They Do Not Love the God of John 14:15, by Pastor Ed Evans

Scripture: John 14:12-17 – “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in Me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it. If you love Me, keep My commands. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.”

Even as I prepare this sermon, I do so with a broken heart about broken pleasure in a world of broken people intent on sharing their brokenness with others. It isn’t what God intended for us, and when we stand with God, we find ourselves standing against some very nice people, except that, despite what they claim, they do not love the God who loved them first, and the battle is set, a battle set before the beginning of the world.

Out of my military background I know that the worst thing you can do is to allow your aggressor to shape the battle, choose the ground where the battle will be fought, select the weapons and the rules of engagement. As Christians, we are allowing all of that. Plus, we violate Sun Tzu's primary dictum from his ancient book, "The Art of War," we do not know our "enemy." In spite of numerous homosexually-funded studies purporting to show it is not a choice, all studies have failed to show it is anything but a choice; a choice abetted by lust and aggressive recruiting. We who follow Christ must speak truth to lies and call it what God calls it, sin.

This is not a battle about lifestyles, about bullyism and cultural one-upsmanship such as whites over blacks or men over women, voting or not voting, this is about right and wrong. Let me say that very plainly, this is about right and wrong, and the Father of Lies, who is forever fighting a rearguard action out of the battle in Heaven, is right in the middle of it.

I have a very close relative who claims to be a lesbian. I know why she decided that, I know why she claimed to be leaving it behind, and why she went back to it. I know more than I care to about the physical and mental cruelty heaped upon her by former "lovers." It has caused a cruel, hurtful division in our family, not because we don't love her, but because we will not agree that God overlooks what she and her friends are doing. When you know that Satan is very much in the middle of this, the abuse, the lust, the recruiting, the well organized attempt to force their desiring lust on the rest of us, the foulness of their self-righteousness makes a great deal of sense.

In John 14:15, Jesus makes it very simple for us when he says, “If you love Me, keep My commands." The other half of that is, if you will not obey Him, if you will not do the things He says, then regardless of what you claim, you do not love Him. And I would not be in your shoes for anything in this world or the next. Having known for some time now that great, overwhelming and affirming love that comes near, I would never leave it, I would tell everyone about it, and I would want every living soul to know God.

Some caught up in the lust of same-sex will claim Jesus never commented on this illicit sex, so neither should we. That merely confirms they do not know scripture. You will find Jesus in Matthew 19:4 affirming that the Father made us male and female for a purpose. And as He came to fulfill the law and not to destroy it, He was born under the law of Moses which called same-sex what it is in Lev. 18:22; 20:13; and Deut. 23:17.

Lev. 18:22 – “’Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.’”

Lev. 20:13 -- “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.’”

Deut. 23:17 – “No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute.”

Given that Jesus said in John 16:12-15 that the apostles would be guided in all truth by the Holy Spirit, Paul’s writings in Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Cor. 6:9-10 makes it clear what the truth about homosexuality is.

John 16:12-15 -- “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

Romans 1:26-27 – “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

1^st Cor. 6:9-10 – “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

And yet, Paul goes on in the 11^th verse to say that those engaged in this practice, having been washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, as anyone who repents of a sin, can be forgiven.

Let me add that, when I stated at the beginning that as Christians we are allowing our homosexual aggressors to shape the battle, choose the ground where the battle will be fought, select the weapons and the rules of engagement, I had some very specific actions in mind.

We allow them to claim our resistance to agreeing with them is on par with racial bigotry. It is not. We cannot help the color of our skin or the racial makeup of our bloodline. We allow them to make the battle about specific acts of sex. It is not. It is about lust and disobedience to the inspired Word of God. In that context it is no different than if we as followers of Jesus Christ were told we must support sex outside of marriage, pornography, robbery, rape, child molestation, and so forth. Sin is sin, regardless of how it is acted out, and we who love God and follow Jesus Christ can no more agree with what God calls sin than spread our arms and fly. When they demand that we do what we cannot do and still maintain a loving relationship with our God, they set themselves against God, they stand in ego-exalted disobedience to the God who created them. That is not only illogical, it is a sickness; a sickness called sin for which God has created a cure that began on a cross at Calvary. Jesus Christ is that cure. If they will believe in Him, and do the things He says regarding sin, He will solve their problem. We can’t. He can.

If I seem passionate about this issue, it is because I have seen so much of this, for so long, without even mentioning some of the worst aspects of it, that I do indeed have a heavy heart, a breaking heart for those I see driving right off the bridge of life into an eternity of loss for a moment's broken pleasure, in spite of a God who loves them.

Let us pray, and pray hard, that those caught up in this unholy abomination will turn to God, give themselves up to Him, and live. God loves them so. Amen.

Called to Be World Changers, by Pastor Ed Evans

Scripture: Matthew 28:16-20

28:16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
28:17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.
28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
28:20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

Today is Trinity Sunday, so it is fitting that we begin at the new beginning for Christ’s disciples, following his death, burial and resurrection, where they received Christ’s instructions that involved the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We have come a very long way in the thousands of years since those fearful, frightening and yet exciting days. And yet, in some ways, not very far at all. Our feet are still stuck in the muddy sinfulness prevalent at the time of that new beginning for human beings.

There are two verses I would like to key on. Verse 17 and the last half of verse 20. Let’s begin with the last one first.

Verse 20 reads: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

So I must ask, if that’s true, that Jesus Christ is always with us even to the end of time yet to come, how is it that we are so mired in the sinful catastrophe that we now see taking place in this nation? What has happened? How did we get here?

On May 23-24 Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland, Calif., began teaching children in grades kindergarten through fifth grade that there are more than two genders. The two day classes were entitled “Gender Spectrum Diversity Training.” In documents released by the school, students were taught “gender is not inherently nor solely connected to one’s physical anatomy.” Further, gender is a “complex interrelationship between [physical traits] and one’s internal sense of self as male, female, both or neither as well as one’s outward presentations and behaviors related to that perception.” Another document from the school advises parents: “When you discuss gender with your child, you may hear them exploring where they fit on the gender spectrum and why.” Of course, I don’t know too many kindergarteners through fifth graders who would understand what they are talking about. But that’s part of the problem, that age group is far too young to be exposing them to sexual issues they are not prepared to comprehend and deal with.

Seeing this story someone asked me, rhetorically, what that third gender might have been in the Garden of Eden? My answer was “snake.” For this kind of cultural misinformation to kindergartners comes from the same place Adam and Eve heard that God didn’t really mean what He said about what happens if you disobey Him. A lying snake told them that. God did mean it, and He still means it.

By now nearly everyone has heard of how a Congressional Representative from the state of New York resigned his seat after being caught sending electronic pornography of himself to several women, including a female teenager, only weeks after being newly married. One disturbing aspect is that the majority of his constituents in New York City urged him not to resign, and he did so only after being urged to by senior members of his own political party in Congress.

Also in California, in Ventura County’s city of Thousand Oaks, a woman attempting to make arrangements with Macy’s Department Store not to work on Sunday so she could go to church, was fired.

In Sacramento, Calif., a group of atheists and anti-religionists filed suit in the Ninth Circuit Court challenging the constitutionality of centuries-old tax exemptions for parsonages and other ministerial housing.

And in southern California atheists sued to have an ancient cross removed from a federal cemetery of military veterans. When the federal court ruled against them, the cross disappeared overnight and has not been found.

Our government is allowing Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru to file a federal class action suit against the state of Georgia because they passed a state law to curb illegal immigration stating the federal government has failed to secure the nation’s borders. Illegal immigrants, say supporters of Georgia’s new law, are burdening the state’s taxpayer-funded resources, including public schools, jails and hospitals.

A Congressional Representative from Texas announced that there needs to be an investigation regarding “Christian militants” who might destroy America.

Our federal government sent thousands of guns across the Mexican border in some sort of misguided and botched investigation of foreign drug cartels. Several of these guns were later used to kill American border guards.

Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, mud slides, fires kill thousands across America.

Lack of jobs, unemployment, and high medical, food and fuel costs are causing thousands of Americans to lose their homes.

Naturalistic materialism rules academia today, and the grace of God lies lightly on the church in America.

Depraved individuals dance lewdly through the streets, celebrating their sinfulness, while churches who claim Christ appoint them to positions of authority within the church.

What is happening to our nation? Where have ethics, morality and integrity gone? What has happened to our commitment to the Christ? To the inspired word of God?

Has Joshua 24:15 been forgotten? “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” The ancient Israelites knew, and we should be wise enough to know today, that serving anyone except the Lord God carries with it a price no one really wants to pay.

Still God is snubbed, forgotten, and mocked across the land. Pastors of liberal churches advise their congregants that the Muslim name “Allah” is merely another name for God, even as Islam refuses to recognize the deity of the Son of God, calls the Bible a perversion of God’s word, and denigrates the female half of the human race.

I turn now to that other verse I said was key in today’s scripture, verse 17, which says of the disciples, after they had arrive at Galilee as Jesus had instructed them, “When they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted.”

Think about that for a moment, they saw Him, and yet some doubted. What did they need to convince them of the reality of the risen Christ? Did they, like Thomas, need to put their fingers into the holes in His crucified hands? Did they need to put their hands into the sword wound in His side? How could they see Him, and not know?

There is an old, old gospel song that says when I see my Savior I will know Him by the holes in His hands. And yet, having had His love come so near to me all these years, having had Him open doors for me, protect me in truly deadly and frightening situations on the field of battle, having experienced His healing of diagnosed glaucoma, having known His nearness in moments of prayer and praise, how should I see Him and not know my Savior? Nail holes in His hands, the sword wound in His side, if I see none of it, I am confident I shall know my Savior’s presence should He come within 100 yards of me. I will know Him by the love that comes so near. How could they not?

And yet, there we have our answer to the question, how did we get here. What has happened to us?

He urges us to pray and not faint, to be led of the Holy Spirit, to love God. And as we realize the impact of the Holy Spirit in our lives, He tells us in Galatians 5:22-23 that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

With the fruit of the Spirit working in us, how could any of the incidents I have listed above, how could any of that transpire in the presence of the Holy Spirit? It could not. We would not do it. We would not allow it under His guidance.

Dr. Os Guiness, Christian critic, international speaker and author, spoke recently at Lausanne III in Cape Town about the condition of the church and the Christian in today’s world. He said, in part, “There is a social tension required by the Way of Jesus, as his followers are called to be ‘in’ the world but not ‘of’ the world (social dualism) or ‘not conformed’ but ‘transformed.’ When Christians truly live like that, rather than going to one extreme or another, it gives the church an unmatched leverage in culture – not just ‘faithful presence’ but ‘transforming engagement.’ Culture, after all, is simply ‘a way of life lived in common,’ so when Jesus called His followers to ‘live His way,’ it was natural that Christians together created a decisively Christian culture as the by-product of their faithfulness to the way of Jesus.

“Our central problem,” he said, “does not come from secularists, post-modernists, Islamists, gay activists, or any other purported threat from the fear-mongering machines. It comes from our own evangelical worldliness and our signal failure to live the way of Jesus.”

When asked how Christians were failing to live the way of Christ, Dr. Os answered, “Sadly, when we look at many movements within evangelicalism today, the world and the spirit of the age are dominant. I feel this very deeply as one trained in the social sciences. When I wrote ‘The Gravedigger File’ nearly 30 years ago, very few evangelicals knew much about sociology. It was considered a ‘dangerous’ field, along with psychology. Now it is cited almost universally, especially in the constant quoting of the latest statistics. I have heard megachurch sermons in which ‘Gallup or Barna says’ far out-stripped ‘God or the Bible says.’ But whereas sociology was once unused, it is now used uncritically. One of the key places where sociology should be used is in analyzing ‘the world’ of our times, so that we can be more discerning. To resist the dangers of the world you have to recognize the distortions and seductions of the world. I have revised and updated my book under a new title ‘The Last Christian on Earth,’ but understanding the world through cultural criticism is unfashionable. Rather than use sociology that way, most pastors use it in a way that leads to adapting to the world, and they are encouraged to do so by half-baked versions of ‘seeker-sensitive’ mission, and so on.

“So we have to ask a question of the church at any moment: Is the Word decisive in the church, or is the world? Is the Spirit of God decisive, or the spirit of the hour?”

Today many are pessimistic about the ability of the Christian church to have a positive, changing impact on the world around us. But Dr. Os Guinness believes the Christian faith has changed the world in the past and can change it again, but only through a new Christian renaissance.

“What we need today is a new renaissance,” Guinness explains, “a fresh flowering of our faithfulness to Jesus, issuing in a fresh flowering of our enterprises in culture that are inspired by faith in Jesus.

“After a century in which evangelicals have swung between the extremes of an overly privatized faith and an overly politicized faith, this would be a better way forward, a way that is both faithful and influential at once.

Guinness advises, “The story of Christian reformation, revival, and renaissance underscores that the darkest hour is often just before the dawn, so we should always be people of hope and prayer, not gloom and defeatism. God the Holy Spirit can turn the situation around in five minutes. As G. K. Chesterton once remarked, five times the church has “gone to the dogs,” but each time “it was the dog that died.”

Reformation, renaissance, revival, call it what you will, but Guinness’ belief is in keeping with the word of God that He has given us. In 2^nd Corinthians 6:17, God tells us “Therefore, ‘Come out from them and be separate,’ says the Lord.” The life lived in Christ is the life others outside of Christ seek, and it will be used of the Holy Spirit to draw others to Christ.

The church – and we are the church, the body of Christ spoken of in 1^st Corinthians and Ephesians -- has a mission yet to be completed, as set forth in the fourth and fifth verses of today’s scripture, Matthew 28:19-20a, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

How did we get into this ethical and moral hole in which we find society today? Where the well of the future is being poisoned and evil runs about rampant and unchecked? By ignoring God.

How do we get out of it? By obeying God, allowing Jesus to work through us through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We often say that we love God, but John 15:10-15 says that to love God is to obey Him.

God has made it simple for us. Just obey Him, and change the world. Amen.

Ain't No Cookie Cutter Christians, by Pastor Ed Evans

Scripture: Acts 2:1-21

2:1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.
2:2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
2:3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.
2:4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

1st Corinthians 12:3b-13
12:3b No one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit.
12:4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;
12:5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord;
12:6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.
12:7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
12:8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
12:9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
12:10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
12:11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
12:12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
12:13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, a very sobering event, a memorable day, if you understand what happened there. The world was changed. Just as when Jesus breathed His last on the cross, saying, "It is finished," so it might have been said at Pentecost, "It is begun."

Nowhere in that Acts passage do you find everyone speaking the same language, doing the same thing, wearing the same clothes, saying the same thing. They were suddenly all different, in ways that only God can create; they were different. And the passage in 1st Corinthians focuses on just how different we can be, with varieties of gifts, services, activities, and yet, and yet, the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God.

So why do some of us go about demanding everyone think the same, speak the same, do the same things? If you don't worship exactly as they do in my church, you must not be of Christ.

Why, why, why do some of us run about shooting our own? Bad-mouthing our own? Damning our own? And that is going to draw those outside of Christ to Him? How does that work?

My wife and I lost a dear friend this week. She was such an important, supportive, loving part of our life; she and her husband were just so perfect together, who thought we would lose her so soon.

Don't get me wrong, we don't sorrow as those who have no hope. We know that one day, perhaps soon, we will see her waiting for us at the Garden Gate as we bask in the light and love of the God who loved us first.

But to be left behind on this rude earth, without her precious presence, is going to be so difficult for her husband who is ill, and for we who shared in the glow of her love of Christ, her integrity, her reaching out with the hand of Christ, the love of Christ, to all those around her. So difficult.

Such a death, such a loss, is a very sobering factor. It suddenly drives into harsh perspective all the silly things that go on day in and day out that we worry about, we argue over, we dread. It puts them into perspective, and reminds us of who we are, and the one whose sacrifice bought our freedom from sin.

As I write about her now, I remember so very well her smile that made everyone else smile, I can feel her hand on my shoulder, and I remember that she didn't worry about the little things. She left it all with Christ. And now that she's gone home, she has, indeed, left it all behind.

There were some things my friend was very good at, and some things she just would not even attempt. She knew she did not have to be all things to all people.

Don't we get caught up in that sometimes? Trying to be all things to all people? Christ doesn't require that of us, why should we expect it of ourselves? The foot isn't expected to scratch the ear. How should the elbow know what strawberries and cream are supposed to taste like? And when my ears can run as fast as my feet, maybe then I will agree we should be all things to all people.

If you read that passage in 1st Corinthians carefully, you see there are varieties of gifts, not all of which we as individuals are expected to have. There are different manifestations of the Spirit, one can do this, another can do that. We are different.

When I was a boy my grandmother used to make the best ginger cookies. She had a very old metal cookie cutter shaped like a little man. She would mix and roll out the dough, then *wump!* *wump!* *wump!*, she would fly across the dough with that cookie cutter turning out little cookie men, each one just like the other. There wasn't a dime's worth of difference between any of them. They looked the same, and when she took them out of the oven, each one tasted the same.

But our Lord is much more creative than that. There are no "cookie cutter" Christians, and our Lord didn't intend there to be.

Taken in total, we can begin to see the complexities of God, but not quite. Yet, we can see that although Almighty God has all gifts and all manifestations, it is enough that you and I have one. We are all part of the body, exercising what He has given us to do with the gift He has given us. I don't need to be able to do all the same things all of my friends can do through Christ. I'm not meant to. Neither are you.

God is complex. We are not. Just as His thoughts are not our thoughts, so His abilities, His gifts, His manifestations, are not ours, nor should we seek them. His plans for us are sufficient, and whom He selects for this task or that one, He equips. His grace is sufficient for us. Glory in what you have. Pentecost reminds us that our God has gifted us, and that we have His permission to be different from our brother or our sister.

It's when such a friend as mine goes home to Glory, goes home to be with Christ, that we suddenly realize not only the loss of companionship, but the loss of that God-given gift our friend exercised. In my friend's case, among her many talents, she made the best cookies in the world. And I know it's true not only from my own gluttonous tasting, but because everyone else said so, as well. So it's not just her smile and her accepting, loving, reassuring presence I will miss, but the sumptuous taste of the best cookies in the world.

Just as there are no cookie-cutter Christians, this world will not savor again those heavenly cookies she would make. Although, could it be there is a new sweet aroma permeating the realm of Heaven? She did so love making cookies. And she did so love her Lord. What better combination than that?

All I have to offer Him is my brokenness, my love, and my devotion to Him. I can't even make Him cookies. But He still loves me. And He loves you. I hope its mutual. The cookies can wait.

Amen.

The Lion Roars But God's Child Rests, by Pastor Ed Evans

http://www.scribd.com/doc/57118924/The-Lion-Roars-But-God-s-Child-Rests-by-Pastor-Ed-Evans

Scripture: 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
4:12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
4:13 But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when His glory is revealed.
4:14 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.
5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you in due time.
5:7 Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
5:8 Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.
5:9 Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.
5:10 And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.
5:11 To Him be the power forever and ever. Amen.

When I was growing up, I heard from those older than I how much things had changed, how they used to drive a horse and buggy down the streets now clogged with cars, how certain diseases that used to be sure death to people were now cured with a shot or a pill, how much easier it is now to contact a distant relative or to travel to them, compared with days of hard travel overland through dangerous areas of the wild. Those were pleasant trips into nostalgia and I enjoyed listening to them reminisce.

But then they would say something like, “but the more things change, the more they remain the same.” I had difficulty understanding that, but as I grew older, I understood.

We no longer live like the early Christians of Peter’s time; transportation, medicine, travel, it’s all changed. What hasn’t changed is the character of human beings, our desires, our dreams and wishes and hungers. And then there are our anxieties, our fears, our needs and our capacity for sin.

We worry about this, we fear that, we make bad choices that lead us down paths we never wanted to take, where sin costs us more, and keeps us longer than we ever intended. And when we aren’t shooting ourselves in the foot, life seems to conspire to bang us around, even as the enemies of Christ are busy using our own faith against us. Since the time Peter wrote these truths in today’s scripture, nothing really has changed in the human condition. As believers in Christ, we are destined to suffer with Christ.

However, Peter reminds us that more important than what we believe is what we do about that belief. The Christians of Peter’s time, rejecting the common worship of Caesar for belief in the Christ, made the effort to create communities of believers marked by love and supportive togetherness with Christ at the center.

They knew that without an orientation toward Christ, the beginner and finisher of our faith, we stumble about on our own efforts, following humanistic paths leading us into dead ends and futile ways. Even though we are new people in Christ, without putting Him first in everything, we lose our sense of belonging to Him as a transformed and different people, and instead we find ourselves conforming to the worldly culture that twists itself around us.

And even belonging to Christ, we make ourselves vulnerable to the world, and feel the persecution that falls to us. For the humility of the Christ alerts us to the slings and arrows of the outrageous fortune the world directs at us. The humility of Christ, however, is often misunderstood and misapplied and we suffer in ways that need not be.

For here Peter is not talking about the kind of humility we assume as we confess our sins and pray for God's forgiveness. The emphasis here is on the humility necessary for us to recognize how helpless we are apart from the "mighty hand of God." Owning up to our weakened state, we do need help. We are not God. Instead, God waits for us to call upon Him for divine help. Peter reminds us, "Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you."

Daniel B. Wallace, Associate Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary points out, "Biblical humility is not being a doormat for an uncaring omnipotent taskmaster ... No, Biblical humility is not self-deprecation or a dispensing of our self-esteem. Just the opposite. It is recognition that our worth is to be found in our Maker."

But persecution falls to Christians nonetheless, in various ways and degrees. Around the world Christians are being attacked and martyred. However, there is no reason to think such persecution is the only severe testing of the faithful. Peter wrote, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you." For believers, any testing of the faith is equally dangerous. Sometimes it can be as simple as the deliberate spoiling or destroying of the faith of our youth.

For example, the Hitler regime in Nazi Germany did not forcibly take the children away from their churches. The government simply instituted youth programs on Sunday mornings that competed with the churches. Is that any different from the way our own communities set up athletic program after program for youngsters on Sunday mornings? No one would state outright that these youth baseball and soccer programs are designed to take our children away from their churches. And yet that’s the result. There is no thought given to the importance of religious worship and instruction. Community leaders do not consider it, and church leaders do not protest, and we begin to see the result of faithless children becoming self-absorbed adults.

We know from history that under the worst conditions for Christian churches during the Roman Empire, Christian believers were murdered when they refused to offer a sacrifice to the Roman emperor or gods. Yet, how easy it would have been for those ancient Christians to excuse themselves for making a little gesture to satisfy their persecutors. Think about it, the loss of youth worship experience to the community youth athletic programs is equally blatant, and maybe more so than the sprinkling of incense on the altar of an alien god.

I know, someone will feel it’s not fair to pick on the Sunday youth programs. And yes, there exists plenty of other competition which tests our faith. However, the Sunday morning youth programs are obvious competition and highly tempting for the faith. Who wants to jeopardize their child's starting position in the lineup, or their future in sports, or standing among their peers by going to church instead of to practice or a game?

On its face, it seems like such a benign choice. And yet, a religious education and experience that would positively shape a child’s life are being traded for a temporal reward worth much less. From such “benign choices” sprout dangerous consequences.

"Keep alert," Peter writes, for like "a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around looking for someone to devour." In our very own social order today, one does not have to look far to see how the demonic rises up in every kind of shape, form, and disguise. That roaring lion also comes accompanied by wolves who come near to us in sheep's clothing (Matthew 7:15). But no matter what mask the demons wear, we can be sure that in one form or another, the basic temptation is somehow the same, and aimed at we who believe. In one way or another comes the tempting suggestion that you cannot trust in a gracious God. We can recognize that suggestion behind its disguise and sniff out the presence of the lion who is stalking us, even as it is accompanied by the serpent’s echo from the Garden of Eden, “God didn’t really mean what He said.” But oh, yes, He did, and He does.

Two years before his death, in 1962, the nation’s old soldier of World War II and Korea, General Douglas MacArthur, addressed the cadets at West Point on the Hudson River. His speech has to rank among the finest pieces of literature on record. In part, MacArthur said, "From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds ... This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: 'Only the dead have seen the end of war'." Both Gen. MacArthur and the Apostle Peter recognized that no one escapes the suffering and pain of war and death that mark our world like a plague. But it is Peter who encourages us to stay aware of how things really are and resist the evil as it comes to us.

Such encouragement does not come off the top of Peter’s head, or roll easily from his lips. Instead Peter shares what he knows from the heart of the God of all grace who made sure we could be strengthened, restored, and renewed in the face of all temptation and suffering through the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter’s final words in that chapter read, "To Him be the power forever and ever. Amen." To which you could only add, "Peace to all of you who are in Christ."