God Alone is the Victor

 July 3 2020

1 Peter 4

A couple of weeks ago our annual assembly for the East Ohio District of the Church of the Nazarene was held. I was very blessed by participating in it. Our General Superintendent, Dr. Gustavo Crocker, brought much needed encouragement for the churches of our district who have been, to say the least, experiencing a couple of rough years on account of Covid. Dr. Crocker used scripture verses from the forty-third chapter of Isaiah to bring to us a message of hope, because we are to see that God is indeed doing a new thing. He spoke of how the Covid epidemic did not catch God by surprise but rather God knew of its coming and God was there for us in the epidemic and God is able to use this experience to bring about something new, something that will bring newness and growth within the church.  If God is doing a new thing then, Dr. Crocker, stated that we as the church, we must be ready to join God in this new work that he is bringing about. One of the things that keeps the church bound to the old ways of doing things is that we make sacred cows out of the methods that we use to do our ministry of the church. When Dr. Crocker told us this I could not but help to think of what someone has called the last seven words of a dying church, we’ve never done it that way before. We hold on to the old ways of doing things because we like the comfortable way those methods make us feel. As Dr. Crocker also said, the only one who likes change is a baby with a dirty diaper! So true!

As I meditated on what Dr. Crocker has conveyed to us, I also thought that another reason why we resist change in the church, especially in our methods, is that most of us who make up the church don’t really know just what is our purpose as the church. If we simply keep on, keeping on doing what we have always done, then we don’t have to stop and think just what is the purpose for what it is that we are doing. I think that the Covid epidemic though made a lot of people pause and reflect on just why it is that they were part of this thing called the church and unfortunately some of those people couldn’t come up with a good answer. So, if I were to ask you to write down on a piece of paper just what is our purpose as the church of Jesus Christ just what would your answer be? Perhaps you might say that the church is the place where people can hear the gospel so that they might experience life transformation. This would be very true but even that response is not the ultimate answer. You see the church is not just about right beliefs or the right way to live as good as those may be, and it isn’t just about making disciples or being a witness to the world around us as important as those two actions are. No, the ultimate purpose of the church, (drumroll, please), is to glorify God. To glorify God is the ultimate purpose of every believer, period. I mean, I gave you the answer to what the church’s purpose is in our scripture that I read from in the fourth chapter of Peter, where this best friend of Jesus tells us “in everything God is to be glorified through Jesus Christ for to him belong glory and power for all time. Amen.” Now, just so that you are certain that Peter is not alone in his emphasis on our glorifying God, we also read this same thing in the book of Romans. There, Paul lays out God’s entire plan of salvation, and he sums everything up at the beginning of the fifteenth chapter stating that what he prayed for this church at Rome is that the “God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together with one voice you glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So, here again, we hear from Paul that as a church we are to be united together in our glorification of God.

Now, we probably would all agree, that, yes, glorifying God is our ultimate purpose as a church yet we, in the same breath, might also be hard pressed to explain just what does it mean for us to be a church that brings glory to God. What may help us figure out just what does it mean for us to glorify God is for us to look at the Hebrew word for glory, kabod and what we find is that its roots are found in words like weighty or heavy. This seems to be a bit strange until we consider that in battle those who had the heavier shields, these were the ones who would be victorious. So, there is a sense in this Hebrew word for glory, not just of honor, and exultation but that this comes about because of victory.

It is this sense that God’s glory is directly tied to his victory, that helps us understand what the prophet Isaiah writes in the eighth verse of the forty-second chapter. There we read, “I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.” What God is saying here is that it is he and he alone who is victorious. God is not going to allow the victory that he has rightfully won to be claimed by anyone else especially something people held to be a god which was nothing but a figment of their imagination. The point that God is making here is that when people worship idols they are seeking to claim a victory for themselves when the victory is rightfully God’s. People worship these so called gods only so that these gods might serve their needs and their desires because this is what the worshipers of false gods think life is all about. If these worshippers of false gods end up with all that they desire they think that their life is secure, that their gods have won the victory but we have to ask ourselves does such thinking really make sense?

You see, this is what Peter is getting at when he tells those who read his letter that they are to no longer to “live their remaining days in the flesh concerned about human desires”. Here we begin to understand that a life built on our desires is the only victory that some people want.Victory to them is nothing more than to stay alive, to determine one’s life as one sees fit through the power of one’s own capabilities. Yet it is exactly this idea of a victorious life that Peter is warning us against. You see, it is this mindset that Peter goes on to tell us is what the rest of the world is involved in, a mindset whose outcome is as Peter tells us is a life marked by a “life without limits, a life of unrestrained appetite, a life of excessive passions and partying and revolting worship of idols.” Peter goes on to say that this is a “flood of debauchery” which probably is pointing us back to the days of Noah. What Peter is addressing is this idea that we can live life on our own terms, that all life is is a seeking after our most basic desires so that we are comfortable and satisfied. Now, what cannot be forgotten is that Peter is not just speaking about the people in the world but rather Peter is speaking to us, we are the ones Peter points the finger at and tells us that we are the ones who must no longer live our remaining days in the flesh concerned about human desires. In doing so, Peter is once again pointing us back to the parable which has provided a framework for his letter, the parable of the sower. This parable is found in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew and it is there that we hear Jesus tell his disciples, which included Peter, a story about a farmer who went out to sow some seed. Jesus said that some of the seed fell along the path and the birds quickly came and snatched up the seed. Some of the seed fell upon rocky ground where it quickly sprouted but because it had no root, when the sun came up, the seed was scorched and withered away. Some of the seed also fell among the thorns and the thorns grew up and choked out the little seedlings. All was not lost though for some seed did fall upon good soil and some of that seed produced one hundred fold, some sixty fold and some thirty fold. The portion of this story that we need to focus on today is the part where the seed fell among the thorns. Jesus goes on to explain to his disciples that this was the one who heard the word of the kingdom but the anxiety of this age and the deception of plenty choke the word so that the word bears no fruit. You see,  Jesus has paid for our ransom, not with silver or gold, but with his precious blood and it would be a tragedy if we ended up with a life that did not end up bearing fruit. This is what will happen if the anxiety of this age and the deceitfulness of the plenty that we have, chokes out the word of the kingdom, the good news of Jesus Christ. This is why Peter is adamant when he tells us that we must not, in the time we have left, be those who live in the flesh concerned with human desires.

What is interesting about this parable that Jesus told is the word we translate as “choke”. We are told that the anxieties of this age and the deception of our riches choke the word which is in us. This word, “choke”, is a word which means to be joined with something which sucks the life out of you. This is a powerful description for what Jesus is describing. The anxieties of this age cause us to be divided in our loyalty to God. When life becomes difficult we begin to doubt and worry even though we know God is faithful. To ease our fears we store up our treasures believing, falsely, that this is the way that we can find some peace. The truth is that all that happens when we have treasures is that we fuss and fume about whether or not something is going to happen to them and we actually end up more anxious than we were when we first became anxious. So, we just keep on accumulating more stuff and when we become so dependent upon the stuff that we have accumulated, thinking that all of it is the source of our life, then we are drawn away from God who is the only true source of life. If we become so convinced that the way to an anxious free life comes about because of what we do, that the security of our life is determined by our smarts and our strength, then we are going to look for ways to manipulate the forces of the world so that they work in our favor; this is where false gods come into the picture. You see, when we think that because we come every Sunday and worship God, and we give him a little of what we got and we say a few prayers then God will help us in our pursuit of more stuff, what we consider is the perfect life, this is, in fact, nothing more than the worship of a false god because the one true living God never serves us to secure the victory we desire; no, we are to serve him in the power of the victory he has already won. So, it is abundantly true that when we seek a life apart from God, we are really choking to death because we have cut ourselves off from the one true source of life.

When we begin to understand what Jesus is teaching us in the parable of the sower it isn’t hard to hear the words from the fourth chapter of Zechariah, which says, that “it is not by might, nor by power but by my Spirit, says the Lord.” Life is not by our effort or our strength; life is not about the power that we might wield in order to survive. No, life is by the very Spirit of God. This is what Peter is telling us when he begins this fourth chapter of his letter by stating that “since Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourself with the same way of thinking so that the one who has suffered in the flesh is finished with sin.” Here, Peter is referring to something that he had previously written at the end of the second chapter where he tells us that “Christ has suffered for us, leaving us an example, so that we might follow in his steps.” In these words, we cannot help but think of Peter’s first encounter with Jesus where Jesus told him to come and follow him. Peter goes on to tell us that “Jesus committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When Jesus was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten but continued trusting himself to him who judges justly.” So, just what is this way that Jesus thought about life that we are to follow, a way of thinking that we can arm ourselves with against being consumed with a concern for our human desires?This way of thinking is that Jesus continued trusting the one who judges justly, his Heavenly Father. The image that the original Greek word translated here as “trusting” gives to us is that of a person who allows themselves to be held in the hands of another. When we know this, then we are taken to that moment, recorded in the twenty-third chapter of Luke, where Jesus is there dying upon the cross and with a loud cry exclaims, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”! The spirit of Jesus is his life, so here he is saying, “Father I lay my life in your hands.” This is how Jesus was able to be reviled yet not revile in return. This is how Jesus was able to suffer at the hands of others and not respond with threats of violence because Jesus knew that he was held safe in the hands of his Heavenly Father and his Heavenly Father would bring about the justice for the injustice done against him. Jesus knew that it was not by his strength, nor by his power but his life was living by the Spirit, the very Spirit by which he offered himself as a sacrifice without blemish to his Heavenly Father. This is why that John, in his gospel, writes that Jesus understood that when he was crucified that he would glorify his Heavenly Father as we hear in the seventeenth chapter. There on the cross the Heavenly Father was glorified because there the world saw the victory of our God, that a life held in the hands of the Father is eternally secure; this is the message confirmed by the resurrection. Jesus knew that victory happens when we yield our life into the hands of our Heavenly Father and he gives us this hope of victory in the tenth chapter of John when he tells us “I give you eternal life, and you will never perish, and no one will snatch you out of my hand. My Father, who has given you to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch you out of the Father’s hand.” You see, this is when God is glorified when we live knowing that our life is securely held in the hands of our Heavenly Father.

When we live knowing that our life is eternally secure in the hands of our Heavenly Father then our hands are free from grasping tightly to all that we think we need to live so that now are hands can reach out to serve others. In the hands of God we are set free to love with abandon. Such love offers grace, and mercy and forgiveness so that the destructive power of sin can never rear its ugly head. In the hands of God we can reach out our hands to welcome the stranger never having to be concerned about whether there will be enough for all. When we are held in the hands of God we can take the gifts that God has given to us and give them to those who need them and receive from others the gifts that God has given them. This is what it means for us to live in the household of God each one sharing with their brothers and sisters the richness laid out for us on the table our Heavenly Father has set for us. So, as we speak, we are to speak the very words God has given to us to build up and encourage one another. As we serve, we serve in the strength God supplies. This is a life that witnesses to the victory of God.

Peter goes on to tell us something that seems a bit strange to our modern ears, that we are to rejoice when we suffer. Why would he tell us such a mixed message? The point that Peter is making is that when we share in the sufferings of Christ this is when we once again become keenly aware that our life is not victorious through our strength, nor through our power but only through the Spirit of God. This is what Peter tells us, that it is when we share in the sufferings of Christ that we have the certainty that the same Holy Spirit through which he offered himself into the hands of his Heavenly Father is the same Holy Spirit resting upon us, laying us into the hands of the one with whom we can trust our very life. When we suffer for God, then, there is no disgrace because it is then we are witnessing to the victory that is ours in the name of Christ. This is when we do the will of our Heavenly Father doing the good we know to do, safe in the knowledge that we can trust the God who created us to hold us safe in this life he has given to us. So, God alone receives the glory; his alone is the victory. If we know this to be true then let us live as it is true. To God be the glory! Amen!