A Thoughtful Church | 1 Peter 3:13-16

Church family, if you will join me as we read scripture this morning, we're gonna be in 1 Peter chapter 3, starting in verse 14.

1 Peter 3 · chapter mention

Follow along as I read this and then pray.

Starting in verse 14.

But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed.

Have no fear of them, nor be troubled.

But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy.

Always being prepared to make an offense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

Yet do it with gentleness and respect.

Having a good conscience.

So that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

Let's pray this morning.

Father, we ask you to come.

Come, Holy Spirit, Spirit of truth.

As we have heard your word read, open our eyes to behold its wonders.

Open our minds to understand its truth, and open our hearts to receive it with faith and obedience.

Through Christ our Lord, we pray.

Amen.

You may be seated.

Amen.

So I've had the opportunity to go to Africa on seven different occasions to be able to minister the gospel.

And it's only been, out of those seven, only been two times in which I felt a little bit uncomfortable or maybe even a little bit unsafe.

One of those times, we were on a four-hour drive.

It was from Johannesburg, South Africa to Manzini, Swaziland.

And we're driving through all of this remote African bushland, and there's it's dotted with these little towns along the way.

Well, the man that I was riding with, he decided that at one of these towns that he needed to be able to stop and go to the bank.

And so he left me in the car and he went into the bank.

And when he left me in the car, I thought, you know, I mean, I don't know if I'll ever be in this exact place at any other point in my entire life.

And so I want to get out and just observe.

I'm a curious type fellow.

And so I got out and I'm standing on the curb and I began to look around, and I begin to get that eerie feeling that somebody's watching me, and I look around, and I'm not exaggerating to say that in this small little intersection of town, literally the entire town has just frozen, and all eyes are being trained on me.

It was pretty apparent that one of these things is not like the other.

You know what I'm saying?

And I just remember feeling exposed and out of place and vulnerable in a long, long, long way from home.

Here's what's interesting about that to me.

You know, I had gone to Africa in order to be able to serve and to share the gospel.

But the moment that I felt uncomfortable, the moment that I felt vulnerable, I actually began to turn inward towards self-preservation.

That I moved into a fight or flight mode, and so I started thinking, like, where can I hide?

How hard am I gonna have to fight if they come against me?

And as I've reflected on that, you know, it's really difficult to share the good news from a fighting stance, isn't it?

There's probably a word in there for the church today.

Sometimes when we look around in the culture, we can feel it devolving around us, can't we?

We can feel it destabilizing around us.

And often, often, it even feels like it might be hostile toward us and hostile toward our values, hostile toward our faith.

And it can cause us to go into a fight or flight mode.

But Jesus says that we have been sent assault and light.

That yes, yes, there is decay, yes, there is disintegration, but we have been sent to preserve it.

Yes, there is darkness, but we have been sent to shine light in the midst of the darkness.

But our tendency can be to take our fighting stance, to take our fighting stance and to not make the good news sound or appear to be so good to those that might be observing us.

I actually think Peter is writing this letter to address just such a people, just such a group of Christians in just such a culture, except one that's even more hostile than the one that we're talking about.

When he addresses the letter of 1 Peter, he addresses it to the elect exiles.

Exiles.

What is an exile?

It's a group of people that are living in a place that's foreign to them.

It's a group of people that's living in a place where they would rather be somewhere else.

For us, it's to be with Jesus.

But it's also a group of people that might be experiencing homesickness.

A group of people that might be experiencing hostility that's set against them.

And so Paul, I mean, Peter knew that feeling vulnerable and exposed might cause these early Christians to enter into this fight or flight mode.

It might cause these early Christians to move into a place where they begin to turn inward and thinking toward self-preservation, that they might be tempted to hide their faith because they're afraid, or they might be tempted to become angry and adversarial toward the culture that's around them.

And so Peter is writing here to give them another way.

He's giving them another way that they might live a courageously thoughtful life in the midst of an increasingly hostile culture.

And that really gets to the fourth foundation that I want us to discuss here at the orchard, a fourth distinctive that's gonna mark our ministry here together.

And it's that we believe that the church should be thoughtful.

We believe that the church should be thoughtful.

Now, when I say thoughtful, I don't merely mean academic or intellectual or highly educated.

I think all of these things are good.

I think all of these things are gifts from the Lord, I think those are things that are used for the Lord.

But what I mean by it is that we are gonna take both God's truth and the people that we're in front of, that are in front of us, we're gonna take both of those things very seriously.

That thoughtfulness, as we'll define it here at the orchard, is bringing the unchanging truth of God's word into the complicated realities of human life with clarity, wisdom, and compassion.

That thoughtfulness is bringing the unchanging truth of God's word into the complicated realities of human life with clarity, wisdom, and compassion.

That it means thinking seriously about doubt, thinking seriously about suffering, thinking seriously about sin, thinking seriously about the big questions of our age, thinking seriously about the pursuit of happiness, and at the same time recognizing that those serious pursuits intersect with complicated, real life people living in the real world.

And Peter's point is that this is exactly what our confidence in the Lordship of Jesus enables in our lives.

That's what he wants us to see here in chapter three is that a settled heart enables a thoughtful life.

A settled heart enables a thoughtful life.

And so I want us to see this morning together how a thoughtful life flows from a settled heart.

First, I want you to see that a settled heart sees suffering clearly.

A settled heart sees suffering clearly.

In the church that I grew up in on Tuesday nights, we did door-to-door visitation.

I was never really comfortable with it, always made me nervous, but man, we did it, and I did it, and we saw the Lord do some incredible things.

But I remember on one particular occasion, we had a team that was two men and one woman, and they had been praying, and they felt like the Lord would have them to go and to share the gospel with a man in our community that was known to be especially hostile to the gospel.

And so they go and they go and they knock on this man's door, and he cracks the door open just enough to stick the barrel of a shotgun out the door and to say, You need to get off my porch, you need to get off my porch now.

Well, the two men, they complied without reservation.

They scurry down the steps and run toward, run toward the car.

But the lady, a man by the name of Lee Ann, she put her hand on the barrel of the gun and she pushed it down.

She said, Honey, you're not going to do anything with that.

The Lord has sent us here to say something to do, and we'd like to be able to say it.

And the man was stunned.

He had never experienced anything like that before.

And so he saw this gentle courage, and he really didn't even know how to react to it.

And so he just opened the door and let her come in.

And that night they led him to the Lord.

To this day, he walks with the Lord, and he raised his children to know and to love the Lord.

But I think that story shows us the role of thoughtfulness in the face of hostility.

What does thoughtfulness do?

Thoughtfulness turns down the temperature in the environment around you, doesn't it?

Now, we live in this world of outrage, but there's something about a gentle courage that even in an age of outrage turns down the temperature and gives you a listening ear.

I think this is what Peter is after in the life of the suffering church.

When Peter says that even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed.

He's actually here, and what he's doing is he's reframing their suffering so that they can now see it from the right perspective.

That he's effectively turning down the temperature inside of them so that they'll be settled enough to turn down the temperature in the environment and culture that's around them.

That his point is that our suffering may be deep, but it's never ultimate.

Our suffering may be deep, but it's never ultimate.

That when Peter says you will be blessed, what he's effectively doing is zooming out and he's reminding us that there is a reality that is more ultimate than the suffering that seems to be presently overwhelming them.

There is a reality that's more that's more true and more real and more permanent than the reality that they're facing in the here and now.

That right now, suffering may mark their lives.

But suffering won't have the final word, and suffering won't last forever.

So you can see here, can't you?

How Peter is applying the unchanging truth of God to the complicated reality of human suffering around him.

This is thoughtfulness.

He doesn't deny the suffering, he doesn't offer them cheap cliches.

He doesn't tell hurting people that their pain isn't real or that they should just rub some dirt on it and get over it.

No, he helps them to see their suffering clearly by placing it within the context and framework of God's larger work, of God's sovereignty, of Christ's victory, of their sure and certain reward in Christ's victory.

This is thoughtfulness.

This is thoughtfulness in the way that we're talking about it here at the old orchard.

You see, a thoughtful Christian doesn't ignore suffering, but neither does a thoughtful Christian understand and interpret all of their life in light of their suffering.

A thoughtful Christian recognizes that they are not a victim of providence, they are a participant in providence.

That we bring the truth of God's word into the realities that we know.

And so the diagnosis may be real, but it's not ultimate.

The rejection can be painful, but it doesn't actually define who you are or where you derive your identity.

That the loss may change our lives, and it may change our lives in the here and now for the worse, but the loss that we experience can't actually cancel God's promises that have been secured and assured to us through Christ.

And because our suffering isn't ultimate, then that means that our fear doesn't have to be ultimate, and our fear doesn't have to be the context now in which we live our lives.

No, we live our lives in light of who God is and in light of what Christ has accomplished.

Do you feel how that settles your heart?

Do you feel how that begins to just turn down the temperature of your life?

See, the question that your heart needs answering this morning is what's temporary and what's ultimate?

What's temporary and what's ultimate?

Is it what you see in front of you or is it who has come for you?

That's what your heart needs to know.

There's a second question that your heart needs to know is not just what's ultimate, but what is bigger.

Which is bigger, your suffering or your savior?

The fight or flight that I mentioned earlier, it's really a very human response, isn't it?

It's a very human response.

And so Peter is here, and I think he's helpfully sharing with us the antidote for an experience that all of us, many of us, are gonna have it today at some point, right?

He's sharing the antidote with us.

Notice what he says.

He says, have no fear of them, nor be troubled.

How do we do that, Peter?

Verse 15, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy.

Fear makes us reactive, doesn't it?

It makes us reactive, it makes us emotional, it keeps us from being able to think clearly.

Our judgment becomes clouded, our hands begin to shake.

All we can think is, I don't know what to do, but I don't want to feel like this much longer, right?

Fear causes us to hide when we should speak.

Fear causes us to attack when we should listen.

But Peter wants to make sure that we're not gonna run and we're not gonna flee.

Rather, what he's asking for us to do is to actually settle our hearts under the Lordship of Jesus.

When he says, honor Christ, the Lord is holy, he's actually quoting Isaiah chapter 8 there.

Isaiah 8 · chapter mention

He's quoting Isaiah chapter 8.

Isaiah 8 · chapter mention

In Isaiah chapter 8, the southern kingdom of Judah was getting really, really nervous.

Isaiah 8 · chapter mention

They were dealing with a lot of fear, a lot of fight or flight, because the northern kingdom of Israel had formed an alliance with Syria.

And so they were panicked over it.

And they were tempted to go and try to form an alliance themselves with Assyria to be able to combat the new alliance to the north.

And so God sends Isaiah to this southern tiny little group of people in Judah to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You do not need an alliance with Assyria because you have an alliance with the Lord.

Will you just see him?

Will you honor the Lord as holy?

Hmm.

It's interesting, isn't it?

Isn't that interesting?

How do we combat the fear that we have of the opposition we face or that we may face in the future?

Honor the Lord.

Peter clarifies the Lord as being Jesus.

Honor the Lord as holy.

What on earth does honoring Jesus as holy have to do with our fear?

It has to do with who occupies the throne of your heart.

That's what it has to do with.

That fear doesn't belong on the throne of your heart.

In fact, if fear is living and dwelling on the throne of your heart, it will ruin your life, no matter how good your life seemingly is.

No, Christ.

And Christ alone belongs on the throne of your heart.

That the antidote to fear is remembering who Christ is and what Christ has done and what Christ has assured and promised you that he will do.

It's remembering who he is when you're prone to worrying about where you are.

You see, the size of your Savior sets the scale of your suffering.

That is, who or what you see as biggest and baddest determines what or who you see as biggest or smallest.

That if your suffering looks biggest to you, if that's what you're latched onto and zoomed in upon, well, if your suffering looks biggest, it means that your Savior looks smaller than he actually is.

More sought less sovereign than he actually is, less holy than he actually is, less capable than he actually is.

But, but, but if your savior is seen as big, if you know that he is sitting at the right hand of your father, that he is holding together every molecule of the cosmos, and that he is for you, that he is with you, that he is inviting you to dwell in him, well, you're suffering.

As real as it is, as intense as it is, as lamentable as it is, can now be seen shrunk down to its proper size.

You can see it framed in the context that you're meant to understand it, that his sovereignty reframes your reality and recalibrates your heart to see life as it's actually meant to be done.

And the temperature gets turned down, doesn't it?

The temperature gets turned down.

A settled heart isn't a heart that never feels afraid or troubled.

It's a heart that refuses to let fear and trouble become Lord and dwell on the throne.

I think about a lady in my last church by the name of Linda.

Linda lost a baby in infancy, she lost a daughter in a car accident in her 20s, and she lost her husband to sudden cancer in the prime of his life.

She knew suffering.

And everybody knew that she knew suffering.

I think if I would have been Linda, if I had Linda's life, it would have been really tempted for me just to curl up in a ball and just never come out of my room.

But my experience with Linda was that every time there was a someone who had endured a loss in our church, like a fireman running at the fire when everybody else is running away, she would be running at that person and she would go and she would sit on the couch with them.

And she would say, I know, sweetheart.

I know.

And she would cry with them.

She would pray with them.

She would just sit with them moment after moment.

Think about that.

God had worked in her life to make her misery into a ministry.

How does misery become a ministry?

It happens when the victory and goodness of Jesus becomes larger in our hearts than the pain that we've endured.

See, Christ doesn't merely help us survive suffering, He gives us a hope that can so overflow that it spills out in the midst of our suffering to all of the other people that are around us.

And this is Peter's part, point.

So what do you see is largest in your life?

What do you see is bigger?

Do you see your circumstances are your savior?

Do you see your sufferings or do you see Christ?

If Christ isn't settled as Lord, then fear, fear is gonna cause us to think, is gonna think for us, and anger is gonna speak for us, and pride is gonna answer for us.

But when when Christ is Lord of our hearts, now we can see our suffering.

Clearly, a settled heart.

A settled heart enables a thoughtful life.

I also want you to see that a settled heart answers questions wisely.

A settled heart answers questions wisely.

I've heard Sam Shaw, who preached for us last week, there was our founding pastor.

If you don't know Sam, I've heard Sam Shaw is being quoted as saying, I assume God has been preparing me my entire life for the room that I'm in right now.

I love that.

That is so wise.

It changes the way that you see the room that you're in.

It changes the way that you see the people that you're around.

It means that the people that are in your class at school aren't accidental.

It means that the people that are in line in front of you at Kroger aren't accidental.

It means the person that you run into at the water cooler at work isn't accidental.

It means that the children that are sitting around your dining room table every night, they aren't accidental.

And it also means that not only are the people in your life not accidental, but it means that all that God has been teaching you through your life, that's not accidental either.

You know, I find it true that we do a lot of good things.

We come to church and we take our notes and we write in our Bibles and we have our quiet times and we do our journals, and all of those things are right.

All of those things are good.

You ought to do those things.

They're life-giving to you.

But I find it very true that what we often do is we take those Bible notes and uh we take our all the journals that we've written and we put them on the shelf until we come back to Bible study, while meanwhile we go out and live in the actual real world and deal with real struggles, right?

But so often it feels like that our Christian life is much about preparing through, sitting through lectures to prepare for some semester exam that may or may not actually come up.

Meanwhile, we're actually struggling through real life.

But the tests of faith aren't primarily multiple choice exams through standardized testing, are they?

No, the tests of our faith come through conversations and conflicts and questions with people that are around us.

This is the intersection that Peter wants for us to see.

That thoughtfulness happens at the intersection of the truth that God has been teaching us and the people that God has been bringing around us.

That is bringing the unchanging truth of God's word into the complicated reality of an actual person's life, a person who might be in your home, a person who might be at your school, a person who might be in line at Kroger and Kroger in front of you, with clarity, wisdom, and compassion.

I want you to notice the words always and anyone.

Always and anyone.

He's saying here that Christians ought to be ready in every season to speak about the hope that they have to every person that they encounter.

In fact, he uses the word defense.

The word defense there comes from the Greek word apologia.

It's the word from which we get our word apologetics.

It means to make a reasoned account, it means to give it a remote.

Give a good and sound defense or a good and sound explanation.

Now, I think often when we think about apologetics, what do we think about?

We think about the Christian academic, the Christian intellectual on one side at a podium, and the atheist academic and the atheist intellectual on the other side, and they're gonna have it out with some really, really high-minded uh debate on reason and all the issues with textual criticism and philosophy and science and archaeology.

And so our first thought when it comes to apologetics is man, I don't know if there's enough seminary classes on this earth that prepared me for that.

Like I don't, I'm not prepared for that.

I just don't think I'm equipped or smart enough or whatever the thing is.

And so what I love about Peter's vision for apologetics is how much more ordinary it is than our vision for apologetics.

When he says, always anyone, I think what he's talking about are the all of the people that you encounter in everyday ordinary life, in all of the circumstances of everyday ordinary life.

I think he's talking about all the people in the places that you work and you live and you play.

I think he's talking about the Little League Field, I think he's talking about the golf course, I think he's talking about your place of employment, I think he's talking about your kitchen.

And I think he's communicating to us the ordinary way in which we're meant to live thoughtful lives, defending and applying our faith in a reasonable way.

That the primary place for Christian apologetics is not the debate stage.

The primary place for Christian apologetics is your kitchen table.

It's the water cooler at work, it's riding down the road with your children.

It's when you have someone in class that raises a question that seems to be difficult.

It's the bleachers at your child's ball game, it's the fence around, it's the neighbor on the other side of the fence, it's sitting around a fire pit with a group of guys.

Notice that Peter says that they ought to be asking you for a reason.

That he's taking us to the places where real questions are asked and where real answers are sought.

He's taking us to the place where we have the kinds of relationships where we feel safe enough to ask those kinds of questions, comfortable enough to ask those kinds of questions.

And he's talking about people that are gonna feel like they can come and ask you those questions because they think that you're gonna tell them the truth, that you're gonna shoot straight with them.

Apologetics is what happens when your child asks you how you know God is true.

It's what happens when the friend that you have wonders how in the world you can continue to have hope in Jesus despite all the losses that you've incurred.

It's when that coworker asks you that difficult philosophical question.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

Well, tell me, how can a God who is so good and so powerful allow so much evil and so much wickedness in the world?

And answering those questions requires great wisdom, doesn't it?

It's not just about having the right information, it takes the right information wisely applied to the circumstance, to the person.

You see, somebody could ask you why it is that a good God allows evil, and they can mean two different things by it.

Two different people could mean two different things.

One person could be asking you a philosophical question, and asking you a philosophical question, they might need a reasoned answer.

But a second person, they might be asking you because they just got home from a funeral that they never thought they'd attend.

They just got home from a place in which their grief is so overwhelming and so powerful that it literally feels like it's taking the oxygen out of their lungs.

And they don't need to hear your reasoned explanation.

What they need to hear is about how Jesus sat at the tomb of Lazarus and wept, and they need you to sit down and weep with them with the presence of Jesus in their life.

The truth didn't change, but the circumstance required clarity and understanding and wisdom so that you could effectively bring the truth and allow it to intersect with the moment in which they most needed, in the way in which they most needed.

See, thoughtfulness doesn't just dump everything that we know onto somebody because we're looking for somebody to dump it on.

It listens carefully and it brings the right truth into the actual complexity of the person's life that you're talking to.

And you should notice what's meant to provoke the question that Peter says has been asked.

What's meant to provoke it?

The hope that is in you.

The hope that is in you.

Not outrage, not a long list of things that we stand against, not even the greatest Facebook rebuttal in all of Facebook rebuttal history.

It's the hope that is in you.

That's what's meant to provoke the question.

So, how can we be more thoughtful with our lives?

Well, I think the answer is twofold.

First, continually, we have to remind ourselves of the hope that is in us, don't we?

That we don't have to just, that we don't have to live scared.

And we don't have to live angry, and we don't have to live frenzied just because the world that we're in is living scared and angry and frenzied.

Because our hearts are settled.

Our hearts are settled.

Do you feel how that changes the tone?

Do you feel how that changes?

Do you feel how that turns down the temperature?

When you just think about the hope that you have, and then we take the hope that we have and we begin to share that hope with our neighbors and our kids and our friends so that now their hearts can be settled in the same way, so that now that they can begin to take a deep breath, the way that we've been able to take a deep breath as we've rested our lives and souls in Christ.

It makes me think of my friend Daniel.

Daniel was actually uh my chairman of elders, and I watched him uh really just become a great man of God.

But Daniel loves apologetics, and he's a gifted apologist, one of the more gifted apologists that I've been around.

And so when he uh left the Marine Corps and was kind of re-acclimating to civilian life, he wanted to go to seminary and become a really trained uh apologist, and his goal was to be able to go and sit on college campuses and find park benches around them and have strike up conversations with college students to be able to persuade them toward the reasons for Christ.

But for whatever reason, even though it was purely motive, uh pure-hearted, and he worked hard to attain the get the goal, like the Lord literally frustrated it every single time he tried to pursue this vision that he had for his life.

And so he continues on, he's married, he's got two kids, three kids, he's just kind of going about, just serving in his church, living for Jesus.

One day, Daniel finds himself leaned up against the fence at his daughter's little league practice.

And he tries to have a conversation that's also with a guy that's also leaned up against the fence by the name of Dustin.

And Daniel's a great conversationalist, and in this part of this conversation, he's talking with his brother, this man, and he tells him, he's like, I'm an atheist.

And they start having conversations.

He's like, look, man, obviously we got a lot in common.

They both had military backgrounds.

He's like, Well, I got a group of guys that hang out at my house.

They're all Christians, just so you know, but we'd love for you just to come and hang out, no pressure.

Well, Dustin shows up at his house.

They start hanging out.

Well, Dustin enjoys the company of the group of guys that he's with, and uh, Dustin begins to uh attend pretty regularly, and then they invite him to church.

Well, on his first Sunday to church, we had small groups that met on campus at our church that he shows up for one of these small groups.

And he stands up at the beginning, he's kind of a pretty brash guy, and he stands up and he says, Hey, just so y'all know, I don't believe any of this stuff.

I'm just here to hang out.

Okay?

Within two months, we baptized him and his wife.

Think about that.

God had used everything that had frustrated Daniel, every expectation that had not come true, every bit of preparation that he felt like was completely chasing after the wind.

God used every single one of those moments to prepare him to lean up against a fence and talk to a man named Dustin whose life would be radically changed.

See, brothers and sisters, a settled heart recognizes the opportunities of the gospel that gets placed before them.

It recognizes the role of providence.

This is thoughtful apologetics.

Apologetics is most often thoughtful Christians living ordinary lives on mission for Jesus wherever they are.

So a settled heart sees suffering clearly, answers questions wisely, and treats people gently.

Treats people gently.

You know it's possible to win the point and lose the person, isn't it?

It's possible to win the point but lose the person.

It's always amazed me how moms and dads can see the future.

Isn't that an amazing gift that the Lord gives?

Like just say, for instance, for instance, just say, just say, that you have a beautiful blonde-headed six-year-old little boy that loves to roll around the house on roller skates.

And just say, just say that you were to say to him, Josiah, Josiah, if you don't slow down, you're gonna crash, man, and it's gonna hurt.

And just say, beautiful little blonde-headed boy whose name may or may not be Josiah, continues to roll around on roller skates, and of course, what happens?

He crashes.

And there is great wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And everything inside of you wants to say, I stinking told you, man.

Like, I stink and told you, man.

I could see the future.

I knew where this was headed, I knew what was going on.

But in that moment, does he need a prosecutor to prosecute the case?

He doesn't need that, does he?

It's true.

I'm vindicated.

All the things that I said were were true, but what does he actually need?

In that moment, what he needs is a dad to get down to the floor with him, to pull him close, and to tell him, hey man, you're okay.

You're okay, we're gonna get through this.

You're gonna be fine.

You see, brothers and sisters, you can say something that's completely true in a completely true way that serves your pride instead of serving the person that's in front of you.

And that's exactly how you win the point, but lose the person.

And I feel like the church in the 21st century is getting really, really good at winning the point, but losing the people.

So thoughtfulness, Peter says, doesn't only ask, is what I'm saying true.

It also asks, am I saying it at the right time, in the right way, for the good of the person that's hearing it?

That truth matters, man.

We are truth people.

We are never going to apologize for being truth people.

Of course, truth matters.

But Peter says, so do gentleness and respect.

That in Peter's mind, our tone becomes part of the apologetic of our life.

It actually becomes part of the defense of the gospel that we're sharing with others.

That he recognizes that the way that we speak either supports the gospel that we're explaining or it sabotages it and undermines it and calls it into question.

This is at least part of what we mean when we talk about thoughtfulness here at the orchard.

That if we say Jesus loves sinners while speaking contemptuously about sinners, our tone actually denies the very message that we have, doesn't it?

That if grace has transformed us while we act proud and condescending toward others, our actual conduct and the experience that other people have with us denies the good news and makes it sound like it's not so good.

So remember that our gentleness and respect are flowing from what?

Our hopeful, settled hearts, aren't they?

Because of who Christ is.

That gentleness and respect are actually the good behavior that results from being in Christ.

So that those who are against us may actually be put to shame.

You see, I don't need to dominate you.

I don't need to dominate you.

I don't need to humiliate you.

I don't need your agreement to make me feel secure.

I can listen to you without feeling threatened.

I can disagree without becoming disrespectful.

I can speak difficult things without forgetting that I'm speaking to someone that Jesus has commanded me to love.

How?

Because my heart has everything it already needs in Christ.

Because I am already secure in Christ.

Because my identity has already been galvanized and strengthened in Christ.

Because my heart is settled, and a settled heart enables a thoughtful life.

So if you put Peter's argument together, and a thoughtful church shows the world that Christianity is reasonable, beautiful, and true.

Blaise Pascal was a Christian philosopher that lived 400 plus years ago.

And he said that if you wanted to be able to persuade a skeptic who was a reasonable person but did not believe to become a believer, that you had to take them on a journey of discipleship.

He said first that what you have to do is you have to show them that the Christian faith is reasonable and plausible.

That is, you may not believe that it's true, but you have to at least acknowledge that you can come, that a reasonable person could come to the logical conclusion that it's true.

It's plausible.

And once you convince them that it's plausible, even though they don't believe that it's true, they believe that it's reasonable, then the next responsibility that you have is to show them that it's desirable, that it's beautiful.

In other words, you want to get them to the place where maybe you don't believe that it's true, but you would say, Man, I wish it was true.

I wish that I could be forgiven that way.

I wish that God loved me that way.

I wish Jesus came and and uh substituted himself for me in that way.

I wish that I could know what my future held.

I wish I could know that kind of security.

I wish it was true.

And he says, once you make them see that it's reasonable, and then you help them to see that it's desirable, well, finally, then, lastly, you get to share with them the good news of the resurrection, that it is actual, that it really is true, that the Christian faith is reasonable, beautiful, and true, respectable, desirable, desirable, and substantial.

This is the responsibility of the thoughtful church.

This is the responsibility that Peter is getting at.

It's not to take the truth and to change the truth so that the truth somehow becomes more attractive.

Every time church is trying to change the truth to make the truth more attractive to a declining age, you know what happens?

The church dies, the denomination dies inevitably, because they have nothing to offer of transcendence.

No, our responsibility is not to take the truth and change it and make it more attractive, but to display the good news so that the world can see how good it actually is.

To display it in a way that allows them to see that the good news really is good and reasonable and beautiful and true because of the good behavior in Christ in your life.

In fact, Jesus himself showed us exactly what this is like.

This is the anchor point for Peter.

This was in 1 Peter chapter 2.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

In 1 Peter chapter 2, Peter wrote this.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

He said, When he, Jesus, was reviled, he did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself, entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

Do you hear what he says?

Jesus had a settled heart, didn't he?

Jesus had a settled heart.

He courageously and compassionately moved towards sinners, and he bore their sins, our sins, in his body on the truth, on the tree, because his heart was anchored to his heavenly father and settled in his heavenly father.

Orchard Church, you know what the Mid South needs from us.

It doesn't need another church that's frightened by deep, hard questions.

It doesn't need another church that will repeat a bunch of shallow cliches that they've all heard before.

It doesn't need another church who will take the biblical truth and leverage it in such a way to try to humiliate the culture around us.

No, it needs a church that is settled under the lordship of Jesus, living out the vision of Jesus.

It needs a church that brings the unchanging truth of God's word into the complicated and complex realities of human life with clarity, wisdom, and compassion.

It needs a church that sees suffering clearly.

It needs a church that answers questions wisely.

It needs a church that treats people compassionately with gentleness and respect.

And that, that's what we mean when we say it is a foundation of the orchard that the church should be thoughtful.

Let me pray for us.

Heavenly Father, would you forgive us for all of the time in which our hearts become unsettled and we want to run and hide?

We want to stand and fight.

Lord, certainly we're going to face opposition.

Certainly we're going to encounter suffering.

Certainly we're going to experience disappointment.

But let our hearts be so settled in your holiness that we're able to continue to live winsome lives, respectable lives, reasonable lives.

Because we are certain of what our future holds.

I pray that here in Collierville, Tennessee, that you would raise up the Orchard Church as a thoughtful church living on mission for your glory.

We offer everything that we have to you in Jesus' name.

Amen.