart from all others, committing themselves to stay faithful to each other. There should be no competition outside of one’s marriage. Also, both spouses are also set apart to each other. This describes dedication and loyalty to one another. Spiritually, we should be set apart from sin. We should be set apart to God.

  To be holy also means to be different. Christians are living their lives differently than the people of this world. Christians are moving in a different direction. There is a philosophy amongst some of God’s people that the church must become more like the world in order to reach them. However, the Bible says that God’s people are different from this world. It’s actually when the church is different from the world that it inevitably attracts the world. Don’t be ashamed for living differently from friends, neighbors, family members or coworkers who are not Christians. The child of God should be walking the straight and narrow path, reflecting God to this world.

  Lastly, we are also called “His own special people.” I learned the phrase in the King James Version, which expresses it as a “peculiar people.” When Lydia and I were dating and just getting to know one another, she would say, “You’re kind of peculiar.” I told her that was in the Bible, and quoted this verse. Well, this phrase does not mean that if you are a Christian, you will be odd. The phrase can be illustrated this way. Imagine drawing a circle and proclaiming everything in that circle as belonging to God. It designates ownership. Christians belong to God. That’s why the newer versions will describe it as a special possession of God.
 
 One’s ministry should be expressed through these identities. Because we are in the family of God, our ministry should reflect God’s loving desire to grow that family. Because we are royal priests, our ministry should bring to God. Because we are holy, our ministry should be dedicated to God. Because we belong to God, our ministry should reflect His desire for our lives. These identities will guide our ministry to be Christ-honoring and reflecting God to others.
 
 “Father God, I praise You that You have brought me into the family of God! I am royalty! I am a priest! I am set apart for You! I am special to You! I offer my life to You as a sacrifice of my worship. You are worthy of my worship. I love You, In Jesus’ name, amen.”
 
   [1] https://www.dcnewsnow.com/news/frederick-md-man-finds-out-hes-a-king-after-online-ancestry-research/, accessed 8/7/2024.

Perhaps you do not feel as though you are significant. However, God has a special place for you in His church. Martin Luther once said, “God creates out of nothing. Therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him.“[1] Positively speaking, when I understand that I, too, am nothing, perhaps God can make something out of me. We need to realize that God wants to make something special out of us.

God's Word uses different images to convey how His church is to function. His church functions like a family. Ephesians 2:19 says, “You are members of God’s family” (NLT). Believers in Christ are brothers and sisters in Christ and are part of the family of God. His church functions like a body. 1 Corinthians 12:27 says, “Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.” His church functions like a bride. Ephesians 5:25-27 speaks to how husbands and wives relate to each other in marriage, and how it reflects Christ and His bride, the church. These images help us understand how a church is to function together.

In 1 Peter 2, the church is visualized like a building. He previously stated that Christ is the Cornerstone, and we are living stones being built together. Believers collectively are the building of God. We sometimes will state that we are “going to church” for worship. That’s fine, as long as we keep in mind that the building is not the church – believers are the church. Christians are the bricks, and God is placing each brick together to be His building for holy purposes.

We should come to the place where we understand our value is found in God’s church. There is nothing very special about the bricks, but there is something wonderful about the building. I read that one architect described building this way: “Good architecture is not an arrangement of beautiful materials; it is a beautiful arrangement of materials.”[2]

You and I are the materials God will use. We've given our life to Jesus Christ, and God is going to make something extraordinary out of something common. Jesus told Peter in Matthew 16:16-18, "I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it."

In God’s Church, there is a special initiation that brings people together. Something happens when a person says, “Jesus, be my Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

1 Peter 2:5 says, “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices." In this building, Jesus is the Cornerstone, but we are living stones. First, we come to Christ and then, we become like Christ. We are identified as a living stone, but what is our purpose?

The purpose of a stone is not to lie alone in a field. In my backyard, I have some gardening stones; some form a neat border wall, while others are stacked behind the garage. A stone on its own in a field doesn't serve much purpose unless it's connected to a building. Once a stone or brick is attached to a building, it gains a purpose.

A wall serves the purpose of protection and stability for the building. More bricks make a stronger building that safeguards from external elements. Walls are valuable for what they enclose. A brick is valuable only when it finds its place, just as we're meant to find our place in the building Jesus is constructing.

We should forever dismiss the idea of being a solitary Christian, thinking that we can be Christian without going to church. While it's true that you can be a Christian without attending church, if Jesus is truly your Lord, then He wants to use you to contribute to something special in His kingdom. He wants to build something out of you, but you're just one part of it. This highlights how we all rely on each other. Are you playing your part in the building of God's kingdom?

We must understand that our value lies in our unity, and we cannot say to one another, "I don't need you here," or claim that someone doesn't need us. We all need each other. We are interdependent and interconnected as the people of God. The church is not just a physical building, but we, as a community of believers, are the church. We unite to construct this beautiful building for the glory of God, relying on each other's support and cooperation.

Let's remember to support and encourage one another as we live in Christian community. Hebrews 10:25 says, “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” The Living Bible paraphrases it this way, “Let us not neglect our church meetings, as some people do, but encourage…”

Picture yourself as a brick in the beautiful building God is constructing. Jesus holds us together (see Colossians 1:17). Look up and reassure the brick, “Stay strong!” Look to the left and say, “Stay with me!” Look to the brick on the right and say, “We’re in this together!” This is how we should keep encouraging each other as we are built together by Christ!

Remember how the Church is illustrated as a body in 1 Corinthians 12:12-27? Notice some of the verses from that passage:

1 Corinthians 12:12, 18, 21, 26-27 (NKJV)
12 For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. …
18 But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. …
21 And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” …
26 And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. 
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.

Each body part is important to the body. One important observation is that if a body part became severed from the rest of the body, its vitality and life would be gone. It is no longer valuable to the rest of the body. This passage highlights also that the weaker, less visible members of the body are oftentimes more significant to the body as well. 1 Corinthians 12:22–24 says, “No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it.”

Whether we are talking about the parts of a body or the bricks of a building, believers must see their value in the collective whole of the Church. We need one another. Every member is valuable.

“Lord, thank You, that You are showing me how valuable I am to You and to Your church. I pray that I find my place in Your body. I pray that I appreciate where You have placed me, to serve You and Your people and to touch people for You. I rejoice that You have placed me where I am. I will thrive in what You have called me to do. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

[1] https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/colorful-sayings-of-colorful-luther, accessed 8/72024.
[2] Adrian Rogers, “Life on the Rock,” in Adrian Rogers Sermon Archive (Signal Hill, CA: Rogers Family Trust, 2017), 1 Pe 2:4–9.

1 Peter 2:4–5 says, “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
 
In John 6:51, Jesus refers to Himself as the “living bread.” In John 4:13-14 and John 7:37-39, Jesus says He is the Source of “living water.” Well, in 1 Peter 2:4, Jesus is referred to as the “living stone.” That phrase “living stone” is oxymoronic, because it communicates something with life and something that is inanimate. Stones represent stability. Stones represent something that cannot change. Jesus is sturdy and stable. Yet, He is not a dead stone. He is alive.

Then, the next verse describes how He brings life from the dead. When you come to Him, and believe on Him, then you, too, become a living stone. 1 Peter 2:5 says, “you also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices.” The process is: first you come to Jesus (the cornerstone), and then you become like Jesus (a living stone).

The King of Sparta in Ancient Greece would brag about the “mighty walls of Sparta.” How massive. How strong. One day a king came to visit. He asked, “I've heard about the massive walls of Sparta, where are they?” The King pointed to the well-disciplined soldiers of Sparta, and he said, “There are the mighty walls of Sparta!”

God is able to build up a spiritual house out of these living stones. A church is made up of people, not brick and mortar. The building may perish, but the church still exists because of the people of God. Individually, we may be a stone. Collectively, we are a building that God is putting together, one stone at a time. The building continues to grow as people continue to come to Jesus and become like Jesus. All for the glory of God.

Hebrews 3:6 says, “but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.” 1 Corinthians 3:9 adds, “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building.” Believers are the house of God. We are the building of God.

The main verb of this verse is “are being built.” Some translations mistakenly turn this sentence into an imperative, “be built up.” However, it seems to be best translated as an indicative, a statement of something that is actually happening. They were being built up. Additionally, the verb is in the passive voice, which means it was something being done to them. They were not building themselves up. Someone else was building them up. His name is Jesus.

One toy that our boys always enjoyed playing with as they were younger were Magnetic plastic tiles. They are plastic shapes, but they have magnets all around the edges. They are able to be connected pretty quickly in order to build whatever structure you may want to build. Well, what is holding these plastic squares together? If they were just plastic shapes, they would just collapse. They couldn’t hold together. However, with the magnetic force at work, you can build enormous structures as one more plastic square or rectangle is attached at the right location. Now, this is a picture of the church. Believers all over the world join together as Christians. What force holds the church together? Jesus!

Colossians 1:17 says, “He [Christ] is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (NIV). We may walk around and think, “What’s keeping me on earth?” The answer is gravity. It is a force we cannot see. In the same way, Jesus Christ, the living stone, as people come to Him, esteem Him as precious, and believe on Him, He grafts them in. He adds to the building. He holds all of His followers together as living stones being built together for His glory!

“Dear God, thank You for making me one of Your children through what Jesus did for me. Thank You for connecting me to other believers as Your church. I pray that I stay faithful to You and to Your church. I pray that others can count on me to do my part in Your church. I pray our unity glorifies You. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

"one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." - Ephesians 4:6

If you are tuning a row of old pianos, you don't tune the first one and then tune the second to the first and the third to the second, right on down the line. If you test the last piano against the first, they are going to be off. The way to tune them all is to have one measuring standard. You tune every single piano to that one instrument, and then they are all in tune with each other. Each piano would be adjusted by using the same standard.

That is the answer to our unity in a local church. Get every single believer is anchored to Jesus. As we fall in love with Jesus and follow wholeheartedly the same Book - the Bible - truly, we look beside ourselves and say to each other, "You believe what I believe; you have the same priorities I have." The unity is not external pressure. It is not just putting everybody in the same room. It is anchoring every heart to the same core: Jesus, the same Word of God, "one God and Father of us all, one body, one faith."

When Lydia and I were dating, we came from different denominational backgrounds, and we talked about those differences over and over again. I finally looked at her and said, "We are going to come together on some of these differences at some point." She said, "Why do you say that? How can you be sure?" I said, "Because I love Jesus, and I know you love Jesus. I am anchoring my life to the Word of God, and I know you are too. We have the same Holy Spirit. He is going to work those differences out." And today, she says she is glad I could see that she was right. (I'm joking)

In reality, even though our backgrounds matter, as long as we are focusing on the same standard, we will move closer and closer to one another.

Here is what settles it for me. When we get to heaven, there won't be a Baptist village and a Pentecostal village and a Presbyterian village. The angels aren't going to ask what denomination you belonged to. Nobody is going to care about that. The only thing that will matter is what you believed about Jesus. We won't be having Pentecostal worship services at 3pm and Baptist worship services at 5pm. We are not going to be worshiping our differences. We are going to be worshiping Him.

So when you start getting bent out of shape over something small, ask yourself this: "Do I love Jesus more than I love my preference? Is this more about Him or about me getting my way?" If ten other believers tell you it's a small thing, it's probably a small thing. We all have the same Holy Spirit. We have the same Book. We worship the same Jesus. So move together as one Body in Christ, becoming something greater than any one of us could ever be alone. Stay unified by loving Jesus more than any preference you hold. Love Him more than anything else. He is the Anchor. He is our tuning instrument. That is what true unity in the church looks like. Hallelujah!

Reflection Question: Are you tuning yourself to one other? Or to Jesus and His Word?

Dear Heavenly Father, anchor my heart to Jesus and to Your Word. Where I have loved my preferences more than I love You, forgive me. Tune me to You, and bring me into tune with Your church. I look forward to worshipping together in heaven with my brothers and sisters. Help me display that same unity today. In Jesus' Name, amen.

Check out: The Seven Pillars of Christian Unity (Ephesians 4:4-6): https://www.joshfranklin.org/media/gcssrmc/14-seven-pillars-for-christian-unity-eph-4-4-6

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." - 2 Timothy 3:16

No matter what background you come from, whether you grew up non-denominational, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, or something else, if you've lived long enough, you've probably noticed some of the strengths found in each of those traditions. My mentor, Dr. Bill, used to call himself a Bapto-metho-palian-congre-presby-gationalist. He felt affinity to some of each of these traditions and denominations. He collected the best of each denomination he studied and recognized the unity that existed in major doctrines.

Now, this isn't unity for unity's sake. There are differences and convictions we hold as believers. But sometimes we separate over really small issues. We go all in on a doctrine that has nothing to do with anybody's salvation, and instead of tolerating a difference of opinion or preference, we draw hard lines.

For example, take the subject of the end-time events prophesied in many places, like Daniel or the Book of Revelation. There are many different ideas, even in one congregation, about what is going to happen, and everybody is using the same Bible. We're committed to the Word, look at the same texts, and arrive at different conclusions. These convictions matter, but they do not keep one out of heaven. Disagreements abound on that subject.

Another example is how we interact with the Holy Spirit. Different denominations understand His work differently. I was not raised Southern Baptist. I chose to be one as an adult. What I found among Southern Baptists was a strong commitment to the Word of God and a passionate focus on the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was drawn to their proclamation of God's Word being without error, in the original manuscripts, and infallible. I appreciated their desire to be guided by God's Word above other sources of authority (like personal experiences, which can be subjective and easily manipulated by emotions). I loved their desire to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others, expanding God's kingdom through evangelism and missions. These were two reasons I chose to be a Southern Baptist.

But I'll be honest. For a time, I couldn't fully tell whether Southern Baptists had missed something important about the power, ministry, and Person of the Holy Spirit. The context I was raised in had a strong emphasis on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He is very real to me, and His work is vital in my life.

Dr. Bill Bennett helped settle that for me. He had grown up Southern Baptist, gone to a Southern Baptist seminary, but he had also understood the reality of the Holy Spirit, which he said he did not learn from Southern Baptists. He blended a head full of Bible with a heart full of passionate zeal for the ministry of the Holy Spirit, depending on Him as a Person, not an influence, not a power, not an "it."

He would make statements like, "The Holy Spirit is RESIDENT in your life at salvation, but He wants to be PRESIDENT through His infilling." He said, "All Spirit and No Word, you BLOW UP. All Word and No Spirit, you DRY UP. But with both the Spirit and the Word, you GROW UP." He showed me that the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the infilling of the Holy Spirit are two sides of the same coin. You show me somebody who is fully in love with Jesus, fully submitted to His Lordship, and I'll show you somebody who is filled with the Holy Spirit. You show me somebody truly filled with the Holy Spirit, and I'll show you somebody living under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

So, I realized if Dr. Bill could be a Southern Baptist, so could I. I feel like my background has influenced me. I, too, feel like I am a Bapto-metho-palian-congre-presby-gationalist. I'm proud of what Southern Baptists have taught me, but I also understand that I can learn from anyone who holds God's Word as final authority and seeks to be guided by the Bible. I have learned from biblically faithful Presbyterians (like R. C. Sproul), non-Southern Baptist Baptists (like John Macarthur), Christian Church (like Bob Russell and Max Lucado), nondenominational (like John Ortberg, Jim Cymbala, Tony Evans, and Chuck Swindoll), and the list goes on and on. I can also collect the strengths God has put in His people wherever I find them.

The Bible is our common ground. We can hold our convictions and lock arms with others to expand the kingdom of God. We don't have to wait until we have enough of our own crowd behind us to get something done for the gospel. We have more that unites us than divides us.

Reflection Question: What strength has God placed in another believer's denomination or tradition that you have learned from?

Dear Heavenly Father, I thank You for Your Word and for those You have used to help me grow. Please keep me from dividing over minor issues and teach me to learn from others. I am grateful for Your Word, which is my ultimate authority. I desire to honor You and guide others to You. In Jesus' Name, amen.

Check out: The Seven Pillars of Christian Unity (Ephesians 4:4-6): https://www.joshfranklin.org/media/gcssrmc/14-seven-pillars-for-christian-unity-eph-4-4-6

Note: I found this image through a Google search, but I couldn't find the source, so I can't properly direct someone to it. I like it, though. 

"There is ...one Spirit" ... "one Lord" ... "one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." - Ephesians 4:4–6 (NKJV)

Paul says there is "one Spirit", "one Lord" (Jesus), and "one Father" in Ephesians 4:4-6. Notice that in these three simple verses he gives you the whole Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Paul is intentional about giving you all three.

The word "Trinity" comes from the Latin "Trinitas", first used by the early Church father Tertullian (150-160 AD). It literally means: "Three-ness", derived from trinus — meaning "threefold" or "three at a time". "tria" simply meaning "three". Tertullian gave us the classic Latin statement: "Una Substantia, Tres Personae" (One Substance, Three Persons). This statement attempts to understand our God, as One in substance, but Three in Persons.

Someone may ask, "Isn't that three gods?" The answer is "No." Deuteronomy 6:4 says, "The Lord our God, the Lord is one." We serve one God. But He is a Trinitarian God.

Romans 11:34, in the Message paraphrase, reads, “Is there anyone around who can explain God?” It is impossible to fully comprehend or explain the Trinity. One silly statement I have never forgotten is, "If you deny the Trinity, you will lose your soul. If you try to explain the Trinity, you will lose your mind."  

Three passages in Scripture help show the oneness and threeness of the Trinitarian Godhead. Genesis 1:26 says, "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image." "God" is singular. "Us" and "Our" are plural. In Isaiah 6:8, God says, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" "I send" is singular. "For Us" is plural. In Matthew 3:16-18, you see all three in the same moment at the baptism of Jesus. Jesus comes up out of the water, the Spirit comes down like a dove, and a voice from heaven says, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We keep trying to understand this in physical ways, but our illustrations never quite fully convey the full three-ness and one-ness of the Godhead. An apple has seeds, the part you eat, called the flesh, and the outer part, called the skin. Three parts, but still just one apple. An egg has yolk, white, and shell, still one egg. Water can be steam, liquid, and ice, and it's all still H2O. These illustrations can help explain the concept of the Trinity, especially to children.

The best illustration I have come across was offered by M.R. DeHaan, who tied it to the biblical statement in 1 John 1:5: "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." He pointed out that the scientific analysis of sunlight reveals three kinds of rays. The chemical ray, which is invisible and can neither be seen nor felt. The light ray, which can be seen but cannot be felt. And the heat ray, which can be felt but cannot be seen. God the Father corresponds to the chemical ray, because, as John 1:18 says, "no man has seen God at any time." God the Son, Jesus, Who is the "Light of the world" (John 8:12), corresponds to the light ray, which can be seen but not felt. God the Holy Spirit corresponds to the heat ray, which cannot be seen but can certainly be felt. Still not a perfect illustration, but it gives you something to hold the threeness and the oneness together with.

The entire Godhead was involved in your salvation. Dr. Bill Bennett explained the teamwork of the Trinity in salvation like three members of a medical team: There is the doctor who diagnoses the disease and prescribes treatment; the pharmacist who provides the remedy; and the nurse who faithfully waits at the patient’s bedside and administers that which the doctor has prescribed and the pharmacist has prepared. In this analogy, the Doctor represents God the Father, Who diagnosed the need of the sinner and prescribed the remedy. The Pharmacist represents God the Son, Who by achieving a perfect human life provides through His shed blood the only specific cure for sin. The Nurse represents God the Holy Spirit, Who applies the remedy by making the Word of God come alive in our hearts and giving the sinner faith to be saved. In one sentence, the Trinity in salvation is like this:

• The Father thought up our salvation;
  
• The Son bought and paid for our salvation; and
  
• The Holy Spirit brought salvation to us and makes it real to each of us personally. 

Why does this matter for our unity as Christians? Because some Christians do not appreciate all three. They may magnify the Father and the Son, Jesus, but forget about the Spirit. Some Christians only magnify the Holy Spirit. But we, as Christians, shouldn't settle for two out of three. We need to fully appreciate all that the trinitarian God provides in our lives and worship Him as One Who Alone is worthy of our praise. We hold all three together, because that is Who God is. That full worship brings us together as Christians.

Reflection Question: Are you fully appreciating each member of the Trinitarian Godhead - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Or, have you neglected One in your worship?

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You that You thought my salvation, Your Son bought it, and Your Spirit brought it and applied it to me personally. Help me honor Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as I walk with You today. In Jesus' Name, amen.

Check out: The Seven Pillars of Christian Unity (Ephesians 4:4-6): https://www.joshfranklin.org/media/gcssrmc/14-seven-pillars-for-christian-unity-eph-4-4-6

"There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism." - Ephesians 4:4-5

For years now, social media has been making us a promise. The promise is that technology will bring us closer together than ever before and help us build deeper, more lasting relationships. That promise has not been fulfilled. All you have to do is scroll for ten minutes to realize that instead of more unity, we have more divisiveness. To get attention quickly, people make statements online that often wouldn't be made in person. People go to their corners. People quickly "unfriend" others or are impatient to dialogue. Algorithms give us what we want to see, but they do not give us true community. We can have hundreds or thousands of social media "friends" but not feel known, seen, or loved by others.

An MIT professor named Sherry Turkle gave a TED Talk and later released a book called Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. What makes it interesting is that fifteen years before that book, Turkle had given a completely different TED Talk celebrating the possibilities of social media, the connections it could build, the relationships it could deepen. Then, after watching what actually happened over those fifteen years, she went back and revised her findings. Instead of greater connectedness, she found dissatisfaction and alienation.

You don't need a book to tell you how divisive things get online. It is so easy to throw verbal bombs at people you will never meet and never be held accountable to. Social media doesn't bring us together as promised. It often pushes us apart. Sadly, the church is not immune, either. The church needs to use technology because it can aid evangelism. Social media can supplement what is happening in person, but it should not, if at all possible, be a substitute for face-to-face community with others.

Ephesians reveals a different, and indeed a better, vision for unity. The beauty of a united church goes beyond mere surface-level connections. It is rooted in our shared beliefs. What holds churches together is theological in nature and grounded in what we collectively hold to be true.

Paul was writing to the church at Ephesus, but this letter circulated among churches all through Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey. The miracle he describes is not only that sinful people are reconciled to a holy God through the blood of Jesus, though that alone is worth celebrating. Paul highlights that because of what Jesus did on the cross, He also brings together people who would never otherwise associate. Jews and Gentiles, side by side, brought into one family.

I saw a picture of that not long ago at a pastor's conference overseas. I was surrounded by pastors and leaders from Bible-believing churches that weren't necessarily Baptist. They began singing in their own language, one I didn't understand, but I picked up the tune. It was "Because He Lives." They sang in their language, and I sang in mine, and there was a camaraderie, something pulling us together. Our shared faith.

Technology can aid real connection, but it must begin with our common bond. One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. This is the ground we stand on together. Our shared faith in Jesus Christ keeps us united when cultural, language, and physical barriers exist.

So the next time you feel that pull to spend all of your time online, remember that real connection is not built by technology. Community is built in the body of Christ through the truths we hold in God's Word. We find our community by worshipping together our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Get around the people God put in your church family, and let those shared beliefs bring you together. A screen will never do for you what the local body of Christ can do.

Reflection Question: How have you been expecting technology to give you the connection that only the body of Christ can give?

Dear Heavenly Father, forgive me for the times I have looked to technology for community instead of Your church family. I need to be with the local body of believers. Help me find my place in Your church. I want to grow closer to You and to other believers. Thank You for my local church and for the universal church worldwide, where we share one Lord, one hope, one faith, one baptism, and one Holy Spirit. In Jesus' Name, amen.

Check out: The Seven Pillars of Christian Unity (Ephesians 4:4-6): https://www.joshfranklin.org/media/gcssrmc/14-seven-pillars-for-christian-unity-eph-4-4-6

Jesus, as this cornerstone, was rejected by men. After saying Jesus is a chief cornerstone, Peter says in 1 Peter 2:6-8, “Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, ‘The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone,’ and ‘A stone of stumbling And a rock of offense.’ They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.”

The word “rejected” here means “having studied and analyzed the facts, finding that person to not be acceptable.” It's not just ignorantly saying, “Oh well, I didn't know who Jesus was.” It means gathering all of the information, analyzing the data, knowing the details, and then coming to the conclusion that you are going to reject Jesus.

When Jesus walked this earth, he ministered to God’s people. He healed others. He taught. He performed miracles. He forgave sins. However, the religious leaders rejected Him. They knew the Scriptures and could observe how He ministered in the power of God, but they still rejected Him. They sought to find a way to crucify Him, which they ultimately did.

People not only reject Jesus, but they also reject His followers. You may feel rejection from coworkers, friends, family members, neighbors or even strangers because of your devotion to Jesus. Consider this: If the majority of the people of this world were wrong about Jesus when He walked this earth, why does it matter what they think of you today? Why does it matter if they reject you today? Jesus would say, “If they rejected Me, they’re going to reject you. If they rejected the Teacher, why would they not reject the student?”

In John 15:18-19, Jesus said, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” Peter is making it plain and clear. Jesus has been rejected by others. He’s just in their way, so they reject Him.

Matthew 19:16-26 tells the familiar story where Jesus is introduced to the rich young ruler. The young man comes to Jesus and says, “What do I need to do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus, as God, knows the hearts and thoughts of people, and He understood the specific stumbling block for this rich young ruler. He says, "Honor your father and mother. Don't steal, don't kill." Jesus mentioned some of the commandments, but not all of them. He knew that this rich young ruler had mastered these commands.

The rich young ruler responds, "Well, all of these things I've done since I was a child." Then Jesus said, "But one thing you lack," and He pinpointed the idolatry of the rich young ruler's heart by saying, "Go and sell all you have and give it all to the poor. Come and follow me." The rich young ruler hung his head and walked away because he had a lot of possessions.

Jesus wasn't creating a universal command for all to obey, but He was pinpointing the idolatry of the rich young ruler's heart. Jesus knew he was a good moralistic person, but he also idolized money and material possessions. He didn't own things. Those things owned him. Jesus was encouraging him by saying, "Let them go. I'm worth more than that. Let them go. Come and follow me." Jesus only extended similar invitations to “come and follow Him” to those who would ultimately be His twelve disciples. How sad to observe this rich young ruler as he hung his head and walked away because he had a lot of material possessions.

It reminds me of individuals who would like to come to Jesus because they like the idea of forgiveness of sins. They may attend church because they enjoy the inspirational presence of God’s people. They enjoy the exciting music. They may feel entertained by the performance of professional music. They may enjoy the fellowship or comradery that can be found in a Bible study or Sunday School class. Then, the preacher gets up and preaches on the requirements of the gospel, and these same people back up. These same folks may reject hearing the preacher say, “Don’t allow that idolatry to grip your heart,” or ask challenging questions, like, “What are those things that are standing in your way from fully giving your heart and devotion to Jesus?”

They enjoy the music, the inspirational thoughts, the friends, but they will reject Jesus when He tells them to let go of the idols of the heart. Jesus has become to them a stumbling block and a stone of offense. That’s what the first-century people did. They heard Jesus teach, they watched Him perform miracles and still they shouted, “Crucify Him!”

Sometimes we ask ourselves the question, “What will God do to those who have never heard the gospel? What will happen to those people when they die?” And, there is a Bible answer for that. However, in light of these particular verses, we should ask ourselves, “What will God do to those who have clearly heard the gospel and have had the opportunity to understand the claims of Jesus Christ? They recognize that Jesus is not only the crucified Savior but also the risen Lord, Who proved He accomplished what He promised — dying for the sins of the world. What will happen to those who have heard this truth and yet dismiss it, concluding, ‘That's not for me’?”[1]

Jesus rebuked the cities in Matthew 11:20-24 that had witnessed His ministry and yet rejected Him.

Matthew 11:20–24 (NKJV)
20Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: 
21“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 
22But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. 
23And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 
24But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.”
 
These cities had seen the miracles. Capernaum, in particular, was the great headquarters of Jesus’ ministry. If any city had seen and heard Jesus it was Capernaum. Because they rejected Him, Jesus said to Capernaum in verse 24 that their judgment will be worse than the judgment that will come to Sodom, that immoral city. Verse 23 says, “If the same miracles had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah (those immoral cities), they would have repented.”

This is what it means to reject the cornerstone. Peter says that the temple builders rejected the cornerstone. They were annoyed by this stone. It was a rock of offense. It was a stumbling block. So, they threw it into the valley to get it out of the way. Later on they realized, “That was not just an awkwardly shaped stone. That was the cornerstone. The temple must have its cornerstone.”

Jesus is saying, “I am that stone that was rejected by men, but to those who know Me, they have esteemed Me as precious” (see 1 Peter 2:7).

“Dear Jesus, I choose to say ‘Yes’ to You! You are my Lord and Savior! I trust You today. Though others reject You, and may reject me as one of Your followers, I pray I would never be ashamed of being called one of Your followers. I love You. Amen.”
 
[1] Paraphrased from Adrian Rogers, “Life on the Rock,” in Adrian Rogers Sermon Archive (Signal Hill, CA: Rogers Family Trust, 2017), 1 Pe 2:4–9.

In 1501, world-renowned artist Michelangelo was going back from Rome to his home of Florence for three different reasons. First, he was a little homesick. Second, his family needed him. In the third place, there was a giant slab of flawless, white Carrara marble which was more than 18-feet high that was being given to him. Agostino di Duccio in 1464 tried to work with it, but ultimately rejected it. Leonardo wouldn’t touch it. Other sculptors refused to work with it. They called the marble “the giant”. It was being given to Michelangelo to see if he could do something with it. From 1501 to 1504, he masterfully worked on that gigantic piece of marble once rejected by others. From the once rejected stone, Michelangelo created one of the finest sculptures ever made by human hands - his iconic masterpiece "David". This marble slab was not just received by Michaelangelo, but it also became precious to him. Today, this breathtaking work of art stands proudly in the Accademia Gallery of Florence in Florence, Italy - a testament to Michelangelo's unmatched talent and vision.[1]

This story illustrates what Peter is writing about in 1 Peter 2:4-8. He says, "Jesus Christ is our cornerstone." Even though He is rejected by others, for you who are coming to Him, for you who believe in Him, for you who have esteemed Him as precious, He is your cornerstone. You can build your life on him. Verse 4 says, “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men but chosen by God.” Verse 6 says, “Behold, I lay in Zion, a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will not by any means be put to shame (or literally, be disappointed).”

Webster defines a “cornerstone” as “a stone which lies at the corner of two walls and serves to unite them; specifically, a stone built into a corner of the foundation of an important edifice as the actual or nominal starting point in the building.”

The foundation is the hardest part of any building. All of the dimensions and angles need to be right or the rest of the building will be off. Have you ever been in a house, perhaps even living in one, where it is not level in certain parts? You say, "Well, now that part of the ceiling is higher than the other part." It’s not only an eyesore. It can lead to other problems as well. A proper foundation will ensure the structural integrity of the rest of the building.

Today we have modern technology that helps the foundation of a building be laid properly without the use of a cornerstone. Many buildings will still have cornerstones, but they are only used in symbolic ways. They may have the year the building was built engraved on them and be placed in highly visible places of the buildings.

However, in biblical times, the cornerstone was essential to align all other stones and ensure the foundation was right and the rest of the stones were properly aligned. The cornerstone was the stone that everything else was measured by. It allowed you to have the right angles. It allowed you to ensure everything was level.

1 Kings 6 describes how Solomon’s temple was built. The master stone cutters would carve out the enormous stones from the rock quarry and ship them to the location where they would be put together without needing further cutting or hammering. In this way, the building of the temple was said to have been built reverently, without the use of a saw or hammer. 1 Kings 6:7 says, “And the temple, when it was being built, was built with stone finished at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.”

There is a legend[2] surrounding the building of the temple that has been repeated so many times that it is to be believed as history. While they were building this incredible temple, they were receiving deliveries of all these enormous rocks from the rock quarry. The master builder noticed one awkwardly shaped giant boulder that kept getting in people’s way. He would shout to the rest of the crew, “Who put this here? What is this for?” No one knew. “We didn’t put it there. We don’t know where it goes,” they would say. The men would have to work around it. It kept getting in the way of the construction of the temple. Finally, the master builder just said, “Toss it down that hill, and get it out of the way. We don’t need it.” They pushed it down a hill into a valley.

The temple took many years to build, and grass began to grow around that gigantic, awkwardly shaped stone. As they were nearing the end of construction. The master builder sent word to those in charge at the rock quarry, saying, “Where’s the last piece? Where’s the final piece that holds everything together?” The rock quarry manager sends word back, “We sent that to you.” The master builder responds, “We don’t have it.” Then, one of the workers says, “What about that big rock we pushed down into the valley?” They went to the valley, removed all the weeds and brush that had grown around the stone, and brought it back up the hill. They had to brush it off, and put it in place. It was the missing piece, almost like the final piece of a puzzle. It was the cornerstone of the temple. The temple was complete.

Now that imagery is repeated throughout the Bible, even Jesus would refer to Himself as the cornerstone rejected by men. To many people, Jesus is a stumbling block or a rock of offense. Some are annoyed by this giant rock that stands in their way. “Who is this Jesus?” “Why do I need a savior?” “Let’s get this giant rock out of our way!” While rejected by men, Jesus has become the chief cornerstone on Whom you can build your life. That is the imagery that Peter is referring to in 1 Peter 2:4-8. Jesus is the cornerstone. He’s the foundation by which everything else is built.

“Thank You, Jesus, that I can build my life on You. I thank You that I have not rejected You. I have come to You. I have believed on You. I have trusted You for my salvation. You are precious to me. I love You. Amen.”

[1] This story is from a sermon by Joel Gregory entitled “Cornerstone” from 1 Peter 2:4-8, www.gregoryministries.org.
[2] This story paraphrased from Robert J. Morgan, Nelson’s Annual Preacher’s Sourcebook, 2004 Edition. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004), 86–87.

1 Peter 2:1-3 (NKJV) - "Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious."
 
In verse 3, Peter says, “if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” That word “if”, in the Greek, can be translated “since,” and that’s what is implied. It’s not “if, and it might be the case.” It’s “if, and I know it is the case.” So, we would translate it like this, "Since you have tasted that the Lord is gracious," this verse of scripture is hearkening back to Psalm 34:8, which says, "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in Him."

Peter is conveying in this figure of speech, “Have you listened? Have you experienced the graciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ? If you have experienced the graciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, then you don't naturally have an appetite for anything else. Jesus is enough.”

Can you hear Peter, knowing of their walk with Christ, asking these questions, “Have you experienced the goodness of God? Have you felt God's grace? Have you found salvation?”

Peter's saying that we should be reborn as God's children. He refers back to the same idea from the beginning of the letter and says, “Now, you've just begun a relationship with Jesus Christ. You're like a newborn baby. Don't let these five actions and attitudes hinder your growth. Also, make sure not to be influenced by the worldly activities or information. Crave the simple Word of God, and you will grow.” The Word is how they experienced their relationship with Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:22–23 (NKJV)
22Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart,
23having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,
 
Can you remember the time when you were young, and your parents took you to a fancy restaurant, and you realized there was more to food than just chicken fingers and french fries? I still remember when Lydia and I first got married, and neither one of us knew how to cook. Lydia used to make pre-packaged meals where you just add meat, and I was perfectly fine with that. But over the years she started cooking meals from scratch and became a master in the kitchen. Suppose now, she asks if I want one of those pre-packaged meals? I would be grateful for the food, but after experiencing homemade meals, it's hard to settle for anything less!

And when you have had a relationship with Jesus Christ, when you've had your sins forgiven, when you've experienced the new birth, when you have a new nature on the inside, you don't want anything else. You don't want the philosophies of this world, and you're not satisfied with anything else. We put pacifiers in baby’s mouths to keep them quiet between meals. But when the milk of the bottle is there, that baby does not want to be distracted by the pacifier any more. Our heart cry should be, “I want the nourishment of God’s Word.” That's the mindset that every child of God should have. Nothing else will satisfy. We've experienced the real. That's all we want. It's only then that we will grow.

If my dog that had something in his mouth and I was trying to get it, do you know what I would do? It usually doesn’t work to run after him. I may try to deceive him somehow, but my dog is smart. That won’t always work. What does work every time is if I just hold up something that he wants or likes. All I have to do is ask, "Do you want a treat?" He'll drop the thing that's in his mouth, and he'll reach for the treat.

Now, in the same way, we may feel we are drawn to the things of this world. We may be continually asking, “Why do I continue to consume things that aren’t good for me, spiritually speaking?” We may feel tempted to look to the world for answers instead of God’s Word.
Maybe it's time to let go of those things that are not good for you, and begin to pursue and crave God’s good Word once again. Have you tasted that the Lord is gracious? Have you experienced the new birth? Once you’ve had the real, nothing else will satisfy.

“Thank You, Lord, for another reminder that You want me to grow in my walk with You. I pray that I never forget the reality of my relationship with You. I have tasted and seen that You are good. I know that You are gracious. I thank You that only You can satisfy. I love You! In Jesus’ Name, amen.”

1 Peter 2:1-3 (NKJV) - "Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious."
 
The desire of an ever-growing Christian is like that of newborn babes. We should have a childlike, even infant-like, attitude. What is this desire? It begins with the mindset of a baby. Nothing would satisfy my newborns at home except for what they truly desired. This is what the writer wants us to have: a desire for the pure, unadulterated word of God. We should crave it. That's the one command out of these three verses.

However, there are five actions and attitudes that we should avoid in our lives as they can kill our appetite. You might have a healthy appetite, but something might happen that makes you lose it. Have you ever been there? When I was in middle school, I would bring my own food from home because I didn't care for the cafeteria lunches. My friends would constantly tell me to buy lunch from the cafeteria because it was inexpensive, but I just wasn’t convinced. However, one time, they were serving hot dogs, so I thought, "How can you mess up hot dogs?" I bought one, took a big bite, and then a plastic wrapper came off as I pulled away. It turned me off, and I brought my own food for the rest of the school year.

Certain things can make us lose our appetite, which will ultimately hinder our growth. In verse one, Peter says to “lay aside malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speaking.” These things can hinder our growth as Christians.

• Malice - the intent to harm or punish others
• Deceit - manipulating others
• Hypocrisy - lack of authenticity
• Envy - discontent when others have what we want
• Evil speaking - slander and harmful criticism

James 1:21 says, “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.” Once again, negative traits that Christians should lay aside, and then return to the Word of God. As those negative traits are avoided, the appetite for God’s Word will return.

The Greek word for “desire” in 1 Peter 2:2 means to "long for it, yearn for it." Have an insatiable desire for the Word of God, not for popular philosophy or popular psychology, but for the simple Word of God. He continues that this desire is not simply to consume, but “that you may grow thereby.” It's not enough to just desire the word of God; we must also aim to grow by it. The aim is not just to fill our heads, but to grow as Christians.

After James 1:21 says to receive God’s Word, it says in verse 22 to be “doers of the Word and not hearers only.” The aim of that appetite is to grow.

In 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.” Notice, the aim is that the man or woman of God is complete, or mature, and equipped for every good work. The aim is to do something with that nourishment.

In fact, our appetite for God’s Word will increase as we are living it out. It becomes more than merely another Bible study, whose focus is more information. It is for transformation.
There was an army officer in the 1950’s who was trying to train his soldiers in artillery. While they were in the classroom, most of the students were dozing and glossy-eyed. They were trying to stay awake in class, and the officer and teachers just didn't know how to help this. They were trying to teach them about their weapons, and yet they continued to lose focus. Five to seven years later, the same instructors noticed that a new group of students held onto every word that the teachers were giving. The officer said the difference was that our country were right in the middle of preparing for the Vietnam War, and everyone knew they had to know all about these weapons and artillery. They had to know the details because of the approaching war.

Once we, as God's people, recognize the spiritual war that's out there and how crucial it is to put God's Word inside our hearts, that's when our appetite will be what it needs to be. We will have the mindset of a baby who says nothing but that bottle will satisfy. Nothing else but God’s Word will satisfy.

In What Every Christian Ought to Know, Adrian Rogers recounted this story:

While on an airplane, I was browsing the magazine selection looking for a newspaper. I met a man there who asked what kind of newspaper I was looking for. I responded frankly that I was looking for a conservative newspaper.
 
He looked me up and down and said, “I’m looking for a liberal newspaper.” He was wearing a dark pin-striped suit, and I asked him what he did. He responded that he was a lawyer and in return asked me what I did. I told him I was a Baptist preacher.
 
He was interested in what I read, and I told him that I read books, journals, and newspapers, but that I primarily read the Bible.
 
“You don’t read any wider than that?” he asked.
 
“No, not really.”
 
“Do you speak to people?”
 
“All the time.”
 
He said, “Well then, how do you know what people’s needs and what their problems are if you don’t read any more widely than that?”
 
I said to this lawyer, “Man has only three problems: sin, sorrow, and death.”
 
He said, “No, there are more problems than that.”
 
I said, “All right, think about it and tell me a fourth problem.”
 
He thought for a while, and then he said, “Man has only three problems.”
 
Every other problem in the world is indeed just a subset of sin, sorrow, death, and the Bible is the only book on earth that has the   answer to all three conditions. For this reason it is important that you understand and have a rock-ribbed assurance that the Bible is the Word of God. It is not the Book of the Month; it is the Book of the Ages.[1]

Only the Bible can be as fresh as today's news, but eternal. The same Bible that has been read for thousands of years is just as applicable today as then. The Bible is not just a good book. The Bible is not just a challenging book. This is the Word of God. So you can build your life on the Word of God just the same way that a baby who is being breastfed just needs the nourishment of his mother. That milk has everything necessary for that baby to grow. In the same way, all you need as a child of God to grow is not today's philosophy, not tomorrow's cultural events, but rather just the simple, pure, undiluted Word of God applied to your life. The aim is not merely to know it or memorize it, but to live it out as a child of God.

God's Word is sufficient for all matters of faith and practice. We don't need to look beyond it for spiritual guidance or nourishment. Just as a balanced diet provides all the nutrients our bodies need, the Bible provides all the spiritual food we need for growth and maturity in Christ.

“Father, as a babe in Christ, I thirst for Your Word. I pray that nothing else satisfies like Your Word. Oh God, when the myriad of voices clammer for my attention, I pray I come back to the Bible. Thank You for Your Word. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

  [1] Adrian Rogers and Steve Rogers, What Every Christian Ought to Know (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2012), 6–7.

You are what you eat. I was reading this comic book, and it had a little squirrel lying on a psychiatrist's couch and he was just trying to talk to the psychiatrist, and he said, "When I realized that 'you are what you eat,' that's when I knew I was nuts." Well, our spiritual nutrition is so important. It helps set the stage for being a healthy Christian.

We live in a world obsessed with diets, fads, and nutrition. We strive to stay in shape, cut calorie counts, and burn calories through exercise. I remember working at the YMCA while also serving as a student pastor. There was one trainer in his sixties who taught what he called the "push-away" exercise. When people asked for help losing weight, he'd say, "Well, I want to teach you how to do this exercise. It's called the push-away." He explained that while most people think getting in shape requires push-ups and sit-ups, what they really need is to "push away" from the table. They need to avoid certain meals, stay away from certain calories, and lower their calorie intake.

We know phrases like "you are what you eat" and "garbage in equals garbage out." We know this in our heads, yet we continue to feed on things that might not be good for us. Nutrition is important for physical health, but even more so for spiritual health. As Christians, we need to exercise our faith and learn spiritual disciplines, but first and foremost, we have to think of our spiritual nutrition.

In this passage, Peter describes an appetite, a diet of the Word of God - something you can feed on to help you grow as a Christian. We grow spiritually by feeding on God's Word.

1 Peter 2:1-3 (NKJV) - "Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious."
 
Sometimes, you might encounter someone who says, "I'm so weak. I have no energy. I'm lethargic." If you ask what they've eaten, they might respond, "Well, I haven't eaten all week. On Sunday morning, I'll come and I'll eat just a little crumb here or there, but then I just don't eat any other time during the week." It's no wonder they feel weak and empty.

That same thing happens spiritually when Christians only engage with God's Word on Sundays. We bring our Bible to church, hear a sermon, attend a Sunday school lesson, maybe even a midweek Bible study, but then try to live our lives on that spiritual nourishment for the rest of the week. While this can provide great nourishment, it's not sufficient to help you be as strong as you need to be as a child of God.

Remember Matthew 4:4, where Jesus, when tempted by the devil to turn rocks into bread, said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." He wasn't suggesting we should literally eat the Bible, but emphasizing that our spirits need spiritual nourishment even more than our bodies need physical nourishment.

Jeremiah 15:16 echoes this: "Your word was found and I ate them, and your word became to me the joy and rejoicing of my life." Jeremiah isn't saying he ate the scroll, but that God's Word became his spiritual nourishment, just as bread nourishes the physical body.

Well, 1 Peter 2:2 says something similar. He says, "as newborn babes desire or long for the sincere, the pure milk of the Word that you may grow thereby." He's not diminishing milk. He's actually saying milk is good for you, and the Word of God can be spiritual nourishment for you, just the same way that a baby needs the nourishment of milk to help us grow as a Christian.

“Dear God, thank You for Your Word. I pray that I would crave Your Word just as much as I physically crave nourishment each day. I pray that Your Word would satisfy the deepest longings of my soul. It would be the joy and rejoicing of my life. Thank You, In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Ephesians 4:2-3: "with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

There's a book called Up with Worship by Anne Ortlund, and she described the average church as too much like a bag of marbles. Marbles scratch against each other and make a little noise, but they don't impact one another. She said the church ought to be like a bag of grapes that mush together and make sweet-tasting juice through interaction, refreshing to those who drink it. We ought to have that kind of impact on one another. Instead, a lot of churches just rub against each other and make noise. That's what a divided church looks like.

Unity is not unison. When you hear an incredible choir, none of them are singing the same note. If they all sang the same note, it might be good, but it would be bland. It wouldn't reflect the strengths of every person standing up there. Go to a symphony, and you don't hear just one note. The same thing should exist in a local church. Unity doesn't mean we all sound exactly the same.

Unity is not union, either. Sometimes we say we just need to get together. Well, that's a union. But as one pastor put it, you can tie two tomcats' tails together and throw them over a clothesline, and you will have union, but that isn't unity. Union is putting people in a room together. Unity is something on the inside that brings us together.

Unity is not uniformity, either. At a private school where everybody wears the same uniform and carries themselves a certain way, you have uniformity. In the military you have uniformity, but you may not have unity.

God's desire for the church is that we be unified, together in heart, not necessarily in identical expression. He wants us to be brothers and sisters, but we do not have to be twins. God made us diverse. He gave us different strengths to contribute to the whole body. My hand is not like my foot, and my foot's not like my leg or my neck. We are one body, unified but diverse.

Paul urges us to preserve our unity as a church family through humility, gentleness, patience, and love. He doesn't say we should "create" the unity of the Spirit, but he says we must "maintain" it. Unity doesn't happen by accident, and "endeavoring" shows that it requires effort.

So, are you a marble in your church? Do you just make noise, scraping up against other brothers or sisters in Christ? Do you find yourself arguing over things that have nothing to do with anybody's salvation? Most of those differences are preferences, not doctrinal convictions. Learn to tolerate them and be flexible. Recognize that we can be brothers and sisters in Christ, without being twins. We can have unity, even if we all don't look and talk exactly the same way as others. Let the Holy Spirit press you together with the people He put you next to, and enjoy being part of what He is doing through your church.

Reflection Question: Are you acting like a marble that scrapes and makes noise, or like a grape that presses together with your brothers and sisters?

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for the diversity and unity in the church You have led me to be part of. Help me grow in humility, gentleness, and longsuffering with the people You have placed around me. Help me keep the unity Your Spirit already gave us. In Jesus' Name, amen.

Check out: The Seven Pillars of Christian Unity (Ephesians 4:4-6): https://www.joshfranklin.org/media/gcssrmc/14-seven-pillars-for-christian-unity-eph-4-4-6

"with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." - Ephesians 4:2-3 (NKJV)

What is the opposite of love? Most people say hatred. They are wrong. The opposite of love is not hatred. It is indifference. Apathy. Hatred, as wrong and destructive as it is, at least acknowledges the other person exists and matters enough to provoke a strong emotion. Indifference says, I do not even think about you. Your pain does not register with me. Your needs do not concern me. Imagine a church completely indifferent to the hurts and struggles of its own people. That is no church at all.

Bearing with one another in love means bearing with each other's individual preferences. There are doctrinal gray areas where the Bible isn't clear, and where good, Bible-believing Christians can disagree.

Some doctrines are non-negotiable. The full authority of Scripture. The deity of Jesus Christ (fully God and fully man). The virgin birth of Christ. His atoning death and bodily resurrection. Salvation by grace through faith alone. These are essentials. But underneath the essentials, there are secondary issues where Christians have disagreed throughout church history. Spiritual gifts. Charismatic practices. Church government systems. How and when to baptize.

There's a funny story about a Methodist and a Baptist having a discussion about water baptism. Methodists will often pour water on the head as their baptism, while Baptists will immerse fully in water. The Methodist asked, "Could you be baptized waist-high?" "Absolutely not," said the Baptist. "Chest-high?" "No." "Shoulder-high?" "No." "So it is the full dunking of the head that matters?" "Yes." And the Methodist said, "So it is really the water on the head that is the important thing?" The Baptist didn't know how to respond.

Now, that's a silly story, but those disagreements are meaningful. However, Christians should be able to disagree without being disagreeable. Good, sincere, Bible-loving people have landed on different sides of that question for centuries. We will all worship around the throne in heaven one day, but Christians usually have a difficult time worshipping together in the same church when they disagree over secondary issues.

In a local church, there will be issues that are not even secondary. We may believe strongly about them, but we should be able to still worship together in the same church. Worship styles. What translation of the Bible to use. Dress code. Dietary convictions. End-time convictions.

Paul gave an overarching principle for a local church disagreement (not doctrinal heresy or orthodoxy). He said in Romans 14:4, "Who are you to judge another man's servant? To his own master he stands or falls." A few verses later, it states, "One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each one be fully convinced in his own mind."

This verse is specifically highlighting that Christians disagreed with how to observe the Sabbath Old Testament laws. Some Christians came from a Jewish background and felt they still wanted to honor those laws by not working on Saturday (the Sabbath). Some Christians did not come from a Jewish background and felt that wasn't necessary. Shouldn't every day be holy? Paul's statement was that each person should simply be convinced for themselves because both groups were trying to honor the Lord. A healthy church is one that can bear with one another in those individual convictions.

Notice what Paul says in verse three. We are to endeavor to "keep" the unity of the Spirit, not to create it. The unity is already there. The Spirit has placed us into one body together. Our job is to protect it.

A father once gave his son a bundle of sticks wound tightly together and told him to break it. The boy tried everything and could not do it. Then the father untied the bundle and broke each stick one at a time. Easily. He said, "That is you and your brothers and sisters. Separately, the enemy has no problem with any one of you. Together, you are unbreakable."

The same applies to a local church. Believers need to feel our strength in our unity. Ecclesiastes 4:9 says, "Two are better than one." We were made for community in the local church. We may have individual convictions and preferences, but we are stronger together. Satan wants to divide us, but when we stay unified as a church, on mission for Jesus Christ, we can do everything God has called us to do.

Reflection Question: Where are you allowing a difference of opinion to divide you from someone who shares the essentials of the faith with you?

Dear Heavenly Father, forgive me for the times I have let minor disagreements divide me from other Christians who love You just as much as I do. Help me hold firmly to what is essential. Help me be understanding when there are minor differences between my brothers and sisters in Christ. Help me do my part to keep the unity in my local church. In Jesus' Name, amen.

Check out: "What Makes a Great Church" (Ephesians 4:1-3): https://www.joshfranklin.org/media/hkkjzjx/13-what-makes-a-great-church-eph-4-1-3

"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up." - 1 Corinthians 13:4 (NKJV)

We almost always share 1 Corinthians 13 at weddings. While it fits there, it is far more applicable to the local church and to each of us as believers living out our faith in community with each other.

Paul makes it clear in that chapter that without love, no matter what else we bring to the table, we are absolutely nothing. We can know everything there is to know theologically. We can speak prophetically, have the gift of faith, and even give sacrificially of ourselves. However, without love, we are a zero. Nothing. Then he begins to describe what this love actually looks like in the real world. I have always enjoyed reading this out of the Amplified Bible:

1 Corinthians 13:4–8 (AMP)
4 Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.
5 It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].
6 It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.
7 Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].
8 Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]...

Romans 5:5 tells us this love, God's love, has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. This love already exists in your heart as a believer. It is not something you have to manufacture. It is something the Spirit has already placed there, and now it needs to be expressed.

Love suffers long and is kind. Love has a long fuse. It can bear up under a load. It has endurance as it moves forward. God's love in our hearts allows us not to be on edge all the time, and not to get offended over everything that is said or done. When difficulties and crises come, God's love allows us to turn the other cheek, to give people the benefit of the doubt, to stay in the fight instead of walking away the first time things get hard.

Is that evident in your life? Is it evident in your church?

Here is why this matters. In Churchless, George Barna and David Kinnaman report that about 33% of American adults are what researchers call 'de-churched'. They once said "yes" to Jesus but are now on the sidelines. A lot of them did not leave over doctrine. They left because they got hurt. Someone may have been unkind to them. Someone may not have shown the love of Christ to them. Barna and Kinnaman total the de-churched believers in America at around 18 million.

Many of them would come back to church if they knew they would be welcomed and loved. A church with members who are loving the way Christ loves is one where people can give each other room to be human, room to fail, and room to grow. That kind of church is attractive to a hurting world.  

We will be that kind of loving church collectively when we, ourselves, are individually loving -  looking more and more like Jesus. God's Word says that love is already there. God put it in you by His Holy Spirit. The question is whether you are going to let it show.

One idea: If you struggle to exhibit the characteristics of God's love, read aloud 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a (Amplified) every morning or night. Afterward, thank the Lord that He has placed this love inside of you, according to Romans 5:5. Ask Him to help you express His love in greater ways.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for loving me. I know how patient You have had to be with my shortcomings. Help me extend that same love to the people around me. Let the love You have already placed in me flow freely. I want to be someone who gives people room to be human, room to fail, and room to grow. Help me make my church more loving and more attractive for others to come to. In Jesus' Name, amen.

Check out: "What Makes a Great Church" (Ephesians 4:1-3): https://www.joshfranklin.org/media/hkkjzjx/13-what-makes-a-great-church-eph-4-1-3

"Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle (KJV says 'meek') and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." - Matthew 11:29 (NKJV)

We tend to look at meekness as weakness. But meekness is not weakness. Meekness is strength under control.

I want you to picture a powerful stallion who has never been raised domestically. Wild and free, running wherever he wants. That looks like beauty and strength. But it is not productive. You cannot use him. You cannot get anywhere with him. Now put a saddle on him. He has not lost one ounce of his strength, but now that strength is under control. Now he is usable. Now he can go somewhere. This "strength under control" is the Bible's picture of meekness.

Jesus described Himself as "meek" (KJV), "gentle and lowly" (NKJV) in Matthew 11:28-30. This is the same Jesus who drove the money changers out of the temple with a whip and spoke with an authority that left crowds speechless. He is the Lord of heaven and earth. Meek does not mean weak.

Moses is another example. Numbers 12:3 describes him as the most meek man on the face of the whole earth. And yet Moses walked into Pharaoh's court and said, "Let my people go." He led two million Israelites out of Egyptian bondage and oversaw a nation for forty years in the wilderness. Strength under control. That is meekness.

Matthew 5:5 says, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Blessed are the teachable. Blessed are those who yield their strength to God's control.

When Jesus says, "Take My yoke and learn from Me," He is saying, "Yoke up with Me." A yoke pairs two animals together, often a stronger one with a weaker one, a faster one with a slower one. Jesus says, "Put My yoke on you. I will set the pace." Now, we might say that sounds restrictive or sounds like bondage. But Jesus says His yoke is easy and His burden is light. When you are yoked up with Jesus and letting Him set the pace, that is not bondage. That is freedom. You stop trying to do everything in your own strength. You stop running wild in every direction without anything productive happening.

Proverbs 29:18 says, "Without a vision the people perish." The word "perish" in the Hebrew actually means they "throw off restraints." Without a revelation from God about where to go and what to do, people cast off the saddle and run wild. There is a lot of activity, but nothing productive is happening. The most productive Christians are those who submit to Jesus' plans for their individual lives. The most effective churches are those that submit to what Jesus wants in His church.

What has He called you to do? That's His saddle. That's His yoke. Get back under that saddle. Put back on the yoke. Let Jesus set the pace in your life. Stop trying to do everything. Do the one thing He has gifted you to do and let Him use you in that special, unique way. "And you will find rest for your souls" is the promise! We want to experience His rest, don't we? Well, let's let Jesus set the pace in our lives.

Reflection Question: Where are you running in your own strength instead of letting Jesus set the pace?

Dear Heavenly Father, I confess I have sometimes run in every direction without checking with You first. Teach me what it means to be meek, to be strong and submitted. Help me take Your yoke and trust that Your pace is the right pace. I do not want a lot of activity that goes nowhere. I want to be useful in Your hands. In Jesus' Name, amen.

Check out: "What Makes a Great Church" (Ephesians 4:1-3): https://www.joshfranklin.org/media/hkkjzjx/13-what-makes-a-great-church-eph-4-1-3

"For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith." - Romans 12:3 (NKJV)

Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less. And it is not talking down about yourself either. It is talking accurately about yourself.

We can have a false humility in the church where someone says, "I cannot do anything. I have nothing to contribute. Nobody wants me around. Nobody needs me." That is not genuine humility. That is still an unhealthy preoccupation with yourself, just in the other direction. Romans 12:3 says not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. The "more highly than you ought" part means believing you can do anything and that everyone should simply follow your lead.

For example, I would love to have played college or professional basketball. I enjoy watching college and NBA today. No matter how hard I tried, I still remained 5'11", and I still could not shoot a jump shot well enough to compete at that level. You can get better at things, absolutely. But you are also working within the design God gave you. So the better question is not "What can I do?" or "What do I want to do?" but "What has God gifted me to do?"

Sometimes in a local church someone will say they think they should teach, but they have no gift for it. Or they think they should lead, but they are actually a gifted servant who works better behind the scenes. There is a gift envy that can creep in. The Bible says not to think more highly of yourself than you ought. That does not mean do not think highly of yourself at all. It means ask the right question. "What contribution am I supposed to make? Am I supposed to teach? Am I supposed to lead? Am I supposed to love on children? Am I supposed to serve in the background where nobody sees?" And then say with complete accuracy, "I can do those things through Christ who gives me strength." (see Phil. 4:13).

D.L. Moody was an evangelist of a previous generation, highly used by God. He made this observation about fruit trees. The ones with no fruit are the ones where the branches are sticking straight up, maybe even the tallest trees in the orchard. But the trees with the most fruit are bowed low under the weight of all that fruit. He said, show me a fruitful Christian, and I will show you a humble Christian bowed low under the weight of what God is doing through them. Show me a fruitless Christian, and I will show you one who is puffed up where everybody can see them.

"Lowliness" does not mean a low view of yourself. It means not thinking more highly of yourself than you ought. The Bible says "God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble" (see James 4:6). If you want God as an opponent, keep thinking of yourself more highly than you ought. If you want God as a partner, humble yourself.

Reflection Question: Are you honestly asking, "What has God gifted me to do?" or are you trying to serve in someone else's giftedness?

Dear Heavenly Father, forgive me for the times I have thought more highly of myself than I ought, and for the times I have minimized the places you have wanted me to serve. Help me to think soberly and accurately. Help me to find the place where You have gifted me and stay there, trusting that it is exactly what You want me to do and where You want me to serve. In Jesus' Name, amen.

Check out: "What Makes a Great Church" (Ephesians 4:1-3): https://www.joshfranklin.org/media/hkkjzjx/13-what-makes-a-great-church-eph-4-1-3

"I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called." - Ephesians 4:1 (NKJV)

When looking at Ephesians from a bird's-eye view, you can see something interesting. The first three chapters focus on a believer's WEALTH in Christ. The last three chapters focus on the believer's WALK in Christ. Ephesians 1-3 is about our RICHES in Christ. Ephesians 4-6 is about our RESPONSIBILITIES in Christ. The first half is about our BELIEFS. The second half is about our BEHAVIOR. What I believe about Christ influences how I live for Christ.

Paul is writing this from a prison cell. And yet this is one of the most hopeful letters in the entire New Testament. You want to know how to be joyful in difficult circumstances? Read Ephesians. Read Philippians. Both written from prison. Both letters are encouraging and hopeful.

He says, "Walk worthy of the calling with which you were called." Ephesians 1-3 told you your position in Christ. You are a victor, not a victim. You are seated in heavenly places, far above all principalities and powers. Now walk like it. Live like it.

"Sanctification" is a biblical word that simply describes the believer who has given their life to Jesus and is now beginning to live up to what Jesus has already called them to be. Someone has accurately defined sanctification as "becoming in practice what God has called you to be in truth."

He has called us saints, so we should live like saints. He has called us children of God, so we are going to live like His children. He has said we, as believers together, are one body in Christ. What would it mean for us to live like that?

One area that we need to live up to who God calls us to be is His church. Collectively, we are called His body. I read recently that 33% of American adults are what researchers call "de-churched". They once were in church. They said "yes" to Jesus at some point. But they are now on the sidelines. Within that group, about one out of every six claim to be born-again Christians. They currently say they have a personal relationship with Jesus but are not part of a local church. That represents around 18 million Americans who have said "yes" to Jesus but "no" to the church. How can we justify that?

Jesus clearly taught that the church was His idea in Matthew 16:18 when He said, "I will build My church." He envisioned people entering into the family of God, one at a time. We are not left alone, but we are now part of something that unites us. We are a body. We are a family. Our salvation is personal, but there is a community dimension to this faith we cannot ignore. One area of Christians' "walking worthy of the calling" is to say "yes" to the church just like we said "yes" to Jesus.

Reflection Question: What would it look like for your walk to actually match what God has already called you to be?

Dear Heavenly Father, You called me a saint and a child of God before I ever lived up to either one. Thank You for that. Help me today to walk worthy of the calling, not in my own strength, but by Your Spirit. I want my walk to catch up to what You have already said I am. I have said "yes" to You, now I choose to say "yes" to Your church, too. In Jesus' Name, amen.

Check out: "What Makes a Great Church" (Ephesians 4:1-3): https://www.joshfranklin.org/media/hkkjzjx/13-what-makes-a-great-church-eph-4-1-3

We sing about the blood of Jesus because that is how we are made acceptable to a holy God. We who place our trust in what Jesus did on the cross are not punished for our sin. God no longer sees our sin. He sees the innocent blood of our mighty Savior.
 
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
 
A great antidote to that foolish living that you once were living, and perhaps other people around you are pressuring you to continue living that lifestyle is remembering the fact that you are atoned for by a mighty savior. What does that word atonement mean? It is a Bible word that means “punishing Christ for my sin.” We get the idea of atonement from the Old Testament practice of punishing an animal for the sins of the people.
 
All throughout the Old Testament in the sacrificial system, they would punish an animal that was innocent for the sins of the people. Leviticus 17:11 says, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood. I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls. It is the blood that makes atonement for the soul."
 
You see this idea of punishing someone else or punishing an animal for the sins of the people all throughout the Bible. You and I deserve punishment, and in order to protect us or shield us from that punishment, God says, "I'll require the lifeblood of a lamb or the lifeblood of an animal." The story of the Passover is found in Exodus 12. God tells His people that the death angel is going to come to punish the Egyptian households. However, if the children of Israel would take the blood of a lamb and post it on their doorposts, the death angel would pass over those homes, and they will not be punished.
 
Genesis 22 tells the story where Abraham is told to slay his son on an altar before God. However, it was only a test. God stops Abraham from doing this. Genesis 22:12–13 says, “And He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.’ Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son.” So instead of his son, Abraham offers an animal.
 
We see it prophesied about the future Messiah in Isaiah 53, which talks about the Messiah’s blood shed and his body broken for the people’s sins. It was prophesying about Jesus, and verse 6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Verse 7 describes Jesus, “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.” John 1:29 recounts John the Baptist baptizing people, and as Jesus passes by, John declares, “Behold, the Lamb of God, Who pays for the sins of the world.”
 
Finally, Revelation 5 is a picture of a heavenly scene where only Jesus is worthy to break open the seal and read the scroll. Revelation 5:8–9 says, “Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying: 'You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.'”
 
With all of that as context, Peter states in 1 Peter 1:18-21, “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God."
 
He planned it. God, in eternity past, knew that you would be paid for, you would be bought, you would be atoned for by this mighty Savior.
 
He purchased it. We pay for things with money, but Peter said it wasn’t paid for with silver and gold. He says, it's worth far more than silver and gold. This redemption, this atonement was paid for by the precious, sinless, spotless blood of Jesus Christ. God sent his own Son to pay for you. You may think, “He paid for me because I'm valuable.” No, you've got it backwards. You're valuable because he paid for you. You may think, “I'm not worth much.” Just look at the cross and recognize that you are infinitely valuable to a holy God who wants you in His family and wants you in His kingdom. However, you are sinful and he's holy. You cannot stand in His presence, so He punished His own Son for your salvation. Now, if you would just accept and receive the gift of salvation that God paid for by sending Jesus to the cross, you can be made free, you can be purchased, you can be atoned for by this mighty Savior.
 
He proved it through the resurrection. Do you know how you can take it to the bank that Jesus Christ did what He said He would do, that He paid for your sins? You couldn't see this when He was on the cross. All you could witness was something physical happening during the crucifixion. How do we know He was paying for our sins? The proof is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He did not stay in that tomb. God raised Him from the dead to put His stamp on what Jesus did on the cross. God raised Him from the dead to prove that He did what He said He was going to do. We’ve been redeemed. We’ve been atoned for by a mighty Savior.
 
Putting together all that we have said about 1 Peter 1:17-21, we must understand and appreciate that we are different from the people of this world. Charles Swindoll said this, “Let me explain what this means. All those who don’t know Christ are merchandise in the slave market of sin. Whether they realize it or not, they are in bondage to desires, impulses, and ignorance—alienated from God, the one source of true freedom. They live in a condition in which they cannot help or change themselves. Spiritually blind and shackled in sin, they are jostled and abused by the uncontrollable flesh, the alluring world, and the seducing demons. They continue to dwell in that futile, frustrating lifestyle passed down to them from previous generations. Their only hope is help from the outside.”[1]
 
A. W. Tozer had a great illustration at this point. He writes,
 
“From this fallen way of life we are set free; we are redeemed. A Christian has been delivered from this way of life and from the moral magnetism of those entanglements.
 
“A man once told about some sheep dying during a midwinter in Niagara River. Some of them had died upstream in Niagara, and they either would fall in or be thrown into Niagara River. It was very cold, but the tempestuous Niagara was not frozen, and it carried these dead sheep over the falls. Before the sheep went over the falls, the bald eagles would gather and dive down and ride these carcasses and tear out their flesh. One great eagle after another would fly upstream, land on one, tear with her talons, pull with her great sharp beak, get herself a mouth full of meat and gulp it. Then when they were about to go over the falls they would leap up gracefully on their broad wings and circle back and repeat the same thing over again.
 
“As it was getting colder, one eagle made a mistake. She rode a little too long the last time, and her talons froze into the wool. When she, confident in her self-assurance, spread her great broad wings to take flight, her talons were frozen into the wool of the sheep and she plunged over to her death along with the carcass she had been feeding on. If somebody could have untangled her talons from the wool, it would have been a kind of redemption, a release.
 
“God has provided a moral release from the tradition of our fathers, the foolish way of life that we see all around us.”[2]
 
We are free from sin’s power. We are free to live for Jesus Christ. We are free to live a holy life. We don’t have to live that same aimless conduct that we once lived before. We can live for Jesus. God is our Father. He is our Judge. He is holy. Jesus Christ is a mighty Savior.
 
“Dear God, I praise You that You laid my sin on Jesus. You paid for my sins on the cross. I rejoice that You raised Jesus from the dead, and now I worship a risen Savior. Thank You for Jesus! Amen.”
 
You can read the first three antidotes of foolish living in the previous three blogposts.
 
[1] Charles R. Swindoll, Insights on James, 1 & 2 Peter, vol. 13, Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2014), 169.

[2] A. W. Tozer, Living as a Christian: Teachings from First Peter, ed. James L. Snyder (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2009), 48–49.

1 Peter 1:17 says, “And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear.” 
 
This third antidote to foolish living is to have a healthy fear of the Lord. We should conduct our lives with a sense of fear. This word “fear” should not be taken to mean “fright” or “terror.” Certainly those are ideas that we have when we think of the word fear. Someone may say, “I'm afraid of lightning,” or someone else may say, “I'm afraid of the dark.” 2 Timothy 1:7 says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind.” This is the terrorizing kind of fear.

Used in the way Peter intended, this “fear” is really a reverential respect for who God is. He is not just my heavenly Father. He is also holy God. He's not just my Redeemer. He's not just my Savior. He is holy God. He is completely perfect and sinless.

We are not to be afraid that God is going to send us to hell. Jesus Christ saved you from the punishment of hell. Praise the Lord. 1 Peter 1 describes how our eternity is secured. He's preserved you for your inheritance. Then what is this fear that he's talking about?

When my boys were younger, Lydia and I endeavored to teach them to have a healthy respect for cars. Sometimes we took a walk as a family, and there were no sidewalks. So, we needed them to get into the grass when a car approached. It’s not that we wanted them to be terrorized by the car.

We just wanted them to have a healthy fear and respect, so they will get out of the way. They needed to know that those cars are very large and can hurt them badly if they do not watch out.

When they were younger, we warned them of the danger around a hot stove. Lydia would be cooking, and the boys would be excited about it. They might want to grab or hold something that was dangerously hot. We taught them to beware of the heat because we don’t want them to be burned. They needed to have a healthy respect for fire.
Notice these verses on the fear of the Lord:

• Proverbs 1:7, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge."
  
• Proverbs 9:10, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
  
• Ecclesiastes 12:13, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all.”
  
• Psalm 147:11, "The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him."

Peter once had an encounter with Jesus in Luke 5. Peter, along with other fishermen, were out all night trying to fish, and they didn't catch anything. They were exhausted. It's early in the morning and Jesus calls out to them and says, "You didn't catch anything?” They say, “We didn't catch anything.” Jesus tells them, “Throw your nets over on the other side." Peter, of course, speaks up and says, "We've been doing this all night…” What he means is, “We're the professional fishermen. You are not. We've been doing this all night. We didn't catch anything." But Peter then says, "But at Your word, we'll cast out the nets." They cast out the nets, and the fish come swarming into the nets. The nets are breaking, because there are so many fish.

Now, Peter has been doing this all night. He's been doing this his whole life, and yet there's this carpenter who comes along and says, "Just throw your net over the side." Peter recognizes he is standing before someone who is not just a person, not just a man. He is standing before somebody who is otherworldly because he knows no fisherman can do this.

Luke 5:8 says, “When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!’” Isn't that interesting? He's no longer the braggadocious Peter. He's no longer the loquacious Peter, who can just talk it up with anybody. No, he kneels down and humbly says, "Depart from me. I'm a sinful man." He recognizes there's something otherworldly about this man. This was before he followed Jesus. This same Peter tells Christ-followers living in exile in Asia Minor, "Conduct your lives with fear." It doesn't mean that we're scared of God as a child of God. But, if you've never given your life to Jesus Christ, you ought to have a healthy dose of fear. The same God who created you is the same God who has warned you that there is a heaven to gain and a hell to avoid.

Some people say, "I don't want to hear about hell. I don't want to hear about the flames and the torture of hell. That's just not palatable for me. I just don't want to hear about it." Then you're going to have to silence Jesus Himself, because Jesus is the One Who taught us about hell.

Luke 16:19–31 (NKJV)
19“There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. 
20But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, 
21desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 
22So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 
23And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 
24“Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ 
25But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. 
26And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’ 
27“Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, 
28for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ 
29Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 
30And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 
31But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’”

You may say, “Pastor, I don’t think you should scare people into heaven.” Let me share two examples of individuals who certainly were scared into heaven. Martin Luther, the great reformer, came to Christ as he was riding a horse. He found himself in the middle of an incredible thunderstorm that scares him to death. He was frightened for his life. He believed that it was the judgment of God on his soul, and he repented and said, “God, get me out of this. Save me, and I will be a worker for you." This began his journey of faith, which led him to become a monk in a monastery. He ardently studied the Scriptures, which led him to place His faith in Christ. He was saved by faith, according to Romans 1:17, which says, “The just shall live by faith.” However, his testimony began with being frightened by what he believed to be the judgment of God.

John Newton, the pastor and hymnwriter of “Amazing Grace,” came to Christ as a 40 year old. He was a sailor on a slave-trading ship, when he was tossed overboard in the middle of a storm. While the storm was raging, he was scared of the judgment of God. He said, "Oh God, if you will just save me from this incredible storm, I'll give my life to you." Ultimately, he was rescued from the storm and gave his life to Christ. He served God the rest of his life, but his testimony is that it began in part because he was afraid of eternal judgment from a holy God. Now, as a child of God, you should not live in torment, but there should be this healthy sense of fear, of respect, knowing that God is holy and righteous. We ought to live our lives in such a way that we respect and reverence who God is. It's a great antidote to a frivolous, foolish life.

Donald Grey Barnhouse shared a great story about the relationship between love, fear, and obedience:

Several years ago, I married a young couple… I saw them in church [a few weeks after their honeymoon] the next Sunday, greeted them with a little pleasantry. I asked the groom if his bride had burned the roast for the first dinner she prepared. They laughed. And she said, "Oh, I was afraid I was going to. I read so much about the bride being unable to cook that I decided John was going to have the very best meal a bride could prepare for her husband. So I began about three o'clock. I got everything out and started to work. When I finally put things on to cook I wanted everything to turn out well, and I was afraid they wouldn't. And of course, he had to be a little late, and I was so afraid things would be spoiled."
 
[Dr. Barnhouse says] I interrupted her and said, "You've said three times that you were afraid. Did you think he was going to beat [hurt] you?" She pouted and said, "Of course not." And she looked at him with all the love of her heart in her eyes. But I persisted. "You said that you were afraid." She broke in, "You know what I mean." And of course I knew what she meant. Her fear was not fright. Her fear was a great desire to serve the one to whom she had given herself entirely. And in this case the fear of John was the beginning of good cooking."[1]

Does God want us to cringe and cower before Him? No. Remember, Hebrews 4:16 says, "Let us therefore come boldly into the throne of grace to find help and grace in our time of need." God wants us to come boldly as a child. However, we should never forget that He is holy God. The same God Who created the universe, Who spun galaxies into orbit, also created each one of us. He wants to have a relationship with His children. He wants us in His family. However, He is still holy God, Who should be revered and respected. Peter says we should conduct ourselves while we are here in this world with fear and respect.

“Dear God, I love You and I worship You. Thank You for saving me. Thank You for bringing me into the family of God. I put aside foolish, sinful living. I live for You. You are my Lord and God. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

The first antidote was discussed in “I Carry His Name,” and the second antidote was discussed in “We are Accountable to God.” The next blog post will discuss the fourth and final antidote for foolish living according to 1 Peter 1:17-21.

  [1]  As quoted by Robert Jeffress, The Solomon Secrets (Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook, 2002), 208-209.

1 Peter 1:17 reads, “And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work…”
 
Peter tells his readers that God is not only their heavenly Father. He is also an impartial Judge. God sees everything that you do. People often don't mind saying, "God is my Father," and don't mind saying, "Jesus is my savior," but they don't want to think about the idea that God is a judge.

Yet over and over again, the Scriptures talk about how God will one day judge us.

• Romans 14:12 says, "So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.”
• 2 Corinthians 5:10 says, “we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.”
• In 1 Corinthians 3:15, believers who gain no reward will still be saved because they're believers. However, they will stand before God in judgment “without partiality” means “without face” in the Greek. It means with no concept of who you are or what you look like.

Today, we judge partially, oftentimes we will judge someone's actions based on who they are. God says, "I don't judge anybody based on that." James 2:1 says that the people of God should not show partiality based on someone’s appearance, position, privilege or prominence.

Peter recounts his own journey with regards to impartiality in Acts 10. He tells how God was leading him, a Jew, to minister to Cornelius, though he was a Gentile. Jews weren’t supposed to fellowship with Gentiles. God tells him to go to Cornelius to tell him the gospel. Once he does, the Holy Spirit is poured out on Gentiles, and Peter admits in Acts 10:34, “I recognize that God is not a respecter of persons.” This means He does not show partiality. He wants to save the Jew, and He wants to save the Gentile.

He is an impartial Judge, and He is also a fair Judge. Remember, God doesn't have any grandchildren in the kingdom of God. Only children. You're not going to be able to tell God, "Well, my mother was a godly woman." God’s response will be, “Yeah, but what about you?” You won’t be able to say, "My father was a godly man." That’s great, but what about you? The ground is level at the foot of the cross.

Each one of us will stand before God in judgment in the future, but this reference in First Peter is really reflecting on the fact that God is judging us today. He's judging us now today. This really isn't talking about a future judgment. It's talking about every day He's judging us.
Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” He judges actions, but He also judges motives. He's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Remember when Jesus would walk this earth, and a religious leader would try to verbally spar with Him? They would ask Him a question, and Matthew 22:18 says, “Jesus knew their evil thoughts and said, ‘Why are you trying to test me?’” (Contemporary English Version) Jesus knew that they really didn't want to know the answer to their questions. He knew the intent of the heart, and so too, God knows the intent of our heart today.

How does the fact that God is an impartial Judge, judging our actions and motives today, impact how we live our lives? He accepts us as a loving Father (see previous blogpost), and we are in the family of God, praise the Lord! However, we need to realize that He is going to hold us accountable as an impartial Judge. He has a right to judge us because He created us.

“Dear Lord, I pray that I remember today that I am accountable to You. I thank You that You are impartial. You see me and know me better than anyone else. You Alone are in the right position to judge my actions and my motives. I pray that my actions are honoring to You. I pray my motives are pleasing to You as well. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

In the blogpost entitled “I Carry His Name,” we looked at the first antidote to foolish living from this same passage. In the next blogpost, we will look at the third antidote to foolish living.
 

Did you ever waste time or money when you were younger? I can remember wasting so much time, especially when school was out for the summer. I can remember asking my dad or mom for money to spend on something they thought was frivolous. I can remember asking, “Dad, can I have this?” His response was usually the same each time, which was, "Money doesn't grow on trees." My job was to ask for something that costs a lot of money, and his job was to remind me how much it cost, and that he wasn’t going to buy it.

I would waste time, I would waste money. I didn't have anything. Even when I was dating Lydia, she had more money than me when we got married. I had nothing. I had last week's paycheck. And of course, I say it was because I spent it all on her!

We were married just after we turned 20 years old, and we didn’t have children for a few years. We would spend so much time and so much money on things that were just frivolous. Then something happened in our life that changed us - we had children.

Now we are more responsible with our time and money. We work hard and then we invest more time in our family and community. We pay bills to keep the lights on. We pay for doctors’ appointments and dentists’ visits. We save money for the future instead of spending it all today. Now, one of our sons will ask, "Daddy, can I get this?" And what do I say? "Money doesn't grow on trees.” Or, “Do you know how much that costs?” Or, “Why are you wasting so much time on this frivolous activity?” My dad would be proud.

Do you remember the day when set aside childish activities and mindsets and started thinking and acting like an adult? You pay your bills on time. You show up for work on time. Now, when you talk with others who are frivolous with their time or frivolous with their money, and complain there isn’t enough time or money, you may tell them, “You’ve got to take responsibility for your life. You've got to stop wasting so much time on frivolous pursuits.”

Well, in the same kind of way, Peter is telling the people of God there in these Roman colonies that they need to set aside foolish living. You should live the holy life that God expects you to live. You should no longer live according to the ways of the world or the life that you may have learned from childhood or other people. That old life is no longer yours. You have been transformed by the power of God.

The gospel is that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. He didn't just pay the penalty for your sin so that you wouldn't have to spend eternity in hell separated from God, but he also set you free from the power of sin. He has set you free to live a holy life. With that in mind, we are to set aside foolish living and live for Jesus Christ, living a different life than the world around us. He makes a difference in our lives, and because He is living His life through us, it will attract other people to it as well. In 1 Peter 1:17-21, there are four antidotes to foolish living. This is a way to begin living the holy life that God expects each of us to live.

How can I have the strength to live differently than the lost people around me? There are four antidotes here in 1 Peter 1:17-21.

1 Peter 1:17–21 (NKJV)
17And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; 
18knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 
19but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 
20He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you 
21who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
 
First, we are accepted by a loving Father.

How can we live a life that is pleasing to God despite the pressures of this world? The first thing to understand is that we are accepted by a loving Father. This should impact the way we live our life. He says, “if you call him Father,” but in the original Greek it says, “since you call him Father.” Peter is talking to Christians living in Asia Minor and he's saying, “Because you call God your Father, it should make a difference in your life.”

Galatians 4:4–7 (NKJV)
4But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 
5to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. 
6And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” 
7Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

God sent His Son to redeem us so that we might be adopted as His children. As a result, we are no longer slaves but sons and daughters of God. God is not simply our Creator, but because of Jesus, He is our Father.

When we identify as Christians, we are essentially aligning ourselves with Christ and representing God to others. People should see the resemblance between us and our heavenly Father. This should lead us to reflect on whether we are truly representing God as His children.

The word “Christian” means “like Christ.” It identifies us with the people of God. We are now representing God to others, and people should not be surprised when they find out that we are Christians.

How should that impact our everyday life? We should remember that we carry the name Christian wherever we go. Henry Blackaby, author of Experiencing God, shared in a different book entitled Holiness how understanding this truth had kept him living a life of holiness, for the glory of God:
 
One of the great deterrents from going astray when I was a young man was my dear godly father, who was a deacon and a layman. He led more people to Jesus than any other person I have known, including myself. He worked in the business world, but he was one of the most godly men I have ever known. I knew how Dad had paid the price for integrity and righteousness in the business world. One day my dad came to me and my two brothers and said, “Boys, I just want you to know that I spent a lifetime building meaning into my name, and wherever you go, you take my name with you. It has cost me my life to put integrity into my name; now you carry my name with you.” When I was tempted and could have gone astray, I thought of my dear dad, and I said, I couldn’t do that to him. I carry his name, and Dad has a name as a godly Christian businessman. I couldn’t do that to him. For me to sin without regard to the name I carry would be to bring the deepest pain to my father possible, for he sought to honor his Lord by the way he lived. He entrusted his name to me. If that is how I felt concerning my earthly father, how much more serious is it with my heavenly Father?[1]

What difference does it make for you to say, “Jesus is my Lord” and “God is my Father”? Being a part of God's family should have an impact on you. The term “Abba, Father” means “Daddy” or “Dear Daddy” – an intimate term between a child and father. God is your heavenly Father, and this realization should lead us to live in a way that represents God to the world around us. People are watching our lives, and they may not understand who God is by simply reading the Bible or listening to a preacher. However, when they see that you're a Christian, your lifestyle should reflect the name you carry. As a Christian, you are representing the name of God Almighty. Therefore, recognize that this is a remedy for living foolishly and for leaving behind the lifestyle that once held you in bondage. God is my heavenly Father, and I am lovingly accepted by Him.

“Dear God, I pray that I remember that as I live my life as a Christian, I take Your name with me. I pray that people would not be surprised to hear that I am a follower of Christ. I pray that my life reflects You accurately. I praise You that You are my heavenly Father, and I am accepted by You. I love You. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

In the next blogpost, we will look at a second antidote to foolish living from this same passage.

[1] Henry Blackaby, Holiness (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 37-38.

1 Peter 1:14–16 – “14as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; 15but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16because it is written, ‘Be holy, for I am holy.’”

I remember taking my boys to a restaurant, and as I was up walking around getting some food, somebody called me over by name. They said, "Josh," and I looked and recognized some lifelong friends of my parents. I hadn't seen them since I was a kid, but I went up to them and warmly greeted them. These were sisters, and they asked, “Do you remember us?” And I said, "Certainly I remember you." I said, "I am surprised you recognized me." They said, “We knew it was you… You walk just like him." I asked, "What do you mean?" They said, "You walk just like your father." As a grown man, I was looking over some old family photos, when I came across a picture of my dad in a sleep position. I thought, “That’s my natural sleep position.” Now, I haven’t tried to model my dad in how he walked or slept. It’s just natural to me. I share similar traits with my parents.

I spoke with someone years ago who told me about their siblings who didn’t realize either existed. They were separated at birth and adopted into families from different countries. Decades went by, but they were curious about the possibility of having siblings. They found one another by researching online, and they met up with each other in their late thirties. As they talked about themselves to each other, they realized they stood the same way. They had similar tastes in food. They also discovered they responded similarly to different events that had happened in their lives. It was just natural to them. They reflected one another because they came from the same parents.

In the same way, God has planted His Spirit inside of His children. We should naturally reflect Him, no matter what environment we find ourselves in. If you're in a Roman colony, if you're in America, if you're in a workplace or school that is hostile to your Christian faith, you can be holy. Why? Because there's something on the inside of you that is different than what the world has all around them, and His name is Jesus. His Spirit is on the inside of each one of us and “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). We can be holy, because He is holy.

Notice this phrase - “as obedient children.” We know slaves have to obey their masters. We know that employees obey their bosses. However, sons and daughters should WANT TO obey their parents. In the same way, we as children of God, should be able to say from our heart, “I WANT TO please the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Paul said in Galatians 1:10, “I'm no longer a people pleaser. I only live to please God. If I were still a people pleaser, I would not be the servant of Christ” (see 1996 New Living Translation). You're not going to be able to please this world and please God. You're going to have to make a decision. 1 John 2:15 says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” In the Greek he is really saying “Stop loving the world.”
 
James 4:4 says, “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” Your allegiance is to one or the other. Jesus said in Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (money).”

When Peter says, “Be holy, for I am holy,” he is quoting Leviticus. Imagine the scene from Isaiah 6:1-8, where Isaiah sees a vision of heaven, with angels surrounding the throne of God. They are saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty.” This word means “pure,” “distinct,” or “separate.” This describes how the Christian can be viewed as well.

Don't be afraid of being the only person you know of that is standing for God’s Word. Don’t be afraid of being the only person you know of that is going a certain direction, as long as you are sure it is following God’s Word. There's coming a day when we'll exit this world, and we'll stand before God. As a Christian, don't you want to hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” If I haven't pleased anyone else, I want to please God.

“Dear God, I want to reflect You to a watching world. I want to be holy. Please continue to work inside of my life. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit that I may express the character of Jesus Christ. I love You. In Jesus’ name, amen.”