Guarding Our Witness (Part B)

And God never apologizes. He doesn't say, you know, I'm sorry for asking you not to kill each other.

I'm sorry that I asked you not to steal or lie to each other. Thank God he doesn't do that. He tells you right out, don't kill, don't lie, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't bear false witness, without apology. And so when we come to the honorable things, if we are guilty, we own our guilt. It's called repentance. After today's message, to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching, Pastor Rick has entitled today's message, Guarding Our Witness.

He's teaching from 1 Peter chapter 2. Why should a preacher pass over such a sentence from God's mouth to man, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul? Because we know how hard the fight is, and each one of us has to go through it. We cannot skip over such words. We must not. This is the battleground for us.

This is where the fight remains. That's why Paul said, oh, wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death? How do I get out of this body of flesh, the lower self? And he defaulted to Christ. He thanked God for Jesus Christ, who brings mercy and goodness and grace. It adds up.

It does matter. Because all you have to do is find a Christian who gives up. And then you say, I don't want to do that. I do not want to give up.

I'd rather take my hits and struggle through it than to give up and be shot in the back and become a has-been of the faith because I quit. I don't want that. I am afraid of that.

I think every sensible soul would be. And so this is not the whole story of the believer abstaining from fleshly lusts. That's not the whole story concerning us. We are vessels of honor also. There are things about us that are honorable. Many Christians are good people.

Unfortunately, I cannot say all of them. They're in a good position. Positionally, they're right with God. Many Christians, as A.W. chose to say, act as though they've been baptized in lemon juice.

I don't want to be that one. It takes effort and it's worth it. It's honorable to stand against the wind. My pastor used to always say, any dead fish can float downstream.

It takes a live fish to go against the current. That is true. We are mocked because we want to be more holy than unholy. Because we want truth and fact concerning eternity and not just anybody's guess. We are mocked and persecuted for this.

Well, that's just the way it is. Fleshly lusts, those natural appetites that have been ruined by sin and they plant their seeds in our minds and in our bodies. Sin is essentially the abuse of a good thing. I mean, anything you name as a sin is abuse of something that originally was not a problem, but now is a big problem.

These natural appetites that would steal our innocence from us and become the enemies of our soul. And so, war against them, he says, war against them. The difference between a war and a battle really is this, time. The battle is, for the moment, war goes on. It goes on. And we know, we look to heaven, we look to the kingdom to come, but for right now, it is in the strength of that kingdom.

The sustained military campaign against us and us against it. Okay, the flesh has declared war against me, becoming a Christian. I declare war against you, O flesh, against my own sinful ways. These are fixed laws of life.

The higher fighting, the lower. And the way it is, we have to accept it. There are no exceptions. There's no way to get away from this. You don't need to be a scientist to prove this. You need to be a human being.

You discover this. Every believer sees combat in the soul. Every one of us, self versus self. They say one of the hardest games known to man is golf. Because you're really playing against yourself. How many shots will it take you to get to the 18th hole?

How few can you take to get to that last hole? The other guy really doesn't influence you. I guess he can get in your head or something, but that's why you club, you have clubs. Right?

He's just messing with you, you club him. Anyway, 1 Peter, again, chapter 1, verse 9, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. That's the prize, that's the finish line, that's what we're going for. Verse 12, he says, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works, which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. Or should our behavior ever be dishonorable?

Never. It should never be dishonorable. Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are noble. That noble means honorable, higher than the flesh. That is supposed to be the Christian, whatever things are true, honorable. Because if they're false, they're not honorable. And then he goes on to say, just and pure and lovely of good report.

Meditate, concentrate, focus on those things. And so why should Christians then defend dishonorable behavior in loved ones or anyone else? You know, the one that's going to be an advocate to the troublemaker. It's not honorable. If they're wrong, they're wrong. We take steps to correct, yes, but don't pretend that something evil is somehow to be acceptable. I know, it's a high standard Christianity, and God never apologizes. He doesn't say, you know, I'm sorry for asking you not to kill each other.

I'm sorry that I asked you not to steal or lie to each other. Thank God he doesn't do that. He tells you right out, don't kill, don't lie, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't bear false witness, without apology. And so when we come to the honorable things, if we are guilty, we own our guilt, it's called repentance.

And that changes everything. When you get to someone that's done wrong and they say, I'm wrong, that shuts down, that takes everything in a different direction now. Discipline now pulls back.

Sometimes you still may have to, positions of authority, even in the home, you scale back the intensity once the repentance is clear. I am amazed at how many parents are strict with their children, they want their children to obey on first command. And even, you know, other kids, they want them to obey.

But they themselves don't obey. When they're in a position of submission, now we're getting to that submission part I was talking about, because we all need it. It does not come natural to the flesh to submit. Who cares that you submit when everything goes your way? That's not submission, that's riding along. Submission becomes submission when you don't like it. Isn't that what wrestling teaches us?

When someone pins you, you don't like that. You have a choice, it's done. This belongs to Christianity, and when we begin to get our heads around this, we get stronger, not weaker. Matthew chapter 10, Jesus said, Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth.

That covers the planet, incidentally. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against his mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And it goes on, of course, and he is saying, The dishonorable is separated from the honorable. And the two do not, using this word again, meld together.

They are distinct. When someone behaves dishonorably and demands that they be treated honorably, we have a problem. The apostles taught that Christian conduct was to be in line with righteousness, not outside of it. Honorable men, such as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, they reached a point where they sided with Christ publicly at risk of their own life and stationed in life. They sided with Jesus. As dishonorable men, such as Caiaphas and Annas, they sided against Christ. They hated him. Why? Because his goodness, his goodness exposed their dishonor and their disdain wanted blood.

And they got it for a while. We are called to be good as he is good, to lay hold of as much goodness as we can. Now those of you who have been coming here for some time, we've been going through the epistles, the letters, how many times do we come across what I'm talking about in the writings?

It's not the pastor decided to talk about this today. We go verse by verse. We find out what the Holy Spirit decides to talk about. And he is constantly telling us, exhorting us, beseeching us to be honorable, to be good. And we listen to sermons like this and sometimes we can become intimidated because we know where our weak spots are. We know when we're up to no good. We know when we've become gossips and liars and whatever else it is that we do wrong.

We know about this. And Christ sees that too, but he doesn't say, well, you're out. He says, because you're in, because you're with me, stay in it. So grabbing us by the chin, look at me, stay in this. Don't let your flesh win.

Keep moving. We are called to be good as he is good and to lay hold of it. And here in verse 12 where he says, among the Gentiles. Well, that's where these mainly Jewish believers that he's writing to, that's where they were living. They were part of the diaspora. Those Jews spread outside of Israel. They were living amongst the Gentiles, amongst the unsaved in the Roman Empire.

Well, I can relate to this right away. You work in an office place, you go out into the world, you're amongst the unbelievers. That's what he means here. He's not saying amongst the saved Gentiles. He's talking about all unbelievers, but geographically they were outside of Israel. And so in the midst of these things, he says glorify God in the day of visitation.

What on earth does that mean? Christ being realized. That's what the visitation is. So here we are living our Christian lives, guarding our witnesses best we can. In the midst of Gentiles. For that moment, for that moment that may happen when that Gentile wants to say, or that unbeliever wants to say, tell me about Jesus. That's the moment of visitation. That's what the whole guarding of the witnesses is for.

Otherwise, what are we doing? Matthew 27, 54. So when the centurion and those with him, who were guarding Jesus, saw the earth quake and the things that had happened, feared greatly, saying, truly this was the Son of God.

That's a moment of visitation. God came close enough for them to see. You who are saved, you've had that moment where all of a sudden you realized you're a sinner. Jesus is Lord, you're accountable to Him, and in an instant you can fix it or not. For me, I remember, I remember when I realized, I'm going to hell.

I'm one of those weeping and gnashing teeth. But I have a chance right here at this instant to avoid that, and I did. The moment of visitation.

And so he is saying, among the Gentiles, have a life as such that glorifies God, so when that moment comes, you're not compromised. How many Christians have blown their witness? They can say whatever truth they want to say, but their witness has been destroyed.

Nobody wants to hear it from them. Coming from them, and we have to work, you say, well, that has happened to me once. I'm not saying that happened to me.

I'm working not to let that happen. But maybe, maybe I'm speaking to someone who you say, I blew my witness. God can restore. If He can put back what locusts have eaten, He can do anything. If He can hang the planets and the stars where they are and not keep them from crashing into each other, He can do anything.

He can restore my broken witness. John Mark was such, within the church, John blew it. He felt he was going to be a hero of the faith, go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. And he found out that he couldn't handle it, and so he headed back home. And because of this, it came another time where he wanted to give it another shot. But Paul, and I think wisely at that time, Paul said, no way. We put a lot into him, and he crumbled.

He's not ready. Well, Barnabas, his cousin, insisted, and they got into this big brouhau over John Mark. Well, Barnabas and Mark went their way, and Paul and Silas went their way, and the result was Satan thought he got them. All Satan did was create two more ministries. Where there was one ministry of Paul and Barnabas, there were now two ministries of Barnabas and Mark, Paul and Silas.

That backfired. So Paul went off with cousin Barney, and he developed, and he became a solid Christian. And God pinpointed John Mark to give us the gospel according to Mark, which is an excellent introductory into Christian writing.

You want to sell someone? You want a quick horse on Christianity? Go to the gospel of Mark in 16 chapters.

You get an overview that you'll never forget. And then, of course, later on, Paul, nearing his execution, writes to Timothy and says, bring John with, bring Mark. He is useful to me. He is useful to me in the ministry, in the gospel. So God can restore, and that's why those stories are preserved. But if you've not crumbled in front of everyone and blown your witness full out, work to keep it.

Don't ever take it for granted. Now, this does not mean... Well, I have blown my witness in workplaces once or twice. Yeah. I mean, one time, I won't want to take too much time on the story, but, I mean, it was almost a fist... If I could have gotten down to the ground level, it would have been a brawl. Yeah, I was ashamed of this to this day, but God moved on. The other guy was wrong anyway. But let's move on.

And there's a lot more to that story that... Anyway, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. Again, humans struggle here.

All of them struggle. Submit yourselves to every ordinance. What helps is when you respect someone. If you have had leaders in life and I have had good leaders in my life, believers and non-believers alike, I've had good men who I could respect. Even if I didn't like them, I respected them and had no problem. If they gave me a command that I didn't like, because I respected them, I had less difficulty carrying it out.

You parents know if your children can respect, you get more out of them, and it is a good thing. So let's be careful as believers to submit ourselves to every ordinance. Now, he's talking about Nero.

That's where he's going to go with this. How much with the church? I mean, you get pastors and church leaders that aren't Nero, and nobody wants to submit to them. Well, some do, but when the pressure's on, they don't. Why is it this way? Because there's a real devil.

That's why. Well, Peter and Paul share this view about submitting to every ordinance. Romans chapter 13, the first seven verses, Paul lays that out. He says, look, he doesn't carry a sword for nothing. He carries it so he can execute sentence on the guilty.

Don't be the guilty. The alternative is what? The alternative to submit yourselves to every ordinance is what?

Rebel, create an uprising, become a community agitator? We are supposed to be witnesses of Jesus Christ, not some militia that are, you know, revolutionaries going to change everything through the physical sword on at least two occasions. Now, hear me out through this, because some of you are saying, maybe, saying to yourselves, yeah, well, what about?

Well, we'll get to a couple of the what abouts in a minute. But our Lord, on two occasions, he paid local taxes in front of everybody. In Matthew 17, it was the temple tax.

In Matthew 22, it would be the equivalent to our federal tax. Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Give to God what belongs to God. Jeremiah summarizes this attitude when he told the Jewish people taken into captivity in Babylon, he says, look, you're in Babylon now, bro.

Do what you're supposed to do. Jeremiah 29, 7. Most folks like to go, I know the thoughts I think of you, thoughts of peace.

Well, that's a beautiful verse. But you remember, it's to captives who didn't want to be captive. Prior to that, he says, Seek the peace of the city where I, God, have caused you to be carried away captive and pray to Yahweh for it, for its peace. You will have peace. So the prophet says to the Jews taken captive, who's still trying to think, well, God's going to get us out of here. No, you got a 70-year sentence as a people in Babylon. While you're there, pray for peace of that place. Become a citizen. Assimilate civilly, not spiritually.

And so that is a summary of what is being said here by Paul in Romans 13 and Peter here in 1 Peter chapter 2. Now, there are limits to this submission to obey laws. If we were commanded to violate moral laws, we would not.

We'd have to say no. This will bring persecution, physical persecution. This is a story with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

You bow down when you hear the beat, because it's a good beat, and when you hear it, boom, boom, boom, you do it, and they did not. They were cast into the fire. Then there's Daniel 6. We're never going to get him committing a crime unless we make it a crime for him to exercise his faith in public. They did that to Daniel, and, of course, he was cast into the lion's den before them, and then they were cast in and consumed. And then there's Acts chapter 4, where the apostles were commanded not to preach in the name of Christ, and Peter and the apostles said, Listen, you figure it out whether it's right or wrong.

As for us, we're going to do what God told us to do. John Bunyan, he refused to be silenced by the state church when they told him, You cannot preach the gospel. He preached it anyway. Then he did 12 years in Bedford jail because of it.

He did time again a second time, not as long. So Peter says this in the midst of persecution. You submit to the laws. Don't become entangled in the society, in the affairs of this world, 2 Timothy 2. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. You get the feeling these apostles will not let up on us not being part of this world. They just will not stop it with telling us, This is not all there is to you. There's more to you than being here.

They don't let up. And if they had, the church would have been gobbled up, and there'd be no more Christianity. So as citizens we use civil laws, but we do not allow ourselves to be engulfed by them becoming activists for causes other than Christ. Now that doesn't mean we cannot work within the laws to be activists for Christ. As Jeremiah told the Jews, Get spiritual where you are.

Do something before Yahweh on behalf of the place you find yourself. How awful it would be if the apostles became political activists. Where in church history did the church leaders become political activists when Constantine made peace with the religions of the world, especially Christianity, and he embraced Christianity and gave us what we now know as the Roman Catholic Church, not Christianity. That does not mean that there are not Christians within Roman Catholicism, but overall, you pray to Mary, you're disqualified. I'm sorry. There's no two ways about it. And I'm not going to tailor my speech because you disagree with the scripture.

If you pray to those who are not, to the one who is not God, you're sinning. It's cut and it's dry, and now I move on. One more point to make about that. Balaam. Balaam was a prophet, the Bible tells us. And yet he allowed himself to be seduced and he got political. And then we get to the book of Joshua, chapter 13, and we find out they killed Balaam.

He should have stayed a prophet. We're so glad you tuned in today to study the book of 1 Peter on Cross Reference Radio. Cross Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. And we're blessed to bring you God's word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information about this program or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. We hope you'll tune in again next time to join us as we continue our study through the scriptures, right here on Cross Reference Radio.