Good morning. It's good to see you all.
It's good to be here to worship with you.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for your commitment to
the Lord, for your commitment to seeking him this morning and in
our worship. And I pray that we can, we have
and we'll continue to do that together as we seek to
understand, to glorify, as we understand his greatness and his
plan and his wisdom. And this morning, I pray as we
study His word, we'll see just that and be able to magnify Him
even more. We're continuing to First Peter
chapter 2, and we started there. We left off there in first Peter
2 verses right around verse 10. And we're going to continue from
the end of verse 10 on through the end of the chapter in
chapter 2. So if you want to turn there,
we're going to be pretty much exclusively in First Peter
chapter 2. And I have given this the title
of the silent Praise of Honor and hopefully we'll see that
theme run throughout this study today.
So just a reminder, we are we're reading a letter that is written
to Christians who are being dispersed, who are being pushed
into the outer regions of a of a Roman Kingdom that was often
during this time persecuting them violently, aggressively.
And he writes to tell them in chapter 2, verse 9, where we
left off, he said, but you are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people.
He writes to a people who are in the middle of suffering to
remind them of what their true purpose and meaning and value is
in the midst of a country, in a place and time where they were
not valued, they were kicked to the curb and insignificant.
He says that they were His own special people, that they would
proclaim the praises of him who called them out of darkness into
His marvellous light. OK.
And everything he talks about is today is going to be kind of
pointing to that hopefully that we will buy the things we do,
proclaim praises to God. Now we all know that saying
praiseful things to God means nothing without your action.
It is emptiness. It is just words.
But when we embody the things that He's going to challenge us
in today, we have a chance to offer praise to God both from
our end through submission and also by other people hopefully
offering their praise to God when they see the good works to
glorify our Father in heaven. As another passage says, our
character has a chance to do that.
Verse 10, who once were not a people, but are now the people
of God who had not obtained mercy, but had now have obtained
mercy. Some of these people who he's
writing to used to be Gentiles. They weren't really part of the
Jewish nation, so some of them weren't even a real strong
nation. But even the Jews had been
disbanded. They had been destroyed, their
city, their holy city crushed, or maybe at that point it hadn't
been crushed yet. But the point is they were not a
unified nation until Christ came and made them a unified people
with mercy that they have obtained.
Verse 11, he says, beloved, I beg you as sojourners and
pilgrims abstain what from fleshly lusts with which war
against the soul. He's saying he begs them.
What that means is this is serious stuff.
And if we look at the things we're going to talk about today
or any other subject of Christian character and
attitude, and if we think it's benign, like the malignant sins
are, you know, cheating on your spouse or committing murder,
those are malignant sins. Those are bad, but these are
benign. These are just going to kind of,
you know, maybe give you a dull headache most of your life, but
never really cause any problems for you.
He says these war against your soul and we cannot let them
linger. We cannot allow these fleshly
lusts to linger. So what are what is he going to
have us do with it? Verse 12 having your conduct
honourable among the Gentiles that when they speak against you
as evil doers, they may by your good works which they observe
glorify God in the day of visitation.
So that's our goal, that we would have honourable conduct
and whether we want to admit it or anyone out there wants to
admit it or not, we all want to be honourable.
We all want someone to see us with honour and anyone who says
different just is looking for the honour.
In non traditional places, for example, if you are a gang
member, you want honour. Absolutely.
They want the honour of their fellow gang members.
They want the honour of people that they look up to and maybe
it's because of things they do that are hard.
They've lived a hard life and they've fought back and they've
wanted to those people that's honourable.
Everyone wants honour from somewhere.
It's just a matter of who we want the honour from and what we
use as a source for determining what will create honour in our
life. And our challenge is even when
we don't see how this is going to make me honourable, that we
surrender to God's will and God's plan for what will create
honour. Because there's times growing up
where I thought, man, that's, that's dumb.
People aren't going to like that.
They're not going to respect that.
They're going to think that that's this or that.
And nobody's going to, nobody's going to, right?
There's that, that demeaning mentality to what God has for us
to do. But real faith says, I will
follow God's plan to create honour and to create a
reputation that will be good for me, but ultimately bring glory
to God on the day that he visits US1 translation says, so may we
surrender to God, and here's where we left off.
Let's pick up in verse 13. He says, therefore, in order to
create this honour, in order to live in a way that the Gentiles
will see and will glorify God. Therefore submit yourselves to
every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king
as supreme or to the governors, as to those who are sent by him
for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of those who
do good. First of all, what in the world?
He's talking to people who are persecuted, likely by Nero.
You want us to submit to this vile, horrible person?
The command is the same no matter where we stand in the
world. The command is submission.
Did he say admire Nero? Did he say love and or did he
say appreciate everything he does?
No, he says submit yourselves to him.
Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man.
The NIV and other translations say in phrases like to every
human authority. So sometimes in my life I've
tried to think about, you know, how can I get around the
authority? Do I really have to obey this
person? Do I really have to surrender to
the authority of, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe a
representative government, maybe not the president.
You know, I'd, I'd submit to the president, but maybe not a
governor or maybe not a local council leader or maybe not a
police officer. Do I have to submit to everyone?
He says every ordinance of man, that is all human authority that
is put in place over us. That's hard to swallow because
you know what, there's laws we don't agree with.
There are people in authority who are not always the kindest,
to say the least. And you insert not always the
whatever. The people are not the focus of
our admiration here. The focus is how we respond to
the people who are putting authority over us.
And why is that important? Because he says it's for the
Lord's sake. In everything we do, we need to
step back and think about the fact that this is not about me.
This is not about who I am and making my voice known and making
me important up there. It's about the Lord's sake.
And if we can acknowledge that, it'll make the rest of this
process and our hearts submission go a lot smoother.
We will fight against the grain and we will kick against the
goats like Jesus said, until we get ourselves to realize this is
for His sake. God is saying what I'm about to
ask you is bigger than you, and I'm going to ask you to exist in
a relationship with authorities above you so that you can exist
in a relationship with me. That is the way it needs to be.
So he says do this for the Lord's sake.
But the command is to submit yourself.
There is a disposition of submission that I don't find
often places around me I don't know about you.
There is often a mentality that people are ready to buck against
whatever grain is put in place over them or they're surrounded
by, or is there authority structures and their attitude
and speech. And maybe this isn't me too.
I'm not saying I'm I'm innocent. And even their posture, their
attitude, it's not common to find people who are just
submissive. Submission is a softness of
spirit in which one clearly acknowledges that they are not
the ultimate authority. And you can see it on people's
faces when they run into something that is not what they
want to do. You can immediately see how it
changes their disposition. People will, and I sometimes
will submit to authority when I agree with it wholeheartedly.
But as soon as we run into something that's disagreeable to
us, what does that look like? Submission is a posture of the
heart. Worldly honour says I will
honour you or submit to you until I disagree with you.
I will honour maybe an authority until I feel frustrated by them
or until I don't think they deserve it anymore.
That is honour that will go about this far in our life
because really what I've understood and learning is the
older you get, you realize there's a lot of corruption out
there and many of the older people in the room.
I see your frustration sometimes and I understand your
frustrations because there is a lot of corruption.
There is a lot of evil and it runs through every area of
government. It runs through every area of
administration and companies. It runs through churches.
There are bad people everywhere and evil actions everywhere.
So when God commands us to honour people, as you get older,
I think it probably even becomes harder and harder because when
you're younger, you look up and you think, man, these people are
just taking care of things, they're doing good.
And you get there and you see sometimes the opposite.
That's worldly honour. And part of the reason that
exists is because there's often a disconnect between different
levels of any authority structure.
There's a disconnect in a company between people on the
bottom from the people at the top.
There's people in the middle from the upper management.
There's disconnects everywhere in companies and in government
where people think the the person above them doesn't
understand what I'm having to deal with.
They understand how hard it is to do this task the way they're
asking me to do it. And it's unreasonable for them
to ask this of me, whether it's a company or a government or
anything, or these people are up here saying they're all
frustrated and not willing to honour and surrender to my
leadership because they don't understand what they're asking
of me. Everybody is operating within
constraints, limitations, goals they have to meet and deadlines
they have to acquire. And people don't understand each
other because of that, because we're all in different
situations and we're all put with different tasks in front of
us. And so we should be prepared to
have disconnect with different levels of authority structure
when we're young, for example, you think a lot of the
authorities are just annoying. They make you do things they
tell you to to to do this or that.
And it's frustrating to you. But most of the people who grow
up past teenagehood end up realizing, because they become
the authority, they understand how important honour and
submission is. Everyone in this room who is
above that age, I could say probably has some level of that.
I think about some of the men in our audience who are
construction managers. Frank and Terry and Chris, Denny
and Carl have had some sort of management over a project.
They understand how you have to have things line up a certain
way or the job won't get done. Things will not get
accomplished. People will be frustrated and
angry. Even more so if there's not
submission in hierarchy. You look at Fernando has often
worked at a Body Shop and managed that.
Maria and her insurance agency. I know Laurel has has her own
business. Penny was over a management
position in her in her factory. So many people in in our
audience have experienced authority of one level or
another. And I can't go through and name
everybody, but parents have authority.
And once you get to that point where you have some authority
over someone, you realize that's why it's necessary.
And it doesn't mean that there's not frustrations for the person
under the authority, but certain things have to go a certain way
or they won't get done and things will be even worse.
The systems we exist and need submission.
And even if you're not in a position of authority, you can
probably see how the people around you who reject it end up
just being frustrated and miserable and negative.
And nobody needs that. So instead of honouring until
you get frustrated, until somebody doesn't deserve it
anymore, a Christian's call to honour.
Remember this, he said earlier, when you fall into various
trials, A Christian and various trials maintains honour of
authorities, maintains goodness and maintains humility.
I don't think any of us would say that if I go through
something difficult, I have license to stop honouring, to
stop being good or to stop being humble.
And we have the difficult task of maintaining that.
So what is submission? So submission is at its
application is obedience. But if you just obey, you could
not be submissive but still obey.
It goes beyond that to acceptance of an authority that
is put over you. And it goes to an appreciation
on some level of their role, an appreciation of what their task
is and what maybe God has given them.
If it's government or what their role is ahead of us.
It can't be just obedience. Romans 13 says it this way.
Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there
is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist
are appointed by God. So we're talking about
government here. Those come from God.
Therefore, whoever resists that authority resists the ordinance
of God, and those who resist will bring judgement on
themselves. God has had to put things into
order in our world to make things work, and they're often
not ideal. It was not ideal for God to give
them a king, but that's what he saw fit to put in order to make
things work in his current situation.
It was not ideal that Jesus would die for us, but God had to
put that into place to make things work for what we needed
to happen. And when God puts an ordinance
in place, far be it from us to reject it, that we would
surrender to it and be subject in our soul to the authority.
But it's a relief if you think about it.
The God is telling us you don't worry about the authorities.
You deal with what you can control.
You handle what you can. And I, the authority, will
handle the other authorities. I, the authority, will take care
of them. As Jude said, we read recently,
Michael did not. The Archangel did not bring a
reviling accusation against the devil.
That's not the peony's job, the peon's job.
That's not the peon's job. That is the responsibility of
the higher authorities to deal with higher authorities.
The sooner we start to see that we are nobodies, the better in
this world for our own disposition, for our own Peace
of Mind. So we will focus on what we can
control. Now here's some phrases I've
heard and let's evaluate and see if they add up to the attitude
that God wants us to have. Give me a fine.
Those laws are dumb. Nobody's telling me what to do.
Maybe I've said that at some point, but the point isn't
always what is that a sin? How about we ask this, What is
that going to convey? An attitude of submission?
Is that going to show to the people around me that I am a
subject of subject to the authorities around me, so that
when something else happens that I disagree with, they're not
going to say, well, he's just going to buck against that too?
Does this embody reverence and honour?
I have free speech in this country.
I can say whatever I want. He's going to say in a few
verses that we are to live as free, but not using liberty as a
cloak for vice or evil. We can't cover up evil just by
saying we're free, whether it's in religion or if it's in
government. Some might say I only obey God.
That is categorically impossible.
You cannot obey God without obeying your parents, without
being the government, without being the authorities that are
put in place. So that is impossible.
That's just an ignorant statement.
We've got a bunch of idiots running our country.
It doesn't matter if this is true or not.
Does this embody A submissive attitude to the people who are
put in place above us? An honouring attitude, because
if it, even if it's true, you saying that isn't going to help
change anything except for your character and your reputation.
You are now in danger of being an irreverent, prideful,
slanderous citizen. And is that what Christ wants
emitting from us is not about what they are, is about what we
are as Christians. Maybe instead of that last
thing, we could say I'm thankful I'm not in charge of this
country and that it's in God's hands.
I pray God will give them the wisdom for their challenges.
You know what this does? It shows wisdom because it
acknowledges people have stuff to deal with.
It's not simple. There are structures that exist
that not one person can over override.
There are systems that have to exist to deal with problems that
are bigger than one person's ability to fix it.
And having some understanding and not being childish
acknowledges that. Does this say that these people
are wonderful? Does it say that our government
is the most amazing people? That is, that ascribes undue
compliment to them? No, you don't have to say any of
these other things to say something good and to say
something worthwhile. Here's another negative
statement that can be made. There are so many people.
Or our company administration is corrupt scum.
I've heard that phrase in my job.
Our company administration is corrupt scum.
Now this might not be the same governing authorities put in
place by God, but it's an attitude with authority.
It is not always that simple. Maybe instead we could say there
are some difficult issues that need to be addressed in our
company and I hope I can contribute to their solution
soon. Maybe that's somebody who's
actually willing to do something about it.
But usually people don't, because usually what people say
is, you know, you can say that. You can say, man, so are you
going to, are you going to try to get your degree and, and
become an administrator and are you going to try to fix it?
No, no, I don't want that responsibility.
I, I don't have to deal with this, this and that.
OK. So so you acknowledge that there
are some things up there that you can't solve.
So maybe if you're the person who's not going to come take
over authority to fix things, maybe we could say something
like this. I have never managed this
business or this circumstance. I can't speak to the information
they're working with and the responsibilities they carry to
make that decision. That is wise to step back and
say I'm not in their shoes, I'm not working with what they know.
Maybe I can just back off. This shows grace and
understanding and wisdom. And isn't that what we want for
ourselves? Isn't that what we want from
God? So may we submit for the Lord's
sake, He says, whether to the king as supreme or to the
governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment
of evil doers and for the praise of those who do good.
Now, what's interesting is you might look at their situation
and say, wait, Nero probably never praised them for that.
So are we assuming that these people are going to get praise?
Here's the thing. I've realized that most people
don't hear the praise that is ringing around them because
maybe it's just staying in the heart of the person who sees it.
Or maybe they're sharing it with one another, but then never
comes back to the person they're actually praising or the person
they are thankful for their example or their attitude.
The praise of those who do good may never get back to them.
You ever thought about that? The good things you do may be
affecting people and causing people to honor what you've
done, even if they never tell you.
Or maybe they're praising God on your behalf because they seen
someone who's doing godly things and it's encouraging to them.
I've had brief encounters with people that have refreshed my
spirit who probably weren't even Christians.
I don't know. I had a brief encounter with
them, but they caused me to praise God and say God thank you
for showing me a good example that reminded me to get out of
this rut that I'm in and to have a good attitude to do good
things. And I praise God because of
those good examples. And it never went to their ear.
May we not underestimate the claim that government could even
see us that way, That a government could be aware of the
Christians that are in their jurisdiction or anyone who's
over authority that that would lead to praise.
So silent praise can be all without words.
It can be directed at God instead of us.
It can leave impressions that may never you may never know and
I know I have been able to praise God because of the
example of others. He goes on to say verse 15 for
this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to
silence the ignorance of foolish men.
If you want to respond to people, retorting does nothing.
Retorting does absolutely nothing.
The real way. If you want to stop somebody's
slander, this is just new good. And now we'll put to silence the
ignorance of foolish men. There are many things that we
try to do as a church that we want to follow the doctrines of
God, absolutely. But the will of God goes beyond
these four walls where we try to follow the doctrines and the
commandments of worship and even character.
This is the will of God. That our character and our
actions and our goodness would be so evident that it would
silence any detractors. That is the will of God, That we
would carry these things into our various circumstances and
speak a louder message than anything they could say against
God or against us. Would the quality and
consistency of my character make any detractors look foolish now?
It's not a show, it's a silent reverence.
It is a silent honour to God and to other people, and their
silence acknowledges and maybe even praises the God that the
goodness embodies. That when we show goodness,
their silence may be the praise to God.
The first time they ever praise God.
And maybe when they're silenced, maybe then they'll stop and
consider so that when when He visits us on the day of
visitation, that He will be glorified by them.
Verse 16 as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but
as bond, servants of God. There is that phrase again that
we would not use our freedoms and wield them, but that we
would still surrender with our freedoms.
He says honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor
the king. If you need like a a placard, if
you need a bumper sticker to take away from this lesson, just
put on your mirror that you will always remember.
Honor everyone. Now that's interesting because
we just started talking about submitting ourselves to the
government, but now he just made it even broader and now he said
to honour all people. That's quite the claim.
That's quite the ask. Honour's not exactly an easy
thing to identify and how to describe it.
I saw a video recently and this isn't the video clip, but this
is something very similar. I think it was in Japan where
this, this person stepped out to hold traffic for other people,
for the car who was trying to get out of the parking garage.
This person stepped out to hold traffic.
They let the car go and, you know, and they and they
acknowledge the person and they turned and they bowed to the
cars who so graciously. And the cars were not, you know,
slamming on their brakes and, like, trying to fly through the
cars just stopped. And that person turned and bowed
to the traffic and stepped aside.
And sometimes our culture is so irreverent and so lacking honor
that it's hard to understand. Like, what does it look like?
What is honor? How do I show honor?
And I'm not saying you go bow and on Hughes Lane over here,
you might get hit by a car. Don't do that.
But try to think about the the attitude behind someone who is
willing to, to show thankfulness and respect, regardless of who
they're giving it to. That was a, a powerful example
to me that that just stuck out in the culture that I, that I've
observed from different ones in the Japanese culture.
Sometimes we get so busy reacting to people that we don't
take time to consider how we are responsible for our actions.
Showing honour says a lot more about the giver than the
recipient. I have a neighbor who is one of
the kindest people I've ever met.
And since I moved into this new house, on the first day that we
moved in, he came and he showed kindness and respect and, and
love. And in a way that I've, I've
been, I've felt those things in many different places in life,
especially because I'm a part of the church.
But so many times, well, it's, it's special as part of the
church. I'll just put it that way.
You know, you come to expect that.
But it was shocking to me to see someone who had no reason to
treat me this kindly, to step out of their way and to show a
level of respect that I had not earned.
And it it shocked me and it was powerful to me.
And that example will stick with me because I didn't earn it.
I did nothing to deserve it. But he showed goodness to me.
He showed kindness. He assumed good things about me.
And I don't know how to quantify.
I don't know how to tell you what he said that did it.
It's a disposition, it's an attitude of honour before he
ever even knew me. So as we try to nail down
honour, we know how to honour people instinctively.
I will say, even when it's not easy to identify, we know how to
do it instinctively. But what we're doing is we're
treating someone as if they are worthy of good deeds and
goodwill and we're treating them with respect.
But it's not admiration because often times admiration is
sourced in you are either on my level or above my level.
So I admire you for that. And that's not what honour is.
That's not a godly honour because here is how.
Here is how I guess a common way of looking at the world is.
But we're told to not be common. We're told to be uncommon.
That's the synonym for holy. Unholy is common, Holy is
uncommon. We're told to be uncommon.
So what is a common way of treating people?
I would say there's about 20% of the people that often are around
us. Let me just give you a a sample.
Any Joe Schmo on the street commonly has disdain for about
20% of the people they run into. That could be social media, I
think. Man, these people are so dumb.
They're so, they're so stupid. People do all these dumb things.
I've got dumb people in front of me and on the road.
I've got dumb people managing me.
I've got dumb people underneath me.
People think that way a lot of times about There's disdain.
There's a negative feeling people have a lot of times for
about 20%, I might say, I don't know.
Then there's about 60% of people they might interact with that
they're pretty neutral about. They're just disinterested or
you mean nothing to me. I don't have a problem with you,
but you mean nothing to me. Then there's maybe about another
1920% of people that the common person is cordial with if you go
out that they're going to have a cordial relationship.
And then there's about 1% that the common person will show
honour toward. I think this is a snapshot of
the common attitude toward others and it's understandable
because it's all based on a system of what have you proven
to me. You have proven negative.
You're off, you're off my list. Get out of here.
You have proven nothing to me. You have proven small things.
You have proven. Maybe it's elders, maybe it's
parents, maybe it's mentors have proven that you deserve my
honour. But what did the verse say?
Honour all men. I meant to change that to
uncommon. This is supposed to be the holy
or uncommon way of thinking. This is what we are called to,
that we would honour all men. Does it say anything about them
deserving? If I live on this model, I will
only give my best attitude to about 1% of the people I ever
meet. You know why that's a tragedy?
Because we're called to be a light.
And if I'm going to be a light in this world, it involves
giving my goodness and showing goodness to everyone around me.
Possible. And you know who did that?
Jesus. Jesus, while we were yet
sinners, died for the ungodly. Jesus extended an arm, as Isaiah
53 says, send his arm, his Son. God send his Son down the form
of Jesus, an arm to reach us when we were unworthy, when we
not only had not yet earned it, we had actually earned the
opposite. So if we want to carry this
mentality to the world, may we be ready for the what's coming
in return because Jesus treated us with honour.
So as I said, it's difficult to figure out like, how do you just
do it? Well, let's think about what
might impede honour, what might keep us from showing honour to
make sure that's out of there and so we could properly show
honour. First of all, showing honour is
lifting others up and it cannot be done when you are trying to
lift yourself up at the same time.
John 3 verse 3, John the Baptist is, is seeking to elevate Jesus
and he says he must, he will, he must increase, I must decrease.
It has to happen. If I'm concerned about elevating
myself, it can't happen. What else?
Showing honour, it cannot be done if I lived through the lens
of broad negative generalities about people.
Showing honour cannot be done to all men if I live through the
lens of broad negative generalities of people.
I'm not saying there aren't a lot of negative people out there
who deserve a reputation, but if I live looking at them that way,
that is my fault and it will not produce honour for my heart to
show them. If I think everybody's a bunch
of idiots, nobody does quality work, nobody's honest, nobody
cares about I've said those phrases, have you?
I can't show honour to people when I'm thinking that way.
Studies have shown that we will take one or two negative
experiences and apply them to everything in the future that is
scientifically proven. You will do that and I will do
that. We have to really work hard
against this. But remember as Frank taught us
recently, Jesus said every sin our lives have an opportunity of
choosing the choosing the Broadway or the narrow way, the,
the easy way to find the, the easy way or the hard way.
That's can be difficult. And so I believe in every
scenario there's an easy way and a hard way.
If you boil it down to piece by piece, there's a broad freeway
and then there's a path less travelled and so maybe the bit
the Broadway would be to live bitter, assuming the worst in
people and expecting them to fail you like the last time.
But the narrow way might be to gird up the loins of your mind.
As he told us last time, take control of your head and accept
your negative experiences and leave them behind and approach
new people with a fresh start they deserve.
Well deserving is take it or leave it, approach new people
with a fresh start that you would hope to have, that I would
hope to have because First Corinthians tells us love
believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.
That's honour and finding fresh perspective.
How do you do that? Last time people really said
they like the situational example.
So I'm going to try to give you something.
I'm not the expert, I'm immature in many ways, and I have a lot
of room to grow, but maybe this will help you.
And I put even put it into ours. I went through the hard work of
putting it all into ours, so maybe that'll help us.
So maybe first we recognize when we are entering a place in our
mind that is not going to honour people.
OK, what might that look like? Maybe it's negativity, maybe
it's dread. Then maybe we have to go back
and review. Why am I in this headspace?
Why am I about to treat this person poorly once I recognize
it? We got to review what's happened
in the past, and then we have to reframe and reshape how we're
going to see things. And then we can release the past
and refresh our perspective. OK, what the I'm going to give
you another silly example. I started trying to give you a
more like work situation that may be more specific, but we all
can relate to simple things like driving in the grocery store.
So I'm going to give you a store scenario.
I'm at the store and something like this actually happened.
I whispered under my breath. Nobody here is competent.
I think in my mind that our workforce is unproductive,
unskilled, and entitled. OK, so I've now recognized a
negative place in my mind. But why is that?
Why is that true? What?
Why? Why did I create that negative
thought pattern? Well, I haven't had a good
experience here the last two times I was here.
Last time I asked someone for help or this time I asked
someone for help. I waited 45 minutes for help and
then the person came and didn't have an answer to my question.
Then they were very rude and left me with no new no good
solution. OK, so I'm I at least know why
I'm frustrated or about to be bitter toward them.
Maybe I can deal with that now that I know what's going on.
And this is where we reframe. And reframing can be macro, it
could be big picture, or maybe it can be like specific to this
situation. So let's say specific to this
situation, maybe that last person I talked to didn't have
good training. Maybe they've had customers yell
at them all day long and they're at the end of a long work day
and they're being yelled at for things they don't have the
knowledge or the authority to fix.
I'd probably be frustrated and I'll be very nice.
Maybe they want to move up to a better job and they're tired
being stuck in this job and they don't know how to move forward
in their life. They may be having a boss that
is frazzled and taking it out on them.
They may have things going on their personal life.
Maybe they had a family member that's sick.
Maybe they had a breakup. Maybe they weren't blessed with
good parents who raised them well.
Maybe they've mistreated them. Who knows what this person has
dealt with. I would have much rather make
this person's day better by showing them honor if they're
having a poor day, then to sit in selfish frustration and have
us both be upset. There's an example of reframing.
Or maybe the situation doesn't have an easy way to reframe
looking at that person. Maybe we got to go macro.
Maybe we got to go big picture. Maybe I could say I have all my
needs taken care of standing in the store right now.
I have food, clothing, shelter, and if I don't get what I'm
trying to buy today, I'm going to be just fine.
It's a non necessity item. My time is important, but Peace
of Mind is more important than this little piece of time that I
might have lost. I'm standing in a safe, air
conditioned store in the wealthiest country the world has
ever seen. I need to chill.
Sometimes reframing helps in the specific situation a person
we're dealing with. Sometimes we got to reframe from
a big picture. And maybe at that point we can
release and refresh. And a lot of time, often times
for me, this involves prayer that I would prayerfully
acknowledge that in this life, things aren't perfect.
And yeah, sometimes hard stuff happens.
I need to grow up sometimes. And it's time to not hold
bitterness in my heart, to ask God for a new heart, to see new
situations and new people with a positive mindset.
To see the workers as people and not tools who are doing their
best, learning on the job, figuring out things throughout
their day just like I do mine. And pray for the attitude to
honour these workers, whatever expertise or service they
provide. I've now had a chance to change
my mind. And if I approach a new
situation, I guarantee it will be better.
I might not be perfect, but it will sure be a lot better than
the way I walked into that scenario ready to dishonour
somebody who maybe needed to not have that dishonor.
He says, honour all people, love the brotherhood, fear God and
honour the King because where we're at the time, I'm just
going to leave it right there and we're going to move on to to
our closing. He eventually gets to the point
of pointing this back to Jesus. And so I don't want to lose
that. And I'll I'll re establish this
flow of thought next time I continue.
It's hard to hard to stop in the middle of the writers flow
thought. He goes on to talk about
servants and how they're to be submissive and all these things
that we do. He's saying suffering for good
is what we were called to. That's the whole point of what
we're doing here. He says for this to this, you
were called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving an
example that you should follow in his steps.
So if you suffer, he's like, yeah, that's what you're here
for. Why are we surprised?
Don't be surprised. You could be suffering for no
purpose. At least you're suffering with
purpose because we are connecting to Christ in his
sufferings. Jesus committed no sin, nor was
deceit found in his mouth. Who was reviled did not revile
in return. When He suffered, He did not
threaten, but committed himself to Him who judges righteously,
who Himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we,
having died to sins, might live for righteousness.
By whose stripes you are healed. So it all comes back to Jesus.
May we not be surprised when we are asked to suffer a little bit
and have a good attitude and to choose the narrow way, because
that is what Jesus did. And that's the whole point of
why we're here. If you haven't begun this walk,
you can you've heard a piece of God's word this morning.
As we're told in Romans 10 verse 17, faith comes by hearing.
If we're going to develop a faith that will save us.
It starts with hearing the word of God.
It starts with and it continues with believing it.
I can't just read it. I can't just hear it.
I've got to be a believer and belief benefits self manifests
itself in action with repentance.
That I would turn from my way to God's way that I would turn and
to follow him with every with every area of my life, including
the things we talked about today.
That I would identify not myself as the source of salvation, but
that I would identify that Jesus is the Savior of the world and
by him we have to be saved through him.
We know by no other name that we would confess Jesus as the
Savior of the world, the Son of God, and we will be baptized.
To begin that walk, to begin a fresh start and to know from
this day forward, I'm a member, I'm saved, and I'm a member of
the God's family. Mark 16, verse 16.
And then we live faithfully. That's what we're called to.
And to continue to repent and to continue to believe and to hear
the Word. And this process continues.
But to begin this walk, you can follow these steps and you don't
have to be baptized again. If you've messed up, you don't
repeat that. We come and we pray for
forgiveness and sometimes we pray together.
So if you'd like to take care of either of those things this
morning, please come while we stand while we see.