Tawa Baptist

Yesterday

Scripture: Deuteronomy 1:19-45

Video Link: https://youtu.be/JaiElrXVwTc

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Israel’s fear in the face of God’s faithfulness
  • Israel’s arrogance in the face of God’s anger
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

The atheist philosopher, George Santanya, once said: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’

Whatever George Santanya may have believed about God, this quote certainly strikes a chord with Moses. In Deuteronomy, Moses gives a series of sermons to the people of Israel as they stand on the edge of the Promised Land, after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.

In the opening chapters of Deuteronomy, Moses is at pains to remind the Israelites of their past, in particular the mistakes of their past.

Today’s message draws its inspiration from Deuteronomy chapter 1, verses 19-45, in which Moses recounts the events of 38 years earlier, when the people of Israel failed to enter the Promised Land.

Moses is now speaking to the adult children of those who faltered. And he doesn’t mince words or sugar coat it. Moses wants the next generation to learn from the past, so they don’t make the same mistakes their parents did.

Broadly speaking Moses highlights at least two mistakes to avoid from the past. There is Israel’s fear in the face of God’s faithfulness and there is Israel’s arrogance in the face of God’s anger. First let’s consider Israel’s fear. 

Israel’s fear in the face of God’s faithfulness:

In verses 19-33 of Deuteronomy 1, which we read earlier in today’s service, Moses recalls the events that led up to Israel’s first failed attempt to the enter the land.

In summary, the nation left Mount Sinai and arrived at Kadesh Barnea, which is an oasis to the south of the land of Canaan. Moses said: Take the land the Lord your God is giving you, don’t hesitate and don’t be afraid.

But the people wanted to send spies in first, which seemed prudent at the time, so Moses agreed. Each of the 12 spies gave a favourable report of the land but only two (Joshua and Caleb) were keen to proceed. The other 10 spies focused more on the obstacles and threats, saying there were giants in the land and the walls of the cities reached to the sky.

Unfortunately, democracy was the winner and Joshua and Caleb’s minority report was ignored. From verse 26 of Deuteronomy 1, Moses remembers…

26 “But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God, and you would not enter the land. 27 You grumbled to one another: ‘The Lord hates us. He brought us out of Egypt just to hand us over to these Amorites, so that they could kill us. 28 Why should we go there? We are afraid.

Fear is a powerful thing. There are two kinds of fear. Rational fear, which is well founded in truth and useful to protect us. Like, seeing a hot element on the stove and not touching it for fear of being burned.

And then there is irrational fear, which is based on a lie. Irrational fear, if it gets hold of us, distorts our perspective and blinds us. Irrational fear paralyses people. The Israelites’ fear was irrational. It was based on a false belief.   

David Riddell, a Christian counsellor, has a helpful tool for correcting false beliefs and renewing your mind. He calls it Trace – Face – Replace.

The idea with trace face replace is to trace your self-talk and feelings to the underlying beliefs which are driving those feelings. Then face your beliefs squarely, to see whether or not they are really true. And, if the belief you hold is false, then replace it with a belief that is true.

For example, if you find that you have a habit of bailing out when the going gets tough, you might trace that behaviour to a belief that life should be easy. When you face that belief you find that it is false. Actually, life is not easy. So, with time and practice, you replace the belief with one that is true. Something like, life has it challenges but God is with us and for us through thick and thin. We need to speak the truth to ourselves.

Now I’m not suggesting that all anxiety can be cured in this way. There is a certain level of systemic (or ambient) anxiety in our world today, due to a range of factors which are outside of our control. Nevertheless, I think David Riddell’s method is helpful.   

The Israelites were afraid of entering the Promised Land. And when we trace that feeling of fear to its source, we see it was based on a belief that God hates them.

Moses, who is a wise and compassionate pastor, tries to get the people to face their wrongly held belief in order to replace that false belief with a belief that is true. In verse 29, Moses says… 

29 “But I told you, ‘Don’t be afraid of those people. 30 The Lord your God will lead you, and he will fight for you, just as you saw him do in Egypt 31 and in the desert. You saw how he brought you safely all the way to this place, just as a father would carry his son.’     

Sometimes we think that faith is not based on anything. It’s just a leap in the dark. But Biblical faith looks back at the facts of what God has done in the past. Faith is grounded in the reality of our experience with God.  (Not just our personal experience but our collective experience also.) 

Moses fights fear with facts. The people believe that God hates them and so Moses basically says, ‘Where’s the evidence for that belief?’ The facts are that God delivered you from slavery in Egypt and brought you safely through the desert to this oasis. All the evidence indicates that God loves you.

Why would God provide all that care and protection only to lead you into an ambush? It doesn’t make sense. Your false belief needs to be replaced with a true belief.

In verse 30, Moses says the Lord your God will lead you and fight for you. Here God is portrayed as a powerful warrior, the General of a heavenly army. This belief, that God will fight for Israel, is not random. It is based on the fact that God actually did this for Israel when they left Egypt. 

Then, in verse 31, God is portrayed as a loving Father, where Moses says: You saw how he brought you safely all the way to this place, just as a father would carry his son. Again, that statement is based on the facts of what God has done in the past.

So the true belief, the belief Moses wants the people to hold to going forward, is that God is powerful, like a mighty warrior, but also gentle and protective like a loving Father.

There is so much fear and anxiety in our world today. Some of it is reasonable but not all of it. If we were to trace our fears to the underlying beliefs we hold, we would probably find that many of our beliefs are simply false and need to be replaced with a belief that is accurate and true.

What is it you really believe about God?

I’m not sure we really know what we believe when we are singing songs in church on Sunday. I think we find out what we truly believe when the faecal matter hits the fan, Monday through to Friday.

Do you believe God hates you? The truth is, God loves you like a good father. That doesn’t mean you won’t have to struggle. That doesn’t mean you won’t ever meet with resistance. But it does mean you are not alone in your struggle.

Do you believe God is powerless? The truth is, God is mighty to save, like a powerful warrior. That doesn’t mean life will always be easy. It doesn’t mean everything will be handed to you on a silver platter. But it does mean God can work every circumstance for good.

Returning to Deuteronomy. Sadly, the people of Israel still would not trust the Lord, even though Moses had reminded them of the facts of God’s leadership and care for them. 

If verses 19-33 of Deuteronomy 1 speak of Israel’s fear in the face of God’s faithfulness, then verses 34-45 speak of Israel’s arrogance in the face of God’s anger. We pick up Moses’ retelling of Israel’s past from verse 34…

34 “The Lord heard your complaints and became angry, and so he solemnly declared, 35 ‘Not one of you from this evil generation will enter the fertile land that I promised to give your ancestors. 36 Only Caleb son of Jephunneh will enter it. He has remained faithful to me, and I will give him and his descendants the land that he has explored.’ 

37 Because of you the Lord also became angry with me and said, ‘Not even you, Moses, will enter the land. 38 But strengthen the determination of your helper, Joshua son of Nun. He will lead Israel to occupy the land.’

39 “Then the Lord said to all of us, ‘Your children, who are still too young to know right from wrong, will enter the land—the children you said would be seized by your enemies. I will give the land to them, and they will occupy it. 40 But as for you people, turn around and go back into the desert on the road to the Gulf of Aqaba.’

41 “You replied, ‘Moses, we have sinned against the Lord. But now we will attack, just as the Lord our God commanded us.’ Then each one of you got ready to fight, thinking it would be easy to invade the hill country.

42 “But the Lord said to me, ‘Warn them not to attack, for I will not be with them, and their enemies will defeat them.’ 

43 I told you what the Lord had said, but you paid no attention. You rebelled against him, and in your arrogance you marched into the hill country. 44 Then the Amorites who lived in those hills came out against you like a swarm of bees. They chased you as far as Hormah and defeated you there in the hill country of Edom. 45 So you cried out to the Lord for help, but he would not listen to you or pay any attention to you.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

When we think of anger we tend to picture someone losing control. A sudden outburst of pent up emotion. Perhaps yelling or punching the wall. Anger has many faces though. More often, in our culture, anger slips out in the form of sarcasm, or it goes inward as with resentment.

Anger is usually the result of injustice. If you cut yourself, you bleed. If you suffer injustice, you feel angry. The greater the injustice the greater the anger (whether that injustice is real or merely imagined).

The problem with us human beings is that we have a proclivity to feel we have been badly slighted or unfairly treated when in fact we haven’t. Or we might be inclined to magnify the injustice we feel because there is power in taking the role of the victim. So human anger is not always righteous or justified.

In verse 34, Moses says that God became angry after listening to Israel’s complaints. Because we human beings are so self-centred we often make the mistake of thinking that divine anger is the same as human anger. But it’s not.

Yes, injustice makes God angry too; the Lord was angry with Israel because their complaints against him were untrue and unjust. But God has a far better handle on his anger than we do. God keeps the injustice in perspective. He doesn’t exaggerate it. And his expression of anger is always fair and measured, salted with mercy and creativity. God does not explode in a fit of rage.

We see the fairness of God’s anger in the solemn declaration he makes in verses 35-38. The Lord vows that this generation of Israelites, who believed he hated them, will not enter the Promised Land. So often God’s wrath takes the form of giving people what they say they want. God’s wrath is not him hitting people with a big stick. More often, God’s wrath takes the form of God stepping back and letting people experience the consequences of their own choices.

But God’s anger is also discerning. God’s anger minimises any collateral damage. The innocent ones do not receive the same treatment as the guilty. Caleb and Joshua, the two spies who trusted God and encouraged the people to take the land, they both get in. They have to wait the better part of 40 years, but still they are treated with fairness.

As well as being fair and righteous, God’s anger is also creative. Verses 39-40 surely reveal the beauty and wisdom of God’s anger. Israel were afraid of what their enemies might do to their children so God basically says, ‘I will prove your fear to be false. Your children will occupy the land. They will succeed where you have failed.’

Imagine this. Someone you know well, someone you had treated with kindness, repaid your kindness by spreading malicious rumours about you. The things they said were untrue, unkind and unfair.

How would you feel? I expect you would feel angry and rightly so. But what are you going to do with that anger? Are you going to play a game of tit for tat and say nasty things about them behind their back?

Or are you going to tell them to their face that they are out of line and then, to prove them wrong, put money in a Trust fund for their kids to buy a house one day? (In this little story you’ve got the means to do that.)

Probably most of us want to speak our mind to those who wrong us but I don’t think any of us would bless their children so generously. And yet that is effectively what God did with his anger. He turned it into something creative and beneficial, saying your kids will inherit the land. God is not like us. His anger is just and merciful.

God’s declaration, that the children will inherit the Promised Land, reminds me of Jesus who says in the gospels: Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven.   

Simple, childlike trust opens the door.

So what does Israel do in the face of the Lord’s anger? Well, they say to Moses (in verse 41)…

‘…we have sinned against the Lord. But now we will attack, just as the Lord our God commanded us.’

On the face of it, this looks like repentance and we would expect repentance to do the trick. But it is too late. This is not the eleventh hour. This is the thirteenth hour.[1] God has already made his solemn declaration and he won’t take it back. That particular generation of Israel have missed their window of opportunity for entering the land.

Another quote from George Santanya: ‘Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.’ 

Or to put it another way, if what you are doing isn’t working, then more of the same isn’t going to help. 

By this definition the Israelites of Moses’ generation were fanatics. They redoubled their efforts while forgetting their aim. Israel’s aim, their purpose, was to trust and obey the Lord God. Sadly, they had forgotten this and compensated by redoubling their efforts, by trying even harder. But there’s no point in shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Even though Moses warned them that God was not with them to give them victory, the people rebelled against the Lord and in their arrogance marched into battle only to suffer heavy defeat.

Maybe their earlier repentance was honest enough in that moment but it is undone by the next moment’s truth.

It seems that Israel’s need for redemption was so great they were willing to risk their lives for it. But salvation belongs to God. We cannot manufacture our own redemption.

Interestingly, Hormah (the place of Israel’s defeat) comes from a word meaning destruction or annihilation. The message is: failure to trust God’s word results in death.

Today’s reading finishes with Moses recalling how the survivors of that defeat cried out to the Lord for help, but he would not listen or pay attention.

We may prefer to think of God’s compassion and grace but what we have here is a picture of God’s unswerving justice. The people have simply reaped what they sowed. More than once they refused to listen to God and so God refuses to listen to them.

After the defeat at Homar, the people went to the oasis at Kadesh before returning to the wilderness for 38 more years. Sometimes you have to go back before you can go forward.

Conclusion:

You know, we need to be careful not to look down on Israel here. If we are honest with ourselves, we are not that different and we may even be worse.

Like Israel, we too are sometimes so focused on the giants in the land that we lose sight of God’s faithfulness. And in losing sight of God’s faithfulness we are overwhelmed by fear.

Like Israel, we too may be so desperate for redemption that we try to manufacture our own salvation. We may wear ourselves out trying to be good enough and then end up feeling defeated by the reality of how far we fall short.

Ultimately though we need to remember, today’s story is not primarily about us. This story is about Jesus. Jesus did for Israel what they could not do for themselves. Just as Jesus did for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Jesus lived the perfect life of trust and obedience to God the Father on our behalf. And, in the process, Jesus conquered the giants of sin and death. Not only that but Jesus embodies the Promised Land of God’s kingdom.

We get to participate in God’s kingdom, not through our own strength or courage, but through simple childlike trust in Christ.  

The musician, Taylor Kingman, wrote a song called Wannabe. It’s not really the sort of song we might sing in church but the last verse makes an honest prayer, I think, even if Taylor Kingman did not intend that. Can you make this your prayer…      

I wanna be true

The blossoms of love are blighted with fear in the roots

And that moment was honest, untouched by the next moment’s truth

And I’m sorry for all I’ve taken and I’m sorry for all I’ve let loose

I wanna be true, I wanna be forgiven for giving up on everything I knew

I wanna be true. 

Amen. 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • Why does Moses remind the nation of Israel of its past mistakes?
  • How might we discern the difference between rational fear and irrational fear? How might we overcome irrational fear?
  • What do you really believe about God, Monday through to Friday? To help you explore this question, you may like to try the following exercise:

Are you aware of a mantra of self-talk or a feeling that is troubling you? Trace that self-talk or feeling to its underlying belief. Face that belief squarely. Is that belief true? If it is false, what belief can you replace it with?   

  • Why did God become angry with Israel? How did God deal with his anger? How do you typically deal with your anger? How is God’s anger different from human anger?
  • What connections do you see between this story of Israel and Jesus? What does Jesus do for Israel that Israel could not do for itself? What does Jesus do for us that we cannot do for ourselves?
  • Take some time this week to intentionally recall God’s faithfulness to you personally. It might be little things God does in each day or bigger things he has done over the years. Think of specific examples and thank him.   

[1] Credit to Walter Brueggemann for this line.

Tawa Baptist

Stand

Scripture: 1st Peter 5:6-14

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Cast off your anxiety
  • Stand firm in the faith
  • You are not alone
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Today we conclude our series in the New Testament letter of first Peter, focusing on chapter 5, verses 6-14.

When I started this series back in the middle of August last year, I thought this is a relatively short letter, just five chapters. It shouldn’t take too long.

I didn’t quite appreciate how much Peter was able to say in so few words. Peter’s letter is like Dr Who’s Tardis; it is a lot bigger on the inside than it appears on the outside. Excluding the holidays, it has taken 19 weeks to work through. But that is God’s word for you, generous and full of hidden gems.

From 1st Peter chapter 5, verses 6-14, we read…

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 11 To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

12 With the help of Silas, whom I regard as a faithful brother, I have written to you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.

13 She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark. 14 Greet one another with a kiss of love.

Peace to all of you who are in Christ.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

The main metaphor Peter has used in his letter, to describe Christian believers, is that of the Jewish exile. In many ways the Christians of the first century were like exiles or resident aliens in a foreign land. As God’s people they were a marginalized minority. They were not in a position of political strength and were vulnerable to the pressure to conform to the pagan way of life around them. In that context it would have been very easy for Peter’s readers to lose faith in God and be assimilated into the cultural soup they found themselves in.

These Christian believers needed to remain very clear about their identity and their future hope, when God would restore them. They needed to stand their ground, without resorting to violence, and without compromising who they are.

While the church in New Zealand today does not have it as hard as the church of the first century in Asia Minor, it is becoming increasingly difficult to hold to Christian faith and values. We need to resist being assimilated into the prevailing culture.  More than ever we need to be clear about who we are and whose we are.

With this in mind, Peter closes his letter with three pieces of encouragement for those who, because of their faith in Jesus, feel like exiles in a foreign land:

Cast off your anxiety, stand firm in the faith and know that you are not alone.      

Cast off anxiety:

Have you ever been swimming in jeans? I don’t recommend it. Swimming in heavy clothes that cling to you is hard work and quite dangerous. You tire more quickly and tend to be dragged under more easily.

Maybe you haven’t swum in jeans but you might have been caught in a surf rip. They say the best thing to do when you are caught in a rip is to not fight it but go with it. Then swim to the side before coming back to shore.

In verse 7 Peter says: Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

This verse is talking about giving your worry to God rather than stressing out by trying to handle everything yourself.

In some ways anxiety is like trying to swim in jeans – it tires you out and drags you down. The best thing is to cast off the denim of your anxious thoughts before you go swimming. You might do this in prayer, by talking to God and asking him to deal with whatever problem is bothering you.

You might say, for example, ‘Lord, this issue feels too big for me to handle myself. I am looking to you for help. You know all things and you know what is best in this situation. I put it in your hands. Show me what part you want me to take responsibility for and what part I need to let go of.’

Often the next day, after you have prayed about it and slept on it, your perspective returns and the path forward becomes clear. God has a mysterious way of providing a remedy which we usually only see in the rear vision mirror.

Of course, as anyone who has struggled with anxiety will tell you, it’s not always as simple as saying a prayer. After giving our worries to God we might feel a compulsion to take them straight back again.

And so sometimes, anxiety can be like getting caught in a rip. You don’t feel in control and the harder you fight against it the worse it seems to get. The more you try not to think about the thing that is stressing you out the more anxious you become.

If that happens one strategy is to distract yourself by doing something completely different for a while, something you enjoy. In this way you conserve your energy until the fear passes and you can find your way back to solid ground.

You need not wait until you are in the rip tide of anxiety though. It is good practice to have built in routines in your day and week which create circuit breakers for anxiety. The Sabbath (a day of rest) is actually a God given circuit breaker but you may do other things in between as well.

What is your circuit breaker? What is that thing you can do which disrupts the holding pattern of anxious thoughts? It needs to be something quite different from your regular job, something which gives your mind a rest from focusing on the stresses and strains of life? Maybe its gardening or wood working or baking or beekeeping or kitesurfing or music or sewing or something else. Work it into the rhythm and routine of your life. In this way you will find it a bit easier to cast your anxiety on God.

Now I need to point out that casting your anxiety on God is not the same thing as throwing caution to the wind. Casting off anxiety is not a roll of the dice. No. In casting off anxiety we are still holding onto our responsibility.

Peter was a fisherman and with fishing there are no guarantees. Some things are outside of your control. You can’t control the weather, for example, or where the fish are going to be. But you can look after your equipment so that when the weather is right and the fish are teeming, your net doesn’t break and your boat doesn’t sink.

The point is, we take responsibility for those things we can control and we leave the rest to God. We trust God with the outcome knowing that he cares for us. Doing that enables us to stay calm and think more clearly.

Cast off your anxiety but hold on to your responsibility. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. You can get rid of the dirty bath water of anxiety. But you have a responsibility to take care of the baby.

One thing that creates anxiety for many people is imagining what other people think of them. But what other people think is outside of your control.

When you are a child you go through life blissfully unaware that other people may have a perception of you that is different from your perception of yourself. But when you go through adolescence your brain becomes aware that other people see you differently from the way you see yourself. This can be difficult to come to terms with and may be one reason why teenagers can be quite sensitive at times.

If you are a teenager and you struggle with angst and social anxiety, then take heart. Those intense feelings won’t last forever. As you get older you tend to be less concerned about what other people think.

As Christians we need to be more concerned with God’s opinion of us than anyone else’s opinion. This is what we call ‘the fear of the Lord’. Fear of the Lord releases us from the fear of people.    

Early Christians could not afford to care too much about what others thought of them. First century society generally looked down on Christians and said things about them that were untrue and unkind. The average believer was routinely prejudged, misunderstood and humiliated by the words of their neighbours. And it hurt. A humble, lowly status was forced on Christians whether they liked it or not.           

It is no accident that Peter’s exhortation to cast your anxiety on God comes straight after the part where says, Humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. It can make us anxious to suffer insult and humiliation. To humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand is to leave your reputation with God. Let him vindicate you in due time. Your responsibility is to manage yourself with a clear conscience.   

Okay, so that’s the first thing: cast your anxiety on him who cares for you.

Peter’s next encouragement is to stand firm in the faith.

Stand firm:

One thing they say to every soldier is, ‘Look after your feet’. Your feet are like the foundation of your physical body. When the foundation is sound you can stand your ground.

From verse 8 Peter writes… 

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith,

This is the only time in his letter that Peter talks about the devil. Peter doesn’t give the devil much attention and so we should probably take our cue from that and follow Peter’s example.

Suffice to say the term ‘devil’ means slanderer or accuser. This was quite pertinent to Peter’s readers who suffered slander and false accusation from the prevailing society in which they lived as spiritual exiles.

A roaring lion is something which provokes fear. The devil, who personifies evil, works by trying to intimidate believers. Unlike God, who cares for people, the devil wants to devour and destroy.

I said a couple of weeks ago that our faith is incredibly precious to God. He treasures our faith. Faith makes love possible and that is why the devil seeks to destroy faith.

But the devil is not like a lion in every respect. Peter says we are to resist the devil, standing firm in the faith. You can’t really resist an actual lion, in the wild, by standing your ground. The lion is too strong. It will overpower you. If you hear a lion in the wild you need to quietly get out of its way.

The devil is not like an actual lion though, because we can resist him by standing our ground. Because Jesus has defeated the devil we are able to resist him. Faith in God is the devil’s kryptonite. When we make faithful obedience to Jesus the foundation of our life (when we build our life on Christ and his teachings) the house of our soul stands firm through the storm. 

To put it more plainly, Peter seems to be saying, “Don’t be intimated by the devil’s roar (his slander, his false accusation and his threats). Stand your ground. Maintain your belief and trust in Jesus. Don’t modify your behavior in order to fit in. Don’t assimilate to the pagan culture around you and don’t renounce your faith. Keep trusting Jesus. Remain loyal to him.”

It is interesting that Peter prefaces this stuff about the devil by saying, Be alert and of sober mind. Evil often looks for a way in through the mind. A mind which is alert and sober can act like a gate keeper for the soul, keeping out the Trojan horses and poison thoughts.

When discerning which thoughts to follow and which to ignore you could apply the THINK acrostic (T.H.I.N.K.) I’ve mentioned this on other occasions. Before you walk down a particular path in your mind ask yourself…

Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it inspiring? Is it necessary? Is it kind? If the answer to any of those questions is ‘no’ then it’s probably best not to pursue the thought.       

Peter’s encouragement to stand firm in the faith was tested more than once. On the night when Jesus was arrested Peter tried to stay close to Jesus. He managed to position himself in the courtyard of the house where Jesus was being questioned.

Despite his great enthusiasm, only hours before, Peter buckled under pressure and denied the Lord three times before the cock crowed. He was bitterly ashamed of himself but, as we heard last week, Jesus didn’t hold it against Peter. Jesus restored Peter and made him steadfast and strong.

Peter’s story gives us hope. Like Peter we may deny our Lord and assimilate to the surrounding culture in a hundred different ways, large and small. We may be right to feel guilty about that. But we do no one any favours if we allow our guilt to paralyze us. It is how we respond to failure that matters. It is not how one starts but how one finishes that really counts. 

Several weeks after denying Christ, Peter boldly testified to Jesus’ death and resurrection, on the day of Pentecost. Then, after leading the church for many years, and I imagine suffering many trials, Peter’s faith was tested one last time and proved true. The Bible does not tell us how Peter died but tradition says that he was martyred for his faith. He did not count himself worthy to die in the same way as Jesus and so they crucified him upside down.

Standing firm in the faith goes hand in glove with casting your anxiety on the Lord.

Peter’s third piece of encouragement, in these closing verses of his letter, is to remember you are not alone.

You are not alone:

Sometimes at weddings you hear that reading from Ecclesiastes that a rope of three strands is not quickly broken. It is very appropriate for marriage and for life generally. We are stronger together than alone.

If I take a single piece of paper it is very easy for me to tear it in two, like this. (Hopefully that sound effect comes through on-line.) But if I take two or three pieces of paper and fold them a few times, it becomes a lot more difficult to tear the paper. We are stronger when we are folded together than when we are alone. 

Sometimes when we suffer we think we are the only ones and that creates a very lonely feeling. Loneliness makes us vulnerable to anxiety and despair. Loneliness discourages us. It makes us want to give up. Feeling that we are on our own makes us fragile, like a single piece of paper, easily torn. 

In verse 9 Peter reminds his readers they are not alone in their suffering. Other believers throughout the world are suffering in similar ways. There is a certain solidarity in knowing that.

I’m not sure about you but it actually doesn’t make me feel better to know others are suffering. It’s hard to enjoy life when you know others are doing it tough. But knowing others are suffering for their faith does motivate me to stand strong with and for them.   

As Christians we are all connected. We may not always be aware of this connection consciously but I believe it operates on a subconscious level. If a fellow believer drops out of the faith, then we may feel a certain sadness or loneliness about that. But when a believer hangs tough for Jesus we can feel a certain solidarity or strength and can take courage from that.      

Peter reinforces the point that his readers are not alone (with another fold of the paper) in verse 10, where he says…

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

Not only do we stand in solidarity with other Christians all over the world, God also stands in solidarity with us.

Verse 10 reminds us of the past, the present and the future of God’s grace. God has called you, so you have history with God. In the light of eternity, your suffering is just for a little while, that is the present dimension. And the future looks bright, for God will restore you. In other words, God will complete his work in you and make all things new. Your present situation of weakness is not permanent.   

Peter’s letter ends with a number of greetings which further reinforce the fact that his readers are not alone. Peter sends greetings from Mark and Silas. We can’t be sure but most likely this is the same Mark who wrote Mark’s gospel. Peter refers to him as a son, not in a biological sense, but in a spiritual sense.

Silas is most probably the same person we read of in Acts, who travelled on mission trips with Paul and others. It appears that Silas was the one who delivered Peter’s letter to the house churches in Asia Minor. His physical presence in delivering Peter’s letter would have demonstrated to the church how they were connected to the wider family of believers.

In verse 13 Peter gets poetic saying, She, who is in Babylon, …sends you her greetings. In all likelihood the ‘she who is in Babylon’ refers to the church in Rome. Babylon being a cryptic way of referring to Rome. (The actual city of Babylon lay in ruins at the time Peter was writing.)

All these greetings underline the point that the church in Asia Minor is not alone, they are connected. Peter’s last instruction, to Greet one another with a kiss of love, is an encouragement for believers to remain connected with each other.

This kiss of love is a form of family like affection. Sort of like we might give someone a hug or shake their hand. It is a physical reminder that we are not alone. And it is not a difficult instruction to carry out. It is something pleasant. 

Conclusion:

Having read and studied this letter of Peter’s we can see the apostle has come a long way. In the gospels Peter comes across as a bit brash and somewhat of a blunderer. Sincere and well intentioned, for sure, but often putting his foot in it. He had the tendency to speak before thinking and to make grand claims he could not support. Sometimes his words hit the mark but just as often they were out of place.

The letter of 1st Peter reveals something of Peter’s personal transformation. His words are thoughtful and his attitude is humble. He is uncompromising in his loyalty to Jesus but quite gracious and kind in the way he writes.

There is a winsomeness to this Peter that we don’t see so much in the gospels. It is truly lovely that he should close his correspondence with the threefold encouragement to cast your anxieties on the Lord, to stand firm in the faith and to know that you are not alone.

In the journey of Christian faith, it is not how one starts but how one finishes that really counts. 

Peace to all of you who are in Christ.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • Why do Christian believers need to be clear about who they are and whose they are? 
  • How might we cast all our anxiety on God? What are some practical strategies that work for you? What is your circuit breaker?
  • What does it mean to stand firm in the faith? How can we avoid assimilating to the world’s values?
  • How might we vet or sieve our thoughts in order to protect our mind?
  • How do you feel when other Christians suffer? What might you do to stand in solidarity with them? How do you feel when a fellow Christian turns away from their faith in Jesus? What might you do to stand firm in your faith in that situation?
  • What practical things can you do to strengthen your connection with other Christian believers?
Tawa Baptist

Hope

Scripture: Mark 8:31-33 & 10:46-52

Title: Hope

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Bartimaeus’ hope – Mark 10:46-52
  • Peter’s hope – Mark 8:31-33
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Earlier in the year I preached a message on well-being and care of the soul, using the acronym: HEALING.

–         Each letter represents a word which, when properly applied, is life giving to the human soul…

–         Hope Energy Appreciation Lament Inter-dependence Nurture & Giving

–         At the time I touched lightly on each word and said I would come back later to explore the ideas in more depth

–         Now that we have finished our series on Abraham we can do this

–         Today our message focuses on hope

Hope is a very popular (in) word at the moment

–         It is rightly thought to be one of the life lines for those who experience depression – we see images on TV of John Kirwan writing the word ‘hope’ in the sand on the beach

But what is hope – what does it mean?

–         Well, to hope is to want something to happen

–         Hope, therefore, is a desire or a longing that is yet to be realised

–         Hope imagines something good and believes it can happen

–         We express our hope to God in prayer

–         In the Lord’s Prayer, for example, we say to God, ‘Your will be done, your kingdom come’ – which expresses our desire, our hope for heaven on earth

–         Prayer is important because it fosters hope

–         Hope requires some measure of faith or trust as we wait for our longings and expectations to be fulfilled

 

Developing our definition further, we could say hope is the capacity or ability to handle opposition, perspective and expectation (another acronym)

–         To help us understand this dynamic of handling opposition perspective and expectation let’s read a gospel story of hope realised, from Mark 10…

 

Bartimaeus’ Hope – Mark 10:46-52

As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more,

“Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.”

Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.

The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

“Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.”

Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this Scripture for us

 

Handling hope is a bit like flying a kite – you need three things…

–         A sail to catch the wind

–         A string to hold onto the kite

–         And wind to lift the kite up

 

Perspective is like the sail of the kite

–         Our perspective needs to be set at just the right angle to catch the wind and it needs a tail to keep it balanced

 

The string represents expectation – we control the kite of hope by managing our expectations

–         If we don’t have enough string (or expectation) our hope never climbs very high

–         But if we let our expectations get out of hand we risk losing hope altogether

 

The wind represents some difficulty or challenge or opposition

–         A kite rises against the wind, not with it

–         Without an opposing wind, hope doesn’t rise

 

Bartimaeus faced some winds of difficulty and opposition in his life

–         For starters he was blind, a significant obstacle in that context

–         He also faced the difficulty of living under enemy occupation

–         And, when he called out for Jesus to have mercy on him, Bartimaeus faced opposition from the crowd who tried to silence him

 

But Bartimaeus wouldn’t be silenced – he maintained the sail of his perspective that Jesus is the Son of David and the kite of his hope rose

–         That expression Son of David is code for ‘Messiah’

–         From Bartimaeus’ perspective Jesus was the true King of Israel, not Caesar

–         In naming Jesus as the Messiah, Bartimaeus was giving voice to the hopes and expectations of many of the people in the crowd

–         Perhaps the ones trying to silence him were afraid he might start a riot

 

Hope is good for the soul in that it generates its own positive energy

–         We call that energy joy

–         It’s the joy of expectation – of anticipating something good coming our way – of looking forward to our desire being realised

–         The joy or positive energy of hope is powerful – it can’t really be contained

–         That’s why hope is so important in helping to combat depression

–         Bartimaeus’ joy at hearing that Jesus was passing by only heightened his expectation of salvation, causing him to hold more tightly to the string of hope by continuing to call out for mercy

 

Okay, if hope is the expectation of something we want to happen then it logically follows that the opposite of hope is the expectation of what we don’t want to happen

–         The feeling that comes with the expectation of something bad happening can be described in a number of ways including, fear, worry or anxiety

–         Hope and anxiety are often in a wrestling match within us

–         For Bartimaeus, hope in Jesus overcame fear of the crowd and the Romans

–         But it’s not always like that for us, is it

–         We don’t want to worry, we don’t want to be anxious for anything, but sometimes (or perhaps a lot of the time) we can’t help it

–         Anxiety can be a brutal master – but Jesus is Lord, not anxiety

 

In Matthew 6 Jesus says to those who are anxious…

–         Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

–         Jesus then goes on to talk about how God clothes the lilies of the field

–         Jesus is saying here that we can find release from our anxiety when we change our perspective – when we take the focus off ourselves and our problems by looking outward to nature and to God

 

‘Look at the birds… look at the lilies of the field’ – in other words: spend time in nature, observe God’s creation, it will renew your mind

–         Being in the bush or by the sea or up a mountain grounds us – it puts us in touch with what is real and it gives our mind a break from our fears

 

But to get the most out being in nature we need to look for the ways that God is active and present in caring for his creation

–         We need to think about God as a good and loving Father who values us and wants to give us good things

–         One of the reasons we sing songs of adoration & praise to God is to restore our perspective – to remind ourselves that it doesn’t all depend on me

–         To be filled again with a sense of wonder at the largeness of God and consequently the smallness of our problems

 

Now for those of you who are struggling with significant levels of anxiety these measures (of spending time in creation and contemplating God’s care) are likely to be helpful but may not be the whole answer – there are other things that can help with anxiety as well, and we’ll touch on some of these in the coming weeks

–         Two things I’ve learned from my own experience

–         Most of my fears are never realised – most of the things I get anxious about never actually happen

–         But when bad things do happen I always seem to survive and somehow God uses that experience for good – he redeems it

–         So hold on, with God’s help you will get through this

 

Peter’s Hope – Mark 8:31-33

So far we have talked about the positive aspects of hope, but it needs to be said that hope is not always a good thing

–         If hope is about desire & expectation and we place our hope in something that is ultimately not good for us, nor good for others, then it can be destructive to the human soul

At least three times in the gospels Jesus tells his disciples how he must suffer & die before being raised from the dead

–         One of the reasons Jesus did this (I imagine) was to balance the disciples’ perspective and help them to manage their expectations

From Mark chapter 8 we read…

He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

Clearly Peter’s hopes and expectations for Jesus were quite different from what God had in mind

–         Perhaps Peter was wanting Jesus to be a military & political leader like David or Solomon – perhaps he was expecting Jesus to destroy the Romans

–         Certainly he wasn’t expecting Jesus to suffer & die

 

We might hear that line about Jesus referring to Peter as ‘Satan’ and feel a bit chilly, a bit uncomfortable – ouch that must of hurt Peter

–         But, if hoping amounts to coveting what others have, then it is not good for our soul and we can’t expect Jesus to bless it

–         Or, if hope amounts to wanting revenge or political advantage, then hope has become hate and we can’t expect Jesus to help us realise our desires

–         Hope can be detrimental to the soul when it is misplaced or disappointed and so we need to be careful what we hope for

–         It was kinder for Jesus to adjust Peter’s expectations, by speaking the difficult truth, than for Peter to go too far down the path of misplaced hope

 

If we widen our perspective on these verses we find an application for ourselves

–         Mark 8:31-33 provides a key for helping us to handle opposition, perspective and expectation

–         Jesus is saying here, following me is not an easy ride

–         You can expect some opposition & difficulty in this life

–         For Jesus opposition came in the form of rejection, betrayal & crucifixion

–         We probably won’t suffer as much as Jesus did, but, because of our association with Jesus, we can’t expect everyone to love us or accept us

–         There will be times when we face the dark night of the soul – when everything seems bleak and we feel like God is absent

–         The bigger perspective to hold on to is that our suffering is only temporary but the glory of heaven is forever

–         This life is just a drop in the ocean of eternity

–         Through Jesus the grief of death is followed by the joy of resurrection

–         As Laurie Guy says, “Human hope is based on divine suffering” [1]

 

In talking about hope we must acknowledge despair

–         Despair isn’t so much the opposite of hope

–         Despair is the utter loss of hope.

–         To despair is to lose the ability to believe that what we want could ever happen – despair is the death of desire and consequently the death of joy

–         To despair is to feel powerless – it is to think that nothing we do will make any difference

 

Despair is a terrible place to be – and when we are in despair we think it will never end, but it does end (nothing lasts)

–         It’s like the clouds of depression hang low & thick so we can’t see the sun’s rays of hope and everything is grey & gloomy

–         But just because you can’t see the sun behind the clouds doesn’t mean the sun isn’t there

–         Hold on – the clouds will pass and the sun will become visible again

 

In the same way that not all hope is good, so too not all despair is bad

–         Despair is a good thing if what we hope for is a bad thing

 

If you are in a place of despair at the moment then know that God is able to redeem the experience and use it for good

–         Despair has a way of purifying our desires

–         Despair can kill off those desires which are not Godly or life-giving, to make room for the new growth of desires that are good for our soul

–         As painful as it is there is a certain clarity that comes with despair

–         Bartimaeus saw Jesus with a clarity that others with sight didn’t have

–         I imagine despair had killed off Bartimaeus’ desire for more worldly pursuits and refined his hope in the Lord – in God’s Messiah

–         I expect that Bartimaeus wanted Jesus to restore his sight not just for the obvious reasons but more importantly so he could see Jesus for himself

 

Let me tell you a story about a young man named Jethro

–         Jethro grew up in a fairly well to do family

–         As a child Jethro didn’t really know what hope was because all his desires were taken care of – he didn’t really want for anything

–         He was, as Pink Floyd would say, ‘comfortably numb’

But all was not as it seemed on the surface

–         Jethro’s dad worked in finance and when the market crashed he wasn’t able to keep his family in the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed

–         Jethro’s dad started drinking too much – well, he had actually always drunk too much but now it was more noticeable

–         Not only that but he started gambling to try and recoup what the economic recession had consumed

–         The TAB and the pokies seemed to offer hope of redemption

–         Unfortunately, not everyone is a winner babe, and the boat, the bach, the car and eventually even the family home were sold to repay gambling debts

–         Jethro’s dad had misplaced his hope

By this stage Jethro was no longer numb – he had started to gamble with hope himself, although not in exactly the same way as his father

–         Jethro’s longing, his greatest desire, was to make his dad proud of him

–         And to this end he found himself half way through a finance degree

–         Now let me say, there is nothing wrong with doing a finance degree or working in the stock market, if that is what your passion and calling is

–         We need Christian businesspeople

–         But finance wasn’t really Jethro’s passion or calling – he was just doing it in the vain hope of winning his father’s approval

–         Sadly, it didn’t matter how many A’s Jethro got, his father kept on a downward spiral and the approval he craved from his dad never came

–         Jethro’s hope just kept being disappointed

To avoid too much student debt Jethro lived at home while studying at university and as a consequence he got to witness most of his parents’ arguments

–         In the end, when his mother had had enough, she threw his father out

–         It was a survival thing more than anything – she had to do it to save herself. No sense in being dragged down further by her husband’s problems

Jethro remembers watching his dad walk away and realising in that moment that he was never going to win his father’s approval

–         The hope that had once motivated him to succeed in business school was lost – it just emptied out of him like diarrhoea

–         For the first time in his life Jethro felt despair – the death of desire

–         There didn’t seem like much point in finishing his degree after that

The next year was extremely difficult for Jethro – he felt lost, abandoned and sad

–         Nothing gave him pleasure anymore

–         Depression is a vicious cycle – when we are in pain we tend to withdraw from people because there is too much risk in getting close – it hurts to be touched – but the more we withdraw the more isolated & lonely we feel

–         And loneliness feeds depression

–         Jethro would have self-medicated with alcohol except there was a deep anger in him that refused to be like his father

At the time Jethro thought the pain he felt would never end – but it did

–         Not overnight or all at once, but gradually, like ice thawing

Looking back Jethro could see that losing hope had purged him of his demons – despair had changed his perspective and given him clarity

–         It became clear to Jethro that putting his hope in things like making lots of money or gaining his father’s approval was wasted

Unexpectedly Jethro’s despair drew him closer to God (his heavenly Father) – the suffering of Jesus helped him to make sense of his own suffering & loss

–         Or to put it another way, suffering opened Jethro’s eyes to see who Jesus really is

New shoots of hope sprang forth

–         Jethro started to reconnect with people and he retrained as a teacher – now he finds meaning in helping others to develop their potential

–         He still has the odd dark day now and then but they are few and far between

–         For the most part Jethro is able to enjoy life again

As it turned out, Jethro’s dad came right too

–         He didn’t get back together with his wife, but he did give up the drinking and the gambling and made his peace with the family

 

Conclusion:

Each of us has a slightly different experience of hope and despair – maybe your experience is similar to Jethro’s, maybe it’s different

–         The point is, we need to place our hope in that which is worthy of us and Jesus is worthy – hope in Jesus is hope well placed.

–         Jesus doesn’t promise to give us everything we want or expect – sometimes he makes us wait – but ultimately, in him, we find abundant life

 

Let me finish with some words of hope from the book of Revelation

–         To those early Christians who faced much opposition from the Roman Empire, the apostle John gives an eternal perspective…

–         He who sits on the throne will protect them with his presence. Never again will they hunger or thirst; neither sun nor any scorching heat will burn them, because the Lamb, who is in the centre of the throne, will be their shepherd and he will guide them to springs of life-giving water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

 

Questions for Discussion or Reflection:

1.)    What stands out for you in reading these Scriptures and/or in listening to the sermon?

2.)    What is hope?

3.)    In what sense is opposition or difficulty necessary for hope?

–         Can you think of other Bible verses (or stories) that show a connection between opposition/difficulty and hope? (E.g. Romans 5:1-11)

–         When has hope been most real in your own life?

4.)    What can we do to combat anxiety?

5.)    When is hope good for us?

–         When is hope bad or dangerous?

6.)    What did Jesus say to manage people’s expectations or adjust their perspective when they had misplaced hopes? (E.g. Mark 8:31-33; Matthew 5:11-12, etc.)

7.)    How might we be helpful to someone who is in despair?

–         Or, reflecting on your own experience of despair, what was most helpful to you?

8.)    Take some time this week to simply be in nature and meditate on God’s love, care & provision for you and/or those close to you.

 

[1] Laurie Guy, ‘Unlocking Revelation’, page 64.