Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, February 4, 2025. Do Thy Friends Despise, Forsake Thee? 1 Peter 4
Good Morning my brothers and my sisters and welcome to Turning On the Lights got Tuesday February 4, 2025.
We continue today in the Apostle Peter’s first letter as we explore just what it means to be a light in the dark world – and to bear the name of Christ (Christians) in an anti-Christian culture.
My prayer is that these words both strengthen and challenge you in you walk with Christ, and if you are not a disciple, my prayer is that these words serve to inspire you to dig deeper.
May God bless you and keep you.
This is a video recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, February 4, 2025. Watch here via the YouTube link!
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This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, February 4, 2025
Good morning. Good morning. My brothers and my sisters. You are looking live at the altar of the Church Town Church of God this Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning, February 4th already moving forward into 2025 second month of the year. Oh my goodness time. Time truly is like a river is it isn’t it? Got a few things to talk about today on first Peter. I wanna try to be as focused as I can. I received a little bit of news this morning that I’ll be sharing with people a little bit later, but. We’re gonna try to stay focused on first Peter and the message and teaching for today Lord. We pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you would help us do that. You would help us to stay focused focused on your word focused on your promise focused on your power your spirit in our lives. Lord. Thank you so much in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share your word. Around the world really we’re grateful. We are grateful people. All our hope is in you in Jesus name. Amen. Good morning everybody. Like I said, we’ll make it. Rather focused today and we will move forward from here. I know that it’s going to be a little bit of a challenging day for me and you will all figure that out soon enough. But here we are. I’m gonna turn you around and we’re gonna give this a shot. So good morning. Good morning to my friends at round knob or good evening to my friends at round knob. Wherever you may be watching this. I hope that the unity that you are experiencing under a time of trial is actually a positive thing. Remember that even spiritually you don’t just sit back and wait spiritually. You are very intentional about what happens next about seeking the good seeking God’s will and and that is about having him and salvation as the cornerstone of who you are who your church is and each one of your hearts investing in that thus as we just learned in first Peter because last week’s preaching was very difficult up at the pulpit. It is very intricate to try to show the power of the unity of the body of Christ. And Peter is speaking into the churches around the Roman Empire at the time just as the persecution is beginning and we know that and we know that for a couple of 100 more years. It’s going to go on. It’s going to get very bad very bad and we know that the Lord through Peter is preparing the church, not only edifying the church at the time but preparing the church for the future. And you say well, Pastor Brian, it got really bad. Well, he did but look at how God used that now. I’m not saying that you can expect way worse around. No. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying trust God. His plan, his purpose, his will stay unified, stay together, stay focused. He is your cornerstone. Your salvation is what makes you brothers and sisters. Don’t ever veer from that. That kind of trust is irreplaceable in life. Irreplaceable because it is pure and the reason it is pure is because it is of God. He is pure. He is perfect. You’re not going to be. We know that but that’s why I’m saying your intentionality matters because you’re not God. We have to do the verbs and last week’s sermon when we read through a part of first Peter, we talked. We pointed out all of the action verbs. They’re there for a reason and sometimes we ignore them. Sometimes we’re just like the power of God. Just sit back and open our heads and be the word is dumped in and the power of God and he moves us like marionettes or something. That’s not anything like it. When we read scripture all through, it’s about intentionality. I don’t like to say works because that shifts it to a theological perspective that somehow we’re doing good so that we can be in favor with God or get saved or whatever, but there it is a relationship and intentionality. Of course, God’s perfect intentionality. We read that throughout scripture, the salvific history of humankind, but our intentionality matters because we are impure and imperfect and weak and so we’ll be praising God and then turning over here and cussing something else. You know cursing something else. That’s us. That’s not him. That’s a that’s a us problem, not a God problem. So we talked about that you know because we were talking about husbands, wives, slaves and the body of Christ and just what we talked about a couple of weeks ago, right the the the structure the order and the obedience. That’s the meta narrative right. God is using the culture of the time and the way husbands and wives interacted in the way that the fact that slavery was a large part of the culture. He’s using the culture of the time and but that is descriptive. Remember that word from a couple of weeks ago. We brought that up in church on Sunday. That is descriptive of the culture. Good morning D. Can’t get around it. Good morning. Not my brain shifted. Good morning Mama D. Can’t get around the culture of the time right. That’s when the word is being written through Paul by the power of the Holy Spirit. So there’s descriptive elements about men and women about husbands and wives about what church looks like how church operates and slavery and all of those different things. But the prescriptive part of scripture, the infallibility when we say it is the divinely inspired infallible word of God. It never fails in its purpose. Well, what purpose could it possibly have talking about slavery? I don’t want slavery slavery. I don’t agree with slavery all those different. It’s not promoting or discussing slavery in a theological sense as a reflection of God. Good morning Emma. Good morning Jane. I love you Jane. It’s not doing that in that sense. It’s bringing out the descriptive aspects of who God is. God is a God of structure. God is a God of order. God is a God of obedience. We seek his will. We seek to be intentional and obedient to his will. That’s what it’s bringing out. It’s not saying, hey, go get yourself a slave and then you can live like this. That’s not at all what it’s saying. But there is also like I said, no denying the culture of the time. So when we look at the gospels, when we look at the letters. We are discerning about the descriptive aspects of scripture and the prescriptive aspects of scripture and the meta narrative, the overarching message and the infallibility thereof. So okay, here’s the message. Why is it here? Why are you saying this Lord? Teach I want to walk in this Lord. Teach me and we learn the infallibility that it never fails in its intended purpose. What is it? It’s intended purpose. Lord is a very very valid prayer. So as we move on from this, we Peter again is talking at the end of chapter three about suffering about enduring. And it’s suffering for doing good. He leads into it by saying he talks about wives behaving as Christian wives in the effort to be the Bible if you will, and I know there was no Bible as such at that time, but to be the only Bible that their husbands may ever read because Christianity is just beginning. Good morning. Alright, so he talks about that and then he says, okay, so you are living as Christians and you are living seeking the will of God. You are doing the things of God. And yet you’re still suffering. And he talks about that. He says take a look at your savior. We know that good and evil cannot coexist. Good and evil cannot coexist, cannot be at the same place at the same time. If you will your heart cannot contain God’s Holy Spirit and be possessed by a demon at the same time can’t happen. Good and evil will not. So there is always going to be a clash at the very lightest. It’s attention that you give into read Romans one Romans two when God gives them over to their own earthly desires. So there you are. There’s the tension. There’s the things of God and Paul talks about you know God through general revelation. Everybody knows that there is a God, a God of order, a God of the universe. You know that innately because you were created in his image yet you choose otherwise. So that’s probably the lowest level like okay. I know, but I want this. I want the lusts of the flesh, the carnal things, the temporal things. So God turning you over to yourself and then we move all the way up to active evil actively seeking to destroy human beings and destroy his church God’s church. And we know that that can be manifest spiritually as individuals become super haughty or you know super spiritual and all of a sudden the church is some wicked thing that they’re you know whatever and they’re causing division. They’re causing divisiveness. They’re speaking behind people’s backs all this thing to destroy the church from the inside out or those who are possessed by demons, those who are given over to this world, those who are given over to false religions and false teachings who seek to actively physically destroy Christians. So Peter says, did you catch that when Christ walked the earth? Did you catch that in his ministry? Did you catch that as he was led to the cross? And do you understand that he overcame all of that by the power of God? Now that’s an important message regardless of where you may be on the scale, so to speak with maybe family members not talking to you or active physical defense of your bodily person wherever you are on the scale. That’s what you need to hear because ultimately as we taught before Peter is saying there’s nothing that is just physical about this. Whatever is happening to you emotionally, whatever is happening to you spiritually and whatever is happening to you physically is meant to destroy your spirit. It’s meant for you to forsake God turn away. It’s all spiritual because Satan hates God and he will seek to destroy you any possible way he can. So suffering for doing good when beginning with verse thirteen in chapter three, he talks about, okay, did you catch the life and times of Jesus Christ? And then we move into chapter four. So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had and to be ready to suffer too. For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin. If you are willing, excuse me, by the way, I’m getting much, much better. If you are willing to go to that length, then it is relatively safe to say you’re all in for Christ. That he is your savior, that you are walking with God and you understand that the things of this world up to and including death cannot touch you. Your promises in him with him and whether this whether you are physically tortured forever, whether this life lasts another 5 minutes or another 50 years, you’re good. So it’s safe to say if you’re willing to walk that path with Christ that you’re all in and that’s what it means to be finished with sin. Not that you are, you know, perfected as God is perfect, that sort of thing. You won’t spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God. You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness, wild parties and the terrible worship of idols. Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do so they slander you. But remember that they will have to face God who will judge everyone both the living and the dead. That is why the good news was preached to those who are now dead. So although they were destined to die, like all people, they now live forever with God in the spirit and that line from the old song, right? Do thy friends forsake thee? Despise forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer. That is sometimes considered a children’s song, but it is very, very solid sound foundational theology. Look at the three verses of that song. And one of the things is okay, you’ve turned away from the world, which means you have turned away from the behavior at least of people that may be very close to you. And we hear this all the time in the church, whether it is husband, wife, child, whatever the relation may be. We hear this all the time that there are people around my dinner table or we talk about this during holidays, Easter and Thanksgiving and Christmas. People that are gathered. So everything from those who will simply say you’re a Christian, that’s cool. I have no issue with that. Let’s just move on with our lives to those who will absolutely come at you. For whatever reason, and it hurts. If you used to run in circles, maybe you’re conversion, if you will, was very dramatic and you used to run in circles that did all of those things. And now you don’t. And you have, you know, friends that you’ve been with most of your life and you’ve been running with and pretty much ruining your life with and and now they’re not responding. The way that you responded. And you’re tempted to go back into the swamp to try to draw them out of the swamp, but you can’t. You are a new light in their life, but that light’s not gonna shine if you go back into the swamp and say, well, I’m just gonna go and sit and it corrals and have drinks and do this because I’m gonna show them the love of God. I don’t know if those two things are going together anytime soon. You’re different now. And maybe they just say whatever dude or maybe they despise and forsake you. But that tension between good and evil and there is no in between. Is what is being spoken of here and what is being spoken of in the song? Alright, what a friend we have in Jesus. The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. Most important of all continue to show deep love for each other for love covers a multitude of sins cheerfully. Share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay. Be an example. Be a light be intentional regardless of circumstance and regardless of how other people treat you. He talked about this with slaves. He talked about this with wives. He talked about this with husbands. He’s talking about this with the church body in general. Now he’s talking about the church body as individuals and your life in the world. Regardless of slander, regardless of pushback, regardless of persecution, regardless if the individual is a follower of Christ or not a follower of Christ, you are so act like it. And we have a saying around here at Church Town. If we do what we’re called to do and we actually trust that God will do what he promises to do things work out a lot better when we stop trying to play God and we are simply the disciples that he’s called us to be and that’s what we’re talking about here. So Peter is saying open your home. Somebody needs something demonstrate the love of God. And you may not have to say a word. You don’t have to say, “Oh, I’m gonna lure this person into my home and then I’m gonna whack him over the head with scripture.” No. How about you just be a Christian, right? Demonstrate the light, right? If the opportunity arises and the Holy Spirit is prompting you, go for it. God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking then speak as though God himself for speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ all glory and power to him forever and ever. Amen. Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through. You see how he’s shifting back and forth between the reality, the description of their situation and Peter is understanding that and he is speaking into that situation. He’s speaking into those circumstances. He talks about suffering for Christ. Remember that Christ suffered. He talks about the power of God and demonstrating and living in and looking like right that light that God gives you inside when you are saved for whomever Christians and non Christians alike and then he goes back and says so remember that these trials that you are experiencing God is sovereign over them as well. And you may not wanna hear it that you’re suffering. You know you may not want to open your spiritual self to the reality that you’re suffering will God will use it to impact the lives of many other people, but that is reality when we trust God. That’s what you know another saying around here is that anybody can count the number of seeds and an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed. So how about you do what you’re called to do and he says right there too. There can be very specific things that you’re called to do. How about you do what you’re called to do trust God whether you’re going through good times, whether you’re going through bad times, whether your old friends despise and forsake thee. You will be gifted a family and I know this from first hand experience because my entire family died when I became a pastor and I was like what I was gifted a family took a while to come to that realization, but of course I have my children and my grandchildren and of course my wife all those things, but you lose perspective on that. So there’s a little bit of. Yeah, I get this. I get this. And you’re gifted a family, so I understand that you may love your friends, but you can’t participate in what they’re doing anymore. You don’t talk like them anymore. You don’t walk like them anymore. You don’t do the things that they do men. You don’t go out and carouse and try to find as many women as you possibly can and use them and women you don’t whatever the case may be. It’s not you. In your will and your ego and your identity because that was your identity before that’s who you were. It’s hard. It’s hard not to say you know what just go dive back in. It’s so much easier just to dive back in. There’s your point of discernment as we say in the church turning toward the cross or turning away from the cross up to you. Up to you. Finally, it says about don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you’re going through as if something strange were happening to you. What instead be very glad for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world. So be happy. Okay. Now Peter Peter. Good morning Dale. You’re kind of pushing it here. Peter. We’re talking about all you know these circumstances which are completely changed when you are saved and indwelled by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. We’re talking about your old identity gone your old friends at least gone, maybe coming back at you and pushing back on you. You’re talking about a whole secular world. We talked about that on Sunday, the whole garbage secular world pressing in on the church. All you’re talking about all of that stuff and Peter says be happy. Peter says be happy. Because you are partners with Christ in the advancement of his kingdom. That’s what you got. Christ is not saying hey come over here to my side. I’ve got cars and money and that’s not it. He says I have eternal life. I have the words of life. I have the living water. I have life and life to the full and you will not regret it and I have not regretted it. I hope you have not regretted it. If you’re not a Christian today and you’re listening to this, I hope you’re hearing these words and the power behind them. And I hope that you become. We can get into that. There’s two different letters basically in two different situations. So be happy when you are insulted for being a Christian for then the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you. If you suffer, however, it must not be for murder, stealing, making trouble or prying into other people’s affairs, but it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his name for the time has come for judgment and it must begin with God’s household. We talk about that all the time. There if you’re feeling a little holier than thou at any given time, remember this from first Peter four judgment begins with you. If you what it says, what glory there is in being called by his name a Christian. And with what’s the Spiderman analogy with with this great power comes great responsibility. Do you act like a Christian? Do you look like a Christian? Are you following the word of God? Are you following the will of God? Are you seeking God first? Is he your cornerstone? All of those things. No shame in suffering for being a Christian, but if you’re going to go out there and murder and slander and be and then also say I’m a Christian and I’m gonna do all of these then yeah when you get your come up and don’t be crying to God about that. Finally, praise God for the privilege of being called by his name. I’m gonna read that again for the time has come for judgment and it must begin with God’s household. And we talk about the purpose of church. We talk about like began opening up with the unity of purpose, the unity of people, the unity of the spirit. Because the letters are written to the churches for the edification of the churches, edification of the individual believers, family units and the church. Because the church is this special creation that God had in mind from the beginning that not even the angels knew about. That is going to spread the good news throughout the world. And he knows that he is perfect. He is the northern star. He is the rock. He is the foundation and he knows that we waiver and quaver and wonder and drift. So letter after letter after letter, exhortation after exhortation says cling to the word go into the word live in the spirit. Seek ye first the kingdom. And that’s what it’s all about. All the other stuff. Seek ye first the kingdom. You’ll find comfort. And if judgment begins with us, what terrible fate awaits those who have never obeyed God’s good news. And also if the righteous are barely saved, what will happen to the godless sinners? Stay intentional. Those words are kind of scary. Stay intentional. So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, what? It means that you are being a Christian and the satanic world is trying to get you to not be a Christian. So you’re suffering in a manner that pleases God. Keep on doing what is right and listen to this next word and trust your lives to the God who created you for he will never fail you. How about that? Trust your lives to the God who created you for he will never fail you. There’s a whole lot in there about your intentionality, right? Our intentionality, our behavior, what glory there is in being called by his name. And then there is this piece that says, remember that he is complete. He is holy. He is sovereign. And he has created a way for you and to be in relationship with him. Is that enough? Is that enough? Talk about our big Christian butts. Oh, yes, Lord, I give my life to the Lord, but I sure would like to be a millionaire as well. Okay. You’re not really gonna understand the true comfort, the true peace of living in God’s will, the true safety. There’s no safer place that you will ever be than in God’s will until you get your big Christian butt out of the way. And that is what I’m going to leave you with and I hope that maybe you’re chuckling, but you also understand the power of what I’m saying. Do you trust the God of the universe? Will you do what you’re called to do and will you trust that he will do what he promises to do? Is life and life to the full enough for you? My prayer is that there is comfort for those who are grieving today. My prayer is that there is healing for those who are sick today. My prayer is that the word will go out. And the kingdom of God will grow to get today as people hear and as your Holy Spirit warms their hearts and turns their necks and they seek you Lord and they lay their lives at your feet Lord. And your kingdom grows. One soul at a time in Jesus name, Amen. Amen. My brothers and sisters, good Lord willing in the River don’t rise. We will see you Thursday morning for turning on the lights. I think Thursday morning we’ll take a look at a little something different, but we’ll try to stay as focused as we can. God bless and like I said, hey round up stay strong, stay focused, stay intentional. You guys are awesome. I wish I could do more.
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