The Victory of the Cross

Mark 8:34-38.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Easter Sunday, April 01, 2018.

It is no secret that Christians see the cross of Jesus as a moment of incredible victory for Him and for us.  It is that moment of overturning what looks like sure defeat.  It is truly a snatching of victory from the jaws of defeat.  However, it is easier to get excited about His victory at the cross than it is to think about what that victory would mean in my life.

In this life it is ingrained into us by our own thoughts and desires that winning looks a particular way.  Young people who want a particular yummy item and continue to whine and beg for it are filled with the elation of victory when an adult finally surrenders and gives them what they want.  When that special someone agrees to go on a date, a young person feels that joy of success.  When our job application is accepted for that job we have wanted so badly, we are pumped and on cloud nine.  Marriage, children, cars and houses, all of these things are arenas in which our mind and body seek to be victorious and feel the joys of winning.  In all of these, we fall into the trap of believing that success is getting what our flesh desires and wants.  But Jesus taught us that to live for such a purpose, and to “win” by such a definition, is no victory at all.  It is only a deeper and deeper entrapment of our soul into a prison cell from which we will never escape, that is unless we take up our cross and follow Jesus.

This is why the Apostle Paul could rejoice when he said, “Now thanks to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.”  2 Corinthians 2:14.  When Christians actually pick up their cross and follow Jesus, it brings forth a different kind of victory that has little to do with how our flesh “feels” about things.  So as we think about the victory that Christ obtained at the cross during Easter weekend, let us recognize that Jesus is asking us to walk with him in this new, strange victory that He is giving us.

Jesus has called you to Himself.

Verse 34 opens with the phrase that Jesus called the people to Himself.  Now the story of Jesus and His coming into the world is a miraculous story all the way around.  But the biggest miracle is not the virgin birth, or a resurrection from the dead, although these are amazingly great.  The greatest miracle is that the Creator steps down into our world and comes to our side as someone that we can see and with whom we can identify.  Yes, I can’t identify with a virgin birth.  But, I can identify with a child who is under the threat of people who hate his existence and call him an illegitimate child.  I can’t identify with a resurrected Lord, but I can identify with the man who was hated, pilloried, and publicly crucified by those around him.  Maybe I cannot identify at the same level of experience, but definitely I can identify with the same level of vulnerability. 

Having stepped into our world, Jesus calls us to Himself.  He draws us to Himself.  This is the heart of God.  It may appear that He has not cared about you and has given all the gifts to others.  But the reality of Jesus and the cross forever calls us away from envy, jealousy, and the striving of this world.  In Jesus God is calling us to Himself.  But, why does He call us to Himself?

First we see Jesus giving those who came to him teaching or understanding.  God is a teacher at heart.  In Jesus He has stepped into a world of people who keep striving to win, but have little understanding about how to truly win in life.  He steps in and offers us teaching, understanding, and wisdom.  But God wants to do more than download information into our heads.  There are many who only see the teachings of Christ as a kind of ideological virus.  Yet, being a Christian is about more than a particular understanding about life.

Jesus calls us to Himself because He also wants to have a relationship with us.  We were not created by God to live in isolation of Him.  When we live our lives only to please ourselves, we become like a little child with our head down at Christmas playing with the toys and ignoring the parents who sacrificed to buy those toys.  God has created a world full of pleasures and joys.  But it is our selfishness and lack of relationship with The One who created it all that fills such a world with pain and suffering.  Come and have a relationship with The One who redefined what it means to win, The One who took the things of this life to a whole new level, a level that included The Creator who made it all.  You were not intended to go through life alone, and that is why The Creator is calling you to Himself.  He wants you to know His love for you.

Jesus has called you to follow Him.

Relationship is not just emotions and feelings.  It is also a continual, living connection.  Our relationship with God through Jesus is not intended to be a once a year thing at Easter, or a once a week thing on Sunday.  Jesus is calling us to become followers of Him, to follow Him to a particular destination.  Such a connection will affect the physical places to which you go throughout the week, but it is more than that.  Jesus is going on to victory, and he invites us to join Him on this journey.  Last week I said that Jesus offered Himself as the King of Israel, but not in a way that satisfied their fleshly desires.  The same is true in this situation.  Jesus offers Himself as a captain or leader who will take us on to victory, but not in a way that satisfies our fleshly desires.  He says that He will lead us to victory, but He marches towards a cross.  Can you trust such a leader?  Your flesh can’t and won’t.  Are you more than your fleshly desires?  It is as if Jesus walks through a cross-shaped doorway and then beckons you to follow Him through it.  Every part of your flesh shrinks back, not because it doesn’t want victory, but because it cannot conceive of such a doorway leading to any victory that it wants.

Jesus tells the people gathered that if they want to follow Him then they are going to have to do some things first.  They will have to deny themselves in order to follow Him.  It would be appropriate to use the situation where the disciple Peter denied Jesus to analyze this statement.  On the night that Jesus was arrested, Peter followed the soldiers to the High Priest’s compound.  He stayed out in the courtyard trying to find out what would happen to Jesus.  Someone recognizes Peter as a follower of Jesus, which leads him to declare that he did not know the man.  Remember that earlier Peter had boasted that if everyone left Jesus, Peter alone would stand beside him.  Here was his moment.  The moment where the dreams of Peter’s flesh (to be the faithful disciple that is better than all the rest) meets the hard reality of what it really takes to be such a person.  Such a person has to make a hard choice about what desire to satisfy.  Yes, the flesh wants fame and glory, but it doesn’t want suffering, hardship, and crucifixion.  Denying ourselves is seeing Jesus and the desire of our flesh side by side and choosing to stand with Jesus, not our fleshly desire.  Denying ourselves is to allow the desire that we want so badly to be drug off and crucified, instead of Jesus.  In life, when I encounter a problem in following Jesus, like when my flesh want to choose the easy path, but Jesus is telling me that victory lies on another path, precisely at that point is where I will either deny Jesus or myself.  It is not enough to agree with Jesus on 99 points, but refuse to follow on 1.  It is not a denial of our flesh to follow Jesus in the areas where we agree with Him.  No, it is only a denial when my flesh pulls the other direction and tempts me to say that we are done with the man Jesus.  I can’t have both Jesus and the desires of my flesh.  When Jesus says to love your enemy, my flesh laughs and calls such things foolishness.  My flesh says that I can’t win by going that direction.  To follow Jesus and live by His principles or mindset is to say no to ourselves and to say yes to Him.  It is to take our place beside Him and say, “Crucify me too.”

This is why Jesus adds that we will need to pick up our cross in order to follow Him.  This image was literal for Him and many disciples in that first century.  However, the cross is a metaphor for our own personal death to self.  Each person will have to pick up their personal cross (notice he does not say that we will need to pick up his cross).  Denying yourself is not some kind of asceticism where we remove all sensory pleasures from our life.  Rather, it is about picking up that particular cross that has our name on it.  It is about denying those things that are standing in the way of following Jesus and obeying Him.  So what was standing in the way of Jesus’ victory?  Perhaps the desire to raise up a mob and throw out the corrupt religious leaders.  He would also need to raise up an army and miraculously lead it to victory over the Romans so that Herod could be deposed, and Jesus take his place.  He had to die to taking over the world and becoming its emperor and forcing the world into His thinking underneath a boot to the face.  Jesus had crucified such fleshly desires internally before He was ever nailed to the cross.  He had to die to all those natural desires to stay alive, vindicate yourself, and strike down your enemies.  Instead he loved his enemies and blessed them even as He was dying (Father, forgive them.  They don’t know what they are doing.)

But the real question for each one of us is this.  What is standing in the way of me following Jesus?  Clearly it is not a Roman oppression and worldly-minded Pharisees/Sadducees.  Perhaps it is your reputation that you will have to die to.  Perhaps the things that you know you will have to quit doing or even start doing that are standing in the way of following Him.  Is it forgiving someone who has hurt you deeply?  Your flesh tells you that victory in these areas cannot possibly be found in following the cross-path which Jesus has blazed.  If you are trying to hold on to both Jesus and these conflicting desires then you will find that the tension will increase until you are about to be pulled in two.  At some point you will choose one master and hate the other.  Which will you deny?  Can I choose the path that looks like losing, simply because Jesus is going there?  That is the challenge.

Jesus has called you to victory.

Even though we are called to follow Jesus to our own particular cross, the cross is not our final destination.  It is only a critical waypoint.  Jesus does have a real victory that He is offering us, both in this life and in the life to come.  Thus one of the favorite descriptions used of Christians in the book of Revelation is “overcomer.”  To deny ourselves, pick up our cross and persevere in following Jesus throughout this life is called overcoming the world.  Yes, our victory is mainly a spiritual victory over the lies of our flesh and the lies of this world.  However, it leads to something much more.

But, let’s look at the spiritual part first.  Jesus asked the question, “What will it profit a man to obtain the whole world and lose his own soul?”  Think about what he is implying.  Every time that a person chooses the path of pleasing the flesh over the top of pleasing our Creator, we lose a little piece of our soul.  We were not designed to have “pleasing the flesh” as our purpose in life.  The body was to be a tool that our soul used in this life, rather than our soul becoming a tool of the body.  When we live that way, we little by little give up a piece of our soul.  Something inside of us dies and we lose the freedom and authority that we had over ourselves.  We find ourselves, little by little, coming under the tyranny of this body that is slowly wasting away.

Another way to think of this is to remember the words of Jesus in Luke 21:19.  “By your perseverance, take possession of your souls.”  Jesus uses terminology that hints at Israel coming into the Promised Land.  It had giants that had taken over the territory.  If they wanted it, they would have to trust God to help them win the battles.  Similarly, we have lost territory in our souls by serving the flesh.  When we come to Christ, He challenges us to fight these giant strongholds of fleshly desires by His Spirit.  By persevering with our faith in Christ, we will have the victory, which is to have back our own soul.  The truth will set you free.  Now, even when the teacher has taught you how to win, it is not easy to follow through.   Perseverance is that part that keeps going when every other part wants to quit.  It is easy to start following Jesus, but it is difficult to stay with Him all the way.  Yet, in so doing, you will find that God gives you back your soul.  There will be a life within you that replaces the deadness inside.  This is a true victory that we can have in this life.

But the victory is not just a spiritual or unseen victory.  Jesus has called us to receive glory and honor at the day of Judgment.  Jesus actually rose up out of the grave, presented himself to over 500 people at various times over the course of 40 days, and then ascended into heaven in front of their eyes.  In verse 38 Jesus puts the stakes in a negative light.  If we choose to satisfy our flesh then there is a day of judgment when Jesus returns with His holy angels.  Those who lived for their flesh and denied Jesus will find shame and disgrace.  But those who picked up their cross and followed Him will find glory and victory.

The cynic will reply that Jesus hasn’t come back yet, and chances increasingly are that He never will.  But life teaches us that there is always a day of reckoning.  You can avoid it your whole life, but eventually the truth catches up with you.  Only a fool tells themselves that they can cut the corners, serve only their self, and get away with it (i.e. be victorious).  Jesus stands on the other side of the cross and beckons us to walk through it to victory.  This strange door causes our flesh to fear, but it is the path to true victory.

Victory of the Cross Audio

The Flesh Profits Nothing

Mark 11:7-26.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on March 25, 2018.

Today we remember the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem the week before he was crucified.  In some ways it looks like a victorious thing we should be excited about, yet in other ways, it represents a clear defeat of mankind’s ability to follow God in truth.  Yes, many people publicly embraced Jesus as the Messiah that day.  But over the course of the following days they were unable to follow the Spirit of God because they were operating according to the desires of their flesh, rather than the desires of the Spirit of God.  Of course, God knew this was the case and therefore had worked it into His plan to use the fleshly desires of mankind (and even fallen cherubim) in accomplishing His plan.  This doesn’t make these things good or acceptable.  The crucifixion of Jesus still stands as the most reprehensible action of mankind and the devil and his angels.  There is no absolving ourselves by claiming it was the will of God because those who participated in the crucifixion of Jesus did so in answer to their flesh, not the Spirit of God.

Jesus made it clear that he was doing a spiritual work that was directed by the Spirit of God.  He said in John 6:63,

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.  The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”  

I want to highlight this concept.  Following the flesh will not benefit you in any way.  It is only in hearing and following the Spirit that we can benefit.  I do not say this to exclude physical things.  We can grow up, marry, raise children and work as a person who follows the Spirit of God, rather than one who follows the desires of their flesh.

On this amazing day, Jesus finally quits beating around the bush (from the perspective of the average person in Israel) and presents himself as God’s Anointed One, the King of Israel.  However, we must take note that Jesus does not present himself in a way that would satisfy the flesh of those who were celebrating that day.

The same is true today.  We declare that Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords to the people of this nation and world.  However, we must follow the Spirit of God and not the desires of our flesh (i.e. be born again) if we are to enter the Kingdom of God.

He appears to do nothing.

We are picking up the story mid-stream.  Each day more and more people are swelling the population of Jerusalem, and the surrounding area, in preparation for the coming Feast of Passover.  On top of this is the growing anticipation of this man Jesus.  Will he show up?  Is this the year Messiah appears and delivers us from the Romans?  When Jesus comes down the Mt. of Olives, opposite the temple, riding on the back of a donkey, it was an unmistakable signal to the people that Jesus was presenting Himself as their king.  The prophecies of Zechariah spoke about the Messiah and His work.

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!  Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!  Behold your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.  I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem; the battle bow shall be cut off.  He shall speak peace to the nations; His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea, and from The River to the ends of the earth.’ “  Zechariah 9:9-10.

Yes the stories of all that Jesus did around the country had stirred up an anticipation that he would step into the role of Israel’s messianic king.  He has avoided this up to this point.  But, now he clearly accepts the role that the prophets had declared and publicly offers himself to Israel.

Yet, what we will see in the following events, both that day and in the days to follow, is that there is an anticlimactic feel.  This is the high point, but everything continues to unravel over the next days and culminates with the crowds crying, “Crucify him,” and then the death of Jesus on the cross.  Mark seems to highlight this anticlimactic feel.  Everything builds up in the story.  Jesus enters Jerusalem and goes directly to the temple.  He then looks around at everything (with everyone watching him with bated breath).  Yet, Jesus simply leaves, “as the hour was already late, He went out to Bethany with the twelve.”  Why the grand entrance into Jerusalem, fulfilling prophecy, only to look around and leave?  Why did he come so late in the day?

This should be a clue to us that Jesus is doing something more than offering himself to Israel as the Messiah.  This timing issue ought to catch our attention.  Is it not true that God often seems to come “too late” for our tastes?  Are not we tempted to just give up and walk away because He appears to do nothing?  Yet, when we think God is doing nothing, we are wrong.  We have to learn to see with the eyes of the Spirit, rather than the eyes of our flesh.  We need the eyes of faith in God rather than faith in the flesh and what we see.  God is always working by His Spirit.  If He comes late in the day, it is because that is precisely the best time to come for the things of the Spirit, but not for the desires of our flesh.

Mark emphasizes that Jesus looked around at everything.  In light of the fact that he will come back the next day and “clean house,” we must see this as a kind of inspection.  Rather than doing nothing, Jesus is inspecting the temple that belongs to Him, the temple that he had commanded Israel to build along with the instructions of what to do there.  Were they focused on the purposes and plan of God in what they did there?  The irony of the situation is that as they are being inspected by The Lord of Glory, they presume to be “inspecting him.”  Be careful that you are not so critical of Jesus and the Christians who follow him that you miss the fact that you too are being inspected by God.  If He uses the same criteria of fleshly judgment against you that you use against him, will you survive? 

Jesus leaves exactly when you would expect something big to happen.  Our flesh does not like that sort of thing.  If we don’t get the “bang for our buck” then we feel like we are cheated.  God will never allow us to turn Him into our personal “God machine.”  You know; where you put in a certain amount of effort or money and get what you ordered by 3 PM the next day (or with Amazon Air within 30 minutes).  Not only does our flesh profit nothing, it cannot recognize a spiritual profit when it is staring it in the face.  We must recognize this critical point about ourselves as humans.  We have to learn to recognize that God often operates in a way that is a rebuke to our flesh, and simultaneously a call of the Spirit to follow Him.

He rejects the empty, religious practices of the day.

Now look at verses 12-19.  I ask you to put the verses about the fig tree on hold so that we can deal with them later.  However, after spending the night in a neighboring village called Bethany, Jesus and his disciples come back to Jerusalem and go to the temple the next day.  When Jesus gets there, he tosses the money changers out, and forces those selling sheep and doves to get everything out of the temple grounds.  Why does Jesus do this?  He is confronting the empty, religious practices of his day.

The temple had turned into a convenience store for religious people.  They could come from anywhere in the world, purchase a sacrifice in the temple, and not have to bother themselves with any of that nasty work of touching them (except for a ceremonial touch).  The problem was not that they purchased the sheep.  This was acceptable.  But that this was being done in a place that was not meant to be a commercial place that focused on the comfort of the “worshipper.”  This conflation of the sacred and the common (commerce is not evil, but neither does it have place in the sacred), has forever been a bane to humanity.  Today, we can be in jeopardy of turning churches into a means of making money off of those who are in our niche market, all by satisfying the desires of the religious people who gather, which are superficially spiritual desires, but at their depths are only fleshly desires dressed up as spiritual desires).  It becomes a type of “spiritual transaction” in which those in the pew pay in order to have their conscience assuaged.  This is a dangerous undermining of the true purpose of the place of worship.

The true purpose of the temple was to be a place where people could approach God in order to deal with their sin, but also, to fellowship with Him.  It was a place to celebrate His appointed feasts and to rejoice in His kingship over them.  The flesh turns religion into a marketplace of hyperactivity that loses sight of what the Spirit of God is trying to accomplish.  The flesh is hostile to the purposes of God and will always choose one of two paths: active rejection or passive repurposing.  Jesus is reminding them that the true purpose of the temple was to be a place of prayer (i.e. interaction between people and God) for all nations.

He does not confront the Romans.

We won’t spend a lot of time on this.  But, it is worth noting that Jesus did not even lift a finger towards removing this occupying force.  He did not raise an army, or connect with the zealots of the day in order to raise up a rebellion.  There was no great battle of Messiah vs. the Romans that week.  This was an added consternation to those whose flesh badly wanted free of the Romans, but not necessarily their sins.

The lesson of The Withered Fig Tree

Verses 20-26 bring us back to the fig tree that was mentioned earlier.  It is important to recognize that these two interactions with this fig tree are like bookends to the actions of Jesus in the temple.  So what about this?

When Jesus and his disciples were traveling into Jerusalem, Jesus saw a fig tree in the distance that had leaves on it.  It was common for travelers to eat from food that was found along the road.  As long as it wasn’t in an enclosure, it was considered common fare.  The fig tree is different from some fruit trees in that it will fruit first and then grow leaves.  Thus the leaves on this tree give the appearance that there is fruit to be had.  It represents something that promises fruit from a distance.  It is clear that this interaction with the fig tree is intended to be a parable for something.  So we must dig deeper to discern the spiritual truth that Jesus is trying to teach his disciples and us.  As I said earlier, it is obvious that Mark understood the events of the fig tree to be connected to the cleansing of the temple.

The fig tree that promises fruit from afar has none upon closer inspection.  Jesus draws near, but finds no dates on the fig tree.  The inspection of the fig tree is parallel to the inspection of the temple that Jesus had done the night before.  The shouting crowds surrounding Jerusalem and the temple activity all gave the appearance of a people who were obedient to the Lord and were righteously awaiting his coming.  Like the fig tree, it would appear that Israel was faithfully serving the Lord and waiting for His deliverance, but it was superficial.  In truth, most of their hearts were following fleshly desires.  Only a remnant of the people would follow the Spirit of God over the course of the next 40 years.  And, only a remnant would escape the destruction that was coming upon this fig tree that God had planted in the land.

Now we can focus on the fact that it wasn’t prime fig season, yet.  However, this plant put forth the outward appearances that it was fruitful, when all the other fig trees were not.  This signifies all who are easily drawn into religion by their flesh.  We can fall into the trap of thinking that we are fruitful because we gather at a particular place, at a particular time, and do a particular set of rituals.  But the real thing that prepares us for God comes from listening to the Holy Spirit and following Him.  There were some who had fruit in those days, just as there are some who have fruit today.  But, God is not looking for an outward show that has lost the true inner purpose of His Spirit.  If you lack the fruit of the Spirit of God then humble yourself and cry out to Him for His presence and salvation in your life.  But under no circumstances should you pretend that you are okay with God, when you are not.  Those who do so have nothing to expect from God, but a curse and His judgment that they are unacceptable.  Jesus does not curse the fig tree because his flesh is angered that it won’t get food.  He does so to teach us a spiritual lesson that the outward show of religion that lacks the fruit of the Spirit of God is ripe for judgment from God.

It is easy to think that Jesus simply takes time to teach on prayer all of the sudden.  But, his comments about prayer are directly tied to the fig tree.  We need to understand the role of faith in our spiritual life as a follower of God.  That which is by faith will live, but that which is by the flesh will die and benefit us nothing.  The flesh tells us that the path of faith won’t work, but the Spirit faithfully calls us to pick up our cross and follow Jesus.  When we cling to our sins over the top of the call of the Holy Spirit, our flesh becomes blind and calloused to what the Spirit of God is saying.  The Pharisees could only see that Jesus was trespassing upon their authority.  Who did He think He was?  They were so offended in the flesh that they could not hear the Spirit saying, “Israel, behold your king!”  In truth it was the Pharisees and the Sadducees who were the true trespassers.  Their right to represent God before the people was only authoritative as long as they actually represented Him, and not the desires of their flesh.  We must learn to let go of what others have done to us, and follow the Spirit of God, rather than the spirit of fear and offense.  Only then can we escape becoming a fig tree that offers false hope to God and ends up withered and dead.

Flesh Profits Nothing audio

The Cry of 'No H8'- II

Galatians 5:19-21; Proverbs 26:24-28; 1 Peter 4:7-8.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 08, 2017.

Last week we talked about the Christians duty to love their enemies and to reject hatred.  We are called to live our lives by the truth and the love of Jesus.  This is easier said than done when destructive events happen in the life of an individual or a group.  If we were to investigate the roots of those destructive events within the perpetrators, without doubt we would find hatred in all its forms.  Many events are physically destructive: bombings, shootings, kidnappings, etc.  But, hatred may also target a person for political destruction, relational destruction, destroying someone’s business life, or social standing within any group.  These things can be just as devastating in the life of those affected as if someone had tossed a bomb into our life.

Those who suffer at the hands of hate can easily give in to the desire of the heart to hate back and to get even.  Why does Jesus teach that this is wrong, and even further that we must love them?  Well, let’s go under the hood of hatred (so to speak) and walk through some of the biblical reasons why God is dead set against using hatred to accomplish justice.

Hatred is a work of the flesh

In Galatians 5:19-21 we are given a list that is referred to as “the works of the flesh.”  This list is contrasted with the “fruit of the Spirit.”  Hatred is in the first list, which is clearly not exhaustive.  Thus the source of hatred cannot be found in the Spirit of God.  It is found within the sinful nature of us humans.  We are the source.  It is easy to blame everything, but ourselves.  However, God’s Word does not leave that option open to us.

Last week we defined hate as an intense ill-will towards another person or group.  Though this is a motivation of the heart, it always leads to outward actions of some sort, even if it is merely avoidance.  So when a person first embraces the inner advances of hatred, it may seem innocent and justified at the time because we haven’t done anything, yet.  Human courts at this point in time do not hold people accountable for thoughts and feelings.  In fact it would be impossible to do without error at this time.  They are held accountable when the hatred breaks out into an illegal action.  Yet, God has gone on record that he will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ (Romans 2:16).  So we should not sit comfortably just because we “haven’t done anything.”  God calls us to a higher “righteousness” than not doing certain things.  Like a seed, hatred will not remain static.  It is extremely industrious and your flesh will keep pushing you until the wicked fruit of hatred is brought to maturity.

Now, the problem here cannot be solved with a law.  No law, whether from God, or mankind can get rid of all hatred.  We would have to get rid of all people.   Scientists are working on ways to figure out how to read people’s minds and thoughts.  But even if we were able to identify it with our technology, the truth is that all people at one time or another have thoughts or feelings of hatred.  There is much in our inner life that surface in our heart and yet we mentally reject as acceptable and something we want to embrace.  We would have to have a world where everyone is connected to an Artificial Intelligence that can alert the authorities to an outbreak of hatred within a person.  Such a world would be chaos instantly.  God’s Word does not point us back to the Law as a solution for our salvation.  The Law is helpful for helping us to see that we have problems.  But, it is powerless to help us heal or to give salvation.  At the best we can only cut off those actions of hate that rise above the surface.  However, the roots will grow increasingly large under the surface.  Your flesh wants to hate.  It will be drawn to that direction.  But, the Holy Spirit wants to lead you towards loving people in truth.  So the answer is to repent of our sins and turn to the Spirit of God for direction.  It requires saying, “No!” to our flesh and, “Yes!” to the Spirit of God.  Yet, even this is not the foundation of our salvation.  The foundation of our salvation is the fact that Jesus paid the price for our hatred and other sins at the cross.  Those who repent of their self-justified life and put their faith in Jesus have their guilt removed from them.  They are freed to follow the Holy Spirit and become progressively more like Jesus.  Now let’s look at a couple of proverbs to help us pull apart some of the inner workings of hatred.

Hatred deceives everyone

In Proverbs 26:24-28, we are reminded that hatred is deceptive.  When it happens in our heart, we embrace a life of deceiving others.  Because we fear others knowing what is in our heart and mind, we become deceptive in our life with others.  This can be simply for tactical advantage, or it can be because we know it is wrong and we fear others knowing about it.  Thus we are told that hatred masks itself or disguises itself.  We create a false persona towards those we hate, but it is often impossible to separate this false persona from the people we love.  Pretended love, pretended fellowship, pretended concern for truth, justice, and the good of all, are all deceits that make things worse for all.  Yet, it looks loving on the surface.

In verse 24 we are told that the hater “lays up deceit within himself.”  Hate is a growing thing that we can harbor in our heart.  Every day a person can be making more and more deposits of hateful thoughts and emotions.  You cannot harbor these things without deceiving yourself.  You may at first understand that there is something wrong with hating.  But if we allow it to remain and grow we will become hardened to love and become convinced of the “noble causes of justice” that our hatred drives us to pursue.

We are also told that those who plot the harm of others will eventually be caught in their own plots.  Like Haman in the book of Esther, they will be hung on the gallows that they made for someone else.  I know that there are people who are consumed with hate and seem to get away with it all the time.  They have mastered the art of hatred.  However, it will get them in the end.  Don’t let yourself be fooled.  If you pursue a life of ill-will towards another, no matter how justified, you will find yourself standing before a holy God who will be just as stern with you.  Hatred promised you justice, but didn’t tell you that you would also be hung on your own petard.

Hatred stirs up strife and discord

Another proverb about hate versus love is found in chapter 10, verse 12.  The Apostle Peter quotes part of this proverb in 1 Peter 4:7-8.  So we will look at both. Here is the proverb.  “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins.”  Proverbs 10:12.  This statement about hate is very straightforward.  It will not leave well enough alone.  It stirs up strife and discord, first within the individual that gives in to it and second among those around us, who are often innocent bystanders.

Why is hatred so discordant?  It is because hatred has the ability to watch people like a hawk, and to watch the situation for any favorable edge to bring about the demise of another.  It seeks any occasion: of fault for accusation, of open ears for gossip, and of imagining the worst motives for others.  It does not remain solely focused on those who initially stirred it up within us.  Like a wounded animal, hate becomes a weapon and way of life that lashes out at anyone who gets too close.  Any person who is willing to listen becomes a sounding board for our inner discourse.  This litany of errors of the other person may have some truths in it, but hate drives us to propagandize such errors into far more than they usually are.  It always consumes us with the worst possible motives of our target.  In this sense hatred truly becomes neurotic.  For every time it is correct in its analysis, there are dozens of errors in our own thinking, and harsh judgments.

In this way hatred is the opposite of a peacemaker.  In the beatitudes Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the Sons of God.”  This will not be true for the person who embraces hate.  Instead of being a source of life and hope in a situation, the person of hate makes it worse and cuts off all hope of making peace.  They have become not like Christ, but more like the devil.  Now the passage in 1 Peter 4 only quotes the love side of this proverb.  He reminds believers that love covers a multitude of sins.  This is not the same as covering up sins.  This is not about avoidance, but about forgiveness.  Love forgives and moves on.  But hatred will never forgive and never moves on.  Peter warns believers that the end of all things is at hand, or near.  In other words, he is reminding them to love because the time of judgment is near.  Hatred makes us blind to our own coming judgment.  We can only see the judgment that we desire on the other person or group.  The judgment of God is coming upon this entire world, and we will want to be on the right side of that judgment.  The ends you were pursuing will not justify the means of hatred that you employed when you stand before Jesus.  Only the person who has trusted His way and followed the Spirit of God, who rejected hate and embraced love, who let the words of life flow through them to be a channel of the life of God, will be justified in that day.  Hatred blinds us to just how ugly our own sin is, and how dangerous a position we are in before God.  We become like the man, whom God forgave a gazillion sins, who then goes out to not forgive another who has sinned against us 100 times.  We undercut the mercy of God by our own lack of mercy.  It is only just that a person who has fed on hatred their whole life, be given hatred at the moment of their own judgment.

Peter also mentions the need for serious prayer.  The prayer is called serious in the sense that it is sober.  The restraint is in reference to our flesh and inner life.  God is not interested in prayer as a movement of your lips and the recitation of particular words.  He wants serious, sober prayers that are honestly wrestling with the inner life in response to the Word of God and the conviction of the Holy Spirit.  If you have been injured and hurt, do not embrace hurt.  Rather, through prayer, lay your petition before God.  Through prayer, calm your tumultuous heart so that you can talk with others about what has been done to you.  Through prayer, reject the tendrils of hate that seductively wrap themselves around your heart and let God’s Spirit replace it with His love.  Ask God to help you to guard your own heart and to love as He loved.  Trust completely in the justice that He has promised all who follow Him, rather than the deceptive promise that hatred gives to us.

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Living Honorably In This World

Generally, we talk about honor only when we are referencing the military.  However, in 1 Peter 2:11-12 all Christians are called to live honorable lives.  What is honor?  At the root of honor is the concept of value.  We ought to live in a way that is good and valuable to society, regardless of whether that value is recognized.  To have honor in a dishonorable society is a unique pickle.  True honor is not defined by what the crowd values.  It is inherently valuable and “ought” to be valued by all men.

It is precisely this situation that Peter talks to in this passage.

Living Honorably Begins With The Inner Battle

Verse 11 points out that there is a battle that goes on inside of each believer.  God is not interested in people who appear to have value, like a kind of “fool’s gold.”  Rather, he wants our outward honor to come from battles that have been won inside.  If we try to act honorable without having fought those inner battles we will not have true honor, nor will our conduct truly make a difference.  It will eventually implode because it lacks foundation, and we all know that foundations are valuable.

First he calls them “beloved.”  This is important because in verses 9 and 10 he had reminded them of the book of Hosea.  They were like the adulterous Gomer that had sold herself into slavery to follow her adulteries.  Yet, Hosea, who represents God, had purchased her back to himself from the auction block.  Imagine that guys or gals.  What if you had to go buy your wife or husband back because they had purposefully sold themselves into prostitution?  Would you do it?  God has done that for us.  Those who were not loved through Jesus now become “Loved.”  You are loved by God and therefore should be loved by his people.  You have been given a place in his family.  Like a concerned older brother, Peter “begs” them to fight this inner battle.  He is coming alongside them and urging them towards the good and warning them against the bad.  No matter how this inner battle goes, we need to always keep in mind that if we have believed in Jesus then we are God’s beloved.

Next he reminds them that they are foreigners and strangers.  If you follow Jesus and fight this inner battle then you are going to stick out as strange in the cultures of this world.  Like any foreigner living in a foreign land we can forget our heritage and be assimilated.  Though this is not evil in the natural sense, it is bad spiritually.  In a world that is not fighting the “inner battle,” we stick out when we do.  It can be easy to give up and be assimilated.

So what exactly is this war?  Peter says that the lusts, or strong desires, that are based in our fleshly bodies war against our soul.  Did you ever think that your 5 senses are being used by your lusts to fight against your soul?  What would you be willing to sell your soul for?  What is your price?  The faith in Jesus that resides in your soul is hated by the lusts of the flesh.  Like a little baby that is used to getting its way, it screams and fights for control.  But unlike a little baby, the lusts of the flesh are able to kill faith and destroy our soul.  Jesus said in Luke 21:19 that when we are going through trying times we can take possession of our soul by being patient.  Trusting God in the fire and knowing that he will bring you through; waiting on God beside the Red Sea and knowing that he has a plan of deliverance; these are the things that are the valuables of our soul.

Peter says that they need to abstain from the lusts.  Literally, we should create a separation between us and them.  This tactical maneuver is meant to protect our faith and not lose our soul.  Joseph does this literally when Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce him.  In our lives we have many outward temptations, but they are working through inner lusts.  If a computer is a temptation to let sexual lusts take over then what are some means that we can do to abstain and separate ourselves from that temptation?  Lust always tells us that “Jesus isn’t enough.”  It tells you that you need something that God says you don’t.  Or, that you don’t need something that God says you do.  Boiling it all down, it is the same argument as Satan used in the Garden with Eve.  Leave God behind and satisfy yourself.

Let me remind you of the gospel, good news, of Jesus Christ.  Before you ever get to doing something good for God, you already have all that you need in Jesus.  When you put your faith in Jesus and follow him, you have all wisdom, power, joy, love, hope, and anything else that you will ever need.  Jesus is the wisdom of God, the power of God, the joy of God, the love of God, etc…  To have Jesus is to have everything you will ever need.  This simple truth can be forgotten by those who fall to temptation.  But it can also be forgotten by those who fight against it.  God does not love you because you have conquered temptation so well.  Nor does he despise you because you have done so poorly this week.  God completely love you, before you ever do anything in this battle.  He loves you because you have believed on His Son whom he sent.  The problem is not solved so much by doing more as it is by believing more.  Don’t let the lie of lust cause you to doubt these truths.  And, don’t let successes in this battle cause you to fall to the lust of pride.   Simply trust God.  When you fight them you are protecting what you already have between Him and you.

Living Honorably Moves to Conduct And Action

Honorable conduct is that which is morally good and brings glory to God.  Of course we need an unchanging means to measure the goodness of our conduct.  Society cannot be a good judge of what is good because society is always changing.  God has given us his sure word so that we can always know what is honorable no matter what society we are in.

Honorable conduct must always be lived out in the midst of those who are not honorable and are lost.  Peter refers to the Gentiles.  Literally this is all the nations and people.  In that day none of these nations and people knew God.  They were all lost.  We have to live out God’s morality before people who are plunging madly ahead into pleasing the lusts of their flesh.  This is not easy.  In fact we will be often rejected.  That is what Peter means when he says that some “speak against you as evildoers.”  They may call you bigots, haters, ignorant, Judgmental, Intolerant, Out-of-touch, etc. but we are to continue living out what is good.  Why?  It really is valuable, honorable.  They really do need us to live for God before them.  They really do need to see it and rub up against us in their lives.  It is the only way they are going to have any hope.  It is not important that this world embrace us.  But it is important that they observe us living out what is good before them.

Peter reminds them of a coming “day of visitation.”  The day of visitation is a reference to a biblical concept that from time to time God inserts himself into a person’s life, or a nation’s affairs.  When he does it is an opportunity for grace and mercy.  If we receive him and follow him we will find miraculous grace.  But if we reject him we find ourselves handed over to judgment.  This is precisely what happened to Israel when Jesus came.  Those who embraced him found grace and the miraculous activity of God.  But those who rejected him went on to experience the judgment of God as they were handed over to the effects of their rebellious hearts.  If we have lived out the truth before the lost, they have a chance to believe in the day of visitation.  There will be something within them that remembers that strange person who lived differently because of Jesus.  They may be saved.

Food For Thought

We don’t appreciate good things until they are taken away.  Don’t let the rejection of today cause you to quit fighting the inner battles and living honorably.  You won’t win any accolades of this world, but you will make a big impact in some one’s life.  Those who speak ill of you today, may come knocking at your door tomorrow.  Will you help them or be offended?  God help us to work for Him and not ourselves.

Lastly let me just say, God is faithful to visit individuals and nations at His appointed times.  We need to be faithful knowing that God is faithful.  America has had several visitation by God and I don’t know if we have another one coming.  But it is our job to be faith because no matter what, this world is headed for the biggest visitation of them all—the second coming of Jesus Christ.  Maranatha!

Living Honorably audio