09-20-09 Love The Brotherhood, Fear God, Honor The King

1PE 2:16-17 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. Honor all men; love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

We spent our time together last week

looking at these two sentences from 1^st Peter chapter 2

in which Peter offers us the approach to life

that he knows will give us the greatest effectiveness possible

in living with our Lord in a hostile world system.

He began with a command,

but not the kind of command we might expect.

He commands us to Act as free men...

Every person we meet is in some kind of bondage.

If it’s not bondage to some physical or emotional addiction

then it’s bondage to fear,

or to passion,

or to rage,

or to anxiety

or to religion.

When Christ begins His work in our lives

high on His list of goals

is His desire to bring us into growing freedom.

I love the way Paul said it in Acts 13.

ACT 13:38-39 "Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.

The law never could bring us into freedom.

It could only bring us condemnation and judgement.

But through Christ everyone who believes is freed from all those things from which the law could never free them.

And when Peter talks with us about our basic approach to life

the first thing he wants us to do

is to live in such a way that our freedom is visible to those around us.

We do not call people to a religious system or a code of ethics,

we call people to a living God who loves them perfectly, eternally

and who takes them just as they are

and then works in their life to set them free.

Of course Peter then closes the doorway on the lies of the flesh

by following that command to freedom by saying, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God.

He does that because he knows our own powers of self-deception

and he knows the skill with which the flesh

will seek to define freedom as the freedom to sin rather than the freedom from sin.

And then Peter goes on to offer us 4 additional commands,

4 commands that, taken together, give us powerful insight

into how to relate to the four most significant relationship groups in our life.

The first one,

and the one we spent most of our time on last week,

is his call to us that we Honor all men.

It is a command that can only be fulfilled

by those who no longer are driven to use the people around them

to meet their own needs for affirmation or validation.

Only when we have heard the voice of our God

telling us how much He loves us,

telling us that we are His chosen race, His royal priesthood, His holy nation, His people for His own possession,

only then can we reach out in love to those around us,

seeing in each of them the image of their God

and honoring them with our attitudes, our words, our actions.

This is where all meaningful communication begins.

This is where we begin to gain access to the heart, the spirit of another person.

And until they sense within us

that attitude of honor for them,

until they sense that we truly do see in them

a value that has nothing to do with their performance,

or their status in life,

or their age,

or their possessions,

or their ability to give us anything,

until they have some awareness

that we value them just as they are, right where they are

they will not be able to receive the truth from us.

There is a tragic but all too common misconception within the religious world

that our highest calling is to present the truth to the people around us,

and if we forcefully, effectively, skillfully present the truth

then we have fulfilled what our God asks from us

and we can expect that truth to change their lives.

And it certainly is correct

that the truth has the ability to set us free.

But what we so often fail to realize

is that the truly great challenge in our interaction with the people around us

is not to present them with the truth,

but rather to relate to them in such a way

that they are receptive to that truth.

When God spoke to the people through Moses on Mt. Sinai

He certainly gave them the truth,

and they responded by running and hiding in fear.

But when our God clothed Himself in our humanity

and lived with us,

and felt our pain,

and showed with His every action, every look, every word

that He loves us with a love that has no limits,

we could receive His truth

because we first received His love.

Some time ago I received an e-mail from a man in tremendous pain.

Somehow he found our web site

and for some time now has been following the teaching notes on line.

He loved what he read about God’s love for us

and felt as though his own church

was deeply misguided in the approach they were taking.

He started his own Bible study in an attempt to show his fellow believers

the error in the approach being taken by the church.

He was determined to get them to see the truth as he understood it,

but rather than receiving what he shared,

they responded by challenging him with their own understanding of truth.

In his e-mail he went on to say,

“They started arguing about how “it’s the word that saves us and cleans up our act” rather than the person of Jesus Himself. Before long, I found myself cancelling the study in that it was becoming nothing more than a forum for people to share their ignorance rather than a true time of fellowship with Christ. I also left the church in that the same people went there and started misrepresenting what I was teaching and causing strife between the staff, the congregation, and myself. I saw every single person who I had counted as a friend abandon me and after I left not even one person called to see if I was alive or dead.

Right now I feel utterly abandoned by our Lord. I am alone without a single friend to speak of. I am addicted to prescription narcotics that seem to be the only way that I can escape from the hurt I feel. I can find no hope for my future... I can’t even seem to pick up God’s Word anymore because of how betrayed I feel at having been so abandoned to this fate which is overtaking me. I hate myself and I hate most everyone else as well. My prayers are hitting iron and I can find no answers, no reason, no help, no guidance anywhere... I am so far down in the pit, I can’t stop digging, and I don’t have the slightest idea where to start when it comes to getting out of it. Please, I beg you, pray for me because I truly want to believe that God has not broken His promises to me and that He truly loves me the way you talk about. Right now I can’t see this because everything in my experience seems to point toward a God who is on the side of the oppressor and who has destroyed me completely...”

As tragic as that e-mail is,

it is one of the best illustrations I’ve ever received

of Satan’s power to turn our best intentions into destructive results

when he can convince us that our calling

is to find the error in the belief systems of those around us

and then seek to show them the truth.

Certainly we are to seek the truth ourselves

and then live on the basis of that truth in our own lives,

but we will never reach the hearts of those around us

by beginning with the doctrines.

Our commandment from our Lord

is not that we confront those around us with the truth,

our commandment is simply this, JOH 13:34 "... that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

When I responded to that e-mail I said in part,

“ I understand why you took the approach you did, but I believe what you struggle with now is deeply rooted in a lie Satan fed you, a lie that set you up for what you face now. I believe he told you that both affirmation from God and recognition and respect from others could come to you through the presentation of the truth. But it doesn't work that way, my friend. It is not truth our spirits hunger for, it is love. Certainly the truth can and will help bring greater freedom into our lives once we have discovered God's love for us and have built some human love relationships, but truth without that foundation of love causes only pain and division and isolation and pride. You remember the passages, I think...1CO 13:1-2 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing...”

When Peter calls us to honor all men,

it is no small or insignificant thing he is saying.

He is revealing to us

the doorway through which we will gain our access

into the lives of those around us.

And as I pointed out last week,

that word all is crucial in what he’s saying.

That means we honor those

whom we truly believe are the great enemies of the truth,

those whose lives offend us.

It means we honor them regardless of their age -

whether they are 3, or 13, or 33 or 73.

I will tell you honestly

that I do wish I knew better how to express

what I want us to see in this passage.

The problem is that we’re dealing not with a fact but with an attitude

and in my experience

only the Spirit of God can give us the ability to see an attitude.

And for us to be able to see this attitude

and then incorporate it into our lives

we must first be willing to let go of all of those filters

we have been trained to bring to our human relationships.

Typically we approach our human contacts

with a filtering system that tells us instantly

where to mentally place each person we meet.

Is this person my enemy?

Do they believe differently than I do?

Is this an authority figure I must conquer in some way?

Does this person owe me respect because of their age or their social status?

Can I use this person in some way - can they meet some need in my life?

Are they someone I must defeat or humiliate in order to assure my dominance over them?

Are they a person of no significance, unworthy of my interest or my time?

Filters...so many filters we bring to every human contact.

And when Peter says, honor all men

with that one phrase he is calling us

to lay them all aside

and to begin with an attitude of respect, honor

no matter who the other person may be.

Then, and only then, will we begin to find ways past all of their defenses

and possibly gain access to their hearts and their minds.

Well, from there, Paul gives us his second relationship doorway.

He calls us to ...love the brotherhood...

We are to honor all people,

to see within them the image of our God

and to relate to them on that basis,

but he then tells us that something far more significant

should take place between us and our fellow Christians.

We are not just called to honor them,

we are called to love them.

We are called to build a family relationship with our fellow believers,

to make their needs our needs,

and their burdens our burdens.

We are called to demonstrate to the world through our relationships with one another

that God truly can equip us for love and then show us how to do it.

When the Family of God - the Body of Christ

is working they way God intended,

it becomes a truly safe place for each of us,

a place where we will not be attacked,

were we will not be used,

where we will be respected and valued for who we are and for the unique way our Lord expresses Himself through us,

a place where no one gossips about us

or competes with us for prominence or control.

It is a place where we can find the freedom we need

to find the healing we need

without fear of rejection or condemnation.

Now, having said that,

we all know that we never achieve those goals perfectly,

but that doesn’t change the fact

that this is our calling

and the goal for which we fight.

And to the degree to which we succeed,

to that degree we more effectively silence the ignorance of foolish men.

That isn’t the main reason we do it of course,

but it is a powerful side-effect.

And it is certainly one of the major reasons

why Satan has invested so much effort

into creating arbitrary walls between believers,

even to the point of convincing many

that they are doing the work and the will of God

when they point out the doctrinal errors in the lives of their fellow Christians.

I do not believe that it was God’s intention or design

for the Body of Christ to function under one world-wide human organizational or governmental structure.

He is very clear when He tells us, EPH 4:15-16 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

Christ Himself is the living head of His church,

and it is His Spirit within each of His people

who equips and co-ordinates His work through us.

Certainly it is part of His design

that we gather in local fellowships,

each with its own designated leadership,

and part of that grouping process

will involve us seeing many different aspects of our Lord and the work He is seeking to do through us

as He accomplishes unique works through each unique group.

But with all true Christians

there is one single unifying truth -

one truth that crosses all doctrinal differences, all cultural differences, all racial differences -

we have each come to recognize Jesus Christ as God’s perfect offering for our sin,

and we have chosen to place our life into His hands,

trusting that offering for our sins personally.

If, to the best of our knowledge, the person we are with meets that criteria,

if they are a Christian,

then no matter where they go to church,

no matter where we may agree or disagree on the endless spectrum of doctrinal beliefs,

our calling is clear - love the brotherhood!

Building and maintaining a visible love relationship with them

is our highest calling.

And what if their doctrine really is totally messed up?

What if what they believe in a number of crucial areas

is just flat wrong?

And what if even a casual reading of Scripture

should clearly point out to them the error of their ways?

Well, I can tell you the approach I’ve taken to this for many years now,

an approach that has served me very well indeed.

Whenever I meet another Christian

and bump up against some area of doctrinal belief where we differ

I ask myself one question

and the answer I come up with determines how I handle the situation.

Is this person in a growth mode, a person who is seeking my input

so that they can better sort through issues and find answers,

or are they in a conviction mode

in which they have already decided what they will believe?

If they are in a growth mode,

and if they ask for my input,

I will share with them what I know and how I view it.

If they are in a conviction mode

I will not discuss the issue,

even if I’m convinced that their perspective is both wrong and destructive.

And when I say I will not discuss it,

I mean I really will not discuss it.

I won’t comment on their beliefs,

and I won’t share mine with them.

And if they are determined to pursue it,

if necessary I will tell them clearly

that I value my relationship with them far too much

to corrupt it through doctrinal debates.

It doesn’t matter who’s right and who’s wrong

nearly as much as it matters how we relate to one another in the face of our differences.

Love the brotherhood.

The third relationship foundation Peter give us

is his call to us to fear God.

And this one is going to need a little explanation.

It may interest you to know

that this is the only place in the New Testament Epistles

where this phrase is found.

There is one statement in the first verse of 2^nd Corinthians chapter 7

where Paul talks about us perfecting holiness in the fear of God,

but the great focus of all of the teaching given to us in the New Testament

is on our discovering the living reality of the love of our God for us,

especially as God has expressed that love to us through Christ.

It is our discovery of His love

that literally equips us to be filled up to all the fulness of God.

It is our response to the love of God

that becomes the great driving force of our lives.

But there is an aspect of this discovery of His love

that does involve a very healthy kind of fear.

It is not a terror of God,

or a fear of His wrath or His judgment or His condemnation.

Scripture is both clear and powerful

in its determination to eliminate any such fear from our lives.

ROM 5:9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

ROM 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

But there is a very different

and very valuable kind of fear

that begins to enter our lives

once we are touched by His love.

It is not a fear of God,

but rather a fear of bringing shame or disgrace to Him

because of our life.

This is the fear Peter is talking about,

the fear that we would in some way make it more difficult for another person to find His love

because of something we have said or done.

It is a fear that keeps us vigilant

in the choices we make each day.

And then, finally, Peter returns us to the fourth relationship doorway he wants us to have,

the one we’ve already looked at so closely - honor the king.

And here let me just point out again

that we honor the king

not because of who he is as a person,

but rather because of the position he holds

and because of our certainty that God has committed Himself to working through that human authority position

to accomplish His will in our life.

1PE 2:16-17 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. Honor all men; love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.