Walking in the Holy Spirit

Galatians 5:16-26. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, May 24, 2026.

We focused last week on how the Holy Spirit helps us, empowers us, to share the Good News of the salvation made available to us in Jesus.  We share that through the words we speak and through the actions of the life we live.  These work together by the help of the Holy Spirit to draw people to Jesus.

Today, we focus on the transformed life that we can live because of the power of the Holy Spirit within us. We should take a moment to recognize that this contrasts with the powerlessness of the Law to transform us.

Both Paul (Romans 3:20) and James (James 1:23) point out that the purpose of the Law is to show us our sin.  It is a great mirror to us of our own life and how short it falls.  However, that is the most it can do.  It cannot give us internal strength to battle against that sin.  Of course, it is helpful to at least see the problem.  Yet, it gives us no power or strength to overcome sin in our life.  What the Law and its penalties were powerless to do, the Holy Spirit is able to do within us.  He leads us in the battle of becoming like our lord Jesus.

He is the one who convinces us (convicts) that our righteousness is woefully lacking, but that Jesus is completely righteous.  He convinces us that Jesus is God’s means of salvation for us.

This internal work of the Holy Spirit to help us be transformed is the amazing grace of God for us.

Let’s look at our passage.

The Spirit of God versus the flesh (v. 16-18)

Notice that Paul uses the contrasting phrases of “The Spirit of God” and “the flesh.”  The flesh is not the same word as “body,” but it is connected to the body.  The flesh is that internal response that is rooted in the desires of our mortal body.  Because it is internal, it takes on spiritual overtones and can even seem like something other than us.

We have a multitude of strong desires that are rooted in our physical bodies.  Paul describes the difficulty of obeying God’s law in Romans 7.  Our flesh often wants what our mind knows to be bad.  It is also true that our flesh may not want what our minds and hearts know to be good for us.  Thus, both Romans 8 and Galatians 5 depict the flesh as being bent away from God and in towards pleasing self.  These appetites may have come about through experimentation or seeing peers and society “enjoying” them.

I bring this up because it is not God’s desire to keep heaping more and more laws on top of us.  He knows that our sinful flesh will continue to hijack our ability to obey them.  Yet, it is important for us to understand this because we are a people of way more laws than Israel ever was.  These united States of America have more and more laws every year.  However, they are not making us more and more righteous.  It was precisely because Israel had 1400 years of following the law that they could understand the amazing grace of God that was made available in Jesus the Messiah.

God’s solution was not more laws.  Rather, it was to first make Jesus available as the perfect man who could live in perfect obedience to God the Father and then make a way for those who would believe to follow him.

This all starts with the help of the Holy Spirit for us now in our mortal flesh, but it leads to the day when we will receive immortal, glorified bodies.  We will no longer have a flesh that is bent away from God and towards the lesser desires of our mortal bodies.

This flesh is not just contrasted with the Holy Spirit.  Paul states that the flesh and the Spirit are “contrary” to one another, or “opposed” to one another.  In Romans 8:7, Paul uses a stronger word.  They are “hostile” to one another.

This hostile opposition between our flesh and the Spirit of God leads us to a situation where we find ourselves wanting something but not doing it.  This can be a desire born of the Spirit that our flesh tries to keep from happening, and it can be a desire born of the flesh that the Spirit challenges us to put to death.

At Pentecost, something completely new was happening.  God was taking up residence within all those who put their faith in Jesus.  This internal presence of God works to give us power to reject the wrong desires of our flesh and follow the Spirit.

What exactly are the desires of the Spirit? John 15:26 tells us that the Holy Spirit comes to testify about Jesus.  Thus, He desires that we come to Jesus and follow him.  John 16:8-11 further details this that He desires to convict the world of its sin, need for the righteousness of Jesus and the judgment that looms over us.

In this passage, we will see that the Holy Spirit desires to express the character of Jesus in our lives.  Jesus is our master teacher; we are his students.  We need to learn his way of life and follow him in it.  We could never do this in our flesh because our flesh is hostile to the idea of actually following the words and life of Jesus.

All of this comes under the idea of walking “in” or “by” the Spirit.  Prepositions in one language do not perfectly map over to prepositions of another language.  Both of these prepositions work.  In some ways, the Holy Spirit is like an external guide with whom we walk.  In another way, He is the river in which we are born along in the right direction.  We could even say that He becomes the power and means by which we are able to walk with Christ, i.e., we walk with Christ by the help of the Spirit.  Yet, the Holy Spirit does all of this from within us.  He helps us to be aware of our actions, attitudes, direction, purpose and goals, and then, to tune them to those of Jesus.

(v. 19-21)

Paul tells us in verse 19 that the deeds of the flesh are obvious.  His point is not that our flesh wants all of these things at all times, but that these are the kinds of things that our flesh desires and leads us to do. 

No intellectually honest person will say that the Holy spirit wants us to do these things.  It is sad that some Christian groups have developed a theology that emphasizes grace to the point that you can do any sin you want, while thanking Jesus for his forgiveness.  This is a travesty and a heresy.  The Holy Spirit wants to help us live a transformed life that becoming more and more like Jesus.

Paul ends this by reminding them that people who live a life of doing the deeds of the flesh will not inherit the Kingdom of God.  Inheriting the Kingdom of God here is not talking about joining a church or being a professing Christian.  He is challenging people who are Christians not to follow after their flesh.  On one hand Christians are a part of the Kingdom of God in Jesus.  He is our King and we live out His commands by the help of the Holy Spirit.  However, the Kingdom of God is not yet fully here.  The verb “inherit” in verse 21 is future tense.  He is looking forward to the Second Coming of Christ when Jesus sets up a kingdom over this earth.  The saints, Christians who have been faithful to him, will be resurrected to serve as his administrators in this coming kingdom.  This is an inheritance that God has promised for those who come into a spiritual relationship with the Messiah, Jesus.

We have many opportunities to walk with our flesh every day.  This does not change when the Spirit indwells us following faith in Jesus.  Of course, Paul is not talking about a one-time thing.  “If you ever do one of these things, you will not inherit!”  No, he says, “those who practice” such things.  This is an ongoing choice to keep walking with your flesh in opposition to the leading of the Holy Spirit. 

We all have moments in which we fail, but it isn’t over.  Think about what the Spirit does when you fail.  He convicts your heart about what you have done and calls you to repentance, i.e., change your mind and turn back to the righteousness of Christ.  None of us will inherit without continuing to repent and keep our eyes on Jesus.

(v. 22-26)

On the other hand, if I let the Holy Spirit produce the fruit of Christ in me, then I will inherit the Kingdom of God.

Paul could have continued by speaking of the “deeds” of the Spirit, but he switches to the picture of fruit.  Fruit is an organic process rather than a work project.  It is borne from within because of our new nature and grows a little bit day by day.

The Spirit of God within you empowers a whole new dynamic in which the character is slowly formed in you and expressed in your life.  This will go from an empty branch to buds to blossoms to fruit to ripening of that fruit.  In a sense, we have two natures: the old nature and new nature.  Which of these natures are you expressing?

The list of love, joy, peace, etc… are essentially different facets of our love for one another fueled by the presence of God Himself within us.  On one hand, I am letting the Holy Spirit do something within me (yielding to Him).  On the other hand, I am doing the things that the Spirit is showing me to do.

No fruit tree can be fruitful without pruning.  Bad branches that are broken or diseased must be cut off.  These would be the things on the list of the deeds of the flesh.  However, some branches need to be cut off in order to make room for other branches to be more fruitful.  In other words, sometimes the Spirit teaches us to remove things from our life, not because they are immoral or wicked, but because they are keeping me from being fruitful.  They are taking up too much space in my life.

Furthermore, sometimes God prunes things from my life.  I have nothing to say about it.  It just happens.  Yet, other times, the Spirit of the Lord points out something that we need completely prune out of our lives.  He works within us to convince us and empower us to do it.

This is the powerful evidence (fruit) of the Holy Spirit within us.  We will see all of these things start to show up in our life.  Yet, the Spirit will not be content with just a little love in our life.

None of us will be (are) perfect at this on this side of death.  However, we are not under the law of sin and death.  Verse 18 states that those who are led by the Holy Spirit are not under the Law (judged by it).  Rather, we are under the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2).  Entering the presence of Christ upon death is not based on our perfection in these areas.  Rather, it is based upon His perfect work being applied to our lives by faith.  Those who trust Jesus and His Spirit to the end of their lives will enter into His presence.  In fact, some of our greatest righteousness will include repentance and forgiveness.

Paul ends with a description of what it means to follow Jesus.  To belong to Jesus is to crucify your flesh with its passions and desires.  It should be obvious that a crucified groom (Jesus) would only want to be with a crucified bride (all those who believed him enough to follow the Spirit).

“If we live in the Spirit” is a statement about the spiritual life we have in Christ.  If I truly have put my faith in Jesus and his eternal life has taken up residence within me by the Spirit, then I need to walk by, with, and in the Holy Spirit.  It is not enough to be made alive.  We need to cooperate with the Spirit so that the righteousness of Jesus might be growing in our lives.

Praise God that we have a savior who covers our sin and yet does not leave us stuck in them.  Let’s put our faith in Him and put to death those desires that hold us back from becoming more like him.

Walking in the Holy Spirit audio

You Shall Receive Power

Acts 1:4-8. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, May 17, 2026.

Next Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, so we are going to focus on why the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was so important following the resurrection of Jesus.

Let’ s look at our passage.

Power to be a witness

These are the last moments that Jesus is with his disciples before ascending into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father.  He had earlier given them the mission of taking the good news about his work of salvation to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:18-20).  Yet now he makes a stipulation about this.  He commands them “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father…”

We should notice that Jesus wants us to receive this promise of the Father before we go about the mission he has given us.  It is clear that he is referring to the promise of the outpouring of God’s Spirit upon all believers.

Of course, the very next words out of their mouths are about the Kingdom being restored to Israel.  Is it now, Lord?  Jesus tells them that the Father is not giving that information to them.  They need to focus on receiving the Holy Spirit and accomplishing the mission Jesus has given them.

Notice that the Holy Spirit will give them power, and they will be “my witnesses.”  There are many ways in which the Holy Spirit empowers us.  One of these ways is to make us a powerful witness of Jesus.  In this sense, we are a particular kind of evidence for Jesus, a personal witness.

There are a couple of ways that we are his witnesses.  The first is that we are his witnesses because we give testimony about him.  He is the object that we have witnessed or the content of that to which we are testifying.

The world would not know who Jesus is, what he has done, and why it is so important, without someone who knows about it going to them and telling them.

This is Paul’s point in Romans 10:13-15.  He takes an Old Testament truth, “All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” and reverse engineers it.  How can people call upon the Lord and be saved if they don’t believe in him?  How are they going to believe in him if they haven’t heard about him?  How will they hear about him if no one tells them?  How can someone tell them if they haven’t been sent?  Jesus is the beginning of this whole series.  He sends all of his disciples to go to the world around them with the good news of his salvation.

They needed to wait because the Holy Spirit was going to be poured out on a particular day, the Feast of Pentecost.  Why that day?  Pentecost was a celebration for the harvest so far and the harvest to come.  In this case, Jesus is bringing in a spiritual harvest of people from Israel and the nations who will hear the good news, believe, and come into his kingdom.

We are also his witnesses in the sense that we belong to him and are doing a work for him.  In fact, Jesus is witnessing to others through us.  This spiritual dimension to our witness should not be overlooked.  It goes beyond you and me.  This witness is more than what we say and do.

When we share God’s terms of salvation with a lost world, it really is the Lord Jesus working through us to draw people to himself.  God can lead us, but He also works beyond us and in ways that we cannot see.  I may be nobody, but some people can only be reached by a nobody who shares the greatest somebody in the universe with them.  Can you be God’s nobody and trust Him to do what you cannot do?  This is part of the empowering of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus truly is sending us with a task, but He is also truly working with us and through us by the Holy Spirit.  The answer is not to shrink back and say that God will do it.  Nor is the answer to try and do it all by yourself.  We must give our all to this mission but also trust the Holy Spirit to do His part.  The job is too big for us in ourselves.  We need the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life to do this.

We are to give witness through what we say

One way in which we are witnesses is by our active vocal testimony.  The Holy Spirit can give us boldness to speak when we are afraid.  We see this with the apostle Peter who was afraid to stand with Christ on the night of his betrayal.  Later, a Spirit-filled Peter would boldly speak in the temple compound, calling his people and Israel’s leaders to repentance.

The Holy Spirit can also help us with giving us the things to say.  The preaching and teaching of the apostles was written down so that we can hear these inspired words.  Yet, the Holy Spirit can give us specific leading in what to say to people.  We need to learn to listen to Him and boldly speak it.

The Holy Spirit can also help in the heart and the mind of the person who receives our testimony.  You may feel His presence and working, but then again, you may not.  The main thing is to trust that the Spirit is always helping even when you don’t see it.

There is a part of our testimony that is not so much ours, but that of the original eyewitnesses to Jesus.  This cannot be reduplicated.  No one alive today can give testimony to seeing Jesus.  Yet, we can pass along this eyewitness testimony.

Tens of thousands of people witnessed the life, teachings, and death of Jesus.  Over 500 people witnessed that Jesus was alive after his death and burial.  Acts 1:3 speaks to the infallible proofs that Jesus gave to these people.  Some of those proofs were simply that he was alive.  Some of those proofs were that he was more than a mortal.  Jesus showed Thomas the crucifixion marks on his body.  They touched him.  He ate fish.  Jesus was not an apparition or spirit.  Yet, he was more than a mortal man.  He appeared and disappeared in their midst when they were locked in a place.  He ascended into the heavens in front of their eyes.  These eyewitness accounts were written down so that they could be verified and used to test others who claimed to have testimony about Jesus.

By the beginning of the 2^nd century, the last of those eyewitnesses were dying.  This is why the Bible is so important.  It is an eyewitness record of those who were there.  This is also why the Bible is so attacked in our day and age.  The devil doesn’t like the Bible.  People who love to sin don’t like the Bible.  Even my own flesh turns away from these words without the help of the Holy Spirit.  It is important that we have the help of the Holy Spirit to share the testimony of these Apostles contained in the New Testament.

However, you don’t have to be an eyewitness to experience the spiritual truths that Jesus has made available to us.  We are the spiritual offspring of those original disciples.  Just as the words and work of Jesus transformed their life, so our lives have been transformed by that as well.  Salvation is not simply a legal distinction.  It is a living experience where the Spirit of God transforms our heart and mind.  We go from being a people in slavery to sin to being a people living out the righteousness of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit helps our witness by fueling the transformation of our lives.  This personal transformation also gives zeal and passion to our testimony as well.  In short, we bear witness to the saving power of Jesus.  Jesus truly saves those who believe in him.  He saves them from their sin and failures.  Of course, we see some of that happening right now.  Some of it we will see happening in the future (I’m not perfected yet).  Yet, we are following the Perfect One who is the perfecter of our faith.  Only you can tell the testimony of what faith in Jesus has done for you.  We need to seek the help of the Holy Spirit to empower transformation from the inside out.  Then, we need to share it with others.

We are to give witness by what we do

Our witness is not just by our words.  In fact, we must be careful that our life is not discordant with our words, or the words of our Lord Jesus.  Hypocrisy only interferes with our ability to witness for Jesus.

In this sense, people will see our lives.  Our actions and overall life will testify for us.  Both verbal testimony and demonstration testimony are necessary in our lives.  We cannot do one and neglect the other.

This is why the Bible records the experience and subsequent lives of those who believed in Jesus.  Peter became a man with a spiritual backbone.  Saul of Tarsus became a follower of Jesus who would put his life in jeopardy in order to bring the good news about Jesus to those who had never heard.

This is part of the testimony in their day and age.  Yes, they said things, but their actions and lives powerfully underscored these words.  When Stephen was stoned for giving testimony to the Lord Jesus, it may have scared some people away from following Jesus.  Yet, he was only the first of many who gave testimony with their lives that Jesus was worth losing your physical life.  They faced persecution, torture, and death.  When Saul of Tarsus became a Christian, it shocked everyone.  Some Christians feared that it was a ploy to discover who they all were.  Unbelievers believed that he had gone mad.  However, no one could counter the claim that Saul of Tarsus was no longer who he used to be.  The evidence of his life before and after spoke volumes about the kind of man he used to be and who he became once he believed upon Jesus.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 says, “9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

There is real power working in this.  Many of these Corinthians used to be caught up in various types of sin.  If Jesus had remained in the grave, we would not be reading these words today.  If no one’s life was ever transformed by these words and the Holy Spirit who works through them, we wouldn’t be here today.

A transformed life is our biggest testimony.  It is God’s will for you to be transformed by the truth of His Word and the power of His Holy Spirit.  Thus, we need to expect this, desire this, pray for this, and cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He empowers this in our lives.

We need to pray for the Spirit’s leading in our daily lives.  What are the ways in which I need to be transformed to become more like Jesus?  Only a person who is in the Bible, in prayer, and wrestling with their sinful flesh by the help of the Holy Spirit can give testimony of a life that is being transformed.

May God help us to rest in His gracious work of transformation in our life and to know His peace day by day.

Receive Power audio

Honor Your Mother

Exodus 20:12; Ephesians 6:2-3.

This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Mother’s Day Sunday, May 10, 2026.

When it comes to honoring others, we have become a culture that is really bad at it.  It is not that we don’t honor things, but that we do it superficially and in superficial ways.

We love to exalt people as heroes quickly.  We love to idolize them and try to be like them.  However, we also love to tear them down quickly, even crucify them.

The Bible shows us a better way.  Honor is something that comes from God, and we do it best when we do it as He has shown us.

Let’s look at our passages.

We are to honor our mother

There is no way around the Bible’s command to honor our mothers.  Some may challenge that this is part of the Law of Moses in the Old Testament, and we are not under the law.

This same argument is used in a different form when atheists accuse Christians of picking which laws in the Old Testament they follow and which ones they don’t.

This is not what Christianity is doing.  In fact, this represents an intellectually dishonest or lazy attempt at summing up the New Testament.  The New Testament writers are very clear on why some laws from the Old Testament are still given to Christians and why others are not.

To honor your mother (and father) is not part of the dietary laws, i.e., which foods you can or can’t eat.  The dietary laws were not given because of something inherently bad about certain foods.  They were given as a spiritual teaching aid.  Acts 10 shows us exactly why Christians do not continue the dietary laws.  The death and resurrection of Jesus provided for the cleansing of all people (Jews and Gentiles).  This was the spiritual reality that the dietary laws represented. 

The ritual and sacrificial laws were also fulfilled in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.  Christians offer spiritual sacrifices to God, but we do not try to build temples and sacrifice animals.  Jesus is our once-and-for-all perfect sacrifice.

There is one more category of laws in the Old Testament, moral laws.  Murder did not become acceptable for Christians because they are no longer “under the law of Moses.”  Murder is always wrong, and so is dishonoring your parents.  These are moral issues that have selfish motivations surfacing from our hearts.

Throughout the New Testament, the apostles reiterate (like Paul does in Ephesians 6:2-3) these moral laws.  Christians do not do them because it is in the Old Testament.  We do them because God wants us to love one another (i.e., not act out of selfish motivations).  A good way to understand the 10 commandments of Exodus 20 is to recognize that they show us how to love God (commandments 1-4) and how to love people (commandments 5-10).

This is not a double standard, nor is it a legalistic following of the Law.  It is following the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that He has poured out into our lives.

We can note that Jesus was a man who honored others, even when they dishonored him.

So, what exactly is honor?  The Hebrew word behind our translation has the sense of that which is heavy and has glory.  Your mother has the glory of being a very heavy thing in your life that should not be treated lightly.  Honor has to do with who your mother is, but also about your proper response to that place of honor.

Of course, your mother is not God.  Her honor is not greater than God’s honor.  Still, her honor comes from God Himself who made us a species that propagates the next generation through moms and dads.

If you think that your mother isn’t valuable in your life, then you need to change and work on giving value, weight, honor to who and to what she is in your life.

How a person honor has some changes as they mature.  An infant can’t understand this issue.  We don’t expect them to “honor their mother.”  Yet, an infant grows into a toddler and a young child.  Children need to show honor by respecting and obeying their parents (Ephesians 6:1; Colossians 3:20).

I guess it is theoretically possible for a mom to tell a child to do something bad or illegal.  However, that is the exception and not the norm.  Even non-Christian moms generally do not tell their kids to do such things.  Yes, extreme actions create extremely difficult circumstances that affect how we show honor.  This does not remove our responsibility to honor our moms.

Does anyone perfectly honor their mom and dad?  I don’t think so.  In fact, even moms and dads didn’t perfectly honor their mom and dad.  We need grace both ways, from parents to kids and from kids to parents.  Of course, kids don’t always understand this until they grow up and have a family of their own.

Teenagers especially kick against obeying their parents.  They are knocking at the door of adulthood and desire to jump into it too quickly.  They recognize that they don’t always think like their parents.  Yet, they still need to honor their parents through obedience while they are living with them.

It may seem to take forever, but kids eventually become adults.  What does it mean for us to honor our mothers when we are adults?

When a child moves out and starts their own life, they still need to honor their parents.  You should still respect them, but the area of obedience drops off.  You are no longer a child in their home.  Instead of giving commands, parents now become a source of valuable counsel in your life.  You honor them when you leave room for their counsel or even seek it out.  Of course, parents should honor their adult children by recognizing the role of parenting has changed.  Counseling others is an area fraught with pitfalls.  Moms can make the mistake of giving counsel in dishonoring ways, and adult children can make the mistake of receiving counsel in dishonoring ways.

Treat their input and counsel as valuable.  Hear them out without hurt and anger.  Yet, let it be what it is, a more experienced adult giving advice to a less experienced one.

Parents can mean well, but they are not God.  They don’t always know what is best for you.  Pray over their counseling.  Seek God’s wisdom on how to incorporate it.  Yet, you are seeking God’s will.  In the end, we honor God above even our parents.

There is one more change that happens.  When your parents enter their declining years, you should respect and care for them.  Not every parent declines in the same way.  Some do so quickly versus slowly.  Some decline at a relatively young age versus at an old age.  Some require great amounts of help and care while others require very little.  Yet, they will all need assistance.

This is a role reversal in some ways.  Yet, your parents do not become your children.  You should respect their wishes and desires while counseling them on decisions they need to make.  You should work hard to help them retain their dignity as much as possible.  In fact, it is important to stay connected to your parents enough that you know when you need to step in and start assisting them.

In some ways, you are paying them back for the years they took care of you when you couldn’t do it for yourself.  Yet, this is not an equation.  Some kids can chafe at how long and how much care a parent needs.  Do I only “owe” them the same number of years I was in their home?  This is a dishonorable way of approaching the issue.

You are honoring the place that God has given them in your life.  God wants you to care for them.  This is not to be treated lightly and cast aside.  Don’t kick against God’s will in your life but learn to embrace it with a love for Him and a love for your mother.

What if my mom (my dad) lived a dishonorable life?  What if there is nothing to respect and honor?  It is true that this presents a tough situation for you.  Some moms abandon their kids and then show up in their adult years.  Some moms were there but were hurtful and harmful in your life.  Maybe they changed later or maybe they didn’t.  These are all tough circumstances.  What does it mean to honor in these cases?

This brings up the issue of our motivation.

The motivation for honor

On one hand, we can simply say that God tells us to do it, and so we must do it.  It is true that to honor our parents in their declining years is to honor the God who tells us it is important.

On the other hand, we should not treat this subject as if we have no understanding about why God wants us to do it.

If you had wonderful parents as a kid, you will most likely feel a strong desire to bless them because you love them.  It may not even seem like a chore.  This is a glimpse of the best-case scenario.  Yet, it is interesting that the 5^th commandment issues a promise of prolonging your days in the land.  Paul adds the phrase, “that it may be well with you…”

Of course, this is not a guarantee that nothing bad will happen in your life but that in comparison, it will be good to have honored and not good to have failed to do so.  Honoring your mom does something within you that is better for your life moving forward.  Honoring shapes you in good ways and dishonoring shapes you in bad ways.

As mortals, we cannot live both lives and choose which we think is better.  We either trust God or don’t.  Yet, even more than this, we can look at the lives of others who are honoring and those who are dishonoring their parents.  We can see whether this leads to a better life or a worse life.  I think there is plenty of data to support that God is correct in this area.

If you are struggling to honor your mom or simply doing a poor job at it, let’s look at some areas of motivation beyond trusting God.

First, you can honor your mom for the work they have done.  No mom is perfect, but many moms have chosen to stick in there and care for their kids when they couldn’t do it for themselves.  Putting all nit-picking aside, they did care for you.  Imagine life without them.

Second, you can honor your mom for the sheer difficulty of the task.  Even if they did a lousy job, we can recognize that there were personal hurts, wounds and fears that were behind their lousy job.  Not all of us are as wise as Solomon, and it is even harder when a mom has abuse and tragedy in her life.  There are tough decisions in life.  It is easy to choose the easier path while failing the test of doing the right thing, the good thing.  The junk in their heart and mind interferes with their ability to make good decisions.

Of course, we do not honor them for doing a poor job.  We simply recognize it was a difficult time for them.  It doesn’t make it right.  However, their failure to step up in a tough situation is exactly what you are wrestling with.  You are in a tough situation and are letting hurt and wounds drive you towards making a decision that is not good for your parents.  Do you want mercy?  To give them mercy is to make the case for your own need for mercy.

In fact, God is challenging you to see His heart for redemption, redeeming your parent and redeeming you.  Perhaps, you are God’s last attempt to break through the hurts and failures of their life.

Third, you can honor your mom for the place and purpose God has given them in your life.  God gave you your mom just as much as He gave you to them.  Regardless of how well or bad they did, we can honor God by helping them when they need it (or will accept it).  God is asking you to love them and minister to them.  They may be a porcupine of a person who is impossible to hug but this is God’s challenge to you.  Many an adult child has led a parent to the Lord who had lived a selfish life in rebellion against God and to the hurt of their kids.

Forgiveness is not saying what they did was good or even okay.  It is saying, I refuse to mistreat you because you mistreated me.  It is seeking to overcome evil with good.  Only the Spirit of Christ can do this kind of a work within us.

May God help us to honor our mothers ever day moving forward.  In ourselves, we are empty vessels.  But in Christ, we can be a full cup of blessing to others even when they have brought hurt and pain into our lives.  This is becoming like Jesus.

The First Letter of Peter- 22

Subtitle: Closing Words

1 Peter 5:12-14. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, May 3, 2026.

As we finish this letter, we have reached the place where Peter gives his closing words to the recipients of it. 

It is mostly a basic closing of a letter. It mentions the carrier of the letter and gives greetings to people in the churches of Asia Minor from Peter and others with him.

Yet, there are a couple of items in this passage that have created some controversy. 

Let’s look at our passage.

Peter’s closing words (v. 12-14)

Peter first explains that the letter has come to them through a man named Silvanus.  Silvanus is mentioned as a fellow worker with Paul and Timothy in 2 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians.

We should also make the connection between this Silvanus and the shortened form of his name used by Luke in Acts, Silas.  Though Peter and Paul use the longer form, Luke seems disposed to using a more intimate and informal name for him.

Silas was a Jewish Christian who was among the men of Jerusalem in the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15.  He accompanied Paul back to Antioch in order to verify the decision of the Jerusalem Council.  Luke describes him as a prophet and teacher who is clearly of Jewish descent.  Silas ends up accompanying Paul on his 2^nd Missionary journey through the areas addressed by Peter’s letter.  He would know the people and be familiar to them, having ministered among them with Paul.

Peter refers to Silvanus as a “faithful brother” and comments that this is his opinion or estimation of him.  The gist of this is simply that the one these churches know as a faithful brother already has also been found by Peter to be faithful as a brother in Christ, i.e., a spiritual brother.

By the way, this is how the New Testament really began.  Letters were written by apostles to particular churches or group of churches in a region.  We are not told how Silvanus distributed this letter to so many churches.  Did he come bearing multiple copies?  What church did he go to first?  Some of these questions we cannot know.  However, it is most likely that the letter was first given to a particular church, which would most likely make a copy of it.  Since Silvanus is well acquainted, it is most likely that he personally saw to the distribution.  It would allow him to touch base and minister to the churches similar to Paul’s attitude in his missionary journeys.  Thus, Silvanus would come to a particular town, a church member would make a faithful copy, and he would then take the letter to another town, most likely taking time to exhort the church on the contents of the letter.

Similarly, Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth would slowly be copied and shared with other churches in the region.  At some point, the Church felt it was important to assemble the verified letters of the apostles that had long acceptance in different regions into a collection.  This ultimately became the New Testament.  By the time this assembling happened, it would have been impossible to make up a letter that was not original to the apostles and pretend like it was.  Too many churches had copies of these letters over too long of a time.  The cry of “foul” would have been deafening from the churches if such was attempted.

Peter then summarizes his purpose in the letter.  He has both testified and exhorted them in the true grace of God.  He testified in that he declared what he heard and saw.  He has exhorted in the sense that he is calling them to stay true to what they have received.  This is what I know to be true, and this is what you should do.

So, what is the true grace of God?  We can start with pointing to Jesus.  Jesus as the Son of God and Son of Man had come as God’s Anointed to save Israel and the Gentiles.  This is opposed to all the false claimants to be God’s Messiah.  Jesus is the true Christ versus the false Christs that came before him, and those that came after him.  Peter gave faithful testimony to the person, work, and teaching of Jesus.

These teachings were taught and written down for the strengthening of those who believed.  These Scriptures are an analog revealing Jesus the Messiah to those who read it.

However, it is not enough to receive the truth about Christ in verbal and written form.  We must remain firm in our faith. 

Some versions differ between Peter giving a command, “Stand firm in it,” and Peter simply declaring, “in which you stand.”  The difference between the two is a couple of letters in the verb “stand.”  We do not know how the difference came about in some of the old manuscripts.  Regardless, both are good and true.  They had received the Gospel, so it is entirely appropriate for Peter to testify and to exhort that this is the true grace of God, in which you currently stand firm.

Yet, they will need to be faithful until the end of their lives.  Over time, threats will come against the true grace of God.  They will need to stand firm in what they have received.  Thus, it would be entirely appropriate to voice this as a command.

For us today, we may not know which form Peter initially intended.  However, we do know that Scripture challenges us with both ideas.  It is good for believers to be standing firm in what the Scriptures reveal about Jesus, but it is also important for us to persevere in standing firm to the end of our life.

There is generally nothing controversial in a section that sends greetings, but we have such here.  Peter’s phrase, “She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you,” has two areas of contention.

The first has to do with who or what is the pronoun “she” referencing?  This has been generally interpreted as referring to the body of believers where Peter is, i.e., the church he is at.  The word for church in Greek is a feminine term and thus takes a feminine pronoun.  It is singular because the group is spoken of as a singular entity, a local expression of the greater Church of Jesus.  This also fits with the fact that we know Peter is addressing churches in Asia Minor.  A pronoun without connection to a person or name would more naturally connect to another church.  In fact, the description of being chosen together with the recipients of the letter further strengthens the idea of “she” referring to the local church in Peter’s location.

It wasn’t until later that the idea was floated that “she” could refer to Peter’s wife.  The problem with this is that she is never mentioned in the letter, and it would not be the most natural interpretation of Peter’s words.

Just as the early church referred to each other as brothers and sisters (spiritually), churches were commonly referred to as sisters.  This ties into the Hebrew usage in the Old Testament of the current citizens of a city being the daughters of the city (seen as a mother), e.g., the daughters of Jerusalem etc.

Another example of this in the New Testament is in 2 John 1:13. “The children of your elect sister send you greetings.”  The current believers who make up the chosen sister church where I am at send you greetings. 

I think it is most natural and most fitting with the evidence of history to see this as a reference to the believers of a particular church.

The second question in the above phrase is the identity of Babylon.  Is this a literal reference to Babylon or is it a symbolic reference to Rome?

The earliest evidence we have that still exists is from around AD 313.  Eusebius in his Church History cites an earlier work from Papias.  He states that Papias had written a five-volume work called Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord.  Eusebius claims that Papias, along with other early church fathers, believed Babylon in verse 13 to be a symbolic reference to Rome.

We should also note that there is no known counterclaim that literal Babylon was intended.  Thus, the evidence of history at this point would be on the side of a symbolic reference to Rome.

However, it is not implausible that Peter could have gone to literal Babylon.  There was a large Jewish community in Babylon that eventually became the source for the Babylonian Talmud.  It would make sense that the Apostle to the Jews could be sent by the Holy Spirit to testify there.  Yet, there is no evidence from history that states such.  It is simply a conjecture that could only be substantiated if we assume Babylon is literal here.

John has a similar thing in the Revelation of Jesus Christ.  There is a reference to “Mystery Babylon” which sits on seven hills.  The testimony of the early church is that this referred to Rome.

Babylon was prophesied against by the Old Testament prophets.  But, a close reading of those prophecies will note that Babylon comes to be treated as a Symbol or a System that is created by a rebellious spirit behind it.  This spirit of empire and domination by wicked spirits is used of an end-time city/powerhouse that will be destroyed by the Beast.

Why has this become an issue?  The Reformation led to many arguments between Protestants and Roman Catholics.  A main contention between them had to do with the authority of the Pope.  Did God give him authority to command all the Church of God on earth?  Roman Catholics say yes and Protestants say no.

In arguing these cases, several lines of arguments cross this verse.  The Roman Catholics point to Peter as being the Rock (foundation) of the Church.  They also claim that he was the first Bishop of Rome.  He then handed his authority down to the next Bishop upon his death.  They then claim an unbroken line of succession from Peter to the current Pope.  The authority of Peter belongs to the current Pope.

Protestants may argue against Peter ever being in Rome, except perhaps at his execution.  They will also argue that Peter was never a bishop in Rome, definitely not the first bishop.  In fact, the New Testament never speaks of Peter going to Rome.  Even when Paul goes to Rome at the end of Acts, it already has a church of believers there.  If there were not already a bishop of this church, then he would have definitely set some faithful elders into those positions, as was his way among all the churches he started.  Peter is not mentioned as residing there.  He is most likely still in Jerusalem or that region.

Regardless of all of the above, Protestants can be polarized into believing that they have to believe this is literal Babylon in order to prove the argument of the Romanists wrong.  I believe this is a fallacy.  Regardless of whether this is a symbolic reference to Rome or a literal reference to Babylon, this does not matter with the argument over Papal succession and authority.  The truth is the truth, and men are quite capable of taking a true statement and using it to substantiate a false claim.  It is the claim that is false and not the statement used to support it.

Ultimately, it has no bearing on our faith where Peter is writing this letter.

Peter then gives them greetings from “my son, Mark.”  Mark is not his literal son, but his son spiritually.  This is the nephew of Barnabas who abandoned Paul’s first missionary journey into Asia Minor.  He eventually became a helper with Barnabas and then later with Peter.  Mark with Peter was similar to the way Timothy was for Paul, a younger minister that aided them in their ministry.

This Mark is the same one who wrote the Gospel of Mark.  Mark was too young to know all that Jesus did, but his Gospel has historically been described as the account of Jesus from Peter’s perspective.

Peter takes advantage of the greetings that he gives in order to remind them to greet one another with the kiss of love.  Now, the kiss of love is the opposite of the kiss of betrayal given by Judas to Jesus.  The kiss of betrayal is a superficial pretense that covers wickedness underneath.  Christians are to greet one another with a kiss of love, not hypocrisy. 

Of course, how cultures greet one another are various.  It was common in those days to kiss on the cheek those you meet.  In our culture, we might say to greet one another with a handshake of love.  We should not be outward jerks to one another, but neither should we be fake with one another.  Christians must do the inner work of being able to love other Christians.

Personality clashes and events that happen between two people can muddy the waters of our love for one another.  It takes forgiveness and repentance for a group too remain in the love of Christ for one another.

Finally, Peter blesses them by saying, “Peace be unto you all who are in Christ.”  The Christian has peace with God because they have believed upon the One that He has sent to save us.  When we embrace Jesus, we are no longer enemies to God, and He is no longer an enemy to us.  If this is rightly understood and believed, it gives a person an inner sense of peace by the Holy Spirit regardless of the chaos and threats of suffering that surround them.  It is a peace that passes all understanding.  If you know that you are okay (right) with God, then the threats and slander of men are easier to ignore.

Yet, Peace also describes the eternal purpose of God for those who belong to Jesus by faith.  We are in Christ like Noah and his family were in the ark.  Judgment is coming upon this earth, but the one who believes and follows Christ is in the safe place that God has provided for them.  Jesus is not just a way to avoid judgment.  He is one with whom we have a relationship through the Holy Spirit.

Our challenge is to hold fast the proven and true Word of God we have received from faithful believers before us.  Yet, that word teaches us how to know the Lord Jesus and how to follow him.  May we stay faithful to Jesus, the Faithful One, until the end of our life!

Closing Words audio